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1. |
Lonely Deadhead Boxcar
04:15
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LONELY DEADHEAD BOXCAR
There’s a lonesome whistle calling like a magpie to the moon
as the sunset finds another place to play
And the coyotes grin like roughnecks in a honky tonk saloon
as the night falls and the foothills fade away
And the shadows in their silver slips are dressing up to dance
With the ghosts of dusty boomers in a sleepy time romance
While the twilight seems full of diesel dreams
so they know just what to wear
Round some lonely deadhead boxcar way out there
Now the empty weathered houses and the old abandoned barns
Form a web of tombstone shadows on the trail
As the night becomes a necklace of a dozen dusty arms
to the humming of the highball on the rails
And the land is like a table set with tumbleweeds and sage
Flat as a drifter’s pockets and empty as a stage
Where the northern lights go stepping out
Like a farmboy Fred Astaire
Round some lonely deadhead boxcar way out there
And the stars are all out drinkin cause there’s nothin else to do
But cruise along across the milky way
Til they get so drunk they stagger round and stumble from the blue
To slumber off another prairie day
And no one seems to know it all except the engineer
Who passes on the signal to the brakeman in the rear
That the stars are working nightshift just to decorate the air
Round some lonely deadhead boxcar way out there
Round some lonely deadhead boxcar way out there
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2. |
Fifty-Cent Sneakers
03:12
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FIFTY-CENT SNEAKERS
I been out in the boonies a workin since fall
Stuck in the bunkhouse and climbin the wall
And I’ve papered the ceiling from corner to crack
With visions and dreams as I lay on my back
Now I’m tired of workin and wonderin why
The winters just crawl and the summers all fly
Why money’s the same way as time in the end
So hard to hang onto, so easy to spend
So I’ll hang up my workboots and grab my guitar
Cause I know that the highway’s in love with my car
And I’m tradin the sawmill, the bush and the mine
For fifty-cent sneakers and five dollar wine
Goodbye to the mud and these ugly machines
I’m young and I’m single with cash in my jeans
And I’m headin for someplace where customs incline
Toward fifty-cent sneakers and five dollar wine
Where the northwind blows crazy with nowhere to blow
There’s somebody waitin to kiss me hello
With a bed on the backporch and a welcome design
Around fifty-cent sneakers and five dollar wine
And I’ll watch some old firefly flirt with the moon
Light a lighbulb in love with a baby’s balloon
While the stars dance the jitterbug over the pine
And the Big Dipper’s flowin with five dollar wine
And I won’t have to shiver or slave in the cold
Or gather up summers as if they were gold
Cause the loomguns were outlawed in 1909
Now it’s fifty-cent sneakers and five dollar wine
And I’ll live like a landlord without any care
If I ain’t got a bottle or something to wear
Cause the boss and the banker will labour like swine
Makin fifty-cent sneakers and five dollar wine
Yeah, the boss and the banker will labour like swine
Makin fifty-cent sneakers and five dollar wine
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3. |
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THE ZEPHYR (TAKE IT SLOW)
By Jack Hardy
Take it slow, take it easy, take it any way you can
Take it all, take it freely, take it like a man
Take it down along some highway down a lonesome railroad
track
Take it anyway you want to but never take it back
Some people have such neat houses
All of their flowers in a row
No surprises in their closets
Nothin the neighbours do not know
And that’s why God made railroad ties
To keep the flowers in their place
And that’s why God made railroad watches –
to keep the rats in the race
Take it slow, take it easy, take it any way you can
Take it all, take it freely, take it like a man
Take it down along some highway down a lonesome railroad
track
Take it anyway you want to but never take it back
Some people have such neat lives –
No screamin in the hall
No prescriptions in their pockets
No crutch called alcohol
And that’s why God made the corporate ladder
To make the others feel so small
And that’s why God made Jacob’s Ladder –
So we could all climb the walls
Take it slow, take it easy, take it any way you can
Take it all, take it freely, take it like a man
Take it down along some highway down a lonesome railroad
track
Take it anyway you want to but never take it back
Some people pay such neat dues
To the devil or their boss
At the crossroads, at the station
Or at the Stations of the Cross
And that’s why God made the Burlington Northern
Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe
And that’s why God made railroad whistles –
So we can blow it all away
Take it slow, take it easy, take it any way you can
Take it all, take it freely, take it like a man
Take it down along some highway down a lonesome railroad
track
Take it anyway you want to but never take it back
Okay… time to ride off into the sunset...
