You know Edgar, I'd never heard that Guthrie song.Thanks for dredging it up.
Last night I played with a honky-tonk band at an Okeechobee bar called the Brahma Bull and the guys were nice enough to let me sing this poignant song. I really love doin' it. Don't know why.
I pay rent on a run-down place
There ain't no view but there's lots of space
In my heart
The heart that you own
I pay the rent
Pay it right on time
Baby I pay you every single dime
For my heart
The heart that you own
Used to be I could love here for free
Way back before you bought the property
Now I pay daily on what once was mine
Lord I probably owe you
For the tears that I cry
'Cause I pay rent on a run-down place
There ain't no view but there's lots of space
In my heart
The heart that you own
I struggle each night to find a new way
To pay what I owe
Just so I can stay
I ain't overdue
So you can't throw me out
I've loved here for years
Don't know where I'd go now
'Cause I pay rent on a run-down place
There ain't no view but there's lots of space
In my heart
The heart that you own
Woody was a real radical - That's why I love him.
Sung by Harry Belafonte
If I should leave you
Try to remember the good times
Warm days filled with sunshine
And just a little bit of rain
And just a little bit of rain
And if you look back
Try to forget all the bad times
Lonely blue and sad times
And just a little bit of rain
And just a little bit of rain
And if I look back
I'll remember all the good times
Warm days filled with sunshine
And just a little bit of rain
And just a little bit of rain
If I should leave you
Try to remember all the good times
Warm days filled with sunshine
And just a little bit of rain
And just a little bit of rain
Dont know if all the lyrics are right, but its a great track...
Khe Sanh
Cold Chisel
I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
And my soul was sold with my cigarettes to the blackmarket man
I've had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City
And it's only other vets could understand
About the long forgotten dockside guarantees
How there were no V-dayheroes in 1973
How we sailed into Sydney Harbour
Saw an old friend but couldn't kiss her
She was lined, and I was home to the lucky land
And she was like so many more from that time on
Their lives were all so empty, till they found their chosen one
And their legs were often open
But their minds were always closed
And their hearts were held in fast suburban chains
And the legal pads were yellow, hours long, paypacket lean
And the telex writers clattered where the gunships once had been
But the car parks made me jumpy
And I never stopped the dreams
Or the growing need for speed and novacaine
So I worked across the country end to end
Tried to find a place to settle down, where my mixed up life could mend
Held a job on an oil-rig
Flying choppers when I could
But the nightlife nearly drove me round the bend
And I've travelled round the world from year to year
And each one found me aimless, one more year the more for wear
And I've been back to South East Asia
But the answer sure ain't there
But I'm drifting north, to check things out again
You know the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
Only seven flying hours, and I'll be landing in Hong Kong
There ain't nothing like the kisses
From a jaded Chinese princess
I'm gonna hit some Hong Kong mattress all night long
Well the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
Yeah the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
And it's really got me worried
I'm goin' nowhere and I'm in a hurry
And the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
Great song about a tough time
Good one, polarbear. All the songs posted by everybody have been exceptional. I don't comment on it much, to keep the thread less cluttered, but once in a while a bit of encouragement is in order, I think.
'T Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do
Music and Lyrics by P. Graninger and E. Robbins)
There ain't nothin' I can do
Or nothing I can say
That folks don't criticize me
But I'm gonna do what I want to anyway
And I don't care just what people say
If I should take a notion to jump into the ocean
'T ain't nobody's bizness if I do
If I go to church on Sunday then cabaret all day Monday
'T ain't nobody's bizness if I do
If my man ain't got no money and I say take all mine honey
'T ain't nobody's bizness if I do
If I give him my last nickel and it leaves me in a pickle
'T ain't nobody's bizness if I do
I'd rather my man would hit me
Than for him to jump up and quit me
'T ain't nobody's bizness if I do
I swear I won't call no coppa if I'm beat up by my poppa
'T ain't nobody's bizness if I do
Nobody's bizness, ain't nobody's bizness
Nobody's bizness if I do
I like seeing a little discourse about the songs rather than reams and reams of lyrics.
I don't subscribe to the lifestyle behind those last lyrics. In fact, I've heard that song most of my life without realizing what the lyrics are saying.
Walkaway Joe
Mama told her baby,
"Girl, take it real slow."
Girl told her mama,
"Hey, I really gotta go.
"He's waitin' in the car."
Mama said,
"Girl, you won't get far."
This is the story of an average Jane,
Ninety miles an hour down a lover's lane
On a tank of dreams.
Oh, if she could have only seen.
But fates got plans that it don't wanna show 'cause. . .
That boy's just a Walkaway Joe,
Born to be a leaver.
Tell you from the word "go,"
Destined to deceive her.
He's the wrong kind of paradise.
She's gonna know it in a matter of time.
That boy's just a Walkaway Joe.
Just a little while into Abilene,
He pulls into a station and he robs it clean.
She's waitin' in the car
Underneath the Texaco star.
She only wanted love,
Never bargained for this.
She can't help but love him for the way he is.
She's only seventeen,
And there ain't no reasoning.
So she'll ride this ride
As far as it will go, but. . .
That boy's just a Walkaway Joe,
Born to be a leaver.
Tell you from the word "go,"
Destined to deceive her.
He's the wrong kind of paradise.
She's gonna know it in a matter of time.
That boy's just a Walkaway Joe.
Somewhere in a roadside motel room,
Alone in the silence she wakes up too soon
And reaches for his arms.
But she'll just keep reachin' on.
'Cause the cold hard truth revealed
What it had known. . .
Isn't it great panz. A local guy for Lauguna Beach played it Friday night at a rally for Kerry with Jim Hightower speaking. You can find more original stuff on his web sight,
Lots of fun and loads of old boomers, hehe.
