https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/ssg-week-48-dhodge/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:38:00 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/ssg-week-48-dhodge/#post-1447 Sat, 20 Sep 2003 01:44:28 +0000
1) All the corn is gone

2) Somehow come July

Not only all the corn, but pretty much everything has been used up. It's the middle of an extremely harsh winter for the folks living in the middle of what will one day be known as Nebraska. It's January 1, 1881 and there's been little to scrape together in the first place, what with all the insects and draught and if God wasn't trying to drive an honest farmer from the land then there was always the ranchers and bankers and the serpents of the railroad company who'd be more than happy to do if for Him. But even as the last of the larder is being served for New Year's dinner, Francis Patrick Murphy knows in his heart that he and his family can make it through the next three months. They have to...

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1) Storyboard:

Verse 1: New Year's Day 1881 - Farmer Murphy realizes that the family has already run through all their corn and they might not have enough food to last the winter. He compares his life with Job...

Verse 2: Determined to continue with farming (as he feels it is the only "honest" work) he deals more and more with the bankers and mortgagers. His life and farm are no more his own, but he refuses to give up.

Bridge: still working on it...

Verse 3: The kicker - long dead and gone, Farmer Murphy's continual plowing under and farming of the soil
has left his son with no grass cover and in the huge dust storms of the twenties and thirties, he can only watch as his dad's farmland literally blows away and he turns over  the farm to the bankers.

2) Where/when/why etc.

I think I inadvertently gave out most of this last time (see top), but as far as imagery goes, I think it's going to be a bit tricky. While the land and the weather can be appropriately painted in huge strokes, that's still got to contrast to the very human-sized drama (farming, ownership, survival) that's going on.

I guess this is what I get for picking something I thought someone else would ultimately write about!   ;)

Peace

]]> Sunday Songwriters Group David Hodge https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/ssg-week-48-dhodge/#post-1447