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Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs Plants and the Emerald Kingdom

I love to read

 

Best Friends

 

You wanted to lie face down in a pool
They lifted you up; they wouldn’t let you fly
They thought that you wanted to die.

You waited for the train; you lay on the tracks
They came to arrest you; they wouldn’t let you fly away, fly away
They said you had to come back.

Knitting at night under the moon
In your mind is a bone; it flies through the sky all alone
That bone is you.

White bone on black sky, swimming through stars
Fly away friend, the whole world is ours
Spreading like vapor, slipping through cracks
The whole world is ours; fly away never come back.

Finally one day you escaped to the moon
Through a bottle of pills and you left a note saying goodbye
Do not follow me, please don’t try.

Not all of us fly, not all of sing
Like a bone in the night sky but you were a king
Stuffed in a jar til the glass had to crack
Now I’m happy for you and I don’t need for you to come back.

Because look at me now, how I stroll through the fields
The grass brushes my leg an electrical feel
Every blade is a song, every blade is a scroll
Oh, the things that I’ve learned! Oh, the things that I know!

Songs about forests, light pours through the trees
Rushing into the wanderer electrical green
Though he covers his eyes, the light seeps through his skin
He was prepared to lose, but now he is destined to win!

Songs about creeks where a man cools his toes
As the water flows through them he suddenly knows why
Why his friend said goodbye.

And other stories like these.
As you know, I love to read.

 

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Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Hurricane, West Virginia Music & Songs

Alone

 

Alone

 

In my hand I hold your stone
Dark glitter, black glass
I know I am alone.

Close my eyes I see your face
Surrounded by the black of space and the stars
They are friends to me now.

Alone- but not crying now
Alone- darkness glows somehow
Will God punish me? I don’t know
But in me something grows
Alone.

Close my eyes-I see the outline of your hand
Cross my arms- the dark face of another man
The dagger lying on the dirt, sleeping baby undisturbed
And the roots- they are friends to me now.

Alone- I see colors now
Alone- darkness knows me somehow
Will he find me here? I don’t know
But I know I will crawl to the throne
Alone.

In the night, something moves the air
On my skin, I feel his darkness everywhere
Tall trees bow and bend; I can not pretend
Power you have always been my friend.

Alone- no more crying now
Alone- darkness shows me how
Will God find me here? I don’t know
But I know I will reach for the bone
Alone.

Download MP3: Alone

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Nashville

Mister will you make love to me?

 

Brownie feeding a dog with a mysterious shadow.A song about my desperation to leave the cold world of outer space and feel earthed again. I wrote this song in Nashville. As a kid, visiting Nashville from Kentucky, I had always liked its warm, earthy vibe, like pizza cooked in a red brick oven. But when I moved there as an adult- around 2006, I think, it didn’t seem the same anymore. It had become citified, slick, black, stylish, and cold. Sure, there was country music, but there wasn’t anything country.

What is country music, anyway? To me, it would be any music inspired by a southern, rural life. It wouldn’t have to fit a certain mold- it could be strange, nonsensical, angry, dull, sad, or wild. It could express the full range of human emotions and the crazy imagination of nature. But Nashville music isn’t rooted in the country, it is rooted in the tradition of country music, which is a very different thing. It pulls its tradition from a handful of 20th century country heroes, a well that becomes more depleted with every song written. Art that draws on other art as its foundation… well, I think it can get a little inbred.  That is how we end up with blank canvases and the like hanging up in museums.

But that is just my opinion. The point is, I felt disappointed that Nashville had become more cosmopolitan than homey.  I wanted something soft, warm, and natural, but ended up with something cold, hard and plastic. It may be no coincidence that so many of the songs I wrote in Nashville relate to being lost in outer space.

Download MP3: Mister Will You Make Love to Me?

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs Nashville

Who Will Make Love to Me?

 

Are you ready for space? Grey alien with big eyes in pants suit.

 

 

It seems that, for a while now, the color white has been trying to take over the (human) world. White walls, open space floor plans, buddhism, yoga, kale smoothie detoxes… when will the reign of white ever end?

At the time I wrote this song I was completely swept up into the color white, trying to wear, eat, and decorate with it exclusively. White can be refreshing and protective, but geez, it can also be such a cold color, disconnecting you from everything warm and earthy.

 

Download MP3: Who Will Make Love to Me?