01 Nebraska Catfish click here to listen

Walking along the tracks There’s no trains a-comin’ through Nebraska Prairie sun on the rails like a knife cuttin’ out a slice Checkin’ catfish lines tossed in the Platte Dark and muddy What’s on the other end I don’t know til I give it a tug… I don’t know til I give it a tug… I don’t know til I give it a tug… So many hidden things, they leave their trails They leave their marks You can see them in the faces walkin’ down the street Mid February I don’t know their names, I don’t know their stories But I know the tug that pulls and fights Oh, here they are in the current moving upstream Hook set, and it’s not coming out… Hook set, and it’s not coming out… Hook set, and it’s not coming out… Not coming out… Walking along the tracks There’s no trains a-comin’ through Nebraska The boy sits on the grass in the shelter-belt Oh, the corn fields are checkered out Their lines are broken, their lines are broken Every stalk’s an amputee Aw shucks… The wind makes the cottonwoods creak The limbs are fallin’, limbs are fallin’ There’s a storm a-comin, can you feel the tug? Can you feel the tug? What’s still submerged It makes the twigs dance, makes the snow-fence howl It’s a song it’s a dance, It’s a catfish still alive on the line… I don’t know til I give it a tug… Hook set, and it’s not coming out… I don’t know til I give it a tug… Hook set, and it’s not coming out… --Scott Simpson, 2012

Two “rivers” historically flowed through the state of Nebraska; both caused towns to spring up and, occasionally, created a sandbar or two for rare birds to rest or for fish to become beached upon and dry in the hot prairie sun: the Platte river, and the BNSF railroad. Towns sprang up along the rails where pioneers once passed through after burying their dead. Then, in 1967, my family migrated to one of these small towns.

I remember, maybe once or twice, going out with my dad to some section of the river, placing and checking catfish lines. I remember baiting treble hooks with slices of liver. I remember the odd feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched the lines disappear beneath the dark, fast-moving water.

I worried about the fish. It’s strange, I didn’t worry about the ones we would catch and gut and cook… I worried about the ones I thought might get hooked, and NOT be pulled up by us. We would leave before the sun went down, two or three lines still set. It was the end of the fishing day. I lay in bed wondering about those two or three other lines out there. I think Dad said he’d check them later… but what happens when a catfish is hooked and it can’t get off, and no one comes to pull it out? Ever?

It’s easy to swim into a trap, to just move with the flow or the track and then find oneself snagged, too late to avoid it. Of course some traps are just traps… some are temporary resting places… other’s become the place we call Home, but for people who come to Nebraska now, the trails, river and rails have mostly given way to the highways.

The Wings

Wings open: an inherited habit got this job last year: thirty-five mile stretch of asphalt nothing undercutting the skyways The wings slice my resolve puppeting shadows on the road like fish beneath stones I silence my engine snuff its flame easily with my wrist shadow-fish dart across my skin the wings graze the sentient tips of my upended hair

--Scott Simpson, 1995

York, Nebraska was the brick streeted community that became our home. I made friends and grew up there. One of my best friends was Kirk Miller. Our fathers both taught at the college, a tiny community of hard-working, deeply convicted missionary-teachers who had come to save the Midwestern children who didn’t have the benefit of the big bible-belt Christian universities that were a part of our tradition. Kirk and I were friends all the way through and beyond college. The Nebraska Catfish album is dedicated to Kirk who was killed in 1992 by a driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. Kirk was riding his bike on the shoulder of highway 6, on his way to Milford, NE to lead a counseling session with a group of clients and was struck from behind. In honor of Kirk, the Nebraska Catfish album is being released on August 19, 2012, the 20 year anniversary of his death.

Everything between Lincoln, Nebraska and York is cornfield: endlessly hypnotic rows of tall green stalks, or broken, brown elbows, or irregular, punctured snowdrifts (depending on the season). Three years after Kirk’s death, I was driving back and forth to graduate classes at the University. I remember coming back very late one night. To the left, somewhere out in the darkness, was the place where Kirk had made his exit. To the right, was darkness… the only lights were the headlights, and the dim dials telling me how fast, how slow I was going, how slow I was at making any progress.

Late August Seminar in Andrews Hall

the fields along I-80 are dark as three years back when you moved behind every stalk in the side-spill of my headlights-- silent trips only three weeks four weeks five after your death marked for me a new accounting of days three years and I am here and something like your arm has wrapped itself around me your hands steer me through campus the way you slid your bike in and out of traffic wind in your long hair force of all that was behind you guiding, pushing counting keeps me

looking back you, there behind me not changing-- shrinking with distance the spot on that narrow road where I listened for you in the grass the gravel of that shoulder the crescent of black rubber mapping your short encounter with something too heavy to resist you're coming up again from behind me the windows are black late summer is rolling over into night the pavement cooling outside the fever rippling toward the sky the dashboard lights are pale green and orange how fast I'm not going how little time has elapsed how far I haven't been my headlights hardly touch the edge of night as I tug each marker up from murky water counting off the next mile this side of you

--Scott Simpson, 1995

The tricky thing about catfish is that they are on the other side of the divide between worlds: our world, and the underwater world. And yet the fishing line links us. There’s a tug and a pull; what happens in one world is felt, though not often seen, in the other--and it’s really unclear who is caught and who is doing the catching… both are engaged in a dance between worlds.

The book of John tells of this “twin world” challenge:

There was a man among the P’rushim, named Nakdimon, who was a ruler of the Judeans. This man came to Yeshua by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know it is from God that you have come as a teacher; for no one can do these miracles you perform unless God is with him.”

“Yes, indeed,” Yeshua answered him, “I tell you that unless a person is born again from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Nakdimon said to him, “How can a grown man be ‘born’? Can he go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?”

Yeshua answered, “Yes, indeed, I tell you that unless a person is born from water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born from the flesh is flesh, and what is born from the Spirit is spirit. Stop being amazed at my telling you that you must be born again from above! The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. That’s how it is with everyone who has been born from the Spirit.” John 3:1-8 CJB

A materialist might suggest that Kirk is gone—his molecules repurposed, going back to cosmic dust. An agnostic would amend that what we know as “Kirk” may or may not exist “somewhere else” now, but we can’t really know. A lot of Christians I’ve known might blithely say, “He’s in a better place—we’ll see him again by and by…it’s a matter of Faith.” I will tell you now—as I try to tell in each one of these songs— concerning Kirk, lost innocence, Nebraska dirt, brick streets and my own small town childhood, I still feel the tug…it pulls me off balance, redirects my movements, shapes the steps I take and the flow of my life; the hook is set, and it’s not coming out.

Nebraska Catfish is available starting 8-19-2012 at:

CD Baby or Amazon