We’re outta here
We’re tailights dudes
We’re off like a prom dress…
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4. |
Way Up Yonder
03:47
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SUNDAY WAY UP YONDER
It was Sunday way up yonder, it was on the seventh hole
The good Lord missed a birdie putt
And lost his self control
The Caddie lost his self esteem but the Clubhouse got the ball
When a 20-acre divot came tearing through the wall
It rumbled through the kitchen like an epileptic whale
It blew the needle off the top of Mr Richter’s scale
It broke the mirror above the bar and busted all the stools
It even broke a little wind but never broke the rules
It squeezed them like the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored
As they interface like insects
With the windshield of the lord
They treated all they came upon with equal disrespect
It was fully liberated and politically correct
It scandalized the universe it vandalized the stars
It wiped the face of Elvis off the other side of Mars
Then came back to the fingers of the good lord’s waiting hand
Like a 20-acre yoyo on a cosmic rubberband
They knew that the insurance man was never gonna pay
For act of God, or flying sod or random clods of clay
So they prayed with all their might the Lord would save their souls
And take a smaller divot when he played the other holes
Ohhh ohhh o man!
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5. |
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THE WILD DOGS OF KITWANGA
Riding through Kitwanga in a sleepy autumn rain
We were running several hours late
when the hoghead stopped the train
Though you couldn’t find a single soul
To disembark or ride
The dining car was open at the doorway on the side
And waiting there beside the track like orphans on the rails
A pack of dogs with hungry eyes stood waggin hungry tails
There was Three Legs with his gimpy gait lookin all dressed up to dine
While Blackie served as Maître D’ at the door of Number 9
Ai deedalayeeoh ohdalayeehoo 3X
Ai dee deeyadee oohdalayeehoo
I was greener than a baby spruce in a sudden summer snow
So I asked where they had come from, no one seemed to know
If they had a dog biography or a time when they’d been tame
Then the Hogger said as he hung his head
How Three Legs got his name
He was running hard for Number 10
Tryin to get some more to eat
The only dog that could pace the Hog when he still had four good feet
But he slipped beneath the baggage car and I couldn’t see him there
So now the cooks make certain that he always gets his share
As far the rest, it’s hard to guess but I have heard some folks say
Blackie there was just a pup when his owners moved away
That they moved to town when the mill shut down
And the bad times chased the good
He was left alone to cry and do the best he could
Ai deedalayeeoh ohdalayeehoo 3X
Ai dee deeyadee oohdalayeehoo
Now though they may be wild
They’ll have a home beyond the blue
Cause they love the railroad just as much as the folks who fill the crew
There’ll be four good feet and enough to eat
Up on Heaven’s railroad line
For the Wild Dogs of Kitwanga at the door of Number 9
Ai deedalayeeoh ohdalayeehoo 3X
Ai dee deeyadee oohdalayeehoo
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6. |
Dust-Bowl Don Quixote
05:50
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DUST BOWL DON QUIXOTE
Out out on the open highway with the city far behind
Visions of another generation swept across my mind
Of the whiskey-drinkin rounders and the other ramblin men
Runnin out from California to New York town and halfway back again
Don Quixote in your car with your French harp and guitar
Have you traveled very far
Does your soul still show the scar
All the outlaws and the Okies that you keep on lookin for
Say this train ain’t bound for glory anymore
I went lookin for the places where they slept out in the rain
While the oceans and the orchards and the fields of golden grain
When I asked the station master where the hoboes all had gone
He just pointed down the railroad track and said they’d gone you rolling
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain where the river runs with rye
I spied a train of empty boxcars looking at the sky
And there beside the fire looking serious and still
Jesse James and Coleman Younger, The Cisco Kid, Woody and Joe Hill
It was cigarettes and politics and whiskey jugs and wars
Pals in penitentiaries and pallets on the floor
They said there was a time to fight and another time to run
A time to use a picket sign, a time to use a bullet and a gun
Don Quixote in your car with your French harp and guitar
Have you traveled very far
Does your soul still show the scars
All the outlaws and the Okies that you keep on lookin for
Say this train ain’t bound for glory anymore
So this train ain’t bound for glory and the highway’s not the same
It’s what you do when you arrive, it’s not the way you came
Let the windmill be a windmill and the heretic be wrong
Put your visions in the future
and your heroes in the past where they belong
