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Songwriting

Backseat Dream

Reflection

Written from that fragile, beautiful space between waking and sleep, this is a song for the very end of the journey.

It's a prayer for a gentle ending, capturing the trust of finally being too tired, and letting the strong and familiar carry you to through.

Published alongside With a Quiet Hand.

Lyrics

BACKSEAT DREAM

I don’t need a battle at the end of the line
No flash of heaven just to prove I tried
I’ve done my running, I’ve stood my ground
Learned what to carry, what to lay down
White lines hum me home at night
Radio static, borrowed light
If my eyes get heavy, I lose the day
Let it come like sleep, drift my way

No fear, no final stand
Just the weight of a quiet hand

     If I go, let it go easy, slow
     Like a backseat dream heading home
     Lay me down where I understand
     I was loved by a quiet hand
     Let the world keep spinning like it planned
     I’ve seen enough, I’ve been a man
     If I’m leavin’, let it be known
     I was never alone

I loved a woman with a steady light
She made a home, out of restless nights
She knew my sins, she knew my name
She loved me even when I stayed the same
I raised my boys to stand up straight
Taught ’em when to bend, when to wait
If they hear my voice when the house goes still
I hope it sounds like love, not will

     Repeat Chorus

I don’t need angels callin’ me out
No reckoning dressed in fire and doubt
Just cracked doors and familiar sound
Soft footsteps, movin’ around
Let their voices carry me through
Every wrong I couldn’t undo
If there’s a moment where I still stand
It’s muscle memory, holding hands

Mama’s voice from a long-gone year
Shows up, when the road gets weird
That old quilt, that creaky floor
The house breathing at 4 a.m.
If I’m half asleep when the light goes dim
Let me stay right there with them
One last breath, no last command
Let me go with the quiet hand

If I go, let it go easy, slow
Like a backseat dream headin’ home
No grand ending, no final plan
Just a life that loved, a love that ran
Hold me close as long as you can
Let me go
With a quiet hand

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

Papa was a Pepper

Reflection

My Grandaddy was a tough, stubborn, but gentle man who didn't touch beer or liquor, but he worked that South Georgia clay with a furious, sugar-fueled sweat.

He left empty Dr Pepper bottles everywhere. Stacked high under the pole barns, rattling in the bed of his truck, and wedged into the rusty frame of a Massey tractor from the last mow of the pasture.

Whenever the barns got totally full, my brother and I would help him load up the trailer and haul that glass down to the back forty. It was a place we rarely dared to go alone, but there we'd dump them into a hidden ravine where the sun couldn't reach, watching those old styrofoam sleeves peel away from the glass like sunburned skin. They just added to a jagged mountain of thousands of empties resting deep in the damp pine needles.

When the wind came up through those trees, it would blow right across the open bottle necks, making the back woods groan with a heavy, whistling breath.

Lyrics

PAPA WAS A PEPPER

I grew up on a patch of that South Georgia red
Following the dust and the things Grandaddy said
Checking the rows in his ole fedora hat
Turning that clay, yeah, he had it down flat
He had cattle in the field, peanuts knee-high
A cane pole waiting when the sun fell in the sky
Working six days, but he never touched a beer
He had a different kind of cooler in the truck all year

He was stubborn as a mule, hard-headed and tough
But he had a sweet tooth for the fizzy stuff
Didn’t need the whiskey, didn't need the wine
He just needed 23 flavors at a time

     Papa was a Pepper
     Lord, he drank ‘em by the case
     Little glass bottles all over the place
     In the barn, in the truck, by the back forty trees
     Stacking up mountains of memories
     If hard work has a flavor, man, you better believe
     It tastes like the doctor to me
     Yeah, Papa was a Pepper

We’d load up the trailer with the empty glass
Styrofoam sleeves blowing in the grass
He hit 93 and he never slowed down
The toughest old man in this whole damn town
Granny said, “Drink Water,” Papa just laughed
Said, “That’s for the catfish, mama don't be daft!”
He’d crack a cold one and he’d give me a wink
Yeah “Life’s too short for a boring old drink!”

