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YODELADY

by Todd Hearon

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    14 tracks of homegrown, grass-fed original Americana plus 1 bonus track, "It Ain't Over Yet" (CD only). Autograph and personalized copy by request.

    Includes unlimited streaming of YODELADY via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 100 

      $15 USD or more 

     

  • Keep your favorite beverage cool with a cool new YODELADY coozie! Free with the purchase of a limited-edition YODELADY CD.
    ships out within 2 days
    edition of 100 

      $5 USD or more 

     

  • T-Shirt/Shirt

    Get your Yodel On with a cool new YODELADY T! 100% cotton. Available in two colors--daisy or sand--in sizes S/M/L/XL.
    ships out within 2 days
    edition of 100 

      $20 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Limited-edition CD includes the bonus track "It Ain't Over Yet."
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD  or more

     

1.
JUST ANOTHER WASHED-UP COUNTRY HERO There was a time A once-upon-a-time it was When I lived in your applause Upon the stage And in the incandescent days Of the AM waves Just another washed-up country hero Another ghost inside the radio But late at night When I feel you dialing in I can see myself again And in your smile And in the candles of your eyes I can breathe again a while Just another washed-up country hero Another ghost inside the radio Playing low Come out and dance Beneath the limelight of the moon To that old forgotten tune Lift up the wine And lift your voice again in mine In an almost-perfect rhyme You’re an old ghost, too With just another washed-up country hero Just another ghost inside the radio Just another washed-up country hero Just another ghost inside the radio Playing low Laying low
2.
Nacogdoches 03:59
NACOGDOCHES Like to be down in Nacogdoches Riding that Indian Rodeo With a bottle to burn and a bag of roaches Smoke my way clear to San Antone Cause Nacogdoches is good when you’re good and gone When the sun goes down in Nacogdoches Looks like there’s blood pouring from the sky And the goal posts where they hang the coaches Stick like a needly in a spinster’s eye Cause Nacogdoches’ll do when you gotta die Woo whee Nacogdoches Woo whee Nacogdoches All the college girls down in Nacogdoches Think the moon was made for them alone The look in their eyes when the night approaches They turn to glass then they turn to stone With a spin of a bottle, boy, you’re on your own Woo whee Nacogdoches Woo whee Nacogdoches There’s a Motel 6 in Nacogdoches With 107 stations all for free It’s pretty nice if you don’t mind the roaches Let em crawl all over your memory Cause Nacogdoches is just what you done to me Woo whee Nacogdoches Woo whee Nacogdoches Woo whee Nacogdoches Woo whee Nacogdoches
3.
COMPANY BLUES I was born in Hazard Holler in the shadow of the mill Where the coal smoke blows over Hurricane Hill Where your name is just a number, every payday’s poor ’Cause your scrip floats back to the company store, singing Toodle-oo and toodle-ee I don’t know what’s come over me Toodle-oo and toodle-ay What the boss man giveth the boss man taketh away Well my daddy was a rounder Mama taught me how to pray and sing She was on the floorboards when they found her Her cold hand clutching that company wedding ring I got a little company cabin, it’s a one-room shack Where I hang my company shovel and my company hat And my company wife is cooking up them company beans By the company lantern full of company kerosene, singing Toodle-oo and toodle-ee I don’t know what’s come over me Toodle-oo and toodle-ay What the boss man giveth the boss man taketh away Use to dream of something finer Two mules, a cabbage patch to call my own In Tennessee or Carolina But Kentucky done took my blood, it’ll take my soul See the company children playing in the company dust By the company river running red with company rust Where the cost of living’s nothing, boy, but it ain’t free When your veins runneth over with mercury, singing Toodle-oo and toodle-ee I don’t know what’s come over me Toodle-oo and toodle-ay What the boss man giveth the boss man taketh away Toodle-oo and toodle-ee I don’t know what’s come over me Toodle-oo and toodle-ay What the boss man giveth the boss man taketh away
4.
Ninety-Nine 04:35
NINETY-NINE Five rows of tally sticks like fences on a wall And a blacked-out window for an eye Days sometimes the sun don’t rise at all And a six-foot ceiling for a sky Everybody’s got a number And man I’ve sure got mine Till I make it over yonder Just a tied soul doing time In Number Ninety-Nine Everybody’s gotta get into this world Everybody’s just some poor mother’s son Everybody’s got a sentence gotta serve Me I don’t know what I done Everybody’s got a number And man I’ve sure got mine Till I make it over yonder Just a tied soul doing time In Number Ninety-Nine Ah-Ooooo Someday I’m gonna bust this cell of flesh and bone Gonna sail into the sky There ain’t no body gonna hold me down for long There’s a bright world coming by and by Everybody’s got a number And Lord I’ve sure got mine Till I meet you over yonder I’m just a tied soul doing time In Number Ninety-Nine Number Ninety-Nine Number Ninety-Nine Number Ninety-Nine Number Ninety-Nine
5.
DON’T FORGET TO BE LONELY Got your lipstick Got your pearls Got your grown-up big-girl curls Got your Russian cigarette Don’t forget to be lonely Got your druthers Got your thrills You got your mother’s pink prescription pills Got your worldwide Internet Don’t forget to be lonely There’ll be chances to take, all new friends you can make Maybe even a love on the wing Sweet nothings at stake, fresh young hearts you can break Every fall, winter, summer and spring But don’t forget Don’t forget Don’t forget to be lonely Don’t forget Don’t forget to be lonely You got your rhythm Got your blues You got your midnight walking shoes Got no bridges, no regrets Don’t forget to be lonely When you see that big moon like a child’s lost balloon Floating over the carnival lights Maybe once think of me and all the love you set free And don’t forget to be lonely tonight Don’t forget Don’t forget Don’t forget to be lonely Don’t forget Don’t forget to be lonely When you see that big moon like a child’s lost balloon Floating over the big city lights Have a drink, think of me and all the love you set free And don’t forget to be lonely tonight Don’t forget Don’t forget Don’t forget to be lonely Don’t forget Don’t forget to be lonely In San Francisco don’t forget… In New York City don’t forget… In Barcelona don’t forget… In Wauwatosa don’t forget…
6.
Chinatown 05:04
CHINATOWN The unlikely fire on the ledge and the room swam with candles The wine had gone straight to your head, you said I don’t understand you When you said that, did you mean to suggest I might like that, with your head on my breast? Squall at the window and the snow piling forty feet deep I can dig myself home on my own unless you’d care to sleep Together for the rest of the night Together for the rest of our lives Yodelady Little lady I do Yodelady Little lady I do The fireworks down in Chinatown Little busted lives across the ground You could light the night sky, you could howl down the moon You could blow it all just looking if you don’t have clue Yodelady Little lady I do Yodelady Little lady I do The tea kettle screamed and the Joe Henry streamed from the kitchen We swung like a gate and we locked and we knocked like an engine Together for the rest of the night Together for the rest of our lives Together by the unlikely light Together like I told you that night Yodelady Little lady I do Yodelady Little lady I do
7.
Lily-in-Coal 02:57
LILY-IN-COAL There’s a rare kind of diamond they call the Lily-in-Coal All across the country ’round ain’t nothing finer You won’t catch her in Kentucky or in a West Virginia hole No, she’s native just to North Carolina She’s slippery as the wind in a mountain pass that blows When the sliver of a moon’s barely shining In the hollers and the hills where the sun never goes That’s the only lonely place you’re gonna find her Oh, bless my soul I’ve been mining all my life for the Lily-in-Coal Long before there was the legend of the California gold That emptied out these hills of ’49ers Before the Cherokee, before the world was told Was the legend of this lonesome little diamond Oh, so it goes I’ve been mining all my life for the Lily-in-Coal Oh, bless my soul I’ll been mining all my life for the Lily-in-Coal Now I wish I was conductor of a ramblin’ rattlin’ train Or the captain of a big ol’ ocean liner Was a lizard in the spring, or any other thing Than a godforsaken seeking mountain miner Rather be a groundhog or a mole I’d root that mountain down for my Lily-in-Coal Oh, bless my soul I’ve been mining all my life for the Lily-in-Coal Oh, bless my soul I’ll been mining all my life for the Lily-in-Coal
8.
Bittersweet 03:26
BITTERSWEET Bittersweet winding by the side of the tracks You go down that line you ain’t coming back Make me a wreath of bittersweet Bittersweet climbing up the side of a train Don’t expect to see your likes again Make me a wreath of bittersweet Big wind blowin’ make you jump and shout Mine blew north and hers blew south Make me a wreath of bittersweet Two lovebirds hatchin’ in a little nest My flew east and hers flew west Make me a wreath of bittersweet Take the Texas Eagle up from San Antonio Meet me, pretty mama, in Chicago And make me a wreath of bittersweet Give my best regards to Delia and Stackalee Tell ’em, pretty baby, what you done to me And make me a wreath of bittersweet Bittersweet growing by the side of the road Learning how to love you is a heavy load Make me a wreath of bittersweet Bittersweet growing who knows where Wind a little piece in your pretty hair Make me a wreath of bittersweet Bittersweet winding wild and free That’s a bit for her and a bit for me Make a little wreath of bittersweet Make a little wreath of bittersweet Make a little wreath of bittersweet
9.
Cheyenne 05:21
CHEYENNE Well New Hampshire ain’t Texas but there’s a hole in the wall up in Stratham where it’s almost the same And a girl at the bar who pours whiskey and beer with tattoos and a faraway name And on Fridays the bikers come in early to sit out the haze of a hot afternoon And the distances fade as the radio plays some forgotten and faraway tune As she turns to the window and silently sways And you see her eyes soften, lost in the ways of that old guitar’s tune We’ve all seen better days And I’d tuck up my losses and toss ’em away Buckin’ up on a bronco and yodel away through the smoke of the room While the radio plays Cheyenne, Cheyenne with the faraway name and the lean, hungry look in your eye You belong on a pony on some lonesome range where a wish is as wide as the sky With a bucket of Lone Star and the Cherokee Shuffle and a red Heart of Texas tattoo Now pour me a drink, gal, and help me to think I’ve got nothing but losing to lose Now New England is nice in its way but it sure ain’t my home When the winter wind blows and sends down the long snows it can chill you right deep to the bone And I’d rather play horseshoes than hockey any old day Sitting under a live oak in Luckenbach watching the clouds and hearing the pedal steel play As she turns to the window and silently sways And you see her eyes soften, lost in the ways of that lonesome old tune We’ve all seen better days And I’d tuck up my losses and toss ’em away Buckin’ up on a bronco and yodel away, heading south out of town While the radio plays Cheyenne, Cheyenne with the faraway name and the lean, hungry look in your eye You belong on a pony on some lonesome range where a wish is as wide as the sky With a bucket of Lone Star and the Cherokee Shuffle and a red Heart of Texas tattoo Now pour me a drink, gal, and help me to think I’ve got nothing but losing to lose Cheyenne, Cheyenne with the faraway name and the lean, hungry look in your eye You belong on a pony on some lonesome range where a wish is as wide as the sky With a bucket of Lone Star and the Cherokee Shuffle and a red Heart of Texas tattoo Now pour me a drink, gal, and help me to think I’ve got nothing but losing to lose Oh pour me a drink, now, and help me to think I’ve got nothing but nothing but losing to lose
