| BOX OF ROCKS :: Track info and lyrics. | MP3z |
Lyrics completed 5 September 2001, Layton; I thought enough of the potential of this song from my first CD that I set it to new music for this second. I am, frankly, still not satisfied with the total package, but I think I'm done with it for a while. The "episode" depicted is from "Toaster Road," and pertains to a flame that lit, and then went out, at Ricks College in 1977.
Full raging rising moon
Our own private sky
She held me soft and tender,
Whispered lullabies.
She said she loved me, and I saw it in her eyes.
We waltzed into the nighttime
Love called the tune
She held me tight and told me
Forever would be too soon.
Don't ever leave me, you've got me hypnotized.
She wouldn't let me touch her lips
But I swear
that she kissed me with her eyes.
We walked the edge of darkness
Into the light
We talked of dreams and she said
that she just might
Love me forever, and it felt so right.
(Yeah, it felt so right.)
It's silly
but I like to think
that she kissed me with her eyes.
Man she was a number
Eyes of emerald green
Hair that flowed like honey nectar
How could I have foreseen
That we weren't forever—
Was it all a dream?
You told me that you loved me
You said it with your touch.
You spoke the words and you danced the dance,
Would it have been too much?
I'll never know girl,
Because I never got the chance.
It's all I have
So I'll always think
that you kissed me with your eyes...
when you said goodbye.
Written late November, 2002, Layton, Utah. All guitar parts are the Michael Kelly Patriot.
Writing completed 12 October 2002; Layton, Utah; all guitars parts are played on my Yamaha acoustic with the inimitable DeArmond 240 humbucker in the hole. About my wife.
The first night that I met you
was the last peace that I knew.
I couldn't have imagined
what one little kiss would do.
And I still dream about
what we did that night.
I could have lived without you
I could have lived alone
I could have wandered blind and helpless
Like a child without a home.
You walk to me on water
You dance across the sea.
The raging winds mean nothing, baby
next to what you've done to me.
Lady you're a nightmare
Lady you're a dream.
You make me high and you make me crazy
You make me want to scream...
‘Bout what you did last night.
Writing completed 15 November 2002; Layton, Utah; I had the title verse in my mind for some weeks... just blurted it out one day at the office where I earn a paycheck for doing entirely dissimilar things. The rest of the song came in a rush one night at home after discovering a new sound on my Patriot. Laid it down in a couple of hours. All guitars are the Michael Kelly Patriot.
Once I lived so sad and lonely
waiting for the love of my life to appear,
Heart searching for that one and only
good-hearted woman who would share my years.
I rode a thousand highways
living high and low,
Looking for a woman who would come down my way
I went from coast to coast.
You stood there laughing in the morning sun
when I rolled into town like a son of a gun
thinking life was useless and the price too steep
I had a dollar in my pocket and I needed some sleep.
You looked in my direction and I caught your eye
and I said, Lord Almighty, can you tell me why
I gotta drive forever, gotta cross the world
just lookin' for the love of a simple girl?
So I parked my wheels and reached around the back,
I threw on my six-string and I took up the slack.
I played a tune right there, it was a love-sick thing
Then I played another and you started to sing.
Yeah we stood there swaying as the world turned ‘round
then you held me tight when the sun went down.
We kept on dancin' in the full moon light,
yeah we kept on rockin' through that whole darn night.
I found the road to heaven by the light of the moon
I found salvation in a sweet thing not a moment too soon.
Now I thank the lord and my lucky stars
for warm-hearted women and hot guitars.
Yeah, gentle women and mean guitars.
(Soft-bodied women and hard-rock guitars.)
Another road song, both in theme and incipience; completed 29 June 2002 after being launched at the condo in East Canyon, Utah. Like many of my songs, I had some lyric verse in mind, and a divergent guitar phrase kicking around somewhere else until I discovered they fit together. The lyrics were simply poetry at first (to my wife, Cindy). I never thought they would turn into a song.
It's another one of those mornings:
on the road and settling in,
when I think about the days gone by
and the man I could have been.
The blue horizon stretching out there,
the road so firm and true.
The rising sun is like my soul connection
to the things I'll never do.
I could have sailed the open sea
come and go with the morning tide
Made my bed where the warm wind blew,
hit the ground running on the other side.
You found a way to throw your noose around me,
found a way to reel me in.
The day you threw your loving arms around me
you met the man I should have been.
