Cedars by Andrew McKnight
Posted on November 1, 2008
Filed Under Song of the Month |
During this harvest month seasoned with a spirit of giving thanks to God for family, friends and the goodness of creation, the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity are pleased to share the music of Andrew McKnight, a masterful acoustic musician and vocalist whose creative skills as a song/lyric writer are equally awe-inspiring. Since permanently leaving his corporate environmental engineering career in 1996, the award-winning folk and American singer/songwriter and Falling Mountain recording artist’s musical journey has traced nearly half a million miles of blue highways and small towns nationwide, and earned him a wealth of critical acclaim.
“Cedars” is a lament for every generation that reaches the age and awareness that you can truly never go “home” again, for you will find the place forever changed from your memories. Here in rapidly suburbanized northern Virginia, one doesn’t have to wander too far from my home amongst the ghosts of American history at the foot of the Blue Ridge to find seemingly endless patchworks of homogenized cul-de-sac enclosures neighborhoods of three quarter million dollar homes, whose occupants know little of their dependence on the land or the stories buried in their backyards. Here, the transition of land from a family farm to a city in the fields is usually marked by a few fallow years when the fast growing cedar trees begin their doomed attempt to regenerate forest.
“Cedars” comes from my latest CD, “Something Worth Standing For”, an album of songs both celebrating and acknowledging the childhood ideals of America that were taught to love, and our frustrations at how much we have let them erode. Choosing to transcend political viewpoints in favor of finding the common ground that politicians, corporations and the media seem to want us to forget that we share, it is an American album born of these times we are living in.
All five of my CDs are available at iTunes, at CDBaby.com and at our record label’s Falling Mountain Music.
Website: http://www.andrewmcknight.net
-Andrew McKnight
Cedars Lyrics:
Verse 1
The unmarked blacktop winds back in time,
remembered ways I’ve known and left behind
the signs have changed but the way is clear
it’s been so long since I’ve been here
Memories point past that sycamore tree
make a left where the Miller’s red barn used to be
the gravel gently gives beneath my wheel
and I remember how it feels
Chorus
A rusted tractor rests among the cedar trees
a pause between the past and what’s to be
ten thousand houses don’t leave any space
this was home, when this was a different place
Verse 2
These windows watched three generations grow old
silent statue stands to times long ago
when they say you can’t go home again,
I know what they mean
I still see those fields of green
Verse 3
Now open red clay wounds weep every time it rains
castles grow instead of acres of grain
I wonder if those kids will know where food comes from
and if someday they’ll ask where we have gone
“Cedars”
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“The unmarked blacktop winds back in time, remembered ways I’ve know and left behind
the signs have changed but the way is clear; It’s been so long since I’ve been here…”
Might as well call it “Remembering” or “Seeds Once Planted”, this song by Andrew McKnight captivated me with its gentle guitar picking, light and growing percussion and perfectly blended keyboard, which at times reminds me of the harmonica I heard as a child; the memory-jogging lyrics about long ago.
“Cedars” took me right back to my recent conversation with my aunt/godmother. I’d asked her if our family farmhouse was still around. She told me it was a quarter of a mile down the road from her home, turn left on Frontier Rd, the first house on the left. Returning there was too cool! And the digital photos I took, draw me right inside the windows of the bungalow where we moved on my first birthday. I learned to walk that day. And in the months following (we moved again when I was almost six) my spirit was nurtured by the beauty and wide-open spaces. I gained there a love for nature and quiet and solitude, for my family, for animals, for the FARM.
Yes, like the “rusted tractor” that McKnight was fortunate to see on his journey back home, each of us is invited to reflect, to go home in spirit or in person to see some signs of yesteryear. Fall is a good time for that. Hopefully, each of us will allow this song to take us back there. Because it was in the planting of those original seeds with family and home that we began to be who we are and are meant to be.
Listen, listen again and see where this song takes you. Thanks, McKnight!
Cedars…beauty, strength, longevity, choicest of pines, trees of life. A real genus of coniferous tree, ‘Cedars’ is more than a sentimental song that sees families as trees of life, and recognizes all the deep down connections that define home. I remember well the row of cedar trees in my own family’s backyard that serves as a windbreak, a snow fence, a measure of how much time has passed.
