Bill Kirchen: "Hot Rod Lincoln"

2004 Philadelphia Folk Festival

my pappy said "son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin'
if you don't quit drivin' that hot rod Lincoln"

Tom Russell: "American Rivers"

24th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
Elko, Nevada
February 1, 2008
with Michael Martin (mandolin)

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you­ beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.
--Edward Abbey (1927--1989)

Richie Havens: "What About Me"

1974

you poisoned my sweet water
you cut down my green trees
the food you fed my children
was the cause of their disease
my world is slowly falling down
and the air's not good to breathe
and those of us who care enough
we have to do some deeds
what you gonna do about me?
oh what you gonna do about me?
--quicksilver messenger service

Pentangle: "Willy O'Winsbury"

he's mounted her on a milk-white steed
and himself on a dappled grey
he has made her the lady of as much land
as she shall ride in a long summer's day

Moonshiner

I've been a moonshiner for seventeen long years
I've spent all my money on whiskey and beer
I go to some hollow and set up my still
And if whiskey don't kill me
Then I don't know what will

Joan Baez: "Suzanne"

2000
Festival des Vieilles Charrues, Carhaix, Bretagne, France

Suzanne takes you down
To her place near the river.
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night beside her.
And you know she's half crazy,
But that's why you want to be there.
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her,
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover.

And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you know she will trust you,
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower.
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him,
He said: "All men will be sailors then,
Until the sea shall free them."
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open,
Foresaken, almost human,
He sank beneath your wisdom, like a stone

And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river.
She's wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters.
And the sun pours down like honey
On our Lady of the Harbor.
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed,
There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love,
They will lean that way forever,
While Suzanne holds the mirror.

And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you know you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

--Leonard Cohen

Steve Earle: "Pancho and Lefty"

Waterloo Records,
Austin, Texas
5/18/09

Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene
You weren't your mama's only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams

Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse was fast as polished steel
He wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
In the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
That's the way it goes

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him hang around
Out of kindness I suppose

Lefty can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain't nobody knows

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose

The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he's growing old

A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so long
Out of kindness I suppose

--Townes van Zandt

Grateful Dead: "She Belongs To Me"

she's a hypnotist collector
you are a walking antique