original songs (K-Z)

♬  [To return to the songs page, click on “songs” here or in Navigation menu at top left.] 

Significant changes in the ways people think and act – they do happen at times.  But (as I’ve sung before) the possibilities for making any real progressive change seem to be evaporating these days.  The age-old question:  “I’m just one person – what can I do to change the world?”

Water.  The song has images of strong rivers building from streams and evokes the power of the ocean.  A casual listener might even think that’s what the song’s all about – and, well, that’s OK...  But hey, listen just a bit more and they’ll hear an analogy about individual actions combining to build toward global change.

    Now listen, as white water roars through the channel it cuts.
    Oh listen, the white water roars through a channel it cuts.
    So thund’rous a force can’t be stopped – no matter what.
    On its way to the sea, there’s no stopping it – no matter what.
  ...
  Does the pow’r of a tidal force come from just drops in the sea?
Can pow’r for a global sea change start with just you and me?

Download:  .PDF  .PDF [print-area]  .JPG [print-area]     to print on 11" x 8½"

  · Watch:  I play it at a virtual People’s Music Network song swap in 2020:
                  youtu.be/4od627DRPcI .

  · Watch:  I play it with my wife and Carol Denney at Peoples’ Park, 2019 here:
                  youtu.be/qCVZM3YFgeU .

  · Watch:  I play it with my wife on flute at irtual KG-46 in 2020 here:
                  youtu.be/PMONSBrI5uk .

  · Listen:  Very informal midnight jam (still unfinished) at KG-43, 2017 (illustrated):
                  youtu.be/OSTSII_rL38 .  (with my wife, Robert Force and Stephen Middleton)

Human interests range from complex equations of theoretical physics to pop songs.  In the space in between, things pop into and out of existence all the time.  Brian Greene works at the physics-theory end of the expanse.  Yet I reckon his string theory book (The Elegant Universe) takes the topic far – half the way from complex math to the Top 10!

To go the rest of the way to pop song would be difficult.  But to distill his book, say, to a three-minute song that wasn’t a hit should be easy: rhyming verses, bridge and chorus...  I’d like to think this song takes it half the rest of the way to a pop song.  Zeno can take the next step...

Easy?  Well, who needs scientific jargon in a song driven by trippy images?  So – just skip those long words like “string theory,” “relativity,” “quantum mechanics,” “Planck length,” “dimensions,” and even “equation.”  That makes it short.  Easy...

The “Music of Strings” lyrics don’t quite cover the whole book.  A heckler’s “drumheads” comment about membrane-like “strings” called branes is only optional.  And there’s nothing on wormholes or how string theory competes with other theories, none of ’em proven.  But, uh, everything else in the book...

 Oh, the world of the big has strange answers: speeding up slows clocks; bending space makes stuff fall.
    The world of the small has strange answers: Probabilities are what’s most definite of all.

    But answers in a realm with both big and small don’t mean a thing:  They’re just plain wrong ...
    Unless vibrating strings, inside everything, hum their universal song.

 Yes, there’s a small so small, it’s all hard to figure... To go any smaller is the same as goin’ bigger!
Hey, some say music of the spheres moves and shapes everything,
  But no: We dance to the music of strings!

 Download:  .PDF  .PDF [print-area]  .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Watch me sing an older version (which I was still learning) here:  youtu.be/k7sfg8Ytw_c .

A reggae tune.  The story of a Rastafarian who enjoys herb sauce with his Italian food – just as long as it’s his favorite herb...

(Try saying the title ten times, quickly.  ...When stoned.)  

This has probably been the song of mine which is most often requested for a live performance.  I’d always played it on guitar until very recently when I discovered I could get the bass line on fretted dulcimer if I changed the key.   So page 2 of the PDF here is my new dulcimer arrangement with fingering positions. 

    Oh, he walk into the restaurant;
        He know ’xactly what he want.
    It don’ matter if it’s linguine,
        Tortellini or fettuccine.

    It can look like little wheels, or tiny poodles.
        It make no difference the shape of the noodles.

        ...

The Rasta Masta has to ask for special pesto on his pasta...

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, watch me perform the song on YouTube.  (Find additional recipe links in a comment there...)

  · Or, watch a different performance of the song on Facebook.

