I know it's Tuesday morning but its always a good time to leave yourself behind...and enjoy the simple beauty that surrounds you in the 

land of love......

Tuesday Afternoon

Justin Hayward

Tuesday, afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see,
Now I'm on my way,
It doesn't matter to me,
Chasing the clouds away.

Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near,
I've got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh.

I'm looking at myself, reflections of my mind,
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind,
So gently swaying thru the fairy-land of love,
If you'll just come with me and see the beauty of

Tuesday afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday, afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see,
Now I'm on my way,
It doesn't matter to me,
Chasing the clouds away.

Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near,
I've got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh.

I just finished reading 

The Lakota Way

Stories And Lessons For living

written by Joseph M. Marshall 111

Two passages are perfect fuel for the week ahead.

There is a reality that makes the mole equal to the bear, a reality that connects us all whether we walk, fly, crawl, swim, or grow roots. We are all born and we all die. This is such a simple and quiet reality that we humans allow our arrogance to obscure it and our ignorance to deny it. My maternal grandfather, like many of his generation, was realistic about life and death. He said quite often that death is a part of life. For him death was not a taboo subject to talk about. One of the most profound comments he made provides an insight into the reality that connects all living things. “You cannot fight death,” he said, “you can only fight for life.” 

Life goes on, it continues to cycle. The sun comes up each morning and with it comes new opportunity, new hope. No matter what kind of mess I’ve made of the day before, no matter what victories I’ve celebrated, each new day is a chance to set the record straight, atone for a mistake, achieve another victory, and take another step on my journey. Each new day is an inikagapi, a chance to be renewed and reborn— another opportunity to be part of the circle that is life, knowing that it is a journey, not a race, and that one doesn’t travel it alone.

Marshall III, Joseph M. (2002-10-29). The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living (Compass) (p. 226 and p. 230). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

A dancing scarlet red gum tree leaf inspires the mind.

Spinning like a Hanukkah dreidel.

Swaying like a Cape Cod buoy.

Swinging like Tarzan on a vine.

A cool set of lyrics lives in the short video.

Have fun digging them out.

Get out there this Saturday and trust your cape......

The Cape

Guy Clark, Susanna Clark, Jim Janosky

Eight years old with a flour sack cape tied all around his neckHe climbed up on the garage, he's figurin' what the heckScrewed his courage up so tight, that the whole thing come unwoundHe got a runnin' start and bless his heart, he headed for the ground

Well he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faithSpread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape

Now he's all grown up with a flour sack cape tied all around his dreamsAnd he's full of piss and vinegar, and he's bustin' at the seamsSo he licked his finger and checked the wind, it's gonna be do or dieHe wasn't scared of nothin', boys, he was pretty sure he could fly

Well he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faithSpread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape

Now he's old and gray with a flour sack cape tied all around his headAnd he's still jumpin' off the garage and will be 'til he's deadAll these years the people said, "He's actin' like a kid"He did not know he could not fly, so he did

Well he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faithSpread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape

Yeah, he's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faithSpread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your capeSpread your arms and hold your breath and always trust your cape

Toby likes to sneak up by the cabin window and listen while new songs are being created.

Sometimes he hides behind pine trees and listens.

Mules are very crafty.

I like to do short writing exercises. Picture something mentally then describe it. I think it helps your writing skills grow and stay strong like 30 minutes on the elliptical on level 15 does for your heart.

A burnt silver hued mailbox, half full of celery green scum mingled with sludge black ditch water, made a nice sunbathing spot for the young leatherback snapper, who didn't give two hoots about me setting up my easel next to the ditch. Did a swerving car or a push from father time scare the box from its home five feet above the earth? The turtle wasn't talking. A sun washed ghostly white thirty nine was still readable. It made me wonder who used to get postcards and Burpee catalogs delivered here. Maybe air mailed home sick letters from a husband or youngest son serving overseas. The rusted woven wire fence was holding the rotted fence posts up at odd angles like drunken friends helping drunker friends stand up. Purple headed ironweed danced in the early October breeze above a thick carpet of crabgrass that had almost captured the field stone path to the front porch. A lion yellow and rose pink blanket of poison sumac enveloped almost the entire front of the grey clapboard home. Faded Ford red peaked at me thru the acorn brown brush pile that used to be the summer home for beans, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes; giving away the hiding spot of the family 8N tractor.