Ya, it was a ton of fun. Jim Hightower was at the rally too. He is good - almost as good as Will Rogers.
On Sunday I am going to another rally in Balboa Park with the Veterans Against the War.
Phil Ochs
Talking Vietnam
Sailing over to Vietnam,
Southeast Asian Birmingham.
Well training is the word we use,
Nice word to have in case we lose.
Training a million Vietnamese
To fight for the wrong government and the American Way.
Well they put me in a barracks house
Just across the way from Laos.
They said you're pretty safe when the troops deploy
But don't turn your back on your house boy
When they ring the gong, watch out for the Viet-Cong.
Well the sergeant said it's time to train
So I climbed aboard my helicopter plane.
We flew above the battle ground
A sniper tried to shoot us down.
He must have forgotten, we're only trainees.
Them Commies never fight fair.
Friends the very next day we trained some more
We burned some villages down to the floor.
Yes we burned out the jungles far and wide,
Made sure those red apes had no place left to hide.
Threw all the people in relocation camps,
Under lock and key, made damn sure they're free.
Well I walked through the jungle and around the bend
Who should I meet but President Diem.
Said you're fighting to keep Vietnam free
For good old de-em-moc-ra-cy (Diem-ocracy).
That means rule by one family
And 15,000 American troops, give or take a few
Thousand.
American.
Troops.
He said: "I was a fine old Christian man
Ruling this backward Buddhist land.
Well it ain't much but what the heck
It sure beats hell out of Chiang Kai-shek
I'm the power elite. Me and the 7th fleet."
He said: "meet my sister, Madam Nhu
The sweetheart of Dien Bien Phu"
He said: "Meet my brothers, meet my aunts
With the government that doesn't take a chance.
Families that slay together, stay together."
Said: "If you want to stay you'll have to pay
Over a million dollars a day.
But it's worth it all, don't you see?
If you loose the country you'll still have me.
Me and Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai-shek, Madam Nhu.
Like I said on _Meet the Press_
'I regret that I have but one country to give for my life.'"
Well now old Dien is gone and dead
All the new leaders are anti-Red.
Yes they're pro-American, freedom sensations
Against Red China, the United Nations.
Now all the news commentators and the CIA
are saying, "Thank God for coincidence."
Album: All The News That'S Fit To Sing (1964)
Buffalo Skinners
(Woody Guthrie)
Come all you old time cowboys,
And listen to my song,
Please do not grow weary,
I'll not detain you long.
Concerning some wild cowboys,
Who did agree to go,
Spend the summer pleasant,
On the trail of the Buffalo.
I found myself in Griffin,
In the spring of '83,
When a well known famous drover,
Came walking up to me.
Said, "How do you do, young fellow,
Well how would you like to go,
And spend the summer pleasant,
On the trail of the Buffalo?"
Well I being out of work right then,
To the drover I did say,
"Going out on the Buffalo Road,
Depends on the pay.
If you will pay good wages,
And transportation to and fro,
I think I might go with you,
On the hunt of the Buffalo."
"Of course I'll pay good wages,
And transportation too,
If you will agree to work for me,
Until the season's through."
But if you do get homesick,
And try to run away,
You will starve to death,
Out on the trail and also lose your pay."
Well with all his flattering talking,
He signed up quite a train,
Some 10 or 12 in number,
Some able bodied men.
The trip it was a pleasant one,
As we hit the westward road,
Until we crossed old Boggy Creek,
In old New Mexico.
There our pleasures ended,
And our troubles began.
A lightening storm hit us,
And made the cattle run.
Got all full of stickers,
From the cactus that did not grow,
And the outlaws watching,
To pick us off in the hills of Mexico.
Well our working season ended,
And the drover would not pay,
If you had not drunk too much,
You are all in debt to me.
But the cowboys never had heard,
Such a thing as a bankrupt law,
So we left that drover's bones to bleach,
On the Plains of the Buffalo.
One of my favorite stories...the beginnings of NASCAR.
BALLAD OF THUNDER ROAD
Recorded by Robert Mitchum
Written by Don Raye and Robert Mitchum
Let me tell the story, I can tell it all
About the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol
His daddy made the whiskey, son, he drove the load
When his engine roared, they called the highway Thunder Road.
Sometimes into Ashville, sometimes Memphis town
The revenoors chased him but they couldn't run him down
Each time they thought they had him, his engine would explode
He'd go by like they were standin' still on Thunder Road.
CHORUS
And there was thunder, thunder over Thunder Road
Thunder was his engine, and white lightning was his load
There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the Devil's thirst
The law they swore they'd get him, but the Devil got him first.
On the first of April, nineteen fifty-four
A Federal man sent word he'd better make his run no more
He said two hundred agents were coverin' the state
Whichever road he tried to take, they'd get him sure as fate.
Son, his Daddy told him, make this run your last
The tank is filled with hundred-proof, you're all tuned up and gassed
Now, don't take any chances, if you can't get through
I'd rather have you back again than all that mountain dew.
CHORUS
Roarin' out of Harlin, revvin' up his mill
He shot the gap at Cumberland, and screamed by Maynordsville
With T-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead
The mountain boy took roads that even Angels feared to tred.
Blazin' right through Knoxville, out on Kingston Pike
Then right outside of Beardon, they made the fatal strike
He left the road at ninety, that's all there is to say
The Devil got the moonshine and the mountain boy that day.
CHORUS
Here is the Reader's Digest version of Thunder Road (as written and performed by edgarblythe)
Let me tell the story
I can tell it all
About the mountain boy
Who ran illegal alcohol
He left the road at ninety
That's all there is to say
The devil got the moonshine
And the mountain boy that day
Thunder Thunder Road
