Lyrics I Wish I Had Written

Sometimes you just go, how did they do that? Where did that come from? 

For me, here's just a sampling:

Too cool to be forgotten

House rules, no exceptions

No bad language, no gambling, no fighting

Sorry, no credit, don't ask

Bathroom wall reads: Is God the answer? Yes.

Ninety-nine and a half just won't do.

Outside my window, I can hear the radio,

And I know that motor wagon is ready to fly,

'cause it's almost Saturday night.

So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains

And we never even know we have the key.

I wanna watch the ocean bend

the edges of the sun then

I wanna get swallowed up in

An ocean of love

I've lost count of the times I've given up on you

But you make such a beautiful wreck, you do

Ya, you make such a beautiful wreck, you do

You make such a beautiful wreck, you do

At the dark end of this bar

What a beautiful wreck you are.

It's better to burn out than it is to rust.

She said her name was Billie Jean and she was fresh in town.

I didn’t know a stage line ran from hell.

And feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues

  You know, feelin' good was good enough for me

I wished I was in Austin

In the Chili Parlor Bar

Drinking Mad Dog margaritas.

Won't you share a common disaster?

Some people ain't no damn good

You can't trust 'em, you can't love 'em

No good deed goes unpunished.

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin' fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one

I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you

Can hurt you somehow

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Don't let 'em pick guitars or drive them old trucks.

Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.

Don't think twice

It's all right.

Why'd you let go of your guitar

Why'd you ever let it go that far

Drunken Angel

Everyday is a winding road

I get a little bit closer

Everyday is a faded sign

I get a little bit closer to feeling fine.

Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night,

The first one's named sweet Anne Marie and she's my heart's delight.

The second one is prison, babe, the sheriff's on my trail,

And if he catches up with me, I'll spend my life in jail.

Georgia, Georgia, no peace I find.

Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind.

Even God must get the blues.

God must hate me

He cursed me for eternity

God must hate me

Maybe you should pray for me

Did she make you cry

Make you break down

Shatter your illusions of love

Is it over now- do you know how

Pick up the pieces and go home.

Oh good shepherd

Feed my sheep

So I bought a guitar and I practiced real hard

I wasn't much good, but I was willin'

Till to my chagrin, my girlfriend came in

And she said, "Can you sing any Dylan?"

Out all night playing in a band

looking for a fight

with a guitar in your hand

with a GUITAR in your hand

We all got holes to fill

and them holes are all that's real

some fall on you like a storm

sometimes you dig your own.

I am just a poor boy

Work’s my middle name

If money was the reason

Well I would not be the same.

I love this town... like an unmade bed

I need a love to keep my happy.

It's a long way to Texas... it's a long way back home

It's a three hour flight on the plane when I go

... away from this snow from Boston to South Shore where the

Dreams roll and tumble... and bring the prose to the wheel...

If you're goin' through hell,

Keep on goin'.

Don't slow down:

If you're scared don't show it.

You might get out,

'Fore the devil even knows you're there.

It ain't wise to need someone

As much as I depended on you.

It's goodbye to all my friends.

It's time to go again.

Now that we come showin' up

Rumors bouncin' off of that truck

Just a let 'em stare at her and me

'Cause I don't care about anything but us

And there's nothing wrong with me

This is how I'm supposed to be

In a land of make believe

That don't believe in me

And when you said I scared you,

Well I guess you scared me too.

If I had possession of Judgement Day

I wouldn't have no right to pray.

Now I'm leaving Normal and heading towards Who Knows Where.

I've finally learned that there's good and bad

And that a guy can do some choosin',

Of that I'm glad cause this heart and face

Won't take any more bruisin'.

And the next time I fall in another's arms

There's one thing I'll be certain,

That she can bear the weight of the love I give

Without considering it a burden.

Living Life #9.

When you can't find a friend

You've still got the radio.

Livin' on refried dreams.

Guess I've got that old travlin' bone, 'cause this feelin' won't leave me alone.

But I won't, won't be losin' my way, no, no

long as I can see the light.

All I ask

Don't tell anybody the secrets

I told you.

I said "Mama, he's crazy and he scares me

But I want him by my side

though he's wild and he's bad

and sometimes just plain mad

I need him to keep me satisfied"

My Give A Damn's Busted

I got no friends 'cause they read the papers

They can't be seen with me and I'm getting shot down

And I'm feeling mean.

 I'm old enough to know better, but still too young to care.

Why is there one in every crowd, and why do I attract them?

Some rich men came and raped the land,

Nobody caught 'em

Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus,

People bought 'em

And they called it Paradise

The place to be

They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea

You’re one of a dying breed who only takes what they need

And leaves the rest to the feast of the fools

When someone else along the way asks you to stop and stay

And tell them a story or two

Tell them the one about this old man from Blue River, Arizona

Who is tall and handsome in spite of his lazy eye

Never found no gold on the trail of old Coronado

Spent half of his life waiting on that quittin’ time whistle to blow

Is it too much to demand

I want a full house and a rock and roll band

Pens that won't run out of ink

And cool quiet and time to think.

Hung a sign up in our town
"If you live it up, you won't live it down"
So she left Monte Rio, son
Just like a bullet leaves a gun

With her charcoal eyes and Monroe hips
She went and took that California trip
Oh, the moon was gold, her hair like wind
Said, 'Don't look back, just come on, Jim'

When you said you’d never heard of John Prine
Well I knew right away you weren’t worth my time

And the moral of this story

Is I guess it's easier said than done

To look at what you've been through

And to see what you've become.

Quivers down my backbone

I got the shakes in the knee bones

Shivers down my thigh bones

Like I'm

Shakin' all over

I dont claim a thing
Not a two bit clue
But somebody whispered
War kills the truth

  

You wait in the car on the side of the road
Lemme go and stand awhile, I wanna know you're there but I wanna be alone
If only for a minute or two
I wanna see what it feels like to be without you

Sometimes I get upset

When people treat me bad

Don’t have time to think

So I get real mad

And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave

An old county road runs by my house and ends on the river bank

In '73 they shut the ferry down

Back up the road there's a church and a store with a bench full of lying old men

In the middle of a wide spot they call a town 

I'm just a young man living to make me old plowing these fields by the river road 

Where hopes dreams and my granddaddy lived and died 

They go as far as my eyes can see but they ain't far enough for me 

When I drive to the river and I look at the other side

I've heard that into every life

a little rain must fall.

If there's any truth to the saying,

Lord, let it be a southern rain.

Blow up your TV throw away your paper

Go to the country, build you a home

Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches

Try an find Jesus on your own.

Well, I sat there at the table and I acted real naive

For I knew that topless lady had something up her sleeve.

So what in the world's come over you?

What in heaven's name have you done?

You've broken the speed of the sound of loneliness

You're out there runnin'

Just to be on the run.

I'm the PATRON SAINT of the denial with an ANGEL FACE and a taste for suicidal.

I recall once upon a time,

Livin' was so easy and I felt so fine.

But, my, my, my right before my very eyes,

Satan came with fire to burn me,

Wouldn't listen when they warned me.

A dagger in my back while she's calling me honey,

Wouldn't stand back, for neither love nor money.

The hotter it is you know the hotter it gets.

Every Friday, well, that's when I get paid.

Don't take me on Friday, Lord, 'cause that's when I get paid.

Let me die on Saturday night, ooh, before Sunday gets my head.

Why don't you cash in your chips

Why don't you call it a loss

Not such a big loss

Chalk it up to better luck

This old guitar ain't mine to keep

It's mine to play for a while

To live is to fly, low and high

So shake the dust off of your wings

And the sleep out of your eyes.

Well I been drinkin' again

And I know it's a sin

But I just can't refuse an old friend

Cause life is gettin' me down

And I been two times around

And there ain't nothing but pain around the bend.

Is there anything a man don’t stand to lose,

When the devil wants to take it all away?

Clouds of myst’ry pourin’ confusion on the ground.

Good men through the ages, tryin’ to find the sun;

And I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain.

Well you stole it 'cause I needed the cash

And you killed it 'cause I wanted revenge

Well you lied to me 'cause I asked you to

Baby, can we still be friends

  

And I been from Tucson to Tucancary, Tahathapi to Tanapall

Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made

Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed.

And if you give me weed, whites, and wine

And you show me a sign

Then I'll be willing

To be moving.

I'd rather look around me -- compose a better song

'cos that's the honest measure of my worth.

In your pomp and all your glory you're a poorer man than me

as you lick the boots of death born out of fear.

May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind take your troubles away
Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel
May the wind take your troubles away

You took my joy   

I want it back.

I don't know what it means when he takes my pulse
And says that I'm a lot like him

Walking down Main Street getting to know the concrete
Looking for a purpose from a neon sign
I would meet you anywhere, western sun meets the air
We'll hit the road, never looking behind

Say that you were stranded on a desert island
What books you gonna bring what friends would tag along
Say you had a month and you knew you were dying
How would you spend your time
What goodbyes would take too long

Every lunatic must be well intentioned
Sets himself apart he's an instrument of God
Took her from the playground to the farmhouse cellar
Kissed her while he killed her like a good Samaritan
They finally found her body many Autumns after
Interviewed her mother who said "she'd now be 21
And although we lost her young
I know the good lord has a plan for all of us"

My father could use a little mercy now
The fruits of his labor fall and rot slowly on the ground
His work is almost over it won't be long, he won't be around
I love my father, he could use some mercy now

Drag queens in limousines
Nuns in blue jeans
Dreamers with big dreams
All took me in

Sam Stone was alone when he played his last request
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair

The Urban Garden In The Aftermath Of The Orlando Shooting

This year's first strawberries.

It's all over my Facebook feed and all over the news--the shooting that occurred Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. And I feel totally helpless. Should I post anything on Facebook? What can I add or say that hasn't already been said? Should I record my outrage for eternity? Honestly, that's not different than clicking "like", and I'm getting tired of that pointless ritual. Sure I can write to my senators, but I already know they're pro gun control. There seems to be nothing a person can do in this country to elicit change, especially in the political process. One guy tries to blow up a plane with his shoe--his shoe!!--and suddenly we're all taking off our shoes before we board an airplane. But these massacres happen time after time after time, and nothing happens. Nothing changes in the way we buy or handle weapons. No legislation. No one is voted out of office. Nothing.

So, at least every other day I go into the garden where I can do something. In the garden, weeds are easily identified and pulled, one by one or sometimes even in handfuls. If a plant needs some special care, I can give it. I work barefoot and feel directly connected to the earth through my skin. My fingers feel so many feelings; rough sun-heated earth and firm ripe healthy fruit and I can feel pinpricks to my knees when I kneel because I'm getting too old to just bend over or squat. I know, I'm not changing the world. I'm not directly affecting human beings, except maybe this one, and maybe that's the point. When there's nothing we can do, the best thing you can do is take care of yourself so that abject feeling of helplessness doesn't eat you up. I can work there and there are no pesticides getting on our food, and when I cook and eat it and watch Sue eat it and enjoy it, I know I did that. In a small way, I helped the world become a better place.

Today when I go shopping, I'll buy flour, both bread flour and whole wheat flour, for our bread that I'll make with my own hands. I'll buy food that was raised organically and meat that raised humanely, and it will cost us more because that's the way our society is organized right now: you need more money to stay healthy and treat animals and people well, otherwise there's no profit in food and people, and I think that it's Sue who goes out to her job and works everyday, and it's not always enjoyable, but at least for her labor I can take care of us, and I give thanks for that. Not thanks to your God, not to anyone's God, but to something that I know it out there, I don't know what, but maybe someday in my life's journey I'll learn.

The front bed is responding to the rain we've had, and now the sunshine.

Already the view of the garden is starting to fill in.

The squash bed is established, and the Jerusalem artichokes are in their glory.

Either this rain barrel has a hole in it, or one night an animal came and took a long drink of water.

Potatoes are up, and the lettuce will be ready to pick soon.

Looks like tomorrow I'll be staking tomatoes.

