Heartbreakers to the right
heartbroken to the left
These are also all instrumental pieces written around lyrics, which can be found here.
01 Dark Days, Dark Nights
Dark days, dark nights
Race hate, alt-right
Protest marches, it’s my right
Angry crowds, flash fights
Kicking, punching, helpless cries
Burning shops, streets alight
Not my president zeitgeist
Reconciliation? Not tonight
Race hate, alt-right
Protest marches, it’s my right
Angry crowds, flash fights
Kicking, punching, helpless cries
Burning shops, streets alight
Not my president zeitgeist
Reconciliation? Not tonight
These are dark times with the abandonment of the civilizing ‘we are all in it together’ spirit that the US of A once had, or so I am told. It never struck me that way viewing the situation from outside the US, but you do come across remnants of it if you live there.
Now everyone wants their country back, but probably not the same one – definitely not the same one. Maybe the country’s initials will have to be abbreviated to SA (the ‘united’ bit having been deported).
Now everyone wants their country back, but probably not the same one – definitely not the same one. Maybe the country’s initials will have to be abbreviated to SA (the ‘united’ bit having been deported).
02 Golden virginia
Golden Virginia stands at the side of the stage
Head held high, you know she’s in a rage
There’s nothing to do and nothing to say
Another old rocker’s just got in her way
Head held high, you know she’s in a rage
There’s nothing to do and nothing to say
Another old rocker’s just got in her way
This is a rare go-for-it rocker from me, as I generally prefer more mid-tempo, ballady-type pieces. Having said that, my next album (‘Let’s Go Home’) is planned to be a more straight-down-the-line, bluesy-rocker by way of a change of pace. If every rocker in every US bar can do that stuff, I reckon I have a shot.
In the meantime, this song is about a stalker who has spent some hours of fun and frolic with a rock star (although, predictably, he denies it), and believes that gives her a claim on him.
It’ll be interesting to see if #MeToo and #TimesUp ever make it into the rock ‘n’ roll world. Probably. Not.
In the meantime, this song is about a stalker who has spent some hours of fun and frolic with a rock star (although, predictably, he denies it), and believes that gives her a claim on him.
It’ll be interesting to see if #MeToo and #TimesUp ever make it into the rock ‘n’ roll world. Probably. Not.
03 Sinkhole Girl
Loving only money, only your hate is free
You’re always on a spending spree
Buying everything you think you deserve
And the rest of us can only stand and serve
You’re always on a spending spree
Buying everything you think you deserve
And the rest of us can only stand and serve
If you have ever lived with a narcissist/sociopath/psychopath, I can assure you it is a really exhausting experience. The good news is that you can plan to get 5,000 miles away (as I did), or wait until they are eighty and lose some of their remorseless, vicious energy.
My advice: drop everything and everybody, and run like all the forces of hell are after you, because they will be! These types can probably reach you beyond the grave unless you can make yourself completely invisible to them.
In the song, Sinkhole Girl begins to fall apart by the end, but that is only wishful thinking.
My advice: drop everything and everybody, and run like all the forces of hell are after you, because they will be! These types can probably reach you beyond the grave unless you can make yourself completely invisible to them.
In the song, Sinkhole Girl begins to fall apart by the end, but that is only wishful thinking.
04 rumors and lies
Rumors dog my footsteps
They're designed to drag me down
They don't live inside my head
But they live all over town.
They're designed to drag me down
They don't live inside my head
But they live all over town.
We’ve always lived with rumors and lies. Newspaper barons have always had an angle, and so have gossips. The difference is that the mechanisms have become so much more industrialized and globalized. In the past, we knew where people were coming from when they imparted a nugget of information; now we haven’t a clue.
Our response is to oscillate between credulous and fact-resistant, and to cling to sources we consider reliable, which on the left turn out to be mostly comedians.
There is a quote that says that ‘factual information’ is a truth that hides a lie, and that ‘fiction’ is a lie that reveals the truth, or words to that effect. You really have to be a semiologist to get things straight nowadays, and then some.
The old sociological test may be the best guide through the innuendo quagmire – “Who is saying what, and what is their motivation for saying it?”
Our response is to oscillate between credulous and fact-resistant, and to cling to sources we consider reliable, which on the left turn out to be mostly comedians.
There is a quote that says that ‘factual information’ is a truth that hides a lie, and that ‘fiction’ is a lie that reveals the truth, or words to that effect. You really have to be a semiologist to get things straight nowadays, and then some.
The old sociological test may be the best guide through the innuendo quagmire – “Who is saying what, and what is their motivation for saying it?”
