A vital music community is a good thing. From having awesome venues to attracting artists, music is a cultural magnet. The Fur Trade is another Wisconsin area musical artist I met through Twitter. I really like the clean, minimal recording of the song “Stones Of Rome” mostly because the song sounds great and secondly because this is a sound I aspire to achieve in my own recordings. Click to play The Fur Trade’s song and read their story below.
The Story Behind The Song
Here’s the story in The Fur Trade’s own words:
For “Stones of Rome,” I saw an image of a rubble heap, like you could never lift all the blocks or beams into the right place again. You would be in a massive challenge, and just begin to see the scope of it. I was getting to know some new friends, we were trying to become better songwriters, I was starting to pay off a big debt, and everything felt like it was resetting, or restarting. I felt like I was at the beginning, but without any of the tools I needed to start out.
I wanted to write a song about that. In that beginning stage, I remember there was a night that I was driving home when the rain was kind of light, and I heard it tapping the car. I felt a quick feeling I get where nothing’s holds me down or back, and my past doesn’t exist but that moment mixes with the future. I felt clean, and the day-to-day cycle was gone, and I didn’t have labels or social anxiety or bad relationships. It felt great! That lasted through an intersection, and the rest of the drive was boring.
Of four verses, the first three push on in the face of big obstacles; the challenging beginning, and the day-to-day boring part of life. The fourth verse is a release from being kept down by those things. We’ll be as beautiful as the sky, we’ll have tons of life left in us, we’ll build something solid out of ruins. We’re going to try, and if the hopeful feeling leaves too quick, at least we felt it. There’s got to be something true in it.
The Fur Trade Links