New Boston Ravine Single – My Mama’s Heaven
Back in the summer of ’19, my family and I decided to go camping at Mill Creek in the Shasta Cascades just south of Lassen with some good friends. My wife Juli had grown up camping with her family every summer at a place called “Hole In the Ground” which is just a few miles from where we were camping. During our stay there, her mind was filled with childhood memories of camping with her extended family. She got inspired to write some song lyrics reflective of those memories.
A few months later, my daughter Mei Lin started working on some music for the lyrics and thus “My Mama’s Heaven” was born. From the very start, it was a song that Mei Lin, Karl (our bassist) and I really loved to play. I especially love the melody of the chorus and really enjoy singing harmonies on this. I think it was such a good choice to be the last song on our upcoming album Ragged Road which is is scheduled to be released on 4/25/21. Perhaps more than any other song on the record, My Mama’s Heaven expresses a real sense of joy!
When we began recording the song, we knew pretty quickly that we needed to have some banjo on this track. We enlisted multi instrumentalist Max Schwartz who added some beautiful banjo tracks to the recording.
The song is about what is most important in life: family, nature, and love. For me, the line “all you need is gathered ‘round” cuts right to the core of the message of this song. A reminder that in this life, what we need and desire most is often right in our midst – right before our very eyes -already attainable – if only we are open enough to receive it!