Tag Archives: lyrics

“Vanessa of the B Line” (lyrics, alt 2)

Not the B-Line (but that’s not the point)

V.1

I’ve heard that pretty girls

don’t rides buses

but here you are

in Fluevogs and glasses

V.2

You seem to notice that

i’m already schemeing

about English Bay fireworks

and Kitsilano dreaming

Note, I carry a monthly pass (well at the time of this writing) so I didn’t really need a token but you know, doesn’t really matter after all does it?

C.1

Already i call you

sweet Vanessa of B-line

Before my stop on Cambie

I’m gonna ring the bell

and ask your real name

B.1

You and me it’s agreed

already have a history

set in fast-forward speed

i’m already collecting

our future unspoken

just give in quickly

before i need a new token

V.3

I’ll write my Twitter

on the back of the Buzzer

cause i wanna follow you

in all sorts of ways

V.4

You’re looking so smart

but I’m too shy to stare

tugging your ponytail

and reading Baudelaire

V.5

On the back of my ticket

I’ll pass you a note

get off at the Seabus

run away to Deep cove

Refrain

Vanessa act quick now

we’re almost passed the street

i’ll too nervous to tell you

that i think you are

sweet Vanessa of the the b-line …

This is also not the B-Line bus but still beside the point

Hey Cam, its your 50th birthday

Cam’s 50th birthday video with ukulele

My pal Cameron Uganec of Lynn Valley hit 50 so i made a spoken-song-arts-and-crafts-thing / its not long because he suggests “brevity is key” so i tried to not ramble on as per usual – making a “Ramones-sized song”.

Sharing here so i remember the fun making this for a great pal including: my Mom’s heavy duty pinking shears; Dymo labeller; scribbling “lyric and chord” writing; and a pink insta-camera + mighty hat a’la Richard Brautigan (made in Utah), and a Royal Stewart tartan jacket.

Thanks for being a top-notch gent Cam (and always driving and getting coffee etc).

You, Me & the Algorithm

Just wrote a “song” (more of a sprechgesang) – working title: You, Me & the Algorithm (trying to figure out nuclear fission) for the album called “Poste Restante” (or maybe “General Delivery” so dont hafta explain.)

As usual, its Dylan-esque– not in its quality per se but rather because it has like 14 verses, 3 bridges and maybe a chorus, or maybe 13 of those. I’m not sure but either way, I’ve got to figure out how these chord progressions work :) ive got a G C E Am kinda F & D & Gdm (or is it 7th?).

Then i can perform on this lovely “stage” (which is where the now-deprecated pool oasis was before typhoon) for audience of the wild boar living in the bamboo forest and possibly Ichiro, and you if i can track down the tripod. Bring your own lawnchair. Hot water provided for tea.

Then again, might just get lost in the notebook or maybe transcribed and posted in the “old man punk” category of my web archive waiting on someone who knows all the chords to make all song-ish. Who’s to say?

I just write the lines about “Columbus BJ Honeycutt hams” plus something about Plato & Leonard laying it down &/or Zeus & Buddha on a Pan Am flight sharing pack of Salema. Isnt that enough? Whew.

Nice bath, good night lovelies.

Robert Hunter rip / Warlocks at Fuji & 72+ is a solid exit

Regarding recently deceased Robert Hunter, so much goodness and inspiration and an unreachable level.

I also feel if one passes without much pain, with most faculties intact, with family/pals at hand and over 72ish, that’s a solid exit. Hunter made 78. Even better with a legacy which will last centuries. My erstwhile doppelgänger member of GD collective as he was the one playing the role i play in my head. 

Here’s the Warlocks of Tokyo singing Robert Hunter’s (and others’) songs. Some translated into Japanese. Ole Hunter didn’t like to change a syllable yet feel he’d dig hearing his loquacious poetry crossing language dogma.

