I Dug It Up is here. The
weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were a full-on sprint of recording, mixing,
hating my voice, tweaking, liking my voice a little better, adding in
harmonies, mastering, wondering why I ever thought of this, etc.
But it’s here.
First off: MAJOR thanks to
all who helped make this record a real thing you can play and make music go in
your ears: Al Hill, Dave Francis, Paul Griffith, Troy Engle, Mary Bragg, Pru
Clearwater, the Saloneers, Kira Small, the East Nashville Song Salon, Marv
Treutel and especially Jeff Thorneycroft
for his wonderful, evocative, perfect graphic design and photography.
It is now available at my website:
and at cdbaby:
And here, as promised, is a
play-by-play of each song on the record, its lyrics, and how it came to be.
Maybe a couple of pictures of finds.
1. I DUG IT UP
 |
| I love me any kind of equine shoe. |
This title had been rattling around for a while. Then
I went to the Five Spot with Al one night to hear Tim Carroll and I was leaning
up against the bar drinking a Yazoo Dos Perros, when I started kind of chanting
“I dug it up… I dug it up… for my bay-bee” to the beat the drummer was playing.
Sometimes I just need a new groove to get me going. Came home and wrote the
song pretty quickly. I choose to believe it is the only song in the world that
has the lyric “Mule shoe, you’re so sweet.”
Deep in the woods, deep in
the woods
It was ringing real good
10 inches down, 10 inches
down
With a solid sound
Mule shoe, Mule shoe
You so sweet, I’m going to
take you home with me
I dug it up I dug it up for
my baby
But he doesn’t want it, no
he says Go, wash your hands
Look what I found underground
for my baby
But he doesn’t want it, no
Just because I dug it up.
Out in a field, out in a
field
with my ears peeled
All alone All alone
Got a good tone
Silver dollar you’re so sweet
I’m gonna take you home with
me…
I dug it up…
Under the sand, under the
sand… Found a gold band
Diamond ring, Just the thing for
my baby’s hand
Gold ring, gold ring
I say to myself…. I’m gonna
save you for someone else
I dug it up, I dug it up
For my baby… But he ain’t
gonna get it, no
I’m gonna go wash my hands
Look what I found,
underground
For my baby
He don’t deserve it no
It’s my love… I dug it up.
2. THIS WAS A BATTLEFIELD (Al
Hill and Mary Bragg on harmonies)
 |
| Not part of a sprinkler system. At all. |
One day, Cheryl and I were detecting a lawn in a
beautiful neighborhood just south of town. The elderly homeowners had given us
permission to come any time, but I’d never met them. This was prime Battle of
Nashville land and we’d both found some bullets and buttons. I got a good
signal and dug something that I thought might be part of a sprinkler system.
Not that I know anything about lawn irrigation. Turns out it's a rare
Confederate Brooks ratchet plate sabot. I’m so continually struck by the
contrast: how that beautiful lawn was the scene of unimaginable bloodshed, not
that long ago.
A ranch house, on a hilltop
The lawn is manicured
It’s a lovely neighborhood
Inside, an old man and woman
sit
They keep their windows
closed
To keep the air cool.
150-something years ago
this was a battlefield, this
was a battlefield
Beneath the grass and the
magnolias
lies the blood of soldiers
bullets shells and sabers
Peeking
out of a patch of dirt
There
lies a copper disc
Weighs
about a pound
It
was part of artillery
And
when the lawn guy sees it
He
just mows around
150-something
years ago
This
was a battlefield, this was a battlefield
Black
men and white men fought together
Old
men and young men
Fathers,
sons and brothers
They
shot each other
I
wonder if the ground remembers… remembers
The
middle of that cold December… Does it remember?
3. ROBINS
(Pru Clearwater sings harmony)
 |
| The robins were happy when I found Cincinnati. |
I was detecting a patch of grass near a
bank parking lot. Just two years earlier, there had been a sweet, old house
here, and a huge maple tree. Now, just one small strip of un-bulldozed land
remained. It hadn’t rained for weeks and I noticed that as I moved from dig
hole to dig hole, two robins hopped after me, hunting in the dark earth I’d
uncovered.
This song was about half done when I
went a meeting of the Middle Tennessee Metal Detecting Club. Bill, one of the
regulars, took me aside and said, “I woke up in the middle of the night
thinking the words ‘Out here, I feel like a kid again!’ and I thought, ‘I have
to tell Whit Hill.’”
