1. |
One More Troubadour
05:14
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In the hall & down the stairs
In a room half filled with empty chairs
The other half filled with talking heads
Who have never even heard of the Grateful Dead
In the hall & down the stairs
Singing out his heart but nobody cares
Standing on the stage in the light all alone
Singing to the faces that are looking at their phones
His heart breaks a little when the last song's sung
He'll drive a hundred miles before the night is done
When he was young he sang in a gravelly voice
He had no technique, it wasn't really a choice
He sang for money & he sang for free
Sang for his supper & his coffee & tea
Got drunk & played, got high & played
Sometimes the people left, sometimes the people stayed
& said
One more troubadour
Play us a song that can stop a war
Play us a song that can save our souls
With nothing but the spirit of rock and roll
Play one more troubadour
Get us all dancing on the barroom floor
Get us all singing like a choir tonight
Tell us everything is going to be all right
All right, well all right
In the hall & down the stairs
In the Mason jar where you hide your prayers
In the teenage room where the music blares
The sinking ship shooting off its rescue flares
If the car is fast & the road is wide
Would you mind if I took it for a little ride?
Tonight, well all right
In your heart the truth is sown
But remembering that truth is like blood from a stone
Remembering your soul is a choice you make
Remembering enlightenment's a path you take
This whole world is a song we sing
The Great Spirit in the sky is always listening
So sing one more troubadour...
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2. |
Something Beautiful
04:34
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I want to show you something beautiful
something wonderful, deep in your soul
I want to tell you what you look like
when the morning sunlight paints you gold
You know the story reveals itself like a moon coming out of the clouds
The darkness conceals itself walking silently amongst the crowd
It's hard to protect yourself but I'm afraid it's your only option
You can't expect yourself to be immune from your emotions
To be immune from your emotions
& I want to show you something beautiful
a kind of miracle you might like to see
Yes I want to tell you, you are incredible
& there is something beautiful that you do to me
Charlatans they don't know the truth but they talk about it all the time
The D.A. ain't got no proof but it wants to prosecute you for the crime
You broke so many hearts, now you're going to break yours and mine
But I'm with you still and I only want to see you shine
I only want to see you shine
See you shine
I want to show you something beautiful
something undeniable, that I could show you right now
I want to tell you something so beautiful
that you'd come back to me, but I don't know how
to say something beautiful
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3. |
Buscadero
05:54
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Castle on an island, ship upon a sea
corporations getting rich with what they get for free.
An ancient road a 'winding, a lighthouse on a cliff,
I came here to remind you that every breath’s a gift.
Hands to God, eyes on the sparrow
37 bullets in a Buscadero
Hands to God, eyes on the sparrow
37 bullets in a Buscadero
37 bullets in a Buscadero
Chief Sitting Bull & Buffalo Bill
A medicine wheel sitting high upon a hill
I’ve seen their transformation from enemies at birth
To circus entertainers traveling the earth
You live by the sword, you die by the sword
well just as many people have died from being bored.
Annie Oakley’s aim: straight as an arrow
37 bullets in a Buscadero
37 bullets in a Buscadero
Butterflies & flowers painted in a field
Up against an enemy you know will never yield
Up a lazy river on a Sunday afternoon
Analyzing photographs of buildings on the moon
Questions never answered, answered questions lost
A stagnant pond polluted by all the pennies tossed
7 billion wishes, 7 billion prayers
sent with expectations that someone, or something, up there cares
Akira Kurosawa had Mifune for a muse
he gave the movie business the samurai blues
Sergio Leone came, kicking in the door
with A Fistful Of Dollars & A Few Dollars more
The mountains steep, the pathways narrow
37 bullets in a Buscadero
Over the falls in an old wine barrel
37 bullets in a Buscadero
37 bullets in a Buscadero
High planes drifter walking half asleep
Haunted by the promises that he could never keep
Lost his own protection, his reflection and his soul
trying to get back what the good times stole
I told him straight, but he will never know
why the seeds he’s planting are not the seeds that grow:
whiskey bottle, Marlboro, drowns himself in a pool of sorrow
Drowns himself in a pool of sorrow
Castle on an island, ship upon a sea
What’s the point in asking ‘to be or not to be ‘?
The universe is musical, a holy symphony
So why here in this paradise are so few people free?
You free your mind, you’ll free your soul
Don’t play their game and their heads will roll
You cast your spell with the voice of a pharaoh
37 bullets in a Buscadero
Hands to God, eyes on the sparrow
37 bullets in a Buscadero
37 bullets in a Buscadero
37 bullets in a Buscadero
37 bullets in a Buscadero
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4. |
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My inability to control my inner demons has become a little bit dangerous
& I know that you didn't sign up for this
But no story has a happy ending unless you stop telling it before it's over
Unless you stop telling it before the end
A desperate venture shared by desperate men on the other side of the wind
On the other side of the wind, on the other side of the wind
Well there was gypsy jazz and Mariachis at the party playing music for people
Who only want to hear themselves talking
Someone said "all passengers to the lifeboats"
Captain, tell us something we don't know
Captain my captain, tell us something we don't know
You've got a compulsion to destroy what we've created
There ain't too much left of this party as it is
& I remember you quoted Hemingway's suicide note
While sailing on a boat under Egyptian skies, on a river that feeds off all the lonely tears we cried
My inability to control my inner demons has become a little bit dangerous
& I know that you didn't sign up for this
But no story has a happy ending unless you stop telling it before it's over
Unless you stop telling it before the end
A desperate venture shared by desperate men on the other side of the wind
On the other side of the wind, on the other side of the wind
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5. |
John Huston
04:57
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You can lead a buffalo anywhere it wants to go
Look at what a life costs, or you can turn the lights off
Or you can sit and stare, see if I care,
just see if I’d dare, to sing a holy hustler’s prayer...
to sing a holy hustler’s prayer.
Born in the middle of a dynasty, grew up like a Gypsy boy
With a gaze a little deeper than eternity he understood both pleasure and joy.
Followed his daddy into Hollywood, started to climb till he soared
The first film he made was a masterpiece
& then he brought his camera to the war
I was weeping last night about eternity, John Huston
& the treasures my beloved one has given to me JH
& everything there was & everything there’ll ever be JH
One of the most crazy bastards in history JH
You can lead a buffalo anywhere it wants to go
But do not for a minute doubt,
That that beast will gorge your eyes out
It’s best you settle down
Do not show it any fear
For if you get too near: it will kill you right here
It will kill you right here
He had five wives, they each got younger,
Till love was nothing more than want & hunger..
but beauty is transitional, nothing here stays,
but in the celluloid temple, everybody prays
The lord had mercy, the lord made light,
now The Night Of The Iguana is tonight
And Albert Finney is drunk down in Mexico
The Irish estate is no more
There must be a place where the buffalo roam
When there’s no more sharp knives in the drawer
He went down to Reno with Marilyn Monroe
It was she and Clark Gable’s last stand
Follow that star, it’ll take us right home
Well God laughs when a man makes a plan
I was weeping last night about eternity JH
& will I ever be free, whatever ‘free’ is to me? JH
& all the movies anybody ever saw JH
& who took Katherine Hepburn down to Africa? JH
who filmed Annie on an oxygen tank? JH
Well he smoked & he hunted & he fucked & he drank. JH
I was weeping last night about eternity
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6. |
Farewell Lugano
04:56
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Back then your tennis shoes were white & blue
with heavenly breasts and red lips too
and your jacket for the winter.
Oh, Marta I still remember you: your sad, little smile & the way your hair moved,
like the lake’s precious water.
'Farewell Lugano’ - you were singing...
You held my hand, said ‘sing along with me’
and I realized that I was singing about a place that I’d never been.
You used to talk about frontiers, contraband & financiers..
I caught fire to your stories.
‘Oh, my father’ you would say, ‘he fought up in these mountains back in his day'
and then you’d ask me about my father too...
I thought of my home & my father on the beach.
Nets in the sand & fishing boats out at sea.
I thought about the shells, I thought about the stars
and how he cursed...and how he suffered.
And, oh, Marta I still remember you: your sad, little smile & the way your hair moved,
like the lake’s precious water.
