By:Steve Gillette, Charles John Quarto · Source Recording: The Rice Brothers (1989)Song details
There are songs that birds don't sing to people
There are secrets you keep right through to the end
There are heros that hide until forever
And I'm singin' this song for one of them
He's the man that you passed on the road there
The one with his life on the loose
Goin' either somewhere or nowhere
Goin' without me without you
For he is this world's constant orphan
Travelin' out his long time
Livin' on apples from orchards
And dyin' from grapes on the vine
You can find him in big city winters
Down where the mission bell cries
And sorrow echos through the suburbs
As it tries to close all his eyes
And dream of his railroad existance
As if it were some kind of dream
As if the extent of the distance
Were what his heart would call him
You can find him in Pittsburg at Christmas
You can find him in Buffalo in June
And he knows all the back roads between them
Like a Gypsy he pulls a broom
And it's route twenty-two all over again
Stake it well down and try to look like somebody's friend
Look strong at the men smile for the girls
Puzzled at the rest of the world
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By:Steve Gillette, Charles John Quarto · Source Recording:The Rice Brothers (1989)
“Grapes on the Vine” is credited to Steve Gillette and Charles John Quarto. Gillette has written that it began as a poem by Quarto which he set to music when the two started collaborating in the early 1980s; they went on to write several dozen songs together, and Quarto brought him into the studios at Jack’s Tracks in Nashville. Gillette has said he was struck by how Quarto brought the central figure to life: a man who leaves comfort behind to see the wide world, who has some street wisdom but also an overview, and who “sees beyond.”
The song is sung about that wanderer rather than by him. The narrator describes a man you might have passed on the road, going somewhere or nowhere, a constant orphan of the world who lives on apples from orchards and dies from grapes on the vine. He turns up in big-city winters and in the suburbs, in Pittsburgh at Christmas and in Buffalo in June, knowing the back roads between them, and he dreams of a railroad life. The last verse, set on Route 22 again, has him looking strong and trying to seem like somebody’s friend while puzzled by the rest of the world.
Waylon Jennings recorded the song on 14 June 1988 in Nashville, with Jimmy Bowen producing, for his MCA album Full Circle, released in September 1988. Gillette recorded it himself on his 1989 Compass Rose album American Songwriter and again in 1992 on The Ways of the World (produced by Jim Rooney, with Stuart Duncan on fiddle). Tony Rice and the Rice Brothers included it on their 1989 Rounder album The Rice Brothers (Rounder 0256), and Wildfire recorded it for Rattle of the Chains (Pinecastle PRC 1148, 2005). Gillette also names Ronny Cox and Bill & Bonnie Hearne among those who have recorded it.
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Clicks before the band comes in, so you start together.
Raises the tempo as the band goes round, so you build up speed.
The band goes quiet for a bar or two and you keep the time going.
Clicks before the band comes in, so you start together.
Raises the tempo as the band goes round, so you build up speed.
The band goes quiet for a bar or two and you keep the time going.
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