Category: Demo Music

Sweet

Sweet water dripping from a vine on one day of thaw. I see my reflection in an icy pool and have to wonder, if there were anyone here at all, what they would see.

The heavy tires throw up frost and slush. The light is on in the window, the sign says open.

sweet on me

she’s sweet on me
like honey on bread
she’s sweet on me
sweet in my head

sweet like the sugar
that takes the edge off black coffee
at two in the morning
with the breakfast she brings me

she’s sweet on me
like honey on my bread
she’s sweet on me
sweet in my head

sweet like the syrup
on the edge of my table knife
we’re all alone in the diner
she’s quick and she’s quiet

and I’m just rolling through
I leave it all on the check for you
theres rain on my window
there’s a tape in the deck
the sweetest songs are the best

she’s sweet on me
like honey on my bread
she’s sweet on me
sweet in my head

Flat Tires For Sale

Not counted among the permanent residents of what these people called ‘Wahoo’ was a young fella who apparently lived out of his 1981 Toyota hatchback. As the car was non-functional and immobile on account of it not having any wheels left, those wheels having been given up some time ago by the young man to pay off debts owed to old Bertha at the nearby diner for ‘food taken and eaten’, I don’t see why he shouldn’t be considered a resident especially since the rednecky dude lived in an RV. Maybe it’s becuase the Chinaman and the Russian said the kid ‘talked funny’. Anyway, the kid began his tale, starting tomorrow and moving back.

World Without Wheels

The Russian’s Tale

There’s this Russian guy, he lives in the old defunct gas station, he must have come over with the Confucian. His name is Max, and when I visited him, he assured me that he stood astride the Berlin Wall with a pickaxe as that wall fell beneath him, and he shared a little story about what really brought about the fall of the Soviet Union…

Max then told me he believes history is made by individuals eating other individuals. I then left.

Letter from Yeltsin to Gorbachev, 1991

im sorry gorby but youre gonna hafta leave
take your ugly wife and your big important party
take down your flag, see, mine’s red white and blue
here’s your marching orders for you

all I said was that she was greedy like a vole
and all your goodwill was falling down the hole
and I told Vladimir she had an ass like a house
and that the people want a little mouse

screw your demotion, gorby, i’ll get my revenge
ill be president and i’ll drink all day again
like when I worked on houses for the proletariat
all the toilets worked in my oblast

i kept a secret from myself since ’32
now I can build the houses, gorby, here’s one for you
not unlike the one your party built for my dad
when he got back from the gulag

A Million Waves

And this man, also from some strange clime or time, crossed a million waves to be here, to sing to me, him alone, it seems, and unlike the trailer man and the chinese passenger, his brow was light. Perhaps he still gazed upon the stars.

A Million Waves:

the waves break on the sides
gotta keep the sail wide
then im rocked for a million miles
of endless waves and my heart says
that is all that awaits

a sleeping bag around me
i guess ill sing my self to sleep
old tin cans rattling
and ancient whispers
keep me breathing

and my heart beating
keeps me wise and pulling lines
in the light of the sun
in the morning

Oh, Gunpowder

A stranger, not from here at all, a man of foreign visage and demeanor, with a permanent crease on his brow, but a fellow scientist I gathered.

Oh, Gunpowder:

they went looking for the essence of life
did they find it?
they went looking for the balance of everything
did they find it?

sulfur
saltpeter
a paperweight
and honey

sulfur
saltpeter
a paperweight
and honey

they went looking for the origin
did they find it
in the beginning was the explosion
did they find it?
oh gunpowder
you are forever

sulfur
saltpeter
a paperweight
and honey

sulfur
saltpeter
a paperweight
and honey

they went looking for immortality
did they find it?
they went looking for perfect morality
did they find it?
oh gunpowder
they found you, oh gunpowder
we killed each other
and set each other free
and the fireworks went flying

sulfur
saltpeter
a paperweight
and honey

sulfur
saltpeter
a paperweight
and honey

X Rayed Rose

What a sad shell of a man, an empty shell, and I shuddered to hear his song.

then theyre gonna put you in the tunnel
then theyre gonna lie you on the table
what am i gonna say to your mom
shes gonna think that its my fault

x rayed rose
x rayed rose
x rayed rose
x rayed rose

then theyre gonna stick you with a needle
then theyre gonna cut your pretty petals
then theyre gonna prune your thorns
baby are you gonna be reborn
baby are you gonna be reborn

Some Disenchanted Morning

The first inhabitant of Wahoo was pretty straighforward, the local type, lots of those guys in these parts. Did I know, before he opened his mouth to sing, he lived in a big old RV?

