Songs I Wrote While an Alien Took Over My Brain

I don’t know who inhabited me for the length of time required to write and record this song, but I don’t think I’d befriend him. I don’t know any felons, though I do have some questions about a number of people I’ve had to work with, especially at the more respectable places where I’ve been employed. I’ll say only this: after a few weeks dealing with the higher-ups in the education biz, I came to realize that bar owners, and their clientele, are genteel.

Sky this morning
first of my warnings
trouble soon be mine
Black crows calling
their shadows falling
just another sign

Ch.
River keep on flowing
flowing to the sea
Dark clouds rumbling
somebody’s numbering me
someone’s numbering me

Can’t sleep for dreaming
deep in the evening
sirens cut the night
Back of the pool hall
scratch on the eight-ball
I hear the flashing of knives

Ch.

Searchlights sweeping
secrets keeping
shot between the stars
Down in the prison
there’s people listening
two hands through the bars

Ch.

If I write a tune that really should be sung by a cad, I selflessly adopt that persona–painful and foreign as it is–to come up with a lyric for it. Musicians must suffer for their art, and after we’ve made that sacrifice, it’s only fair that you should have to squirm, too.

For the record, I have far too much respect for women to accuse one of snoring “like the devil playing tenor kazoo,” and I don’t blame my bedmate for loudly objecting to this line, or for taking it personally, or for protesting–methinks, too much–, but that’s just my opinion.

Had me a gal down the Delta
and I liked her just fine
wished I could stay, but I smelt
another fish on the line

Had me a gal down in ‘Bama
called me “sweet daddy mine,”
anyone thinks I’m her papa
ain’t no mama of mine

Let her go,
wish her gone and goodbye
let her go,
let somebody else cry.

Had me a gal low and level
from up Kalamazoo
woman could snore like the devil
playing tenor kazoo

Had me a gal
where she come from
she would never quite say
didn’t know how I could thumb myself
the opposite way

Got me a four-barrel Chevy
she sits low to the road
never could haul nothin’ heavy
she won’t tote no wide load

This just isn’t my kind of song at all, I thought. But the melody kept bothering me, so I wrote words to it to shut it up. And in spite, I went one better than the old “dream within a dream” routine. I made it a triple.

If you’ve never had a dream within a dream, and you’re curious about what psychosis feels like, I recommend having one. I did, and it nearly drove me over the edge. I was dreaming I was smoking a cigar. I awoke, thought, “How odd. I haven’t smoked one of those in thirty years.” I shuffled into the bathroom, looked into the mirror, and saw I had a cigar in my mouth. I ran around the house screaming, frantic, until I awoke from the dream in which I’d awakened to see the cigar in my mouth. It happened just like on the old Dick van Dyke Show, in which he thought his head had turned to a head of lettuce.

Seems like memories
are all you can keep
I put them in a box
next to regrets
can’t get them off my mind
they’re with me all the time
in dreams
and in dreams of a dream

Someone once told me
go on and cry
it’s good to weep
Seems like that’s all
I can do
I take my tears to bed
memories still fill my head
in dreams
and in dreams of a dream

I feel like an ocean breaking
deep, so deep
crashing just
to ease my worried mind
rolling and thundering
can’t shake what’s troubling
my dreams
and my dreams of a dream

About the only element in this song that has anything to do with me, as I know me, is the business about the factory. I did work in one, briefly. The rest, I don’t know where it came from. Is there a town named Dawson? I’ve never heard of one. If you’re the kind of person who likes being in control, don’t write songs. They won’t listen to reason.

It took me a while to muster the courage to play this for anyone. I thought if people heard it they’d want to Superglue their fingers into bowling ball holes and jump in a river. Turns out my friends really liked it. It grew on me, too. But I’m glad I don’t own a bowling ball any longer.

After I thought about it for a while, though, it did strike me that I’ve often noticed how people just don’t like to ask for help, how we fear putting others out. Crazy. Nothing in the world makes us feel better than helping others, and when it comes time for us to give that blessing to someone by asking for help, we balk. Is there another species as nuts as we are? I don’t think so.