This nostalgic and haunting song reminds me of a recent drive past my family farm. For five years, when I have pasted it, I saw no one in the yard except an adult or two. Many yard ornaments were exactly as my father had placed them the last time he redid the yard. During this recent drive, though, there were children playing in the yard, a dog racing around the trees and goats in the barnyard. Though much of the yard ornaments remain the same, the place has changed owners since we sold it and now a new family is growing there.
Like Sr. Marsaia, that home gifted me with a love of nature; of quiet walks in hay and cornfields and “the farm” is a special section of my heart. I know we “can’t go home again” physically but we can always “go home” to our inner heart and cherish our roots!
Sister Anne Marie, thanks for reminding us to cherish our roots as we continue to replay ‘Cedars’ in our hearts. Today’s wonderful weather in Wisconsin is perfect for one of those memory walks. Silver Lake (in our Motherhouse backyard) is mirroring the wonder of color at this very hour, and calls for contemplation.
This is a beautiful song! It encompasses the changes that are happening in our world so quickly. Even in my twenty one years I have seen these changes occur. Sadly the thrid verse presents questions that we are all asking. Do we know where we’ve came from, will we remember it into the future?
I guess that means we need to start taking God’s plan into account and protecting his creation– including teaching and inspiring about it to create understanding. This song is a great starting point to teaching.
This was a very pretty song to listen to. The harmony was moving and peaceful.
Kat, you are insightful in identifying the need for wisdom as we face environmental issues that challenge our global society. Teaching is a noble profession. It is also a profession that God is using you to make a difference in the lives of others. Peace and all good.
Kristina, your point on the peacefulness of this song is well stated. Often it is in contemplative peace that we are moved to action. Thanks for all the times you lead others in song.
Hello, Sisters! I hope all is well. it is very windy in superior today. hopefully the wind won’t blow you away when you come next week.
Cedars reminded me so much of my hometown; it was refreshing.
Jenna, thanks for your comments. ‘Cedars’ does describe many of our hometowns.
St. Francis was very aware of his connection with God and with all of creation. Find here two links that connect you with the Tohono O’odham in hometown, Sells, AZ who are searching for environmental wisdom in our present day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBxUMi88-ho&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5WZNbEt0Xw&feature=related
I like this song of the month! Thoughts rising from hearing this song and from a recent conference I attended, take me back to places I grew up and missions I have been. There is the call to continue to grow, as well as to remember the places I’ve called home. When we are growing, things are changing and can never be the same. It really is important to teach “kids where food comes from.” My brother-in-law, who farms the land, raises concerns that someday, this source will be gone if “castles” continue to be built where the earth once grew wheat, barley and beans. A challenge for us today is to remove the rust that makes for stagnation and death. We still need to claim the “old” that roots us, yet, be willing to be given a fresh coat of paint. Jesus is here, giving us new perspective and great passion for life. Are we open to it?Let’s spread the joy!! May God, ever present and loving us in all seasons, bless us one and all!
Sister Pat, I like your challenge to all of us to reinforce resilience and sustain hope in our world–rather than rust out! The song ‘Cedars’ opens us to the possibility of using ‘the pause between the past and what is to be’ for personal contemplation, assessment and growth.
I know what this feels like! Being from the East Suburbs of Pittsburgh and growing up around farms and woods, I saw “progress” with increased housing developments and diminshed forests. I remember crying as a teenager with a beautiful and stately hemlock tree, which I used to climb, was cut down to make room for those who would be moving in. It’s a struggle for me, to recognize the need for human habitations and to feel the tug of a pained sadness as more woods, streams and vegetation and animal habitats are destroyed. Poor Sister Mother Earth!
Father Kim, thank you for your comments. I wonder how Francis would respond to what is happening to our environment today. Is Francis weeping? Am I/are we doing our part to prevent pollution from garbage, purchase and over-use of “disposables,”,filling up land-fills, cutting too many trees,building “castles,” when simple cottages would do? I recall how especially sad I felt when I spent some time in Tucson in June. There was so much garbage blowing around and stuck to cacti that I felt sick. Had it not been for temperatures averaging 106, I would gladly have spent some time every day collecting it to properly dispose of it. Who will help to clean up the earth?
