FerrillGibbs

The Happy Ones
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs

 
There is a house on a hill we’ve been living in
Under the shade of a tree of significance
These are the times of our lives and we cling to them
Just like the sun to our skin and the moon to her eyes as I look in them
 
There is a girl through the glass cooking up a storm
There is a dog down at her knees looking up at her
And I know that this will be one of those memories
That will one day break me in two
 
You can haul me through space and time
And you can draw onto my face all of these lines
As for us, here on this hill, we will be happy ones
As for us, here on this hill, we will be happy ones
 
You will be with me – all of my lovely ones
Forever here with me
The best ones that I’ve ever known
And I’ll know you forever –
For this time and this place
They are the lines drawn on the face of my love
My love
 
Yeah you can haul me through space and time
And you can claw onto my face all of these lines
As for us, here on this hill, we will be happy ones
As for us, here on this hill, we will be happy ones
As for us, here on this hill, we will be happy ones
 
 
 
 
Roses
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
It’s no use, you’re not coming
I can see it in your eyes as you’re shimmying
Up to the trees you’re remembering
As you slowly slip away from me into them
 
What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?
Why fear tomorrow when you can fear tomorrow when it comes?
 
Don’t hurt for me, I’m not coming
I’ve got a forest of my own to keep busy in
And when the leaves start to falling
I’ll know the sunlight shining through is you peeking in
 
What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?
Why fear tomorrow when you can shine right now like the setting sun?
 
I don’t wanna be wrong here
I know the shadows are long here
I know you worry about it
You open up your mouth, you try to shout
 
Well you pray for rain and it comes up thunder and
You stand your ground in it and get caught under and
My only hope is, you come up roses
My only hope is you come up roses
 
It’s no use – you’re not coming
I see an ocean in your eyes that you’re swimming in
But when this sea starts to falling
It will reveal the tiny fishbowl you’re swimming in
 
I don’t wanna be wrong here
I know the shadows are long here
I know you worry about it
You open up your mouth, you try to shout
 
Well you pray for rain and it comes up thunder and
You stand your ground in it and get caught under and
My only hope is, you come up roses
My only hope is you come up roses
 
 
 
Blitzkrieg
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
I’ve come to tell you I will be nothing of the boy I was
Tomorrow I will be reborn
Blue skies, how are you, smiling down upon a game outside of College Park?
Five o’clock, and almost dark?
 
Out in this world, everything green,
And I will be up for anything
Air on my skin leaving me clean
How it feels like electricity…
Taste on my tongue, swallow it down
Then feel it bouncing inside of me
 
The sky glows, the wind blows, and I go running
 
Blitzkrieg is coming down
From the sky, everything
Blitzkrieg, it’s a dragon’s mouth
Open wide, consuming me
Blitzkrieg is coming down
From the sky
 
Pity me, I’m shivering and waiting in the shadows over just beyond it all
Watching the demons march along the wall
Rescue me and we will see tomorrow
Take me by the hand and run me off to another world
With all the like-minded boys and girls
 
Out in this world, everything green,
And I will be up for anything
Air on my skin leaving me clean
How it feels like electricity…
Taste on my tongue, swallow it down
Then feel it bouncing inside of me
 
The sky glows and the wind blows and I go running
 
Blitzkrieg is coming down
From the sky, everything
Blitzkrieg, it’s a dragon’s mouth
Open wide, consuming me
Blitzkrieg is coming down
From the sky, everything’s a
Blitzkrieg, it’s a dragon’s mouth
Now open wide
 
 
Wind In My Soul
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
We were made for this, we were raised in the dream
That we hail over pain in our memory
Take that pain to the plow, plant that seed in the ground
And your world will be green
As this world will allow
 
Hey baby, isn’t it wonderful
that the breath from your lips
Is the wind in my soul?
 
When the rains come down and they raise in the streets
And the world all around is a raging sea
Well that thundering sound that you hear will be me
Crying out to the clouds, ‘If we sink, we will breathe!’
 
Hey baby, there may be water to bail, but the breath from your lips
is the wind in my sail.
 
Build it up, tear it down
Stand on the ashes and cry silently -
These are the ways of the human being.
 
That take you up, and toss you down
And bounce you around like a washing machine
Leaving you spinning if they do not leave you clean…
 
When there is nothing more to hold onto
When there is nothing more to hold onto
When there is nothing more to hold onto
I have you, I have you, I have you
 
When the dust settles down, when the skies turn to blue
And there’s no one around ‘cept for me and you
We will walk into town on the streets made of gold
Being some kind of sight
That some sight could behold…
 
Hey baby, isn’t it wonderful, that the breath from your lips is the wind in my soul
 
 
 
Samaritan
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
Cuts and bruises on his skin
But only one would call him ‘friend’
Who paid his way into the inn
Who was the Samaritan?
 
