1. |
Lilacs that morning
03:12
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TIme feeds the river
Feeds the forest
Feeds the fire
So time is the source of the flame
I don’t know just exactly what’s before us
But it will never be that sweet again
You said let’s go back
So we went back
Oh the lilacs that morning
So blue they looked painted on
I can’t believe you blame me
For the ending when
It was you who wrote the start of the song
snow and
sunshine at
the same time
Stars you can see in the day
When it’s too bright you fall through the ice
Sun washes the night sky away.
We didn’t know that
It wouldn’t hold and
The lilacs that morning
So blue they looked painted on.
I can’t believe you blame me
For the ending, when
It was you who wrote the start of the song,
(bridge)
Old bones are never whole once they’re broken
Old woods no good when it rains
A dreams not the same once it’s spoken
Seems all my best dreams died that way
I know that
the whole of
the rainbow
Is not something a man can attain
What’s done’s done,
There’s no going back over
Times not some dog eared page
But it was you that
Sent that note and
The lilacs that morning
So blue they looked painted on,
I can’t believe that we got that
Ending after such a sweet start to the song
I can’t believe that we got that ending
After such a sweet start to the song
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2. |
Jesus. A Rifle
02:40
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Jesus. A rifle.
(fingered in A, SK plays capo 6 = E)
A A7 D
Bear called me that morning. Took the greyhound from Portland.
A E
For mom. Not for you
(Wondered. in my place. what you’d do )
A A7 D
Saunders she’s an eye full. Bear showed me the rifle.
A E
Jesus. That’s just like you.
D Dsus 2 A
Deacon Hyde arrived with the flowers.
My brothers have all gotten thin
A A7 D
Salted bacon tastes good. For an hour I chopped wood.
A E A
The fire sucked all the heat in.
E A C# D
You left your notepad out where ma’d find it,
Your best sketch was the one of the wind
A A7 D A E A
Their Boy filled his tiny truck up with cigarette butts
I bent down. Way Down. and kissed him.
(music break D Dsus 2 A A7 D A E A
E A C# D
A A7 D A E
Jesus a rifle
D Dsus 2 D sus 2 A
It’s not legal to fly the Canadian flag
Storms have left behind stones
A A7 D A E
Saunders kept cleaning the bar with a rag
She would not speak with me alone
E A C# D
Promised mom I’d stay on, at least until 6.
Left at 5:52.
A A7
Jesus. A rifle
D Dsus
(Jesus. A rifle. )
A E
A rifle. That’s just like you.
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3. |
35 Lines about 11 Cats
02:15
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Luey was fine for a long time
But Left a damp ring wherever he sat
Dashed out the wrong time out on pigs eye and vine
The first of my 11 cats
Corset was hard to live with
Geneveve was harder yet
Monique only ate with the tip of her tongue
Cornpone we eft at the vet
Mars bar was by far my least favorite
Scratched a hole in my louie quatorze
Tossed him into the trunk
Tossed him out at the dump
But two days and he was back at our door
I think of Candy about once in a fortnight
Anytime someone chokes on some meat
Willie wouldn’t bite but he’d lick if he liked
And he loved so he licked stinky pete
Montrose hated music in E flat
He’d ram his head into the back of my neck
I must of been stoned when I took Al capone
From a girl who kissed me then left
My ma says dogs are way smarter
Pa hates anything that likes fish
My ex wife thought five was too many
Told me to choose and that’s what I did
The last one I named number eleven
She likes to cover my mouth up at night
She pees and she moans at the sound of the
Phone
But she looks like a cat that I liked
22 hours she’s sleeping
she rolls every Day in the dirt
She’ll come and she’ll find me
Of course I’m alone
And she’ll crawl right up inside my shirt
Mmm yah. This ones a keeper
Mmm yah. Anything worth having takes time
Mmmm number 11
This ones going work out just fine
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4. |
One Line From A Song
04:47
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Street fair
Warm air
Cold beer and brats
Tan hands
Your Laughing lips
on the glass
Montclaire
Those stairs
Don’t care
That They’re
falling down
Proud Trees
Police lead
Their horses
round and round
This town
You’re gone
But linger on
Like one line from a song
Warm air
From nowhere
Long after summer’s gone
That thing
You’d sing
One line from a song
Montclaire
Those stairs
Don’t care That They’re
falling down
lost things
your wings
Circling
round and round
This town
You’re gone
But linger on
Like one line from a song
Like one line from a song
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5. |
Starting to Fade
04:28
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Sunset in texas
On two stones she painted our names
Still water. Breathless
summer warmth of those days
Has already started to fade.
the lake where Karl’s boat is
sky lit up in flame
close my eyes for a moment
I can still see her face
But the edges have started to fade
little town with the playhouse
folded crane that she made
Her hand, arm, her shoulder
curve of the bed where she lay
whispered promise she made
Have already started to fade.
