“Fishing Time” - a song about rapprochement
It’s ok if you don’t fish, think metaphor here… you can do it.
Story Pairing
Rapprochement - (especially in international relations) an establishment or resumption of harmonious relations.
Oh great, another political rant from a damn folk musician…
We grew up with ponds and we fished all the time. We had a pond by the house, and overgrown pond in the back of the property, and over at the shop there was the old pond and the new pond. My favorite pond to fish in was the new pond. It was dug when I was a kid and I loosely remember being around while my dad and Grandpa made it. They made it deep! There were parts that were something like 15-20ft deep. It took forever for it to fill up with water, and stocking it was even slower. We did that by fishing the old pond and every time we’d catch a bass, we’d throw it in the new pond. When I was in middle school it was a pretty amazing bass pond, and if you fish around here you know it’s bass and blue gills in all the ponds, and blue gills suck.
There was one time I was fishing with my Dad and sister and I caught a massive fish. We had no way to weigh it, but I’d guess it was every bit of 4lbs. However, every time I told someone about it I kept adding a 1/4 or 1/2 lb. After a full school day, by lunch my fish was up to 9lbs. It may sound crazy, but fact checking used to be a little trickier when it came to googling things. However there was still this one little punk, Adam, who loved to make you look a fool, and I had set myself up nicely for that. He looked up a record for bass around us and it was less than what I was currently touting… so he proceeded to print off a picture of a middle aged man holding his record bass with a weight below the picture that was less than the one I had supposably caught. That damn picture seemed to find it’s way into all my friend’s hands and I learned my lesson early on from my peers about telling a fish story.
Lately it seems that is the only kind of story that is shared anymore. Not actual fish related stories, but recountings so tinged in one sided and inflated viewpoints, that it’s doing so much damage to our groups. We are becoming shattered and divided over and over until we live in the smallest of ponds and hate every bit of water that exists anywhere else.
I like to think that lately the way I’ve been writing and the reasons I write aren’t in response specifically to politics, but in response to the way we let those politics dictate the way we think about other groups or people. So I don’t need to go on and on about thoughts and feelings and whatever… It’s earth day after all.
So the long and short of it is that we should go outside and invite someone we kinda know along. Not a full bore buddy or pal, but someone you know enough to invite them into the wild, but maybe with some looming tension from assumed differences… I bet an afternoon spent hiking, or fishing, or walking, or biking will make those difference seem a whole heck of a lot smaller.
Easier said than done, but I bet it will be fun. I’ve got a couple poles floating around.
Song Structure
Capo 7
Verse: G / C / D / G
Chorus: G / C / D / G
Bridge: Em / C / G / D
Voice Memos
Notebook Page
April 2025
Lyrics
It’s time to go fishing, bring a neighbor along
It’s time that we sit and listen, instead of carrying on
It’s time to do something, a little slower I guess
Dear time can you help us, get out of this mess
They sent you away to the city
If you had a dream in your hands
Pulled us together the way, that only dreams can
The bright lights were hung just for us
We danced beneath em like stars
Swearing that all of the time and the dreams were just ours
We left some good people behind us
We spit on the ways that we came
When the lights that their two stepping under, don’t look the same
Surely they’re dull and they're artless
In common, we can't have that much
Seems like time in the fast lane has us out of touch
It’s time to go fishing, bring a neighbor along
It’s time that we sit and listen, instead of carrying on
It’s time to do something, a little slower I guess
Dear time can you help us, get out of this mess
Solo
The whole world is watching us bicker
Over nonsense and wondering why
With all of the banks along rivers
Why is it hate flags we fly
It’s time to go fishing, bring a neighbor along
It’s time that we sit and listen, instead of carrying on
It’s time to do something, a little slower I guess
Dear time can you help us, get out of this mess