10.
THE BRIGHTER THE SUN (THE BLACKER THE SHADE) I had a goodtime little girl I was sittin’ on the tiptop of the great big world The brighter the sun, the blacker the shade Money came, money went Thus began the winter of our discontent The brighter the sun, the blacker the shade Please don’t wake me, don’t shake me up from sleep I’m the only child of a dream No, don’t spin me around, don’t you let me down I’d rather be a clown than to be a fool I had a goodtime little girl I was sittin’ on the tiptop of the great big world The brighter the sun, the blacker the shade God only knows that’s how it goes Just when you were thinking that you had it made The brighter the sun, the blacker the shade The brighter the sun, the blacker the shade
11.
ORDINARY SOLDIERS Driving out of a dream I guess ’cause I’ve been here before Never knew your mother’s West was just another war And your father with his medals and his mansions in Los Alamos And his Halls of Montezuma and his pockets lined with Hiroshima’s ghosts It was all dream, it was like a dream ’Cause ordinary soldiers, they don’t mean a thing They’re just ornamental boulders in the same old spring They don’t mean a thing, they don’t mean a thing You can feel the ocean pressing on the desert floor You can press yourself inside another just so far And the storm we saw it coming like a vision of the great I AM Or the Hopi Kokopelli in the shells above Afghanistan Never rained so long, never came so long But ordinary soldiers, they don’t mean a thing They’re just ornamental boulders in the same old spring They don’t mean a thing, they don’t mean a thing And I held you up for ransom like I never held no one before A phenomenal explosion in the middle of a great big war Didn’t mean a thing, didn’t change a thing ’Cause ordinary soldiers, they don’t mean a thing They’re just ornamental boulders in the same old spring They don’t mean a thing, they don’t mean a thing They don’t mean a thing
12.
California 05:13
CALIFORNIA Well now that you’ve decided that we’re all out of time And the future is a party that we missed And the headlights stretch forever from the continent’s divide And the past is just a place that don’t exist There’s U-Hauls pulling out of Austin The Colorado like a blacksnake coiled with smoke And the highway has the desolation after New Year’s Day In the breaking dawn above the Broken Spoke California I can hear you calling in the crawling of my mind toward a light I’ll never find It’s the morning just before you’re born and every time you’re torn away from all you’ll never leave behind You can see the lights of Hollywood from Mulholland Drive A sunken constellation full of fallen stars It’s all the raging with the waves and all the bullshit and besides If you don’t look too deep you’ll never see so far There’s a full moon tonight over Austin The Colorado Basin full of snow You can’t hang your hat on hope and home is just a state of mind If you don’t lose it now and then you’ll never know California I can hear you calling in the crawling of my mind toward a light I’ll never find It’s the morning just before you’re born and every time you’re torn away from all you’ll never leave behind Well I’d be lying if I told you I could hold you and I guess I’d be lying to say I didn’t see it coming With you sitting on the church porch in your mama’s wedding dress Strumming that old tune by Leonard Cohen I remember you well in the Taco Bell We hit on the way out of Austin California I can hear you calling in the crawling of my mind toward a light I’ll never find It’s the morning just before you’re born and every time you’re torn away from all you’ll never leave behind It’s the way You get caught in the bright new day And let the light amaze your mind Anyway It’s too much of a price to pay To let the light erase your mind You can see the lights of Hollywood from Mulholland Drive A sunken constellation full of fallen stars It’s all the raging with the waves and all the bullshit and besides You’ve never seen a thing so beautiful before
13.
Marfa 05:46
MARFA The day they closed the borders the sky was so serene The smog was lifting over China, we were all in quarantine And the future was secluded like a hermit in Nepal And in proper Dali fashion clocks were melting off the television wall And if you close your eyes it’s elsewhere and things are what they seem It was snowing down in Marfa, we were in a fever dream And we’d gone out to the limits to watch the famous lights Float like disembodied faces on the swirling snow-globe night When our talk was interrupted by the wailing of a train It was snowing down in Marfa, I was in your arms again And the world was under water and the borders open wide There was calabash for breakfast and John Prine never died And we pressed our Easter faces to the pixilated white It was snowing down in Marfa, I was in your arms last night And if you close your eyes it’s elsewhere and things are what they seem You know it never snows in Marfa but you can’t argue with a dream And I know I’m only drowning but the future’s open wide It’s snowing down in Marfa and I never left your side
14.
El Dorado 08:25
EL DORADO Think I’ll pack my bags and go Get a little pad in Mexico in the morning Maybe Tijuana or Juarez Take a silver bullet to the head in the morning ’Cause I feel so dejected and diffused I’ve got them discombobulated blues Yes I do Someday I’m gonna find my El Dorado Gonna drive it to the palace in the sun Someday upon my painted palomino Gonna sip the chalice of the Chosen One In the sun Now you don’t have to pay the rent When you wake up as the president in the morning Private jets and all that jazz Fly your conscience out to Alcatraz in the morning But I feel so infected and amused I got that Foxcombobulated News And it’s all true Someday I’m gonna find my El Dorado Gonna drive it to the palace in the sun Someday upon my painted palomino Gonna sip the chalice of the Chosen One In the sun ¿Donde volaste, mi corazón? Someday I’m gonna find my El Dorado Gonna fly it to the palace in the sun Someday upon my painted palomino Gonna sip the chalice of the Chosen One In the sun