He did, and I put it in the song. I pay
attention to stuff like that.
Granny had a garden way out back
Twice a week she’d hoe that patch
And I would watch her with wide eyes
As robins followed her around
This
one’s okra, she’d tell me
Summer squash, ain’t it pretty?
And she’d turn that earth and the worms would rise
And robins followed her around.
And she’d say oh, out here I feel like a kid again
My hands in the dirt, just a little old girl,
in love with the world
And Oh, lookee there, here comes that bird again!
And the robins followed her around
Now I’m someone’s grandma too.
Moving slower than I used to do
But I’m out there digging just like she did
And the robins follow me around
Here’s
a nickel with a buffalo
Shotgun shell from long ago
and the worms they wriggle, sayin no no no
And robins follow me around
And Oh, out here I feel like a kid again
But my hands in the dirt look just like hers.
I feel her near.
And oh lookee there, here comes that bird again
And the robins follow me around… robins follow me.
4. HOW’D THIS GET HERE?
 |
| Early 1800s India-Bengal presidential "pice" found near my house. WHAT? |
Not much to explain. Anyone who metal
detects has muttered this a thousand times.
I have never lost a belt
buckle in my life
I have never lost a harmonica
I have never left a Mason jar
in the yard
I’m perplexed at these
phenomena.
And so I cry, How’d this get
here?
How’d this get here?
Tell me: How’d this get here?
On a lovely bluff high above
the Cumberland
Digging normal stuff one
might expect
Out pops something I have
never seen before
A coin from India, dated
1810.
And so I cry, How’d this get
here?
It’s got Persian writing
Persian words!
How’d this get here?
Oh the quizzical expressions
As I hold these lost
possessions
This metallurgical obsession
Leads me to the endless
question:
How’d this get here?
Let’s examine the belt buckle
mystery
Buckles plain and fancy lost
long ago
And I’m not talking ‘bout the
buckles of the brave men who fell in battle
Just the buckles of the
ordinary Joes
How’d how’d they get here?
How’d they get here?
did belts fall off?
did belts fall off?
Did pants fall down? How’d
they get here?
I have never lost a belt
buckle in my life…
5. CAN SLAW (featuring the
Saloneers and Kira Small)
On occasional Monday nights, I host the East Nashville
Song Salon – a song critique session attended by some of Nashville’s most
talented and interesting people. One night, songs over, we were all chatting in
the kitchen. I turned to Al and whispered, “Hey. Could we get them all singing
on Can Slaw? Yes, yes we could.
The Saloneers consist of Al Hill, Mary Bragg, Becky
Warren, Ben de la Cour, Laura Curtis, Andrew Lipow and Kira Small (who returned
at a later date to add more swelling opera.) Thanks, guys!
Evil little morsels
Lurking… waiting in the dirt
for me.
Long ago you
Were a can of Mountain Dew
Tossed into a field in
Tennessee.
A tractor, or a mower
Found you… twisted you and
tore you all apart
And now you lie
Scattered far and wide
Each piece of you a vicious
work of art.
Can slaw, can slaw
Shiny as a Spanish real in
the sun
I’d cut you with a chain saw
but that would just make maw
and maw and maw
God damn Can slaw
Deceitful and mean-spirited
Laughing, laughing as I
scrabble ‘neath this root
I reach for you
And you slice my thumb in two
I hope recycling tortures
you, you brute
Can slaw, can slaw
I hope whoever threw you out
here trips and falls
I’d cut you with a chain saw
But the homeowner would
probably call the law
God damn Can slaw
Yes, your demonic claw
Shall never cause this dirt
girl to withdraw
God damn can slaw.
6. TRIUNE (Whit Hill/Betty
Soo)
 |
| Carved bullet, found by Butch Holcombe. |
The tiny community of Triune, TN was where Cheryl and
I found our first CW bullets. Since then, I’ve found many more, but never a
carved one. When Austin songwriter Betty Soo was visiting Nashville, she came
over to write with me. I brought out some finds and we decided to write about a
carved bullet. I remember thinking “I’ve
never heard of a bullet with a rose on it but I guess it could happen.”
Just recently, my friend Butch Holcombe (publisher of
American Digger Magazine) posted a photo of a bullet he’d found years before –
with a detailed and magnificent rose carved into the side.
We recorded this song late at night as rain fell
outside.