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6. |
$100 Car
03:18
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Lauren Rust lived next to us
Ate 30 eggs and a cupcake at the country fair
Could move her neck just like a chicken
hump up a cyprus trunk like a grizzly bear
She had a wiggle in her walk
Made the younger boys back off
she could shape her tongue to look just like a spoon
Round her neck hung a cross
the bottom half broke off
Our savior hanging there, Busted in two
Lauren was her own sort of pretty
She was smart but not like in a book
She hit back at the world
Like a hammer hits a squirrel
Like a bullhead hits a hook
Harmen Kane ate pig on sunday
The Mrs was as curvy as a cow
He owned the guy who owned the bus
silo, a piece of us, a blue ribbon breeding sow
Crack in his tooth he was always trying to show ya
The Mrs a silver dollar in her hair
Stack of bills in a clip
In his pocket on his hip
Till one day that hundred dollars wasn’t there
Lauren was her own sort of pretty
smart but not like in a book
Had three mothers two fathers
She’d steal a hundred dollars
If a hundred’s what it took
Lauren Rust lived next to us
ate 30 eggs and a cupcake at the 4-H booth
She stole a jug of wine
We traveled back and forth through time
Drinking on the roof
Had a wiggle in her walk
That was the talk of traffic cops
Blew through cupped hands,
sounded like a loon
You can get pretty far in a hundred dollar car
If you drive straight up at the moon
Kane gets skinny when he’s angry
Canceled school, the bus was needed for the search
I stayed home, chucking feed corn at the shoats
praying Kane would cancel church
Lauren was her own sort of pretty
We hired her to inseminate our horse
You can get pretty far in a hundred dollar car
She kissed my forehead
Climbed in
It was the last I saw of her
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7. |
Her Bruised Hands
01:26
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I see the sky in my mothers eyes
Her eyes and her bruised hands
She’s weak sometimes like a baby now
Needs my help so she can stand
The river runs but it runs both ways
I love her now as I loved my son
Though I did not know it in those crazy days
A thing can be undone
It was not long that my mother cried
Though I know she is afraid
Ma can walk if she holds my hand
She walked me just that way
When I kiss her cheek, I can feel her smile.
Feel her smile and her warm face
To love her now with a Mother’s love
This to me is grace
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8. |
Warm Winter Wind
03:57
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La Place St. Placid fountain
Smooth marble cool on our hands
On a bet, and I’ll bet they were German
Stripped our shirts off and plunged our heads in
All that day you kept picking up pebbles
From a foot bridge we dropped them into the Seine
It was so marvelously cool there that summer
Here its winter and I feel warm again
We walked up the broken stone pavement
To a bar just below Bellevue parc
You sang a song we’d written that morning
It sounded different there in the dark
Then back home, our place off the courtyard
We made love and made love again
Wonderfully cool there that summer
Here its winter and there’s a warm winter wind
Cool wet breeze, Vaneau Boulangerie
Your mouth, red wine and bread
We hurried home, pushed the storm
Windows open
So some rain came in on the bed
The long midnight sun
We weren't young
But man I felt young then
It was so marvelously cool there that summer
Here its winter and we're warm once again
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9. |
Last Rain of Spring
02:54
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I bent to make room I can’t bend back
The storm your tin roof a long cymbal crash
When it falls as hard and as long as that
This will be the last rain this spring
rereading your letters. The pages are bent
Even apart time together we spent
The time that you took and what that time meant
The rise and fall of your words reminds me of wings
It’s like you’re writing me now. Flying wings
You’re flying. Times Dying. The last rain this spring.
Flowered hours were our hourglass
Everything planted settled at last
If thunder is drumming that summer was brass
Brass and a last glass of meade
Its raining now hammers gravel and glass
Against such a thing no drop alone lasts
The last rain this spring, the last glass for me
The end of the poem The rest I won’t read
I’m one drop alone. One drop alone. I’m scared of the sea.
