Peace on my mind

I know i am strong With peace by my side The story is power Will truth out in time? This one's for all The shame in our lives I need you to call me by my name I need you to let me be my way The story is power With peace by my side I know I am strong I know i'm alive Time and again Building a bridge Change happens when they hear what we did Build with the pen Building with stone Building with fire Building with bone Burdens are ugly The burden is real I know I am strong I know I will heal I know what I know Change happens this way We work from within It ripples away It ripples away We work from within We all gotta live If you felt under-loved And you're at the edge Call your nephew and niece By the name that they choose Be a sensitive man Put your skill to good use Go write a good book Go write a new song Go practice your love With everyone Make it all real Make it yourself Because you are here And you're nobody else This one's for all The love in your heart I know you are strong As I fall apart' This one's for all With peace by their side With peace in their heart And peace on their mind

Une ville avec un fleuve enterré

Une ville avec un fleuve enterré

Voilà la ville avec un fleuve enterré
Qui coule sous les pavés
Ciel de plomb
Bas en dessous de la place dorée
Bruxelles des années 80
Ma joie et mes remords

Dans le vidéo bar branché où
Sans un sou sur la rue
Des superstars inconnues
En longs manteaux noirs
 
Je suis assis sur une rive lointaine
Savourant ce chagrin ancien
Perdu dans la musique
Déformé par la musique
Posant dans le cimetière
Debout sous la pluie

A city with a buried river
 
Here is the city with a buried river
Which flows under the cobblestones
leaden sky
Down below the golden square
80s Brussels
My joy and my remorse

In the trendy video bar where
Without a penny in the street
Unknown Superstars
In long black coats

I sit on a distant shore
Savoring this ancient sorrow
lost in the music
Distorted by the music
Posing in the cemetery

Standing in the rain 

Dr Harries

Dr Harries I’d invite you to

Hear a song for you that I’ll sing

Though for real I’m shaking in my shoes

At the thought of you listening

Illuminating strands unseen

You helped to open up my mind

And ruminating on everything

You changed the way I look at life

Dr Harries you’re too cool for school

Letting us consume snacks and wine

As you deftly guide us through and through

Concepts fated to blow our minds

A timeless goat song, a rite of spring

At once the sacred and profane

And in the threshold nothing

Can ever truly be the same

Dr Harries I’m inspired by you

All the things you do to make us see

Just how real this life can be in truth 

Makes me glad it’s them, and not me

Recipe for something better

In a cupboard by the larder
I found an ancient book
With recipes and stories
And lots of things to cook

So meet me in the kitchen
We’ll brew some nettle tea
Then put on silly aprons
And get busy, you and me.

I’ll meet you in the kitchen
I’ll meet you where you are
We’ll bake something together
Why stop now, we’ve come this far?

We’ll start with preparations
And gather what we need
Once all is on the table
We’re ready to proceed

A bucket of acceptance
Warmed up by the brew
Sprinkle it with humour
It’s the start of something new

I’ll meet you in the kitchen
I’ll meet you where you are
We’ll bake something together
Why stop now, we’ve come this far?

So, easy on the ego
In fact, just let it be
It does nothing for the flavour
Replace with empathy

Mix up and let it simmer
Don’t burn and don’t reduce
A heart, all charred and scolded  
Is not of any use

I’ll meet you in the kitchen
I’ll meet you where you are
We’ll bake something together
Why stop now, we’ve come this far?

It’s a journey of perfection
The culinary art
Of baking a confection
To heal the human heart

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 

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

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

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 …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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