Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)

Subject: Lyr Add: BRISTLECONE PINE (Hugh Prestwood)
From: GUEST,riverboat annie
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 11:03 PM

Bryan Bowers does this on his new CD, called "Bristlecone Pine."


bristlecone pine
(Hugh Prestwood)

Way up in the mountains on the high timber line
There's a twisted old tree called the Bristlecone Pine
The wind there is bitter, it cuts like a knife
And it keeps that tree holding on for dear life

But hold on it does, standing its ground
Standing as empires rise and fall down
When Jesus was gathering lambs to his fold
The tree was already a thousand years old

Now the way I have lived there ain't no way to tell
When I die if I'm going to heaven or hell
So when I'm laid to rest it would suit me just fine
To sleep at the feet of the Bristlecone Pine

For as I would slowly return to the earth
What little this body of mine might be worth
Would soon start to nourish the roots of that tree
And it would partake of the essence of me

And who knows but that as the centuries turn
A small spark of me might continue to burn
As long as the sun did continue to shine
Down on the limbs of the Bristlecone Pine

Now the way I have lived there ain't no way to tell
When I die if I'm going to heaven or hell
So I'd just as soon serve out eternity's time
Asleep at the feet of the Bristlecone Pine
Asleep at the feet of the Bristlecone Pine

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 03:32 AM

A couple of summers ago, we took a hike in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains above Bishop, California. The White Mountains are east of the Sierra Nevada, and provide a spectacular view of the Sierra. It's an amazing thing to be walking amid trees that are 4,700 years old.
Thanks for the song, Annie.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 09:02 AM

we have a bristlecone pine in our garden - only about 20 years old.   It's amazing to consider the age of some of those trees...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: open mike
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:45 AM

I have sung this song for years!
The Oldest living things on earth
are amazing to see. They grow in the
Great Basin National Park in Nevada
and are found above 10,000
to 12,000 feet elevation.

http://www.nps.gov/grba/

and in the white mountains.
see: http://sonic.net/bristlecone/

I really appreciate Hugh Prestwood
for writing such a wonderful song.
Check out his web site:
http://www.hughprestwood.com/

here is a NOVA PBS special on the
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/methuselah/
Methuselah Tree. there is a 10 minute
video clip.

unfortunately i heard that someone who
drilled a core sample from one of these
trees to count the rings caused the
death of a tree which had lived for nearly
5,000 years. gone. just like that.
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/bristlecone_pine.htm

huh?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 11:55 AM

Hard to believe unless he severed a strip of bark that was the only connection between trunk and roots. Most of a tree isn't "alive" as such

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 03:09 PM

Harry Tuft sang this at Sandy Paton's memorial. I'd never heard this song before and now I want to learn it. And to see a Bristlecone Pine. Then I check out this thread and discover that Bryan recorded it. Figures - he's always finding good songs and getting to them before I can get my greedy autoharpist's hands on them. I' guess I'll just have to play it on guitar....

Dan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: semi-submersible
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 11:20 PM

The first researcher to study the age of bristlecone pines did it, in ignorance. He didn't have any dendrochronology (tree ring dating science) data yet; just a suspicion that some of these trees might be pretty old. He didn't have any research budget either, to speak of, nor a borer to take core samples. So one day he went to a nearby glacial moraine, a good place for such trees to live undisturbed for a long time, and took tree ring samples off the first sizable tree he came to...with a chainsaw, the tool he had.

Then he took the rounds back to the lab and started to count rings. Not hundreds, not a thousand, but thousands. Two score and seven centuries gazing back at him through the magnifying glass.

Suddenly, with evidence that there were such extraordinarily old trees in their backyard, the powers that be granted him equipment (such as borers to take core samples respectfully) and assistants aplenty, and they started testing for more old trees. Guess what? None were anywhere near as old as the first one the researcher had found. The one he had killed...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: Michael Harrison
Date: 11 Oct 09 - 11:30 PM

Jim Salestrom of Colorado has done a wonderful version of this song for several years; fine song it is. Cheers,................mwh

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: GUEST,Merhlin
Date: 13 Oct 09 - 10:54 PM

I have made a video (slide-show) of the Bristlecone Pine song.
Does anyone here know how to contact Hugh? His MySpace email
won't accept emails. (It says he's away.) I have a phone number and will use it if I can't get an email address.

Thanks

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 05:39 PM

Here's a recording of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gTu18pgDwY

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: GUEST,threelegsoman
Date: 13 Jul 20 - 02:27 AM

The Bristlecone Pine was one of my earliest uploads to YouTube. Like Bryan Bowers, I used my autoharp for accompaniment, though the one I was using at that time was an old Chromaharp.
The Bristlecone Pine (Including lyrics and chords)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Oct 20 - 06:22 PM

Do we know anything about Hugh Prestwood? It's such an intriguing song, but I know nothing about the writer.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bristlecone Pine (Hugh Prestwood)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 20 - 07:21 PM

Prestwood bio at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Prestwood