Cedar trees are the trees of wisdom. Often when I see a new housing development go up on an old farm I think about the first farmer who broke the ground.I think about the work that was put into the ground to make the soil fertile and to grow crops. When a person starts something like that they have hopes and dreams for that place. It becomes more than a place for them because they have put their lives into the land. When I was 8 one of my aunts had to sell her cows and later her most of her farm. I remeber feeling that loseing your farm is a little bit like loseing part of your life. At the time it feels like your loseing all of it. My entire family has worked to save our family farm. My mom and all her brothers and sisters have thrown some money or efort into the farm that my Uncle John runs. It’s so much more than a business it is a home and it has intrinsic value. I hope that we can keep instilling this importance into the younger generations of my family. It is so ironic that the farmers the very people that this country could not live with out are one of the least appreciated groups of people. Mansions on three acre lots are a shameful waste of space.
Your tender comments came right from the heart, Leslie. Thanks. Your words reminded me of St. Francis’ marvellous sense of brotherhood with all of creation. Wrestling with much emotion, Francis created one grand hymn of perfect joy, the ‘Canticle of the Creatures’. This song is a profound canticle of the cedars!
Cedars reminded me of growing up on the farm. We had a row of cedar trees we used for climbing and making forts. Those trees are still there today. The gentleness of the song reminded me of the gentleness of farm life and family gatherings. Also how farm life brought us closer to God and His gentleness in our lives. The place I grew up still has fields around to remind me of going back in time.
Even if some of it has changed, I realize we have the goodness of those days within us and can still bring them forth to others and teach them or share with them what was and/or is still good about the life back then.
My brother made a comment today that the city area he lives in, also lives my Aunt and Uncle, their daughter and son-in-law and their daughter and son-in-law. He said it was neat to have three generations living in the same area, which reminded me of the song and the windows watched three generations grow old. Maybe in the city now they can do the same to keep the connectedness together and speak of the days gone past.
Hearing this song brought back so many memories of my life in rural Wisconsin. I find it sad to take the back roads today and see how much farmland, woods, and prairie is gone. However, it is a reminder that I am called to stewardship of this land as well as have the responsibility to tell the story and share memories of what has been with today’s generation. It is a time for me and all of us to claim our God-given legacy and strive to protect what is left for future generations. This is our mandate and opportunity as we move to alternative fuels…..will we preserve as we move ahead? I pray for the wisdom and courage for us as individuals and a nation to choose wisely.
I think it is an awesome song! Andrew McKnight has an amazing voice. The song is very powerful.
I believe this song is God telling us that time passes by,things change, people change, but we need to keep our faith strong continue to grow in God and believe in him. Trust is very important, because God will lead all we need to do is pick up our cross and follow him. He has laid out the path and we need to walk on it. You may not get a day back but you will have memories that God gave you to charish. Thank him for all of the things that he has blessed you with and dont take it for granted.
When I lisened to the song I heard the wind in the cedar trees and it reminded me that God made the world and that I live in it. It makes me want to praise God for it. I just want to run and escape to the past where every thing was new and quiet to thank God for what he done for us.
Gabrielle, Mariah, and Abby, your comments were thought-provoking and sincere. Peace is something that St. Paul says the whole of creation is waiting for. May the Lord bless you with peace.
Abby, Mariah, and Gabrielle, good reflections on the song. I think back to the times at the farm walking for the cows. It gave me time to think, listen to the wind and feel what was going on in my life. The song has alot in it.
God does speak to us in many ways. I just saw three deer run through our yard and I give thanks to God. It is a gift from Him.
We had a row of cedars before the river and their roots went deep to the life giving water. It is a treasure tree…one that preserves and freshens items in a closet or hope chest as well as sheltering the farm. I feel blessed to have spent some years living on a farm and I am as rooted in a value system as the sturdy cedars I passed each day. Farm life provided order, simple living, realization of a deep dependency on God, gratitude, beauty, silence, creativity, bonding of family, trust and working with our neighbors, joy in praying, eating, and playing together. I am grateful that I have found these same values in my religious community…perhaps it is because many of us have experienced rural life as a lay person or during our ministry. To breathe in the cedar is a delight. To breathe in and be strengthened by these virtues helps us touch God.The farm no longer stands but I am called to what the memories and experiences built.