Don Quixote in your car with your French harp and guitar
Have you traveled very far
Does your soul still show the scar
All the outlaws and the Okies that you keep on lookin for
Say this train ain’t bound for glory anymore
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7. |
That Endless Fascination
06:27
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THAT ENDLESS FASCINATION
I woke this morning in a Valentine, it must be love and not just the wine
It’s late October and the snowfall’s comin due
Well I never did put much stock in names
But she’s a bloodkin relative of Jesse James
And I got six bullets in the heart that say it’s true
Now I think about her under skies of blue
I think about her even when it rains
And with that certain special kind of something that recalls to mind
That endless fascination that Jesse had for trains
I used to think that all romance was just a silly circus dance
That a love was just a swindle or a sweet and bitter game
Or like a candle living spite for lonely creatures in the night
Who only find each other when they meet inside the flame
Now I think about her under skies of blue
I think about her even when it rains
And yes I’m guilty I confess I think of her with tenderness
And with that endless fascination that Jesse had for trains
I was living in the desert then with hungry ghosts and hollow men
Not knowing where to look for love or even where to start
And I found the answer hidden there inside the perfume of her hair
Like an undelivered letter from the landscape of her heart
Now I think about her under skies of blue
I think about her even when it rains
I think of her on sunny days in all those countless little ways
And with that endless fascination that Jesse had for trains
We walked together to her car, she said it wasn’t very far
I said I hoped she parked it on the dark side of the moon
Cause love’s a dance too hard to call when duty’s drummmin on the wall
And sorrow’s seldom sweet at all when you say goodbye too soon
And I think about her under skies of blue
I think about her even when it rains
I think about her constantly and wonder if she thinks of me
With that endless fascination that Jesse had for trains
Well a wise man said it long ago, the final cause of human woe
Is simple human hatred and simple human greed
And it takes a fool to be a slave to what you loathe and what you crave
When freedom comes so easily and love is what you need
And I think about her under skies of blue
I think about her even when it rains
I think about her everywhere until there’s almost nothing there
But that endless fascination that Jesse had for trains
We’ll meet again, it’s plain to see
She’s tangled in my destiny
We’ll be so fine together that we both begin to weep
Then we’ll order up a thousand clowns
to play the mouth-harp upside down
And dance across the ceiling while we sing ourselves to sleep
And I'll think about her under skies of blue
I think about her even when it rains
And I’ll never wonder Is it love? or just the mere reflection of
That endless fascination that Jesse had for trains
I woke this morning in a Valentine, it must be love and not just the wine
It’s late October and the snowfall’s comin due
Well I never did put much stock in names
But she’s a bloodkin relative of Jesse James
And I got six bullets in the heart that say it’s true
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8. |
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THINGS THAT NEVER ADDED UP TO ME
There were people setting fire to the hills
When I asked them what they did it for
They told me it was something the women used to do
When they sent their sons and lovers to the war
A beacon for the wooden ships at sea
Though I never understood how ships had eyes
Things that never added up to me
So seldom prove a puzzle to the wise
Rock a round, rock a round,
Rock a round my Sarah Jane
There’s a place to lay their heads in Valparaiso
Far away from wind and snow
Where the whalefish never blow
And the dark-eyed ladies haul our woes away
There’s a ragamuffin minstrel at the door
He must be working in some other song
He’s got a manifesto and a notebook full of dreams
And he doesn’t seem to know where they belongs
He’s lookin for a handle to his pan,
But the tinker’s old and rusty at his art
Hasn’t fixed a pot in twenty years
Since he opened up a trade in broken hearts
Rock a round, rock a round,
Rock a round my Sarah Jane
All the way from Dublin Bay to Valparaiso
Oh we’ll be of better cheer when we’re ankle deep in beer
And the dark-eyed ladies haul our woes away
Oh if I could find the oyster of the world
I’d buy the gun they used to shoot the moon
Then ballyrag the governments to never make a law –
Just tell the truth on Thursday afternoon
But I wouldn’t care to set the world on fire
No I never had a taste for oyster stew
If they ask to see my heart’s desire,
I’d show the world a photograph of you
Rock a round, rock a round,
Rock a round my Sarah Jane
If we ever reach the docks in Valparaiso
There’ll be silverware and wine
And the bed won’t smell of brine
