Music Monday: Long Live the Hudson River Valley

Will Stratton is an American musician living in Beacon, NY. He studied music composition at Bennington College in Vermont. "Long Live the Hudson River Valley" was released in 2014 as part of the album "Gray Lodge Wisdom," his fifth studio album. You can find out more about Will at willstratton.com. 

"Long Live the Hudson River Valley" Lyrics
I have seen a bit of Amsterdam and a bit of Prague
I've seen a bit of London twice, in between the fog
I've seen the Nantes cathedral and the Barcelona beach
And Dublin and Vienna and a dozen more of each
But long live the Hudson River Valley

I have spent a year in exile in the forests of the deep
The clouds a mile thick overhead, the spirits that they keep
The wonderment of opening your eyes in your old place
The resignation falling with the scales on your face
Oh, long live the Hudson River Valley

I have stopped in California near the place where I was born
I've shed the last remains of my self-pity and self-scorn
I've come across the embers that are left of my old ways
I'll come up to Valatie and I'll set them all ablaze
Oh, long live the Hudson River Valley
​
I have fed off New York City like a fluke inside its host
And still I must return to always hold its heartbeat close
Until I can retire far upstate where I can hear
The silence that my own heart has now come to cherish dear
Oh, long live the Hudson River Valley

​​Thanks to HRMM volunteer Mark Heller for sharing his knowledge of Hudson River music history for this series.

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