     Repeat Chorus

Now the house sits quiet and the garden’s overgrown
But I still feel him when I’m driving back home
He didn’t leave a fortune, didn't leave gold
Just a mountain of stories that’ll never get old

Papa was a Pepper
And I still raise one now and then
To the farmer, the fisherman, my best friend
Yeah, life goes down a little smoother, you see
When you got a little sugar and a family tree
Every time I crack one, man, you better believe
Papa’s right here with me
Yeah, Papa was a Pepper

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

T.J.

Reflection

The post T.J. Came Running is a reflection on that afternoon on my Grandaddy's land and the silence that followed. This song took shape in late 2025, decades after that day, when the grief I still hold had to move through rhyme and meter.

Lyrics

T.J.

The bus brakes hissed on the county tar
Granny sat waiting in that idling car
A '78 Olds, painted midnight blue
Smelling like dust and dried morning dew
We tossed our bags on the back seat
And left downtown for the red-dirt heat
Just an afternoon ride, back to the farm
Before we knew that Granny could do so much harm

     You can pound on the glass till your knuckles go numb
     But the rubber don't care where the power comes from
     He was running on trust, just beating the air
     While she stared at the road like there was nobody there
     It’s a hell of a thing in the rearview pane
     To see heavy blue steel leave a red dirt stain

Crossed the cattle gap, and the suspension groaned
Entering the land that my grandaddy owned
T.J. came running down the long dirt track
With his ears flopped forward and then flying back
Just a happy fat beagle, brown and white
The softest thing running in the afternoon light
He thought he was greeting a friend at the gate
Not a two-ton machine marking his fate

     Repeat Chorus

The thump wasn’t loud, but it shook the frame
And the silence that followed didn't have a name
I looked out the back as the dust settled down
At a patch of red and brown on the clay ground
He was wide open on the homestead road
As I fell next to him

The thump wasn’t loud, but it shook the frame
And the silence that followed didn't have a name
I looked out the back as the dust settled down
At a patch of red and brown on the clay ground
He was wide open on the homestead road
As I fell next to him, under the load
The boy I was died right there in the grit
When the tires kept turning and my world just split

Grandaddy came out with a spade in his hand
Moving like a ghost across the bottomland
He didn't ask questions, he saw what she’d done
Just wiped his forehead in the sinking sun
We buried him deep where the tree line starts
With the sound of that Olds still revving in our hearts
I learned right then what I couldn't unlearn
That the people you love don’t always turn

I stood by the hole
Granddad handled the spade
The dog was broken
Two lives unmade
She went in the kitchen
And the red dirt dried
And a part of me stayed
Where a little soul died

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

Out on Highway 84

Reflection

This song isn’t a true history, but it is rooted in a true place and the kind of hunger that only bites when you’re young, reckless, and willing to work.

My brother and I spent our summers hauling watermelons and cantaloupes off our Grandaddy’s farm, stacking them into a trailer hitched to an old Massey that had seen better decades. We’d sit for hours on the shoulder of the road under a hand-painted sign, watching the heat shimmer off the asphalt and dreaming the day away once the heavy lifting was done.

There was a jagged kind of freedom in those afternoons. It was the independence of cash in a pocket and the quiet pride of having something the world actually wanted during in the middle of a long, hot day.

This song takes that truth and stretches it until it’s a little more dangerous, landing somewhere in the haze between a memory and a myth. It’s a nod to a specific kind of freedom that you have to earn with your hands and a tribute to South Georgia in July, where the humidity makes the world feel like it’s liquefying around you and you’re just trying to white-knuckle the things that keep you moving.

Lyrics

OUT ON HIGHWAY 84

Asphalt’s bleeding tar, summer of ‘94
Crossed the dry county line on highway 84
Air’s thick as molasses, smell of diesel and pine
I’m perched on this tailgate, just killing off time

Got a hand-painted sign saying "Sweetest in the State"
Two bucks a sugar-baby, 'fore it’s too late
Cicadas are screaming like a choir in the heat
While that South Georgia sun bakes the soles of my feet

     It’s the Fourth of July and the blacktop’s steaming
     Heat off the hood has the whole highway dreaming
     Got a bed full of melons, green gold and deep red
     And a jar of lightning to keep my soul fed
     Let the law keep rolling, let the flags fly high
     Trading in sugar ‘neath the South Georgia sky

