Tag Archives: wanderer

A Land So Far Away

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A Land So Far Away
NEW SONG ALERT!

Written a few hours ago…

It’s not normally my practice to comment on the images that accompany my blog posts but yes — that really is the town where I was born in the image above… as represented on an orange crate label from the Orange Fuit Co. And, yes, I remember the town when vistas like that were still possible. Of course the sky was often that color, too… the smudge pots were brutal and even then the smog drifted down into Orange County from LA.

But the orange groves wrapped around the low hills and rows of eucalyptus did the sentry thing and… after the rain… the mountains would glisten with snow against a brilliant blue sky and it was… just… beautiful.


This first version of the song is very rough. The vocals and, ha ha, harmony are particularly shaky. Not that my saying so will make them sound better… I just want you to know that I know.

A Land So Far Away

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lyrics
A Land So Far Away

I was born so long ago
between some forgotten wars
times were different then I know
it’s the one thing that’s for sure

There were cows across the road
I can still feel the dairy smell
where it’s only houses now
and they stretch all the way to hell

and back then I never thought
I would ever hit the road
but before I knew what was what
there was nowhere else to go

ch and right now I know I want
to find this place called home
I don’t know where it is
and I don’t know where to go

I was born between some wars
between the mountains and the shore
in a land so far away
you just cant
get there anymore
I saw the world there’s a lot to see
and sure I was impressed
lots of hope lots of fear
and lots of girls undressed

lots of bar rooms lots of dreams
lots of lifelong friends
lots of pals you’ll always love
and never see again

ch right now I know I want to find…

I was born so long ago
between some forgotten wars
times were different then
it’s the one thing that’s for sure

and back then I never thought
I would ever hit the road
but before I knew what was what
there was nowhere else to go

ch and right now I know I want
to find this place called home
I don’t know where it is
and I don’t know where I have to go

I was born between some wars
between the mountains and the shore
in a land so far away
you just cant
get there anymore

2007-04-29
(C)2007, TK Major

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Like a ghost

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The world is so big

You hope you’re just a memory to her, as you squat on the heels of your boots in a forlorn little park on a hill over the city, smoking a cigarette and looking down. You want to be a memory… faint, as though you died in an almost forgotten war.

Another reading of this song… not sure why I felt compelled to do it again, just now. I was fooling around with the minor slide tuning and remembered I used to do it in a similar tuning a few years back. The recent version had an almost jaunty folk-funk thing going… here I go back to a darkly minor feel… the feel of a storm gathering. I was hoping to suggest a cold, restless spirit driven to self-exile by his own emptiness. Not to get purple on ya.

Internet Archive page for this recording

AyoS October 22, 2005
AYoS August 4, 2006

World So Big*

The world is so big
then again the world’s so small…
I might be in your arms tomorrow night
or I might never make it home to you at all

true love, baby, the bottom drops out
and then you fall…
it only happens one time baby
if you’re lucky maybe not at all

I could live a thousand lifetimes
I’d never forget a single one of your lies…
I could die a million times
ant the ghost of you would still draw me back to life

*name changed from “The World Is So Big” (9/25/2007)

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

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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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Rambler

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Save the Nash Rambler

I guess every 22 year old singer-songwriter goes through a phase of writing about being a broken down middle-aged man. But looking at this song from a certain perspective these many decades later, I can’t help but crack the hell up.

I mean, when I wrote the line, “Left my home and my woman about four years ago” — it was in my mind that that seemed like a really long time ago.

Or maybe I was trying to suggest how fast this guy’s descent was, I can’t really tell you anymore. At any rate, I do remember I was trying to write a counterpoint to what seemed like a rash of songs on the radio at the time (1973ish) that celebrated ramblin’ and gamblin’ — though I can only think of one or two, offhand, now.

I wanted to show, you know, the dark side of ramblin’ and gamblin’…

RAMBLER

Left my home and my woman
about four years ago
mostly don’t know when to quit
but then I packed up my losses
and stumbled out on the road

Well I’m a rambler, I’m a gambler
I’m just a shambles of a man
I’m stumbling; my lifes crumblin
I’m just another loser on the lam

If the stakes are low then the time is right
I’m a fool for a penny-ante game
May be gambling with my life
but it’s just small change all the same

Well I’m a rambler, I’m a gambler…

I’ve been beaten, I’ve been cheated
I’ve been shot at from Arkansas to Vietnam
I been shafted, I been laughed at
I been out-casted but I still don give a damn

Well I’m a rambler, I’m a gambler
I’m just a shambles of a man
I’m stumbling; my lifes crumblin
I’m just another loser on the lam

(C) 1973 TK Major

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