Tuesday, 21 March 2023

Public land

We grew up on a dead end street out on the edge of town 

We didn’t have much land to call our own 

We had big dreams of the mountains and tall pines 

We needed those wild places we could feel it in our bones 


Every weekend Dad would take us to the forest to roam around 

We learned to hunt and fish just like he had planned 

It was as much a part of us as that house that’s we called home 

I thank god every time I step on public land 


Those hills were like a classroom they taught me all I know 

It wasn’t hard for me to understand 

Leave it better than you found it cause we only get one chance 

We have to be good stewards of the land 


Every weekend Dad would take us to the forest to roam around 

We learned to hunt and fish just like he had planned 

It was as much a part of us as that house that’s we called home 

I thank god every time I step on public land 


Meaning in the Moment

Everything you see is impermanent
Every last star in the firmament
Everyone you love or you ever met
Every single thought running through your head

Every setting sun, every morning mist
All the works of art and the sciences
Every “out of body” experience
Everything you see is impermanent

Try, try, try not to let it throw you
You know you can find
Meaning in the moment
Meaning in the moment

Every sweet song that you ever heard
Each turn of phrase, every perfect word
Every back corner of consciousness
Every single thing is impermanent

Try, try, try not to let it throw you
You know you can find
Meaning in the moment
Meaning in the moment

No one will remember us
When we return to sand and dust
But there’s one thing that you can trust
When you feel all alone
Meaning in the moment 

Sunday, 5 March 2023

Galileo - with a microscope

 (verse - G / C / Bb / F / Gm / G)

Trust yr gut and it will tell you
"Put your love in the ground"
Make amends with inside friends
Help them to feel at home

(chorus - E / C / A)
Galileo
Galileo
Galileo - with a microscope

Wobbling on the pottery wheel
Microbiome from Ma & Pa
Lord of the Flies meets Silent Spring
I'll be glad to wake from this Piscean dream

Galileo
Galileo
Galileo - with a microscope

(bridge - A / A / D / G / D / G / 
Tuned in by choice 
Had I not been in pain
Would I choose the same?
Dr. Natasha 
The worlds that you found
When you looked around
The Universe inside us

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
I've got yr yellow book



LYRICS

Trust your gut and it will tell you
"Put your love in the ground"
Make amends with inside friends
Help them to feel at home

Galileo
Galileo
Galileo - with a microscope

Wobbling on the pottery wheel
Microbiome from Ma & Pa
Lord of the Flies meets Silent Spring
I'll be glad to wake from this Piscean dream

Galileo
Galileo
Galileo - with a microscope

Tuned in by choice
Had I not been in pain
Would I choose the same?
Dr. Natasha
The worlds that you found
When you looked around
The Universe inside us

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
I've got your yellow book

Thursday, 16 February 2023

The new convention

VERSE
Am
A journey into moments
G
A journey out of mind
F
A journey through the possible
Em
Collated and entwined

Telescopic netherworlds
Portals into space
Hyperplexic Ferris wheels
Cut up and replaced

CHORUS
F                               C
Welcome to the new invention 
G                                        F
Where everyone is an artist - Why would anyone disagree?

It's dark inside the great convention
Exhibitors are reminded to be uniformly free

VERSE
Pixelated prophecies
Prompted into being
Will we ever be able to
Believe in what we're seeing

Artistic instability
Call it what you will
It comes without a warranty
And this is not a drill

CHORUS




LYRICS

A journey into moments
A journey out of mind
A journey through the possible
Collated and entwined

Telescopic netherworlds
Portals into space
Hyperplexic Ferris wheels
Cut up and replaced

Welcome to the new invention 
Where everyone is an artist - Why would anyone disagree?

It's dark inside the great convention
Exhibitors are reminded to be uniformly free

Pixelated prophecies
Prompted into being
Will we ever be able to
Believe in what we're seeing

Artistic instability
Call it what you will
It comes without a warranty
And this is not a drill

Welcome to the new invention 
Where everyone is an artist - Why would anyone disagree?