A solemn march through hill and bend
A roadside wracked with broken limbs
To keep the pace or break the trend?
Who was the Samaritan?
Who was the Samaritan?
 
Who would feel sympathy for the first man on the roadside
Who he turned the bend to see?
And who would give unto the
least of these?
 
Evil, lowly, shifty and
Doing all an outsider can
Now for love he’ll take his stand
None but the Samaritan
Oh who was the Samaritan
 
Who would feel sympathy for the first man on the roadside
Who he turned the bend to see?
And who would give unto the
least of these?
 
Cuts and bruises on his skin
But left for dead by the passing men
Who would dare to take his hand?
None but the Samaritan
None but the Samaritan
None but the Samaritan
Oh who was the Samaritan?
 
 
 
 
You and Your Misery
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
We’re riding out into the darkness all quiet and thinking
It’s all of me and half of you and that bottle you’re drinking
Don’t you know that sometimes I look up at the sky
Through the glow of the lights that are collecting flies
and at night when I toss and I turn and I cry
I wonder why?
 
Now look at me I’m alone in a room full of two
It’s half of me and a stumbling resemblance of you
Don’t you know that sometimes I look up at the sky
Through the glow of the lights that are collecting flies
And at night when I toss and I turn and I cry
I wonder why I abide your
 
Misery?
Misery
Your misery…
Your misery…
 
Give me everything – don’t leave a mess for me to clean
You take me to the lake then leave a lonely memory for me
To keep and to beat and to leap
 
Until I run you always get the best of me
Until I run you always get the best of me
Until I run you always get the best of me
You and your misery…
 
Well now I’m out into the open all running in circles
It’s all of me and none of you but the line that I run for
Here I go as I finally look up at the sky
Through the glow of the lights and the tears in my eyes
But tonight when I toss and I turn and I cry
I’ll close my eyes…
 
Give me anything – don’t leave a mess for me to clean
You take me to the lake and then leave a lonely memory for me
To keep and to leap and to beat
 
Until I run you always get the best of me
Until I run you always get the best of me
Until I run you always get the best of me
You and your misery


 
Intoxicating Races
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
If you have no dog in the fight
well then who does all that howling in the night?
And not to muddy your oasis but then
whose horses are winning all the races?
That’s your Philly, that’s your Mare, that’s your people in the grandstand
your broken widows and grizzly bears
smoking cigarettes and pulling out their hair
 
I guess I’m looking for a better thing than to sweep up all the losing tickets -
Every one a crumpled dream like dirty balls of snow
 
Well I can’t get fast enough away
From these intoxicating races
I can’t run fast enough away
From all the promises they make
I can’t run fast enough away
And you can write this on my grave
“Here lies the rest of me. You got the best of me.”
 
And this is the man in me
And this is the man in me
This is the man in me
Coming Out
 
I can’t run fast enough away
From these intoxicating races
I can’t run fast enough away
From all the promises, promises, promises
I can’t run fast enough away
And you can write this on my grave
“Here lies the rest of me. You got the best of me.”
 
 
 
So Goes You
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
Raise your hand if you’ve been to the top of the world
Standing there with your eyes wide
And your heart revolting
 
I’ve been there.

In my soul I felt one with it all
I was a gear in a great machine
All rough on the edges but interlocking
 
We are one
one wonderful machine
But we need each other
And we will go farther than we’ve ever known
If we’re sisters and brothers…
 
So goes you
goes me too
All our lives
are intertwined
So goes you
goes me too
All your crimes
are mine
 
 
 
A Ghost Who's Familiar
music by Ferrill Gibbs, lyrics by Ferrill and Elizabeth Gibbs
 
There was a day I was covered in green grass
Ran through the fields when my skin was much tighter on me
It was cowboys and Indians and all make believe
They put a road through where the dog used to wrestle with me
 
What can I tell you? If you ever go home
When you do those old ghosts will come haunt
your old bones
In the morning you'll wake up 
And be sad they're gone
Better ghost who's familiar
than demon who's not
better ghost who's familiar
than demon who's not
 
There was a day that I ran through the fields I was
Covered in love and my burdens were lighter on me
Safe in bed with my family around
Slept like the dead 'cause no worries were worrying me
There were days that I ran through the fields
A grin on my face and not a red cent to my name
And always, always, went to bed
with a big yellow smile on my face
 
What can I tell you? If you ever go home
When you do those old ghosts will come haunt
Your old bones
In the morning you'll wake up 
And be sad they're gone
Better ghost who's familiar
than demon who's not
better ghost who's familiar
than demon who's not
 
But I wouldn’t go back home with nobody else
Cause she’s willing to go home with the ghost of myself
I will do what you tell me and I’ll drink this swill
It’s just a shame I can’t get drunk when I own the still


 
Turn The Cheek Love
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
Mother came to the school when they were hitting him
And said, “Don’t just stand there!”
Mother came up to the school when they were failing him
And said, “Study up...it’s a war out there!”
 
