Dustin Welch, Super Rooster Music (SESAC)
I been walking these streets all night long
Like I ain’t never gonna see the morning dawn
I might go talking to myself about something strange
But there’s just somethings I cannot change
When the pilot light went out in the boiler room
The woman I loved left me way too soon
Now I knew it wasn’t ever gonna be the same
Cause there’s just somethings I cannot change
Chorus
The rising sun makes the shadows fall
What’s done is done once and for all
If you’re looking for trouble it won’t be hard
Well, I’ll be waiting down at the wrecking yard
Yea, you got your mind mind up under lock and chain
And there’s just somethings I cannot change
I might go outta my mind and get outta hand
I might lose control and lose command
But won’t somebody please try to explain
Why there’s just somethings that I cannot change
Chorus
The setting sun makes the shadows fall
What’s done is done once and for all
I been walking these streets all night long
Like I ain’t never gonna see the morning dawn
I might go talking to myself about something strange
And there’s just somethings I cannot change
Dustin Welch: lead vocals, banjo; Jeremy Nail: electric guitar, background vocals; Scotty Bucklin: keyboards; Trisha Keefer: violin; Steve Bernal: bass; Eldridge Goins: drums, percussion, background vocals
This song was basically a study in futility. Before I officially moved to Austin, I came to stay for a month to scope out the scene. My band, the Swindlers with Justin Townes Earle had just split up, my girlfriend at the time had left me to go find paleo-Indian civilizations in the Great Smokey Mountains, and I was well on my way to losing my mind. I lived in an old Airstream trailer in the backyard of my sister’s then-time boyfriend and my future guitar player, Kyle Ellison. Kyle is an honest-to-goodness Rock God, who worked with the Butthole Surfers, the Meat Puppets and at the time shared a studio with Paul Barker from Ministry. A fairly large leap from the old-timey string band I had just left. Kyle asked me to record some instrumentals to pitch for an HBO project they were working on which eventually became the basis for the songs ‘Poor House’ and the instrumental section of ‘Green Badge’ off the Whisky Priest album.
I wrote this song as a way of letting go, liberating me from my need to control everything, and accept my present situation in life, no matter how deranged I might be. It also was the first glimpse I had at achieving the sound I’d always wanted to develop. It would be another three years before I would move to Austin, and by then I’d been around the world with the punk rock band and knew what I needed to do in order to fulfill the sound I been dreaming of.