June 1, 2010

[Every Thing Is Free Now]


All art should be pondered and plundered freely. If you're generous, you'll credit me when appropriating my words or songs (and it seems appropriate). But our system's set up faultily, so artists believe that they have control over their work. 

Truth is this: once you made it, it ain't yours no more: it's ever'body's. You can copyright, trademark, insure, outsource, underwrite, ghostwrite, rewrite, or otherwise fence off your creations all you please, but you won't control 'em. They are free already, born that way in fact.

I want each person's creation to stay as free of restrictions as they wish it to be. Mine's all free. Below is a new song I been workin on and off, now like the man said take it easy, but take it.


'How It's Done'
2010
Raise your glass, n take that sip. As we listen t the trees drip.
Cool as your lover in the timber lets  her suspenders slip.
Home microbrew at the BBQ -- wild salmon on the fire.
Still porchin it at 3:30 in the mornin -- at parties we don't tire.

Independent minds -- skyscapes second to none.
This is Oregon, son, that's how it's done.
Love all kinds of rain --it keeps us so fresh, each mind like the canopy's intricate mesh,
Doug Fir, Hemlock, Cedar and Spruce -- each grow fierce as the downpours sluice.
Sun stays precious cause it shows so rare til the springtime come n the bitties go bare.
Have smoke out on the stoop in the wet fresh air -- revelry in reverence is all my care.
Chorus
We love to float the river with a drink or three, and our lines all out for trout.
You'd think everyone's from New Orleans -- the way we love to wile out.
Cross Columbia's Bar in winds quite brisk, knowin how t savor the bliss of a risk.
Already got what you need -- we show you how to use it,
                                                        with this old time, good time Northwest music.
Chorus
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You may try to look for me in each voice I unfurl.
Remember these are masks I take on only to cast off. 

April 18, 2010

Step Up (Rambler's Blues #73)

Who's singin bout the troubles facing me now?
Who's talkin bout how far we feel from the land?
And who is questioning
     the ways we've settled into?


Who feels the urgency we need
     to stride again toward greater freedoms?
Who is there when all you feel's despair?
     No one but the sources
     that you've stored up in your head.


And who could bear 
     the trips all laid upon you
     without the aid of chemical repair?
Too few, too few--
      I'm strivin to be be one
      how 'bout you?


Where does all this striving lead
     without clear dreams in mind?
Where will I go next when this job
     dries up like all the rest?
I fear it's nowhere
     but my fear don't make me blind/.


I aim to rise by lifting others
     as befits a man possessed.




When your soul's inertia's had
     a chokehold for too long,
and the stillness in the streets
     don't fit the world's upheaval,
I hope you'll speak to me
     of what has blurred your dreams,
And work with me
     on how we gotta combat so much evil.


Now the roiling in me has no mirror
     in the placid land,
the river's wrinkled glass is far
     far off as the wars that we export.
There just ain't a righteous place
     left here to take a stand,
upon the screen the gleeful futurists
     cavort.


Who's crafting words to speak to
     all these swirling times?
Who's writing songs that
     quiver your whole spine?
Who's the fiercest forger
     of a gripping, worthy line?


I'll show you my hand friend,
    just know: What's mine ain't mine.

I aim to give all ways all the time.



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March 26, 2010

Tactical Advantage for the song scrawler.

Write. re
write re
write
Rewrite.

Get it?
Write.