Song Description

For their upcoming gig at the Green County Fair, Lonnie and Chloe want a new song--something with a big sound that will get the crowd going. Chloe comes up with a fast-picking chord progression, and Lonnie adds the unexpected modulation for the chorus. They begin improvising lyrics, which evolve into a tongue-in-cheek Wisconsin anthem about cheese curds, ice fishing, and the Packers, with odd facts about whitefish livers and ginseng thrown in. They call it "Clockwork Clouds," which was a phrase Lonnie's grandfather used.

Lyrics

Nothing I say gives you a clue.
You just want me singing the blues.
But I don't know how to choose--
too many things jostling my mind like leaves in the wind.

And this corn looks so fine, but I'm losing my mind,
living out here in the countryside
with these cows and this corn--
never forlorn--some say it's paradise
and I guess that's maybe true but....

CHORUS: Take me through the skies
above the world we know,
looking at these clockwork clouds from so far below.
Take me past the stars, somewhere far away.
Looking at these clockwork clouds for so many days.

Tell me again, why am I here?
Looking at clouds in the stratosphere.
I don't feel so alone cause I've got this here phone,
the Packers on the tele, a sixpack on ice.

When I'm walking the fields calculating the yields,
the clouds are floating by like cottony shields.
There's manure and milk, soybeans and corn silk,
Bears fans down in Janesville but I don't mix with that ilk, so....

CHORUS

Wisconsin's my home so I'm never alone.
There's cows and curds and cheese and birds
and whitetails in the woods.
And there's wolves and black bears,
our meatpackers shares,
the green of spring and gold of fall really tell it all.

We harvest ginseng roots, trim Christmas tree shoots,
grow fine leaf tobacco for your big cheroots.
Red tail on the wing, it just makes you sing.
Turkey vultures circling like angels in the sky.

And there's cows and there's corn, whitefish livers and porn,
Northwoods hair salons where no one lives but the trees.
And there's trout streams and hills, Lake Superior's thrills--
ice fishing in winter, sitting on a bucket in the wind.