It's dark inside the great convention
Exhibitors are reminded to be uniformly free






VERSE

Gaudi employed everywhere
Buildings that you drink
See your world as psychedelic
Or etched in pen and ink

A self-curated comedy
Or an open-source asylum?
No a digital dystopia
My poor poetic Byron

Democratised - homogenised
It's spherical despair
Comfortably curled up inside
An avocado chair

Pixelated prophecies
Prompted into being
Outsourcing imagination
Believe in what we're seeing

Artistic insecurities
Melovolently mined
All this time a filter setting?
How awfully unkind

Thursday, 9 February 2023

Two Cokes for Paul Nelson

Two Cokes for Paul Nelson
(Murphy / Lethem / Stratford
These are the elements of a verse
Sherman cigarettes - but it gets worse
Footprints on the running board of his wall
And by the way his name was Paul
And let’s not talk of his fall … just yet

Oh starved to death – that’s what the tabloids say
But you know - I don’t see it that way
In fact for me - the opposite is true
Paul was a glutton for everything he loved and knew
From Orson Welles, Ross Macdonald, Howard Hawks, Raymond C, Chet B, PKD, and
Warren Z … oh The New York Dolls and me

So let’s take a seat at the Jackson Hole
Let’s raise two cokes and toast his soul
The soul of a man - our friend
Paul Nelson – Paul Nelson

A magnum forty-five and a snub-nose thirty-eight
But books can kill if you can’t get them straight
A paragraph, a sentence, to a starving mind
Some die for want of an opening line
Life on a shrinking editorial island
Paul couldn’t lie, he couldn’t lie

Hey Rod Stewart - bashed out on a lark
Typing as fast as Lester Bangs could bark
Paul the quiet man, living in a borrowed head
An enabler who couldn’t get out of bed
Marathon man in a hamburger booth
He told the truth, he told the truth - that’s Paul

Let’s take a seat at the Jackson Hole
Let’s raise two cokes to toast his soul
The soul of a man - our friend
Paul Nelson – Paul Nelson

Abiding mentor, with a guiding mind
Freeze-frame, isolate the details, and then rewind
A stickler for the director’s cut
His own mis-en-scene, he fell into a rut
Scraps on the cutting-room floor
Shut the door, shut the door, shut the door

Now somehow he lost his way and that’s a pity
But in the words of Norma Desmond
The movies got small not Paul not Paul not Paul not Paul

A drink at the Jackson Hole
Two cokes oh let’s toast his soul
The soul of a man
Our dear friend
Paul Nelson – Paul Nelson

The older you get, the more you live with ghosts
And that’s according to Nick Tosches
who’s now among them
And Paul …

Tuesday, 7 February 2023

Lagom

Strip the leaves
And pick out the flowers
Toast the seeds
And harness the flesh

May your cupboard
Be abundant with
Flavours and colours
And the produce you buy
Be exactly what you need

Not too much, Not too little,
Just right, Just right, Just right

No life is linear
All days are adventures
To enjoy or endure
And all food still matures
Without you in mind

One day you want pizza
The next you want pie
It’s kind of easy
If you eat what you buy

Not too much, Not too little,
Just right, Just right, Just right
Not too much, Not too little,
Just right, Just right, Just right

Wednesday, 1 February 2023

Always gonna be the same

I could spin a story that would make you freak
But I’m not thinking of ways to manipulate you - I don’t hate you
I just want you to enjoy your life
And I hope you’re a really good potato - Kato

I don’t wanna live in a stupid world
I don’t wanna live under their control
I don’t wanna buy all their useless shit
That should just be thrown in a giant pit
I don’t wanna be hooked on all these drugs
Pushed to fund someone's expensive rugs
I just wanna live and have some fun
I don’t need to feel like I have won

Cuz it’s gross
They’re lying to our faces

It’s a show
They stripped away their regulations

What we don’t know
Is that they multiplied their operations

So if we don’t vote
Then its always gonna be the same

Someone’s gotta play the adult in the room - with a broom
We can’t let these greedy fuckers take another dime - waste of time

I would rather be out on vacation - in another nation

But we seem to be living with some bad potatoes - Kato

I don’t wanna live in their stupid world
I don’t wanna live under their control
I don’t wanna buy all this useless shit
That should just be thrown in a giant pit
I don’t wanna be hooked on all their drugs
Pushed to fund someone's expensive rugs
I just wanna help out my fellow man
Any fucking way that I can

Cuz it’s gross
They’re lying to our faces

And it’s low
They bought a house with our donations

What we don’t know
Is that they buried all the allegations

So if we don’t vote
Then its always gonna be the same

Tuesday, 3 January 2023

Miracles

I saw Jesus in a parking lot
he said to give the world what I got
but nobody believed me
yeah they said I was crazy

and now it's gonna turn me to stone
like milk for the baby that never came home
it's the saddest thing that I've ever known
and can't nobody save me

Sometimes the heart breaks
just like an egg hatches
tiny and barely breathing
hungry for some meaning

Sometimes the world laughs
just trying to hold the tears back
sometimes we're lonely
sometimes we're only dreaming