  

“You know, it’s a pretty mysterious thing still, why you start the songs you start, and the specific flavor of them, the nature of them. I don’t know about other writers, but, for me, it’s still somewhat out of my control. It’s not really a logical process.” 

 Gillian Welch

The dangers of too much revision………………..

“During that night’s journey I decided, as a matter of experiment, to visit someone I knew, a young professor of English. I found him outside his apartment house— perched comically on the eraser end of a giant pencil standing in the middle of the street. He was stranded perhaps fifty feet up in the air— and he was truly stranded , because the only way he could keep the pencil balanced on its point was to sit right where he was. As soon as he tried to rescue himself by climbing down the side, the pencil began to topple, and he had to scramble back up to the top. I thought it was an amusing metaphor; it was well known that he’d spent years working on a paper that was vital to his career—but, rather than risk submitting it to one of the scholarly journals, he kept revising it endlessly. “

Daniel Quinn, Dreamer (pp. 178-179).  . Kindle Edition.

David Mead gives us a little polish for yesterday’s jewel from John Prine.

“Sometimes a great song is defined as much by what the lyric doesn’t say as what it does. One of the advantages of writing a song as opposed to writing literature, painting a portrait or building a house is the extraordinary context that the music provides for the lyric. Sometimes good melody and chord structure allows a lyricist to say very little, leaving the music to imply the rest of the story. Intriguing plot lines and amazing imagery are impressive, but feel horribly out of place if they crowd the emotional content of the music. The ability to provide just enough information in the lyric is what separates great lyricists from great writers.”

“I think the more the listener can contribute to the song, the better; the more they become part of the song, and they fill in the blanks. Rather than tell them everything, you save your details for things that exist. Like what color the ashtray is. How far away the doorway was. So when you’re talking about intangible things like emotions, the listener can fill in the blanks and you just draw the foundation.”

John Prine

Here is a nice Sunday morning message song. Guilt goes with you where ever you travel like a chest tattoo on the inside. No escape. A needy companion that feeds off of you. You feel it barkin' inside of you like two midnight gas station hot dogs runnin' a rabbit in you gut. But, the feeling never goes away.

             

Guilt

It was the kind of night that lasted a week

Eyes wide shut not a blink of sleep

Cold sweat rolled off my troubled head

Rustin’ the steel pillow on my cast iron bed

Guilt runnin’ round my brain

Guilt running laps around my brain

Guilt runnin’ round my brain

Why did I do it I am so ashamed

Whiskey & temptation the devil's favorite stew

Tasted so sweet mmm my conscience gave in too

I rode temptation like a long shot Derby win

Deep into the coal black forest of sin

Guilt runnin’ round my brain

Guilt running laps around my brain

Guilt runnin’ round my brain

Why did I do it I am so ashamed 

Walt Sample

Big Mule Music

 Some songs ring truer even 45 years after they were written.

Brewer & Shipley sang this song on their second album Tarkio.

A great anti war song written by Ted Anderson.

Seems Like A long Time

                                      

  Night time is only the other side of daytime

But if you ever waited for the sun

You know what it’s like to wish daytime would come and don’t it

Seem like a long time seems like a long time

Seem like a long long time

Sometimes it seems like a long time seems like a long time

Seems like a long long time

Yes it does a long long time

Hard times are only the other side of good times

But if you ever wished hard times were gone

You know what it’s like to wish good times would come and don’t it

Seem like a long time seems like a long time

Seem like a long long time

Sometimes it seems like a long time seems like a long time

Seems like a long long time

Yes it does a long long time

War time is only the other side of peace time

But if you ever seen how wars are won

You know what it’s like to wish peace would come and don’t it

Seem like a long time seems like a long time

Seem like a long long time

Sometimes it seems like a long time seems like a long time

Seem like a long time seems like a long time

Seem like a long long time

Sometimes it seems like a long time seems like a long time

Seems like a long long time

Yes it does a long long time

Seems like a long long time

Yes it does a long long time

Johnny Cash talks about one of his greatest songs

"The Man Comes Around is a song that I wrote, it's my song of the apocalypse, and I got the idea from a dream that I had — I dreamed I saw Queen Elizabeth. I dreamed I went in to Buckingham Palace, and there she sat on the floor. And she looked up at me and said, "Johnny Cash, you're like a thorn tree in a whirlwind." And I woke up, of course, and I thought, what could a dream like this mean? Thorn tree in a whirlwind? Well, I forgot about it for two or three years, but it kept haunting me, this dream. I kept thinking about it, how vivid it was, and then I thought, Maybe it's biblical. So I found it. Something about whirlwinds and thorn trees in the Bible. So from that, my song started and……………"

The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash

And I heard as it were the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying come and see and I saw
And behold a white horse

There's a man going around taking names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down
When the man comes around

The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup?
Or disappear into the potter's ground
When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling, voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
Till Armageddon no shalam, no shalom

Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise man will bow down before the throne
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around

Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling and voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks
In measured hundred weight and penny pound
When the man comes around

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
And I looked and behold, a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was death
And Hell followed with him

Some great advice from Loretta Lynn to ponder this Thursday.

