If I Die on the Tram Hill Road

There are places and times that can burn an experience into your brain for a lifetime. The Tram Hill Road was one of those heart-pounding exercises in pain that did just that.

I discovered the Tram Hill Road when we first began wintering in Palm Springs. The Tram Hill Road is a long, winding, torturous roadway that rises up over two thousand feet from the valley floor to the base of the tram way station which, in turn, takes its gondolas to the top of San Jacinto Mountain. It’s almost three miles of hot asphalt twisting and turning in the early morning heat. Perfect for a storyline and even better as song material.

References to that ribbon of heat figure prominently in my’ Debris’ Trilogy series of books about Palm Springs. ‘Drive’, book number two dramatizes the importance of the road to my protagonist. Last winter, while compiling song ideas for my concept album ‘Made in Minnesota’ I came across a poem I had written a long time ago about the Tram Hill Road.

In retrospect, it’s an interesting example of a poem written in one lifetime finally finding a home in another. I realize now that ‘Tram Hill Road’ could easily be a metaphor for the many different periods of my life growing up and the challenges faced there-in. Putting those experiences into song form is another extension of those feelings.

Turns out that ‘Tram Hill Road’ is a continuation of my attempt at song-writing that began many years ago. The ‘Broken Down Palace’ book of poems was a more established approach that cemented lyrics (poems, snippets’ visual scenes and song lyrics) into a book form.

I’ve been writing lyrics for a long time but my experiences up until this point hadn’t been very successful. Over the years, I’ve enlisted the support of different musicians in creating a music for various writing ventures of mine. Unfortunately, the outcome wasn’t very satisfying. I had envisioned working with the musician to write the music, melody and lyrics and then cooperate in the creation of different musical layers to fill in the bones of the song.

Fortunately, this pattern of one-sided venture-taking came to a halt with my introduction to a very talented singer/songwriter who ‘got it’ in terms of cooperation. 

The definition of collaboration is simple enough. ‘Collaboration is the action of working with someone to produce or create something.’ Sounds simple enough and therein lies the gaping black hole of potential failure. Give and take must be part of that equation if any partnership or collaboration is going to work.

True collaboration is really about finding someone who shares your vision for a project. Then working together to create that project to your mutual satisfaction.  In my case, it turned out to be with a very talented singer/songwriter by the name of AJ Scheiber. AJ does both solo work and plays in a band by the name of Wilkinson James. I would describe his work as akin to John Prine and Tom Paxton.

After a couple of meetings and AJ reading the script for PTV, it became apparent that he shared my vision for the play and the prominence of the songs therein. He introduced me to many different styles of music such as Texas Swing, Delta Blues, Chicago Blues, folk, Americana, Bluegrass, gospel, Appalachian, and a host of other similar styles of songwriting.

AJ wrote out lead sheets for each particular song. Lead sheets are tools used by songwriters to convey the basic structure of a song to musical directors and arrangers. The fun part (in my mind) begins in the studio when each song is layered with additional tracks of musical instruments. In my mind, the arrangement is everything.

Since I have a vested interest in the mood each song must convey to my audience, I see layering as critical to each song’s success in conveying that mood. In PTV, each song was written as another emotional cue to help the audience better understand my characters and their actions. It was imperative that each song emit that emotional reaction from the audience.

All of which leads to my poem-turned-song lyrics finding a home someplace. ‘Tram Hill Road’ might land in a new concept album I am exploring now. It might end up in another play centered on an aging folk singer and his quest for reaching audiences with his music. I’d love to see it circulated among musicians looking for new material. It might also languish for lack of interest.

No matter the outcome, it’s a story-poem-song that’s still in my bag of hopeful emotion-laced stories seeking a home and another morsel of truth I hope to share with the world someday.

If I die on the Tram Hill Road

If I die on the Tram Hill Road

Carry me home to lighten my load

Of haunting times and glory days

Of time run out and wasted ways

 

If I die on the Tram Hill Road

Strip me bare of rights gone wrong

And wrap them up in this song

Find a way to the truth

Of a world gone wrong in my youth

 

If I die on the Tram Hill Road

Bury me there beneath the fold

Of sunbaked rocks and things not told

Of gravel lies and pedal soft flowers

Dying in the sun hour-by-hour

 

If I die on the Tram Hill Road

Collect my thoughts and bury them there

Amid the relics of times long and fair

And memories haunted with the spell 

Of my sweet one’s truth never to tell

 

Copyright 2024

Denis J. LaComb