Chris and I wrote Dead Man’s Reach sitting together at the edge of an oak tree one afternoon a few years ago. The song is lyrically based on a piece of folklore from Southeast Alaska, where I grew up. Dead Man’s Reach is a point of land that sticks out into Peril Straits, a body of water to the north of Baranof Island which runs between Salisbury Sound and Chatham Strait. This is an important waterway because it connects the community of Sitka with the rest of the Inside Passage via mostly protected waters. Our song is about a fabled prohibition era about a rumrunner who escaped authorities by taking his smaller boat through some treacherous shallow water and then hanging his lantern on a beach tree while he sailed on in the dark. The story goes that the larger ship stayed put watching his lantern and waiting for morning light. When the sun rose the lantern was hanging in a tree, but the rumrunner was gone. Our song has a slightly different ending.
Lyrics
In a Boston ship yard with the moon in the sky
left a body clogging up a drainpipe on the curbside
now there’s a price that’s on my life I’ve got to pay
‘cause boy, the lord, he never looks the other way
I ran the rails and ended up on the wrong side
runnin rum and runnin from my daddy’s pride
but I’m headed north with not but a six shooter in my hands
said I will rebuild this body
So head on North to the dead man’s reach
see a rusty lantern hanging in a fir tree
and buried down there underneath the rocks and in the sand
there you’ll find your daddy’s body
This whole town is full of rock n roll singers
but I’m a noise monger and reluctant sinner
came to town a lonely solipsist
and ended up a self loathing anarchist
My welcome wore, so to the water I took
lit up my lantern as the fog fell
but I go followed so I holed up in the cove
but there’s just one bullet left, and it’s for me
So head on North to the dead man’s reach
see a rusty lantern hanging in a fir tree
and buried down there underneath the rocks and in the sand
there you’ll find your daddy’s body
Jesse – rhythm guitar and vocals
Melissa- vocals and piano
Chris – vocals and mandolin
Aaron – drums
Danny Jones – bass
-Jesse