More Robert Hunter

Robert Hunter Gave the Grateful Dead Its Voice
By Nick Paumgarten, New Yorker, October 1, 2019

Hunter was born Robert Burns and had a peripatetic childhood, including some time in a foster home. He took the surname of a stepfather. He had a flirtation, in the sixties, with Scientology and a problem, for a while, with speed. He was a seeker, a restless soul, an outsider. A friend of mine, on hearing of Hunter’s passing, told me that, in some ways, by his reckoning, Hunter had been dead all along. The man seemed to know something about death. After Garcia awoke from his coma, in 1986, Hunter had a new song for him, called “Black Muddy River.” Hunter, who rarely explained where his songs came from, told the writer Steve Silberman, in 1992, that the inspiration for it was his recurring dream of a “black, lusterless, slow-flowing Stygian river. . . . It’s vast and it’s hopeless. It’s death, with the absence of the soul. It’s my horror vision, and when I come out of that dream I do anything I can to counter it.” The lone Grateful Dead hit to come out of the post-coma period was a deceptively jaunty number, composed a half-decade earlier, called “Touch of Grey,” which Hunter worked up while suffering a wicked cocaine hangover. Hunter knew that cocaine was diabolical, and identified its arrival on the scene (around the time he wrote “Black Peter”) as the forbidden fruit to their Eden, but he didn’t always abstain. It may be that some of the wistful we-had-something-special-but-now-it’s-gone undertones of Hunter’s post-sixties songs—the golden-era stuff of “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty,” along with a slew of beloved songs the Dead never recorded in a studio, such as “Tennessee Jed,” “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Ramble On Rose”—owe something to the regret that gnawed at Hunter over the effects of cocaine on the whole enterprise.

Robert Hunter’s Words Helped Bring Life To The Grateful Dead
Piotr Orlov, NPR, September 25, 2019

Grateful Dead’s Robert Hunter on Jerry’s Final Days: ‘We Were Brothers’
The ‘Touch of Grey’ songwriter shares intimate details from the partnership that defined his life: “We were just getting started”
By DAVID BROWNE, Rolling Stone,  MARCH 11, 2015

Rain Man
The visionary wordsmith Robert Hunter takes to the stage.
By John Donohue, The New Yorker, July 14, 2014

“One sunny afternoon in London, in 1970, Hunter wrote the words to three magical Grateful Dead songs, “To Lay Me Down,” “Ripple,” and “Brokedown Palace.” He is a lyricist with few equals, and, together with Jerry Garcia, he conjured up the majority of the Dead’s original songs.”

Dead.net Official Bio

Seeking literary hero to admire? Meet Robert Hunter, primary lyricist for the Grateful Dead, ergo:

Robert Hunter joined the Grateful Dead in the fall of 1967, when he arrived at a rehearsal just in time to write the first verse of the band’s classic “Dark Star.” Though he’d never play onstage, he became not only a genuine band member but its secret Ace in the hole. Though Bob Weir’s words for “The Other One” would endure, most of the band’s early verbal efforts would not; it was Hunter’s work that would elevate their songs from ditties to rich, complete stories set to song. Hunter had fallen into the Dead’s general scene in 1961 when he’d met Garcia in Palo Alto, and he’d played in several of Garcia’s early bluegrass bands. But he’d always thought of himself as a writer — probably a novelist — and it was only in 1967 that he fulfilled his personal destiny, and enriched the Dead’s. He’s gone on to write several books of poetry, and is currently at work on a novel.

Mickey Hart in Rolling Stone

Ballad of Empty / Full

Coarse carbon compresses
to become the finest gems
reflecting entire universes
gracefully from within

Sapphires and rubies
strong, rugged with a gleam
channeled from promised lands
we are the stories we share
tales of love and freedom
wrapped in mystery

The truth is only useful
if it sets others free
Have you ever wondered aloud
how it feels to be
fully empty?

Snowflake Star

Mother often told you
“you’re a shiny,
one -in-a-million
snowflake bright star”
dream of flying high
and you’ll disappear so far

So, go forth seeking,
assemble your dopple-gang
sequestered worldwide
350 in America
and thousands more outside

C:

I’ll take my 1 percent
You get the ninety nine
I roll with the renegades
The wanderers are mine

The ones who floated hidden canyons
and explored a foreign sea
will i find you waiting?
maps in hand, well prepared
to cultivate community

San Francisco Afternoon

Waiting thirteen minutes
for a 2nd rate beer
a Sunday afternoon
In the empty bar
the one with the pretentious name

trying to be too smooth
but i’ll submit to comfort
low-slung leather lounge
glass table top reflection

