#339: "Not My Fault" (Big Tree Pond)

Hey, here’s a new thing.  I recently took another crack at the Big Tree Pond script that me and Elise started working on back in, geez, 2018, maybe?  Some time during the first Trump administration.  

Big Tree Pond is a children’s allegory about what happens after the big tree falls down at the pond - the ensuing chaos and blame between the various pond creatures that escalates into an election with no good choices. The kind of kid's story that would horrify most kids.  I always imagined it could be either a picture book or an album or a short animated film or maybe all of the above.

We worked hard on it for several years before shelving it (it wasn’t really gelling at the time), but I always knew I wanted to come back to it at some point.  There are a handful of other Big Tree Pond songs I’ve shared here over the years if you search around, starting with this election speech song from May of 2019.  I played that one a couple of times live on the solo tour I did later that summer, with audience members reading the different parts of Spider and Dragonfly.

It sort of seemed like a way of making sense of the moment back then, this creature allegory of paranoia and propaganda and manipulation, which is probably why I started back in on it last week. After re-reading the script, I realized there had never been an opening song to introduce the fall of the big tree, which is what this Not My Fault demo is.

It was nice to play drums again and work on a full song in the basement for a few nights.  It’s hard to do with a toddler, because, you know, I don’t want to wake him up.  But I think we figured out a good set up that won’t wake him up, so hopefully there will be more of this sort of thing on the horizon.

NOT MY FAULT

Peace is broken.  

Home is shattered.  

Branches splintered.  

Trunk has split.

Big Tree battered.  

Toppled over.  

Roots ripped right  

Out of it.

Spider scurries up it.  

Catfish swims away.  

Crow cries out from under broken wing.

Dragonfly with fury,

Rising up above them:

“Who among us here has done this thing?” 

Size up every creature.  

Run through every name.  

Who will be the scapegoat to burden with the blame?

Some of us are plainly guilty by default.  

But who of us would dare to commit this grave assault? 

“Nobody’s fault.”  “Their fault.”.  “Your fault.”  “Not my fault.”

“Nobody’s fault.”  “His fault.”  “Her fault.”  “Not my fault.”

Tree was ancient. 

Tree was shelter.  

Tree was neighbor.  

Tree was home.

Now no circle.  

Now no center.  

Now no heart.   

Now alone.

Squirrel, spider, duck, and frog,  

Chipmunk, turtle, crow:  

All now wonder what this omen brings.

Dragonfly with fury, 

Rising up above them:  

“Who among us here has done this thing?”

Size up every creature. 

 List off every name.

Who will be the patsy to burden with the blame?

Some of us are evidently guilty by default.  

But who of us would dare to commit this grave assault? 

“Nobody’s fault.”  “Their fault.”.  “Your fault.”  “Not my fault.”

“Nobody’s fault.”  “His fault.”  “Her fault.”  “Not my fault.”