The character in this song is ruminating on some old habits while remembering when time was spent “beating back the shadows and giving it all up to the moon.” The lyric was written by my friend Jenny Daley after a conversation about creativity and why it matters. It was an offhanded remark: “You should write me something that I’ll turn into a song.” I have long been an admirer of how Jenny can walk the thin line between beauty and madness. Hers is a wild spirit that sees magic in the details and dichotomies as only an Irish poet can. Darkness and light. Sorrow and joy. She does not fear the deep. When she sent me the lyrics, I was floored. It was real, and we had lived it. For me, the words weren’t trying to be nostalgic or judgmental. It was really just a statement of growth and change. “There are places grace will take you, that the wild night never will.” Truth. In February 2025, I was recording in Woodstock, New York. At the very end of the session, we decided to take a pass at the song. I just wanted to get it down. It’s cut live in the room with my old school chum Dr. John Bongo playing percussion and the great Mark Dann on the bass. It was the first pass. It felt good. Soon after, the mysterious Doctor Westchesterson laid his beautiful keyboard parts into the mix. Two Doctors and a Dann. A solid crew. In any endeavor, I suggest that you surround yourself with a team of doctors and a bass player. It’s just smart thinking. So here is a song that I hope will come into your life like a contemplative fog and stay with you until the sky clears and the sun breaks through.

The Buddhists consider the conscious act of letting go an essential part of a journey. It is the beginning of learning to live with yourself again — despite what happened, despite what was, despite everything. Our bags are packed with experiences both good and bad. Loss and grief, pain and hurt, happiness, and regret. Sometimes the greatest strength is in knowing when to let go and move on. There is beauty in the cycle of death and birth. Beginnings and endings. There is beauty in letting what is not working blow away. The song was written in room 214 of the Sugarloaf Key Lodge in the lower Keys Florida. It took about 10 minutes to write but I had been living with the feeling that sparked the song for a long time. On my way to perform at the very end of the highway in Key West, Florida, I was on the run from a few years filled with heartbreak and change. In my rearview, were a lot of miles of hard road. Long drives have a way of romanticizing one’s world. I felt the cosmic nudge that I needed to get something down. I checked into the room, believing I would wrestle with a song for a whole night. I walked out to the Gulf of Mexico and felt a profound feeling that it was time to let go of the past. The wind was blowing. There were metaphors everywhere. The song wrote itself. It just fell out. By sunset, I was in Key West feeling a lot lighter and ready to proceed.

The video for the song was created on the February 2023 “Vagabonds By Choice Tour” with dobroist Abbie Gardner that traveled through Florida. It was intended to tell the song’s story using the locations and overall feel of where Letting You Blow Away was written. It also acts as a travelogue of the trip itself as Abbie and I made our way from shows in Key West to stops in Key Largo, Sarasota, St Augustine, Tampa Bay, and Ft Myers.

I wrote the song a few years back at the tail end of a period of personal upheaval. The Lyric endeavors to capture two singular moments in time for the characters of the song as they sit on the roof of an apartment building looking off into the night in which the “lights looked like Paris.” The second happens on a summer night on an island with a view of the mainland as “the fire on the beach kept us warm.” In those moments the narrator does not want to break the spell of their newfound connection. He simply finds comfort in the metaphor that there is nowhere else that he’d rather be as they wait on a brand new day. The music is meant to have the galloping feeling of new love and the excitement of changing times. The whole thing just about wrote itself.

“Bravery. The new song “The Hard Part” from Marc Douglas Berardo forthcoming album inspires you to be brave in the darkest time. With a folk-rock groove, he takes you to a place within yourself to make changes you want to see in the world. Compassion is one of Berardo’s superpower ingredients in his songwriting.” - MarySue Twohy, SiriusXM Program Director, SiriusXM Satellite Radio



“The song ‘The Hard Part’ was written while recuperating
from losing my singing voice for a little over two months.
The impermanence of my ability to sing , something that
I’ve been able to do without much thought my whole life,
became the lesson before me. The song was a bit of self
advice and a reminder to carry-on above all things. I wrote
it to guide myself through the problem. The song concludes
with a dollop of hope.”

“Songwriter and prophet Bob Marley once wrote that ‘none
of them can stop the time.’ It was with that notion that I
carried around the idea for the collection of songs that
became Temporary Things, Berardo explains.
“If you’re lucky to live long enough you are gonna lose a
few battles, pass through a few relationships and lose a few
friends and relations along the way. The ephemeral nature
of time on earth becomes very apparent as the years pass.
What is here today is gone soon. No one can stop the time.”

Rhode Island based Marc Douglas Berardo is a hardworking, fast moving, adventure seeking, keen observer who lives for the story and the song. He has been nationally recognized for his music and performances (Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Song contest, Telluride Troubadour Contest, Sisters Folk Festival, 2013 RamsHead Onstage Rammie for Show of the Year, 2013 DJ Pick Top Ten for the Year on THE VILLAGE ). He has a gift for powerful lyrics, haunting melodies and polished story telling. His music is classic and timeless.

