Folk Queue: July 2012

Sea Child

Jorma Kaukonen/Jack Casady
Sea Child
Sweetwater Music Hall
Mill Valley, CA.
7/30/12

Animal Tracks

Mountain Man*
Animal Tracks
Austin, TX.
3/18/10

AND THE SWEAT
WILL ROLL DOWN OUR BACKS
AND WE'LL FOLLOW
ANIMAL TRACKS
TO A TREE IN THE WOODS
AND A HOLE IN THE LEAVES
WHERE WE'LL SEE
THE BRIGHT BABY EYES
OF A CHICKADEE

* Amelia Meath
Alex Sauser-Monnig
Molly Sarle

This Is England

The Clash: This is England

I hear a gang fight
on a human factory farm
are they howling out
or doing somebody harm?
on a catwalk jungle
somebody grabbed my arm
her voice spoke so cold
it matched the weapon in her palm
this is England
this knife of Sheffield steel
this is England
this is how we feel

ART BY BANKSY

Americana

THOMAS MORAN: THE CHASM

ALBERT BIERSTADT: VIEW OF CHIMNEY ROCK

Neil Young
Americana
6/5/12

oh susannah
clementine
tom dooley
gallows pole
get a job
travel on
high flying bird
jesus' chariot
this land is your land
wayfaring stranger
god save the queen

Fort Worth Blues

Steve Earle/Emmylou Harris
Fort Worth Blues
April 2011

Fort Worth all the neon's burning bright
pretty lights of red and blue
but they shut down all the honky tonks tonight
say a prayer or two, if they only knew
you always said the highway was your home
but we both know that ain't true
it's just the only place a man can go
when he don't know where he's traveling to
Colorado's always clean and healing
in Tennessee the spring is green and cool
but it never really was your kind of town
so you went around with the Fort Worth blues

somewhere out beyond the Great Divide
where the sky is wide and the clouds are few
a man can see his way clear to the light
just hold on tight, that's all you've got to do
they say Texas weather's always changing
one thing change will bring is something new
Houston really ain't that bad of a town
so you hang around with the Fort Worth Blues

there's a full moon above Galway Bay tonight
silver light over green and blue
every place I travel to I find
some kind of sign that you've been through
Amsterdam was always good for grieving
London never fails to leave me blue
Paris never was my kind of town
so I walked around with the Fort Worth blues

--Steve Earle
(for Townes van Zandt)

Ramblin' Jack Rides Again

Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Old City Hall Performing Arts Center
Redding, CA.

10/23/88

friend of the devil
san francisco bay blues
buffalo skinner
don't think twice
south coast
all my trials
talking fishing blues
railroad bill
cool water
me and bobby mcgee
arthritis blues
philadelphia lawyer
salt pork, west virginia
912 greens
if i was a carpenter

Disney's America

I knew Virginia once
she was a pretty girl
she walked in the wild fields
and swam the wild streams
I took her out one day
to the Civil War battlefield
way down in Manassas
where I told her my dreams
but now it's Disney's America
a long way from anywhere
with a brand new coat to wear
with a brand name on the seams
just Disney's America
Virginia, she chose to stay
and we drifted apart
like runoff into the Chesapeake Bay

then I had a family
Virginia, I guess she forgot about me
she lives near the concrete sea
or so people say
I don't remember much
about her gentle touch
my skin just turned so hard
and my feet turned to clay
it was in Disney's America
a long long way from anywhere
you get what you pay for there
man, you get it in spades
just Disney's America
Virginia, she chose to stay
and we drifted apart
like runoff into the Chesapeake Bay

you can't get too excited
you can't get too enthused
from Dismal Land to the Tragic Mountain
we are not amused
yeah I knew Virginia once
she was a pretty thing
she walked in the wild fields
and swam in the wild streams
but now it's Disney's America
that's where we collect our pay
where we drifted apart
like runoff into the Chesapeake Bay
yeah we drifted apart
like runoff into the Chesapeake Bay

--Graham Parker

Roll On Big River

Dailey & Vincent Band
Strawberry Park Bluegrass Festival,
Preston, Conn.
6/2/12

roll on, big river, roll on
don't stop 'til you get to the sea
i'm lonesome, big river
please take me with you
big river, roll on to the sea

Five And A Half Hours Of Orchestra Baobab

If you enjoy
the wonderful music
of Orchestra Baobab
then your cup runneth over.

For everyone else
there is Calming Manatee .

Death Don't Have No Mercy In This Land

Grateful Dead
Death Don't Have No Mercy
San Francisco, CA.
11/2/69

Good Morning Iran

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or where will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for war seem to know who did it or where to look for them.
This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed--for anyone, and certainly not for a baffled little creep like George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it off.
--Hunter S. Thompson

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
--Hunter S. Thompson

Rules For The Cat

In nine lifetimes,
you'll never know
as much about your cat
as your cat knows about you.
-- Michel de Montaigne

Sit Down Young Stranger

Gordon Lightfoot
Sit Down Young Stranger

I'm standing at the doorway
My head bowed in my hands
Not knowing where to sit
Not knowing where I stand
My father looms above me
For him there is no rest
My mother's arms enfold me
And hold me to her breast
They say you've been out wandering
They say you travelled far
Sit down young stranger
And tell us who you are
The room has all gone misty
My thoughts are all in spin
Sit down young stranger
And tell us where you've been
Well, I've been up to the mountain
I've walked down by the sea
I never questioned no one
And no one questioned me
My love was given freely
And oftimes was returned
I never came to borrow
I only came to learn
Sometimes it did get lonely
But it taught me how to cry
And laughter came too easy
For life to pass me by
I never had a dollar
That I didn't earn with pride
'Cause I had a million daydreams
To keep me satisfied
And will you gather daydreams
Or will you gather wealth
How can you find your fortune
When you cannot find yourself?
My mothers eyes grow misty
There's a trembling in her hand
Sit down young stranger
I do not understand
And will you try and tell us
You've been too long at school
That knowledge is not needed
That power does not rule
That war is not the answer
That young men should not die
Sit down young stranger
I wait for your reply
The answer is not easy
For souls are not reborn
To wear the crown of peace
You must wear the crown of thorns
If Jesus had a reason
I'm sure he would not tell
They treated him so badly
How could he wish them well?
The parlor now is empty
There's nothing left to say
My father has departed
My mother's gone to pray
There are rockets in the meadow
And ships out on the sea
The answer's in the forest
Carved upon a tree
John loves Mary
Does anyone love me?