Songs That Tell Stories

I just did as well. I signed on to rdio. Listened to the entire, 2-disc recording called Granite YEars and am now listening to Holy Bandits. I guess that at some time I will be asked for money from these people.

I sometimes listen to Pandora but their mixes puzzle me. I have Richard Thompson and Bruce Cockburn channels to which Pandora adds Mark Knopfler. I can see putting Flogging Molly (although I don't like them) with oysterband but Knopfler is nothing like Thompson or Cockburn

Here's a song our band does that tells a great little crime story. Courtesy of Travis Tritt.

MODERN DAY BONNIE & CLYDE

Well it's a long way to Richmond
Rollin' north on 95
With a redhead ridin' shotgun
And a pistol by my side
Tearin' down that highway
Like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde

We met at a truckstop
Johnson City, Tennessee
I was gassin' up my Firebird
When I heard her callin' me...mmm hmm
Said, 'Which way are you headed, boy
Do you need some company'

She had me stoppin' at a quick mart
Before we made it out of town
Next thing she was runnin' at me
Tellin' me to lay that hammer down
'Cause there's a man right behind me
Doin' his best to slow me down


Well we pulled up to a motel
In the middle of the night
We were countin' all the money
Smokin' stolen Marlboro lights
Lord we never saw 'em comin'
'Til they read us both our rights

Yeah and it's a long way to Richmond
Rollin' north on 95
With a sheriff right beside me
Pistol pointed at my side
Oh, Lord...such a disappointing ending
For this modern day Bonnie and Clyde

I just heard that song for the first tim a few months ago. Good one.

Hmm. Just read where Faye Dunaway is in trouble with her landlord.

Here's a poem that tells a story, edgar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXW7v0ab_18

By this lady, Edna St. Vincent Mallay

I played that Johnny Cash Harpweaver recitation, when surfing about, about a month ago, letty. He surprised me with that one.

If You're Reading This- Tim McGraw




If you're reading this
My Mommas sittin there
Looks like I only got a one way ticket over here
Sure wish I could give you one more kiss
And war was just a game we played when we were kids

I'm laying down my gun
I'm hanging up my boots
I'm up here with God and we're both watching over you


So lay me down
In that open field out on the edge of town
And know my soul
Is where my momma always prayed
That it would go
And if you're reading this
I'm already home

If you're reading this
Half way around the world
I won't be there
To see the birth of our little girl
I hope she looks like you
I hope she fight like me
Stand up for the innocent and weak

I'm laying down my gun
I'm hanging up my boots
Tell dad I don't regret that I followed in his shoes

If you're reading this
There's going to come a day
When you'll move on
And find some one else
And that's ok
Just remember this
I'm in a better place
Where soldiers live in peace
And angels sing amazing grace


So lay me down
In that open field out on the edge of town
And know my soul
Is where my Momma always prayed that it would go
And if you're reading this

god, hank was good at depression.

and endless sleep was an early teen fave of mine--hadn't heard it in decades, had forgotten that it ended happily instead of the usual teen death dramas. Boy, what a heavy echo chamber effect, sound like he's singing in a huge wine barrel.. LOVE it.

Changing the subject, but, did you know that Ragged Kingdom won two best folk album of the year awards in the UK? One from fROOTS and the other from Mojo.

Edgar --

I enjoyed a visit with Donovan. Thanks. I was going to post a video of Donovan singing for the Maharishi not quite four years ago, but decided it should be the beginning of its own thread, Where are they now. There are so many actors and musicians who slip into obscurity so that when their obituary appears, the first response is, "Oh, I thought he was already dead."

I started it with poor Donovan. He seems a little cartoonish these days.

http://able2know.org/topic/181315-1#post-4817395

pom, if I lived within their catchment area, I'd have voted for the Tabor/ob album for folk album of the year too.

Went to see John Roberts and Tony Barrand and Nowell Sing We Clear last Saturday in Watertown, as always my favorite Christmas concert by anybody. They're going to be sort of in your neck of the woods next weekend, in Brattleboro. I'd recommend burning a little bit of gas and seeing them.

And last night the Sweetback Sisters at Passim. You know them? Young largely Western Swing band, fronted by two close harmony women. They're touring behind a very fine slightly goofy country, rockabilly, Western Swing show of covers of Xmas songs (including a great cover of Ralph Stanley's "Beautiful Star of Bethlehem"), They'll be at some bar called Rendezvous in Turners Falls which they said was in western Mass and I had to Google Map it to find it, and it indeed looks like it;s fairly near you, and this sentence has gotten a little convoluted, but it's tonight, Thursday night. If you need a Christmas spirit jog, this is a great one.

Happy holidays, said with malice aforethought to piss off all the "War on Christmas" folks.

I loved Donovan at the peak of his career, but never cared for his later stuff.

Me, too. I guess his comeback a few years ago left people cold. Some thought he was in a time warp. An old boyfriend of mine said that once Donovan stopped using drugs, his muse died.

Yoiks! Burlington, VT is 200 miles and 3 hours away. However, they will be in Great Barrington which is only 53 miles away.

This isn't a story so much as a plea. It's my current earworm and I have to listen to it every day. I love the performance. I also like the photos included . . . particularly the greenpeace guys, the man with the angry mob playset and the little triangular figures marching.. . but most of all, I love the shot of the White Horse at Huffington which was photoshopped into that terrible Robin Hood movie starring Russell Crowe as a too heavy and too sweaty Robin Hood. Gawd, you could feel his desire to be Richard Burton. Anyway, the movie producers had the unmitigated gall to put the White Horse on the coast when it is miles inland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpCw2BPBf1I

We'll be there

Telfer/Jones/Prosser

Lyrics from: the shouting end of life

I've walked this hill a hundred times
To hear the river talking
A murmuring, a secret sound
Never found;
And times I've leaned into the wind
To smell this earth I'm walking
with the song of the wind my heart is wound
All around
It's holy ground

YOU CAN BRING YOUR JCB's
YOU CAN BRING YOUR DRILLS
AND YOUR 'DRIVERS
YOU'VE GOT THE MIGHT
BUT YOU'VE GOT NO RIGHT
WE'LL BE THERE, WE'LL BE THERE
WE'LL BE THERE

We've wandered under winter stars
To trace them in their courses
Summer nights at standing stones
We stood alone;
We took the water in our hand
We rode the chalk-white horses
We dreamed one day they'd understand
We share this land
This holy ground

CHORUS

Leave this, leave this land alone…