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A Weird American Gothic Story - Part 2: A Boy From Black Mountain

By Brian Carpenter on October 7, 2009 9:44 AM

Boy From Black Mountain began as a way of continuing a trilogy of "Weird American Gothic" albums began in 2006 with Dreamland. If Dreamland used the mythologies of the American circus as its backdrop, Boy From Black Mountain used Southern Gothic mythos and storytelling, inspired by my father's life growing up as a watermelon farmer in the rural Bible Belt. As so often happens, what I set out to do was only a small part of what I actually ended up doing. In December of that year my son was diagnosed with autism. I stopped writing music for a year. And over the next 18 months Caroline and I spent our days helping our son overcome many obstacles.

I. Clouds Moving In

We saw early symptoms such as stacking and repetition but several trips to so-called "experts" did not yield a diagnosis. He wasn't talking much at age 2, either, but when he started the temper tantrums when his routine changed, we knew there was a serious problem. While Caroline was reading every book under the sun about autism, I was writing music in an attempt to release what I was feeling and document the phases of what we went through from diagnosis to recovery. I'll never forget coming home one Halloween night and seeing all of these happy families walking their kids along the streets. And then getting home and seeing my son fast asleep, in his Superman cape, and asking Caroline what happened. They walked less than half a block and he started screaming because he wanted to go a different way. There was nothing she could do, he was just terrified and upset. And I just broke down because I wanted him to experience Halloween like other children were experiencing it, but mostly because I knew something was very, very wrong.

II. The Sound And The Fury

I was distraught and I felt a lot of dread every day coming home to a screaming child who couldn't talk with me, who couldn't explain to me how he was feeling or what he was so terrified of. I've told Caroline (years later) I remember walking up to the house at night and hearing his screams from outside on the sidewalk, and I would stop at the fence and look up, my briefcase in hand, the street light shining down on me. And I often felt like Father Merrin in The Exorcist coming home every night. "Saturn Song" came out of seeing my son getting teased on the playground and wondering why the parents of these snotty, spoiled little Cambridge brats didn't step in to do something. I was so angry at just about everyone.

III. The Course Of The River

After finally getting the diagnosis of austim in December 2006, we began battling with the public school system to get services. In 2007 our son moved into an ABA classroom in Cambridge taught by Moira McNabb, who we are convinced is either an angel, some kind of miracle healer, or just one of the best darn preschool teachers for special needs kids around. She was able to bring out his personality in a way other teachers could not. She went into his world, and if he was nervous about something she got silly with him to make him laugh. With Moira's help, an intensive schedule of ABA, and of course one-on-one with Caroline and me, he slowly started talking and making eye contact and he was on his way to recovery.

IV. Boy From Black Mountain

After he overcame many of the obstacles, I was able to write about the experience through some of the songs on this album. Black Mountain (a mountain and progressive school in North Carolina) became a metaphor for autism. Today my son is the most gregarious and creative little social butterfly. He loves to read books and never stops talking about all of his creations and stories and friends. His repetitive behavior is gone and he never screams anymore. His friends are very important to him. "Boy From Black Mountain" is a love song to my son, a boy with a hyper-creative mind whose obstacles disappear in his dreams and whose exceptions provide a unique path to fulfill his dreams.
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