Monthly Archives: November 2005

San Bernardino Rose

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Forget walking along the River Seine at twilight.

There’s something about eating french fries in your truck in the moonlight at a San Berdoo truckstop, your beautiful, passionate, and barely legal girlfriend at your side, a little smudge of ketchup on her cheek, begging you to reach out…

San Bernardino Rose

San Bernardino Rose
I am so alone
and there’s so many bad things
Bad things I have done

I know that you’re barely a woman yet
hope you’d come to understand
San Bernardino Rose
I want to love you
I need to be your man

Truck stop French Fries
Catchup on your cheek in the pale moonlight
I hold you you kiss me
I know it’s wrong when it feels this right

I know that you’re barely a woman yet
I’d hope you’d come to understand
San Bernardino Rose
I want to love you
I need to be your man

(C)1990, TK Major

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Carrot

Carrot

There was a time, in that lost era of my early manhood, when I judged life to be essentially a balancing act between work (writing and music) and love — or, more properly, romance.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the beautiful Icelandic girl who was, briefly, a muse, mentor, and colleague in the painfully difficult reinvention of myself from poet to songwriter. (Far more painful, without doubt, for those around me.)

This song was the first of my early songs to win largely favorable comment from my friend and it was the first time I ever felt what I’d later realize was a form of professional pride (which does, indeed, I would later learn, often go before a nasty, if occasionally comic, pratfall).

To be frank… it was probably one of the first of my songs to have recognizably repeating sections and some sort of coherent structure. My earliest work leaned hard toward the fever-dream stream-of-nonsense school — with literary, metaphysical, and scriptural references thrown in to spice up the already indigestible gumbo.

In fact, this song refers to that phase in my life (talking to girls all night and playing long rambling songs til dawn… it was a phase I had a hard time growing past). My artistic ambivalence and deep-seated alienation may have seemed like shtick — sometimes they even did to me — but in the long run it became obvious that they were all too real and, at the risk of being overly self-revelatory, I think it’s safe to say that that reality permeates my creative work.

Ya think?


Carrot

(In the Course of Events)

In the course of events
I’ve seen my goals hanging just like a carrot in front of my nose
In the struggle for those higher attainments, hell,
I’ve been to the top
and I’ve seen the drop on the other side

And I don’t care if your money’s no good
I don’t care if both your legs are wood
I don’t care what your ma says to do
Just come away with me

It takes time to get where you want to go
and its never quite the same when you get there
but that doesn’t stop me cause there’s still a couple things
I’d like to try with you and you never can tell
it might work out all right

You can sit and talk about life all day
as much as you can talk your questions wont go away
it’s a conversation that leads me to say
just come away with me

I’ve been burned before
and I’ll get burned again
I guess that’s the same for everyone
I know what I need
I know what I want
I know what I get —
they don’t always correspond

You can sit and talk about life all day
as much as you can talk your questions wont go away
it’s a conversation that leads me to say
just come away with me

(C)1974 TK Major

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Thelma Lou

Thelma Lou

Maybe they weren’t Orpheus and Eurydice or Romeo and Juliet… but, for me, one of the great tragic love affairs has always been Barney and Thelma Lou.

When I was a kid, I could never figure out how the ultimate goofball, Barney Fife, could snag a warm, cuddly, pretty gal like Thelma Lou — particularly when his boss and pal, the tall, good-looking sheriff, Andy Taylor, ended up with the slightly stuffy and decidedly less creamy schoolmarm, Helen Crump.

Barney, of course, wanted to be “somebody” before he finally popped the question to Thelma Lou and headed out to the state capital, Raleigh, to make a name for himself, becoming an investigator, if I recall correctly, for the AG or the state police.

When the 20th high school reunion came around, Barney came back to Mayberry, ready to finally propose to the love of his life, Thelma Lou, also back in town for the reunion.

His eyes met hers from across the room and time froze for a second — at least for me, watching at home — for a few moments it seemed like happily ever after would come to Barney Fife. But, alas… it turned out Thelma Lou’s handsome, lawyer fiance was just out parking the car. Smiling broadly and putting his arm protectively around Thelma Lou, he greeted Barney with a confidence that made it clear Barney stood no chance at all.

As the Fates decreed.

Thelma Lou

The day that you came back to town
he thought he’d be seein’ you around
he thought he could pick it up
where he put it down

but he thought he’d treat you right this time
just like he dreamed about each night
just like he prayed he’d have the
brains to do this time

Now he’ll never know
why he ever let go of you
Thelma Lou
he dreamed he’d make it right
but none of those dreams
ever did come true
and now he just dreams of you
it will always be Thelma Lou
nothing anyone can do
it will always be dreams of you
Thelma Lou

Now he was just a nothing way back then
but he couldn’t believe how you could pretend
not to care about all the things you couldn’t have
if you stayed with him

So he pushed himself hard just to get ahead
and he woke up one day in an empty bed
and he looked in the mirror and
he realized the years — and you — had fled

Now, he’ll never know why he ever let go…

Well he always thought he’d get one last chance
but all he got was one last dance
as your fiance watched
from across the crowded room

But he held you so close like he didn’t care
it was like no one else in the world was there
and still it was too late
for him to say “I love you”

Now he’ll never know
why he ever let go of you
Thelma Lou
he dreamed he’d make it right
but none of those dreams
ever did come true
and now he just dreams of you
it will always be Thelma Lou
nothing anyone can do
it will always be dreams of you
Thelma Lou

19 June 2005
(C)2005 TK Major

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Enslaved by an Angel

Enslaved by an Angel

This is probably one of, if not the, shortest songs that will be featured in AYoS. A simple quatrain, it has defied all my attempts to draw it out or elaborate on its wispy hint of a premise.

It grew, perhaps amusingly, out of a single phrase in my notebook, “torched by an angel.” (At the time, my beloved Law & Order reruns were being interrupted by frequent promos for the syndicated reruns of the old show, Touched by an Angel.) Late one night when I was working on another song, I stumbled on a simple little fingerpick thing and came up with the lyrics below on the spur of the moment.

By the way, I fell in love with this painting (above) by Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1825-1905), which I have since learned is titled “Cupidon.” I was sorting through various Renaissance and post-Ren paintings looking for the perfect angel… I was thinking something more “Biblical” — but I stopped dead when I saw this. (And, yes, I know “Cupidon” is French for “Cupid.” And Cupid was not an angel or even, well… in my target sex. But, damn, it’s a cool painting. In my mind, it’s a girl angel. A 19 year old girl angel. Make of that what you will.)

Enslaved by an Angel

Enslaved by an angel
I never knew a thing
I strode across continents
now I cower beneath her wing

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