The Butterfly Farewell

In 2004, I traveled to China to visit Anping, the source of 99% of the world's bow hair.  I also visited several violin factories in Heibei province and Beijing.  It was at one of those visits that I chanced to meet a middle aged violinist who shared a portion of The Butterfly Lovers song with me.  I, of course, shared Ashokan Farewell with him.  This is that song.  

#China #Anping #ButterflyLovers #AshokanFarewell #Fiddles 

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https://youtu.be/3BJ4ozZDQ8s

Verse 1 I flew east on bow-hair business, a handshake down in Anping, then a week of factory floors where the white horses sing, through the workshops of Hebei where the varnish dries like rain, nine Birds'eye violas waiting for an E to make them sing again.

Verse 2 In a sales manager's office I was trying every one, and a quiet middle-aged man had come in with his own, no language between us but the four strings on the wood, so I picked one up and drew a bow across the mood.

Chorus He played the Butterfly Lovers, the tune his people know, and I answered with a Farewell from a mountain valley show, two melodies like ferries from opposite shores at dawn, and we met in the middle of a room in Beijing, gone.

Verse 3 Nobody wrote it down and nobody took a photo, just a stranger and a fiddler grinning at a note, the kind of thing you'd never plan, you couldn't even try: every fiddle in the factory stopped to see us by.

Outro Now the bow hair's from Anping and the violas came home, and there's a phrase I keep in Chinese, one I'll never say alone, for when the bow meets the string and the tune begins to climb, we were both amazed and pleased, and we both were on time.

The Empty Vine - a Verve Music original song | Download yours for only $1.50!

I read an article this morning that said that colleges are closing at a pace of one every three weeks and it reminded me of Hampshire College, my alma mater, closing for good after December 2026.  So I wrote a traditional valley folk ballad charting the empty stools, lost morning wages, and cold winter silence left behind when the hilltop campus shutters its gates for good. #ValleyFolk #LocalEconomy #PioneerValley 

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Verse 1

The morning bus runs empty past the apple orchard gate,

Where gravel roads meet pavement and the yellow buses wait.

The barns are growing quiet on the eastern side of hill,

And milkweed fills the ditches where the autumn air turns chill.

Chorus

Now the dinner rush is fading and the kitchen lights are low,

With nobody to order when the winter starts to snow.

The boarding houses darken all along the county line,

And we are left to wonder what will fill the empty vine.

Verse 2

The bookstore on the corner turns its sign against the pane,

The diner counter settles in the steady autumn rain.

Five chairs sit at the counter where a crowd once used to sit,

The cellar in the dry-goods lacks the coal to keep it lit.

Chorus

Now the dinner rush is fading and the kitchen lights are low,

With nobody to order when the winter starts to snow.

The boarding houses darken all along the county line,

And we are left to wonder what will fill the empty vine.

Bridge

The bell upon the knoll stands cold above the river plain,

No boots come through the meadow grass to walk these paths again.

The hands that drew the morning wage must pack their boxes tight,

To seek their bread on roads that stretch beyond the valley night.

Verse 3

The pasture gate swings open where the thinkers used to roam,

The orchard turns to timber and the hillside stands alone.

The ledger sheets are folded and the hardware clerk departs,

Leaving quiet in the timber and a shadow in our hearts.

Chorus

Now the dinner rush is fading and the kitchen lights are low,

With nobody to order when the winter starts to snow.

The boarding houses darken all along the county line,

And we are left to wonder what will fill the empty vine.

The Iron Valley Line - a VerveMusic original song

Massachusetts has been awarded $130 million in federal funding to modernize rail infrastructure in Springfield. , so I wrote a song about it: A lively train song celebrating the green lights, shiny iron, and westbound connection rolling straight through the Springfield hub. #BluegrassTrain #WestEastRail #PioneerValley

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Listen on YouTube for Free:

https://youtu.be/0CbquH8X8j0

Verse 1

Well they laid out the plans down at Springfield station,

With a pocket full of silver and a brand new dream,

To clear out the switches and the tangled freight lines,

And fire up the boilers with a head full of steam.

Chorus

Roll along, high ball, hear the engine crying,

Rolling out the valley on the high iron grade,

From the salt on the harbor to the Berkshire mountains,

She’s the fastest runner that the state ever made.

Verse 2

They were stalled on the siding down along the river,

Letting heavy boxcars rumble slow on by,

Now the switches are aligned and the signals showing amber,

Turned to bright green fire up against the sky.

Chorus

Roll along, high ball, hear the engine crying,

Rolling out the valley on the high iron grade,

From the salt on the harbor to the Berkshire mountains,

She’s the fastest runner that the state ever made.

Bridge

Hear the bell ringing clear through the Union arches,

Every worker on the platform giving out a cheer,

With the double track clear straight across the commonwealth,

You can ride to the hills in the turn of a year.

Verse 3

So hitch up your fiddle, pick your fast five-stringer,

Watch the Valley Flyer hit her stride and run,

She’s hauling all the neighbors from the hills to the shoreline,

Rolling westbound easy with the morning sun.

Chorus

Roll along, high ball, hear the engine crying,

Rolling out the valley on the high iron grade,

From the salt on the harbor to the Berkshire mountains,

She’s the fastest runner that the state ever made.

3 pieces of advice for students:

1. Use AI every day. If you're on the exponential, you'll never fall behind it.

2. Choose projects that get better when compute scales. The rest will be solved before you finish them.

3. Stop planning your career as if it were stable. The safe option no longer buys safety; it no longer exists.

And a phrase that sums it all up:

"Writing is thinking. If you outsource your writing, you outsource your thinking."

