Category Archives: commentary

10,000 Years

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10,000 Years

I don’t exactly believe in reincarnation (the way most people think of it) but I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of lovers tagging each other through eternity. The notion that a reluctant soul (not that I believe in souls the way most people think of them) might be drawn — tricked, even — back to life is an idea I’ve come back to again and again. (Along with half the other hack writers out there.)

I’m afraid this version is a bit on the stiff side. I was really struggling just getting through the darn thing… maybe because I like the song a lot but have always felt that there isn’t that much in the words or the chords and that the song depends a lot on the singer (that would be me, of course) to pull off some melodic and emotional nuances that don’t always get across.

At any rate, the compare-and-contrast crowd will definitely want to check out the ‘produced’ version at the bottom of the download/play links. I’ve always been fond of the recording, myself, because it captures a substantially different aspect of my singing.

AYoS acoustic version:


produced version [soundclick — link updated]

10,000 years

Up against the wall
the moon was in her eyes
I felt her heart beat
I heard her sigh

I touched her cheek
a tear met my hand
I didn’t know it then
but that tear fell to her plan

10,000 years
is not a day too long
since the world began
I’ve been hangin round here
waiting for you to come along

I have seen that shining light
one too many times
I have heard the angels sing
while I riddled the devil’s rhymes

“I have seen your eyes
burn into my soul
I have seen the truth
and I will never again be whole”

10,000 years…

I’d do it all again
and still come back for more
I know how it’s all gotta end
but I’ll never know what it’s all for

Until the end of time
there’s not that long to go
I thought I knew heaven’s secrets
what the hell did I know?

10,000 years
is not a day too long
since the world began
I’ve been hangin round here
waiting for you to come along

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Little Blue Vacuum Cleaner

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Little Blue Vacuum Cleaner
This song from 1973 used to drive one of my frequent music playing buddies absolutely nuts. It was written while I was in the grips of a fascination with what we might call “cosmic whimsy.” The simplest objects and ideas had deep metaphysical resonance for me, imbued with a sublime and reassuring humor. (Well… you know, it seemed sublime at the time.) Maybe it was the grimness of the war or the absurdity of mainstream society… maybe it was that do-it-yourself primal scream therapy program I came up with for myself.

Of course, one man’s whimsy is another’s terminal cuteness, and my pal Caz Camberline, who has over the years suffered through scores of my songs in various performance circumstances, could never swallow the cute formalism of the metaphysical central metaphor.And then there was the vacuum cleaner/highway shoes jump… I really didn’t have an answer for that one. Still don’t.

Now, that’s what A Year of Songs is all about.


Little Blue Vacuum Cleaner

Got yer little blue vaccuum cleaner
got his paregoric got his own Dust Preener
got that San Antone
Got that Dorothy Malone

Got the finity blues
Walking round the city in his highway shoes

Everything he see he suck it right up
nothing left to do he turn on himself
everything that’s outside must be in
everything is known, you just begin again

Got that Einstein Circular Space
got that black hole — he want a little taste
Got the world up inside his head
Where will it go when he finds out he’s he’s

Welcome to samsara now go home
welcome to my universe–here, God is on the phone
You’re welcome to wonder what it’s all about
But please don’t try to tell me when you find out

Got the finity blues
Walking round the city in his highway shoes

(C) 1973,1996 TK Major
(Transcribed from memory with minor revisions Jan 2 1996)

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All Because of You

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XXXXX

Yesterday’s toys
you throw them all away
you dont even stop to watch
their paper hearts in the flames…

This is one of those songs that will probably never get done ‘right’ unless someone else does it. I probably ought to change the key I typically play it in (I wrote it in E major but typically do everything a half step flat, going so far as to keep my main acoustic guitar downtuned that much)… but I really like the way that big open E major (ok, Eb, but you guitarists will know what I mean) sounds. I can cap up but I need to go down, I think, and… ah… now we’re talking about how making sausage works, huh?) Anyhow, this was the best I could do with this song today. I’m sorry, Virginia, it’s a big nasty world and I’m only human.

[Strike that… I just replaced the recording referenced above and in the links below with a version I recorded Wednesday. Both recordings have problems. I juggled the competing sets of self-revulsions and went with the one I don’t hate right now. Or the one I do, however that works. What can I say? It’s tomorrow already… Have I said, Hey, that’s what the AYoS project’s all about, lately? Ah well. I knew there’d be days like… uh, yesterday.]


All Because of You

He should have E~ g#m g#m
seen it coming
but he never dreamed
he’d ever have to watch her leave
She laughed all the way to Austin
And she cried the rest of the
way to New Orleans

Baby Doll, it’s all because of you g#m ~ f#m
You always sew destruction
No matter what ya say you’re trying to do
Now always get
whatever it is
you want
and as long as I’ve known you
You always want
what you ain’t got

I have known you
such a long long time
and you know I wouldn’t say
it if it wasn’t true
You don’t have a heart I know
but I’m recently convinced there’s no soul
inside of you

Yesterday’s toys you
throw them all away
you dont even watch
to see their paper hearts in the flames
Like a goddess before
the gods learned how to feel
In your universe your world is the
only one that’s real

bridge: c#m ~ g#m ~
(look here baby)
Baby I got the map on you
Every lie you tell
I can drill right through
Baby Doll the fall is coming soon
and when it falls
it’s all gonna be on you

He shoulda E~ g#m g#m
seen it coming
but he never dreamed
he’d have to watch her leave

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What Promises Mean Today

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I know what promises mean today.

Now this is an oldie. I believe it was written in 1974.

I was in love at the time (we only kissed, I swear) with this ‘third generation witch’ from Iceland. I don’t know if she had preternormal powers — but I will say that she had the most electric vibes of anyone I think I’ve ever been around. Kissing her was like what I imagine it must be like to grab a Van de Graf generator… you almost expected to see little lightning flashes snaking across your intertwined bodies.

Anyhow, she was a singer and guitar player with a lovely voice and a nice finger picking style and I was a woefully undisciplined beginning musician desperate to escape the “poetry scene.” She and her roommate, another folksinger, were the first people to compliment me on my songwriting in a believable way. (My old friends were just amazed that I finally sort of learned to tune a guitar… it was a long time coming.)

The first song they really warmed up to, In the Course of Events, is yet to come in the AYoS lineup (not that there’s any rhyme, reason, or more than a 2 minute plan in the AYoS process) but I wrote this one soon after and, while they were a bit less enthusiastic about Promises, they felt it built on what I’d accomplished with Course of Events.

Anyhow…

One more thing, we’re going to try something new and put the chords up along with the lyrics. (Actually, it’s the lazy way out, since they were already there.) I’d like to encourage anyone so inclined to feel free to cover my songs, so maybe I should make it a little easier. That said… when I do my songs, I seldom get the chords the same way twice… so they should more properly be considered a general guide rather than a detailed, accurate roadmap.

I Know What Promises Mean Today

G D C C
I know what promises mean today
G F C C
I don’t care I believe in you anyway
D F
Don’t care what anyone says
C Em
I’ll believe in you unitil I’m dead
G
At the rate things are going
F C
That cuold be any day
G F C
I don’t care I believe in you anyway

You say you’re my lover
my sister my brother my friend
I’m surprised you don’t claim be
my mother my father
and the priest they said they’ll send
at the end

Am Em
And I still don’t care what anyone says
Am Em
I’ll be loving you ’til Im put in my grave
G F
but at the rate things are going
C C
that could be any day
G F C C
I don’t care I believe in you, anyway

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