Dust Bowl Bride was one of the earliest songs I started writing for the American Images project, and wound up as one the very last to be finished.

For a long time we were quite happy with it as a song, but then, as sometimes happens, little doubts crept in - about the smallest of things, a bar here, a word or two there…. Over a period of time I rewrote the chorus. Then I rewrote one of the verses. I rewrote another of the verses. I rewrote the chorus again. It gets to the point where you realise that, basically, it isn’t going to work. With all the re-writes, I’d lost the thread, the feel for the piece.

I happened to mention this in an exchange of emails I had with one of our MK friends, Bill Bemke from Weehawken, New Jersey, who’d sent in some photos for the project. A fortnight later a large parcel arrived from States. Bill had sent an encouraging letter along with books, photos, magazine articles and DVDs all relating to the Dust Bowl era. I spent two weeks immersing myself in this material, and then sat down and rewrote Dust Bowl Bride from scratch – it’s a totally different song from any of the previous versions – the only thing it’s kept is the title.

The American Dust Bowl is one of the most extraordinary events in US history – a cataclysmic disaster on a monstrous scale. And yet it’s also a disaster that’s largely forgotten – from speaking with many American friends, the history of it is all a bit hazy, something they weren’t taught about at school.

The fact it took place a very long way from the seat of Government no doubt played its part – the reality of life on the ground further west, the desperation experienced, was far removed from day to day life in Washington DC, and unlike today when events such as Katrina and 9/11 are beamed into homes all over the nation, indeed all over the world, the tragedy of the Dust Bowl barely warranted a mention on the inside pages of the East Coast newspapers of the time. It was the depression era and they had other fish to fry.
Indeed, it’s quite possible that ‘nothing would have continued to be the response had not one of the most disastrous storms, known as the Black Sunday storm of April 14th 1935, reached the East Coast, bringing the problem forcefully and directly to their doorstep. (It was a day after this storm that a reporter used the term ‘dust bowl’ for the first time.)

Although much has been written, both fact and fiction, about those who fled the land during the Dust Bowl – most notably John Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes Of Wrath’ – oddly the stories of those who stayed have remained largely unheard until quite recently, most notably in the book “The Worst Hard Time – The Untold Story Of Those Who Survived The American Dust Bowl” by Tim Egan – it’s haunting, dramatic and heart-wrenching - an absolutely riveting read.

Trying to capture the whole history of those years in one short song would be futile, so instead the song Dust Bowl Bride follows the experiences of one person (she’s not named in the song, though we know her as Amberleen). I wanted to keep the music sparse and low-key to reflect the mood and feel of the time. I also used a relatively unusual tuning for the guitar: DADGGD which I got from Katie Belcher.

Without Mr Bemke’s generosity and encouragement, this song simply wouldn’t exist – so this one’s for you, Bill.