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Here are the lyrics to some of my songs. Some have comments on the story or inspiration behind the writing of the song. All lyrics © 2002-2008.
Evangeline
I Like Women
Dry Rain
Crystal Eyes of Blue
Old Girlfriend
Forty Years Apart
Bartender Superstar
Midnight on Broadway
Medusa
Audience of One
Cotton Mill
I Like Women
Coal Mining Town
Tequila and Wine
Get Away
Society
Drug of Choice
Lost Souls
Why Can't We Look To You?
Time
Evangeline
Evangeline is a mystical kind of song about two lovers who will be together again, someday.
V1
Moonlight plays upon black water
Silver threads on raven hair
Evangeline had sparkling green eyes
She's not there
V2
Like the mist upon the meadow
Vanishes with morning sun
Then the darkness follows daylight
All undone
Chorus:
Separated by the reaper
Endless night has begun
Once more they'll be together
Two as one
V3
So he walks upon the highland
She's sleeping underground
Lonely travelers of the unknown
Outward bound
V4
Forty years they were together
Hearts and souls intertwined
Temporary separation
Of ties that bind
Chorus:
Separated by the reaper,
Endless night has begun
Once more they'll be together
Two as one
Top
I Like Women
I believe this song is pretty self explanatory, although a bit whimsical. I believe the French have a saying about it: le démon à midi.
V1
The older I get, the more I appreciate women
A whiff of perfume or a look can start my head to spinning
It's not that I never noticed before
I've just that I see that there is much more
And I know my life would be such a bore
Without women
V2
I like to watch them walking down the street, young women
Or maybe experience could be the key, older women
Age doesn't really matter to me
If I see what I like and I like what I see
It's more than just biology
I like women
Chorus
Red hair, blond hair, blue eyes, green
Prettiest things I've ever seen
Short ones, tall ones, rich or poor
The only thing I want is more, more, more
Pretty women
V3
I've been all over this big wide world, watching women
From Europe to Hawaii even Singapore lovely women
And if I see one standing over there
With a cute little derriere
It's hard for me to not stop and stare
At pretty women
Chorus
V4
It's probably good I'm not a single guy, pretty women
All I can do is just look and sigh, lovely women
But when it's all done and said
I'm gonna keep looking until I'm dead
I never want to let 'em get out of my head
Pretty women
Lovely women
Sexy women
I like women
Top
Dry Rain was inspired by an incident that occurred while participating in a songwriting workshop at the Kerrville Folk Music Festival
in 2006. While seated under a tin roof during one of the sessions led by songwriter Amelia K Spicer, we heard what sounded like rain
hitting the tin. But looking out over the open outdoor seating area, there was no rain to be seen. A wit in the group remarked "Must be
some of that dry rain". Amelia looked at us and said "You need to write a song about dry rain". I don't know if any of the others did,
but a short while later I wrote this song.
Dry Rain
V1
Blue and grey and yellow green.
The colors of my wicked dream.
I wake up with a scream.
Dry rain's gonna' fall.
V2
The moon is full behind a cloud
Trees are bent - taking a bow
River was deep, it's deeper now.
Dry rain's gonna' fall.
Chorus
Dry rain doesn't quench your thirst,
It doesn't satisfy.
Dry rain goes right to your head
And leaves you with a lie.
Dry rain
V3
I see green trees and dusty roads
Eye of newt and Texas toads
Through the violent storm they rode
Dry rain's gonna' fall.
Bridge
And what's it all about?
Just a rainy drought
V4
Now I don't know what this all means
It just came to me in a dream
In blue and grey and yellow green
Dry rain's gonna' fall
Chorus
Dry rain doesn't quench your thirst
It doesn't satisfy.
Dry rain goes right to your head
And leaves you with a lie.
Dry rain (2X)
Top
Crystal Eyes of Blue - Growing older myself, I am becoming more aware of old people and how age sometimes is not
kind to us. This song is not about anyone in particular, but is a generalization about someone who could not
cope with the unfairness of life.
Crystal Eyes of Blue
V1
On the back roads of her mind,
She wanders free, Never knowing what she'll find
Life has treated her unkind
And so she leaves reality behind
Chorus
Vacant crystal eyes of blue
They look inside they don't see you
Crystal eyes of blue
V2
She was once a happy child, Running free
With spirit wild
But the ravishes of time, Brought her down
And took her smile
Chorus
Bridge:
There was a time she saw the world through younger eyes
Filled with happiness and joy and youthful sighs
But the circumstances of life, came and took it all away
Now she lives inside her head from day to empty day
V3
Time can be a fickle friend
It can bring you joy, or bring you rain
But she's safe within her mind
No more hope, but no more pain
chorus
tag
In the canyons of her mind
She wanders free
She's feeling fine
Top
Old Girlfriend
While on my way to a music festival in 2008, I dreamed one night of a girl that I knew
in high school. I hadn't seen her in about 40 years, so it was a strange thing. After I got
to the music festival, and started thinking about it, I decided to write a song based on the dream.
V1
Sometimes I think about
And even dream about
An old girlfriend of mine
I wonder what she's doing
I wonder how her life turned out
She was fine
Chorus
I haven't seen her face in over forty years
Since we said good bye in high school
She was standing oh so near
Fighting tears
V2
But I knew I could not settle down
So I went off to see the world
She stayed behind
And I thought that she would be there
If I ever came back
I was blind
Chorus
Bridge
I wonder what would have happened
If I had not gone away
Would my life be different
Still I would not change what I have today
V3
But sometimes I think about
And even dream about
An old girlfriend of mine
Old girlfriend of mine
And I wonder...
Top
Forty Years Apart
Carrying the Old Girfriend theme a bit further, I began to wonder what it would be like if you had a girl friend
in high school that you hadn't seen in 40 years, and then you met her again. How would you feel?
I can imagine that it might be a little like this, especially if she were your first "love".
V1
It's 3 A.M., I've been up since 2
It's hard to sleep when I keep seeing you
I never thought that after all this time
You'd step back in my life looking so fine
V2
You seem very happy there with him
And I've got a sweet wife she's a gem
I guess some things were never meant to be
But I can't help but wonder, can't you see
Chorus
I know that we're forty years apart
But you were the first one
To ever steal my heart
And neither wants to change our life today
So words are all that I have left
That's all there is to say
Bridge
I know I should not have that old feeling
Or think about what can never be
V3
Its been many years since we were friends
So long ago it's hard to comprehend
Getting reacquainted just seems surreal
I don't know how I'm supposed to feel
Chorus
Top
Bartender Superstar - Written for our favorite red headed bartender at the Loft - Katrine.
Bartender Superstar
I go out Wednesday night to be with some friends
Maybe play some music or have a little spot of gin
Park my truck, walk down the street with my guitar
I climb the stairs and step inside into the bar
Set down my axe, put my name on the OM list
Then I go say hi to the cute mixologist
With her love whip shirt and her faded jeans she's quite a sight
And her Irish eyes and smiling face lights up the night
Chorus
Katrine Katrine with your hair so red
You're making me dizzy in my head
And when you pour my glass of wine
You know that you just look so fine
Katrine, bartender superstar
She's mixing drinks and serving beer behind the bar
And all the guys are putting tips in her tip jar
Because she just makes everybody feel alright
She's so happy go lucky each and every night
Chorus
Katrine Katrine with your hair so red
You're making me dizzy in my head
And when you pour my glass of wine
You know that you just look so fine
Katrine, bartender superstar
Bridge
She's a girl who's fun to be around
She's a girl who can take away your frown
Well you know it's all just innocent flirtation
Wouldn't do anything to sully up her reputation
But now you know she really livens up the place
And if she ever left she could not be replaced
Chorus
Top
I hang out at a local place called The Loft, where I do open mics, go listen to music, etc. I usually
know a lot of the people that are there, but one night I was sitting at the bar, and I looked around
to see no one that I knew. Eventually this song came out of that observation.