A man in a Caddy rolled through the grit
Kicking up the gravel like it owes him rent
I spat a black seed, looked him dead in the eye
Said, "The dirt gave me fruit; the Lord gave me sky"
He bought a thirty-pounder and left in a swirl
Of red clay and gravel at the edge of the world

     Repeat Chorus

Radio static or a preacher with the news
Talking ‘bout the Lord, get your asses in the pews
Deputy rolling, eyeballing the scene
Tip my tattered hat, Lord my record ain’t clean

     Repeat Chorus

Yeah, the summer of ‘94
Out on Highway 84

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

Namiko

In Remembrance

Namiko Akoi Miller
April 01, 1932–September 01, 1993

Reflection

Few things are as still as a South Georgia library in the dead of summer. The air inside is thick with the scent of old paper and the hum of a laboring compressor, while the dust drifts through shafts of light.

Namiko Akoi Miller was the steward of that stillness. As the librarian of Seminole County Public Library, she was a quiet mercy in a landscape that didn’t always know how to hold a gentle thing. To a child fleeing the white-hot sun or a restless home, she offered up worlds bound in glue and buckram. She would press her stamp to the page; a small ritual of safe passage.

The quiet didn't just end; it tore. I was a junior in high school when the town’s fragile veneer of safety was once again peeled back, exposing the old shadows underneath. We learned then what we’ve known ever since: you don't ever truly outrun the way violence hollows out a small place.

This song isn't about her murder. It's about the grace of a woman in a house of stories, and the way that grace continues to haunt the pine curtains and the red clay, long after the sanctuary was breached.

Lyrics

NAMIKO

A freight train’s echo, water tower in the air
Dust on the hardbacks, sunlight on the stairs
She knew every title and she knew every face
Keeping the peace in a small-town place

     Faded ink on the due dates, a pocket full of prayers
     A quiet kind of calling, an empty wooden chair

     And it ain’t the books that haunt that room at night
     It’s the lamp still burning in the borrowed light
     Where the stories always ended the way you hoped they would
     A chapter closed in Seminole like no one thought it could

Kids came in laughing, sun-drenched, summer-sweet
A note in the margins, a squeak in the seat
She’d say “Take your time,” ‘cause time was on our side
Now the doors lock early and the town stays inside

     Repeat Pre-chorus

     Repeat Chorus

There were ghosts in the aisles long before she was gone
Seeking shade from the heat of a red Georgia dawn.
She’d stamp the cards gently, she’d ask how you’ve been
A shelter from the weather and the trouble you're in

I won’t sing of shadow, I won’t sing of blood
I’ll sing her name like a hymn in the flood
I’ll sing the way she handed hope across a desk
The simple, honest kindness that we easily attest

No, it ain’t the books that haunt that room at night
It’s the love she left there in the borrowed light
Let the pages hold her, let the pine wind tell
Somebody keep the quiet, somebody keep it well

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

39N

Reflection

I grew up on land that could make a person feel both rooted and trapped.

Broken fences, cattle, fields, drought, debt, and family history were not symbols then, they were just the weather of daily life.

Responsibility came early, and it often arrived dressed as fear: something loose in the dark, something broken that had to be fixed, something inherited that nobody asked whether you were strong enough to carry.

The homestead I knew could be beautiful, but it also had a way of making hardship feel holy and silence feel like obedience.

That is the ground this song came from.

Lyrics

39N

The cedar post snapped like a dry-rot bone
A gunshot crack in the dark, alone
Staples spit out of the wood like teeth
Somethin’ wicked waking underneath
Miller County line is a razor’s edge
I’m bleedin’ out here on a family pledge
Fog is rollin’ heavy, the asphalt shines
And all I got left just crossed the lines

Now the headlights catch a thousand pounds of fear
White-faced heifer standin’ frozen here
She looks at me like I’m the one to blame
For the mud, the debt, and the rust on my name

     Oh, the blacktop calls and the fences fail
     Every acre here is a coffin nail
     I’m patchin’ up holes where the money leaked out
     Chasin’ shadows through a three-year drought
     Yeah, the Lord gives rain, but the ground holds sin
     God, I’m losin’ the war on 39N

