Distant Drummer

Distant Drummer
by Si Kahn & Tom Chapin
© 2006 Joe Hill Music & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

He was only 10 years old
When he went off to war.
And they gave him a calfskin marching drum,
He beat it ’til his arms grew sore.
At Vicksburg and The Wilderness,
The older kids showed him the way,
How to hold the sticks loose in his hands
So he could play 12 hours a day.

He was listening to a distant drummer,
Learning from the sounds of history.
You could hear the rhythm rolling down
From drummer to drummer,
From Dad to me.

Dad was 17 years old the year he went away.
He skipped school for 52nd Street
Where he went to hear the big bands play.
The joint was jumpin’, his heart was thumpin’,
He’d found what he had to do.
So he asked Gene Krupa late one night,
“Would you teach me how to play like you?”

Gene said, “Kid, I don’t do that.
Here’s who you should see.
Sanford Moeller, that’s his name.
He teaches drums, Hey, he taught me.”
Now Moeller had learned from old men
Who’d been drummer boys
Back in the Civil War.
And he taught my dad how to hold the sticks
So he could play 12 hours or more.

He was listening to a distant drummer,
Learning from the sounds of history.
You could hear the rhythm rolling down
From drummer to drummer,
From Dad to me.

Dad was 49 years old,
Teaching drums and me,
When Gene Krupa called him up one night
And asked if he could come to see him.
The stroke had taken Gene’s strength away,
He couldn’t find the beat I guess.
So my Dad taught him how to play again
Like they were marching
Through The Wilderness.

He was listening to a distant drummer,
Learning from the sounds of history.
You could hear the rhythm rolling down
From drummer to drummer,
From Dad to me.

I was only 12 years old
When Dad bought me my first guitar
At Manny’s Music on 48th,
Where they treated me like the son of a star.
I never learned to play the drums
But he taught us more than just a song.
How to hold the music loose in our hearts
So we could play a whole life long.

He was listening to a distant drummer,
Learning from the sounds of history.
You could hear the rhythm rolling down
From drummer to drummer,
From drummer to drummer,
From drummer to drummer,
From Dad to me. From Dad to me.

This song appears on Tom Chapin's The Turning Of The Tide CD.

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