Sixteenth song of my #100DaysOfDemos project: Oxbow is a slow burn, smoldering into a kind of acoustic rocker. In the midst of all this violence, it can feel like we’ve been cut off from the source, and the image that kept circling for me was the oxbow lake—how a river bends and bends until, almost imperceptibly, it separates from itself, leaving behind a body of water that still looks like flow, but no longer connected.
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Lyrics
oxbow
©2026 troybronsink
when we walked through the oxbow
where the river does its dosido
you asked, “where did the middle go?”
pain, you’re a time traveler
haste, you ol’ rabble maker
let that river meander
breathe out slow
feel that river flow
when you left for the war
we took pictures and swore
this won’t be the last
—but time moves too fast
when i hugged your neck
you said, “don’t look back”
…now it’s all off track
breathe out slow
feel that river flow
i’m in love with a river running out of control
i’m a fool in the middle of an oxbow
i’m in love with a river running out of control
just a fool in the middle of it all
they say ww4’s fought with sticks and stones
i’m love with a river, running out of control
but this middle war’s fought with loops and undertows
a rolling river, running out of control
i’m in love with a river running out of control
just a fool in the middle of an oxbow
in love but its running out of my control
a fool in the middle of it all
in a fool in the middle of it all
in love with a river running out of
breathe out slow
i’m in love with a river running
let that river flow
i’m love in the middle of it all
Rivers Making Lakes
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” —Albert Einstein
A few years ago my friend, poet and facilitator Scott Holzman, was describing his new home in Massachusetts and mentioned that he lived near an oxbow, then unassumingly asked, “do you know what that is?” I loved the way he made space for curiosity, I said “no,” and he explained how a river meanders in serpentine curves like switchbacks, leaving the feeling of being on a island, while actually simply being all-but encircled by a winding river. Looking into it further, I learned how the old channel slowly fills, how what once carried current becomes something quieter, more contained, and eventually something entirely different. It feels like a slower, more honest version of the frog-in-the-pot image—the undeniable, ongoing violence of change in both nature and civilization. You wake up one day and realize that what you loved and took to be solid is no longer what it was. The body knows this. The earth knows this.
I don’t want to over-explain the metaphor, but for me it raises a few live questions—How does loss flood in when what we trusted as continuous becomes submerged? War is unnatural. Nevertheless violence is real. Why, then, is it so tempting in the grief of it all to look back and fix love in place as something nostalgic or finished. And how often do parts of us respond to pain with a kind of “never again” resolve that, while understandable, isn’t the heart energy that actually meets this emergent moment? What would it mean to let the river meander, to stay in relationship with what is still moving, even while so much is out of my control?
How do we love the whole world without giving permission for harm, or without abandoning those we can actually reach?
I had another verse that might show up someday with the right band or production support (you can sing it to the cadence of “pain, you’re a time traveler/ haste, you ol’ rabble maker”):
there’s no more hesitatin’
middle age, mid-creation
oh riddle me home
everybody knows, that there’s no destination
we’re all skipping stones
… and the river flows
Song notes
The song is in Drop D, and the entire guitar is dropped a half step to let the round bass notes ring (unfortunately that only comes across if you listen with studio speakers or headphones). The verses came to me about a year ago in a more upbeat James Taylor feel, and more recently the falsetto “breathe out slow” arrived, along with that antiphonal, almost riverboat rocking response. Then last week I found the Em–G–C groove and found myself singing “I’m a fool in the middle of what’s out of control,” which eventually morphed into the version here.
The design problem with the song was time signatures. I practiced for days with a metronome, trading between doing the entire song in 6/8 or 4/4, and then this version sort of stepped forward on its own. I’m probably too close to it to tell whether the shift feels natural or forced, though I imagine bass and drums could help smooth that transition. For now, it felt honest enough to share as a demo.
What lines speak to you?
What does this song remind you of?
How are you doing with all the violent cutting off we’re in the middle of?
I’d never heard the WW4 quote until you shared it musically, nor was I familiar what an “oxbow” was! How you intertwine your prose and music is really beautiful.
My most favorite is that you call this "Day whatever" and my second and third favorites are the way the words "slow" and "flow" hang out just above resolution, and also the key chorus line "I'm in love with a river running out of control." Thanks, Troy!