Day 20: February 18th, 2010
Robyn Landis 

Robyn Landis is a gifted wordsmith and award-winning songwriter. Her deft, incisive, and powerful command of language has garnered repeated comparisons to Richard Shindell and Dar Williams, and a reputation among fellow songwriters as "an astounding lyricist." Respected for her unflinching honesty, intensity and intelligence, Robyn uses song to tackle subjects ranging from war to weather to (what else?) love--not to mention adoption and dementia, betrayal and longing, friendship, child abuse, old sitcoms, and the environment--with unusual depth and literacy. She was a 2009 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artists Showcase Selected Artist, and won Grand Prize in the 2009 John Lennon Songwriting Contest (folk category). Her most recent CD “Many Moons” was released in May of 2009. www.robynlandis.com

Timmy Riordan

Timmy has been called ‘the hidden gem” of the Somerville/Cambridge music scene. In February 2009 he wrote and posted 28 songs on his website. This year he’s doing it again.  He has also decided there should be 8 day in a week (in honor of the Beatles of course) and has invited 32 of his songwriting friends to support him through the month by each writing a song themselves. Over the last summer he recorded 8 of those songs on a CD entitled “Peter Let Me In.” Each CD includes an original cover, hand-drawn just for you in Sharpie by Timmy. Proceeds from this hand-crafted album are all going directed to the making of “New York’s Ignoring Me” his next studio album to be released in summer of 2010.

Robyn ended up starting two songs within 24 hours and is working on getting one of them done and recorded to post here.  In the meantime here are the lyrics to one of the songs:

MAIN STREET AT MIDNIGHT
© Robyn Landis, 2010

This town has changed so much yet still so much the same
so small that it can barely contain
the ghosts that I can feel inside my chest tonight
and things only they can explain

Black windows winking coldly at the mystery
By day they keep too busy to see
Tonight they are reflecting on a history
years that played out on this street

My lone taillights
trailing down Main Street at midnight
closed and quiet
holding years in reserve
Now in plain sight
everything you pretend you don't remember
cause you don't have the nerve

Songs and kisses
a hundred near misses
an ending I didn't deserve
here on Main Street at midnight
it returns


Dead silence in the car that late grey afternoon
questions crowding thick in the air
crawling down a stretch of snow and streetlights
dreading the arriving nowhere

You took my hand and held it like a baby
you never took your eyes off the road
your skin was warm and dry and so familiar
that's still the one thing I know


My lone taillights
trailing down Main Street at midnight
closed and quiet
as I slow through the curves
Now in plain sight
on a sidewalk that echoes
with the footfalls that memory serves

Songs and kisses
a palette of wishes
a heart that you didn't deserve
here on Main Street at midnight
it returns...

to...

Times and places
so complicated
nothing erases it all
Pain and love
and the girl I was
and the breathtaking height of the fall...

(inst. verse)

My lone taillights
trailing down Main Street at midnight
closed and quiet
holding years in reserve
Holding so tight
to a life we let go of
in an instant
without a word

Songs and kisses
hoping you're missing
something for better or worse
here on Main Street at midnight
I return...