Songwriting¶

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

Lyrics

SHADOW OF THE CLOUD

I mixed the tank while the house was still
Pouring a blessing from a five-gallon kill
White jugs stacked like a monument of salt
We did what we did, and it wasn’t our fault
The rows needed saving and the bank needed grain
So we fired up the trucks and a yellow plane
We learned young what the dirt wouldn’t give
And how a man goes broke just to watch the harvest live

     And you can scrub your hands ‘til the skin turns red
     But you can’t wash away what’s already dead
     It hangs in the air, sweet and low
     A ghost in the lungs that waits and grows
     Yeah, the fields turn green, and the debts get paid
     But we’re dying in the shadow of the cloud we made

T-shirt soaked where the nozzle leaked through
And a stain on my skin that I couldn't undo
The spray-rig humming like a funeral bell
Buying us a season in a chemical hell
Daddy said, "Son, hold your breath when you turn"
But he never said nothing 'bout the way it would burn
He’d wash his face with the garden hose
And wipe the death right off of his clothes

     Repeat Chorus

I don’t blame the men who taught me the trade
They were terrified of the debts they’d made
You can’t fight the weevil with a prayer and a plow
And you can’t feed a family on the here and the now
So you trade away your breath for a yield per acre
And you pray for some mercy from the undertaker

I left that dirt, but I brought it along
In the marrow of the bone, in the silence of a song
Now the air in my chest feels heavy and still
Like the bottom of a hollow or a tank meant to kill
It takes a whole lot of work to keep a field in the black
When the price of the yield is the shirt on your back

I still see those jugs, bleached out in the sun
Like rows of headstones when the day is done
We weren't out to change the world, or even claim a right
Trying to keep a family tree from catching fire at night

But the soil’s gone sour
And the leaves are thin
And I can still smell the sweetness
Settling on my skin

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

Lyrics

FARE THEE WELL

Fare thee well, my honey
Fare thee well, my only one
All the birds that were singin’
Have flown, every one

I’m goin’ away, and I won’t be back this way
‘Cause I’m goin’ too far
I’m goin’ ten thousand miles
I’m goin’ ten thousand miles

If you miss me when I’m gone
You can write me if you try
Send it care of the river bend
Or the ridgeline high

Oh, with wings like Noah’s dove
I’ll cross these mountains wide
Just lay my head where the oak trees sleep
And the old names still abide

The mills lie quiet, the fields run dry
The hollers turn to stone
I’m leavin’ with the morning mist
Before the light is come

These ridges taught me how to stay
But not how to make my way
I carry the weight of where I’m from
And the price I have to pay

Fare thee well, my honey
Fare thee well, my true one
All the birds that were singin’
Have flown
Except you alone

I’m goin’ away, and I won’t be back this way
‘Cause I’m goin’ too far
I’m goin’ ten thousand miles

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