Monthly Archives: January 2006

Scrapin’ the Bottom of Yesterday’s Bucket Again

Scrapin' the Bottom of Yesteray's Bucket Again

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

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, TK Major

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Your Eyes Have It Tonight

Your Eyes Have It Tonight

Frankly I’m hoping y’all are pretty much hung over, preoccupied, or otherwise semi-oblivious and I can sneak this attempted song past without too much fuss.

The lyrics to this song have as much intellectual depth as the protagonist — a petty con man trying to take advantage of a gullible woman — has moral depth.

What, you might ask yourself, does a self-respecting songwriter do when he finds that the nasty little bit of nonsense he hoped he could turn into something of redeeming lyrical value ends up being a nasty song-length bit of nonsense?

Well, I can’t answer for self-respecting songwriters, but I usually find myself hoping for a Killer Riff… which, all too often — as here — never comes.

Your Eyes Have It Tonight

I never felt like this ever before
well maybe just once or twice
I guess that it’s Love I can alaways tell
the answer is always in the eyes

Your eyes have it tonight
they glow like the stars above
your eyes have it tonight
Tonight I guess we’re in Love

I been around the world five or six times
I never saw nothing like you
All those places all those faces
It took all this time to get to you

Your eyes have it tonight…

I just got back from the Orient
I was doin a job for some friends
my letter of credit’s hung up — I aint got no dough
but at least in you, I got a freind

Your eyes have it tonight…

Let me stay with you for a couple of days
I swear I won’t get in the way
I got some business — collect on a couple of debts
and then I’ll be on my way

Your eyes have it tonight
they glow like the stars above
your eyes have it tonight
Tonight I guess we’re in Love

9 August 1987
(C)1987, TK MAJOR

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13th Bar Blues

13th Bar Blues

 

Okay… we’re in a groove. Sin, dissolution, degradation. We’re starting the year off right.

I try to present the lighter side of drunken depravity here, though, with a jauntily sloppy blues. (I realize the description of an AYoS song as “sloppy” is an exercise in redundancy — but I couldn’t figure any other way to get ‘jaunty’ in there.)

Me, I was a happy drunk. And a very, very lucky one. Of course, when I was coming up, there was a lot more tolerance of drunks. It scared me a bit, even then — or it should have. I’d snuck under the radar so much and had so many lucky breaks that I could feel it in my gut that I didn’t have any more coming. For awhile I drank at home. But for someone used to being out and carousing 6 nights out of 7, my dull groove of beer and television just provoked more drinking. One night about 11:25, watching a Cheers rerun and opening my twelfth beer that day, I bottomed out. I wasn’t particularly drunk. I was just tired. Tired of drinking. (And tired of Cheers reruns. My gosh.)

Thirteenth Bar Blues

It was the thirteenth day
of the thirteenth month
The clock on the wall
struck 13 o’clock
It was the thirteenth bar
on the thirteenth block
I had me twelve beers
and ordered one more for luck

13th bar blues…

Thirteen nightsticks
and thirteen cops
thirteen minutes
of gettin’ beat up
13 bones broke
in 13 ways
the judge said
Son, I’ll give you 13 hundred Dollars
or 13 days…

13th bar blues…

Sept 1, 1991
(C) 1991 TK MAJOR

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Just Like a China Doll

Just Like a China Doll

 

There’s always one guy who holds out… who thinks he’s too smart to fall for the latest girl or the latest drug. He laughs at all his friends when they make fools of themselves — or worse — and he swears it will never happen to him.

But whether it’s for a bottle blonde with a dangerous aggenda or a pipe full of something really wrong — this guy may be the last to fall but he’s going to fall and he’s going to fall the farthest.

I took the idea for the chorus from the street term, doll eyes, the dull, lifeless eyes of someone under a big load of sleepytime drugs like heroin or barbiturates.

Just Like a China Doll

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

All around Long Beach
and all the way to LA
the shattered lives are scattered
the hearts are spiked up on staves
— From the Ocean to the mountains
from the birthplace to the grave
Once you behold her
nothing will ever be the same

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

Everywhere you go
everythings about the same
they wander around dazed
just barely whispering her name
— They walk in front of buses
they throw themselves under trains
but the sick smile on their faces
show those sorry saps are still glad she came

[bridge]
well I looked into her eyes
and I saw my life flash by
Now I wake up screaming
every night dreaming doll’s eyes

I looked into the void
and I saw myself fall in
i see it every time
i see it in her eyes
t’s always been

Here I stand the last man to fall
under her spell
a moment close to heaven
an ice age on the cold side of hell
and how can I face F# ~ E ~ / Bm D A E
the other lost souls I find
When I laughed at all of them and then now
here am I the last in line

She’s got eyes
just like a china doll
They look painted on
and yet they’ve seen it all

(C)1997, TK Major

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