I supplied the title to the group for this week’s song – Bones – because I had just started teasing Maile singing this line: “My baby is boilin the bones, she’s got them in a pot what she found by the side of the road.” We laughed about it and it got stuck in our heads. She was singing it too, so I took my comedic tribute and made it a funky celebration of Maile’s creative connection to the natural world and its healing powers.
Bones
My baby is boilin the bones
She’s got them in the pot what she found by the side of the road
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature shows
She’ll bind you up some sage and burn it
She’ll gather up rosemary and urn it
She got aromatherapies for you anxieties
My baby she will bring you earth’s bouquet
She’ll boil linden leaves for dreamin
She’ll steep some oat straw tea for soothin
She’ll brew tranquility, sip some harmony
She knows earth gives her medicines away
My baby is boilin the bones
She’s got them in the pot what she found by the side of the road
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature sews
She’ll use seed pod as a bead (and repeat it)
She’ll make a tincture with some weeds (and treat it)
She’ll turn salt into a scrub and make it smell like love
My baby she can use what nature gave
She’ll turn a bean pod into earings (can you hear it?)
She’ll make juniper into gin, my friend (can you cheers it?)
She’ll make your heart start seeing things as beings with feelings
My baby she can see what nature say
My baby is boilin the bones
She’s got them in the pot what she found by the side of the road
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature codes
Is that a snakes spine? I don’t know!
Is that a skunk skull? Who can tell?
She found a turtle shell! How old was it?
She found an owl pellet! Let’s sift through it.
My baby is boilin the bones
She’s gonna paint em, mount em, adorn em and give them to her mom
My baby is boilin the bones
She can see the beauty in the things that nature grows
She can see the beauty in the things that nature throws
She can see the beauty in the things that nature knows
Gray invited me to join the song-a-week club with a small group of musicians. A title is proposed and everyone writes a song with that title. This week it was: Anybody Else?
Anybody Else?
I’m been talking through my mask
Tryin to see through foggy glass
Anybody else tired of tying to see and be heard?
I’ve been taking lots of walks
Tryin to get out of my box
Anybody else diggin this life differed?
I’m givin up on all the news
Cuz it was givin me the blues
Anybody else lookin for someone that understands?
My forearms are always sore
From guitars and keyboards
Anybody else just thankful for their hands?
I feel like I’m gonna make it someday
But what if that day is today?
What if it’s never getting better?
I’m never gonna make a lota cheddar
I’m just so glad we’re still together
Anybody else woulda been long gone
I’ve been wanderin round the yard
Lookin kinda avant-garde
Anybody else walking the dog in your robe?
(How’d it get in your robe?)
I’m seeing concerts on the lawn
Dreamin a stage to put them ’em on
Anybody else wanna be in the show?
One day I’m gonna make it all come true
Summer livin somewhere warm with you
Sailin away for a season, forgettin about all this treason
Until then we’re gonna power through
I feel like I’m gonna make it someday
But what if that day is today?
What if it’s never getting better?
I’m never gonna be a trendsetter
I’m just so glad that we are still together
Anybody else woulda just moved on
I feel like I’m gonna make it someday
But what if that day is today?
What if it’s never getting better?
All of my prayers are dead letters
I’m just so glad that we are still together
Anybody else would be sick of my songs
Gray and I set up on his front stoop the night before Holloween this year for the first of what I hope to be many ambient sunset sets. Here is one selection of swirling sounds to slow the senses.
I’ve been singing little protest songs to my self for the past few years. I idolize Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger, so this is only natural. But when I read the headline this week — The White House Goes Dark — I did a double-take.
Could a headline be more poetically descriptive of this presidency? I felt I had been handed a perfect chorus for a protest song. And since it was news, I made the verses a report of this incredible week’s unfolding, the context of the White House going dark.
What a week. The national and international outrage at George Floyd’s murder and everything that has followed is like a colossal dam breaking. I hope my song report does it justice.
Coward In Chief
George Floyd was murdered by Minnesota cops
And the people are marching, enough is enough
Four hundred years and finally phones
Have shown the white folks what black folks have known
This country was built and is ever so
For white folks to go where we want to go
But if you are black there is no safe space
A cop might just kill you for the look on your face
And the laws are set up and a jury will find
He was doing his job, he will be reassigned
Just blame a black man for being a thug
Say he resisted, he must be on drugs
But how many times can we stomach this shit?
We’re crying Bullshit on these old hypocrites!
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
The old patriarch
Is busy gaslighting
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Hating and berating
Stoking petty infighting
But peaceful protesters are flooding downtowns
Marching together black, white and brown
Trying to salvage what can be saved
Of our poor nation’s soul, so long enslaved
Still others are looting and cops are still shooting
And why does it seem like they’re all colluding
To take down the ones whose civility
Make peace and justice a possibility
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Retreating and tweeting
Violence inciting
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Tweeting, retweeting
Inciting rioting
And his staff say Do Something but he has no idea
How to do anything but spread lies and fear
He cannot help, has nothing to bring
So it’s back to his bunker like a cowardly king
And his party is silent as he drags us all down
Dividing and cheating and pushing the bounds
Everything part of his constant campaign
To break down the country for his personal gain
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Retreating and tweeting
Violence inciting
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Democracy is dying
Putin is smiling
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
But the people are marching
United and crying
And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
He’s afraid of the people
Cause he sees them uniting
Afraid of the people
Cause he sees them abiding
Afraid of the people
Cause he sees The Uprising
Happy 4/20 from Austin, Texas! I cut out of work a little early today to lay down this old Van Morrison favorite in honor of 4/20/2020. If you couldn’t tell, I’m keepin it weird, dressed as a pack of M&Ms in Maile’s sunglasses (over my glasses).
