Skip to content

Take Back This Town

Welcome to a page all about “Take Back This Town”

 

Click on the arrow to activate the exfm player:  Take Back This Town

Read below for credits, the story, and lyrics.

The players:
VC:  lead vocals, Moserite acoustic guitar, Gibson 335 electric guitar, Tacoma Thunderchief acoustic bass, drum programming; Mike Grow: Telecaster electric lead guitar; and featuring: Amber Lee Baker: harmony & backing vocals, accordion

The Story:

This song dates back to the summer of 1995. I had enforced a self-imposed “no songwriting” rule the previous fall after I had written 7 songs in about 6 weeks while still in LA going to school and became somewhat consumed by them. I had moved back home and begun my first teaching job and focused on that until the following summer when I was working teaching preschool. I was beginning to feel like my old creative self again (although very briefly) and wrote both this song and “I’ll be Dammed” (which my band is currently performing) over the course of two weeks. I had found many years ago that sometimes my songs became prophetic: I didn’t quite know what they meant when I wrote them and then they came true. I tried to take advantage of that by writing this song one lazy afternoon while lounging at Tennessee Cove in Marin. I had fallen so far over the course of the previous two years and I was ready for redemption. Nearly twenty years later and I’m still waiting for it. 

Take Back This Town

I woke up and was eye to I with the sidewalk curb
How I got there, I don’t know,  it is all a blur
Was I drunk or beaten down?
It doesn’t matter anyhow
I’m determined more than ever now
To take back this town
Chorus:
Take back this town
You can’t keep a good man down
I have fallen, I know the depths
Of self destruction and mounting debts
I’ve made my peace
Settled up, got a new lease
I’m ready more than ever now
To take back this town
I looked up and was face to face with a memory
That summer when I had it all, back in 1983
Was it luck or just success?
I don’t know, I must confess
I reminisced with a wry frown
About when I had a hold of this town
Chorus
Sitting here on a windy beach
I feel the future just out of reach
Nobody’s gonna kick sand in my face any more
Getting stronger and self assured
Better now, I am cured
Gonna do things like I’ve never done before
I looked down and was cheek to cheek with my saving grace
Soaking up every ray of warmth from this sweet embrace
Is it lust or is it love?
All I know’s it’s never enough
Diving in I’ll dare to drown
While I take back this town
Chorus
VC
8/30 & 9/23/95