Monthly Archives: October 2007

Where did you hide that shining light?

I Called Your Name

As I wrote in January of 2006, when this song first appeared in A Year of Songs, it’s the third song I wrote — and considered a real song, as opposed to one of the several score of pretty awful early attempts. What can I say — I grew up writing free verse… no rhyme, no meter… lots of self-indulgence. It takes a while to get into the very different discipline of songwriting. Or it did for me.

Anyway, this tune’s maybe a little long on portentuous vagueness — though I was clearly shooting for evocative mystery.

But, believe it or not, it’s all more or less grounded in actual events. Where the song says, a man said you were the queen… well, that’s exactly what someone said about the young woman the song addresses. To this day, I really don’t know what he meant.

And that blinding, shining, white light? Well… someone stole it.

I Called Your Name

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Saturday, January 21, 2006

lyrics
I Called Your Name

I called your name
when I was afraid
but you were upstate
and you didn’t come
though I thought you might

there was a time when I’d play any game
just to be alive
there was a time
long enough to wait
time enough to wait
time enough to bring it back
and stash it away

a man thought you were the queen
did not mean a thing
but I thought it did
and if you were the queen
I wondered
and I wondered
how you kept it hid
and how did you steal
that shining light
how did you steal that blinding light
how did you steal that shining light from me
how did you steal that pure white light from me

(C)1972, 2007, TK Major

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The way things had to be…

Jennifer

Sometimes you meet someone and it just seems like it’s meant to be.

That’s how it felt when I met the girl I’ll call Jennifer.

Our eyes locked as I got up to play in front of the small, coffeehouse crowd and I felt, a little, like I was playing just to her.

She was with a friend of mine — who it turned out was her ex-boyfriend — but, for me, she was pretty much the only one in the room. I’d sung a song about suicide — she’d said “Don’t you just feel that way, sometimes?” and I said, “Yeah,” — and we talked for a while about some of the ideas behind my songs, touching on love, death, and fate, suicide and responsibilty to the living. It was an interesting, surprisingly lively conversation that wound from one provocative or resonant idea to the next.

Brazenly slipping my card across the table to her, I was somehow sure that I would hear from her again… I’m not usually so confident — much the opposite. But, looking into her eyes, I felt certain that fate would bring us back together.

That Sunday I wrote the fleeting shadow of a song below, “Jennifer” (not the real girl’s name, mind you) — starting simply from that pretty name and a sad, bittersweet mood… and not moving too far from there. It was my idea to fill out the lyrics, make some sort of story about it. In my mind, the song was very much about someone ending their life.

Days went by and I didn’t hear from Jennifer, though I still felt, somehow, that I would.

Late in the week I saw my friend, Jennifer’s ex, sitting alone at the counter of my local coffee house and sat next to him. He was unusually quiet.

Finally he said, “Remember my friend, Jennifer?”

I nodded. Of course I did. She’d barely left my mind — but I didn’t say it.

“She died.”

I was stunned. I’m seldom truly without words but I couldn’t say aynthing.

Finally, I said, “How?”

“No one knows. She was having friends over for Sunday dinner last weekend and when they arrived she didn’t come to the door. Finally, they peered through the window and saw her lying in the kitchen. She was already gone.”

In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but think of our conversation — but she’d seemed so full of life and I was so convinced that we’d both intended to somehow see each other again…

Eventually, we found out it was a heart attack — the result of a previously unrecognized congenital defect. She was only 28.

Fate… it’s a funny thing.

Jennifer

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Friday, December 30, 2005

lyrics
Jennifer
Jennifer
I swear it’s not your fault
It’s always been the same
It’ll always be this way
Jennifer
you’re not to blame

Jennifer
Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer

Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer

Jennifer, you’re not to blame
Jennifer

(C)1996, TK Major

(C)2007, TK Major

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On the forty-first day…

Angel's Vacation

You know how it is.

You try to go on vacation but work is always on the phone or emailing you. Where’s this? How do you do that? Where’s that eighty thousand you withdrew from the company account on Thursday?

You know.

Imagine how it is when you’re working for the boys upstairs. When the Big Boss is not only omniscient, but occasionally seems to get obsessed with details, it’s hard to really get away.

So you plow headfirst into vacation, ignore it when strangers around you get calls on their cells and, with looks of utter bewilderment, hold their phones out to you. Instead you order another round of doubles for the house and grab a passing barmaid.

Superhuman powers mean superhuman powers to annoy.

You can wear out your welcome even when your American Express card seems bottomless.

But the pretty dark eyed maid keeps sneaking back to your room and, on the day you absolutely, without question, must get back to work… the both of you take off through the desert… followed, only steps behind, by the shadowy operatives of He Who Usually Takes Not No for an Answer.

Angel’s Vacation

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Sunday, October 23, 2005
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006

lyrics
Angel’s Vacation

He tried to do what was right
but it always turned out wrong
the heavenly host was not impressed
and he had to blow out of town

he came down to earth near Phoenix
in the middle of the summertime
he walked to the first bar he saw
and ordered whiskey, beer, and wine

An angel came down from heaven
hoping to get away
he stewed in the hotel bar all night
and baked by the pool all day

He pushed the desk clerk to a breakdown
and drove the other guests away
he punched out the hotel detective
and ran off with the pretty dark eyed maid

They laid out on the lam for 40 days and nights
and on the 41st they had to rest
the pretty dark eyed maid was all worn out
and the angel was scared to death

he knew they’d have no trouble tracking him down
angels have this certain glow
and when they tell you it’s time to leave,
by God, then it’s time to go

An angel came down from heaven
hoping to get away
he stewed in the hotel bar all night
and baked by the pool all day

(C)1990,2005, TK Major

(C)2007, TK Major

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Something broken…

Angel in the Bottle

There’s something reassuring and familiar and — get this — liberating — in a hangover.

That’s the way I used to feel.

Sometimes, even a decade and a half later, waking up sluggish (musta fell asleep with my face in the pillow again) I’ll grasp my coffee mug with the sort of grimly firm grip of someone who thinks the still liquid morning might somehow melt through his fingers and end up a puddle on the kitchen floor.

A hangover, I found, was a great excuse. Not for bosses, maybe. And not always for girlfriends.

But when you stumbled out of bed, carefully putting one foot flatly in front of the other in that gravity-must-be-crazy-today walk of the seasoned, habitual drunk… you knew you were doing the best you could… just stumbling into the blinding morning light.

I miss that kind of certainty…

Angel in the Bottle

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previous versions
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Saturday, April 21, 2007

lyrics
Angel in the Bottle

There’s an angel
in the bottle
but the devil’s still alive
inside of me

I’m sitting
here in limbo
got my whole life
in back of me

Baby I thought
I’d be the one to save you
but I never dreamed
I couldn’t even save myself

Well there’s one thing
that by now is plain
through these forty years
of life death and change

There’s something broken
down inside of me
deep down inside you see
I’ve got this pain

Baby I thought
I’d be the one to save you
but I never dreamed
I couldn’t even save myself

There’s an angel
in the bottle
but the devil’s still alive
inside of me

(C)1990, 2005, TK Major


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