Now that world beyond the far horizon
is a world I'll never see,
the man who thinks he'll leave you cold and lonely
is the man I'll never be.
Writing completed 15 July 2002, Layton, after starting it on a houseboat at Lake Powell. A 1970s' psychadelic-style homage to my wife, Cindy, and the spiritual path and trail markers that we followed.
When I was just a kid
back in ‘73
I took a fling at the Jesus thing,
Try to make a man of me.
I had a preacher offer
to teach me from The Book.
He read the words and he raised his voice
He gave us all The Look.
And somehow
I ended up being here now.
He tried to bathe us all in shame
when he called out Your name
But the words he spoke were all fire and smoke
That fire and brimstone thing.
So I turned to the Buddha
Black Elk and the Tao
on my journey to light, on my road to do right
in my search to find out how.
And somehow
I ended up being here now.
Remember back in seventy-four
when love was in the air? (People can you feel it?)
That bus rolled down (Love is in the air.)
To Summertown
and we almost rode it there.
We tried to stop a war
We tried to change the world
But the world was nuts
and so we skipped the bus
And kept looking for Forever More.
And somehow
We ended up being here now.
And somehow
We ended up being here now.
And somehow, baby...
We ended up being here now.
Begun 19 October 2002 at two in the morning, Layton, Utah. Woke up with the opening lyrics, the tune, and the tone of the piece in my head. Completed it the next morning (probably called in sick to do so). A weird, dark vision of the "wages of sin" being death, so I suppose I can say it's the most "spiritual" of any song on this CD. The rattle-chug near the end is a little wooden box of rocks.
Caught a ride on the midnight train,
take me home to see my kin.
Never thought it would be my last
to reminisce in the world of men.
We started out rolling slow and lonely
not a cloud blew ‘cross the sky.
Not a sound but the lonesome droning
of the wheels beneath my ride.
I stood right there and I looked around
at the faces in the night:
a dozen people looking cold and lonely
in the pale insipid light.
I asked a man, "Can I sit right here?"
And I swear I saw my breath
I felt the cold as he looked right through me
with the frozen face of death.
I took my place and I closed my eyes
A thing I never should have done
That was the last breath I ever took
in my short life on the run.
I saw the faces of a thousand people,
most I never cared to know their name,
Come and go in a thousand places
as I went about my game.
I took advantage and I smoked a few
as I lived above the law.
I always figured that no one knew
Now it appears that I lost the draw.
So long to all the folks I knew
So long to the sun and rain
So long I'll be doomed to ride
this cold damned Midnight Train.
I never took this road before
can you tell me where it leads?
I got a feeling creeping over me
tells me I will never leave.
You made your choice, man, you bought your ticket
and now you get to ride.
The Midnight Train ain't no train to glory:
you're on the rails to hell tonight.
Can't you see through the purple haze
the end of all your days?
Stay away from this train of misery
with all her gold and purple lace.
She leaves a hole in the midnight sky
as she rolls at hell's own pace.
I wave goodbye and I close my eyes
then disappear without a trace.
Completed 14 August 2002, Layton, Utah; the lyrics were written entirely as an excuse for the guitar parts, which I'd been slingin' around for several weeks. This song is recorded entirely with the Yamaha acoustic, dressed to kill with the DeArmond humbucker— kicks the Les Paul's booty.
Just sittin' alone, playin a tune
mama walked into my room
Said, son you know you got to turn it down
afore you wake the whole darn town.
And I said yeah
I can but don't want to.
I love ya mama
and I can but don't want to.
I get your drift
and I can but don't want to.
I said yeah:
I can but I want to rock.
There was a look of fright written across her face
She said son you gonna break the place.
I fear my lad you gonna wake the dead,
But short of that you gonna break my head!
And I said oh my
I can but don't want to.
I cannot lie
I can but don't want to
I think you'll live,
and get along if you want to.
Yeah yeah yeah:
I can, but I want to rock!
Don't have a clue when I first started playing this one... probably in Utah in the mid-1990s. Never had a name until my second daughter/fourth child, Jillian Suzann, started coming into the room to listen every time I played it.
Discovered this one 19 October 2003, Layton, Utah after putting on some new Martin SP strings just as I was wrapping up this CD. I'm playing the Yamaha fretted up a few notches. The title, which you'll have to look up on your own, describes the overall creative process that drove this entire CD. I'll likely re-work this one into a longer song for a future CD.
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