{"id":9220,"date":"2025-11-20T18:36:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/?p=9220"},"modified":"2025-11-27T11:41:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T11:41:33","slug":"old-time-lyric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/?p=9220","title":{"rendered":"old time lyric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eli Strater sang old-time tunes. He never bothered thinking about the words, too busy moving his fingers up and down the strings. \u201cLyrics?\u201d he laughed. \u201cJust decorations. Like wallpaper.\u201d But old songs have a way of waiting for you, like leaning against a lamppost in the back of your mind, smoking, saying, We\u2019ll see about that, mate.<\/em> One morning, Eli was driving, humming an ancient verse:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If ever you wander, if ever you roam,<\/em>
Watch for the crossroads calling you home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t mean anything. Except suddenly he was<\/em> at a crossroads, the literal kind, with a handmade sign pointing toward a crooked old house: LUTHIER \u2013 FIXES GUITARS & OTHER BROKEN THINGS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His guitar had been rattling a couple weeks he knew not why. He took the hint. Inside, an old woman with driftwood looking hands inspected the guitar like a doctor would a patient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got too much weight in the neck,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you talking about the guitar,\u201d Eli asked, \u201cor me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eli went on playing gigs. Barns, backyards, bars. Little by little, those old songs crept out of his mouth and into his life. He sang a verse one night about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The friend who smiles a little too wide,<\/em>
Trouble walking either side.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days later, his smiley booking agent vanished along with Eli\u2019s festival money. Just gone, like a bad dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight,\u201d Eli muttered. \u201cThe song knew before I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was a love song something soft about a river \u201creturning after rain.\u201d Not long after, he got a message from an old love he hadn\u2019t heard from in years. It felt like the song had dialed her number while he wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And another tune one about \u201csilver coins and dodgy deals behind the fairgrounds\u201d stopped him from signing a contract with a streaming company whose idea of \u201cartist support\u201d read like a ransom note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cosmic nudges, the songs were guiding him. Someone upstairs had put the lyrics on shuffle and aimed them at his life. One night, sitting outside a barn after a gig where the audience clapped on whichever beat felt most philosophical, Eli whispered to himself, \u201cAll these years I thought I was singing the songs. Turns out they were singing me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eli Strater sang old-time tunes. He never bothered thinking about the words, too busy moving his fingers up and down the strings. \u201cLyrics?\u201d he laughed. \u201cJust decorations. Like wallpaper.\u201d But […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-rockbob","post-9220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-tales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}