C:

the menu has martinis
but i am drinking beer
this menu lists tapas
but i am nowhere near
not eating, just drinking
and thinking
somewhere far away from here

thinking on a San Francisco afternoon
finding her walk-up
brick and stone tiny room
redwood walls and Chinese food

somewhere near
the Embarcadero
waiting for red-headed mystery
who i ran from years before

leaving in a hurry
and coming on too soon
admitting that in retrospect
you meant more than i let on

so i continue
waiting vacantly
sipping slowly
and sitting low

the menu has martinis
but i am drinking beer
this menu is listing tapas
but i am nowhere near
hardly can guess where i’m strolling
suppose i am going home

a lost afternoon for me
belatedly exchanged for
the broken heart
i maybe gave you

like that foreign film
where the subtitles might say
i’m erred on a cloudy day
by the well near the olive hill

but really now
if you happened by
i just want an afternoon
of coffee and your tangled sheets

like times before i ventured
drifting literal oceans away
unsure if you even remember
Salt Lake night in the Avenues

climbing oaks and sneaking into
that mansion that’s for sale forever
drinking port wine in the broken attic

or maybe you noticed me out here
peeking through a curtain
hoping to stumble like a coincidence
holding crocuses like missed conceptions
and faltered connections

the menu has martinis
but i am drinking beer
this menu is listing tapas
but i am nowhere near

i am gone elsewhere
somewhere far from you
and here

Good Canadian Kid (for Joe) (alt 2)

C

Right on
That’s cool
A good Canadian kid

Hey yeah
Not too bad
Proud of what he did

V

They named his Ray
born in Thunder bay
back when still called
something else

Tired hard in school
Not that he was a fool
He just didn’t
care that much

But he won 2nd place
In science class
His volcano
was almost best

Played Junior A
But couldn’t go all the way
Just glad he
saved his teeth

He hitchhiked east
half-way at least
almost made it
to Labrador

Though he dug the times
left the Celts behind
and took the
rails far west

With a coffee mug
and pawned guitar
he rarely
missed a fest

Crossed the prairies fast
hit rockies at last
and kept on
rolling to the coast

Grew some grass for friends
and than had to make amends
when the poe-leece
shook him down

3 months forced rest
in suburban house
he was ready
to make a stand

He sat in front of trucks
and sat some more in courts
all for bearing witness
to old trees fallin to ground

Now in these older days
almost twice as wise
and he learned the tools
to change the world

B

Hes got to build a life
to prove it can be done
sharp enough to know
to hang out with the flow
and think how he’s gotta
turn to make life fun
he doesn’t forget
that to make it great
you can’t leave
your clan behind
ya gotta be nice to others
help them from time to time

Lost in New York

Bongo drums and rucksack
LSD walk all night
Turning corners arbitrarily
To bump into strangers apparently

They’re lost too
but refuse to admit
Because they want to act
tough and smart

Name dropping pretences
and shit

“I hitchhiked here”
you explain
Came from west of the Rockies
But Ohio, Utah, Idaho
To them, it’s all the same

Can you name all the bridges
Which allow you to escape?
Up the Hudson Valley, the Hamptons
Or forgotten uncle
Somewhere on a cape

Evidently, a fisherman
you haven’t seen in years
You say to the drag queen
at a loft party over beers

Turned a corner, bump into a dialogue
With David Letterman waiting for a cab
He likes the Dodgers chances this year
You think he invites you along

But turns out he’s talking to a monkey
Talking back to no one
except for a chimpanzee
Waiting for an audition
To play you on TV

Pastrami sandwiches
And streetcart knish
Meatpacking sounds funny
3 AM falafel’s are delicious
Simple things are easier
To make truth and wishes

Hot Dogs and Vodka (alt 2)

V 1

I get three fifty k
to just show up and play
been three weeks since i last scored
and yet i still don’t ask for more

V2

I don’t give a shit
if i even get a hit
cause my agent called me again today
and told the check clears either way

Chorus

Hot dogs and vodka
Wash it down with beer
smokies and caesers
i’ve never been so clear

Hot dogs and vodka
half dozen before each game
gimlets with hoagies
maybe thats why i’m so lame

V3

Sometimes I’ll admit
that i’ve done some crimes
stole a smokie from the cart
at granville street and vine …

Bridge 1

In fact, i’ve thiefed em
a couple dozen times
they hand it over
it just ain’t that hard
i load it with relish
and they ask for my two-nie
and by then and eating my napkin
and my lord i am running
i’m running, running, running …

 

V4

But it really don’t matter
if i get any fatter
i can still sweep the wreckage
from the coliseum aisles

V5

When they came out to scout me
they should’ve looked more closely
and discovered my true ambition
ahh the beers, … they steal all my affection

Bridge 2

Now here i toil
broke, sad and turmoiled
thinking of all the kids i let down
i sweep up your mess
and you can’t hardly guess
that i use to skate on that ice