Midnight on Broadway
Midnight on Broadway
Listening to the band
Midnight on Broadway
Red wine in my hand
Strangers all around me
No one that I know
Midnight on Broadway
No place else to go
V2
Sitting on this bar stool
I'll have another round
Soaking in the smoke and noise
The laughter and the sound
Strangers all around me
No one that I know
Midnight on Broadway
No place else to go
Chorus
Bridge
Broadway is the night soul of this old river town
Everybody, everybody's on the street when the sun goes down
V3
Midnight on Broadway
Just another night uptown
Passing all my time away
I should be homeward bound
Strangers all around me
No one that I know
Midnight on Broadway
No place else to go
Top
The idea for Medusa came one night at the Loft as my friend Joe McClure and I were observing some interesting
behavior.
Medusa
V1
There across a smoky room,
I saw her sitting at the bar
She looked so sweet and innocent
As I looked on from afar
So I thought I'd keep her company
Just to pass the time of day
I sat down there beside her
And I was swept away
V2
I didn't know what I was seeing
Didn't know what it could mean
Because her hair was long and beautiful
Her eyes a deep sea green
As I sat there beside her
I didn't know I should beware
Then in the frosted mirror
I saw the snakes in her hair
Chorus
Just like Medusa
They'll turn your heart to stone
They'll use you and abuse you
Then leave you all alone
Throw the rulebook out the window
Because they don't play fair
You gotta stay away from women
With snakes in their hair
V3
Three women sat around the table
Drinking wine and having fun
While men circled around them
Not knowing they should run
Like moths drawn into a flame
They hovered by the chair
They should have looked a little closer
To see the snakes in their hair
Bridge
And if you should ask any man
Who ever has been burned
He'll be quick to tell you
A hard lesson he has learned
Chorus
Top
This song is pretty much the essence of why I write songs. First and foremost, they are for me. If I can share
them with others and have them glean some bit of enjoyment, so much the better. But I have to be my own audience.
An Audience of One
V1
In a corner of a room all alone
Practicing his music for an audience of one
Putting words and music on a page
Another song not written for the stage
V2
'Cause he knows that no one else will ever have a look
Just another song to go into his book
Words pour out and then are put away
In the dark they'll never see the day
Chorus
He writes the songs that no one else will hear
He sings the songs when no one else is near
For an audience of one… he writes the songs
V3
Writing lyrics chords and melody
Changing tempo adding in some harmony
Working 'til it finally feels right
Spending hours on into the night
Chorus
Bridge
The words fill up his mind
Into lyrics they combine
And he has to take the time
To make the rhyme
V4
The break of dawn, his work is finally done
Exhaustion floods his mind with the rising of the sun
A folded paper tucked inside a drawer
An audience of one is what he's writing for
Chorus
Top
Cotton Mill is about an old mill located in Siluria, Alabama. I had a friend that worked there one summer
during high school. It had been there since around 1900, and I discovered that it was closed and about to be torn down.
Cotton Mill
They're tearing down the cotton mill
Just outside of town
Brick by red brick
It's coming down
The shanty town is long since gone
It vanished years ago
And now the mill is silent
Moved to Mexico
Chorus
Oh Siluria, what will you do?
Your golden years have faded,
Although your sky's still blue
Buck Creek's running dry
And no one's asking why
Too late to start anew
Flourishing in nineteen two
The biggest one around
Cotton was the king then
With undisputed crown
The spinning mill is gone away
Thompson's dream turned to dust
It won't be long before it's
Ashes and rust
Chorus
Top
I used to ride my motorcycle on the back roads outside of Birmingham and see the remains
of the coal mining industry.
