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At the age of 12, Jessie Veeder starting writing original music
to lyrics that referenced her own life experiences.
Today, she enjoys life on the ranch
in Watford City, North Dakota.
Her charm, talent, and free-spirited personality
recently came to light in our studio.
[harmonica & guitar play]
[Dobro & guitar play with the harmonica]
♫ Donny has got a truck and he's always here on time ♫
♫ Big Buttes and gravel roads, keeps it between two lines. ♫
♫ 30 bucks an hour, and the pay is good ♫
♫ But no time's better spent than the way a daddy should, ♫
♫ Still he hangs around ♫
♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
The writing process for me has always been
pretty kind of organic.
A lot of the music that I wrote originally
on my first couple albums were about the tie to the land
and being kind of a member of the hills and knowing
where your favorite tree is and understanding
that the ways of life are changing out there,
is connected to that landscape.
♫ Shelly don't stop movin' till the sun goes down ♫
♫ What she once was she's not ♫
♫ What she's lost now found, brings them ♫
♫ Breakfast in the morning and ice cold beer at night ♫
♫ Listens to them talk breaks up their fights ♫
♫ She stands her ground ♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫ People lined like houses up and down the street ♫
♫ Bottom line below us 'bout 10,000 feet ♫
♫ 22 degrees you find a better place to go ♫
♫ You'd be here too you know you'd hang around ♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
I grew up in Watford City; I went to high school there.
I graduated with a class of 45 kids.
My dad has been there when things were really rough
and people couldn't make a living.
Those memories are there, and now all of a sudden
we have all these people from all over the country
coming to McKenzie County, coming to Watford City
to try to make a living and really have a good life,
and there's challenges that come with that.
There's things that happen to the landscape,
there's things that happen to the community,
but Boomtown was my kind of call out to everybody
to say hey look, listen, every individual
that comes through this main street,
every person that is setting up shop or asking for a job
or working serving your coffee you've never met,
they all have a story and a reason they came here,
have a reason they have traveled maybe hundreds of miles,
left their family behind, these are all people
who are just trying to have a better life.
And I wanted to take little snapshots of them
and each verse, one about a truck driver who misses his kids
and the next verse about a waitress
who just works her butt off and someone who came back home
and maybe lost everything but came back home
and found himself again-- those are all stories that are out there.
And if I could catch that in one song, that's what I wanted to do,
and I'm really very proud of Boomtown
and I think it can be our little anthem.
♫ Heard they just got married down in Arkansas ♫
♫ Lost a child and a job before he made the call ♫
♫ Heard the weather's rough and the houses few ♫
♫ Got something for me sir ♫
♫ What's a man to do but try his round ♫
♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫ People lined like houses up and down the street ♫
♫ Bottom line below us 'bout 10,000 feet ♫
♫ 22 below you find a better place to go ♫
♫ You'd be here too you know you'd hang around ♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫
♫
♫
♫
♫ Stopped by the farmhouse the other day ♫
♫ Jimmy's moved back home, he's helping Dad cut hay ♫
♫ Pumps in the morning, but he gets home by five ♫
♫ We almost lost him there now he's more alive ♫
♫ God bless the sound ♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫
♫ Boomtown ♫
♫ You know you hang around ♫
♫ You know you will ♫
♫