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TREK: Stories Behind the Songs
(How and why they were written)
By Jason Deere
Fare Thee Well Joshua
Lots of people have e-mailed and/or come up to me at shows asking what in the world this whole “Joshua” business is doing in the middle of a song about the Saints leaving Nauvoo. Let me answer. I admire men of action…those who are doers and not just talkers. Joshua, as in the Battle of Jericho Joshua, was such a man. With the blessing of Moses, and with the ferocity of a warrior, he led the literal recapture of every square inch of the Holy Land. It cost blood, and it cost lives; but perfect faith in the God of Israel led the children of God to their rightful home. Brigham Young was our modern-day Joshua. With an iron fist and Joshua’s same ferocity, he demanded perfection of his people in keeping the commandments of the Lord; and in becoming The Lion of the Lord, he led his people to their mountain home.
I imagine Brigham mounting his horse and riding out of his barn, looking across the street into Webb’s blacksmith shop alive with hundreds of people tending their wagons and teams, all facing westward lined up and down Parley Street toward the river. I am positive that the very sight caused Brigham to nearly collapse as he came to a realization of the immense responsibility that was on his shoulders to successfully lead this people to a land unseen by his own eyes. I want to believe that he heard the calm whisper of Joseph in his ear saying, “Fare thee well, my Joshua. Take my people home!”
Lyrics
God Is Good
I truly love this song. I had a desire to include melodies and elements on this album that reflect a rural gospel flavor. I grew up in what the Utah Mormons call the “mission field” (by the way, erase that term from your vocabulary! Anyone who was raised anywhere but Utah hates that term and secretly wants black the eye of any Mormon who lets it escape their lips). At any rate, I heard those beautiful old songs in the churches of my friends and relatives, and I still love the way many of them make me feel.
I had an interesting reality while making this album. I had read many pioneer journals in my research, and I had spent much time specifically and intentionally seeking out those journals that were written day to day as the authors moved along the trail. Journals that were written years after the Trek were less interesting to me and also less reliable, in my opinion, than those passages written the day that the events actually occurred. I wanted to know what the pioneers felt about their journey. I didn’t care about what a modern textbook had to say or any modern-day author’s opinion about what the pioneers experienced. I wanted to hear it from the mouths of those who were sweating, aching, freezing and bleeding exactly as it all happened to them. Those journals changed me. But I learned an amazing thing, in reading what seemed like hundreds of pioneer journals over several months, not one single solitary soul who crossed the plains with the Mormon pioneers was from the state of Utah. They were my people! Many were from my neck of the woods, baptized by Wilford Woodruff or any one of the many missionaries in the southern states. They were Irish or English or Scandinavian and from all sorts of wonderful places, but not one from Utah. Interesting fact.
I was amazed that almost every person’s journal who left Nauvoo in the spring of 1847, wrote about the torrential rains that made mud up to your knees the mode of travel from Sugar Creek to Garden Grove. One woman said that she hadn’t been dry in weeks. That was how I thought the song should start, and the rest just sort of flowed out.
Lyrics
One Who Understands
Many of the journals that addressed losing loved ones along the trail deeply affected me, but none more than the journal of Mary Ann Westin Maughan. She wrote:
“June 19, 1850: This morning we had a powerful rain; comenced at breakfast time and continued till nearly noon. Started in the afternoon. On the way passed the grave of Bro. Warren, who died of cholera. This is the first grave we have seen. Traveled 8 miles. Camped on a small stream.
June 21st: We were called to bury 2 more of our company who died of cholera this morning, a man named Brown and a child. There are many more sick in camp…soon some of our company came up with another dead child. They buried it at twilight on the bank of the creek…Weather very hot.
June 22nd: This morning before starting we were called to bury 3 more children. They all belonged to one family. We started late and before all had crossed the creek it commenced to rain very hard…
June 23rd: We buried 3 more this evening. Traveled 8 miles.
June 25th: The mother of the three spoken of yesterday died this afternoon. She will be buried this evening. We are camped on a creek which we call Pleasant Point.
June 29th: At noon the last wagon came up with a corpse, a sister [Ann Deacon] Beal. I had heard that she had been sick for some time. They buried her on the bank of the creek called Clear Water…
June 30th: We were called up to bury another of our company, Sister Crandall. She died in childbed. This makes seven dead out of a family of 15.