We were short on miracles
Guess they needed them for the war
so we said "we don't believe in miracles anymore"
but I don't wanna be scared to love
I don't wanna be scared to hope
I don't wanna be scared to call out just cause there might be no answer

She misses her brother today
asks me why he went away
I say "honey, it's beyond me"

I been trying to wrap my head around the whole damn thing
trying to find the truth, trying to make it sing
sometimes the truth just seems so ugly

We were short on miracles
Guess they needed them for the war
so we said "we don't believe in miracles anymore"
but I don't wanna be scared to love
I don't wanna be scared to hope
I don't wanna be scared to call out just cause there might be no answer

Sunday, 1 January 2023

Bravery will be the first freedom

The first freedom will be bravery
To free you from mental slavery
To free an aspirant from fakery
Discoloured outlook whenever he
Allows fear accumulating fatally
Whether petty or potent unsavoury
The first freedom will be bravery

Bravery will be the first freedom
There's no need to fear another man when you see him
If you abide by the unchangeable laws you will lead them
Fear will be burnt in the enlightenment that will come
Cos bravery will be the first freedom

This is the freedom that comes first
Cos in strange fears we're immersed
Imprisoning our actions, outlook, mind and at worst
Our psychic abilities are submersed
Fears a weapon which we're coerced
But dark forces who are well-versed
And making pawns and the culture cursed
Break by delving deep into what's submerged
Headfirst into the inversed
The dormant powers from which you're inversed
Breakaway with a cloud burst
Render this weapon useless
Dawn enlightenment like a sunburst
But freedom must come first

Study fear for what it is
Cold analysis
Without emotion study this
It's a state of mind
You've formulated to bind
Karmically inclined
Environmentally defined
& Outlook designed

Karma you start to leave behind
With a pattern that will mastermind
A completely new life in time

Environment is this point in your lifetime
Out of which you can climb
A changing thing like an enzyme
A thing which is not even real

Outlook is changed by the proper playbook
Make your adherence to the laws consistent
For a stage of enlightenment that is fear-resistant
Change a state of mind in an instant
Good and evil are not co-existent
It's just as easy to have a mind that keeps fear at a distance
As is to have an intrusion that's insistent
Have this outlook; Act this way
And fear becomes non-existent

When fear has been transmuted
Diluted by the fires of applied knowledge
Muted by love
Rooted in wisdom
- with fortitude and bravery

Dispel fear
Go forth and things will be clear
For you on the frontier
Of your evolution

In this light you'll be examined 
Prepare for the exam and
Mastery can be imagined

Know this: terrestrials
These tests were designed by celestials
Experiences that may seem laborious
But are essential
And with bravery you can be victorious
Be brave, not foolish - but brave through wisdom
And your victory will be glorious


Saturday, 10 December 2022

I am solidified

VERSE
Bf              F             D#
There was something I knew I couldn't do
But I just said I'm gonna do it anyway

Screaming out 'my God, this isn't fair'
I had to bear, what I couldn't bear

              F
But I go tough, by saying - "I am enough"

CHORUS
            Bf
I am solidified
             F
I am a whole 
                  D#
A bundle of damage and crashes and hardships I've seen
F
Wrapped in one beautiful soul

I am a solid
I am a mass
Containing the failings and scrapings of so many scenes
A mishmash of shyness and sass

VERSE
Fear was a story that I told myself
What got me through was cultivated courage

Now I'm feeling universally known
I can be a little less alone

Cos I go tough
By saying - "I am enough"

CHORUS




Peace is a serious matter

VERSE
Build peer-to-peer propaganda
Techno-feudalists position for mate
The social media memoranda
Hypnotize to a suggestible state

Reaching peak psychological dysfunction
Going down an infinite scroll
Pulled out with intentional suction
No self-control 

CHORUS
Son rise become all that you're meant to be
Son rise over everything and be free

VERSE
Queuing up for micro-targetted rapture
Enjoy the pleasure of the new world order
Addicted to attentional capture
A self-diagnosed disorder

Overcoming the shocks of existence
Che Guevara's in the shopping mall
Hendrix plays Star Spangled Resistance
Slowly we fall

CHORUS
Son rise become all that you're meant to be
Son rise over everything and be free


LYRICS:
Build peer-to-peer propaganda
Techno-feudalists position for mate
The social media memoranda
Hypnotize to a suggestible state

Reaching peak psychological dysfunction
Going down an infinite scroll
Pulled out with intentional suction
No self-control 

Son rise become all that you're meant to be
Son rise over everything and be free

Queuing up for micro-targetted rapture
Enjoy the pleasure of the new world order
Addicted to attentional capture
A self-diagnosed disorder

