song information

Mar 17, 2004
Album: Fazed Withdrawal
Track 1
Copyright(c)2005 Trapper Robbins

I wrote this song for my dad Jerry. It turns out that while I was composing it, he got an illness from which he eventually died. I gave this song to him about a month before he passed away and I am very grateful that he got to hear it. Here’s my letter that went with this song.

[Note: Nobscot Mtn. is a small ridge west of Boston and was our local stomping grounds. Jerry was the expert on the Nobscot trails, woods, history, etc. (really – biologists/historians/etc. would periodically consult him for tours and information). “Nobscot” is the name given to this mountain by the Nipmuc Indian tribe.]

December 2004
Dear Dad,

Last spring when we were reminiscing, you were telling wonderful stories about singing me to sleep when I was a baby. I was very touched and started to write you a lullaby. And I decided that I would somehow use Nobscot Mountain as a theme.

Unfortunately, this lullaby soon became a long and overly-complicated song with lyrics, harmonies, many verses, and lots of instrumentation (strings, percussion, etc.). But it was never right and it languished through many incarnations. Finally, I realized that a lullaby should be a simple song – interesting in texture, unpretentious in its instrumentation, brief but relaxingly unrushed in it’s pace – perhaps only a single verse with a final refrain that brings closure.

And as I worked on this new version, it came to me that Nobscot Mountain is also like a lullaby — a modest unpresuming wooded ridge with a scattering of interesting small-scale features – rock outcrops, historic sites, vernal pools. The big northern and western mountain ranges provide dramatic excitement and require sharpened focus. In contrast, Nobscot is safe, intimate, and unthreatening. And, ultimately, this peaceful comforting woodland keeps drawing us back.

When all is said and done, sometimes all we really need is a soft trail and a simple song to help us fall asleep.

love, trapper