Category Archives: acoustic

Drunk in Algiers

This was written when I was playing in punk bands and reflects the series of investigations into the JFK assassination and various government conspiracies that took place in Congress in the late 70s in the wake of Watergate and the Nixon implosion.

When I was a kid, I stayed up late with my dad one night to watch the early 30’s Mummy. When it came to the part where the workers burying the pharoah (or whoever the heck he was supposed to be) were slain with spears — and then the spearsmen were themselves slain with spears, all to keep the burial place secret,I thought, damn, that’s cold.

In this song, I imagined the protagonist as the last surviving triggerman in the JFK hit, living out his days drunk in Algiers, waiting for the inevitable day when some mysterious strangers would burst through the door, guns blazing.

The guitar accompaniment on this version was improvised on the spot, since I had no real recollection of the chords I used to use. As always, I recorded the rhythm guitar and vocal in one pass and, as I often do, I then went back and overdubbed a lead guitar.

DRUNK IN ALGIERS

I was on team one
and I’m not saying that I’m scared
but the rest are dead
and it’s probably just a matter of time

they know where I am

one of these days a stranger
walks into this little dive
and bang
no witness left a live
one of these days they’re gonna cowboy me

one day late indian summer
standing on a grassy knoll
just a little squeeze of my trigger finger
changed the history of the world

shoved my AR 14 up inside my overcoat
me and my time man shimmied down the manhole
made our way through the Dallas sewers
team one changed the history of the world

San Bernardino Rose

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Forget walking along the River Seine at twilight.

There’s something about eating french fries in your truck in the moonlight at a San Berdoo truckstop, your beautiful, passionate, and barely legal girlfriend at your side, a little smudge of ketchup on her cheek, begging you to reach out…

San Bernardino Rose

San Bernardino Rose
I am so alone
and there’s so many bad things
Bad things I have done

I know that you’re barely a woman yet
hope you’d come to understand
San Bernardino Rose
I want to love you
I need to be your man

Truck stop French Fries
Catchup on your cheek in the pale moonlight
I hold you you kiss me
I know it’s wrong when it feels this right

I know that you’re barely a woman yet
I’d hope you’d come to understand
San Bernardino Rose
I want to love you
I need to be your man

Carrot

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Carrot

There was a time, in that lost era of my early manhood, when I judged life to be essentially a balancing act between work (writing and music) and love — or, more properly, romance.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the beautiful Icelandic girl who was, briefly, a muse, mentor, and colleague in the painfully difficult reinvention of myself from poet to songwriter. (Far more painful, without doubt, for those around me.)

This song was the first of my early songs to win largely favorable comment from my friend and it was the first time I ever felt what I’d later realize was a form of professional pride (which does, indeed, I would later learn, often go before a nasty, if occasionally comic, pratfall).

To be frank… it was probably one of the first of my songs to have recognizably repeating sections and some sort of coherent structure. My earliest work leaned hard toward the fever-dream stream-of-nonsense school — with literary, metaphysical, and scriptural references thrown in to spice up the already indigestible gumbo.

In fact, this song refers to that phase in my life (talking to girls all night and playing long rambling songs til dawn… it was a phase I had a hard time growing past). My artistic ambivalence and deep-seated alienation may have seemed like shtick — sometimes they even did to me — but in the long run it became obvious that they were all too real and, at the risk of being overly self-revelatory, I think it’s safe to say that that reality permeates my creative work.

Ya think?

Carrot

(In the Course of Events)

In the course of events
I’ve seen my goals hanging just like a carrot in front of my nose
In the struggle for those higher attainments, hell,
I’ve been to the top
and I’ve seen the drop on the other side

And I don’t care if your money’s no good
I don’t care if both your legs are wood
I don’t care what your ma says to do
Just come away with me

It takes time to get where you want to go
and its never quite the same when you get there
but that doesn’t stop me cause there’s still a couple things
I’d like to try with you and you never can tell
it might work out all right

You can sit and talk about life all day
as much as you can talk your questions wont go away
it’s a conversation that leads me to say
just come away with me

I’ve been burned before
and I’ll get burned again
I guess that’s the same for everyone
I know what I need
I know what I want
I know what I get —
they don’t always correspond

You can sit and talk about life all day
as much as you can talk your questions wont go away
it’s a conversation that leads me to say
just come away with me

Thelma Lou

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Thelma Lou

Maybe they weren’t Orpheus and Eurydice or Romeo and Juliet… but, for me, one of the great tragic love affairs has always been Barney and Thelma Lou.

When I was a kid, I could never figure out how the ultimate goofball, Barney Fife, could snag a warm, cuddly, pretty gal like Thelma Lou — particularly when his boss and pal, the tall, good-looking sheriff, Andy Taylor, ended up with the slightly stuffy and decidedly less creamy schoolmarm, Helen Crump.

Barney, of course, wanted to be “somebody” before he finally popped the question to Thelma Lou and headed out to the state capital, Raleigh, to make a name for himself, becoming an investigator, if I recall correctly, for the AG or the state police.

When the 20th high school reunion came around, Barney came back to Mayberry, ready to finally propose to the love of his life, Thelma Lou, also back in town for the reunion.

His eyes met hers from across the room and time froze for a second — at least for me, watching at home — for a few moments it seemed like happily ever after would come to Barney Fife. But, alas… it turned out Thelma Lou’s handsome, lawyer fiance was just out parking the car. Smiling broadly and putting his arm protectively around Thelma Lou, he greeted Barney with a confidence that made it clear Barney stood no chance at all.

As the Fates decreed.

Thelma Lou

The day that you came back to town
he thought he’d be seein’ you around
he thought he could pick it up
where he put it down

but he thought he’d treat you right this time
just like he dreamed about each night
just like he prayed he’d have the
brains to do this time

Now he’ll never know
why he ever let go of you
Thelma Lou
he dreamed he’d make it right
but none of those dreams
ever did come true
and now he just dreams of you
it will always be Thelma Lou
nothing anyone can do
it will always be dreams of you
Thelma Lou

Now he was just a nothing way back then
but he couldn’t believe how you could pretend
not to care about all the things you couldn’t have
if you stayed with him

So he pushed himself hard just to get ahead
and he woke up one day in an empty bed
and he looked in the mirror and
he realized the years — and you — had fled

Now, he’ll never know why he ever let go…

Well he always thought he’d get one last chance
but all he got was one last dance
as your fiance watched
from across the crowded room

But he held you so close like he didn’t care
it was like no one else in the world was there
and still it was too late
for him to say “I love you”