The Reluctant Hero of Duxbury

Great grandpa had 9 children.  His wife died with the last one and he remarried, but had no more children.  he was a grouch, but good with men and horses.  there's a story about him.  One day he was delivering meat and dairy and he came up on a house burning.  This was in Duxbury, you can imagine those old white mansions on the coast.  anyway, all the people were on the lawn except the master who was trapped in an upstairs bedroom.  Without a thought, Great Grandpa unhooked one of his best Percherons from the team and rode him bareback into the fire to rescue the man.  He let him off, hooked the horse back up and went about his way.  As I said he was kind of a curmudgeon and rapscallion and one day he got a letter from the town elders asking him to come before the magistrate.  he thought he was in trouble for some charade or scrape, but rather they awarded him with a certificate for rescuing the man who was one of the elders.  I have that certificate and news story in my parents records. 

A lively coastal folk ballad arranged for fiddle, guitar, and mandolin, chronicling a stubborn teamster and his heavy Percheron rescuing an elder from a coastal mansion fire.

#FolkBallad #SongLyrics #NewEnglandLore

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The wagon wheels rattle on gravel and shell,

Past the white captain mansions where wealthy folk dwell.

Nine motherless children wait home for the bread,

While the sour-faced teamster drives onward ahead.

With the dairy and beef barrels heavy behind,

He has no gentle word for the rest of mankind,

Just a scowl for the weather and spit for the road,

And two giant gray Percherons pulling the load.

Ride him bareback, hold to the mane,

A working-class teamster who spits in the rain.

Two tons of gray iron, no saddle, no reins,

A rough-tempered rascal who rode through the flames.

Black smoke rolls up thick where the marsh grass turns brown,

A grand coastal manor is burning right down.

The gentlefolk weep on the green ocean side,

While the master is trapped in the rafters inside.

The wagon comes rattling right to the lawn,

The teamster sees what must be finished and done.

He unhooks the tugs from the whiffletree pin,

Slips the biggest gray free, and he turns the beast in.

Ride him bareback, hold to the mane,

A working-class teamster who spits in the rain.

Two tons of gray iron, no saddle, no reins,

A rough-tempered rascal who rode through the flames.

No cinch and no stirrup, just knuckles and bone,

He drove the great draft horse straight into the stone.

Through falling charred hemlock and sparks showering red,

He dragged the choke-blinded old elder ahead.

He tumbled him safe on the salt-water grass,

Never waiting for thanks as the weeping folk pass.

He snapped the lines tight on the singletree ring,

And drove off with butter before bells could ring.

Ride him bareback, hold to the mane,

A working-class teamster who spits in the rain.

Two tons of gray iron, no saddle, no reins,

A rough-tempered rascal who rode through the flames.

A letter arrived when the winter was cold,

To answer the town where the court records hold.

He cursed up the courthouse with brimstone and bile,

Expecting a fine for some fight in the aisle.

The magistrate rose with a parchment in hand,

From the elder he pulled from the burning timber brand.

A medal of honor for an old rascal's name,

Who took back his team and went on just the same.

Ride him bareback, hold to the mane,

A working-class teamster who spits in the rain.

Two tons of gray iron, no saddle, no reins,

A rough-tempered rascal who rode through the flames.

The Hadley Witch, a Verve Music Original

A raw Pioneer Valley roots ballad arranged for mandolin and fiddle, tracing the true 1684 story of Mary Webster. Accused of bewitching Deacon Philip Smith, she survived a mob hanging along the Connecticut River floodplain. An authentic piece of Hampshire County history.

A driving roots ballad chronicling Mary Webster's survival of the 1684 witchcraft accusations in historic Hadley, Massachusetts.

#TheHadleyWitch #HampshireCountyHistory #RootsMusic

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A gritty roots ballad built on the documented lore of Half-Hanged Mary Webster, Deacon Philip Smith, and the 1680s trials along the Connecticut River.

#HalfHangedMary #HadleyWitchcraft #PioneerValleyRoots

Verse 

Cold winds blow down from the Holyoke Range,

Across the river street,

Old Mary Reeve walks in the snow

With frost beneath her feet.

Deacon Philip Smith took sudden ill,

The Puritans swore the sign,

They cursed the poverty at her gate

And laid it on the line.

Chorus

Half-Hanged Mary of Hadley town,

The noose could never pull her down,

Before the craze at Salem’s bell,

She broke the rope and lived to tell.

[Fiddle Break: Fast, eerie modal reel in D minor, sliding through sharp, cutting double-stops]

Verse

Sent down to Boston in eighty-four,

Before the judges grand,

Acquitted by the Court of Men

Back to the valley land.

Cotton Mather called it witchcraft foul,

The young men took their spite,

They strung her up to a winter limb

And left her in the night.

Chorus

Half-Hanged Mary of Hadley town,

The noose could never pull her down,

Before the craze at Salem’s bell,

She broke the rope and lived to tell.

[Mandolin Break: Driving percussive chops breaking into frantic cross-picking and ringing open strings]

Verse

They found her breathing upon the ground,

She survived the buried snow,

An experiment of wicked hands

Three hundred years ago.

From the meadow flats to Norwottuck hill

Her defiance echoes on,

She walked right past her neighbors’ stares

And saw the rising dawn.

Chorus

Half-Hanged Mary of Hadley town,

The noose could never pull her down,

Before the craze at Salem’s bell,

She broke the rope and lived to tell.

[Fiddle and Mandolin Breakdown: Dual lead trading back and forth, closing on a sustained, ringing unison D drone]

New Song: The Pumpkin Dance

This time of year, families from all across the region come out to look at the pumpkins and pick some for their home porches and stoops. I wrote this song, the Pumpkin Dance after one such glorious morning in the sun with western Mass families picking pumpkins!

Listen and buy your own, only $1.50! https://vervemusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-pumpkin-dance