This song related to what I am currently feeling in my life, that you can’t return home. That everything changes once you leave, especially yourself. It was a sad song but it put into words the emotions that any person that leaves home and returns feels. As a senior in high school I am changing, already I feel like a stranger at home. But once I leave next year, returning to my old life will be impossible. My life has already changed so much in the past four years and will continue to do so over the next fourty. “Cedars” is a song about change and that until you change and leave home, you will never know what the saying “you can never return home” means.
Most excellent song. It has a deep meaning, and it truly captures the image of how farms and forests are slowly disappearing and how urban areas are growing at immediate paces. Very touchy song wiht a lot of meaning in each phrase. Im dowloading this one. Its going in my ipod.
This is a nice peaceful song with meaningful lyrics.
this is a beautiful song that made me feel at peace while listening to it. it was as if i were flying through the clouds on my way to Heaven. This is a majestic song that was inspired by God. I LOVE IT!
This is a grat song because it tell us how our society has change. The way that they tell us how our society has change in the way that do not take care of the enviroment. We hear in the song how they are describing the beautiful things that happen in the forest but now as the society does not take care of the enviroment and eventually it would deteriorate.
I thought this was a great song and I think that many seniors can relate to this when they leave high school. This song talks about leaving, then coming back, and nothing is the same when you come back. This is how it feels to be a senior and probably will feel when you go off to college. Many of us will go off to different places and then come back and nothing will feel the same. It will all be very different and it’ll feel like we haven’t been here before.
this was a very touching song, it somewhat makes sense thats all
This song to me is like saying good bye to what you know. In every persons life a time comes when they need to move on to something new in life and leave the old behind. It can be a sad thought but can lead to greater and happier things.
This was a good song to listen to and had a good message to share.
Andrew McKnight sings the truth about modern society and way of life. The traditional home is soon leaving and making way for homes with less land and different values. McKnight asks a valid question: “will those kids… know where we have gone?” This is a many sided and multi-dimensional question that cries out to be addressed. If our traditional values and way of life are no more, then will our nation stay unified? Will we continue to be a model for other nations to mimic and follow in our footsteps? Many people wonder if our nation will stay united and strong under a new generation with different core values, but this is a question that only time can answer.
i love the melody its so relaxing and peaceful. it kinda reminds me of a graduation song for some reason. kinda like a celebration. how we think of our memories. i love the part when its says “its been so long since ive been here, memories point the past that syccamore tree.’ i love how i can listen to this song and relax and think of the memories.
Wind in the trees…you have moved so many to reflect upon beauty, nature, thankfulness for every good gift. Cedars, you protect the earth and us, shading us from the heat, keeping the winter storm from burying us in snow. The wind today is just a whisper, storing and sharing secrets, calling us more deeply into silence within the soul. Spirit of God, breathe in us, blow gently through us to be comfort for others.
I was so impressed with the reflections from so many of the Seniors at Yuma Catholic! You all give the Church and the world much HOPE through your thoughtful comments! I do remember some of you by name, when you were freshman…
Taylor, Victor, Joseph…you all have a depth of faith that has grown through the years.
I’m glad that you like the song so much that it will be on your ipod Victor.
Joseph, you are so insightful in your questions regarding what life for the people of the U.S. in the future.
Taylor, as you write, life continues to change with each new experience.
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts! Feel free to check out the image, “This Journey” also! Blessings of peace to each of you!
‘Cedars’ is worthy of contemplation, but also are your many comments.
Fernando, I hope you do have some time to relax amidst the fast-paced senior year.
Jonathon, you are right. This song is good.
Courtney, you keep us focused on what is to come (HOPE).
Alyosha, your comments MAKE sense.
Edgar, society is each one of us. Thanks for reminding us of the need for change.
Gabriel, you are well named if a song leads you to flying among the clouds!!
Eduardo,may peace be yours.
Lisa, I’m guessing you are changing and growing in responsibilty and goodness this special year. God is with you.
First off this was a very nice song and had a great melody.