They poured hot lead into the
mold.
And born a bullet was I.
Three rings and a point, grew
hard in the cold
Of a Triune, Tennessee night.
It was late November. The
worst was to come.
I lay with the others of my
kind
They longed to be fired,
thirsted for blood
But I prayed on that Triune
night
Don’t make me fly out on that
field
To kill and then to fall
If I were made for this, I
wish
I’d not been made at all.
A hand reached deep into the
bag
Where my brothers and I did
rest
He pulled me out, this gentle
lad
Saying yes, this one is the
best
Into my side he carved a rose
In the other his sweetheart’s
name
And I heard his prayers fall softly
down
I whispered up the same
CH
And when bugle sounded
He placed his rifle by a tree
Into the battle he ran
holding me in his hand
Then he fell til he was free
Then he let go of me.
And the soldier on the other
side
The one I would have hit…
He died when he was 83
with his family ‘round his
bed
And me, I lie in this soft
earth
For you one day to find
My simple rose, and the dear,
sweet name
Of the one he left behind.
On that Triune, Triune,
Triune night.
7. DIG THAT DIME, DADDY!
(Mary Bragg and Al Hill sing backup)
 |
| British cartridge box plate, circa 1770. |
Oh, how I love this song! I put the word out on
American Digger’s Relic Roundup (an internet radio show) that I was looking for
song ideas, digging stories, etc., and Tonya Lancaster, a lovely young woman
from South Carolina, sent me this story about a hunt with her dad, John Mize.
Daddy called me Snake from
the day I was born
I wriggled my way into his
heart
As I grew, he taught me how
To fish the Charleston dirt
Pennies and pull tabs, high
school rings
Minie balls and shotgun shells
Side by side, shovels in our
hands
We cleaned that earth so
well…
Dig that dime, Daddy
Oh, I remember that sunny
afternoon
by the river’s edge
12 inches down in the ground
I found
a green, patinaed badge.
With a “G” and an “R” -- the
initials of a king
But daddy called it junk
Held up a silver mercury and
danced around
Little girl, you done got
skunked!
Dig that dime, daddy…
Now everybody knows, ain’t
nothing like silver
It’s every digger’s delight
Cool and brilliant, shining
bright
like the moon in a midnight
sky
But my British badge brought
me ten thousand dollars
His dime was worth just one.
Now every time we hunt, I
sing this song
And my daddy sings along…
8. HE LIKES TO STAND ON
BRIDGES
 |
| Doug Drake, our mentor. |
This one’s for Doug Drake. Here’s how it happened:
After all the songs for this record were chosen and
recorded, I was talking to Doug’s wife, Brenda.
Me: “Hey, Brenda, do you remember one day we were all
driving around in the country looking for places to dig and Doug pulled up
alongside that little bridge? We all stood there, looking down into the water…
Where was that? Do you remember where it was?”
Brenda: “Oh, Whit. it could have been anywhere. That
man just liked to stand on bridges.”
I went home, wrote this and added it to the record. (That’s me on piano. First time ever on a
recording.)
He likes to stand on bridges
Over streams and little
rivers
And look down upon the fishes
in their blue
If he sees one while he’s
driving,
he’ll pull over every time
Make his wife come stand
beside him
And look down too.
And if you ask, he’ll laugh
and say
He don’t know why he likes to
stand on bridges.
He was born in 1940
He grew up in Hickman County
Served his country, worked
construction, then retired
Now every Sunday after
breakfast
He rides around, just aimless
To the Harpeth or the Duck or
the Piney
Does the smell of iron and
ions make him feel alive?
Is that why he stands on
bridges?
And if the water’s low,
you’ll find him in the creek bed
Looking for old sinkers,
wedding rings, and arrowheads
But if it’s rushing, a wild
and rising flood
He will be there up above
Leaning out over the edge
Taking a deep breath
He likes to stand on bridges
Over streams and little
rivers
And look down as the
bluegills dart and swim
And he wonders if they’re
looking up at him
9. THE OLD DIGGER
 |
| Doug with a rare Confederate button. |
This one’s also for Doug Drake. There was just
something fascinating about the guy.
The old digger is gone
To that home site, beyond
where the weather is fine
And your shovel melts into
the ground
So easy
You don’t knock on no doors
Cause all the land’s yours
Rolling green hills
Dotted with foundation stones
And trees
And the bottles you find
Are rare and unbroken and
shine in the sun
The coins and the tokens are
gold
And each tiny toy car is your
favorite one.
