Don t let us get sick Don t let us get old Don t let us get stupid, all right?
Young men see visions
And old men dream dreams.
Bruce Cockburn - “Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand”
“Supper’s Ready”
It basically takes you through the book of Revelation and leaves you with hope in the end. Whether you believe or not, it’s an amazing bit. I don’t know how you can pull that off non-ironically.
“There’s an angel standing in the sun
And he’s crying in a loud voice
This is the supper of the mighty one”
And the flip side
“Counting Out Time” which is as dirty as you can get without earning a warning label. Lol.
(All Genesis if you didn’t know. IYKYK.)
Every morning, greggery drives
His little red volkswagen to the ugly
Part of town where they keep the government buildings.
Voodn, voodn!
Zappa
If the sun was always shining and our load always light
We’d be shaking like a leaf with every God given night
And we’d break under the weight of any pressure
That was ever applied.
- Brown Bird, “Bilgewater”
Has it really been a year since the last inspiring lyric?
It doesn’t happen frequently enough, but sometimes poetry stops us in our tracks. This song brings tears to my eyes with lines that literally brought me to a stunned standstill.
“There’s two things I’ve learned
only one is true.
You can change the world
or it changes you”
Ahi “Human Kind”
In this world of ordinary people
Extraordinary people
I’m glad there is you
In this world of overrated pleasures
Of underrated treasures
I’m glad there is you
Verse 1 of “I’m Glad There Is You”
Jimmy Dorsey and Paul Madeira
I want the Tom Waits song “Take It with Me” played at my funeral. I especially love the last verse:
In a land, there’s a town
And in that town, there’s a house
And in that house, there’s a woman
And in that woman, there’s a heart I love
I’m gonna take it with me when I go.
Trying not to think about us.
But then someone in a room five-oh two
Started doing the thing that we used to do.
Every bang, every boom,
It was just like it was happening in my own room.
— Marc Cohn, “Paper Walls”
Space may be the final frontier but it’s made in a Hollywood basement
Entertainment shapes the land/the way the hammer shapes the hand.
Jackson Browne, “Casino Nation”
Tom Waits “Pony” from Mule Variations
I’ve seen it all, boys, I’ve been all over
Been everywhere in the whole wide world
I rode the high line with old blind Darby
I danced real slow with Ida Jane
I was full of wonder when I left Murfreesboro
Now I am full of hollow on Maxwell Street
And I hope my pony
I hope my pony
I hope my pony
Knows the way back home
I walked from Natchez to Hushpukena
I built a fire by the side of the road
I worked for nothin’ in a Belzoni sawmill
I caught a blind out on the B&O
Talullah’s friendly, Belzoni ain’t so
A .44 will get you 99
I hope my pony
I hope my pony
I hope my pony
Knows the way back home
I run my race with burnt-face Jake
I gave him a Manzanita cross
I’ve lived on nothin’ but dreams and train smoke
Somehow my watch and chain got lost
I wish I was home in Evelyn’s kitchen
With old Gyp curled around my feet
Tom Waits “Come on Up to the House” also from Mule Variations:
[Chorus]
Come on up to the house
Come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I’m just a-passin’ through
You gotta come on up to the house
Does life seem nasty, brutish and short?
Come on up to the house
The seas are stormy and you can’t find no port
Got to come on up to the house, yeah
I told my wife I want “Take It with Me” played at my funeral. Love the whole song, but especially the last verse.
On the darker side of life, and Tom Waits…”misery is the river of the world, everybody row”.
“Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”
Bob Seger - Against The Wind