The Urban Garden Has Peppers

For some reason, I haven't been able to successfully grow peppers in the garden in the back here in Quincy. If any fruit did develop, it would always be small and hard and measly. It's always been kind of embarrassing. Men here, gardeners, always talk--they brag--about their "peppas." They'd grow them then "throw them on the grill" with onion for their steak tips. It was typical. I'm not a red meat guy, which always makes me suspect in the male grilling world and I certainly don't do steak tips on the grill. I'd say, save it for your Patriots tailgate party but in my 35 years living in Boston, I've been to exactly two Patriots games. My specialty is a nice, thick salmon steak slathered with mayo/lemon/fresh dill served with new potatoes in the oven, or boneless chicken thighs marinated all day in a Caribbean jerk.

I've never had trouble with peppers before. I always thought they were kind of a no-brainer kind of plant to grow. But then, when we moved to Quincy, the trouble started. Maybe peppers are the teenagers of the vegetable world, their job is to push the envelope and embarrass their parents at every turn, and I never asked to move to Quincy in the first place.

But, like teenagers, you don't give up on them.

So this year, I thought I'd give them one more chance and planted them in the a box on the porch. I found three of these boxes last spring on the curb in the garbage. They're old packing crates, and this will probably be the last season I'll get to use them. They're made of thin pine and the weather is taking its toll on them. This past winter, though, we stapled some heavy plastic over them and turned them into cold frames. With the mild winter that we had, we had fresh herbs well into January.

As you can see, the peppers are doing great. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the intense heat they get on the porch, and the nice rich organic soil I've got them in. Maybe they're loners and introverts and just wanted space to themselves. Or maybe it's the chill environment they have, and they really love the sound of a wind chime.

The Urban Garden After Two Days Of Rain

Clothes drying on a gorgeous late spring day.

Chronicling the day-to-day of a garden is difficult, some say as interesting as watching grass grow. But there really is always something going on. Remember when I planted the seedlings and I was worried about the heat and the water? Well, so far the late spring is proving to be gorgeous. Let's hope we can have a lot of what we've had for the past couple of days, which consisted of about 24 hours of heavy downpours, giving the garden a really good soaking and filling the rain barrels, and now a few days of mild, eighty-degree days with nice puffy clouds floating in the sky. The wash is drying out on the porch. We dry our wash outside as many days as we can, including the winter. We do it because it's cheaper; we wash in cool water and we're not paying for gas to dry the clothes. The sun is a lot easier on our clothes than the dryer that beats your clothes up, so you're extending the life of your clothes. And the sun and breezes give them that outdoor smell and kind of soft and at the same time scratchy feel. If you don't understand what the garden and doing laundry has in common, I'll explain it later in another post.

So, the garden seems established. The seedlings seem to have rooted nicely. Friday was our wedding anniversary, and if you read the blog that day you'll know I get Sue irises for our anniversary every year, so they needed planting. Some of the onions are flowering, and I'm interested to see what they'll be like. Onions are bi-annuals, which means they need two seasons to seed. Once they seed it's too late to use the bulb, but I've heard the flowers are good to eat, so I'm excited to watch these grow.

Last week I noticed a widow-maker up in a tree in our neighbor's yard. I kept an eye on it, not wanting to be anywhere near it when it came down. I told my neighbor, Tom, about it, and there wasn't much he could do short of calling an emergency tree service. Thursday night around 10:30 Sue got a call to go out on the hotline (Sue occasionally works the after-hours emergency hotline.) She had just left the apartment and I had come into the office at the front of the house and put on some headphones and started to watch a movie when I heard a rumble. I immediately called Sue and when she asked what I wanted I said I just wanted to hear her voice. It turns out the limb had fallen, and I actually heard it in front of the house with headphones on. It was just dumb luck that Tom or no one esle in his family were in the yard, because there wouldn't have been any warning. In a vacuum, this limb would have fallen at 186,000 miles per second. Here on earth, it would have been slower, but not much.

Irises waiting to go onto the ground.

Onions starting to flower. The flowers are supposed to be pretty tasty.

Well, let's look on the bright side: Tom has a nice load of firewood to sell.

The 40-foot limb just cracked off under its own weight and from the rot of the trunk.

Another bunch of irises added to the garden.