Climbed the stairs
she met me on the landing
apron strings all hanging down behind
said she’d gotten some sad news from Dawson
Didn’t have to tell me
I knew all the signs

Last I’d seen her
we both worked the factory
breathing dust but we were scraping by
at least I didn’t have a baby nursing
I was aching lonely
but free to fly

Tiny kitchen
yellow curtains
wooden cross she hung above the door
The only flowers you could see were fading
worn down daisy pattern
on a worn-out floor

Tell them all
I don’t want no pity
Me and Billy gonna do just fine
But won’t you stay here with me just an hour
I don’t want nobody else
to see me cry

Last I seen her
she stood on the landing saying
ain’t it something you’re my only friend
But don’t you worry I ain’t finished fighting
sorry for the trouble
I won’t ask again

I played this for a friend who promptly praised the Lord that I’d been redeemed.  I had to tell her that, as it applies to me, redeemed should be thought of as in the sense of being cashed-in, usually.  God is as mysterious as everything else: perfectly so.   I try to leave it at that, to avoid arguments, but I made an exception in this case.  Heaven knows why.

There’s signs along the roadside
pointing every which-a-way
and everybody that you meet
has something else to say
Someone knows the road to take
and just what you should say
Lift up your eyes, lift up your heart,
meet him halfway

They are the poor ones
with money on their hands
and crystal on their table
in castles built on sand
But for the gifts of heaven
there is no price to pay
Lift up your eyes, lift up your heart
meet him halfway

He’ll doubt the one who doubts him
he’s just a man that way
and those who will not follow him
will lead themselves astray
Bt if you’ll walk just half a mile
he will meet you halfway
Lift up your eyes, lift up your heart
meet him halfway

I hold with those poets who say that the only correct way to write is to get out of the way and let whatever comes come.  That works sometimes.  I don’t know what this song means, but it haunted me until I copied it down right.

Saw you just today
You were like a face I’ve seen in a mirror
I didn’t know what to say
no one knows how to talk to a stranger

Heaven send down the rain
start all over again
Take your share of the blame
you left your children alone
on a midnight train
on a midnight train

Haven’t got a dime
no one’s got change for change
of a dollar
We talk in pantomime
we talk like phantom winds down a hollow

Heaven send down the rain
start all over again
Take your share of the blame
you left your children alone
on a midnight train
on a midnight train

Here, the spirit of a blues singer briefly commandeers my brain and forces my hands to play in unfamiliar ways.  I still don’t know how I did that.  This is what Robert Johnson would have sounded like if he’d been Jewish.

What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
When you was thirsty
bought you some wine
drunk it all
and most of mine
alligator wallet I bought you
getting mighty slim
you been sneakin with
some other gator way down low
now you say you gonna go
What’s your reason
Tell me please, I got to know

What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
Your best friend told me
you gonna walk
I thought that woman
nothin but talk
but I got eyeballs
been pokin around
and I got earballs
keepin them to the ground
now I know you gonna go
What’s your reason
Tell me please, I got to know

What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
You smooth and greasy
you rattlesnake
you took your papa
then done took the take
I never noticed your skinny hide
I been too busy
bein took for a ride

What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
What you mean
What you mean you gonna go?
Now it’s a perfect pity
perfect shame
I ain’t perfect
but I ain’t to blame
I ain’t religious
but I know what to do
I got ten commandments
you only got one or two

I’ve intercepted other people’s dreams from time to time. Once, I had one that was clearly intended to occur to about a five year-old Eskimo girl. So I’m not surprised when a muse dials a wrong number and leaves something incomprehensible on my answering machine. This song is one of those. I don’t wear my trousers tight enough to pull it off. It’s about defiance, I think, though it adroitly defies comprehension. Don’t ask me, I just wrote it down, I didn’t write it.

New moon hanging there daring you to dare
too cold to cry too cold to care
too old to roll back up from the bottom of the hill
want to lean my elbows on my woman’s windowsill,
then again, I can’t let them win

Quarter moon hanging there punch you in the face
cartoon clowns running all around the place
holler at the ocean, water in your shoes
ain’t no use, you can’t holler down the blues
then again, you can’t let them win

Half a moon hanging by a little piece of twine
too cold to care too cold to cry
too long to make us wait for the coming of the train
when it comes, we got to sit and wait again
and then again, and then again

Three-quarter moon like a Dixie melody
fatback pappy don’t you slap me on the knee
pardon my grits and pardon my greens
bust my back for a little can of beans
then again, I can’t let them win

Full moon humming like a skeeter in a bog
presto change-o bright green frog
mumbling gumbo crazy in the head
mumbo jumbo nigh on dead
then again, I can’t let them win
ain’t giving in