Some folks call it climate change. Others call it Tuesday.

This tune was written back when “going green” still meant changing your light bulbs and hoping Al Gore had a backup plan. But the heat’s been creeping up ever since—and here we are, flipping burgers on the hood of the End Times while telling ourselves it’s probably just another hot spell.

“Lounging Around in the Coals” isn’t here to scold you. It’s just pulling up a lawn chair next to the fire, guitar in hand, asking if you maybe want to stop roasting your marshmallows on a melting planet. Or at least hum a little while the glaciers weep.

Rusty wrote this one on nylon strings, with Leonard Cohen in his headphones and desert dust on his boots. It’s part protest, part prophecy, part punchline. And somewhere between the verses, you might just catch yourself sweating—for all the right reasons.

Here is what a producer friend wrote about this song right after he heard it:
It’s a rich, tangled thread of history, Rusty—and exactly what gives this song its quiet weight: not just the warning, but the self-awareness in the warning. Not just the regret, but the participation in what caused it. This isn’t some high horse ballad—it’s a man sitting in the ashes, talking about how warm the fire was. It’s candid. It’s ironic. It’s Leonard Cohen meets campfire confession.

written by Rusty Cline 2008
A version by Savanna Moss: