Tag Archives: idyll

Willows weep… tears melt in cool water

On a lake...

I don’t write a lot of what you’d call love songs.

Broken hearts, betrayals, disillusionment, dissolution, self-destruction, simmering anger… that’s my turf. They didn’t call me the Bard of Bitterness, Denial, and Regret for nothin’…

But this is a love song. And I’ve always had a soft spot for it.

This version is a little unusual for AYoS. While it’s built around acoustic guitar, there are a couple of voices (both mine), and the second guitar, instead of noodling around the melody as usual, tries to somewhat mirror the first (and it comes oddly close, considering what a sloppy guitarist I truly am… perhaps too close to do much good). I even threw in a little echo, a stab at otherworldliness that will no doubt just irritate some purists — but what are they doing listening to me, anyhow?

Internet Archive page for this recording
previous AYoS versions
September 23, 2006
March 25, 2006
December 18, 2005

Emily

On a lake
the faded yellow row boat
drifts in lazy circles
while I fall in love with you

Emily Emily
watch the sky go around
Emily Emily
watch the sky

Willows weep
tears melt in cool water
your white cotton dress
you warm brown legs
your deep green eyes
Emily

Emily Emily
watch the sky go around
Emily Emily
watch the sky

(C)1982, TK Major

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The view from the hayloft door

I just started to cry...

There’s a doomed beauty in knowing you’re about to make what you’ll probably look back on as the mistake of your life. Everything seems more real, more vivid, more 3D.

You look around as though it’s the last time you’re ever going to see familiar surroundings… and in a way, you’re right. Nothing will ever be the same, again.

And you know you have to do it, anyway.

I wrote this song as a kind of bluegrass thing but I turned it on its head, here, into a kind of swamp folk rock indulgence that I think exposes some other facets of the song, highlighting the youthful passion and lust for life and love. Which is not, actually, what I was thinking when I came up with the music for this version.

Instead, I’d been so annoyed with an attempt to do this song the previous night in a sensitive, finger-picked style that I decided, really, to just invert the style and approach. (The George Castanza Strategy. If everything you do turns out wrong, do the opposite.)

Internet Archive page for this recording
previous AYoS version

I Just Started to Cry

We ran through the summer night
it was hot and it was black
we ran until we were all alone
and didn’t even know the way back

We were young
we were in love
that summer we were one
when I look back I start to cry
to think of what is gone

A storm came up from the south real fast
and lightning lit the rain
I looked in her eyes for a moment
and then it was dark again

Our hands entwined and then our tongues
we were soaking wet
we made our way to the old Hansen barn
and there our souls met

I woke up the next morning
and she slept by my side
the sunlight poured through the hayloft door
and I just started to cry

I cried cause she looked so pretty lying there
I cried because I loved her so
I cried cause I knew she was the only one
and I cried cause I knew I was gonna go

(C) 1991 TK MAJOR

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Watch the sky go around… [Emily]

Emily [alternate version]

The version of Emily below borders on punk folk, at least in relation to how I normally play the song. This version is faster, edgier, looser… but it’s still fingerpicked, midtempo. The neofauvist angle is more in the abandon of the vocals (translation: once again I throw aside my first GF’s admonition that Effort is a sign of incomplete mastery.)

EMILY

On a lake
the faded yellow row boat
drifts in lazy circles
while I fall in love with you

Emily Emily
watch the sky go around
Emily Emily
watch the sky

Willows weep
tears melt in cool water
your white cotton dress
you warm brown legs
your deep green eyes
Emily

Emily Emily
watch the sky go around
Emily Emily
watch the sky

(C)1982, TK Major

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I Just Started to Cry

I Just Started to Cry

If you’ve ever made love in a hayloft — or tried — you probably realize that the reason such scenes are a fixture of certain romantic literature is that you have to be completely filled with a crazed, don’t give a damn passion to lay down in hay much less roll around in it.

But waking up in a hayloft the morning after puppy love turns serious during a sudden, summer storm… I’m thinking there might be a few delicious moments, there… or maybe bittersweet, if deep down you know you’re headed out of town as soon as you can get some travelling money together and hop a freight out to one of the coasts or maybe down to the gulf.

This song is about that moment, that very moment, when you know for certain just how much you’re about to throw away.

I Just Started to Cry

We ran through the summer night
it was hot and it was black
we ran until we were all alone
and didn’t even know the way back

We were young
we were in love
that summer we were one
when I look back I start to cry
to think of what is gone

A storm came up from the south real fast
and lightning lit the rain
I looked in her eyes for a moment
and then it was dark again

Our hands entwined and then our tongues
we were soaking wet
we made our way to the old Hansen barn
and there our souls met

I woke up the next morning
and she slept by my side
the sunlight poured through the hayloft door
and I just started to cry

I cried cause she looked so pretty lying there
I cried because I loved her so
I cried cause I knew she was the only one
and I cried cause I knew I was gonna go

(C) 1991 TK MAJOR

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