Spotify Apple Youtube Amazon Facebook

'Burning Bridges' single Out Jan 19 2024

Burning Bridges is the first single from Hartt and the Gold’s 2024 Back East EP, the rocking follow up to their alt-Country Out West EP. From the opening locked guitar-snare hits, the song is a driving, energetic lick-fest on a mission. Chords and bass pulsate, propelling the vocal attitude to fight the forces that would grind us down – toxic people, deadly habits, brutal situations. There’s darkness; yes, but at its core, Burning Bridges is about self-preservation and deep-seated determination to live well on the other side of life’s shitstorms.

Video
Lyrics

LISTEN TO US ON

SPOTIFY
APPLE MUSIC
YOUTUBE
AMAZON MUSIC

'Back East' EP Out FEB 16 2024

Back East is a sweet suite of songs for a twenty-minute sonic trek.  Burning Bridges, the EP’s single, is a driving, energetic, lick-fest that really gets the juices flowing. At its route, the song is about self-preservation and deep-seated determination to live well on the other side of life’s shitstorms. Once those heavy shackles are thrown off, the EP turns brighter with the funky groove and string indulgence that is Back on My Mind – “it all comes down to – the people around you” is the mantra – a reminder to fill your thoughts with the people that make life shine – your tribe! yeah!. 

That theme continues on Now I Know – and the people in life who “help you figure it out” despite the despots of self-doubt and sub-conscious subterfuge. The undeniably triumphant chorus guitar line is an ode to those beauties who turn you on to what “love and life is about”. The EP finishes with “Dreamin’ (is Believin), equal parts honesty and pep-talk on dream pursuit. The gently persistent verse guitar tapestry builds to an anthemic, feel-good chorus and double time outro – an album-ender to be sure. The suite is tethered together with the musical interludes First Light and Back East – it’s a snapshot trip, part dreamscape, part stream of consciousness and all in service of the visceral journey.

Back East EP Lyrics

Out West EP

Out West is the culmination of several years of honing live performing chops mixed with diligent dedication to songcraft. The result is a six-song EP with a roots, country-rock feel that’s as real as the Rocky Mountains.

The album was recorded at Leeroy Stagger’s Rebeltone Ranch in Southern Alberta with Stagger producing and mixing the effort. Rebeltone drummer Kyle Harman provided the locomotive steady heartbeat for Goldman(acoustic guitar, vocals), Deydey(bass) and Barrett(lead guitar) to weave the 6 song set together live off the floor. Michael Ayotte engineered the session and added his own magic on keys. It was a 2-day whirlwind with limited overdubs, dig-deep efforts and good time feels. Stagger’s roots musicality and ideas for the Goldman-penned songs resulted in an honest, timeless album that captures the Out West title sentiment perfectly.

Out West EP Lyrics

NEW VIDEO FOR BURNING BRIDGES

Hartt and the Gold is an Amherstburg, Ontario based indie rock band that takes regular jaunts to alt-country. Hat tips to The Tragically Hip mix with Blind Melon licks while Zeppelinesque bursts and REM vibes coalesce around cleverish lyrical imagery. 

Following the release of 2019’s Out West EP, Singer/guitarist/songwriter Hartt Goldman moved back East to Southwestern Ontario from Fernie BC. Hartt formed another iteration of the Gold with long-time friends and musical co-conspirators to work up the Back East EP. The 2024 recording features Kevin Grant’s(The Wrestlers, Grantzig) quasi-lyrical lead guitar, Adam Fox’s(Purple Orange) hard-hitting, feely drums and Mike Dame’s locked-in and punchy bass grooves.

Trading Rocky mountains and Western coal trains for the ore-laden freighters of the Great Lakes – Goldman returned to his rock foundation and got reacquainted with his childhood hometown. Lake Erie meets the Detroit river; marshes meet fertile farmland; all pushed up against the creative grit of the Motorcities – these elements involuntarily infused themselves into the songs and were set aloft by the Gold as personal remedy to pandemic cabin-fever. Stars aligned as Amherstburg transplant(by way of LA) and recording ace, Frank Gryner was recruited to engineer, produce, mix and master the suite

MAKING OF ALBUM ARTWORK

Burning Bridges Lyrics

Verse 1
Things can’t be like before
I gotta make it stop, you want more
For years and years you burrowed into my soul
What did that do but leave a hole

Chorus
I’ve got to burn those bridges down
I’ve got to burn them, burn them
I’ve got to burn those bridges down

Bridge
I have to get, far away – ay yeah
My mind runs – for days and days and days
Til it’s clear there’s no way back
Hope to hell I covered my tracks

Verse 2
Who knows why it took so long
(I love = All of) your tragic beauty –you’re so wrong and strong
And maybe I’ll laugh when I look at the past
Storms always break, but some last and last
Chorus

Back East EP Lyrics

Verse 1
Things can’t be like before
I gotta make it stop, you want more
For years and years you burrowed into my soul
What did that do but leave a hole