July 1st: We passed 4 graves.
July 6th: We passed 9 graves today, mostly children…
July 10th: Traveled 16 miles, passed 11 graves…
July 12th: About noon as we were traveling along on a good plain road, my little Peter, about 3 years old, was sitting in the front of the wagon between his brother Charles and his sister Mary Ann. They were looking at a cow that had lost one horn. He leaned forward, lost his balance, and fell before the wheels. The first passed over him and he tried to escape the other one. But alas the wagon stoped just as the hind wheel stood on his dear little back. The brethren from behind ran up and lifted the wheel and took him from under it. He was bruised internally so that it was impossible for him to live long. We done all that was possible for him, but no earthly power could save him. He did not suffer much pain, only twice for a very little time. The people left their wagons and gathered around mine, and all wept for the dear little boy that we knew must soon leave us. I had talked to him many times to be careful and not fall out of the wagon, or he might be hurt very bad. He only spoke twice. I said to him, “Pete, did you fall?” and he said, “Yes, mama.”…he opened his eyes and looked so lovingly at us, then gently closed them and passed peacefully away, and left us weeping around his dear little body. Then loving hands tenderly dressed him in a suit of his own white linen clothes. He looked so lovely. I emptied a dry goods box and Bro. Wood made him a nice coffin to lay him in. We buried him on a little hill on the north side of the road. The grave was consecrated and then they laid him to rest. Someone had made a nice headboard, with his name printed on, also his age and date of death. This was all we could do, and many prayers were offered to our heavenly Father, that he might rest in peace and not be disturbed by the wolves. A few days later, we heard that his grave had not been touched, but another little one made beside it, and afterwards some more were buried by them. This was a great satisfaction to us, to know that he remained as we left him. Our dear one’s name was Peter Weston Maughan, born in New Diggings, Wisconsin Territory, May 20th, 1847.”
July 13th: Started early this morning…passed 12 graves…”
Need I say more?
Lyrics
Somewhere There’s A Mountain
Deseret Book wanted us to follow up the Joseph album with its sequel, the Trek album, to be released for the 150-year anniversary of the pioneer Trek which was to be celebrated in July of 2007. However, they failed to relay this information to us until Dan and I stopped in their offices on April 3rd of that year. They told us they needed the album turned in by May 1, that was less than two months away. Only one song, Coming Home, had been written, not to mention all of the recording, mixing, mastering, etc. for an entire album. I told them that it was impossible with our schedules to accomplish such a task. Upon leaving their offices, however, Dan and I felt that we needed to do it. I called them back and said that we would do our best and I cleared my schedule for the next two months, which was not easy. However, for my personal testimony, it proved to be the right thing to do. I knew that in order to make this happen, I had to write nine more songs, record the instruments, fly around the country and record various artists singing the songs, get back to Nashville and mix and master everything in less than two months. Not only would things have to go exactly like clock work, but we knew we needed a small miracle as well.
I returned to Nashville on a Friday. I knew in order to make the schedule I had to write all of the songs in three days. Ridiculously impossible, I thought. Dan was at his house writing My People which turned out to be what I think is a masterpiece. I walked down into my unfinished basement on Monday morning, sat down in my chair with guitar in hand and said out loud, “Heavenly Father, please help me.” I then did something that I have never done before and may never do again. I wrote seven songs in three days. Fare Thee Well Joshua, God Is Good, One Who Understands, Somewhere There’s A Mountain, Crack Of A Whip, Wide Enough and Sleep were all written by Wednesday night. It all happened so fast I wasn’t sure if they were any good or not, and I was too tired to really care. I just knew that I had cried more tears alone in my basement for three days than I could count in a lifetime.
Somewhere There’s A Mountain was my way of representing the thousands of children who walked the great Trek with attitudes much different from their parents. It was to be the greatest adventure of their lives. They were soon faced with very hard realities that may have dampened their spirits here and there, but for the most part they trotted all the way to Salt Lake with playful hearts and hopeful minds. My two daughters, Josie (11) and Maddy (7), had never sung in a studio before, and only a couple of times in sacrament meeting, but I asked them if they wanted to sing this song for the album. They learned it in a day or two, walked into the studio and sang it and I left it just they way they did it. I love it!
