Song Description

Come spring when the trillium, mayapples, and ladyslipper orchids are blooming in the woods, Lonnie and Chloe head out with their mushrooming sticks. They have their own secret spots away in the hills where they find morels year after year. The spring after his fifteenth birthday, the mushroom hunt is bittersweet. Lonnie's grandfather is dying. He was the first person to take Lonnie morel hunting and deer hunting. Chloe tries to cheer Lonnie up, but it's no use. Lonnie keeps hearing a riff-based chord progression in his mind, the minor key agreeing with his mood. He plays this later in the barn, and they make it into a song.

Lyrics

By the Sugar River sometime after dawn
they were walking westward humming some old song.

Where they go's a secret--never tell no one--
a grove of rotting elm trees, treasure in the sun.

Can they fill their baskets now with mushrooms every day?
Only they both know the way.
Can you hold happiness like a mushroom in your hand?
Make a wish and close your eyes.

Some days they would gift them. Some days they would sell.
Morels bound for the market worth their weight in gold.

When they fill their basket, Chloe skips ahead.
Lonnie ambles after singing some new song.