“Larry” - a song about incapacity
Story Pairing
This video was recorded in Clear Springs Recreation Area in Western Mississippi. There was some decent wind that made the video’s soundtrack, but such is a field recording. I’m annoyed by that wind, but when I listen to this song in 20 years, I will miss how it felt that morning.
I camped at that recreation area and it was beautiful, in a semi abandoned way.
On the way there I had stopped at a coffee shop to do a little work. There was a barista that called out for the customer named “Larry”. Her voiced cracked halfway through and almost sounded like a yodel. It made me giggle. Interestingly my voice cracked in a slightly different way while recording this one and it was at a pretty serendipitous part too. Universe doing universe stuff.
So I had originally set out to do a sort of funny song and trying my hand at some semblance of a yodel. However while I was writing the tune in this recreation area, there was this sort of heavy broken energy about. The whole area was beautiful, and you could see how everything was built by the hands of a craftsman. There was an elegance to the landscaping, the campsites, the out buildings, all of it. It was clear that at one time it was a shining star. We just don’t use places like this in the way we used to. Now it sits empty. Limbs down on the trails, bridges twisting and falling over forgotten creeks, wooden railings covered in creeping growth, empty sites and benches and roads. It’s hard to see a place so full of squandered potential. That feeling and those thoughts morphed the song into a sorrowful tune.
I’ve been trying to pay more attention to songwriting and the pieces that influence it. Being on the road as much as I am, the places I stop at and take a few steps through, they start to shape the words I choose and the proverbial colors I paint with. It’s hard not to be moved by something new. It requires you to take it in with more intention. You use extra senses. It’s the equivalent of driving the streets you know back home from your weekly grocery run vs driving to a store in a town you’ve never been. You take in more. There is no autopilot at play. When the only option is to pay attention, the things that grab your attention the most make their way into what you’re making. That’s just the way it is, and it’s fun to welcome it.
So maybe the next time you go home, take a different way. See what you notice. See what moves you.
Song Structure
Verse: C / Dm / G / C
Chorus: Am / G / C
Voice Memos
No Notebook Page
Oct 2025
Lyrics
Larry's the kind that you lean on
A fix it up anything man
If they say it can’t be less broken
He’ll find a way that it can
He don’t say much while hes working
Sometimes there's a tear in his eye
He won't take a penny when offered
Says keeping things running just fine
Larry Come Home
He writes little prayers in notebooks
Grease smudges, pencil, and rhyme
Sketches the face of a woman
Stares into her eyes all the time
Keep every letter she’s written
Folded and safe by his hands
And papers from old doctors visits
With problems he can’t understand
Larry Come Home
He can’t stand the sound of her breathing
Not sure if the next is the last
In darkness he hides to the workshop
To wrench till the nighttime has past
His heart cracks when he hears her calling
And breaks on the spotless shop floor
He hopes when she's gone she forgives him
He's sorry he couldn't do more
Larry Come Home