“I had more verses [to Coal Miner's Daughter]. Owen Bradley said, ‘Loretta, there’s already been one El Paso and we’ll never have another one. Get in that room and start taking some of those verses off.’ Yeah, I took six verses off.”

Wow! Wouldn't it be nice to have so much to edit down. I would love to hear those verses….

“Sometimes they work, and sometimes they just won’t. Sometimes you get hung up on them. When that happens, you just throw it back, and maybe come back to it two or three weeks later.”

“Write about the truth. If you write about the truth, somebody’s living that. Not just somebody, there’s a lot of people.”

"As I walked up to the door, this melody entered my head. This sound just grabbed me. It was tapping me and saying, 'Come with me.' ... And I heard that terrible, mournful sound that tugs at your heartstrings. I went right to my acoustic guitar. Something was pulling me, and it was so overwhelmingly sad. I sensed later it was a mother’s mournful cry for her child. I started to write words that were just coming out of the sky. I didn’t know what I was writing about until I wrote It’s déjà vu all over again. And then I thought, “My God, is that what this is about?” I was writing about the war that was coming and the unnecessary deaths that were gonna happen all over again. I was overcome with feeling that emotion. I guess I was guided there. I did not create that song. It was handed to me. Probably the only time that’s ever happened."

John Fogerty

I have been reading everything I can get my eyes on about American Indians. I am utterly fascinated by their philosophies. The stories told by the Elders were the moral foundation on the cultures. The Grandmas and Grandpas were the living voice of who they were and what they should be.

Black Elk

Oglala Sioux

“You have noticed that everything as Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round..... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours....

Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”

Reminds me of one of my favorite Byrd’s songs written by the great Gene Clark.

Full Circle    

Gene Clark

Funny how the circle turns around
First your up and then your down again
Though the circle takes what it may give
Each time around it makes you live again

Funny how the circle is a wheel
And it can steal someone who is a friend
Funny how the circle takes your flight
And if it's it right it brings you back again

Funny how the circle turns around
You think your lost and then you're found again
Though you always look for what you know
Each time around it's something new again

Funny how the circle is a wheel
And it can steal someone who is a friend
Funny how the circle takes your flight
And if it's it right it brings you back again

Who needs sleep. Finishing the last verse is much more important!

“Music is a safe type of high. It’s more the way it was supposed to be. That’s where highness came, I guess, from anyway. It’s nothing but rhythm and motion.”

“I used to live in a room full of mirrors, all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors. Now the whole world is here for me to see.”

“Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.”

“You have to give people something to dream on”

Some thoughts from Jimi Hendrix to brighten an already beautiful Monday morning.

There are many fascinating things about watching Mother Nature launch a new day. The gradual transformation of black light less shadows blossoming into

shapes of white pines and poplars is almost surreal. 

Apple crisp temperatures accentuate the single notes that slowly become the fresh melody of the Sunday morning forest.

 A big bag of candy for the senses, like watching a galaxy being born.

Beneath the fungus umbrella I awoke to a murmured panting intermixing with a whispered growl. For a lasting moment I wondered how I had got here and why.

Then I remembered why I was laying in the acorn brown grassy bed and why I was so small. 

"When I was five years old my mother told me happiness was the key to life.

When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wrote down "happy."

They told me I din't understand the assignment, I told them they didn't understand life."

John Lennon

Truer words have never been spoken.

Nice crisp 55 degrees this morning. Where is my sweat shirt.....

My morning voice is as deep as a dusty dry west Texas well. Can't hit the higher notes of my songs so I write new ones that fit the sunken range. I am able to sing them up till around the 3rd or 4th cup of coffee then my voice wakes up and climbs up the scale. Now I have an expanding pillow case of early morning songs. Wonder if studio time is cheaper in the early am? 

