cold in the kitchen you looked for the key to your dirty and dark attic door a dusty piece of my history you did hold my great granddad's banjo and asked me to please play a song for me and my sister Mary I won't keep you long just one before you go

cold in the room where they took you to live your last day before the day you passed I came to say hello and goodbye we did sing don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me until I do come on marching home memory filled your eyes and nearly killed my soul

I'm going to make a bad mistake and turn away cause it don't help to pray

cold under the sun preacher spoke all in rhyme about the holy and divine I did not hear him cause he can't tell me the truth there's only ashes left of you that I did place in the ground where you'll lie next to your husband waiting many years for you to come on marching home I said Theoda goodbye as I knelt down in sorrow now I don't feel so sad I just feel all alone

About the artist...

I was born and raised in Michigan, a stone’s throw away from the train tracks, a sprawling wood, a cemetery and a modest farm that grew sweet corn and peaches. Summer afternoons would find me frequenting these places; sleeping in the cemetery trees, plundering the farmer’s crops, traversing the train tracks and hiding out in the woods. It was in these places that I began to make up stories, sing songs and cultivate a world in which I was the sole inhabitant. Life made sense in this world. When there was trouble or suffering, when the grasp of anxiety grew tight, the further I’d go into this world and the more expansive it became.

In my work, provincial and pastoral imagery still bleeds through from time to time and while I don’t consider what I do to be all that naturalistic, I recognize this as the entry point into creativity and expression for me. It was less a means to pass the time and more a means of survival and sanity. This world has grown a bit and a cityscape can now be seen beyond the boundaries of a small town. It’s a world that I inhabit, still.

Ty Maxon’s new record, Rooms Within Rooms will be released later this year.