This will be the last rain of spring
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10. |
So Strong So Light
05:18
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Before I met you.
Only trees seemed alive.
Been listening to the same wrong chorus
For so much of my life.
So many beginnings
that ended the same,
all lightning and thunder.
Only You knew what I needed
The cooling fingers of rain.
Chorus:
Still hard to hold it together.
There's still blood at the seams.
But now when I need a blanket.
I got you, covering me.
The first time I saw you
.Sweet Jesus.
Your arms were bare.
Your eyes a storm warning.
Your song of black hair.
You reached back in your pocket.
Your fingers fit tight.
I watched you mess
with your bike helmet.
Till the chin strap fit right.
( You slipped off your back pack. Then something I always like. You
Took out and put on your helmet. Before you got on your bike. )
Hard to hold it together
Down deep it's still the same me
But now when I need a blanket
I got you, covering me.
Picnic on the mountain.
Your mouth. Hair. The sky.
You broke out laughing.
Felt like A full minute.
You wouldn’t say why.
I had to run to stay with you.
So strong. But So light.
You’d cross out in your bible,
lines you said God
Didn't writ
Before I met you
no sea, no sky
Moving lips lying
Itchy woollen ties
So many beginnings
That ended the same,
all lightning and thunder.
Only You knew what I needed,
The cooling fingers of rain.
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11. |
Rapture
03:57
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Journey down to the bottom
There's always a deeper hole
Hopeful thing he’s harboring
He believes
He's got soul
Lord the landscapes littered
Man the mess he made
He don't think of running
But he's thinking of escape
Warped floorboards and the good book
Fruit jar of gin
All around far off sounds
Folks out there rapturing
Beautiful bull strong human
Till something snapped inside
Bent Frame Swaying
Broken circus ride
Blues bars blues singers
It don't mean a thing to me
Your truck broke down or some woman
Go ahead make up anything
He grabs hold of both canes
Presses up on those things
He stands. Bellow breathing
Listening
Scrub oak and sun baked cedar
Twisted like an old man’s hands
One lucky break, and he scraped together
Enough to get that land
No oil, no water. Dark echoing well. (Hand dug empty well. )
Whiseling wind, he’s listening. For Gabriel.
Journey down to the bottom
There's always a deeper hole
The hopeful thing he's harboring
he believes. he's got soul.
Lord the landscapes littered
Man the mess he made
No way he's running
he's planning his escape
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12. |
Hard To Let Go
03:50
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(4 measure intro)
verse:
Do you remember Dotty
She had all those freckles
You remember Marty
That hole in his throat
I’m taking his teachings
Out Where secret beach is
As far as it reaches
As far as it goes
Remember that cottage
We broke in and wrecked it
You went off to college
It’s hard to let go
Chorus:
Remember the feeling
Setting fire to the ceiling
Remember Natchez
Remember that rope
(2 measure turn around)
verse:
Bet you sleep in on Sundays
Bet you Make lots of money
Bet you’re done being funny
Bet you buy the best dope
Remember Marty
Took me down in the Quarry
I’m way beyond worry
That hole in his throat
chorus:
You moved to Cali
don’t know where that is
You never sent me the package
It’s hard to let go
(2 measure turn around)
(verse)
White gospel Sundays
Remember the message
Remember Natchez
You wrote me that poem
I’m taking his teachings
Out Where secret beach is
As far as it reaches
As far as it goes
chorus:
Remember that cottage
We broke in and wrecked it
Remember Natchez
It’s hard to let go
(2 measure turn around)
verse:
Remember Dotty
Had all those Freckles
I sprinkled rose petals
You wrote me that poem
Taking his teachings
Out where Secret Beach is
As far as it reaches
As far as it goes
(quiet chorus)
Storming this morning
I’m letting em all in.
As far as it reaches
As far as it goes
(2 measure turn around)
I’m way beyond worry
The quarry is dirty
If you come you should hurry
If you come come along
It’s hard to let go
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Sean Keel Austin, Texas
Two dinosaurs rusting at roughly the same rate. The left most is UT math professor
Sean Keel. He writes lyric dense folk/country (and sometimes jazz) music both solo, and in collaboration with his family and friends band, Bill The Pony.
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