She said, “The world don’t care if you’re nice to it –
Nice won’t cut it, son.”
 
Mother gave him away to the bosom of the Savior
And he was cold for it
She said, “Oh, how I have prayed until the sun
came through the windows thinking of you and oh!
How I have prayed, how I have prayed...”
 
She said, “The Lord don’t care if you’re nice to Him
The Lord wants your effort, son.
And I fear for your effort son!”
 
Sometimes you may hear them speak
About turning the other cheek
But how could a mother teach
such a thing?
When the cheek belongs to something she loves
more than herself?
But she turned hers for him
 
And so he came
into this world
Into this storm
Into the arms
of Love
 
Into Turn-The-Cheek Love
 
Mother waves from the door as he’s driving away
And he’s overwhelmed by it
He thinks Oh, this world unsafe and so unafraid!
So quick to swallow you and hollow you and
you’ve seen the worst of it!
 
And if this world don’t care that you’re nice to it
You just don’t need it mom -
But I’m sure you’d still feed it, mom.
 
Sometimes you may hear them speak
About turning the other cheek
But how could a mother teach
Such a thing?
 
 
 
Faithless me
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
Some things are hard, some things are harder
Much as you try it still may not matter
So many people are drowning in water
That’s not very high
It’s practically puddles, but
 
One came along and walked upon the water
But as much as I try, I’m always swimming under
 
Oh faithless me, I could drown in the rain
Lose my breath in a saucer
Find death in a glass of champagne
 
Some days are tough, others disaster
When just treading water can be hard to master
So many people are drowning in water
That’s up to their thigh
They’re practically puddles, but
 
One came along and walked upon the water
But as much as I try, I’m always swimming under
 
Faithless me, I could drown in the rain
Lose my breath in a saucer
Find death in a glass of champagne
Faithless me, I could drown in the rain
Lose my breath in a saucer
Find death in a glass of champagne
 
Lift me, lift me
I see the trees
Dancing under the real, real, real
Dark clouds
 
Ooooh faithless me
I could drown in the rain
I could drown in the rain
I could drown in the rain
 
 
 
  
Overlooking A Horse
music and lyrics by Ferrill Gibbs
 
She’s got models of ponies on a shelf on the wall
And a big bright blue ribbon hanging just down the hall
In a frame by the bed the young cattle queen
Gives me just what I need when I don’t need a thing
 
Yeah well she don’t ask for much
But she dreams of a porch
Overlooking a shore
Or maybe a back door
Overlooking a horse
 
Saves all her money and buys a guitar
Gives it to me and it tears up my heart
Sit down to play it but nothing compares
To the song that she sings with the flick of her hair
 
No she don’t ask for much
She’s a dream, she’s a force
She’s the star of my north
I will buy you…I will buy you
 
I will buy you that horse
‘Cause this life is so short
I will buy you that horse
 
Write you a song on that porch
Or just strum a few chords
Overlooking that horse
 
It’s just a matter of course
That this life is so short
I will buy you, buy you, buy you
 
I will buy you that horse
If the Lord wills of course
I will buy you that horse
 
 

Significant Trees
© Morrow Place Music, 2014


Ferrill Gibbs: vocals and acoustic guitar
Dan Nettles: band arrangements, electric and acoustic guitar
Robby Handley: bass
Marlon Patton: drums and percussion
JoJo Glidewell: acoustic piano and keyboards
Tom Lewis: ukulele, baritone guitar, electric guitar, additional keys and additional percussion
Andy Carlson: string arrangements, violin, viola
Adam Coon: cello (So Goes You)
Taylor Hallowell: cello (Wind in my Soul)
 
Recorded at Studio 1093 and Chase Park Transduction (Athens, Ga), and Earthwork Recording Studio, Newark, Ohio.
 
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Tom Lewis, Athens, GA.
 
Strings recorded by Brandon Bankes and Sam Beaumier at Earthwork Recording Studio, Newark, Ohio
 
Produced by Ferrill Gibbs, Tom Lewis, and Dan Nettles. 
 
Cover and inlay design by Kimberly Griffin. Photography by Elizabeth Gibbs