Lyrics
Crack Of A Whip
As I read through various journals, I wrote down on a sheet of notebook paper each landmark, creek or river crossing recorded by the various authors. I began to notice that they all called so many of the creeks and rivers, hills and passes by the same names yet in some instances they each called some of the same landmarks by different names. Each company had its own leaders, individual personalities and varying ways to deal with everyday life along the trail; yet all were basically organized in the same way, as instructed before leaving Nauvoo. Fascinated by the landmarks, I wanted a song that listed as many of them as possible. I feel sure that for years after the Trek, many pioneers reflected upon and talked about that one enormous oak tree outside of Mount Pisgah, or the wild strawberry patch just past Garden Grove, etc. These people earned each memorable mile along that trail, and I wanted some fun tribute to their journey. It was fun to write.
Lyrics
Sword Of Reckoning
Porter became such a well-known character among the Saints in the early days from Palmyra all the way to Nauvoo. By the time the Trek was over, he had neared legendary status with not only the Saints but with most of the nation as well. While I love Modern-day Sampson on the Joseph album, I didn’t think that Porter should be ignored on the Trek album either. With this song I once again wanted to tap into that rootsy, almost Appalachian, raw country music as it may have been sung by a southern Saint around the fire on the trail. My dear friend Carl Jackson, a true legend as a musician, songwriter and producer in the bluegrass world, willingly came in and sang it like no one else could. Thank you Carl!
Lyrics
I Must Have Loved You Before
This is the first song appearing on either the Joseph or Trek albums that was not written specifically for one of the albums. I wrote it about six years ago with legendary songwriter John Bettis, truly one of my mentors (search his name on www.allmusic.com and prepare to be awestruck). I pulled the song out of my past catalog first because I have always loved the song. Next, I realized that I had not really considered all those who fell in love along the trail until I read the many journals. Many were married out under the big sky among friends and family on America’s plains. I supposed that a love song on any album wouldn’t be a bad idea, and this one somehow seemed appropriate.
Lyrics
Wide Enough
This song was one of the seven basement songs. During those three days down there I was humbled and truly heartbroken over the difficulties that a very good friend of mine was suffering through during the spring of 2007. Life is often hard, let’s face it. The situation my friend was experiencing made me acutely aware, for a time, of the suffering of so many in the world. My heart was heavy as I wrote the lyrics and melody. I couldn’t help but think of the Saints on the trails who felt inadequate or felt to be outsiders in their own religion. Imagine being a Scandinavian family who barely spoke one word of English and had just reached Winter Quarters and joined a company as the “new family”. And, of course, since they didn’t speak English and since they had only been members for nine months, and not eight or nine whole years like so many other of the original “Kirtland Saints” in the company, they were left feeling “less than”. Then there were the sinners, and there were surely those carrying the heavy burdens of sin along the trail. All of these things make me “stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers” us all. He truly knows every moment of our lives. He lived each minute with us on His knees in the Garden. He is the only one that truly knows how we feel. His words can lead us along the paths of righteousness far from the trenches of sin. But, should we fall, His infinite atonement can save us. His love can heal us, and “How great is His joy in the soul that repenteth”!
Lyrics
Sleep
I have never cried more while writing a song. I can’t exactly pinpoint the reasons, other than to say, this project has always been about names. When one person reads names in history, sometimes they are just that, names on a page. But when one learns a few details about a certain individual’s experiences, then suddenly that person begins to come alive…they become a living, breathing human being.
With Sleep, another one of the basement songs, my intent was to write about the healing power of the priesthood on the Trek. I had read so many stories about people and oxen healed, etc., that I thought it might be a good subject to cover. However, each time that I started to write, I couldn’t write that thought precisely and what you hear while listening to Sleep is what kept trying to come out. I was caught up in the thought of all of the sweet souls who lay in their sickbeds during their last hours of life; some under a crude tent as rain poured through the canvas, some under too few blankets beneath the cold clear stars, some in a smoky freezing cabin at Winter Quarters, and some lying in the back of a moving wagon feeling every stick and pebble beneath the wheels. The hustle and bustle of those around them, the clank of Dutch ovens, the moo of a cow, the bark of a dog, children laughing, children crying, people’s whispers so as not to disturb the sick, must have been experienced by them all. Some drew their last breath at the end of that last hour of life, and some were miraculously healed and walked on the next day; but many lay there for a period of time contemplating the sacrifices they were making and their dedication to a religion that was currently asking for their all. I love these people. I cannot express to you the compassion I had for them as I wrote this song in my basement that day. I have a sure knowledge that our Savior was right there with them, welcoming some triumphantly home and whispering encouragement to those were called to live another day.
