New Releases From The Journeyman Project Soundtrack: Acorn Sprout & Folk Singer

Fulfillment doesn’t come from chasing what we’re not — it comes from inhabiting fully what we already are.

Aug 22, 2025

Acorn Sprout & The Journeyman’s Path

Acorn Sprout is more than a song about a tree — it’s a parable about acceptance. From the small beginnings of an acorn in the sand to the tallest tree in the land, the story isn’t about striving to be something else. It’s about becoming fully what you already are. The tree survives droughts and fires, puts down roots, and stands steady through time. By the end, it grows into greatness not by yearning to be something it isn’t, but by staying true to itself.

That message echoes across Taking the Helm - Compass and Tides. In many ways, the journey is less about chasing an external prize and more about uncovering the identity that was there from the start. Folk Singer declares that identity boldly, while Acorn Sprout accepts it quietly. Together, they remind us that wisdom isn’t found in becoming someone new, but in embracing who we already are.

Acorn Sprout

I remember the exact moment the acorn sprouted! It found me when I was playing guitar at my friend’s house in Massachusetts. I came up with a little riff and the first line: “ I started out as an acorn sprout. Spring came along, and I poked my head out.” I had the presence of mind to record it on my phone, but it was no more than an idea and a riff. After moving to California, I was performing every week at the HopMonk session room in Novato, California, and I was running out of covers. I began writing some new songs, and I started looking for demos I had written earlier during the pandemic. That’s when I found Acorn Sprout, and it is now one of the featured songs on The Journeyman soundtrack.

I remembered I had this tiny seed of a song (pun intended), so I went back over my recordings looking for it. I pulled the song out and began to build some new verses with my partner, Cindy’s help. We worked on it for a day or two, then I spent the next couple of weeks working on it in my studio. The new song emerged, and I played it at the HopMonk open mic several times, solo and with the house band. It was well-received and was requested more than once over the following years.

Acorn Sprout is a story song, a song about the reality of being a tree and never being able to leave where it is planted. It is left to dream about what life would be like if it could roam the earth like humans, and how it was destined to be where it landed, growing into itself with patience and grace, high on a mountain bluff. After enduring a tree’s worst fears, fire, drought, and time, it digs its roots deep into the hillside, holding on year after year. Thanking the winds that make its limbs and roots strong, the sky above that showers it in starlight, the valley below that puts on spectacular seasonal shows of flowery blooms, the birds on its branches that come and go with purpose and pleasure each season on their way somewhere else, and the sound of children playing nearby. With time and humility, it grows into the most enormous tree in the land, and people come from the world over to see it stand its ground year after year overlooking the valley high atop its bluff—a witness to time itself and a testament to the strength of accepting one’s own place in the world.

I am linking to a live recording of Acorn Sprout, captured on an iPhone, in which I am playing guitar and singing lead vocals at The HopMonk. There is a second link to the studio version I created using Suno software; they sound very different. Working with the new technology in the studio has given me a new tool to tell my stories with, and the two productions evoke very different feelings as a creative producer. Writing the songs and performing them live with a band is hard to beat. The experience of bringing my original music to life in front of an audience is a real thrill. At the same time, taking those songs into the studio and producing them with the latest music and video production techniques helps me tell the stories in a whole new way. I was an early adopter of the multimedia dream in the eighties when I sold Apple and IBM computers. It was only a dream then, but now it is a reality, one I yearned to see. Now the story can be entered from many doors.

Being able to produce songs in line with my artistic sensibilities and distribute them this way has resulted in tens of thousands of new listeners. For me, it all comes down to storytelling. The songs, paintings, lyrics, and photographs below all tell stories of trees, but in different media. Because of that, they each create different thoughts and feelings in the viewer, all influenced by their own experiences with trees, no doubt.

What are your memories of trees in your life? I would love to hear some comments.

Acorn Sprout, Studio Version

Acorn Sprout Live

Acorn Sprout

Written by Tim Cooney

I started out as an acorn sprout
The spring came along and I poked my head out
The summer sun, it felt so fine
So I set down my roots, gonna make this place mine

Chorus
I was born a tree, that’s me
Take a look at me
I’m just a tree, that’s all I’ll ever be
That’s my reality
I am just a tree, and that’s alright with me

Grew a couple branches out on my side
A real good place for the birds to hide
The kids like to play all up in my shade
I thought to myself, I got it made

Chorus
I’m just a tree, that’s me
Take a look at me
I’m just a tree, that’s all I’ll ever be
That’s my reality
I’m just a tree, and that’s alright with me

The next ten years went by so fast
The present now will soon be the past
I kept on growing and I got so tall
Then came the drought and I hit the wall

Chorus
I’m just a tree, that’s me
Take a look at me
I’m just a tree, that’s all I’ll ever be
That’s my reality
I’m just a tree, and that’s alright with me

The fires rip through from year to year
But I stay safe way up here
I was lucky my roots run deep
I pray to God my soul to keep

Chorus
I’m just a tree, that’s me
Take a look at me
I’m just a tree, that’s all I’ll ever be
That’s my reality
I’m just a tree, and that’s alright with me

Being a tree is sometimes rough
But you can’t beat the view from on top of this bluff
Yeah, I’m planted here and I can’t go far
But I found my place under these stars

Chorus
I’m just a tree, that’s me
Take a look at me
I’m just a tree, that’s all I need to be
That’s my reality
I’m just a tree, and that’s alright with me

Now I’m the biggest tree in all the land
From an acorn sprout in the sand
And the people come from near and far
Just to see me, I’m a rock and roll star

Chorus
I’m just a tree, that’s me
Take a look at me
I’m just a tree, that’s all I need to be
That’s my reality
I’m just a tree, and that’s alright with me

Over the years I have painted dozens of trees, here are just a few of them.