An engaging and popular performer, Berardo has shared the stage with a variety of the best in acoustic, folk and rock music including: Livingston Taylor, The Doobie Brothers, John Haitt, Cliff Eberhardt, Peter Rowan, Guy Clark, Vassar Clements, Ralph Stanley, blues legend Chris Smither, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members The Buffalo Springfield, Brooks Williams, Norman Blake (Oh Brother Soundtrack), NRBQ, Steve Forbert, Mustard's Retreat, Eric Anderson, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, Ruthie Foster, Red Molly, Garnet Rogers, Greg Trooper, Kate Taylor, The Pousette-Dart Band, Amy Speace, Cheryl Wheeler and The Kennedy's among others.
As a sometime member of The DesBerardo Band with his brother Chris, Marc has been a part of shows with classic rock acts including Little Feat, The Marshall Tucker Band, Levon Helm, David Allen Coe, America and others.

Berardo's highly anticipated 2013 release Whalebone was produced by Brother Chris Berardo (Chris Berardo and The DesBerardos) and includes guest appearances by Jon Pousette Dart (Pousette-Dart Band), Abbie Gardner (RED MOLLY), Lincoln Schleifer (Donald Fagen, Rosanne Cash, Richard Shindell), Craig Akin (Hands Off My Sister) among others.

When not playing his songs all over the place, MDB lives in a heavily secluded and fortified compound on a river near the ocean in Westerly, RI.

"Whalebone is a confirmation of a true talent and an amazing artist."-Remo Ricaldone, The Long Journey Magazine, Italy.

"Marc Douglas Berardo's newest CD WHALEBONE, will surely turn new fans on to his music. Berardo's songs are musical narratives with the feel of acoustic Springsteen and Tom Waits, with Buffet-eque subjects. You will want to own this one."-The Roots Report, Motive Magazine.

“Whalebone is a highly polished personal collection in the tradition of many clever songwriters of the past that forged songs like short stories. These songs are on the delicate trapeze of poignancy with suave rhythms, cool as an icy summer drink back-up vocals, lots of presence and personality."-John Apice-No Depression Magazine.

"Berardo's music is like a warm breeze in March when hopes are high for a thaw."-Toledo City Paper.

Downhauler: One of ten: Favorite New Releases for 2012-XM/Sirius Radio-The Village with host Mary Sue Twohy.

"Downhauler just blew me away. What a great collection of songs!"-John Platt-Host of Sunday Breakfast, WFUV FM, NY.

"Downhauler's sound has an affinity with the Californian folk-rock of the 1970's. The CD targets a mature audience.Narrative simplicity in the best sense of the word.-Johnny's Garden Magazine, Netherlands-Rein van den Berg
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The Horizon Music Group is proud to announce the February 2011 release of Downhauler, the new album from songwriter and keen observer Marc Douglas Berardo. This new collection of songs continues Marc’s collaboration with long time producer Prof. Dick Neal (Hoe,The Mockingbirds). The CD features performances from among others: Nashville multi instrumentalist Liam Bailey (Bill Frisell, Rodney Atkins), the signature harmonies of Brother Chris Berardo (Chris Berardo and The DesBerardos), Violinist Larry Deming (Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, James Taylor) and Americana Music sensations
RED MOLLY on the soulful ballad “Quiet Places.”

Regarding the new CD, Marc says: “All of the lyrics on Downhauler are, in some way, about searching for home, the possibility of renewal and the promise of adventure. I began to write this particular set of tunes over a few days while staying in the Castillo Real Hotel in St Augustine, Florida. The Spanish influence of the old town and the hotel got me to thinking about exotic locations like Cuba and Bimini. I started looking at maps and picking other places to go. I definitely had some travel fever. The characters in the songs are all at some kind of crossroads or transition (Ruby, Smokegun Jack Daydreams, Something Real, Havana).They are contemplating about making a life somewhere else, lighting out for new places and rectifying where home was for them (Time to Go, Everything Will Be Alright). I made up a few more numbers up about some of the people that I have gotten to know in and around my own home base of Westerly, RI (Bottom of the Bottle, Passing Through, Lonely Town). After a while, they felt like they belonged together on a record. They felt connected.

Downhauler debuted @ #20 on the Folk DJ Radio Chart, April 2011

2011 Nominee "Best Vocalist"-Motif Magazine, Rhode Island.
2010- Finalist-Sisters Folk Festival-Sisters, OR
2010- Honorable Mention-Rocky Mt Folks Fest-Lyons,CO
2010- Honorable Mention-Telluride Troubadour Contest,CO

"Stunning, sharply drawn Americana song portraits."-Motif Magazine.
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"Berardo drops a gem with DOWNHAULER! He is back from his travels with a cargo hold full of treasure. Like Hemingway, he draws his characters with pithy phrases."-Roger Z-More Sugar Magazine.
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"Berardo sounds like a fishing town Bruce Springsteen."-Fairfield County Weekly.
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