'Farewell Lugano’ you were singing.
Holding my hand & singing so true.
'Farewell’ you sang & you believed it
and now I’m so far gone that I believe it too.
And, oh, Marta I still remember you: your sad, little smile & the way your hair moved,
like the lake’s precious water.
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7. |
Identity
04:10
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Where’s the chorus, where’s the verse?
Where’s the driver of the double-parked hearse?
Where’s the forest through all these trees?
Where’s the border of identity?
When you going to stand up straight?
When you going to see that it’s way past late?
When you going to come running back to me?
When will you miss your identity?
Who are you fooling except for yourself?
Who left those photos in the book on my shelf?
Who are you now, who will you be?
Who will assume your identity?
Oooooo, your identity.
Where’s the chorus, where’s the verse?
Where’s the phone that I left in your purse?
Where’s your proof? Can I see your degree?
Maybe your thesis on identity?
Oh a rich kid born on a pile of gold, a poor kid born in a room full of mould..
& what decides what their fate will be? It all comes down to their identity
We’re all born naked, free of definition, then comes judgement, rules & superstition,
but I can be you & you can be me, we can change our identities.
Oooooo, our identities
Where’s the chorus, where’s the verse?
Who’s got a garage that we can rehearse in?
Who’s got a room I can use for free, while I forge my new identity?
Where’s the saint amongst these boozers?
It’s easy to be lucky in a town full of losers.
It’s easy to just hit the road & be free... & set fire to your identity.
Read the Gnostic Gospels or a magazine..make yourself half man half machine.
It doesn’t matter now, can’t you see?
It’s just a brief identity.
Oooooo, just a brief identity.
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8. |
Creuza de Ma
04:40
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Shadows of these faces, faces of the sea..
wherever do you come from, where soon will you be?
In a land where the moon dances all the night naked
& with a knife sharp and sacred, brings us all to our knees.
Riding the mule now only God is left
The devil is in heaven where he's built a nest
We leave the sea for Andrea's where we'll dry out our bones..
near the stone house & the fountain, that is Andrea's home
Wayundye
In Andrea's kitchen, who will we know?
A sailor from a voyage many years ago?
& at the people of Lugano the pickpocket grins, he thinks the best part of the sea bass is the tail & the fin
& girls from good families, they smell like coffee and spring...
without fear of disease, you can hear them all sing
Wayundye
What should we give to these starving souls?
To fill their glasses & to fill their bowls?
A plate of fried fish & Portofino wine...& maybe lamb's brain cooked in that very same wine.
Lasagne from the kitchen, about four layers deep...
roof rabbit cooked in sauce: both sour and sweet.
Wayundye
In the drunken boat we'll navigate the rocks,
nails in our eyes & we don't use the clocks
Harvest the morning when it's good & time,
& down the crooked narrow stairs we wind
You know, this old rotten rope can guide you & me, we can follow it down this path to the sea
This old rotten rope, with its wind-blown scars, we can follow it down this Crêuzä de Ma
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9. |
Life Is Sweet
03:09
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Life is sweet
Let it sweep you off your feet
Kiss everyone you meet
Take a train on a starry night
Oh, Let your delight be your guide
Don't let your head decide
Let your heart say what's right
Let the melody & the beat
remind you that life is sweet
Life's not bad
Though I'll admit I do get sad
At times I feel like I've been had
But it's nothing compared to joy
Oh, don't destroy what we've built
Or be swayed by fear & guilt
This world could be your toy
You've got to learn from your defeat
& remember... life is sweet
Life is sweet
Life is short
From when your ship pulls into port
'til they contest your will in court
it can be measured in weeks & days
Oh... there are so many ways to dance
This song could be your very last chance
It could decide which way the judge's decision sways
So pray she lets you back out on the street
So you can testify that life is sweet!
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Bocephus King Vancouver, British Columbia
Known for his worldly folk sound, Bocephus King (James Perry) has played music for crowds around the globe as well as
collaborated with master musicians from all over the world.
His collaborative nature, cross-cultural style and authentic storytelling make his performances ones that make you feel as though you’ve left the room or field you arrived to hear him in for another place altogether.
... more
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