The old digger is gone
To that camp site beyond
Where the cannons and swords
Locks and harmonica reeds
Lie scattered
And the south and the north
Don’t mean nothing no more
The battles and wars
Have faded away into all
That matters
When you pull out a buckle
The soldier who lost it
appears at your side
And you can shake hands with
that man
‘cause you’re both in this
new life
The old digger is gone
His burden laid down
Now he stands tall and strong
As his shovel melts into the
ground.
10. YOU’RE A SAINT
 |
| Yup. |
This one’s for Al. Because he’s so nice and patient
about my hobby and pretends to be interested in the stuff I find and he’s the
nicest guy I know and he’s introverted like me and he did so much to make this
record happen.
Every time I bring home
another rusty axe head
Your eyes glaze over
Then your love takes over
And you say, “Oh baby, look
what you found!”
Every time I tell you another
scary story ‘bout
Snakes and rabid Rovers
And mad homeowners
You say, “I’m happy you are
safe and sound”
You’re a saint.
Oh yeah, oh yeah
You’re a saint
You’re a saint
Saint Baby, Saint Darlin’
You’re a saint.
It appears your favorite bathroom is now
devoted to
Rust removal
There’s been no disapproval
Just the occasional eyeball
roll
And every pretty Saturday I
should devote to
Fun with you… it’s déjà vu
As your wife turns into a
fanatical mole.
CH
Home is where the heart is
baby
Ain’t no place for complaint
You ain’t the type to fuss
and fight
If you did I’d fall down in a
faint but you don’t
You’re a saint!
11. DON’T DIG TODAY (Hill/Hill,
featuring Al Hill)
 |
| Al, trying to get me to not dig. |
I wrote these lyrics a long time ago and gave them to
Al and he turned them into this luscious blues.
Don’t dig today. Don’t be
pulling up the past
I got all you need right
here. And life flies by so fast.
Don’t dig today. Ain’t no
treasures in that ground
I got a heart that shines
like gold. So just lay your shovel down.
Don’t dig today. Don't hold
history in your hand.
It’ll all be there tomorrow.
Today, just be here with your man.
Don’t dig today. Just wait a
minute more for me
I’m coming with you, baby,
into the fields of Tennessee.
12. ALUMINUM… FOILED AGAIN
(Whit Hill/Butch Holcombe; Mary Bragg’s on harmonies)
 |
| Anita and Butch Holcombe |
When I put the word out that I was looking for song
ideas, Butch Holcombe, the publisher of American Digger Magazine, popped these
lyrics out and sent them to me. Done deal. We had a chance to play this song
together (with Butch on mandolin) at the December meeting of the MTMDC.
For the record, I hate foil.
Scratchy sound
Jumping ‘round
Digital readings up and down
Got me confused
and concerned
If I don’t dig it I might get burned
Whoa… Let’s see what’s down below
Aluminum…foiled again!
Chewing gum wrapper
Or a thin gold chain
Nothing ventured, nothing gained
I’ll dig it up
Can't walk away
So I cut a plug, what the hey
whoa… let’s see what’s down below…
Aluminum… foiled again.
Hope one day
I'll strike it big
And I dig something I should dig
But till then, again and again
I'll curse Alcoa and the Wriggly twins
Whoa…. Let’s see what’s down below!
13. GHOSTS
 |
| The eeriest site I ever dug. |
There’s a feeling you
get, especially when you’re alone at a site, of communing with the past. It
feels a little sacred, to tell the truth.
I know.
But isn’t interesting
that the words “sacred” and “scared” are so close?
Sometimes in those
sacred moments, I feel a little scared. Like I’m being watched.
I wrote this song before
I ever thought about making a metal detecting record. My friend, Korby Lenker,
came to Song Salon and challenged us to write a song using just 25 different
words. It was right around Halloween so this is what came out. I’ve since
written several other 25-word songs. It’s a difficult, thrilling and
instructive exercise.
Ghosts are here today
Harmless, harmless ghosts are close
Praying on white shroud knees
I believe, I believe, I believe.
Ghosts pray quietly
Powerless, powerless prayers
To those banished to history
I believe, I believe, I believe…
They say, Ah love…
Ghosts on white shroud knees
Fingers tangled here, today
Quietly close to me
I believe, I believe, I believe
I believe they believe in me.
