For a little while around 1989, my good friend Jon's dad loaned me his sweet old Gibson mandolin. I had never played one and wanted to figure it out, and this song is what happened pretty early in my getting to know it, in March 1989. The context of the lyrics was the winding down of E.B.A. the band, and winding up of E.B.A. my family --Eric, Barbara, and Andy. Barbara grew up in Cayuga, Mississippi, and I'd grown up in Ithaca, NY, on Cayuga Lake. I felt like I could "see the soulful golden years ahead" with them, and I had no idea just how good they'd be.

I think it was recorded sometime in the spring of 1990 in the Oxley Polo Arena. I worked for Cornell Athletics at the time, in the Outdoor Education department, and we had a little student-run outfitting center at Oxley. Since I was living in a small space, I thought it would be fun to set up my TEAC 4-track reel-to-reel tape deck over there one night and record this song. I can't find any recording notes about this, but I think there are two mandolin tracks, two guitar tracks, and two vocal tracks. I might have recorded vocals along with either guitar or mandolin, but I don't remember. I did like how the different parts layered and danced.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

Mississippi

I hear your song in falling water
I feel the wind telling me drift 
downstream I'll set you free
I hear you calling me from beyond
I hear your song

floating down the Mississippi
I can hear you calling calling
playing mandolin meanderings
I can see the soulful golden years ahead

the river flows through me to you...

along the banks the trees are falling 
the cypress hung with spanish moss
and changing scenery I see stars
surfacing in fading blue
I hear your song

midnight on the Mississippi
I can see you in the moonlight
playing mandolin meanderings
I can see the soulful golden years ahead

@1989 by Andy Wyatt
written 3 March 89