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Journey Before Time

Let’s Pretend It Never Happened

Lyrics and Music by Bobby Angel, his pre-drainage Everglades Song, Spring 2021

Let’s pretend it never happened x3 We’ll go there in our dreams The Lake is bursting at its seams Going south in a skiff with Hugh Willoughby Through a wall of sawgrass thick as can be Until at the edge finally we break free Into a maze of braids an unending freshwater sea On my face the good feel of a sunny breeze And in the distance tiny islands of trees Below pumping up a subterranean freshet Teeming with fish, alligators and flocks of egrets And then we get swept west into the Big Cypress Towering trees all around like looking up at a cliff An ivorybilled woodpecker landing on a branch Underneath the shaded grove with many orchids And finally to the mangroves where saltwater I sniff When around turns Hugh to suddenly interrupt To say nothing is real it’s time to wake up

Let’s pretend it never happened x3 We’ll go there in our dreams A wanted poster on the wall offering a big reward Wanted dead or alive, the new outlaw An scourge to paradise, it’s only flaw And so began the hunt for water Disston with his dredge he blew up the falls And tore into her marsh with his iron claws To drain it away at any cost With no concern or care for what might be lost Or anything other than greed might be served Turn the Garden of Eden into a trucking farm Nature would succumb and soon enough learn Draining it so hard it all started to burn The flame and the smoke filling sky at every turn Until we came to a ghostly face filling the air It was Disston saying welcome to my nightmare

Listen to the song and interview (after song)

Let’s pretend it never happened x3 We’ll go there in our dreams First came the waves and then came the storm Awakening the Lake and causing it to roar Sending its water over the levee in a big waterfall Flooding many people across the southern shore A nation aimed at settling the score By defeating water and declaring war And so they sent in the the Army Corp To box it in this time for sure Control the water with concrete doors So when it rains it no longer pours Pave over the coast with more and more Until there’s nothing left to do just stay indoors Nature left hanging on life support As tourists click their drinks in a big beach resort That’s when I close my eyes and I hear a shout It’s Hugh on his skiff telling me its time to go back out

Let’s pretend it never happened x3 We’ll go there in our dreams First thing we did was rip out the gates And let the water flow back to its natural state And slowly start to fill back the lake And overflow back into glades Forming new channels in the shape of a maze With all the animals returning as if to give praise After losing every battle turning a new page Welcoming in a new geologic age The clouds formed up in the sky Sending new water down from up high New springs forming down below So many new places for the water to go How did we even do it, we didn’t know Other than it was an incredible show We sat and watched content as could be Nature completely restored a sanctuary When something startled me and I opened my eyes A dim light in the distance a new sunrise

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Pretend It Never Happened is the opening song (on Side A) of Bobby Angel’s album Listen to Big Cypress Bound (2022)

Flood of fan mail

All you really need …

Is one fan in life.

Opening fan mail is always exciting

Everything after that is icing on the cake.

Oh, and by the way:

Bobby Angel answers all his fan mail!

Only in retrospect

When do we know it’s the darkest hour?

Answer: See the title of this post.

If you can hang in there through the night, a new dawn is headed your way

We only know in retrospect. Let’s face it. The darkness can overwhelm us, and creep in slowly, to the point that we not only lose track of how dark it is, but that light — a new dawn — is possible at all. That’s when off on the distant horizon you catch a glimpse of a new ray of sun, or maybe a dull glow, ever so faint at first, but slowly starting to overtake the night sky. Or in other words, morning.

More about this song: I wrote it as an anthem to Candidate Burt Silver, almost on lark. Who is Burt Silver? He’s a politician in a book I co-wrote and a character I gave a second life (i.e. outside of the book) on the Campfire Park website. All politicians have mottos, and Burt Silver’s is this: “It’s a new dawn with Burt Silver … because he stayed up all night to see it.” That’s perhaps the most interesting — and paradoxical — aspect of this song. On the one hand, it is written as a personal triumph over darkness when it’s least expected. On the other hand, I wrote it on a humorous note to capture the essence of a fictitious politician who stays up all night. Or maybe the most incredible thing is that I wrote the song at all.

