Uploaded October 2009 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
timeriksenmusic.com
I wrote this when I was teaching a songwriting class at Amherst College in 2007 as an illustration of the possibility of making a song about just about anything. I asked if anyone had done anything interesting recently and someone said "I picked tomatoes yesterday" so I said I'd be back with a song about that next class. This is what I came up with, although since writing it I've worked on it a lot, and finally feel like it's about ready.
I wrote it late on a cold night out in Wildwood Cemetery behind our old house in Amherst. The first rhythmic figure on the bajo sexto comes from the cicadas, which you can hear a bit in the shot after the song.
I filmed close to an hour of tomatoes at Sunset Farm with my old camera, but it finally stopped working altogether today so you'll have to imagine them (or go get some to hold while listening). The blight pretty much decimated the crop around here this year.
The Fall
Rows and rows of vines in your garden,
and in all the sweetness of the cherry reds,
and in all the flesh of the golden plums,
clean and staked and gleaming in the sounding sun,
and in all this last of summer's sweetness,
the first chill cold bite of the fall.
timeriksenmusic.com
I wrote this when I was teaching a songwriting class at Amherst College in 2007 as an illustration of the possibility of making a song about just about anything. I asked if anyone had done anything interesting recently and someone said "I picked tomatoes yesterday" so I said I'd be back with a song about that next class. This is what I came up with, although since writing it I've worked on it a lot, and finally feel like it's about ready.
I wrote it late on a cold night out in Wildwood Cemetery behind our old house in Amherst. The first rhythmic figure on the bajo sexto comes from the cicadas, which you can hear a bit in the shot after the song.
I filmed close to an hour of tomatoes at Sunset Farm with my old camera, but it finally stopped working altogether today so you'll have to imagine them (or go get some to hold while listening). The blight pretty much decimated the crop around here this year.
The Fall
Rows and rows of vines in your garden,
and in all the sweetness of the cherry reds,
and in all the flesh of the golden plums,
clean and staked and gleaming in the sounding sun,
and in all this last of summer's sweetness,
the first chill cold bite of the fall.