Chorus
I’ve got to burn those bridges down
I’ve got to burn them, burn them
I’ve got to burn those bridges down

Bridge
I have to get, far away – ay yeah
My mind runs – for days and days and days
Til it’s clear there’s no way back
Hope to hell I covered my tracks

Verse 2
Who knows why it took so long
(I love = All of) your tragic beauty –you’re so wrong and strong
And maybe I’ll laugh when I look at the past
Storms always break, but some last and last

Chorus

You ever get the feeling – No chance to win
I got a trick and I stick to it – When the trouble begins, yeah the trouble begins, trouble always begins

Chorus
When I feel like falling apart
The light comes on at night sometimes
Instead of getting all riled up
I gotta – get you back, I gotta- get you back – on my mind

Verse 2
Blood is thicker than water – your friends you get to choose
Truth be told, you need them both –
To chase away the blues, chase away the blues, who doesn’t get the blues

Chorus
Refrain
It all comes down to the people around you,
open up and let the love surround you
It all comes down to the people around you – yeah, yeah, yeah

Verse 3
So look inside your heart of hearts – Who’s hanging out there
Keep’m close you need them most – they’re the ones who care 2x, we all need some care

Chorus

Refrain

Chorus
You , you help me figure it out – It took you, for me to figure it out

Verse 1
When I believe it, I will see it, I will be ok
All these butterflies and battlecries will just float away
If I can convince my mind to start playing tricks
But the devil is due and he gets in his licks
Way down deep inside where it won’t show the bruise
And I can’t take much more, else I’ll blow a fuse
So shut the system down that’s enough for a day
And we look to the other side but we don’t look away

You , you help me figure it out – It took you, for me to figure it out
Now I know what lovin’ life is about

Verse 2
Explore, don’t ignore, we can try again
To get that funny feeling from way back when
I see places full of faces, it gives me the chills
And what I wouldn’t do for a few cheap thrills
You, you’re right beside me, you see it too
And we hold each other close so we don’t come unglued
I admit it, I don’t get it, how it pushes me down
But I know with you close, I will not drown

You , you help me figure it out – It took you, for me to figure it out
Now I know what lovin’ life is about, Now I know (4x)
Now I know what love and life is about

Back East, I’m going. Back East, ooh I’m gone
I loved my time here, but I can’t stay
And now it’s time dear, I’m on my way

Driving East, through the night
Got to get home, before first light
My mind reels, on hyperdrive
Got to get home, before first light

Verse 1
I’ll show you, down inside
The place where all my fears and passions collide

Verse 2
You know beauty – she gets through to me
Like old friends we’ll sit up and we’ll talk til three
Then I remember – what I’m dreamin
Oh yeah to me dreamin is believing

Chorus
Oh I know, I felt this way before
I’m up right now, then down somehow, in this battle of evermore
‘Cause Dreamin is believing, Real life can be deceivin’
Take it day by day (take it day by day) – don’t let it slip away (let it slip away) – Dreamin is believing

Never try – you will never fail
Never laugh, never cry – Never ride high with the wind in your sails

Chorus

Chorus
I think therefore I am At least I think I am
Nothing is certain for me – If you go, how am I supposed to be

Verse 1
To be or not to be Is it really the kind of question I should be asking me?
My diatribe turns into soliloquy / Everytime you walk out on me

Bridge
But I know, what I feel seems pretty, real
And I feel how quickly life becomes unreal

Verse 2
Que sera – (What will be) Sera – (Will be) – up to me
I can’t say what changed – It is what it is all the same –
It is – it is not the same

Bridge

Chorus Modulated
I think therefore I am At least I think I am
Nothing is certain for me – (No No No) Repeat 3 X
Now you’re gone how am I gonna be
I think therefore I am

Verse 1
When I return home one day – Tears full in my eyes
All these years and I’ve been away – Makes me want to try
I try to relive those growing up years – Try to turn back time
I’d see just who I was, but it leaves me – it leaves me blind

The oldest thing in my memory – growing up on the shores of Lake Erie
My Mom came home in a boat – it was the flood of ‘73
The lake swelled up and breached her shore – waves were lapping at our door
When the waters did subside – bird island was not more

Bridge
And the winter time snows, yeah the springtime thaws
Mid summer bloom – brings leaves that fall

Verse 3
November blows and December shows – the ice of the first cold snap
It’s been 10C below three days in a row – hey boys lets giv’r a crack
We’d skate for miles on a marsh with no name – throw in your sticks cuz there’s shinny to play
Til dusk fall – swallows us all but tomorrow is more of the same

Bridge

Out West EP Lyrics

Yeah, you got a boyfriend, but he’s not here.
You came in last again, to poker and beer.
And I’m still listening with a sympathetic ear
But we’ve been talking like this, for way too many years.

Cause he’s not the first, and he’s not the worst
One more jerk and I’m gonna burst
I can’t say what we both know
This one’s done – and what have you got to show?