On The Occasion Of Our Three Year Wedding Anniversary

Three years ago today Sue and I eloped in the little town of Silverton, Colorado. Three years isn't a long time to be married. I know people half my age who have been married longer, have bought houses, and have little ones. Other couples are married for 60 years or more. I guess in that regard Sue and I are just kids.

This morning at breakfast--Sue and I usually have coffee together every morning when we talk, and if we can, we also eat breakfast together--Sue asked me if it seemed like three years had passed. My first reaction was that it seems longer, but I knew that response wasn't exactly what I was trying to say. I thought for a second or two longer, and clarified my thoughts, that it seemed longer because when I look back I don't see our wedding as the start of our lives together, but when we first met. That's 10 years ago when we met in the Holliston Town Hall for a community theater production of The Vagina Monologues. I think it's hilarious that I met the love of my life at a production of The Vagina Monologues, and if you don't see the humor in that, it's just one more reason I'm happy I'm not waking up next to you every morning. Sue and I both think that the way we met is hilarious.

If you marry a writer, you're going to get written into stories, and in Highland Center, Indiana I wrote a couple of lines about that. Sue is in no way the Alice Anne in the story, but I needed something to show how much JP loved her from the start:

"Your mom was the prettiest thing I ever saw. First time I ever laid eyes on her she was wearing this old barn coat. I turned around fast because I didn’t want her seeing me with my jaw hitting the floor."

Those three lines are exactly how it happened. She was late arriving, and she was wearing an old barn coat that belonged to her dad. And I thought she looked gorgeous. 

At some point in those seven years leading up to our wedding the idea of marriage began to creep into our minds for any number of reasons. Even people like Sue and me, who like to live as far on the edge of society as we can, still think about society and our place in it, but at the same time we certainly were not going to entertain society condoning our relationship. I know at times we discussed exactly the way gays discussed the topic of either of us being admitted into a hospital and the other couldn't make decisions for the patient. We probably would have both been perfectly happy living the way we were if it weren't for the legalities that might cause us problems down the road. Marriage, in our society, is a civil right. I respect everyone's choice when it comes to religion and morals, but I'm more like the French in that I don't believe they have any place in civil matters.

Of course when you decide to get married people have all kinds of advice for you. Sue and I stuck to our guns of wanting a wedding that was for us, good advice I like to pass along to young people when they're getting married and their families are forcing every whim on them. I bought Sue an engagement ring (I was working just long enough to be able to afford one before I was laid off from that job--the ups and down of marrying a writer) and proposed to her in a restaurant in Boston, just to make things "official." We did it because we loved each other and it was kind of fun to flirt with traditions. I bought a wedding band for her, and we carried that around for awhile, trying to figure out when we'd actually get to use it. We somehow envisioned finding a little adobe church in New Mexico where we could tie the knot, mostly because I think that's where friends of ours got married. But New Mexico wasn't doing it for us, and when we crossed over the border into Colorado things started to click. In Colorado you marry yourself. You don't need a priest, minister, rabbi, or justice of the peace. You literally marry each other. We went backpacking in the backcountry of the Rockies for a few days, came out dirty and dusty, and in pairs of old jeans and hiking boots, we were married by the town clerk of Silverton, Colorado. (I did, however, buy a new shirt; Sue wore the t-shirt she had been hiking in.) The town clerk was wearing a Colorado Rockies baseball jersey, and had to call another woman into the office to fix the computer who woke up her kids from their naps because "two people from Boston want to get married." We spent the rest of the day mooching free drinks around town, had dinner of fresh trout in a restaurant that had more dead animal heads on the wall than patrons at the tables, and spent the night in a former whorehouse. 

Both of our fathers' favorite flowers were irises, so every year now I've been buying Sue irises to plant in the garden. Some day when we move there will be patches of irises in remembrance for Warren and JP here in Quincy. We thought about going out tonight, but we're happier staying home. I'm making chicken cacciatore, something we both like. There's a really good bottle of an Italian red waiting for us, and afterwards we'll probably each enjoy a cigar on the porch. Yeah, she likes cigars. See why I fell in love with her? 

Making it official.

The wedding party.

Melva, one of the many people who gave us free drinks.

The Wyman Hotel

The official wedding picture.