When the dark-eyed ladies haul our woes away
Rock a round, rock a round,
Rock a round my Sarah Jane
There’ll be silverware and wine
And the bed won’t smell of brine
And the dark-eyed ladies haul our woes away
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9. |
The Pride Of The Border
03:39
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THE PRIDE OF THE BORDER
There’s a one I alone_has my heart in a spell
And ohh if I could, I would court her so well
Her name I won’t say but her face you may know well
For they call her the Pride of the Border
Oh the women of the south have a legend they say
How the stars left the sky when she wandered away
Til the tears of the men filled the towns of the bay
Just to shine for the Pride of the Border
So the length and the depth of my love I will test
In the flame and the flood and the east and the west
Let it soar like a stone coming only to rest
In the heart of the Pride of the Border
At the edge of the world, there is planted a tree
And it’s fruit I will gather her banquet to be
And I’ll carve out her name on the crest of the sea
As a pledge to the Pride of the Border
With a dragon I will dance on the cold ocean floor
Make a candle of its breath and a bell from the roar
Then its hide I will nail to the top of her door
As a token to the Pride of the Border
Then I’ll bring her a song I will sing to the skies
Of the things that I see in her wild Scottish eyes
And the love in my heart I’ll no longer disguise
When I marry the Pride of the Border
Yes I’ll bring her a song I will sing to the skies
Of the things that I see in her wild Scottish eyes
And the love in my heart I’ll no longer disguise
When I marry the Pride of the Border
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10. |
The Queen Of Thieves
03:36
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THE QUEEN OF THIEVES
At dawn my love went all alone to take the morning air
And on her pony rode away with moonlight in her hair
Oh how the spurs upon her heels did oh, such music play
To shame the very nightengale and steal my heart away
All through the desert of my dreams I wandered to the well
And fought with many angels though from where I could not tell
Who held me from their wisdom til the time I learned to pray
And there I lay in slumber til she stole my heart away
Oh had she been the Queen of Hearts, she might have let me be
Or had she been a Pirate Queen had pied me off to sea
But as she was the Queen of Thieves, she loved me where I lay
The broke the lock on Heaven’s door to steal my heart away
And so within the sweetest flame, the fire ever grows
The heartstrings of the bramble tree were braided to the rose
Til in the thicket of the leaves that tangle down the days
I found a baby crying fit to steal my heart away
And now I’m in a deeper love than the Piper for his tune,
the drunkard for his whiskey jug, or the madman for the moon
For all she was the Queen of Thieves and yet, the Queen of May
For I gave it to her freely when she stole my heart away
For all she was the Queen of Thieves and yet, the Queen of May
For I gave it to her freely when she stole my heart away
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11. |
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A SOLDIER AND HIS OWN TRUE LOVE
Of a soldier I will tell and the maid he loved so well
With a love so deep no human words can say
Of the pleasures that they spoke and the token that they broke
And a promise to each other as he marched upon his way
Singin Darlin O, Susannah don’t you cry
You’ll always have the better part of me
Oh the good lord knows its true – my heart belongs to you
Though the rest of me belongs to Bobby Lee
Of that promise he would sing as he took that broken ring
Through the heat of every battle and campaign
For a melody can fade like an echo on parade
Or the half-remembered whistle from a long forgotten train
Oh my darlin O, Susannah don’t you cry
You’ll always have the better part of me
Oh the good lord knows its true – my heart belongs to you
Though the rest of me belongs to Bobby Lee
Still the absence took its toll in the dark night of her soul
Like the caging of a small forsaken bird
For the pillow where she slept was the prison where she wept
Undelivered from his promise, wedded only to his words
Oh my darlin O, Susannah don’t you cry
You’ll always have the better part of me
Oh the good lord knows its true – my heart belongs to you
Though the rest of me belongs to Bobby Lee
Ah she wakened with a start and a hollow aching heart
To the sound of tapping on her window pane
That so often was the breeze as it played among the trees
And she hardly did believe it when she heard this soft refrain:
Oh my darlin O, Susannah don’t you cry
You’ll always have the better part of me
Oh the good lord knows its true – my heart belongs to you
Though the rest of me belongs to Bobby Lee
Are you crazy are you dead, is a price upon your head
Is duty or is love the greater sin?
Have you come to claim your bride, will you go or will you bide?
Will another band of soldiers come to take you back again?