"I've written good songs, bad songs, mediocre songs, great songs. I suppose Ralph Gleason (music critic) was the first one to tell me I'm a great songwriter. ... The song's got to be there in the first place. A great song can be either enhanced or destroyed by the production. The juxtaposition of a fine poem with a good arrangement and good musicianship with a good mood--a good paradoxical mood, like a blues to a very happy track. That makes a good record. ... I sit down and start playing the guitar. If nothing comes I put it down. If something comes I pursue it until I get bored. I know better than to force it. ... Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Albert Camus said any author who will not rewrite is not doing his job. Talent without discipline is worthless. ... A lot of people write very insipid songs that turn out to be enormous hits. ... The feel is first. My phraseology comes naturally and I don't mess with it. Sometimes I'll do something clever, but I try not to be clever just to be clever--that would be contrived. ... Sometimes a guitar lick will set up a song; a line will set up a song; a chorus will set up a song; an idea will set up a song. I'm not a formula writer. I'll find myself doing an ABAB just for the symmetry of it. ... If I've got too many verses, I'll cut out two verses and then take the meaning of the song and condense it. ... I damn well try to make my collaborator happy. I'm wide open for whatever I get hit with from him, but in case of a tie, the final analysis is mine."

Stephen Stills

31 years ago today, Peggy and I walked down the aisle.

I love you Peggy. Thanks for 31 wonderful years!

"Rare as is true love,

true friendship is rarer."

Jean de La Fontaine

Taken at a Desert Rose Band
show in Nashville.

"I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically. ... Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history. ... Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things; they can slip across borders. ... My job is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet. The key to the future of the world is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known. ... I can't sing much.  I used to sing high and low.  Now I have a growl somewhere in between."

Pete Seeger

A few thoughts for Monday.

“We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.” 

 Dolly Parton

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” 

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

  Henry David Thoreau

"If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing. ... I get more kick out of writing than I do singing. I reckon I've written a thousand songs and had over 300 published. ... I don't know what you mean by country music. I just make music the way I know how. ... You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly. ... I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself. ... I ain't gonna worry wrinkles in my brow, cuz nothin's never gonna be alright nohow. No matter how I struggle and strive, I'll never get out of this world alive." 

Hank Williams

"There's no insecurity about my songwriting. I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight."

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space."

Good stuff from Johnny Cash.

A fresh batch still a bit warm. 

The boys can smell the corn. 

Maybe they are just a bit parched.............. 

Reminds me of the Flatt & Scruggs song Hot Corn Cold Corn.

"I think maybe I was born to be a songwriter. It's quite a comfort. I wrote most of my songs to stay alive, the rest to get back in the house."

Billy Joe Shaver

 Big Toby

Joni Mitchell said

 "My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that a a great compliment. That's exactly my intention."

Vivid images are the goal when crafting a song. 

 Show 'em don't tell 'em should be running laps around your

brain while your are writing lyrics. Leading your pack of ideas like the Pied Piper, crossing the inside of your forehead every second.

Yep, it looks like a face to me too.

Thanks to Susie Gerber for the fine photo shot last winter at my upper barn.

Kris Kristofferson gave us some words to remember every morning.

"Tell the truth.

Sing with passion.

Work with laughter.

Love with heart.

'Cause that all that matters in the end."

I love this quote from Vincent van Gogh

"I dream my painting and I paint my dream"

I think many songwriters do the same thing. 

Townes Van Zandt said this about his song If I Needed You.

"It came to me in a dream. I was living in Tennessee with Guy and Susanna Clark, and I was asleep, and I had a note pad by my mattress-I had a mattress on the floor. I was dreaming I was a folk singer, and this was the song I played, and I happened to wake up, write it down and went right back to sleep. The next morning I woke up, went to the room with all the guitars, picked up a guitar and played it through. It never has changed"

Wow! 

We can only hope for a dream as great as Townes. But I think we all pull song ideas from dreams. Night dreams and daydreams. Dreams are just our imagination wandering around brain town.

"Imagination is the highest from of research."

Albert Einstein

Keep that note pad handy!

Dolly hits the nail on the head!

Dolly Parton

“It’s therapy. It’s fun. It’s creative. I love getting on a big writing binge and staying up a couple days working on song and knowing at the end of those two or three days that I’ve created something that was never in the world before. It’s like a feeling of creating, not that the same stories ain’t been told before, but it ain’t been told through my point of view. And it’s my way of relaxing. Songwriting is a hobby and to me it’s therapy. It’s a joy. It’s a thrill. It’s like mind exercises or something.”