Scotchtown Place

Maybe I didn’t know, and couldn’t say
but I knew I was a long way
quite a distance, the persistence
in this instance of this little time and space
Awake in bed, just five years old, one day
I looked around
as the light came through my plaid drapes
My existence no coincidence
how I ended up in this place
Big Wheel, bikes, skinned knees
and the girl across the street
seemed to me so far from where I ought to be

Twenty-one awkward years on Scotchtown Place
just to move twenty-five hundred miles away
Packed up all of my fears in one suitcase
that I vowed never would see the light of day
Blew my small-town mind for a desert scape
one small block for one hundred degrees, I’d trade
Relocate the boy but you can’t take
the boy out of Scotchtown Place

Little pyro child, striking matchbook flames
and burning my memories
of earlier times in my mind where I might
have found out some things I’d buried deep
Only knew my mom, my school, my street
hadn’t even yet found my feet
but, disturbed by absurd suburban curtains
that only served to relocate me
in a middle-classic neighborhood, you see
that surrounded me
with the mystery compounded on a black and white TV

Twenty-one awkward years on Scotchtown Place
just to move twenty-five hundred miles away
Packed up all of my fears in one suitcase
that I vowed never would see the light of day
Blew my small-town mind for a desert scape
one small block for one hundred degrees, I’d trade
Relocate the boy but you can’t take
the boy out of Scotchtown Place

You can drag me away way out there,
and I can run to the middle of nowhere,
but Middletown holds me back in despair
Holds me between a rock Scotchtown Place

Twenty-one awkward years on Scotchtown Place
just to move twenty-five hundred miles away
Packed up all of my fears in one suitcase
that I vowed never would see the light of day
Blew my small-town mind for a desert scape
one small block for one hundred degrees, I’d trade
Relocate the boy but you can’t take
the boy out of Scotchtown Place

Words and music ©2026 Frank Sardella ASCAP. All rights reserved. [P] 2026 Material Worth Publishing ASCAP.