Singing, darlin O, Susannah don’t you cry
You’ll always have the better part of me
Oh the good lord knows its true – my heart belongs to you
Though the rest of me belongs to Bobby Lee
Still she rose and let him in and his bootheels made no din
As he came across the room to where she lay
And the token was restored, all her waiting to reward
Though he rose and left her sleeping at the dawning of the day
Singing, darlin O, Susannah don’t you cry
You’ll always have the better part of me
Oh the good lord knows its true – my heart belongs to you
Though the rest of me belongs to Bobby Lee
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12. |
The Widow's Lament
03:54
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THE WIDOW’S LAMENT
I spied a young woman along by the Keys
And heard her lament as she scolded the breeze
Abusing the ships there and cursing the seas
For taking her true love away
Oh he’s bound for an exile of shackles and sheep
In a land the almighty designed in his sleep
Where creatures abound that should only be found
In bedlam or deep in the sea
But I swear to this truth that I sealed with a tear
Not even the bride of a wild buccaneer
Or the high riding queen of the western frontier
Ever had such a lover as he
Like the wheel in the wind he was rougish and wild
He was soft as the breath of an innocent child
He was pure as the dove and the taste of his love
Was sweet as the juice of a bee
But they’ve taken my pirate, my king of the cowboys
Leavin me courted by peasants and plowboys
Each with a mind like a horse’s behind
And the skin like the bark of a tree
And they come for a mistress, a wife or a whore
Or a fine easy mare who’s been ridden before
But I’d have to be dead to be found in a bed
With a lout like the best of em be
So if even the finest should dance through my door
With a neck like a bullock and balls like a boar
Well he numbers his coin like the sands of the boin
And he’ll not get a leg over me
So the nuns of the Magadalene Laundry can perch
Like the haggard old bats in the roof of the church
Trading penance and soapsuds for honour and hope
For they’ll never take either from me
Then I’ll trade all the money I hold in my purse
To see his tormentors live under a curse
May the winds of their fortune blow all in reverse
Though they live to a hundred and three
And I pledge to the seabirds and all the good fish
If the faeries will answer and honour my wish
May the balls of his jailers be yours in a dish
May their widows be lonely as me
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13. |
The Flowers of Auschwitz
04:46
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THE FLOWERS OF AUSCHWITZ
Oh the snow was softly falling on a little Polish town
And the winds of late December they were warning,
The clouds were all the color of the finest wedding gown
And it wasn't from the clouds that it was snowing ....
And as we count the number of their names
May we come to see their ashes as the flower in the flame....
May our knowledge be the measure of our darkest memories,
May our mercy be the measure of our knowing.
They have killed another prophet sang the skies to Bolivar
Now the heart of every hero will be aching....
But the silence only deepened in the bones of his guitar
With the sound of every finger they were breaking...
And the song goes on forever if its true
While tyrants rock like roses in the dark and bloody dew,
Till our words become the anthem of a never ending love,
And the music sets the measure of its making.
I saw the queen of heaven through the doorway of a dream
Down the streets of Sarajevoro she was sweeping
With a flower for the children too terrified to scream
And their mothers all to weary to be weeping...
And if the hands of innocence at prayer
Can rinse the smell of gunsmoke from the flowers in her hair
May she lead us to the promise of a final pledge of peace,
May our honor be the measure of its keeping.
And if the hand of innocence at prayer
Can rinse the smell of gunsmoke from the flowers in her hair
May she lead us to the promise of a final pledge of peace,
May our honor be the measure of its keeping.....
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14. |
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'TIL THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE
Both the turning of the season and the ticking of the clock
Say the planet's one year older – so are you.
But I'll leave the speculation and the silly idle talk
For another time and someone else to do.
There'll be a celebration at the end of every street,
When we claim our bread and roses, and the circle is complete.
So if destiny should drag you down, or dress you up in style,
May you never be too weary
To walk another mile.
And may you never cease your growing,
And your learning as you grow;
May the things that you discover
Be the things you want to know
May you gain in strength through sorrow,
And may all your love be true;
May you turn your hand to something
That you really want to do.
May your friends encounter fortune,
And your comrades find release
Though they see the hopes of others disappear
May your parents die contented, and your children live in peace,
Though the hands of desperation hold them near;
Should the future find you lying with a lover by your side
Or left alone with broken arms, and all your dreams denied
May your footsteps ring like rifles through the darkness of defeat,
May your spirit never falter,
'Til the circle is complete.
And may you never cease your growing
Your learning as you grow.
May the things that you discover be the things you want to know.
May you gain in strength through sorrow,
And may all your love be true;
May you turn your hand to something
That you really want to do.
May your life be like a love song in the act of every breath,
Be a poem to the purpose that it serves;
May you set your shoes to dancing in the hour of your death
And meet it with the courage it deserves;
May your shadow pass in pirouettes of such amazing grace
That the tears of those who mourn you disappear without a trace.
In the smoke that shapes their sorrow to the fading of your feats
In a ring around the rainbow,
Where the circle is complete.
And may you never cease your growing,
Your learning as you grow.
May the things that you discover be the things you want to know.
May you gain in strength through sorrow,
And may all your love be true;
May you turn your hand to something
That you really want to do.
May you turn your hand to something
That you really want to do.
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