Some Disenchanted Morning:

i’ve been stuck in this old trailer
in the darkness and the rain
down by the field where i met her
at the edge of the hay
i spun my wheels into the mud
it raining hard and im stuck real good

she told me I missed all of my chances
and i wont get any more
in a cold trailer with no romances
waiting at my front door
all the powers down tonight
the water’s coming up over the dike

some disenchanted morning out on the sea
my door is wide open will you run into me
some disenchanted morning here’s hoping
your door is wide open come on baby
come on baby
come on baby

Passing Wahoo

On my way to Ivy, or where I hoped Ivy would be, I passed through a little town called Wahoo, population: five. The five people told me that ‘Wahoo’ was Indian for ‘Really Fucked Up’. Anyway, each one gave me a song.

A Million Waves:

Some Disenchanted Morning:

Oh, Gunpowder:

X Rayed Rose:

They all started at the same time, but after a while I deciphered the cacaphony and realized that they were all just telling me what they did that summer, in their own way.

The Ongoing Story of the Everlasting 86 Tapes

Gosh, golly, Betty Jean, here’s one for the high school musical. I thought I did everything right and this is it?

Jack Shit

I hear Ivy has a sports team, or they did, a really long time ago. They could never get it right.

Number 86

A really incredibly ancient song, followed by a sort-of-newer one. Half of the second one is actually a rewrite of the first song, but can serve as a sequel. The second half of the second song is actually older than the first song. I think.

So obviously ‘number 86’ is about football. Maybe they should try baseball.

Fires On The Beach

This is a newer recording of a very very very very VERY old song. I dropped a verse, did some spit and shine, and here it is. More High School Musical. This was recorded in Glorious Mono then

S T E R E O I Z E D

You’ll just have to use your imagination for the kick ass guitar solo.

Fires On The Beach:

When the afternoon gets too deep for me
Let’s go outside and meet the sea
Tonight we’ll build a fire on the beach

When we can join in
With the other kids
Let’s kick our feet like dying swans

And fall out of reach
And laugh and yawn
Shake your body, baby
Like it’s all that you’ve got
Tonight we’ll build a little fire on the beach

Lay down with me
Wrapped in a sheet
You and me, we got time enough to dream
Of monarch butterflies
That dance across the dawn
When the chrysalis is gone
Can’t you hear their song?

When the afternoon gets too deep
Let’s go outside and meet the sea

Tonight we’ll build a fire on the beach

No More Hearts to Break

(I recorded my junior high school musical song. Shove it in your locker!)

(For the girls with all the boyfiends. Little Johnny is sitting in the gymnasium, all alone with his guitar, his best friend, the guitar. He doesn’t even have a pick. Sniffle sniffle. Boys don’t cry, they don’t cry.)

Under the Leaves…

(I just don’t know that this marks the way to Ivy. Maybe this is some other project altogether, must make a note in my journal…)

wonderful leaves turning gold, turning brown
wonderful leaves are falling down

we live in the leaves
and hear the roots singing
we’re shaking like bees
we set the leaves tumbling

wonderful leaves spinning round spinning round
will we leave them on the ground

the roots in my heart
but the year gets long
let me show lost ages
delicate and crumbling pages

wonderful leaves turning gold, turning brown
wonderful leaves are falling down

sometimes its spring sometimes its fall
beautful fall
ill get the leaves and keep them all

wonderful leaves turning gold, turning brown
wonderful leaves are falling down

wonderful leaves spinning round spinning round
will we leave them on the ground

(Sort of hopeful and sad at the same time?)

While Walking In The Woods, By A River…

(Plenty of trees and rivers in these parts…)

Little Milton’s Repose

through your charnel houses high
you’ll return to the sky
from fields hung high with fire
from the day and from the night
everyone returns
if you run
you will learn

down rivers green with gold
if you’re young if you’re old
to your scattered bodies go
you’ll return to your home
everyone will return
if you swim
or if you burn
everyone returns

A Shit Hole?

(Is this from a disgruntled resident of Ivy Dell, or am I on the wrong track altogether?)

people come to my shithole
they never put it down
people like this shithole
spend the day in a shit hole town

people come to my shithole
they shit on the streets
i’m cleaning my shithole
everybody gotta have a dream

rednecks with radios look like rodeo clowns
i live in a shithole
i live in a shithole town

look around the shithole
one time the river was running
wipe your feet on the shithole
it was running from you and me

one time in the shithole
in the graveyard me and you
someplace good not a shithole
I just want to feel good good good

i live in a shithole
shit all over me
shit all over me
i live in a shithole
shit all over me
shit all over me
shit all over me

Could be Ivy Dell Trailer Park…

(I stuck a couple of mics out on the porch to get the rain and door sounds, and proved that the mics could get moderately wet and be simultaneously dropped and still function at one hundred percent. My newer Chinese mics might not fare so well, though…)