05 blue steel sentimental
You must have had hearts of stone
As I lay there all alone
In those echoes of a home
It was all about you
You forgot about me
Aching, aching, to be free
As I lay there all alone
In those echoes of a home
It was all about you
You forgot about me
Aching, aching, to be free
A young kid, who once lay in the dark listening to her or his parents arguing violently through the night, struggles with the demons of her/his past when involved in relationships as an adult.
Blue steel sentimental
Cold hearts still have their souls
Loving you is elemental
But weary hearts take their toll
Cold hearts still have their souls
Loving you is elemental
But weary hearts take their toll
It is claimed that divorce damages kids irrevocably, but the truth is that it is the violence and conflict between parents before separation and divorce that causes the real trauma. Research shows kids stuck in a parental war zone suffer as much anxiety and PTSD as soldiers stuck in a military war zone.
This song was written for my own children who suffered all of this during my first marriage, for which I am truly, truly sorry.
This song was written for my own children who suffered all of this during my first marriage, for which I am truly, truly sorry.
06 Easy
Breaking up is hard to do ...
07 white monkeys
White monkeys sit high up in their trees
White monkeys look down on you and me
White monkeys are terrified to fall
‘cos if they do,
There might be no white monkeys left at all
White monkeys look down on you and me
White monkeys are terrified to fall
‘cos if they do,
There might be no white monkeys left at all
I suppose I could have gone all the way back to when we were fish (and called the song ‘Whitebait’), but I moved the song along to when we were all monkeys, apes, whatever.
My take is that the white monkeys were the really scary ones, and that they just got scarier and scarier, greedier and greedier, and more and more sociopathic.
My take is that the white monkeys were the really scary ones, and that they just got scarier and scarier, greedier and greedier, and more and more sociopathic.
Only opossums play in Georgia
Only rabbits think in blues
Only dogs take whiskey with their rye
And only pigeons read the news
Only rabbits think in blues
Only dogs take whiskey with their rye
And only pigeons read the news
Sometimes, some people’s thoughts just have to be written in code. We don’t want to know what they’re really thinking …
08 parsifal
The king was in his castle, of course,
Beset on every side
By hurricanes, tornadoes
Fires and drought
The people had no crops to eat
And were thirsty, starved and burned
I begged the king to let me help
To rid this blight from all the earth
Beset on every side
By hurricanes, tornadoes
Fires and drought
The people had no crops to eat
And were thirsty, starved and burned
I begged the king to let me help
To rid this blight from all the earth
In Wagner’s ‘Parsifal,’ some kind of corruption of the name Sir Percival (of Holy Grail fame), King Amfortas is mortally wounded by his own sword and can only be saved by someone recovering his sword and scepter from his sworn enemy – enter young Parsifal/Percival.
Obviously, Wagner was really writing an eco-epic about mankind fatally wounding itself with its own weapons, but he forgot to make that clear, so I have had to step in, reducing Wagner’s very long sword-and-sorcery opera to 6’38 minutes of climate change propaganda, so that’s a good thing …
In the opera, Parsifal solves all issues in a few blows, Marlboro Man style. I think climate change may be a little more complicated than that. Actually, I don't expect climate change, pollution etc., to be seriously addressed at all. The real solution is that a lot fewer human beings have to consume a lot less stuff ... exactly!
Obviously, Wagner was really writing an eco-epic about mankind fatally wounding itself with its own weapons, but he forgot to make that clear, so I have had to step in, reducing Wagner’s very long sword-and-sorcery opera to 6’38 minutes of climate change propaganda, so that’s a good thing …
In the opera, Parsifal solves all issues in a few blows, Marlboro Man style. I think climate change may be a little more complicated than that. Actually, I don't expect climate change, pollution etc., to be seriously addressed at all. The real solution is that a lot fewer human beings have to consume a lot less stuff ... exactly!
09 sitting in the eye of the storm
I know an old man
Who loves every storm
Been that way
Since the day he was born
He'll pull up a porch chair
And watch it all fly around
As he sits in the eye of the storm
As he sits in the eye of the storm
Who loves every storm
Been that way
Since the day he was born
He'll pull up a porch chair
And watch it all fly around
As he sits in the eye of the storm
As he sits in the eye of the storm
An old man, having missed out on most any excitements in life, deliberately places himself in danger to make himself feel still alive. As Jackson Browne once put it, “You love the thunder, you love the rain.”
This was inspired by a friend of mine who deliberately stayed in his second home in Georgia to experience a hurricane, and then voted for Trump. There you go, two hurricanes in one year, with lots more devastation to follow.
This was inspired by a friend of mine who deliberately stayed in his second home in Georgia to experience a hurricane, and then voted for Trump. There you go, two hurricanes in one year, with lots more devastation to follow.
10 desert wind
When that desert wind
Gives a cactus wave
When a gnarled old cop
With his battered old cap
Begins to feel his age
When the Joshua tree
Begins to look alive
Maybe it’s time to wonder
Where your future lies
Gives a cactus wave
When a gnarled old cop
With his battered old cap
Begins to feel his age
When the Joshua tree
Begins to look alive
Maybe it’s time to wonder
Where your future lies
I love the desert landscapes of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, but they are pretty brutal if you happen to be crossing them on foot or working outside. Fierce environments are like that – at once both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
This desert wind knows all about despair and destruction (of that straight, natural variety).
This desert wind knows all about despair and destruction (of that straight, natural variety).
11 goodbye, Anna-Marie
This is where it ends
Where we think it starts
Drunk in a dim-lit bar
On our love
Where we think it starts
Drunk in a dim-lit bar
On our love
Back in divorceland, and here our confused hero logically recognizes that a previous relationship was disastrous from the get-go, but still has feelings for his Ex and is tempted to try again.
I would scream, “Don’t do it!” at him (or her), but this is a song with characters who will do whatever dumb thing comes to their minds, including re-entering a relationship that has already proved to be a monumental car crash of an affair. (Seat belts will cost you extra).
I would scream, “Don’t do it!” at him (or her), but this is a song with characters who will do whatever dumb thing comes to their minds, including re-entering a relationship that has already proved to be a monumental car crash of an affair. (Seat belts will cost you extra).
12 deep in the darkness of the human mind
Deep in the heart of human hope
There is no God, just us alone
Ants with crowns, and leaders with frowns
Deep in the darkness of the human mind
No theory is too complex for space and time
Just suddenly all things went bang
There is no God, just us alone
Ants with crowns, and leaders with frowns
Deep in the darkness of the human mind
No theory is too complex for space and time
Just suddenly all things went bang
I am a Catholic (by choice rather than by birth), and I get that we want to be autonomous and to avoid any judgment of our behavior, to believe that we are really smart etc.
But God exists, OK? Just look around you and recognize that intelligence is built into everything that surrounds us. That cannot be mere chance. A certain amount of pride and ego drives us to do impressive things; one ounce more makes us an idiot.
But God exists, OK? Just look around you and recognize that intelligence is built into everything that surrounds us. That cannot be mere chance. A certain amount of pride and ego drives us to do impressive things; one ounce more makes us an idiot.
13. hey, there
Hey, there
I want to say I'm really sorry
I know I've really hurt
It's not what I'd have chosen
Just didn't want to make it worse
I want to say I'm really sorry
I know I've really hurt
It's not what I'd have chosen
Just didn't want to make it worse
The other side of the coin from ‘Blue Steel Sentimental.’
Here I apologize to my children for what happened before, during and after my acrimonious divorce from my first wife. I would apologize directly to them except that my ex-wife won’t let me anywhere near them (and vice-versa), and she is one scary lady.
The lines ‘If only that could be enough / If it could mean a single thing’ are a reference to four lines from the great British poet Tony Flynn’s ‘Growing’:
Here I apologize to my children for what happened before, during and after my acrimonious divorce from my first wife. I would apologize directly to them except that my ex-wife won’t let me anywhere near them (and vice-versa), and she is one scary lady.
The lines ‘If only that could be enough / If it could mean a single thing’ are a reference to four lines from the great British poet Tony Flynn’s ‘Growing’:
But you are right,
it is no consolation.
To be in the same world
is not so much.
it is no consolation.
To be in the same world
is not so much.
14. punctures and snakes
They are two lovers
Two little sweethearts
Sugar and candy
Two beating hearts
They live together
Two lovers and friends
It’s hard to tell
Where each of them ends
Two little sweethearts
Sugar and candy
Two beating hearts
They live together
Two lovers and friends
It’s hard to tell
Where each of them ends
This is the true story of two sweethearts who were lying together companionably in a field when she was struck by a Mojave Green rattlesnake, and subsequently died from the poison.
He lasted six months more before succumbing to pneumonia, long before his time – or of a broken heart, if you prefer.
He lasted six months more before succumbing to pneumonia, long before his time – or of a broken heart, if you prefer.
Instruments used during the recording of ‘Heartbreakers to the right, Heartbroken to the left’
Guitars:
Epiphone Les Paul Custom Shop Special
Epiphone Dot Studio
Fender Stratocaster (Mexican-built)
Gretsch Streamliner
Ibanez Gio
Ibanez 12-string
J Jimenez Quinto
Savannah acoustic
Bass:
Sterling SUB
Keyboards:
Yamaha P-115
Epiphone Les Paul Custom Shop Special
Epiphone Dot Studio
Fender Stratocaster (Mexican-built)
Gretsch Streamliner
Ibanez Gio
Ibanez 12-string
J Jimenez Quinto
Savannah acoustic
Bass:
Sterling SUB
Keyboards:
Yamaha P-115