Coal Mining Town
The old buildings have crumbled with age
The windows broken, the roof fallen down
Weeds grow tall around wide open doors
And the wind is the only sound
The entrance to the mines so far underground
Is closed… the coal is no more
The once thriving town has ghosts from the past
With no hint of the life it once bore
Chorus:
This was once a coal mining town
Where men spent their lives underground
They made their living where the danger was high
And an easy time seldom was found
People drive on Sunday on the old back-country roads
They don't think about the way it used to be
When hard working people once lived all around
Digging coal just to feed their families
Bridge:
Digging coal was the only life they knew
Working on that coal mining crew
And they didn't know of anything else to do
'Til fate stepped in with a different point of view
Cause the coal ran dry, and the cost was too high
And the mines finally shut down
The miners scattered with the wind and did the best they could
And gave up the life underground
Chorus:
Top
I wrote the words to this song one Thursday morning after staying out too late Wednesday night and
doing something stupid - like mixing wine and Tequila.
Tequila and Wine
Chorus
Tequila and wine
Is no friend of mine
'Cause come Thursday morning
I'm not feeling so fine
Out late on Wednesday
Such a good time
Now I'm feeling effects of
Tequila and wine
V1
The music was playing
The women were fine
I started the evening
Drinking red wine
Along about midnight
Tequila did flow
You'd think I'd know better
But what do I know?
Bridge
Thursday morning brings misery and pain
To do it again I'd have to be insane
Chorus
V2
I stayed up too late
Have to work the next day
I hear the alarm clock
I'm thinking "no way"
Three cups of coffee
No more fruit of the vine
'Cause I'm feeling effects of
Tequila and wine
Chorus
Tag:
I'm feeling effects of Tequila and wine
Top
Get Away
I wanna' move downtown, Wanna move to the country
Wanna move to anywhere I can so I can feel free
Wanna feel the wind blow away my broken dreams
Cause my once withered soul is bursting at the seams
I gotta get away
I'm tired of living this life of poverty
I'm tired of being what somebody else is wanting me to be
Wanna feel the wind blow freely - through my hair
cross that raging river just to see what's over there
I gotta get away
Bridge
I hear the echoes in the wind
I see the door is finally opening
Gonna get away
I'm blown now by the four winds
Like ashes, trash and dust putting on the backspin
And I'm waiting for the end of a-nother day
I'm waiting for some giant gust I cannot disobey
Gotta get away
I wanna' move downtown, Wanna move to the country
Wanna move to anywhere I can so I can feel free
Wanna feel the wind blow away my broken dreams
Cause my once withered soul is bursting at the seams
I gotta get away
Gotta get away
Top
This song actually started out to be something a little different, like how some young people treat
older people like they don't even exist. It changed into how the extremely rich isolate themselves
from the common folk, and their attitude toward them.
Society
She was young and she was pretty
And her eyes looked right through me
I may as well have been invisible
For all that she could see
I wasn't worthy of attention
As she stood cold as could be
Cause she was young and she was pretty
Born into society
She got her very first Mercedes
When she was only seventeen
A gift from her father
For his little beauty queen
She has maids and she has servants
At her beck, at her call
She considers them beneath her
It does not bother her at all
Chorus
Say a prayer for the privileged
With eyes too blind to see
Past power and position
From their life of luxury
Her daddy is a broker
With lots of money, cars and a yacht
He always gave her what she wanted
She always wanted quite a lot
She has friends that are just like her
From the finest family
They never mingle with the masses
Folks like you and folks like me
Bridge
I don't think that she'll ever see
That she's really just like you and me
Cause from her mansion on the hill
All her wishes are fulfilled
Now she's going off to Harvard
Or maybe Yale, I don't know
Of course she'll marry her a rich man
To maintain the status quo
They'll have sons and they'll have daughters
And the cycle will start anew
Cause they'll be born into society
Better than me, better than you
chorus
Top
This song was co-written with a friend of mine, Lynn Moran.
Drug of Choice
Baby you're my morphine, you get me so high
And if you ever leave me, I know I will surely die
I'd go through those withdrawals, the worst you've ever seen
You're my morphine
You're like cocaine, I just can't stay away
You know that I want you, each and every day
And just 'cause I can't have you, it fills me with such pain
You're like cocaine
Chorus
You would be my drug of choice, if I only could
If I could just be with you, you know that I would
I think of you from morn to night, each and every day
I think about you all the time, so what else can I say?
