(antiMusic) East Coast Music Awards "Entertainer of the Year" nominee Robert Thomas just released a new acoustic single "A River Runs Through It" and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the song. Here is the story:
When I was in my 30s and just starting to actually make my way as a professional songwriter, I scraped together enough money to buy a small lot along the Trout River in the Waterford Valley outside Sussex, New Brunswick. The Trout is a small river with various branches that feed in along the valley. The lot I purchased looks straight up the river to the intersection of one of those branches with the Trout. At that intersection, there is a small waterfall that you can look at endlessly. Over the next few years, I would go to my lot, set up my chair and take in the breathtaking scenery and sometimes try to write a song or two.
Eventually, I cobbled together a little more money and was able to put up a small cabin and move my contemplation and writing indoors while still having that the marvellous view of the river. When I built the cabin, I was completely stressed out about the budget and whether I could afford it and what would happen if I couldn't. Now, 30 years on, it was the best thing I ever did. I find such peace in that little cabin, raised my two sons there, and some of our best times have been had jumping in the ice-cold water and hiking all along the Trout and through he valley.
For over 20 years I had the start of a song about all of this, "a river runs through this hallowed ground....". But I could never finish the lyric as I couldn't capture the beauty and the meaning of the place in words. Finally, a few years ago, as I passed 60, the meaning of the place became a little more spiritual and the lyric that evolved dealt not just with the beauty of the valley and the river, but how, when there is a constant in your life like the Trout, it marks the times and significant events of your life so clearly. Once you're on those thoughts, particularly at my age now, you are inevitably led to questions about the end of your life and what comes after. I have never been particularly spiritual but every time I'm in the Waterford Valley I have to wonder if such beauty might not have been made by the passage of time and water alone and that, perhaps, there is a God who has a hand in all of this and in our lives. In the song that ultimately evolved, I tried to capture my love of the place, its beauty, the passage of time in my life and the question of God's hand in all of this.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here
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