TomFlannery.com

Got To Be the Change
Old Chairs
Do You Wanna Be My Friend?
Got To Be a Better Home Than ‘Round Here
I Wish I Wasn’t Missing You
Wishing On a Train

all songs written by Tom Flannery
recorded live on 9/29/2015 at the Home Office in Archbald, PA
Tom Flannery – guitar, vocals *
* I didn’t use a pick and sang in a near whisper so I didn’t wake my family….which is the definition of rock and roll when you are 49 years old…

for Angela and Martin

…or Stream Below

It’s fall again. Finally. I’ve broken out the flannels and the extra-large sweater that my dog always uses as a chew-toy (doesn’t stop me from wearing it….she only gnaws on the wrists…). The awning guys came and took the shades down. The trees are yearning to turn….and on cloudless days the sky is so blue it almost hurts to look at it. Football is back. Notre Dame and the Steelers are just good enough to keep me hoping but probably not good enough to make me any money. Stores are hawking pumpkin flavored just-about-everything. The bars are open on Sundays (well….the ones with the NFL ticket anyway) so a day of rest can finally be shared with a pint and some yelling at various TV screens with other communicants. I get screamed at every week by my fantasy football brethren for leaving guys in my lineup who aren’t active.

It’s getting darker earlier. The live music is moving from the patios back inside. The summer tans are fading. We’re starting to look like ourselves again. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

Work settles a bit. Routines are hardened. The kids are back in school. The buses are running. We start to look forward to different types of things. Hot coffee on the back porch over cold drinks at the shore. We prep for October baseball by finally paying attention to baseball pennant races. You mean the Astros are in first place? What the hell?

Homework takes over the kitchen table. School clothes dominate the wash. The grass stops growing. So we ponder….should I give it one more going over with the mower? Or shall I save it for the spring? Decisions decisions. The leaves you took for granted in the trees now flutter to the ground. Leaves are one of the few things that look better when they are officially discarded by their maker.

Summer might be a few months of stronger light bulbs, but the fall is more illuminating. Every day is a new painting on a new canvas. Simple things like driving to work can leave you in wonder….like browsing an art gallery with no one behind you.

I miss people I’ve lost more in the fall. I don’t know why this is. It just is. Summer is too fast. Too frenetic. Too much pressure. “You better have fun or else….” Well…no. I have this book, this iced tea….and this chair. We can speak again in 5 or 6 hours if you’d like. If not, that would be good too…

So yea, if you’re gonna be misunderstood, it’s gonna happen in the summer. I don’t trust people who pine for summer to come and then won’t let go of it. These are people who never go to the movies by themselves, lest somebody make fun of them (“on a sunny day like this? are you crazy? I’m not spending it inside….”).

I don’t completely trust anybody who has never gone to the movies alone.

Less explaining is required in the fall. Less justification. We roam freer. And we slow down, breathe deep, button up, and sometimes even smile.

And who ain’t for that?

In a bit..

–tf