Overcoming the shocks of existence
Che Guevara's in the shopping mall
Hendrix plays Star Spangled Resistance
Slowly we fall

Son rise become all that you're meant to be
Son rise over everything and be free








Launch intercontinental assistance

Part of the techno-feudalists planner
Hypnotized into a suggestible state
On the Fentanyl of social media
By techno-feudalists positioning for mate
Hyper-agents in a tragic comedia

Seeing death as a problem to solve

Individual difference dissolve


We have art as the antidote
Heal attention and lift up the veil
Rewrite the laws and embrace the vote
Through art existing exponentially


Monday, 5 December 2022

Where Eagles Live

We can’t soar above this
Or migrate away
Just leaden on the land without wings

We’re deafened and deceived
An outcome out of sight
Lost without non-human rights?

Oh where the eagles live
Over the rim of a far long cliff

Where I lay on my belly and look over the edge
So I could get a glimpse of what eagles have
So I could get a glimpse inside an eagle’s head

I wish I could get up there
Glide through the sky
As chaos plays out on the ground

Where money does the talking
But could it be contrite?
Can it say non-human rights?

Oh where the eagles live
Over the rim of a far long cliff
Where I lay on my belly and look over the edge
So I could get a glimpse of what eagles have
So I could get a glimpse inside an eagle’s head

It’s more than philosophical
An upgrade for us all
Replace positions we’ve been claiming for so long

It’s a necessary call
An unexpected rule of law
And change the patterns that would otherwise go on

Oh where the eagles live
Over the rim of a far long cliff
Where I lay on my belly and look over the edge
So I could get a glimpse of what eagles have
So I could get a glimpse inside an eagle’s head

Saturday, 3 December 2022

Bring Forth What Is Within You

(Capo 6th - chord shapes)

CHORUS 
G
Bring forth what is within you
Em
Forth and it will save you
C
Let the line outshine the dark
D
That which is the divine spark

Bring forth what is within you
Or it will destroy you
Break you down, then build back up
'Til the lesson learnt has stuck

VERSE (Same chords)
Unbearable grief
Apportioned blame
Furrowed heads
Hung in shame

The reality
Of the unseen
An enigma to us
Inside a dream

CHORUS

Wednesday, 23 November 2022

The Meaning in the Moment

VERSE
                                       F
Finding meaning in the moment
                                      C
Appreciate the time we have
                                    Bf
Try communing with creator
                                            C
Instead of drowning in the data
                                            F
Find the meaning in the moment
 
Read the Denial of Death
Accept your own mortality
Perfect the art of passing on
Sound like a princess dying young
Read the Denial of Death

CHORUS
Dm                         Am
In the solace of solitude
C                     
The space there to create
Bf
Inside the flow state

In the lineup of molecules
Some meaning in the strife
The unhealthy pace of life

VERSE
For an assertion of self
We compile our poetry
Like the ageing fading star
Thinking more about who we are
For an assertion of self

On recovery from success
Adjusting to the valley
Oh God how I miss them
glimpses of magic realism
On recovery from success

CHORUS



Thursday, 17 November 2022

The Ghost of Paul Nelson

VERSE
Dm
It started as a rumour
A whisper went around
G
Then sightings started happening
All over town

In his favourite haunts
Objects were there to find
Ash of Sherman Cigarillos
And some post-its left behind
And---

CHORUS
A7
Two cokes to toast
                              Dm
The ghost of Paul Nelson

VERSE
It was seen wandering on Fenchaw
And the record store on Vine
It ran the New York Marathon
In record-breaking time

At Jackson Hole his table
There was a burger floating there

CHORUS

In the old video store
It was unpacking DVDs
Except now the shop sells lingerie
The manager was peeved

...
...
...
...
And spilt---

VERSE
It was caught smoking in the Brazen Head
And an old lady screamed
And now it's stopping traffic
So the mayor has intervened

Friends gathered for the seance
It's exorcising time
Clint he took a whisky
Bobby wanted wine
And---

CHORUS



Wednesday, 16 November 2022

New convention

VERSE
Democratised - homogonised
An open source asylum
Our self-curated comedy
Just filters to apply

Harmony through discord
Despondently you stare
Comfortably curled up inside
An avocado chair

Digital dystopia
The mind of a machine
A curator or an artist
Or somewhere inbetween

A journey into landscapes
A journey out of mind
A journey through the possible
Unpicked and untied

Telescopic netherworlds
Portals out through space
Hyperplexic terrace wheels
Cut up and replaced

CHORUS
Welcome to the new convention
Where everyone's an artist—don't you dare to disagree

