Notes of Blackberry — A Grown-Up Love Song for the Man Who Never Learned a Tasting Note
Crush season's done, the press house is dark, and this past Saturday my wife did what she's done for thirty straight Novembers: she took me wine tasting. Folks at the station know I'm a whiskey-and-river-water man. I hold a tasting glass like a fence-post driver. I swirl backwards. I couldn't tell a tannin from a train depot. And every year she dresses it up anyway — blackberry, old saddle leather, rain on hot stone — and every year I lean in like she's teaching me something worth keeping.
This year she let the truth slip: half those notes were made up. Invented. Fed to me, one flavor at a time, just to watch her rough-handed husband try.
I laughed till I had to take my hat off. Then I wrote this, because it hit me like a freight of light: loving somebody thirty years ain't about speaking her language. It's about showing up every November to keep learning it. I don't know the words. But I know where I've been — and every year, it's beside her.
Pedal steel and piano on this one, brushes on the snare, and a steel break where words run out. Pour something and stay a while.
Lyrics
[Intro]
[Verse 1]
Fence wire scars across my knuckles, shears cuts on my thumb
Work gloves up on the dashboard, November sun
Thirty years of Tuesdays, she still holds my hand
Quiet tasting room out on the wine-trail land
[Chorus]
Notes of blackberry, pour 'em again
I don't know the words, but I know where I've been
Every year I pull my chair up to your table, friend
Notes of blackberry, pour 'em again
[Verse 2]
I swirl the glass all backwards, she don't make a sound
Mason jar of water waiting when I set it down
She takes a picture with her phone-light, me squinting at the red
Tasting rooms go holiday by the weekend, like she said
[Chorus]
Notes of blackberry, pour 'em again
I don't know the words, but I know where I've been
Every year I pull my chair up to your table, friend
Notes of blackberry, pour 'em again
[Steel Guitar Solo]
[Bridge]
She leaned in close this November, her glass gone dry
Said half of what I told you was a beautiful lie
Blackberry, oak, that hint of rain —
I made some up to watch you lean my way
I held her hand across the barrel wood
Thirty years, and I'd be back next fall if I could
[Chorus]
Notes of blackberry, pour 'em again
I don't know the words, but I know where I've been
Every year I pull my chair up to your table, friend
Notes of blackberry, pour 'em again
[Outro]
Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio