Tag Archives: mandolin

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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Wallowing again…

Scrapin' the Bottom of Yesterday's Bucket Again

Scrapin’ the Bottom of Yesterday’s Bucket Again

Well I’m scraping the bottom
of yesterday’s bucket again
I wore out my memories
and then I just played them to shreds
I’ll spend my tomorrows
my head bent in sorrow
my heart torn with pain and regret
And all the same
it’s my same old refrain:
I swear I won’t
begin again

and everyone says
just put it to bed
it all worked out for the best
but how could they know
that I love you so
and I won’t stop til I’m dead

I gave up forever
I gave up tomorrow for good
I gave up thinkin’ I could
pull it together
I never could
I gave up on new love
I gave up on hope
I gave up on faith
but never on ghosts
And I gave up thinkin’
I could ever begin again
I won’t begin again

(C)2000, 2008, TK Major

previous versions
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006

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Christine in a cafe with the boulevardiers…

Christine in Paris

 

He met her in a cafe near Montmartre. But he knew her slightly from back home; she’d been in one of his classes. He’d never talked to her, but he’d often noticed her, usually laughing at the center of a knot of young men.

At first, he didn’t recognize her, only saw the back of her head in the cafe, barely noticing the jet black bob of shiny hair. But one of the three men with her at the table kept staring at him. For a while he thought there would be trouble — the young man’s gaze was so intent. Finally, the man walked over.

“You’re from New York?”

“No,” he said, trying to size the guy up. Suddenly, he realized the man was probably gay. He spoke English with the adopted cadence of someone signaling a certain delicacy of spirit.

“My friend,” the man continued, “She thinks she knows you.”

The girl had turned around, a faint, quizzical smile on her face. Then he knew who it was. “I’m not from New York. But I do know your friend, I think. We went to college together.”

He joined them at their table and, after a while, the men left, and he was alone with her.

It was Paris. And she was beautiful.

Neither of them were what you would call free, it turned out, but with their encumbrances half a world away, it was easy enough to give in to the moment.

And the moment gave way to a series of afternoons and evenings and long nights talking and drinking and walking through the streets and along the river. Paris can draw out a moment like that… draw it out into reveries and dreams…

Instead of renting a car and driving by himself to Italy, as he’d long planned, he found himself with the girl, driving along the northern coast.

When they got to St. Malo a series of storms blew in off the North Atlantic, rolling in over the dark walls of the old city and hammering the ancient, rippled windows of the tiny upstairs room in the pension they found, keeping them there for days.

Or maybe they kept each other there. The first morning, he walked out during a break in the rain and bought a small bag of groceries, a loaf of bread, cheese, two bottles of local wine.

He told himself he wasn’t falling in love.

Back home, back on the job after his first real vacation from his first real, career job… he found himself daydreaming about her constantly. She was still in France, in a graduate program oriented to rich Americans, studying post-deconstructionalist, neo-Marxist film criticism. Or something. It seemed to change with every letter.

He dreamed of her and walking by the Seine… or the long days in the little pension in St. Malo.

But she wrote of school, gossiped about her gay male friends and their businessmen boyfriends, made small talk.

He could feel the distance grow. With every letter, she drew farther away.

A lot farther than just the distance from L.A. to Paris…

 

Too Much Trouble Christine

more stream & DL options

previous versions
Monday, October 17, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Tuesday, January 31, 2006

new ‘studio’ recording

lyrics
Too Much Trouble Christine

You’re too much trouble, Christine
You’re too much trouble, Christine
You’re too much trouble, Christine
So Why do I love you, Christine

You’re too much trouble, Christine

Christine on a beach, Christine on a plane
Christine in a cafe with the boulevardiers
Christine on the set Christine in my head
Christine in my heart and tearing up my bed

You’re too much trouble, Christine…

Christine I’m terrified just holding your hand
Christine you twist me up like no one else can
Christine you’re crazy but you got a plan
world domination begins with one man

You’re too much trouble, Christine
You’re too much trouble, Christine
You’re too much trouble, Christine
So Why do I love you, Christine

You’re too much trouble, Christine

(C)2008, TK Major

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Now, baby, it’s never… all over again.

Now, Baby, It's Never

Forever… never.

They’re kind of functional equivalents. Both seemingly impossible yet, maybe paradoxically, absolutely necessary for our understanding of possitibility.

And they rhyme, better yet.

Didn’t I just post a version of this song about one month ago? You can answer that yourself by looking just below to the list of previous versions, but, wait, I’ll save you the trouble: yes, yes, I did. And that version did have mandolin — but the mando was playing an accompaniment filigree on that one… and I thought the small, thin sound of the mandolin as solo accompaniment gave the song a certain programmatic poignancy…

Anyhow, it’s my blog/podcast and I can do what I damn well want… and that’s yet another version of this slim-as-a-diet-wafer song.

Now, Baby, It’s Never

more stream & DL options

previous versions
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Sunday, January 27, 2008

lyrics
Now, Baby, It’s Never

(C)2008, TK Major

Everything you say
seems to mean goodbye
Though we talked forever
I never did know why

Now baby its never
our time wont come again
This time forever baby
This time it’s the end

Tonight when you kissed me
it burned me to my soul
Everything I thought I knew
was all a lie I know

Now baby its never…

I walked along the aqueduct
just before the dawn
The sun looked old and tired as it came up
but at least the night was gone

Now baby its never…

(C)2008, TK Major

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