Decades ago in a songwriting class, somebody presented a song about being emotionally restricted called “I’ve Got a Rubber Band Around My Heart.”  The teacher suggested that to make it less wordy, it could be shortened to “Got a Band Around My Heart,”  I, of course, spoke up to suggest an alternative way to accomplish that:  “Got a Rubber ’Round My Heart.”  Everybody laughed.  The teacher even dubbed the concept “safe romance.”

It was a song I wanted to write.  It took decades to get around to it, but I think it turned out well.  (Although I wrote this much more recently than that class, it was only even more recently that I met singer-songwriter Rebecca Parks.  She has a song with surprisingly similar, uh, imagery.  Although she does know at least three songwriters from that same class I was in decades ago, she insists my comment in the class was never passed on to her – meaning that our songs were, uh, “conceived” completely independently...)

By now I’ve learned a thing or four about the dangers of romance.
I’ll open up, oh, but not too far; step by step – it’s all a dance.

     I used to yearn for something more.  I used to boldly take a chance.
    Cupid’s arrows struck my core,  so now I practice    safe romance.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

Dysfunctional songs of the American heartland, listened to and yelled out in bars – and with stories set in bars – or in trucks. I don’t do many of those. Early 2020 I had an idea for a heartbreak bar song ’bout bein’ messed up & feelin’ fine, but when Covid shut down bars, well, I just didn’t get ’round to writin’ it.

A year later, I thought:  Whenever bars do reopen, country music might suddenly need new bar songs.... So, to do my part to save the genre, I finally wrote it.

[Hearing this on the radio by a country or Americana artist, would folks prick up their ears? Would they talk about the song...?]

A few beers in at Heartbreak Bar, I shout the bestest thought I thunk:
Firin’ on all cylinders, here!  Hey, my life, ...it’s not been sunk!
    ...
    If it seems my tank’s on empty, if I miss ya in my life,
    Then the brew they have on tap here   helps me start   t’ drink and thrive.

    I can do ’most anything:  That’s what I feel...,   the less I feel.
    But I still know   I will not try   to get behind   the wheel.....

        When you left, oh, it hit hard, I was down, down in a funk.
        Now I raise a glass and I go to town, and thrive when I’m drunk.

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Which question should we ask:
          Is it safe for us yet if we gather in person again?
or
          Is it safe for others yet if we gather in person again?

In a pandemic, should we make decisions based on our personal interests or based on public health interests?

    An in-person sing-along, asking proof of the vaccine.
    But is that enough to keep a gath’ring from doing others harm?
    ...

    Joyous singing voices brew the perfect  storm.
    ...

    But, passed on and on for weeks, it hits some not jabbed in the arm.

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Vibraphonist Lynn Blessing had a dream about a fight between chords. His dream inspired me to write this very short song, which appears on my 1983 LP Vortex. 

(But did this song inspire someone else’s song? Well, there’s probably no truth to the rumor ...)

Originally written and performed on guitar, I have a new fretted-dulcimer arrangement in a different key.  Fitting a single page here are the two versions of the short song (in the keys for both instruments) plus the full story behind the song’s origin (including that unfounded rumor...).

Minor Seven, walking meekly down an alley one dark night,
    When his anxious voicing cried out in fear at the sight
Of Major Seven, with mallet in hand.
    But the struggle soon diminished as they ran
To make the changes for Lynn Blessing’s dream
    That chords aren’t quite what they seem.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, listen to or download an .MP3 of the song from the LP Vortex.

Ah..., young love. Ah..., together – a summer day in a park. Ah..., 1970. Ah..., to grok new feelings in an era of mind-blowing psychedelia. Ah..., to understand we return full circle to reality, still feeling it all...  This short song, with a slightly different title, is also on my 1983 LP  Vortex.  (Title?  Well, I’ve only recently changed the old line “Summer daytime” to “Summer sunlight”...)

Written/played on guitar at first, I have a new fretted-dulcimer arrangement in the original key, though I still prefer to play it on guitar.

                  Summer sunlight,
                  Summer sunlight.

      As I was looking to the opened sky,
My time – it took me.  My thoughts just tried to fly.
      Now, as I was gazing in my lover’s eyes,
My thoughts amazed me. Then my time began to fly,

            As it took me ... beyond this earth,
            And it shook ... shook me beyond this birth.
                  And I Flew.
                  And I Knew:                       
It was you..., just you and me in summer
                                    sunlight,
                  Summer sunlight,
                  Summer Sun.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 11" x 8½"

  · Also, listen to or download an .MP3 of the song (with its old title/lyrics) from the LP Vortex.

Another older song of mine from my 1983 LP Vortex.

      For dreams neglected have found release anew: A simple touch dissolving fear’s defense.

With just a smile to mark the way to bring a bitter heart to joy

   You reminded me   it’s time to love again.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, listen to or download an .MP3 of the song from the LP Vortex.

And still another older song of mine from my 1983 LP Vortex.  This one I recently rewrote a bit.

   This morning you woke – just one more nice day.  No different from many before.

   Step by step, in your usual way, preparing to go out the door.

...

      Caught in a game,  one you only could lose, you discover it’s not what it seemed.

      You see how your life is open to choose.  You feel it now; you know this isn’t a dream.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, listen to or download an .MP3 of the song from the LP Vortex.

Do you know someone (or are you someone) who leaves a Covid-lockdown household to shop or exercise and then stops for face-to-face mask-less socializing?  Is that a fun, friendly, neighborly thing to do?  Well, this song (sung or recited as a poem) could help put things in perspective...

There are two versions of this sheet.  The first, presented as a song, has the lyrics and chords.  The second, shown as a poem, has the words (in a slightly larger font) and links to Covid-19 info.

    A Russian game with a one-bullet gun risking death, to a loved one you’d not recommend.

    So the drops you exhale, with breath after breath are best, these days, not shared with friends.

    It’s not friendly right now to speak face to face.  Or to even come close up and ask to.

    For now just keep your distance, at least at two paces, and as I do .. please wear a mask, too.

Download (song):    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

Download (poem):    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

A copy of an obscure 1869 poetic novel, misplaced in the mathematics section of a Paris bookshop, was discovered in 1917 by the surrealist Philippe Soupault, who lent the fiercely malignant book to André Breton.  Thus Lautréamont’s Maldoror no longer was obscure.  Its “desolate swamps of ... sombre, poison‑soaked pages,” “as beautiful ... as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table,” were recognized as important precursors of Surrealism.

It’s filled relentlessly with intensity and cruelty – except for one of its 60 sections, which eases up just a bit to let you breathe.  This least intense part of the book is a litany to Mathematics, and the first half page of the section is its least intense passage.  I found I could rework a couple of translations (and re-translate a couple parts myself) to fit the litany into an odd meter-shifting chant.

The CD Crosstown Bus (from BayCon 1993) included this song – by my band “Sounds Like Fun.”

Mathematics, oh so strict!  I’ve not forgotten you since your lessons of wisdom,
Sweeter than honey, seeped into my heart like a refreshing wave.
...
There was vagueness in my mind – I don’t know what – thick as smoke;
But faithfully, I cleared the steps that lead to your alter.
That gloomy shroud you dispelled, as graphs fluttered by wind.
...
Algebra!  Geometry!  Calculus!  Imposing trinity!  ...Luminous triangle!
He who’s never known you is an idiot!  He merits the ordeal
Of the cruelest tortures, for in his ignorant carelessness there’s blind contempt.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, download an .MP3 of the “Sounds Like Fun” performance from the CD Crosstown Bus.

An older song from Vortex.  Shakespeare’s Sonnet # 64.

      When I have seen such interchange of state, or state itself confounded to decay;

  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, that Time will come and take my love away..

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, listen to or download an .MP3 .

One more older song from Vortex, this one recently re-written.

     And excuse me if I apologize too much for myself.  It’s an old habit that I picked up in a bind.

     ...

          Guess I wait till tomorrow, like I’ve done, a couple times before.

          But if I wait till tomorrow, will I find that tomorrow’s come and gone?

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Also, listen to or download an .MP3 .

As you can tell from some of my songs, I’m a heterosexual male.  I’m not exactly cis-gender in my dislike for sports, but in today’s dialogs on blended genders & alternative pronouns, overall I’m really rather cis-gender-ish.  This song’s narrator, tho’, is closer to traditional male than I am.  He enjoys football.

It’s a song about his friend Vicky and ways she maybe is or isn’t cis-gender-ish.  You’re kept guessing, but it’s meant to be clear at the end.  For a few listeners, tho’, either it’s not clear or what they get isn’t what I intended.  At first this seemed like a problem.  But that’s missing the point of my own song:  It don’t matter...  (And besides, as an admirer of Carl Oglesby’s songs, I should embrace ambiguity!)

When we met Vic, we wondered ’bout her orientation. Would she fit into some sorta new-fangled gender?
But soon we stopped givin’ it very much thought.  We all simply came to befriend her.

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Japan, two hundred years ago.  An eccentric hermit monk poet, named Ryōkan (inspired by another eccentric hermit monk poet centuries earlier – see Cold Mountain).  I, inspired by two of Ryōkan’s poems, wrote this song.  (And see The Ball-Playing Song, also inspired by Ryōkan poems.)

  Because of my finger, I can point to the moon.
  Because of the moon, I’m aware of my finger.
  Are they two things or one – a finger, the moon?
      Or is it all just a song for a simple singer?

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

Many folks cover Peter Krug’s song “Woman With a Chainsaw ,” the Grateful Dead covered “Fire in the City ,” and my favorite song of his is “Bubble-up Economy,” (which he unfortunately never put on a CD and [although a couple live recordings apparently exist] is not yet on YouTube).

In 2013, when it was Peter’s turn in a song/jam circle, he started by telling a story he’d heard a radio DJ tell. The story’s punch line was a long song title, beginning with the words “My, My, Mama.”  But Peter followed the story with a song unrelated to the story.

After he sang, I told him we’d wanted to hear that “My, My, Mama” song.  He replied that there never was such a song – it was just a joke the DJ had told.  I said, “But Peter, you’re a songwriter.  That’s a song we want to hear.”  He said, “Jim, you should write it.”

I wanted to spur him to at least work on writing it, and sent him an email with a very rough draft of a verse and a chorus.  In my draft, the verse was a blues.  The chorus was not blues, but instead, {warning: racially insensitive slur} a “Caucasian blues.” {That’s not intended to insult all Caucasian Americans – just those who think it’s still blues if they drop the 7ths from the chords...}

He didn’t take the bait; no song was written... till he found a way to win – to make me write it.  Nov. 2016 was full of tragedies:  Leonard Cohen’s death, an election ... and Peter Krug’s death.

So I wrote two more verses, polished up the lyrics, but kept my rough-draft music.  If you ever wanna contrast blues with “Caucasian blues,” the PDF has verse and chorus lyrics in contrasting fonts. With this teaching tool, them dumb honkies might even learn something ’bout the blues.

For next week’s hottest ball in Paris, no more Polynesian fabric could be had.
To dress for “Tiki Ball of Paris,” no Polynesian fabric would she have.
For her Pacific Island dress, she thought: “This African print is not half bad.”
...
I said: “Check that out, Mama!  There’s somethin’ you don’t see ev’ry day.”

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

1. Neocortex:  Brain part where creative thought comes from. A third of the human brain – a higher portion than almost any other animal. Your opinion: If future humans with half-neocortex brains could modify their genetics, which upgrade should we create?
  a) A new sensory ability to sniff electromagnetic fields.
  b) An enhanced penis having four heads.

2. Which animal already has a half-neocortex brain?
  a) The Bonobo.
  b) The Orca.
  c) The African Grey Parrot.
  d) The Long-Beaked Echidna.

3. Which genetic upgrade does the animal with a half-neocortex brain already have?
  a) A sensory ability to sniff electromagnetic fields.
  b) An enhanced penis having four heads.
  c) Both.

Page 1 of the PDF shows my lyrics / chords write up.  Page 2 shows some ideas for introducing the song, including the above questions...

But sometimes I wonder what we might do if our neocortex were more than a third.
...
Now we might choose to modify our own human genes to acquire new sens’ry abilities.
Or, hey ... engineer our genitalia for fun! Would choosing just one of these put you ill at ease?

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [page1,print-area]     to print on 8½" x 14"

(To fit music stand, cut on dotted line about halfway down page, & tape together a sheet about 17" x 7".)

The old gospel song “O, Sinner Man” is a cautionary tale warning a sinner of dangers.  But what warnings are you ever given if you happen to be a breakfast pastry?  Well, this parody of “O, Sinner Man” finally provides such a warning.

      O Cinnabon®, where you gonna run to?
      ...
      Run to the coffee.  The coffee was a-boiling.
      ...
      Run to my head.  My teeth were a-waiting.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

Listening to a song by Carl Oglesby, you’ll often create more story than is there in lyrics.  A character in only one line can help set the scene – if you can imagine their backstory and how they interact with the song’s action.  Your mind could create another song’s worth of story...

Oglesby’s song “The Working Class Stranger” has a line “the one-legged cowboy ran aloft the black flag.”  Listening to Oglesby’s song, I do imagine a song’s worth of extra backstory and interactions from just those words. It inspired this original song, and I think this proves my point about Oglesby’s songs being bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.

Page 1 of the PDF show the song in the key of G, as I usually play it.  Page 2 has the chords for the key of A.

   Had he been really free?  No, even then he knew better:  And he confronted some powerful folks...
  ...
  ’Round garbage-can campfires, friends tell of struggle and of lives filled with suffering and pain.
  ...
      The one-legged cowboy goes to raise their black flag, but can they fight to be free?  He’s not sure.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [page1,print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

And the Grammy for best rap/hip-hop dulcimer song goes to...  I’d like you to meet this fork...

Non-sequitors.  We all hear folks say things which don’t make sense – and at weird times.  Like they complement you on all the awards you’ve won, even if it’s not true.  This non‑sequitor might use a common acronym for winning four major entertainment awards.  (The acronym’s explained at the start of the song for those who don’t watch much TV...)

Other non-sequitors:  What they say if they think you’re some official in charge of   importing agricultural goods ...   or classifying planets...

People say strange things.  But there’s really no way we’ll ever figure out why they say them.

I’ve still not won  an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar or Tony,
  But folks sometimes seem to think that is my claim to fame.
I do enjoy the praise  ...even if they’re mistaken.
  But why say it at all now,  while I compete in a game?

      People say strange things,  and their timing’s odd, too.
        They tell me “Jim, ... EGOT:  The best of you!”

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"

Largely a “talking song” – a story about how an encounter with a book left me with an unintended knowledge of a bit of history from the 1920s.  And how that knowledge then ruined the meter of the lyrics for a nice dream (“Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”).  It’s a warning for those who’d want to avoid that happening to them.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was the incredible success of a huge diverse grassroots coalition able to convince sixty-two nations to sign an agreement to put an end to war – a success which we have much to learn from.  (In an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations it’s still legally binding!)

 And it was the terrible failure of a grassroots movement unable to maintain the awareness still needed after the signings – a failure which, well, we do have much to learn from, despite a tongue-in-cheek line in the song to the contrary...

(Do you think it’d be a good idea if more folks knew that use of war to settle disputes between nations has been illegal for about 90 years? Or... d’ya think that’d just ruin the rhythmic feel of lyrics to a nice strange dream...?)

Last night I had the really strangest dream I’d ever dreamed before.
I dreamed the world had all agreed, on August 27, 1928, to put an end to war.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]   to print on 8½" x 11"

  · Watch it here:  youtu.be/dZzGsp8IY00 – and share the link...

  · Or play / download an .M4A audio file for your music player.

  · Or, for a slightly different printable version with a bit extra:

For the sung verses, the melody’s well known.  ...Except for those, uh, awkward extra measures (the most serious symptoms of bad scanning – the bad scanning which has been the ruin of our original strangest dream).  So I have a, well, awkwardly-sized version (designed for 8½" x 12.8" paper, if such a size were made...) which additionally shows the melody for just those measures.  Print on 8½" x 14" or (using shrink-to-fit option) on A4 size paper.  (You may want to trim it a bit after printing.)

Download:    .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]   to print on 8½" x 14" or A4 paper, trim

It’s getting noisy where I live these days.

After November 2016, I was angry that change I’d envisioned became more remote. It seemed all we could do was struggle to get back to where we’d been. (My song I Still Breathe reflected that.)

Well, I’ve changed my thinking.  Pres. Trump has a vision now for a brand new strategy to pass legislation.  It’s a strategy never seen before, & it may need tweaking a bit to work well.  What’s exciting, though, is that his strategy can be used by any of us who dream to make America great.

But, it is getting noisy where I live these days.

        A hundred Republican children in my backyard, chained up tight.
          A thousand toes to step on, one-by-one, with all my might.
        The G.O.P. can stop this crying.  You just vote for what I say.
          Pass my legislation and the torture ends today.
...
  I want lower greenhouse gasses, health care for all, guaranteed,
  Reas’nable gun restrictions, and borders open to refugees.

Download:    .PDF   .PDF [print-area]   .JPG [print-area]     to print on 8½" x 11"