This article originally appeared in the December 2015 issue of Louisville Magazine.
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“The idea for this song came while I was walking down by the waterfront,” Quiet Hollers front man Shadwick Wilde says. “After the floodwaters recede, there are often little treasures left in the debris.” The song ends with this lyric: “And you can try to hold your own against it / You can stack them sandbags ten-high / I’ll be floating down Main Street on a life raft / Watching those barricades drift on by.” Wilde says the song’s protagonist is a homeless man who, thanks to the books he has picked up here and there, is well-read.
“He also doesn’t seem to care much what happens to him, or the city whose underbelly he clings to,” Wilde says. “His wisdom is in knowing that no matter what we do as humans, when nature decides to destroy us, it will. All we can do is prepare, or pray, or whatever it is that people do.” What has Wilde found during his walks down by the river? “Nothing that anyone would get real excited about,” he says, “but like toys and washed glass and stuff like that. I found a Louisville Slugger one time. I found some dolls that went toward art projects later on. You’d be surprised at some of the things that wash up.”
Image: Quiet Hollers
