Rocky Horse
About the track from the album, The Sound of the Word.
Listen to “Rocky Horse,” here
There are a few simple things that profoundly enhance the quality of life at home in Vermont: a radiant wood stove in the winter, the verdant gardens of summer, the view out our windows of the field and hills, and the stately presence of Rocky and Babe. I’ll explain…
Rocky and Babe are Percheron work horses owned by our next door neighbor, Paul. Paul uses the horses for logging, sleigh and wagon rides, but also for anything and everything that horses can do. Need a heavy paver stone moved? Hitch up the horses. Car got stuck in a snowbank? Hitch up the horses! Like any self-respecting Vermont farmer, Paul’s got decades-old, analog farm implements for haying, brush-hogging or plowing, and when conditions are right he’ll hitch up the horses and have a go at it.
Often you’ll find visitors next door going for a short ride or just petting them. Babe is an even-tempered and trustworthy mare. Rocky, the gelding, is a goofball with way too much energy. “More horse than I can handle,” Paul has said on more than one occasion. Percheron’s weigh in at over 2,000 pounds. But while Rocky and Babe are certainly big and heavy horses, they’re still approachable, and don’t mind a bit of love and attention.
The back of our house abuts the path that is Paul’s access to his main pasture. It’s not unusual for Sue and I to be minding our business in the living room when the sound of thundering hooves crescendos as the horses fly by. We’ll run to the window like children to catch a glimpse. In the winter, jingling bells (yes, those kinds of bells) alert us to a sleigh loaded with passengers out for a joy ride. In quieter moments during the summer, a rip of grass, a stomp and a snort alerts us to their presence as they work their way down the path in tandem toward the field.
For as attached as Sue and I have become to the horses, honestly, they couldn’t give a fig about us. All they really care about is food. They are eating-machines. For the want of fresh grass they’ll break through any weakness in the fencing and make lunch of our lawn. It’s an emergency when this happens because a busy road borders our places and the idea of a horse and vehicle collision is not a thing anyone wants to imagine. Protocol is to grab some grain, a carrot, or anything more desirable than grass and coax them to the barn. There’s an inherent sense of responsibility living here in that we are also caretakers of the horses. We often feed and water them when Paul is away or working. They’re like the neighbor’s large and hungry children. It’s never a bother. We have the honor of their magnificent presence.
This instrumental tune came to me one day as I was noodling around on the fiddle. Out my studio window, there were Rocky and Babe, contentedly grazing . The music sounded to me like one of my favorite pastimes as a small child—riding on my rocking horse, Seabiscuit. In my young mind I was galloping, rocking back and forth, urging the horse to go faster. It’s not a fast tune, but it is a galloping tune. Hence, the tune is named in honor of the horses we love so much.