It's dark inside the great convention
Exhibitors are reminded—to be uniformly bold

Journey through the grey convention
Modelled on the best of us—completed by the worst

Play on what they say's convention
Prompted with paranthesis—outsourced imagination

VERSE
See the world as Art Deco
Reinterpret as Picasso

Darth Vader as a Pharoah
Warhol as an Escher

See the world as psychedillic
Or stick to pen and ink
It takes some getting used to
But won't bad as you think

WAITING FOR PROMPT EXAMPLES FROM DAVE

Share our human rights

VERSE
G
Everyone's rapacious 
         C                  G
and everywhere's greed
                                             D
All wanting more than we need

G
People are praying on each other
          C           G
It's a terrible sight
C                        D             G
Then start on non-human rights

VERSE
I can't soar above this
Or migrate away
Stuck on this world here we stay

It's time to think about the others
Take on their fight
What about non-human rights?

BRIDGE
C                          D
I don't want to hog all the freedom
C                      D
Other animals I need them
C                       
Don't give up the fight, look far for long sight
                      D                       G
We need to share our human rights

VERSE
Money does the talking
But what sense does it make
When the only thing it says is take

Its ego is rampant
It's false and contrite
Can you buy non-human rights?

BRIDGE

CHORUS/OUTRO
                            G             Em
Cos we need to share the world
              C                                        D
And ask permission from the others here

We need to share the world
We're not the only creatures here

We need to share the world
Take a philosophical step

We need to share the world
And not all the others forget
   


Thursday, 20 October 2022

Get Free

We’ve been backstabbed betrayed, butchered and splayed
On the altar of “the way it’s always been done.”
It’s American, man, watch the funerals span
The bulk of the calendar year

And you can shake your head say it’s not right
Spend all your nights in electronic fights
But you know in the end, there’s no way to defend
The way we do nothing at all

When waking up is a trauma and hellos turns to drama
You disassociate from every nuclear thought
Total lack of conviction with a bullshit addiction
It’s enough to forget all we’ve got

And all we’ve got could someday be enough
A spiritual world where we lean into love
Well hey I get it man, you’re not sure of the plan
As you harangue me holding a beer

What if the best in us was on the cusp
Of true manifestation?
Could we take the leap into the deep
And find that the softest landing?

And besides  
What have we got to lose?
If we could stay like this or get better,
What would you choose?

I just want my friends to get free
I just want my love to get free
I just want the pained to get free
I just want you to get free
I just wanna get free  
Come on let’s all get free

 

Wednesday, 5 October 2022

The more I love

VERSE

(Singer 1)

G

I was "get me mine"

C

I was "each for his own"

I was out for myself

D

I was all alone


I was self-absorbed

Self-obsessed

Self-contained

In a selfish net


BRIDGE

C D

Until one fine day, I believed


CHORUS

G

That the more I love

C

The more I live

G

The more I give

D

The more I grow


VERSE

(Singer 2)

Well it's one big picture

And there's one pot of paint

And we're all these little brushes

And we're making something great


Everyones' their part

And they're part of the whole

Step back and look

At one big beautiful soul


BRIDGE + CHORUS

Cos one fine day I believed


VERSE

(Singer 1)

Em

My goal in life

Am

Was to satisfy my needs

Em

Only then I could be happy

D

Or so I believed


For years I did everything

My little heart desired

But the more I fed the flames

The bigger grew the fires


BRIDGE

Til' one fine day I believed


CHORUS (Instrumental)


VERSE (Strummed)

(Singer 3)

Only when the hungry get fed

Will I feel full

When the sick get better 

Will I be well


(Singer 4)

My country's at war

so I can't be at peace

Once they cut up all the weapons

I will feel release


BRIDGE

One fine day I believe

MIDDLE

(Singer 3)

Em

Service is love

Am

Put in action

Em

Enough is enough

F D

Paint your way to paradise


CHORUS

Cos the more I love

The more I live

The more I give

The more I get


The more I serve

The more I grow

The more I sow

The more I reap


Cos the more I love

The more I live

The more I give

The more I get


VERSE (Strummed/Spoken)

(Singer 2)

I've painted moonlit panoramas

And a heavenly sunrise

But the light I've yet to capture

Is in a child's eyes


When they see they can do something

And they start to dream

And the world's a better place

With self-esteem




EXTRA

VERSE



BRIDGE + CHORUS



I used to play for myself

Now I'm the drummer in a band

I bring everyone together

With the rhythm in my hands


And I've got a purpose

A place in the world

And it's the greatest feeling

That I ever had