This is a beautiful song that contrasts an idyllic New England scene on a beautiful autumn morning with the news programs that were playing on Cheryl's car radio. Much of the scenery would fit well in When Fall Comes to New England. The question that keeps getting asked is how can there be such hate and sorrow in a world as beautiful as we have?
The line that Cheryl seemed to like the best had the phrase "birds chat on the phone lines." That is such an appropriate concept: the birds hang around on the phone lines chatting with each other.
It is a very quiet song; one that she sings pretty low. She told me that it might not last very long because she had to sing it so low that most of the audience couldn't hear her.
I am hoping that at least it will show up on an album. I thought the song was fantastic, and encouraged her to keep singing it. I am hoping that enough people keep asking for it that it can stay alive for a while.
- Little Road
- Words And Music By
- Cheryl Wheeler
- How can there be trouble in this world?
- With the color in these hills, the blue October sky,
- this little road that winds along the river.
- Dusty barns and tractors in the fields
- And families sit in front yards, or stand outside the churches
- Kids are throwing footballs and pulling carts of pumpkins
- And the morning sun is sparkling on the water
- How can there be such trouble in this world?
- Where the mountains roll so gently,
- Deer graze on the hillsides, birds chat on the phone lines
- The whole wide world's a prayer for Sunday morning
- The geese inspect the stubble in the fields
- And all along the roadside, families stop to wonder
- At the new October morning
- And a red tailed hawk is circling
- And a father hugs his daughter
- And an old man holds the car door for his wife to come and see
- Then they turn and smile at me.
- How can there be such trouble in this world?
- I know of course I know that this is not the only picture
- I don't of course I don't know what to do.
- But the road keeps winding through the afternoon
- And it doesn't know the sorrow or an inkling of the shadow
- of the rage across the water, the hatred and the horror.
- It just wanders through this valley with the river by its side
- As the light fades from the sky
- The beautiful light fades from the sky
- (P) November 30, 2002
- Penrod And Higgins Music / Amachrist Music
- ACF Music Group
- International Copyright Reserved