Acorn Sprout 2023

The Canopy 2022

My Son and Moon 2015/20

The Storm 2018

The Apple Tree on the Bay 2020

Tree of Life 2015

The Tree Outside My Window, Chatham, MA, 2020

Some of my photo’s of trees.

Muir Woods 2025

Autumn Day 2023

The Red Woods Muir Woods Marin County California 2025.

Buy The Journeyman Soundtrack at the link below.

Folk Singer 2023

When I was growing up, we would buy our music on small vinyl record called 45s. They were called that because of the speed at which the record traveled around the turntable before you would put a metal needle onto the top of the spinning record, and the music would play. There were always two songs on each record an A side, which was the single that was being played on the radio, and a B side, or flip side. Acorn Sprout would have been the single and Folk Singer the flip side.

I wrote this song when my son Grant was in town for a visit in 2024. I had taken him out to some of my performances while he was here, and after he left, I wrote the song in about ten minutes. I was telling him how much I enjoyed writing and recording my songs, and how much music has helped me on my journey. Music was always there when I needed something to do to satisfy my creative impulses. I realized just how long I have been writing, recording, and playing music, and it goes back to when I was three. My parents would tell me stories about how obsessed as a child I was with music of any kind. I write about it quite a bit in The Journeyman Project.

Folk Singer & Acorn Sprout: Two Songs, One Root

What does it mean to know who you are? Two songs — Folk Singer and Acorn Sprout — approach the question from different angles, yet they end up standing side by side like mirrors. One rooted in metaphor, the other in declaration, both carry the same truth: identity is not something we chase, but something we claim.

In Acorn Sprout, the story begins small. An acorn in the sand grows into the tallest tree in the land, not through striving to be something else, but by leaning fully into what it already is. The chorus repeats the mantra: “I’m just a tree, that’s me… and that’s alright with me.” The strength of the tree is not its ambition, but its acceptance — its willingness to endure drought, fire, and time while still standing tall. The tree does not apologize for being “just a tree”; it thrives because it never pretends to be anything else.

Folk Singer takes that same philosophy and applies it to the artist’s journey. Where the tree simply grows, the singer declares: “I’m a folk singer, that’s who I am.” The repetition is assuring, as if naming the identity over and over helps make it real. The verses trace childhood longing, the joy of playing, and the mystery of inspiration: songs arriving “like a divine mystery,” guitars always in hand, words tumbling out almost without thought. Yet beneath it all is the same refrain as the tree’s — an acceptance that this is who I am.

The most striking link comes when Folk Singer nods directly to Acorn Sprout:

“I wrote a song about a tree
And how he wanted to be free
He was the biggest tree in all the land
From an acorn sprout in the sand.”

Here the two songs intertwine, making explicit what was already implicit: the folk singer and the tree are one. Both claim their place not through power or striving, but through truth. Both remind us that freedom comes not from becoming someone else, but from finally standing fully in who we are.

If Acorn Sprout is the parable, Folk Singer is the testimony. Together, they show that whether you grow roots or write songs, the journey is the same: to accept yourself, to endure, and to keep giving — shade, music, presence — to those around you.

That’s the heart of The Journeyman project. The path is long, the trials are real, but the destination isn’t fame or fortune. It’s the quiet, powerful moment when you can finally say without hesitation: “That’s who I am — and that’s alright with me.”Together, these songs reveal two modes of becoming: the natural and the chosen. Acorn Sprout teaches that identity can be found in surrender, in letting time and struggle reveal your shape. Folk Singer shows that identity can also be an act of will, a loud embrace of what stirs your soul. Both reach the same place — a sense of rootedness, a harmony between what you are and what you do.

In the end, the tree and the singer are mirrors of each other. One finds truth by simply growing, the other by simply singing. And both remind us that fulfillment doesn’t come from chasing what we’re not — it comes from inhabiting fully what we already are.

Folk Singer

Written by

Tim Cooney

Folk singer, that’s what I wanna be
It's been that way since I was three
Music has always stirred my soul
I’m gonna be a Folk Singer till I get old
I'm a folk singer
Yeah, I'm a folk singer

I couldn’t help it, when I was young
I would sing from the top of my lungs
I'd write it all down in song
And everyone would all sing along….
I’m a folk singer
Yeah I'm a Folk singer
Yeah, that's what I am

I wrote a song about a tree
And how he wanted to be free
He was the biggest tree in all the land
From an acorn sprout in the sand
….I’m a folk singer
Yeah I'm a Folk Singer
I'm a folk singer

I’m a folk singer, that’s who I am
I’ll sing my songs whenever I can
I want to fill the world with song
Now, how can that ever be wrong?
I’m a folk singer
Yeah I'm a folk singer

I’ve written songs about being free
I write more about you and me
I carry my guitar across the land
My guitar is always in my hands ….
I’m a folk singer
Yeah, I'm a folk singer
Yeah, I'm a folk singer
That's who I am

I write my songs, they just come to me
It's a divine mystery
I don’t know where they come from
I write them down, and I start to strum
I’m a folk singer
Yeah, I'm a folk singer
Yeah I'm a folk singer
Yeah I'm a folk singer

I’m a folk singer, that’s what I do
I spend my day's singing songs for you
I only want to fill the world with song
Now, how can that ever be wrong?
I’m a folk singer
Yeah, I'm a folk singer.
I'm a folk singer

I spend my time playing songs for you
That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do
Thanks for spending your time with me
Without you, I wouldn't be
A folk singer
Yeah, A folk singer
That's what I am

I spend my time playing songs for you
That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do
Thanks for spending your time with me
Without you, I wouldn't be
A folk singer
Yeah, I'm a folk singer
A folk singer
I'm a folk singer
That's what I am