Moral of the story: Whenever and wherever inspiration strikes, go with it. In the end its the only thing that delivers us from the darkness closing in.

Art of the campfire shanty

What’s the secret …

Behind a good campfire shanty?

Bobby Angel talks Nature Folk Movement (NFM)

Answer: It all starts with the night sky, a campfire and a guitar. Oh, and you’ll need a good singer/songwriter, too. That’s where Bobby Angel fits in. Not that there aren’t other equally qualified campfire composers out there. There’s lots, actually. That’s the beautiful thing. My point is this: You probably won’t see me fill up a stadium arena anytime soon, or be invited to the Philharmonic to perform with a quartet of virtuoso violinists. (Actually, that sounds fun.) But really the place I fit best is around the campfire. A few chords, the crackle and my songs and story telling. I’m not saying I’m the perfect campfire troubadour, but the campfire is probably the place that I find my best fit.

The best thing about the campfire? Probably the copious crackling, as it goes a long way to covering up my many mistakes. Campfires are very forgiving in that way. It’s a lesson I’ve learned one campfire at a time.

Rare footage of rising folk star

The thing about being a folk star …

It doesn’t pay the bills.

Bobby Angel practicing before the campfire

For that I’ll have to rely on hydrology for the time being, if not the indefinitely into the future. But early on I also knew: It’s impossible to be a folk star first and then turn into a hydrologist later in life. And really, to be a nature-folk artist of any acclaim, I knew I needed to spend a solid twenty to thirty years (possibly forty to fifty) immersed in understanding all the ins and out of water before I could ever dare to write a song about about the watery stuff, let alone all the other societal ills that only a well-rendered folk song has any chance of making heal.

Am I serious? Probably not. Or maybe a little. The backstory on this song: I wrote it about 15 years ago, almost as an afterthought, and with barely any time to prepare. The protagonist of the song Krista gave us all of a week’s notice that she’d gotten a new job. One day after the next I put the song off until the hour before I scribbled a bunch of notes on the page with just as many cross outs as there was anything legible to read. To my shock, everyone loved it. The only problem was I couldn’t give Krista the lyrics because even I could barely read them myself. And so I typed them up and gave them to her before she left. As I said that was fifteen years ago, probably more with it not being until the last year that I found the lyrics and finally sang it again. And not just sing it, I recorded it and made a musical video. It wasn’t actually until the video that the song “really popped.”

As much as Krista was surprised by the song at the time (and happy to get a copy of the lyrics to hang on her wall), you can image her response when fifteen years later I sent her the video, plus a 15-minute follow up exclusive Bobby Angel interview about the song. Ballad of a Florida Panther would go on to be featured as the first song on Side B of my first album, New Pangaea, released on my website in 2000.

Morale of the story: Try to not wait 15 years before playing a song for a second time. On the other hand, in this case, it worked pretty good.

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Big Cypress Bound

When does an album become an album?

Answer: When suddenly it clicks.

Listen to full album (above) or individual songs/interviews (below)

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On my most recent album that happened with the song Time to Retire. Although, to be honest, it took another month after that for me to realize that Time to Retire was the anchor (i.e. final) song. The reason? Sometimes things take a little while to sink in. Time to Retire is an ode to a long time botanist, ecologist, high seas explorer and my boss for the last three years that I’ve spent circling around the orb of hydrogen combustion better known as the sun. I was eternally grateful for the time I spent working with him, as he was what others often called as a “legend of the swamp.” But for me he was nothing other than a good friend, and someone who was as easy to connect with as he knew knew worlds beyond what I could ever comprehend. Or in other words, we we appreciated each other for what we knew, what we could bring to the table, and our potential — individually and collectively — for making a difference.

More about this album: It’s a dedication to a place and a journey. Getting there, staying, and moving away. I’m not saying that every song is about the Big Cypress. But what I can say is that every song was written and sun with the Big Cypress looming in my mind.

Special thanks to Geeta for helping bring it all together with a final campfire at the end. Hashtag: #PalletsWillBeBurned!

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