Sometimes you're like acid, yeah good old LSD
So sweet when I taste you, then you set my mind free
You took me on a journey, you know that you did
You're like acid
If you were my heroin, I'd shoot you in my vein
This feeling that I have for you, I simply can't explain
I'd put you in a needle, though it might be a sin
You're my heroin
Chorus
You would be my drug of choice, if I only could
If I could be with you, you know that I would
I think of you from morn to night, each and every day
I think about you all the time, so what else can I say?
You could be my crystal Meth, you make me feel so fine
Every time I see you, I want to cross the line
You know that I'll love you, until my last breath
You're my crystal Meth
Top
I'm not sure what inspired this song. I had not written a Praise and Worship song in some time, and
the band was talking about a new CD. I wanted to contribute if I could, but I feel this song, while having
a good message, might be a little too "gritty".
Lost Souls
Though Sue's barely twenty she's been on the street so long
She gives her body to the night knowing that it's wrong
She can't put it behind her, she can't turn her life around
You can see it in her empty eyes, she's looking to be found
Jack sticks the needle in his arm, the pleasure fills his vein
But all the pleasure in the world can't seem to end the pain
Surviving by the jungle law, he shivers through the night
And all those thoughts of deep regret don't seem to make it
right
Chorus
Lost souls on life's dark highway, living far from yesterday
Looking for grace, that sweet embrace
To carry them away - to a better day
Now she looks into a mirror with a face that's deeply etched
With all the pain and torment of a life filled with regret
And all the choices good and bad that shaped her destiny
But now there's peace deep in her eyes and finally she is free
His body's bent and broken from a life so very hard
But he drives on with his head held high on down the boulevard
And though he's suffered in the past it's now a brand new day
And he breathes deep of the fresh spring air
In his battered Chevrolet
Lost souls on life's dark highway, living far from yesterday
Now they've found grace, that sweet embrace
Has carried them away
Bridge
All you need to do is reach out a hand
Grace for the asking is part of His plan
He sits inside the jail cell with a heart as cold as stone
Ever since he can remember, he's always been alone
And of his 37 years 15 have been inside
It seems like all he's ever done is stolen, fought and lied
Lost Souls on life's dark highway
Living far from yesterday
Looking for grace, that sweet embrace
To carry them away, to a better day
Top
Written after viewing a particularly disturbing news cast one evening.
Why Can't We Look to You?
V1
Bad news on the TV
Newspapers tell of war
Chaos in the cities
No peace for evermore.. evermore
V2
No prayer in the classroom
It's almost like a crime
People turn away from you Lord
We do it all the time… all the time
Chorus
Why can't we look to you Lord?
When will we ever learn? (echo) When will we ever learn?
Why can't we look to you Lord?
When will we ever turn…..
back to you?
V3
When You're looking down upon us
Does it make You shed a tear?
Do you only see our backs Lord?
Help us see that You are near… oh so near?
Chorus
Repeat V1
Bad news on the TV
Newspapers tell of war
Chaos in the cities
No peace for evermore.. evermore
Top
Time - this song was written for the Praise and Worship that I play with called LightHouse. It is the first cut on our self titled CD.
Not sure what the inspiration behind this was, other than I was probably going through a rough time.
Time
V1
I go to work each morning, barely make it through the day
There's something missing in my life
And this empty feeling that I got way down in my soul
Sometimes it cuts just like a knife
And I know that it's time to lift up my face
It's time to open up and feel His grace
Chorus
It's time to stop
Walking alone
With no hope
And a heart of stone
It's time to break that rock
It's time to start a new way
It's Time to listen to Him
It's time to kneel and pray
V2
I get home in the evening I don't even want to eat
There's such a darkness in my life
And I just can't wait to go to bed - escape reality
To get away from all this strife
And I know that it's time to lift up my face
It's time to open up and feel His grace
Chorus:
Bridge:
And I can't seem to enjoy fruits of God's labor
I can't appreciate just what He's done for me
I'm looking up to heaven just to see what I can see
And asking for the grace of God to come and set me free
Chorus:
Repeat last two lines and end
Top