Well, I have explained this before, but I wrote this song while living in Nashville. My rule at the time was that every single song must have “making love” in the chorus. It started because I found those words somewhat icky, which then made me strangely attracted to using them.
Regardless of how it began, once you use words enough, all of their old connotations fall away & new ones develop which are personal to you.
It’s a bright blue day, it’s a horses’ parade, It’s the very first day of spring. And the men are tip tapping to the steeple bells as they shine through a golden ring.
And the ladies are swaying and they’re dancing and playing with their hair so long and gold, But every time a pony shakes his mane I grow cold.
You offer up a ribbon for my hair; I give you a frown and a shrug. Oh what about me? I also wanted to make love.
A pole is painted in bright red stripes, A tent in stripes of blue, And the horses got pompoms in their hair and shiny saddles too.
And every lady wears a little bouquet that was picked by a little man. But my daisies are crushed beneath the pony feet into the sand.
I need to find me a mountain so I can rise high above… Oh what about me? I also wanted to make love.
You wear a great big top hat, You ride a great big horse. You got a knack for politics and muscular discourse.
You got no need for You don’t believe in prophecy. You got no use for trifles, You don’t need me.
So put away the pompoms and the polka dots. Put away the big parade. All the men dressed up like fairies, cause fairies ain’t welcome here anyway.
Small things, little things, odd things, pretty things, All the theater and display, Cause you don’t like, don’t like, really don’t like fairies anyway.
You’re going down to the valley so low, I’m gonna walk high above. Oh what about me? I also wanted to make love.
Sometimes I have words to explain things & other times I don’t. This past week I was trying to expose myself to as much yellow as possible in the hopes that it would give me more practical forms of intelligence, but I don’t think it worked. I sat for long periods in front of a yellow light & afterwards just found that all the words had been knocked out of me. I’m not sure why. Probably just because yellow is so different from what I normally think about that I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
So that is my excuse for not being able to give you any meaningful explanations for this song. Really though, it might have more to do with the nature of the song and not so much to do with yellow.
Hold me by the wrist.
Hold me to the ground.
Watch the world it flies
Spinning round and round.
Tell me what you know.
Tell me everything.
Pressed into a box.
Pressed into a ring.
See clouds that fly.
See them flying free.
That third one is I-
Do you recognize me now?
Their reflections fly
Flowing down the stream
Round my ankles I
Need you to release me now.
In the mirror there,
I saw you again
Like a foggy man
Close behind me then
Pressing into me
Your two hands were tied.
We’re in this world now
Like the square it binds.
Catch a bird that flies
Slice him into three.
Like a man he dies-
Do you understand me now?
Capture any bird
Capture anything
The relentless claw-
Do you understand me now?
When I heard your words
They were only sounds
Tying up my brain
Filling it with brown.
And my heart was tied
Like an animal too.
Our words weren’t the same
How could I explain to you?
Something isn’t right.
Something spinning wrong.
Shapes are scratching now.
Not where I belong.
Every cloud that flies
Breaking up in threes
Meaning something dies
Will you recognize me now?
“Take Me Home Country Roads,” though somewhat accurate (the dark & dusky part), also leaves people with the mistaken impression that this is a home sweet home goody goody golden biscuit sort of place, which- except for the biscuit part- it isn’t. It is the least goody goody square place I have ever seen.
West Virginia is a weird combination of things that are too earthy to be human, and things that are too spiritual to be human with not much to flesh out the middle parts. Being neither earthy, nor particularly spiritual myself, I don’t relate to many elements of life here. Still, I recognize it as a nurturing environment- like a womb- where a person can focus on growing into themselves, rather than running around chasing after shiny things.
Plus, I like its purple & gray mists. It is one of those rare places where, in the battle between nature and man, nature is winning. Living here forces you to seek a life beyond human games and human prizes. It is a true land of opportunity where you can grow in any direction you wish and there is not much to stop you. Unless, of course, you need an organized grid of human structures and expectations to help you function. Then you are screwed. This is a world where you have to bring your own yellow.
Can you see how this place is nice but also different from an office space?
Life
may not be real
Pikey what a thing to say
you know that you weren’t raised that way
And yet
sometimes I fear
God has left me so alone
a million miles from any home
To walk a road that has no end
The golden hay lies beyond the bend.
But why would we break?
Why would we cry?
In the end it’s only pain
we’ve known it in so many ways
I know
she felt it too
Remember her, that little bird
so soft we never heard a word
A hint of pink behind the door
and in the end a pile of feathers on the floor
Pikey, you know it won’t be long
Take my hand, I can feel their eyes
descending from the bluest skies
My gun
My iron bar
Life remember I was your friend
I knew that you had no end
Your fields were filled with golden hay
Three clouds they fly above then slowly drift away.