I was happy to find out that this song brought out emotion in others as well, confirming that I am not the only softie in the world. Dan and I asked our friend Ron Saltmarsh to do the string arrangements on a few of the songs for the album, including Sleep. Ron is a very busy man, but he seemed to really take his time on this particular song. I must say, the string arrangement is nothing short of fabulous. His wife pulled me aside at a show some time after the album came out and she said, “Jason, you should know that the song Sleep really affected Ron. I haven’t seen him like that before. He stayed in our basement for days, reworking and reworking, sometimes so emotional he had to stop working to compose himself.” I said, “Are you serious?” She said, “Yes.” Maybe it has something to do with musicians and basements, both kind of scary things. Seriously, I believe it has much less to do with this particular song and much more to do with those precious souls and their tender stories, who the song is about. That brings up another point.
As I read journals, I also wrote down every name that appeared in them. This felt wonderful to do. These names became a large group of people that I very much want to meet some day. I wanted to use those names in some way. So, I decided to have different people read those names and use them at the end of the song. All of the names on Sleep are Saints who actually died at various locations along the Trek. I set up a little mobile studio at the stake center near my home one Wednesday evening. My friend Brett Raymond pushed the record button while, one by one, different people from our stake stood in line outside the door to read a name. Many of them brought the names of their own relatives who were Trekers. A miraculous number of them looked at my list and said, “Oh, that’s my relative’s name right there!”, and they read it into the microphone. Two stories that still amaze me happened in Alpine, Utah, at Soularium Studios. There were four women in the studio playing the string parts that Ron had arranged. During a break I told the women that I desperately needed a woman’s voice to read one of the narrations on the album and asked if one of them would kindly do it. They “drew straws” to see who the unlucky one was and finally one of the ladies stepped into the vocal booth. I thanked her and I put the quote in front of her and she became emotional as she read the quote and said, “Oh my goodness! Mary Goble Peay is my great-great grandmother!” Crazy!
The next day, I asked my brother Monte, who lives in Alpine, if he knew any men who had English accents (I had female voices with English accents, but not a man’s). He said, “I think so, let me make some calls.” In a few hours an Englishman walked into the studio and I put three names that I had prepared for him to read in his wonderful English accent. He pointed to one of them and said, “That’s Edwin Little. That’s my great-great grandfather!” I hadn’t even know Edwin Little was English. Of all of the many names I could have placed in front of him.?. Such was the experience making this album. I could go on and on.
One thing that I do love about the song is how you don’t ever really know if the girl in the song lives or dies in the end. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. Thank you Mindy, for singing it so beautifully!
Lyrics
Wolves
The pioneer journals are filled with experiences they had with the Native Americans along the trail and as they settled the valley. The pioneers had amazingly few skirmishes with them considering that thousands of Trekers (near 70,000 in 1847 alone) walked through the natives backyards over a period of years. The journal authors were mystified, and sometimes horrified, as groups of braves in full war paint would ride through their camps. Some came to trade, some to converse, and some just to stare at them and ride on without a word. Many of the natives were very friendly to the Saints and helped them in various ways. I wanted these magnificent people represented on the album.
Wolves, which seemed to appear everywhere, were consistently discussed in many of the journals. I was surprised that so many Trekers told of vast numbers of wolves between Sugar Creek, which was fairly near Nauvoo, and Mount Pisgah. There are no wild wolves anywhere near this area of the country today. Some companies left Nauvoo with as many as 300 sheep. All of the sheep were and many of the cattle were gone, mostly to the wolves, by the time they reached Winter Quarters. A large number of the journals I read discussed how the Saints were surprised to see the BIG wolves when they reached the Platte. Apparently, once they reached the Platte River the wolves seemed to double in size. They looked enormous trotting out across the plains at a distance, unfortunately too often waiting on a fresh grave to be left by the companies. Wolves and Indians appearing on the horizon seemed to be what made the hearts of the Saints beat a little faster.
