I was eleven years old when I wrote my first song called Sunday Morning Blues. It’s genesis began from nightmares I had as a child. I would wake up in sweats with an intense fear of eternity. What does forever mean? There has to be an end? How can something go on and on forever and never end? Through Sunday school and church I understood that heaven is the soul’s destination after it leaves the body. There in heaven the soul lives for eternity. That whole concept freaked me out? It was far beyond my capacity to comprehend so one morning I wrote down my feelings:
Sunday Morning Blues
Verse 1: Oh please, not here. I’m trapped so young and alone.
Don’t know my own hands. Oh I feel, dead lying … in my naked sweat.
In the distance a white mare coming for me.
No don’t want to go … face eternity … laid back candy-sucking land.
And after that ends comes what? Huh?
CHORUS:
I need to talk about it
Or I’m never never never never gonna figure out it.
All these tests and third degrees
Are giving me the Sunday Morning Blues.
Verse 2: Not now, I don’t need … to wrap myself in a box just to get a bow
Aboard some anchored ship … we’re suppose to sail
Cause somebody’s watching over me,
Lying here … half-conscious to my respects, for you in a dream
Now would all be gone … with somebody here
To quiet me of this damn scare.
Friends, this song was written for and in reflection of my friend Dan who died in a riot in Mogadishu, Somalia in the summer of 1993. Dan was an inspiration of hope to hundreds of people with little hope. Peace.
Desiree’s Seed
Verse 1: Oh. Angel. How can I stand? There’s some who’ve never walked before.
Blind … wasted … are my precious lines when some don’t even get one word.
All marching too … a different beat.
Their song just a little out of key.
We’re all just a friend to their disease. Yeah.
Verse 2: Safe … in your reasoning. You won’t listen, unless to observe your own tongue
So hang me … strike me down! After all, ain’t this hype just a test of nothing?
Courage – a bigger knife … than spirit.
Crazy love – take a dive in the water’s free.
On you stroll past their lives, how you hate to see them. Yeah!
CHORUS:
Will you turn away? Will you turn away? Will you turn you frightened, tight-ass face so you don’t have to see them?
Verse 3: Scared … dying … but what does he care, there’s some who’ve never aged from youth.
It’s the road … that winds him … to the call that brought him there to his knees dying.
On a bed of stones, the dreamer’s waking
In a pool of blood … he looks away
To another world where he see’s God’s face. Yeah!
Bridge: Am I out of place? These prison’s aren’t too far from grace. Oh, no I still believe that – if you take my lucky hand … all I’ve received will go to waste, if it’s not given … away!
I was 21 or so when I wrote this song about a close friend who mine who was addicted to heroin during his sophomore here in college. He conquered his addiction by his junior year and still remains sober still today! Praise God!
Mornie Rivers
Verse 1:
She gave me some time for myself
Heaven’s always been good for my Hell
Smack in the eye of the hurricane
Day and night the spike is in …
Here alone with my shadows
And the walls … I got the sweats
I got the shakes … my skins beginning to crawl
CHORUS:
Sing of Mornie Rivers
Carrying the tune
I wanna free my feelings
Feel the rush – rush now baby!
Tell them all a fever’s … got me running high …
From the hundred hour plane crash from the sky – – –
Verse 2:
Hands and feet up off the floor
Sure feels like they’re dancing more and more
Everybody’s gone and let me down
They’re just jealous cause I’m gonna be a superstar!
I never felt before … till I felt you
I never have a cent … ’cause they’re all spent on you!
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