Tracks in the clay are draggin’ deep
Razorbacks wakin’ while the bankers sleep
They don’t fear the truck, they don’t fear the shout
They know this farm is ragged out
Grandaddy swore that the soil was blessed
But he put a pistol to his chest
Now I’m out here wrestle’n the beast he fed
Tryin’ to catch a livin’ amongst the dead

Batteries fadin’ in a heavy hand
There ain’t no mercy in a no-man’s land
Just the squeal of a boar in the briar patch thick
And a heart beatin’ slower than the clock can tick

     Repeat Chorus

If I let ‘em go, I lose the farm
If I bring ‘em back, I do ‘em harm
There’s 18-wheels comin’ round the bend
Gonna turn my livestock into wind
I close my eyes and I wait for the sound
Of everything I worked for… burnin’ down

     Repeat Chorus

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

Orange and White '79

Lyrics

ORANGE AND WHITE '79

I learned to work a gearbox with my heels off the floor
On an ole Massey growlin’ for more
Back pasture buzzin’ like a hornet’s nest in June
Daddy said, “Don’t force her, boy, she’ll give up too soon”
Watched his knuckles, white against the grit and grease
Fightin’ back a mean streak that wouldn't let him find no peace
By the time I was sixteen, I'd traded the field for the load
And a seventy-nine Chevy on a washboard county road

     It was two-tone rust and a bench seat ride
     That orange and white seventy-nine
     Haulin’ secrets past the county line
     With a payload heavier than the trash on the side
     Every mile was a warnin’, every mile was a lie
     In the hollowed-out stare of a blood-relation eye
     I learned how to steer, and I learned how to bleed
     In that orange and white, I found the wreck of me

Hot vinyl stickin’ to the back of my neck
Radio fightin' static and a Jackson tune
The smell of sulfur and a burnin' belt
Silence chokin' out the cab too soon
I gripped that wheel while he held back a flood
He just stared straight ahead with the iron in his blood
Said, “There was a life before this one, son”
And I pointed that chrome, toward a darker run

Didn’t ask for a name, didn’t ask him why
Didn’t need to know where the truth went to die
I backed off the gas, let the engine moan
It’s a heavy-ass load when you’re drivin’ alone

     Repeat Chorus

Some miles you drive
And some you just drag
Still haulin’ the weight
Past the county road lines
In the orange and white
Yeah, that '79

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

Orange and White '79

Hole in the Floor

Trigger Warning

This piece includes themes of violence, childhood trauma, and emotional neglect. Please proceed with care.

Reflection

Some houses hold warmth; the one I grew up in held its breath.

Tension lived in the walls, and even the floorboards carried the weight of something left unsaid.

This is a song about the kind of trauma that weaves itself into the grain of a life, and the impossible weight of an apology that arrives decades too late.

Lyrics

HOLE IN THE FLOOR

I showed up in the summer of '76
Born into a house of broken bricks
You mortared the cracks with the debt and the kids
And a ledger of things that the memory forbids
Four little children learning to read the air
Knowing when to vanish and when not to stare
By the time I packed up my bags to leave
There was nothing left in that house to believe

I remember that Tuesday, the air was thick
The sound of your footsteps making me sick
I stepped to the center and I drew the line
Seventeen years and I’m out of time
I stood like a stone while the room turned to ice
Done asking permission, done taking advice
I’m lucky I left when the moment was right
Before the fire in my blood finally caught light

     I was miles away, I was safe and gone
     While you were in the hallway carrying on
     With a heavy hate and a .38
     A bitter man snapping beneath the weight
     Now there’s a piece of lead in the cold and gloom
     Lodged in the floorboards of my upstairs room

The youngest was standing there, frozen and small
The others were listening through cracks in the wall
I didn’t find out 'til the smoke had cleared
That you finally became what we always feared
Mama changed her name and she walked out the door
But you stayed the same man you had been before

     Repeat Chorus

I sat by your bed when the breathing got thin
Watching the light slowly leave your skin
You looked at me through the morphine haze
And apologized for the rest of your days
You said, “Son, I’m sorry for hurting your Ma”
But a hole in the floor was all that I saw

Oh, there’s a piece of lead in the cold and gloom
Lodged in the floorboards of my upstairs room
Yeah, a hole in the floor
Was all that I saw

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

Some Things Stay Small

Trigger Warning

This piece includes themes of loss, grief, and hard mercy. Please proceed with care.