I wrote Wolves with all of that in mind. The process of recording the song proved interesting. I called the Native American Council of Tennessee asking them if they knew a Native American singer (chanter). They did know of one guy, but he couldn’t really be found this time of year.?. I made several other calls around the country trying to find any person who did this well. A similar story every time. “Yes, I know a man, but he is traveling somewhere now and may check his voice messages next month.” I was running out of time. Remember I had to write, produce (including flying around the country to record singers), mix and master in less than two months…Ahhhhh! Finally I got the number of a guy who was supposed to be out of South Dakota. In a couple of days I was headed to Alpine, Utah to record Mindy Gledhill and David Osmond and thought that maybe I could hit South Dakota on the way. I called the number, and Julius Chavez answered. I immediately heard his Native American accent and thought to myself, “Finally, I have a chanter on the phone with me!” He was very nice, but very inquisitive, asking lots of questions with some apparent reservation…I assumed not wanting to represent his talents for anything that would not honor his craft. Once I told him about the album and sang him the song over the phone, he agreed to do it. I asked him, “Now where do I fly to record you?” He said, “Well, right now I am staying for a while in a place called Alpine, Utah.” I was silent for a time. “Ok then, I’ll see you in two days.” Julius came in, with his long black hair and wonderful accent, history and heritage flowing through his veins, and sang a Native chant his ancestors had taught him that had been sung for generations among his people. He told me that his people also called this chant Wolves and that he thought it was funny that the meter of the chant fit right with the song Wolves that I had written. Again, crazy.
Thank you, Julius, for your time and talents on this album and for continuing to honor your heritage in such marvelous ways.
Lyrics
Coming Home
Dan, Matt Lopez, Brad Hull and I all flew into Forth Worth, Texas, for one of Sheri Dew’s Time Out For Women conferences (I think it was in the fall of 2006). We got in on a Friday evening, and we were to be the music for the next day’s conference. We had not done one of these conferences before and didn’t quite know what we were doing. Angela, the producer of the show, asked us if we could do one opening song that was not from our show the next morning to open the conference. I said, “Sure.” Angela walked off, and I turned to Dan and whispered, “We don’t know another song.” Dan just shrugged his shoulders. We decided we’d wing something or another.
That night Matt and Brad came to my hotel room, and we were up late talking about how crazy the success of Joseph had become and how we couldn’t believe that so many people wanted to bring us to their home towns for us to share the message of The Restoration. Matt and Brad knew that a few months earlier at a Logan Tabernacle show I had whispered to them after the show, “We might need to take the Saints on to the Salt Lake Valley in another project”. In the hotel room, we started playing a little and singing a little, as quietly as we could (it was very late), and the next thing we knew we had Coming Home on it’s way to being written. By about 2:00 AM we were done. We played it as the opening song the next morning, and the women seemed to love it. We love it. It is a celebration of the Trek, of that moment when the canyon opened up to the blue sky, and the Saint’s heart’s burst with joy for finally “coming home”! All of the names at the end, by the way, were names of pioneers who actually made it to the valley. And, like the Sleep names, almost all of them were read by people who were actually blood relatives of the persons whose names they were reading.
Lyrics
My People / Come, Come Ye Saints
Come, Come Ye Saints, written by William Clayton while he was on the Trek, is one of the most inspiring songs in the LDS hymnal. Dan mentioned to me on an airplane once that he thought we should include that song somehow on the Trek project. He went to work on an instrumental over the next couple of weeks, and then he played it for me. He had incorporated his own arrangement of Clayton’s song in the middle of the song he had composed…brilliant. After some discussion about what to name Dan’s new song, we decided to call it My People since all of these people, from Joseph Smith to the last pioneer who entered the Salt Lake Valley on foot, had become our people though the process of making these albums. And that alone is the greatest blessing Dan and I could ever have received. We know who we are through these people, we know what we have because of these people, and we know what we need to do because of these people. They are our people! |
