Category Archives: microprose

From the hotel bar to the airport lounge…

Who'll stop Lorraine?

He was terrified.

He’d known her for years. They were best friends. Sometimes more. It was beyond complicated.

He’d watched her for years, like a man who finds himself, transfixed, watching one terrible crash after another in a perpetual storm of dark and roiling emotions, too stunned to even feel sympathy for the victims or shame for his wide-eyed spectatorhood.

But now, he was going to say something. He was going to break the rules that had allowed them to twine without tying (as she once had said).

Now, he was going to try to save some fool’s heart…

previous AYoS version 16 dec 2006

Who’ll Stop Lorraine?

I’ve known Lorraine since we were kids
and I’ve always been amazed
Every time she went too damn far I thought
Who’ll stop Lorraine?

I saw her hunt down Billy Jim
he was doomed from that first day
I saw her rip his heart in two and thought,
Who’ll stop Lorraine?

From the hotel bar to the airport lounge
Everyone knows her name
Over and over I ask myself,
Who’ll Stop Lorraine?

Finally one day I’d had enough
I sat her down looked her in the eye
Lorraine I love you, girl, but straighten up,
’cause, Lorraine, you’re wreckin’ people’s lives

From the hotel bar to the airport lounge
Everyone knows your name
Over and over they ask themselves,
Who’ll Stop Lorraine?

I never thought Id see a tear in her eye
I never thought I’d see into her soul
but since that day she’s come so far
and God I’ve come to love her so

From the hotel bar to the airport lounge
Everyone knows her name
Over and over they ask themselves,
Whatever became of Lorraine?

(C)2001, TK Major

 

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This perfect time, this perfect place…

This Perfect Day

The sun was warm. Cherry blossom petals floated past them. His hand was in her back pocket and his nose nuzzled her hair behind her ear as they walked through the park around the little lake. She giggled. Kids squealed and played on the rolling lawn above the lake. The sky above was as blue as a painting.

That night, a restless love overtook them, transporting them and transforming them and leaving them spent, lying across each other, just before dawn…

This Perfect Day

petals drift through the warm spring air
got my hand on your butt got my nose in your hair
got my heart on my sleeve and it’s all too clear
everything i wanted is all right here

this perfect time this perfect place
a perfect tear slides down your face
It’s such a shame
It’s such a shame…

the rain comes down all night long
we just lie there until the dawn
the world’s in your eyes and you’re in my arms
everything I wanted right here all along

this perfect time this perfect place…

one last kiss one last sigh
one last wish though you know it’s a lie
One more laugh just to not have to cry
I love you baby til the end of time

this perfect time this perfect place
a perfect tear slides down your face
It’s such a shame
It’s such a shame…

(c)1999 Thomas K. Major
1998-01-08

A Year of Songs 20 April 2006

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Battle of the Sexes Explainer

Men Are Still Stupid

Sometimes a suddenly evident truth just reaches out, knocks you over the head and drags you to its cave.

You know, something you’ve really always known.

It was an August night in 1990 and my next door neighbor and I were sitting in her kitchen, which opened on my backyard, talking, as we often did, since we’d known each other for years, about our friends and about life in general.

Most of our mutual friends were then in their 20s or 30s, many of them musicians or other artists, and there was plenty of turmoil, of all varieties, not the least of it romantic and/or sexual.

I’ve forgotten what exactly, what scandal, what dilemna, what intricate arrangement, we were talking about, but I remember a few moments of silence, standing up, and saying, “Well… men are stupid. Women are crazy. It’s a system. It’s the way it’s always been… ”

[reprinted from the posting of an earlier version of this song, which was such a rotten version it shall not be mentioned again]

MEN ARE STILL STUPID

When I was just a little bitty boy
sitting on my pappy’s knee
he said hey TK listen to my story
take the word from me
dont let a girl get you in trouble
spend all your money make you see double
take this tip from your dad
don’t fooled and dont get had

I said hey dad huh dont worry so bad
times have changed and that stuff’s in the past
and then he rolled his eyes and he slapped his thigh
and he fell over laughing as he grabbed his sides
times ain’t changed since the early days
men are still stupid and women are still crazy

When I was older growing up
not quite a man but not still a pup
I asked my mama for some love advice
and she put down her slide rule and she picked up some dice
she rolled a seven then he rolled 2 ones
she said snakeyes sonny youre just like everyone (because)
times aint changed since the early days
men are still stupid and women are still crazy

Now Caesar he told Cleopatra
I know baby just what youre after
you think your loves gonna wear me down
she said julie baby ya got it turned around
You think my loves some palace plot
but I dont even know what I want
cause times aint change since the very first day
men are still stupid anw women are crazy

1990-08-02
(C)2006, TK Major

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I tore my soul open… it was empty [Sometimes]

XXXXX

He woke up in a motel in Yuma looking at a cockroach.

He couldn’t remember exactly how he got there but he was pretty sure he didn’t have a truck, anymore. He fumbled on the bedstand under the imperious gaze of the cockroach, finally gripping his keys. Sure enough, the key to the Chevy was gone.

It all started when he didn’t come home from the bar one Friday night to the little garage apartment he’d shared with her since high school.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love her or think she loved him. He knew she did. He’d never doubted it until the moment he realized it was only that love that was holding her to him — that a sensible woman would have dumped his dark, driven, compulsively drunk ass long before.

That realization broke him like a twig.

He was drinking alone at the bar and thinking. And it just hit him and he knew what he had to do. He had to leave.

She would find someone new, someone who would be better for her. And he’d be free to go to hell, which is basically what he felt like he had to do.

It was a win-lose situation, but as long as she was doing most of the winning and he was doing most of the losing, it seemed right.

Today’s acoustic version:

Full version (1998):

previous version [Nov 20]

Sometimes I think about ya
think about, think about
think about the things
I thought I’d do for you

Sometimes I wonder
how you’re doing now
I think about it
but I think it turned out best
when I think it through

I know I let you down
I let you down, I let you down
I let ya down hard
and blamed it all on you

I threw your love away
and I laughed and I laughed
I laughed until I died
and when I came to…

the world — it was dead
and I walked around and I walked around
I walked around the world
but I couldn’t find you

I tore my soul open
it was empty, it was empty
a tunnel into nowhere
and I never got thru

sometimes I think about ya
think about ya, think about ya
think about the world I mighta had with you

(C)1999 TK Major

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