Deborah Crooks: Music

During the RPM challenge of 2009, I got together with Alex Walsh nearly every other day to work on songs for a blues project we were doing, as much to keep us active and inspired amid the chaos of living and act of faith business of being an artist. I was living in the Mission District of San Francisco and going through a phase where I was running a bit to stay in shape (while I've been an athlete during times in my life, I have not qualified as athletic for much of the past several years). I was also living on the same street, Hampshire St., if several blocks away, as the home where my mother was born in 1935. It got me to thinking of my grandmother coming over to this country pregnant with my mother and the often challenging life they found. This song is about my grandmother, an immigrant from Croatia, and what propelled her through more than 80 years of living. While Alex wrote the music and played it as a blues, I recorded it the way I play the chord structure. I was really pleased that the recording session (with Art Khu on organ, Ben Bernstein on bass and Mike Stevens on drums) took place at Tiny Telephone Studios, that was not only exceedingly cool, but only a few blocks from where this songs takes place and was born.

crossed an ocean, got on a train

stop in the Big Easy where my brother lived

that's what they called it though it felt hard hard hard

didn't think that'd be the way I lived

get up and daughter is crying

wash up, prove I'm trying

all I know is you gotta give

yeah, you gotta give

 

steam engine pulled us  cross this land

everyone came 'fore said California was best

big ocean, sky, fresh fruit for the pie

orange sun setting in the West

train rocking, my daughter is crying

gotta wash up,  prove I'm trying

all I know is you gotta give, gotta give

get up in the morning, and give

 

Alabama, Florida, Hampshire

earthquake, storm and flood

never went back to the Big Easy, 

though few things are stronger than blood

[instrumental]

Alabama, Florida, Hampshire

earthquake, storm and flood

strange language took me years to get

from mouths of strange faces staring through the door

more love, more money, in the Promised Land

everyone hopes they'll score

never much money,  daughter is crying

gotta wash up so she knew I was trying

all I know is is you gotta give

yeah, you gotta live, getta up in the morning

 

Alabama, Florida, Hampshire

earthquake, storm and flood