about

YODELADY, Todd Hearon's second studio album, featuring 15 new tracks!

CREDITS
Ben Alleman—piano track 3; accordion track 6
Marty Ballou—upright bass track 3
Dan Beller-McKenna—pedal steel tracks 1, 2, 5, 6, 9; lap steel track 11
Andrew Blowen—harmony vocals track 2, 4, 5, 14; piano track 12
Darién Castro—Spanish vocals track 14
Mike Craig—drums tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 14
Jim DiCarlo—low whistle track 8
Lindsay Garfield—harmony vocals track 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 14
Todd Hearon—lead vocals and acoustic guitar, all tracks
Betsy Heron—fiddle and harmony vocals tracks 2, 3, 7, 15
Scott Heron—mandolin, banjo and harmony vocals tracks 3, 7, 15
Pete Iannitto—bass tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Tim Phillips—electric guitar tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14; keyboard tracks 4, 5, 9, 13, 14; glockenspiel tracks 6, 14
Eric Schultz—percussion track 11; synth track 13
Paul Wolf—washboard track 10

credits

released August 5, 2023

Cover Photo: Kaylah Stroup ("Ponyhenge, Lincoln, MA")
Cover Design: Adam Bohannon

Produced by Todd Hearon and Tim Phillips
Recorded at Phillips Sound & Virtue and Vice Studio, Brooklyn, NY
Mastered by Tim Phillips at Phillips Sound

All songs written by Todd Hearon

© 2023 Todd Hearon (BMI)
All rights reserved

Please visit www.toddhearon.com/yodelady for LYRICS and LINER NOTES.

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Todd Hearon Exeter, New Hampshire

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, and raised in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, Todd Hearon is a poet, author and songwriter living in Exeter, New Hampshire. His two studio albums are YODELADY (2023) AND BORDER RADIO (2021); he's also the author of three volumes of poems, a number of plays and essays, and a novella.

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