Scott, this one’s for you buddy!

I am totally digging on some Jack Johnson at the moment. I have been listening to the new soundtrack to the Curious George movie entitled Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies. Absolutely brilliant! The chord structures are so simple. The title of the album is totally appropriate. One minute I was singing and the next I was wishing for a cot so I could scoot off to dreamland.

I popped in Jack’s last album, In Between Dreams, and got lost daydreaming. With Spring around the corner, I need to be a little more careful about listening to Jack. He makes me want to take my shoes off and wade into the ocean. I barely got out of college in the middle of the country, I can’t imagine how much school I would have missed at the beach if my parents had let me go to college in California.

Out of all the songs on In Between Dreams, I love Breakdown the most. On the DVD Live at the Greek Jack explains that he wrote this song while on the train between European gigs. He said that as they were passing through the little villages and towns he began thinking about all those people that lived there. He was tired and wasn’t too excited about getting to the next show. He wanted the train to “breakdown” so he could get out into those towns and meet people and soak up the atmosphere.

I’ve been spending quite a few weekends on the road in my car and inside airplanes and airports. As I’ve sat watching people and as I’ve looked down at the cities and farmlands or looked out over the plains in Texas or ricefields in Arkansas I have had this song in the back of my head. Sometimes we just need to slow down and soak it in.

What do you need to “breakdown?” As the wise philospher Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves by pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you could miss it.” So go ahead, take off your shoes, slow down, wade into the ocean and daydream a little. You’ll thank yourself later.

Breakdown

I hope this old train breaks down then I could take a walk around
See what there is to see, time is just a melody
With all the people in the street walking fast as their feet
Can take them, I just roll through town
And though my window’s got a view, well the frame I’m looking through
Seems to have no concern for now
So for now I

I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please just breakdown

Well this engine screams out loud, centipede going to crawl westbound
So I don’t even make a sound cause it’s going to sting me when I leave this town
And all the people in the street that I’ll never get to meet
If these tracks don’t bend somehow
And I got no time that I got to get to where I don’t need to be
So I

I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please just breakdown

I want to break on down
But I can’t stop now
Let me break on down

But you can’t stop nothing if you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind that you kept and you know
That you don’t know nothing but you don’t need to know
The wisdom’s in the trees not the glass windows
You can’t stop wishing if you don’t let go
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know
You keep on rolling, put the moment on hold
Because the frame’s too bright, so put the blinds down low

I need this here old train to breakdown
Oh please just let me please just breakdown

I got to break on down
But I can’t stop now

Jack Johnson Official Site