Trying to relate to the person I was when I wrote this song, a week or two ago. So much has happened since then. Do you ever feel like you know who you are, but then you realize it was never you, you were just possessed by someone else’s ghost? That is sort of what happened to me.
About a year ago, you see, I started feeling unbearably jealous around the clock. Not jealous of anything in particular, but just this endless jealous feeling would that never let up. I would just wake up feeling painfully jealous and then try to figure out who or what I was jealous of. I tried all of the classical remedies for jealousy- like carrying holly leaves in your pocket- but none of them made a dent. And the more jealous I became, the more suspicious, sly & paranoid I grew as well.
Eventually I just grew to accept that I was a supernaturally jealous person and there was nothing I could do about it.
Until a couple days ago, when I was looking at the dark green cloud covering my stomach, and realized that these actually weren’t my feelings of at all- I was just absorbing other people’s negative green feelings like a sponge. I think this is pretty common really, for people to be sponging up the negative emotions of others. Some people are more sponge-like than others though, and also specialize in sponging up different sorts of colors.
Although I am pretty far on the sponge end of the spectrum, I have met a couple people who are more spongy than me. When I am around them, I always feel better, knowing if I stand near them I will magically become poised and collected, while they will start babbling incoherently and then slip on a banana peel.
So always keep someone more spongy than yourself around, is my advice. Or if you are a man, just get married and there is an 80% chance your wife will do the trick.
Random Thought #1: I don’t know how much longer I can keep making recordings because it is so much pain just to get the most primordial recording. Technology is cold and hard. I wish there was a plastic pink recording machine made for kids that I could use with just a few chubby buttons to press and no cords.
Random Thought #2: You can never reach Truth, but the search for it causes your reality to expand. I think that is the whole purpose of truth- not to pin down reality, but to open it up. Though I don’t consider myself a virtuous person, Truth would probably be one of my favorite virtues, if I had to choose. It is always exciting and gives you little chills up and down your spine.
If I had to choose a God, I might choose the God of Truth, because I do believe truth will set us free. And the more truth we know- including dark truth- the more we realize everything is okay. Somehow, we are already living in Teddy Bear World and just don’t know it. I hope.
Random Dog Photo: Downtown with Slippers observing city life. People who go out 2 have fun at night- What do they do? we wondered. Why & how do they do it?
Right and wrong
Is not the things I know about.
A song- but I could calm the waters on a cold, gray day
You will know my name.
I am a cloud; you can’t hurt me!
Strike against me with your strongest hand
Blow you like a boy across the waters
Smash you like a board back to the land.
Filling up the sails of the sailors
You’ll never know where I lie
Cut me, it won’t make you any braver
Falling out of favor with the sky.
Right and wrong
Is not the things I know about.
A song- but I could still the waters on a cold, gray day
You will know my name.
I am a cloud; you can’t hurt me!
Fall upon me with your heavy hand
Run away and yet I seem to follow
Clinging to your whiskers like the sand.
Creeping like a fog above the waters
You’ll never know where I lie
Curling round your shoulders like a vapor
Sucking from your lungs another sigh.
Forty stars against the light of day
Forty stars that draw away, away, away.
Right and wrong Are not the things I care about. A song- but I could cool the waters on a cold, gray day You will call my name.
Oh dear… I wish I knew how to record more than one vocal track so I could have the sound of twins singing the chorus, but when you are a non-stem female musician, you just have to do the best you can & keep walking forward.
His eyes were blue, his eyes were pale The absence of a fire. Where the wind blew, there they went The absence of desire.
Peppermint, a hint of life Something pure and true. All around you like a kite There his blue eyes flew.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
His fingers were so thin and yet He held your little hand. He walked with you upon the beach A heart drawn in the sand.
The sky was flying like a flag Had you seen that flag before? A gust of wind opening a door.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
You stood upon the beach with him the gavel was put down. With rings upon your finger now The absence of a sound.
A piece of lace blew in the wind It was tied to a pole. The wind was blowing to the east The place where fairies go.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
This song was inspired by the zodiac sign of Libra. As I mentioned before, whenever I am feeling down I choose a sign of the zodiac to connect with and quickly it will cheer me up. I chose Libra, because it is the astrological ruler of lace, one of my favorite things.
It is probably dangerous to spell out for the world a list of your favorite things, but I will do so anyway and hope for the best. As I said, one of them is lace. I like to include a piece of lace in every song. It is a nice escape from my everyday life, which doesn’t feel lacy. My regular life is cornbread baked in a cast iron pan, so heavy I can barely lift it. But I dream of lace and one day I will buy a piece to keep forever.
So, at any rate, this is a list of my favorite things, but please keep in mind that by virtue of them being my favorite things I am also drawn to their opposites and to things which hit them at odd angles.
