Monthly Archives: July 2008

Suns explode and worlds collide…

Trainwreck Life

Stuff happens.

No matter how meticulously you plan, how many contingencies you try to cover, how much you practice and drill, unforeseen events upend the best laid plans — or the gods of unforseen consequences lay a hand on an outcome and before you know it, everything is upside down, inside out, and your goose is on its way to well-done — but you won’t be sharing the bounty.

previous versions
Sunday, October 28, 2007

But hey — in this veil of toil and sin, you’d be lucky to get out alive. If you could, but you can’t. So best to buck up, stiffen the old upper lip, buckle down, grab your bootstraps, and give the ol’ heave ho to yesterday’s cares and concerns — because there’s a fresh batch due for delivery as early as tomorrow.

previous versions
Sunday, October 28, 2007

lyrics
Trainwreck Life

It’s just one trainwreck after another
it’s just one disaster followin’ the t’other
It’s a wonder I can get back on my feet
to fall again

Some catastrophe
Some calamity
more adversity
more insanity
it’s the way it goes in the world
of mice and men

Cataclysm and devastation
tragedy and desolation
yet I know it’s the way it goes
my friend

double debacles and treble trouble
cauldron of misfortune set to boil and bubble
I’ve seen the future it’s
more of the same to the end

Waterloo was just a hiccup
Little Big Horn just all a big mixup
When everything is ashes
maybe we can all be friends

Suns explode and worlds collide
all us little specks along for the ride
the fabric of time and space
someday willl mend

Cataclysm and devastation…

Suns explode and worlds collide
all us little specks along for the ride
in the end it all — comes down to the end

2007-10-28
(C)2008, TK Major

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Mystery Trip

Bold & Rational Men

 

 

When I posted an earlier version of this song only a few posts back, I’d meant to add the back up vocal that is added here. Otherwise, the song’s about the same but I think the additional vocal kind of brings it alive.

 

 

Bold and Rational Men

Come now y’ bold and rational men
and march y’ straight ahead
y’ fear not the fire of the dragon
nor the carrious teeth of death

And come now, lad
fear not the gods
you’ve often said we’re all alone
d’n’cha see your where your path must lie
straight into the unknowable
good speed now
you’re on your own

But wait now put your hand on the earth
and see where your life flows from
this good dark earth
is the mother of us all
y’know you are her son

and come and gaze into the sky
see how dark and deep
you are the prodigal lost in time
lost in a dream kept sleep

(C)1973, TK Major

(C)2008, TK Major

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America Redux

This Used to Be AmericaSpecial Holiday Encore
0riginally posted October 15, 2007

Preachin’ democracy…

It’s still preachin’. With all that entails. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending so much time listening to country, mountain, and rural gospel lately. They ain’t afraid of no preachin’….

Anyway, when the phrase “This used to be America”* came to my lips the other day (in one of those listening-to-the-news-too-much rants my cat is getting used to) I sat down to write what I hoped might be some classic agitprop… I don’t think I actually got there… and I wasn’t actually going to let this out of the work folder but, I dunno, I listened to it this morning and thought, shoot, I’m feeling this. I’m feeling it right now.

When the general once in charge of the US war on — excuse me, in — Iraq calls that catastrophic misadventure a “nightmare without end” — I figure there’s some wiggle room for a little Monday morning jeremiad from an aging, disillusioned US businessman (that would be, you know, me.)

This used to be America, you know.

But we could still be who we know we should be…
This Used to Be America

more stream & DL options

lyrics
This Used to Be America

This used to be America
This used to be the land of the free
This used to be the United States
but nothin’s like it used to be

we put ourselves in the hands of fools
threw our birthrights away
put the bottom line at the top of our world
let the god of greed hold sway

it takes 200,000 bullets
to kill one enemy
that what the DoD numbers say**
if you don’t count peripheral casualties

Americans don’t torture
We don’t kill recklessly
thats what the man in the white house says
that’s how we want it to be
but it’s gettin’ pretty hard to believe

blowback’s a bitch
but how could we know?
though our experts kept telling us so
we fed the tiger we got by the tail
and now we just can’t bear to let him go

This used to be America
This used to be the land of the free
but I swear it’s not too late
for the United states
we can still be who we know
we should be

(C)2007, TK Major

* When I googled the phrase — which I figured had certainly been in use before — I found it had been the working title for a book by…

** DOD – Department of Defense; this figure of 200,000 bullets for every enemy death in Afghanistan and Iraq is based on US Department of Defense estimates of enemy soldiers killed and the amount of ordnance used in training and combat. Yes… one FIFTH OF A MILLION BULLETS for every enemy soldier killed. Of course, this does not count “peripheral casualties” — for which estimates range from about 25,000- 30,000 (more than the number of enemy killed — this is the US government’s estimate) to as many as a 100,000. Of course, that does not include those who died unnecessarly from malnutrition, privation, and other war-related causes which some well-grounded studies have suggested range from 500,000 to one million extra deaths.

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