songs 10-19
♬ ² [This page: Arrangements of songs from Carl Oglesby’s second LP, in PDF & JPG formats.]
♬ ¹ [For songs from his 1st LP, click “songs 1-9” here or under Navigation at the right.]
✔ [For site intro & Oglesby info, click “Carl Oglesby’s Songs” here or under Navigation at right.]
All lyrics reproduced on this site and in its files are by Carl Oglesby.
All rights of the owner of the works are reserved.
-◄☀♫☀►-
∙∙∙∙∙ From the LP “Going To Damascus” by Carl Oglesby – side 1: ∙∙∙∙∙
∙∙∙∙ (tracks 10 - 14 on the CD “Carl Oglesby + Going To Damascus” by Carl Oglesby) ∙∙∙∙
To the right of each title are audio links.
Last Night I Saw The Sailor
Makes a good E minor jam song. A descending bass line against an E minor chord (which works well on fretted dulcimer) – and, yes, it’s full of images of a story of intrigue, shifting from a setting in, perhaps a medieval monarchy to a present‑day urban ghetto, and from there to thoughts about 19th century wars in Latin America... (and points in between). Carpe diem.
Your friend, the crippled king, has been beaten, and they’re stoning all the ladies from the hall.
The embassies are burning and the generals in their blindfolds stand wailing and waiting at the wall.
...
The priests have been summoned to the plaza with the nuns all bare-breasted in their veils.
And there as they take their holy pleasure, well, you shake your wanton fist to no avail.
In the bold bright Babylonian morning, down a wicked side street, in a cheap hotel,
Oh, the time of your mindless time is dawning, time of exile, and the wind is in foreign bells.
Gonna splash my face in wine... Gonna dance this dance, till the dance is mine...
Download: .PDF .PDF [print-area] .JPG [print-area]
☞ video of “Till The Dance Is Mine” performed by myself, Jim Burrill:
Another story. Just like the one before. Even though I have nothing left to prove to you... (So, is this how Oglesby perceived the trials and tribulations of storytellers such as himself...?)
Yeah, sailing to Damascus with our old trusty fears,
The Navigator says Doomsday must be somewhere right ’round here.
O the Mutineer, he’s so angry, says, “Lay it out, now, who’s in command?”
But the Cap’n says, “Drowning’s the only way back to land.”
Yeah, we landed in Damascus, the Local King run up right bold.
Said, “Did you see any changes, on the way down the road?”
Hey, we told him, “No, none to notice,” and his eyes grew cold and flat.
Said, “Don’t come to town again, boys, with a story as bad as that.”
(The lyrics come from the point of view of a storyteller who is a character in Oglesby’s own story. I hear the “revolver and the bomb” line in the context of a story – much as I hear, for example, Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.” See my “Working Class Stranger” comments below.)
Play Volleyball Like A Man
Oglesby said he was never a socialist. He was, however, certainly surrounded by them from his first wife to many in SDS – even a few who would advocate violence. (Now, most socialists or anarchists do not, of course, propose tactics of instigating violence, at least not for today’s struggles – and neither would he, even if he were one... But I think Oglesby could understand how one of his characters would.)
Keep in mind the idea of his songs as literature. It’s a story of tension between characters in a story. On one hand, a socialist or anarchist revolutionary – and on the other, the people who aren’t ready for his attempts to arouse them. The Stranger uses such rhetoric as telling “the refugees” that they “should’ve tried out [their] guns.” It’s the story of a quasi‑sexual tension. Oglesby, the storyteller, isn’t required to side with either the Stranger or the not-ready people.
They called him the Working Class Stranger.
He turned to the people just to have him a little fun.
Sayin’, “What will you do my good buddies,
When the bosses get through telling you that you’ve won?”
The fugitives all rallied ’round him,
And the one‑legged cowboy ran aloft the black flag,
...
Oh, the Romans in armor, on the bridge they have massed.
The highway is closed at the north overpass.
The crosshairs are zeroed; and the bomb, it is fused.
And the stranger is waiting to see how you choose.
Your lover is waiting to see how you choose.
-◄☀♫☀►-
∙∙∙∙∙ From the LP “Going To Damascus” by Carl Oglesby – side 2: ∙∙∙∙∙
∙∙∙∙ (tracks 15 - 19 on the CD “Carl Oglesby + Going To Damascus” by Carl Oglesby) ∙∙∙∙
The Lowly Beggar Girl
Boarder Ballad
The Lady With The Red Glass Eye
17-TheLadyWithTheRedGlassEye.mp3
The Wild E. G. & C.
Here’s your round-trip ticket from cannabis to Nashville to Mao Zedong posters to a game of poker ... and back – with, of course, a few more stops along the way. All aboard!
Light the pipe once again, me lads.
Light that old pipe and pass it over to your brother in the corner.
...
You know, I took a night train to Nashville. I met a Lady in the bow.
She laid her story on me. And I said “So just what’s supposed to happen now?”
...
So deal them cards out, Charlie. No need to wait for the Missing Man.
...
Oh, read your hand and make your bet, and remember the morning that we almost met.
[To see songs and arrangements from Oglesby’s first LP, click “songs 1-9” here.]