We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Magnolia Road

from Umbrella Man by Scott Albert Johnson

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 4 Scott Albert Johnson releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Invisible, Going Somewhere, Umbrella Man, and Float. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $9.10 USD or more (35% OFF)

     

about

This song is a very dear one to me and is one of two on the album that could be described as. at least to some extent, autobiographical. I wrote it in early 2002, about a year before I moved home to Mississippi from Washington DC. At the time, I had just made a decision to re-focus my life and career around music. I grew up in Mississippi, a place where music seems to live in the air all around you. I really missed that, and I also wanted to be closer to my family (I had left for college and lived in various faraway locales for a long time).

All of these feelings poured out of me as I wrote the lyrics to this song in one afternoon (while pretending to work at a miserable “temp” job); t he music came a little later. Recorded over multiple sessions at Popaholic and Terminal Recording Studio.

lyrics

The sweet, sweet surrender of a dark and cold December
The smell of burning firewood in the air
My friends and my relations make a bright constellation
Of the memories I once created there

When I'd go walking down the Magnolia Road
To find the places that I used to go
And when the time comes 'round to take me one thousand miles away
There I go, but here my heart will stay

There's not much explanation for this old infatuation
I know there isn’t much that I can do
'Cause time marches onward, with dreams left undiscovered
And still this road leads me back to you

And I am walking down the Magnolia Road
To learn the things that I used to know
And though I know I’m chasing shadows through the alleys of my past
The road will take me to the things that last

Tell me that old story of the power and the glory
Tell me how to chase my fears away
Give me one good reason to make it through one more season
Until the time when I come back to stay

And we’ll go walking down the Magnolia Road
Hold me tight until I have to go
Until the time comes 'round to take me one thousand miles away
There I go, but here my heart will stay

credits

from Umbrella Man, released May 8, 2007
Harmonica, bass guitar, lead and harmony vocals: Scott Albert Johnson
Guitars: Skeet Myers
Drums: Michael Pollock
Piano: Donovan Thigpen
Congas: Rufus Mapp

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Scott Albert Johnson image

Scott Albert Johnson Jackson, Mississippi

Scott Albert Johnson was bathed in the wide range of the American songbook, as well as the sounds of his 1970’s and 80’s childhood. That diversity is at the core of his new album, Going Somewhere. Johnson incorporates rock, jazz, blues, funk, country, and world music, mixed with thoughtful lyrics, strong vocals, and virtuosic harmonica playing, to create a unique, modern concoction of sound. ... more

contact / help

Contact Scott Albert Johnson

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Scott Albert Johnson, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now