People As Tall As Mountains

Song story & origins

Introduction

I wrote this in 2013, with two losses on my mind at once. My grandfather—one of the “mountain people” in my life—was nearing the end (he died in February 2014 at 102), and the ache reached back to 1992 when my best friend Kirk was killed by a car while riding his bike to a work event. Those two poles—a full, long life and a young life cut short—framed how I was thinking about vulnerability, dignity, and how we respond to living things in trouble.

An early scene that formed me sits inside the song. As a kid, my grandpa gave me his father’s .410 shotgun. I was twelve or thirteen, flush with the “responsibility” and eager to try it. I shot a woodpecker, and when it fell, it wasn’t dead. I remember the panic in me—the tiny, frantic movements, the sense that time mattered. My dad didn’t shame me; he just said, we don’t hunt woodpeckers, and told me I should end its suffering. I did—with a rock—and it branded something in me: if you’re alive—bird, human, anything—there’s a kinship and a duty. That thread runs straight into this song’s first image: a bird with a broken wing, coyotes nearby, and a question about whether we’ll feel and act.

The title reaches for the others I’ve loved and looked up to—people as tall as mountains—who fell right where they stood (grandparents, mentors, friends). “Right where they stood” is not just geography; it’s relationship—the shared stories and ground we occupied together.

Where the song came from

The bird and coyotes are literal (and autobiographical); the lightning-struck pine is a sight anyone in the Black Hills recognizes—majestic, then suddenly red-brown, then bare. In the second half I widen the lens. 2013–2014 was a season of loud arguments about guns and identity. I’d go “up to the mountain” (our canyon trails) to clear my head and kept seeing the worship of Amendment 2 (signs, slogans, ritualized language). The “Smoke on the mountainside” refrain sketches a landscape where barbed-wire, fur and hide, and the crackle of guns are so omnipresent it’s hard to find a trail or creek without their residue. It’s not an anti-hunter screed; it’s about scale and saturation—what we train ourselves to love and what we lose when our default posture is armed.

The personal grief braided through it is for those “mountain people”—my grandparents, Kirk, and other tall lives—that fell “right where they stood,” and for those who’ve forgotten how to sing (closed off to feeling and connection). The song asks us to mourn, even when the dead have done terrible harm. I don’t want to live where we celebrate anyone’s death; I want to mourn the damage done—to others and to us—and try to become a community that recognizes vulnerability instead of exploiting it.

Live vs. studio

I put out two versions, and they do different jobs:

Live (2014, Live in the Black Hills). My “live” albums are live studio takes—no multitracking, no extra players—just me singing and accompanying myself in a single pass so I can learn what it takes to carry the song solo on stage. I recorded this one in our basement in town. Audience: two cats, christened by Laurel: Mr. Spock and Lt. Uhura. The take starts quiet, builds to a rough, urgent crest, then eases down—like a field note written in one breath. Rain on the metal roof and my dog punctuating from the cabin are part of the world the song lives in.

Studio (2013, Edge of the Known). I wrote it at the piano (no guitar), in a higher key that puts the vocal in a shakier, more exposed register—on purpose. I built a choir out of that vulnerable voice, added low strings (cello weight), and let a mandolin swell late in the song almost overtake the vocal. I worried it was too much, but the way the intensity nearly drowns the voice fit the theme: vulnerability at the edge of being overwhelmed. I layered ambient birds beneath—nature still singing, even as we strain to listen—and ended on a mostly unresolved chord so the feeling doesn’t quite land; it hovers.

What the song is saying

That aliveness binds us—wing, paw, and hand—and asks for responsiveness. It challenges our reflexes: closed fist / closed eyes lead to explosions and holes punched into living things; open eyes / open hands lead to feeling and care. The “people as tall as mountains” refrain is praise and lament at once: gratitude for what they were, and grief that the span we shared ended right there.

Why it stays with me

Because it keeps pulling me toward empathy—for the fragile bird, for the people I love, for the people I don’t, for the places where we’ve traded connection for conquest. It reminds me to keep singing—and to keep listening for those who’ve forgotten how.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx