Up at Dawn with a Yawn 🏜
Meet me at dawn
Up in the mountains
Near the trail with the hidden waterfalls
Superstition says there's a gold mine no one can find
Ten years of searching
It's in Arizona, maybe Colorado
Oh, who knows?
I could still find it if I try
- Meet Me at Dawn (from Dragonfly)
Meet Me at Dawn is one of those wildcard tracks that ended up on the new album with all three of us wondering "where did this one come from?"
It was inspired by a story our mom was telling us a few months ago.
When she was little, her dad took her on a road trip out to Arizona where they went into the superstition mountains. While there, she befriended a real-life prospector named Jack. He was searching for the lost dutchman gold mine, which is infamous for being the most lost-and-found-again gold mine in the west.
While I (Greta) was looking around for ideas and moods and stories for songs to write, this idea of a dry and dusty mountain trail, rattlesnakes, gold mines, saloons and the lure of searching for treasure kept knocking at the back of my mind.
The song was originally meant to be an epic adventure song - a band of friends meeting up in the mountains for some reason. (There are a lot of TBDs when writing lyrics, haha!)
Enter the old man prospector.
It's funny how some songs on the album (like Dragonfly and Long Road) took months to come up with - always changing a word here or there, re-writing the chorus multiple times, etc. But Meet Me at Dawn (including the rhythmic, almost rap-like verses) were written in one day. Very easily.
When we first played the song together, Solana attempted to keep up with the lyrics between fits of laughter, Willow came up with a wild west fiddle groove and solo in the middle, I came up with the chords that added the southwestern vibe, and we recorded a demo.
Then we sat back and wondered "what IS this? What genre is it? Where did this come from? Oh well, we'll find out."
And now it's one of our most-loved new songs. Lol!
Thank you, Jack the Prospector!
Listen to the song:
The songwriting process is mysterious and unpredictable.
Who loves this song? What genre do you think it is? Does it matter?
See you down the road,
Greta, Willow and Solana
The Gothard Sisters
P.S. this email was originally from the Story Times Newsletter, which is written (almost) monthly to the Gothard Sisters’ subscribers. Get these emails yourself! Sign up here: