Ain't got no message I'm trying to get through
Got no agenda, and nothing to prove
Just trying to breathe as the moment goes by
Without pretending I need to know why

Ain't got nowhere else I'm trying to go
Got no expectations or ultimate goal
Just trying to live without wondering how
Traveling on at the speed of right now

Yesterday's gone and it's not coming back
No point in scoring it or keeping track
As for tomorrow, nobody can say
Whether you like it it comes anyway

Ain't got no slogan or theme song to sing
Got no idea what life's gonna bring
Just trying to swim without needing the shore
Seems kinda pointless to want any more

Fish gotta swim and a bird's gotta fly
They waste no time on the wondering why
As for tomorrow, like it or not,
Just hope and illusion, that's all that it's got

Ain't got no method or kind of a plan
Got no time to waste figuring who I am
Just trying to live it one day at a time
Don't need any answers, I'm doing just fine.

14 NOV 2009

Just shut your eyes and zip up your lip;
let the illusion of indifference slip
you in a coma of the beautiful life
you pretend.

It doesn't matter which way you choose.
Your revolution is yesterday's news,
lost in a column on the bottom right
of page ten.

Here it comes again...
the feeling you should not be feeling,
the knowing right from wrong,
the urge to find the answers,
the make a difference song.

Just keep your mouth shut, don't say a word.
Don't let on that you think it's all absurd, 
a trick of light and mirrors meant
to fool the marks.

It doesn't matter, those who get paid
are on the right side of the barricade.
The choice is death by drowning,
or life with sharks.

And here it comes again...
the feeling you should not be feeling,
the sense that something's wrong,
the need to turn the light on,
the make a difference song.

09 JUL 2009

I had it easy, or so I've been told:
good luck and fortune to have and to hold
Plenty good lovin' and good-timin' friends
Who swore they'd back me up until the end

But all too easy, it slipped right away;
No more tomorrow, and not much today.
Dreams turned to nightmares, and sunshine to rain;
And how it hurts me now to have to explain.

Sometimes you slip, trip, stumble and fall;
Leavin' you no chance to make sense of it all.
Without a warning, you get that wake up call
And you slip, trip, stumble and fall.

Some kinds of trouble you just can't outrun;
bad situations when you're under the gun.
Sometimes a sure thing is riddled with doubt;
no big surprise when the whole bottom drops out

No sense to argue, no reason to cry
No point in sittin' there wonderin' why
It's bound to happen to you, just wait and see
Sooner or later, eventually

Sometimes you slip, trip, stumble and fall;
Leavin' you no chance to make sense of it all.
Without a warning, you get that wake up call
And you slip, trip, stumble and fall.

29 APR 2009

Cheap hotel, out on the turnpike
between come and gone;
far too late for sleeping,
far too early to be getting on.

Who can tell? Sometimes the line
between what's right and wrong
fades into nothing
like an old fashioned country song.

You and me? It's hard to figure out
the bottom line;
too much time together,
not enough of it was very fine.

Some say love heals every wound,
and some say love is blind;
When it's gone,
it doesn't leave too much behind.

What we had is over,
and it really doesn't matter whose to blame.
Really makes no difference,
win or lose, you end with nothing just the same.

Cheap hotel, out on the turnpike
just a mile or so;
far enough to say I'm leaving,
close enough to nowhere else to go.

Lucky it's a one-horse town: it cuts down on the horse-shit;
but watch your walk, you're bound to step in some.
And any fool can tell you there's no trick to finding trouble;
it comes up on you ugly, mean and dumb.

The world ain't too much different from one small place to the next;
you get around enough, you learn just what you can expect.
It really doesn't matter how you think things ought to be;
they're usually off target, more or less, to some degree.

Lucky it's a one-horse town. It keeps the sidewalks cleaner;
but folks avoid the middle of the road.
They walk the straight and narrow down their own side of the street
and don't wander out beyond the status quo.

But it's not too much different, this place, from all of the rest;
it's the absence of comparison that makes it seem the best.
It really doesn't matter what they think, or if they even care;
so long as you sit here, and they stay far off over there.

Lucky it's a one-horse town, it simplifies the transit:
there's only one road out to anywhere.
And you don't have to worry over what to pack for traveling;
you just need shoes, so bring an extra pair.

The grass is not much greener there than it grows right here;
it's just different fertilizer and new kinds of smoke and mirrors.
You know, it really doesn't matter where you think you're gonna go;
different day, the same old horse-shit piling up along the road.