Chorus
You’ve got a long list of losers, and one good friend,
I know you’re so much better than these so-called men
You’re the women I dream of; can’t you see?
You gotta lose that list of losers and be with me

Verse 2
I remember the cheater, then there was the drunk
The cheapskate that cashed your paycheques, and now this punk
My shoulders are soaking from all of your tears,
But you know who … has always been here?

Cause he’s not the first, and he’s not the worst
One more jerk and I’m gonna burst
You say, “why can’t they be like you?”
Well, someone is, (ahem) how do you do? with your:

Chorus

Bridge
I can see that sparkle in your eyes start to dance
we gotta go for it this time, we gotta take a chance
cause I could not bear it if we never try
And yeah it’s a gamble, but I’m dying inside, from your

Chorus

It’s been a long time, too long to count
My sister’s wedding, I knew you’d come out
How much I’ve missed – looking at you
Sad smile in your eyes, yeah, you missed me too

Chorus
I know what you want, you won’t say you need
I know you want – to believe
Believe in me

Something borrowed, sometimes blue
My voice is shaky but my aim is true
Roses are ready, violets too
How about one more try, me and you?

Chorus

Bridge
We can’t pretend the past away
Let’s not make another mistake
I am ready for change, c’mon meet me halfway

Chorus

Hey it’s me, trying to get from A to B
I trust the wanderlust to show me all I long to see
And I know you, somehow I can’t get through
I keep learning from the journey to my own self I must be true

Chorus
Where your heart is, that’s your home,
But what if your heart lives to roam?
And what if you ride by my side?
Racin, chasin the setting sun – We head West,
until the day is done, and a new one’s begun

Verse 2
Oh no, the road is blocked,
The river’s jammed up with logs
The sand is quick and, man, I’m sinking in

That’s how I felt when I first headed West
So much to get off my chest
I knew the highway was my way to find out what’s best

Chorus

Verse 3
Been down South and I’ve been back East
then West again where my eyes can feast
And the rhythm I’m livin, well it marches the way my heart beats

It says – Do your best to follow your bliss
It’s a moving target, yeah, that’s where it is
To hit the sweet spot, you’re gonna have to take some risk

Outro
I went out West (3x)
First time I went West was just to see
Next time I went West I brought my love with me
Now I’m livin here I’ve got my family
It’s not home but it’s where I want to be
I went out West (3x)

Mama it gets lonely here, the air stands so still
I know you, you don’t like crowds,
but sometimes we need a thrill

I was thinking I would head to town,
I was thinking, you come too
Gonna find out what’s goin down
See what’s new

Verse 2
Mama it gets crazy here, everybody’s havin’ a time
The booze and the moves and the spaced-out grooves
And people losin’ their minds

Take my hand let’s get in the mix
Do you remember how we used to do
We’d jump and spin, get our kicks
See what’s new

Bridge
When a groove, turns to a rut,
Life can feel the same old same
It doesn’t take much to, spice it up
And get into the groove again

Verse 3
Mama you gotta take me home, I won’t fuss, I won’t fight
We’ve had our fun and it’s not done, Ooh I like this night

I climb in the cab, close to you,
I’m feeling good, real lucky too
Soon we’ll be home, we’re gonna be alone
See what’s new

A fine young team rode into town for the big big hockey game
Their goalie was feeling good it was almost time to play
When all at once the mighty team from Fernie hit the rink
The crowd began to chant their name and his heart began to sink

Their eyes were full of fire and their will was made of steel
Their blades were sharp and shiny and their slapshots made him reel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered cross the ice
For he saw the Riders pumping hard and he heard their battle cries

Chorus
Score another goal, YAH!, make another save
Ghostriders win tonight

As the Riders blew one by him the crowd mocked him by name
His will to win was waning, his defensemen felt the same
For the Riders are relentless and the writing’s on the wall
When you face the boys from Fernie, your team will surely fall

Chorus

Hey, hey sweet Summer girl
Why don’t you come sit with me
I really mean it’s no big deal
Come on over keep me company

Verse 1
We’ll sit down at the end of the dock
Dangle our feet in the morning sunshine
Sit back at the garden table
Tastin the fruit, right off the vine
Taking some time, taking some time, taking your time with me

Hey, hey sweet Summer girl Ah won’t you come walkin with me
Hey hey sweet Summer girl, C’mon along keep me company

Verse 2
We’ll stroll on the breezy beaches,
Rolled up pants, waves making lines
Head up to the top of the hill,
Take in the sunset with twinkling eyes

Bridge
The dog days don’t drag me down,
I’ve never felt better just hanging out
Slowing down is all I want to do
You, me and the roses in bloom

Hey hey sweet Summer girl Why don’t you stay here with me
Hey hey sweet Summer girl keep on keeping me Company
Sweet Summer, sweet summer, sweet summer girl
In the sweet summer sweet summer sweet summer time
Sweet Summer, sweet summer sweet summer girl
You really got me feeling so fine
take some more time, take some more time,
take your sweet time with me