Reflection

Published in tandem with What the Red Clay Keeps, which reflects on these tangled roots of affection and grief that defined my Southern experience.

Lyrics

SOME THINGS STAY SMALL

I counted heads in the morning light
Steam rising thick in the January cold
The runt was pinned to the cedar slats
Too thin to stand, too weak to hold
Mama whispered, "Let him be"
But Daddy just stared at the ground
I learned right then, in the quiet air
A breaking heart doesn’t make a sound

     It don't pay to love what you can't save
     But you do it anyway
     You want to see 'em run the fields
     But the red clay wants 'em to stay
     And it’s a long, dark walk to the edge of the woods
     To give 'em the peace they crave
     Yeah, he wouldn't grow
     God, I know
     Some things stay small
     Then they go

Daddy weighed him with heavy eyes
Same way he’d done a hundred times
Said, "He ain’t gonna make the winter, son"
Like reading a sentence for a crime
The .22 rifle by the kitchen screen
Morning quiet, sharp and clean
There’s a kind of mercy that looks like a sin
When you’re the one standing in between

     Repeat Chorus

He was shivering where the others slept warm
Reaching for a teat in the middle of a storm
If mercy’s got a human face
It ain't in the prayer, it's in the hard embrace

I still see him when the night runs thin
When the radiator hums and the walls close in
I don’t dream of the blood or the broken things
Just a little life waiting on the peace it brings
I don’t curse my daddy’s hands
I don't hold a grudge for the debt he paid
It takes a whole lot of love to kill something
So it doesn't have to be afraid

It don't pay to love what you can't save
But you do it anyway
I still see him run the fields
In a dream from a different day
But he wouldn't grow
Now I know
Some things stay small
And that’s okay
Yeah, they go
Yeah, they go

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.

I'm Just a River

Trigger Warning

This piece includes themes of depression, hopelessness, and suicide. Please proceed with care.

In Loving Memory

Written to process the death of my nephew.
Rest in Peace, Phin.

Phineas Harvey Alexander Tillman
June 4, 2001–January 11, 2026

Lyrics

I'M JUST A RIVER

I’ve been carving through the valley
Long before they built this town
I’ve watched these waters rise
And families settle down
I’ve carried off the mountains
Every stone of joy and pain
I catch the ones who fall to me
And hold them year to year

The bridge has swallowed prayers
From quiet hums to raw-boned cries
I’ve seen the tired at midnight
Walking beneath a heavy sky
The moon hid behind the clouds
Too faint to see you leave
You fractured something in my depths
Searching only for relief

     I’m just a river, I don’t choose
     What the tired and hurting do
     But I’d trade every drop of me
     If love could’ve pulled you through
     The hard days spoke like the Gospel
     And you believed every word they said
     I’d have carried you a thousand miles
     But I couldn’t quiet your head

Now your name moves upstream
In your mother’s cry
In the silence your father swallows
When the house has lost its light
Your family passes by the rail
Holding breath inside their chests
Learning how to miss you
Without rehearsing how you left

     Repeat Chorus

Standing on the bridge
Believing rest is letting go
A current only moves one way
But a heart can still turn home

Writer: J. Ryan Johnson (BMI)
Copyright: © 2026 J. Ryan Johnson. All rights reserved.
Phone: +1 (407) 902-5419
Email: hello [at] tenthirtyam [dot] org

Audio Disclaimer

Lyrics: Original | Audio: AI-Generated

I am a songwriter and a musician, but I am not the voice meant to inhabit these verses.

I've used AI to bridge the gap for the concept demos, crafted to serve as blueprints that capture the genre, tone, and weary soul I hear for each song.

They exist as an invitation, offered in the hope that these lyrics will eventually reach the hands of an artist and storyteller who can bring them fully into the light.

Until then, they remain as they were born: quiet reflections on the grit and grace found just north of the county line.