29 NOV 2007

Sitting here thinking by myself
Wondering what to do
Got no money, no cigarettes,
baby, and I don't have you

Seems to me there ought to be
Just one thing going right
But it don't seem to matter much
the way I feel tonight

They say in a dry spell
You keeping hoping you'll pull through
Well maybe that's true
But I'm telling you

Undertown (n): Like the bottom part of the wave that actually moves all the water (and can do all the damage), that beneath the surface pulls you in and gives you an appreciation of the ocean, the undertown is that part of any place that provides a glimpse into its true meaning --- beyond the lip service, hypocrisy, glib acceptance speeches and polished recordings. The undertown is where you find the literal and figurative prisons of a place, its dark secrets and hidden longings. You find what a place truly wants to be, and people willing to stand up and do what is necessary to make it happen.

In a musical context, the Undertown is what doesn't get played on the radio. Music that doesn't have a face on MTV, VH1 or CMT. It's music with a connection to personal roots, an absolute absence of disposable music - reverence and relevance where it is due, and iconoclasm where it is required. Bluegrass, folk, Appalachia, Western swing, hillbilly, hick, redneck, rural, Bakersfield, Austin, midwestern, plains, poor, downtrodden, spiritual music. The music that represents the America you don't see except out your front window, if you bother to look. The America that doesn't require (or for that matter, appreciate) reality programming.

The Undertown is then, more or less, a battleground. A place where a war is constantly raging; not of flesh and blood, though that too may be consumed in the struggle. No, it is a battleground of the spirit. What is the struggle? In the words of e.e. cummings, "to be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

For many years, I have been a citizen of Undertown. That experience has resulted in a number of different poems and songs, like this:

Late at night it slows a little:
that slow burn right down the middle,
turning progress upside down
and into the sad streets of undertown;

Where nothing's likely brewing,
and the only thing worth doing
is to swim or else you'll drown
beneath the current in the undertown;

You think I'm joking? Look around.
Welcome again to undertown.

There is no use in speaking
out against the darkness leaking
into everything that's found
its way here to the heart of undertown,

and no sure way of knowing,
not much of a good thing going
when they shut the sidewalks down
and turn the lights out here in undertown;

It's hard to find your way around
Here after dark in undertown.

Outside there's the sound of thunder;
how long will it last, I wonder?
'til the lost have become found
and take the road that leads from undertown

where there's no light left burning
to prove that the world's still turning
any way but straight and down
to bury itself here in undertown.

It may sound funny, but I've found
just one way out of undertown.

07 FEB 2007

Just like everybody, I try to get along;
but I can't win for losing, things always turn out wrong.
Need to have a membership,
but I have an objection to the dues.
I've got the feeling non-essential,
clearly quintessential
lowdown existential blues.

I could stand for something, but really, what's the point?
It's not like what I say will change the way they run this joint.
I still end up walking the extra mile
in someone else's shoes.
I've got the wrong end of the pencil,
most irreverential
lowdown existential blues.

You don't need my opinion on the way it ought to be;
you do just what you want to, in the end.
Nowhere doing nothing is reward unto itself;
No sense in wasting time on let's pretend.

Yes, it's a dilemma; I don't know what to do.
Seems I'm good for nothing; I know that to be true.
Doesn't seem to matter much
what answers that you're seeking, or the clues.
I've got the sittin' on the fence will
make you non-essential
lowdown existential blues.

21 SEP 2007

Being the King of Americana
might mean nobody knows your name:
except for the local bartenders
who still serve you just the same,

while you're sitting on the mike for three hours,
singing songs that nobody knows,
wearing out strings for a hobby that brings
in about thirty dollars a show.

Being the King of Americana,
you know at least a thousand songs by ear;
but in a three-strong crowd, there's always one who's loud
with something else they want to hear:

another song about scraping the bottom,
another ditty on the journey down;
and you hate it, but you play it, one more time,
just before you pass the tip jar 'round.

One more round, please, for the band,
who'll shuffle, waltz or swing
at your command; the next four hours
they'll play anything.

Hold your applause until you hear
the last guitar chord ring...
then give it up again
for the Americana King.

Being the King of Americana
might mean you know no one cares
about how songs are born and die
in curses, tears and prayer;

and each one takes another's place
to catch the public's ear.
You hope to find enough of them
to pass for a career.

One more round, please, for the band,
who'll shuffle, waltz or swing
at your command; the next four hours
they'll play anything.

Hold your applause until you hear
the last guitar chord ring...
then give it up again
for the Americana King.

05 SEP 2007

A moment of brilliance,
shot through the heart and left for dead
on the side of the road;
An instant of insight,
unclouded by the circumstance of reason
as the teardrop explodes;
A spark from a fire
too long extinguished, with no memory
or meaning of flame.
A blink of an eyelid;
unconscious movement without conscience
or the concept of pain.

What is the reason why things burn?

A moment of madness,
illumination that burns through the curtain of dawn;
A second of shadow,
fogging the mirror before it is faded and gone;
An inkling of brilliance,
one shining hour that dies as the minutes decay;
A spark of electric
current that waxes and wanes as it travels away.

What is the reason why things burn?

30 JUL 2007