Secondly this song made be think about the house I lived in all my life. I have lived in the same house that my father grew up in, and the house was orginally built in the 1930’s, so it has seen many years. I know that it has been remodeled and updated since my father lived in it, and he often tells me about how things have changed since he was a kid. This thought has often brought about a feeling of how my home will change once I leave for college. What will happen to my room or will it still feel the same when I come home for christmas break? These are changes and feelings we all face as we grow older, and this song has brought these things to life.
Taylor, the questions you ask now will keep you grounded each step of the way as you move closer to college and beyond. Thanks for posting your comments here. You made Andrew’s song even more meaningful.
this guy talked about what his home and around his home looked like when he was growing up. Then he comes back and more homes were built. It was a very nice song to listen to.
Thanks, Heidi. You are right. The message of this song is quite simple, and yet profound.
I really liked this song. I think it is a beautiful and very meaningful. I felt that I was really able to relate to it because I am a senior in high school and will be moving away for college next year. I know that here will always be home, but it will never be the same home after I leave and that is what “Cedars” is about to me. “Cedars” is a simple song that speaks so much and I really like it.
You are insightful Stephanie! Life is all about growth and change and letting go and embracing…it sounds like you are at the place you are meant to be in your life right now! I’m glad you appreciate the song and added to our blog!
I love this song! I think it is telling us to just live life to the fullest and love everything thrown our way. It makes us think back, and remember all the good (and bad) times of our lives.
God Bless!!!
Regina, your encourage us to really live! May we pass this spirit of living/loving to others.
Song=good music, peaceful, relaxing, song had a message, soothing sound, related to real life, good beat
My thoughts reflect on my spiritual life. This song reminds me of my relationship with God. It brings to mind my home and how God shows his relationship with us through nature.
I like the music to the song. Its very nice & its nice you can download it for free.
I enjoyed listening to this song. It was very inspirational.
I really like this song. It makes me think about the good things in my life.
The song is very good. It sounds like a country song. It tells about the old days and the way they used to be.
It is very relaxing and peaceful. Great song for singing to God.
Thanks, Mike, John, Megan, Kate, Lauren and Steph for your comments. All of you were very affirming of the message of ‘Cedars’.
Your reflections and Andrew McKnight’s music reminded me of the young woman who “silenced the world at the United Nations”. This address offers an environmental context for listening to ‘Cedars’ one more time.Click below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19EsGwZVNe4
Sr. Ann Marie- you were very right about this song. I do love it and it does remind me a lot about home and what things are going to be like for me. I feel like I’m excited and scared at the same time to know that I’m going to be graduated in 3ish weeks and will be heading back to California. I know that even though it hasn’t been that long that I have been away certain things will be different.
Holly,
Congratulations on your upcoming graduation!
You will certainly go back to CA a different person than you left… and that will be a gift to those to whom you will return.
I encourage you to watch for gifts that will emerge within you that will be a blessing to others. God is full of those kinds of “happenings.”
I hope you will continue to keep in touch with all of us on the blog. Sounds like you have a beautiful reflective spirit.
Starting in 2000, cities across the U.S. launched Earth Charter Community Summits. The city of Manitowoc has done its part to become a sustainable community-healthy and whole. This sounds like a Franciscanized World where green cedars and all of creation are held sacred.
http://sustainablemanitowoc.blogspot.com/2008/08/going-green-sustainable-communities-and.html
I love the way that this song refers to how the world is changing. How we are becomming more modernized and not appreciate nature anymore. This song makes me want to see the world in a new glorious light.
well i like this song because it is saying that even though people tell you to do some things that are of the world, this song is telling you cherish where you came from and be the great christian that you are.
This is a great song that talks about changes in life. I am currently going through various irreversible changes that I have to live with and from which I will learn a lot. Great song, with meaningful lyrics.
Austin, may you see our world this Thanksgiving in a new and glorious light!
Continue to cherish where you came from, Roderick!
As you face your own irreversible changes, know you are supported by many others throughout the world, Eduardo.
Thanks for all the motivational musings! I’ll see Sister Jan on Saturday and will personally thank her for introducing you to the Franciscanized World page. We hope to hear from you again.