Lyrics.

Over the last decade I have written some songs. I was going through my e-mail and found a folder with some old lyrics, and here are some selections.

Murder Ballad

Writing a long lost name
on a misty windowpane
Seeing a forgotten face
In a smoky exhale's trace
Feeling a piece of frightened flesh
In the wrinkled palms I press
Shadows follow me around
Whispering without a sound
All the ones who knew are gone
No-one knows just what I've done
Her frantic face sank into the moat
My twice-cursed hands around her throat

The house groans back at me
Accompanied by the hangman's tree
Which shrieks against the windowpane
That wounds me with its' precious name
Early in the morning fog
I stumble through the clutching bog
That stands beside the castle's stones
And hides my only true love's bones
Forty years of torment passed
Soon I'll have my peace, at last
My placid face sinks into the moat
My twice cursed hands around my throat

Baila De La Vida

The scene is set
a vast empty ballroom
Senora wakes and steps out of the gloom
stricken with sadness at her own recent death
claw like fingers clutch dusty castanets
graceful, with age she begins a slow dance
which begets a face
her father's warm glance
cheered by this sight, years drop from her face

Suddenly others are filling this strange place
first love of all - sharp pleasure, then tears
Behind black lace, a friend of thirty years
High pitched laughter and the sound of little feet
Her own children make everything complete
And so she learns, as all of us might
A life fully lived robs black death of it's bite.


The Jack Daniels Sutra

You know it's early in the morning
or perhaps it's late at night
That religion comes a callin'
tells me something just ain't right.
It says my mother is ashamed
and my father takes the blame.
It says I'm doomed to misery
and I'll be burning in that flame.

But I have got an answer.
For I've truly found the light.
I'm a whiskey drinking buddhist
and there's something I recite.
It's called the Old Jack Daniels Sutra
and the words don't stay the same,
but I know it deep inside me
as well as I recall my name.

I am the bottle I am the glass.
I will reincarnate at last.
Fill me up until the brim,
I believe there is no sin.
This world of misery is samsara,
Why don't you pour me another?
This Old Jack Daniels treats me right,
I reach Nirvana every night.

You know it's early in the morning.
Or perhaps it's late at night,
that the police come a callin'
and tell me something just ain't right.
They say they'll put me in the cooler
until I finally get the point.
As if I'll find some understanding
while I'm rotting in the joint.

I am the bottle.....