Old song today

There is music that goes with this:

Turn the corner
to a street beyond a map,
walk much further
till our feet forget the path.
We have walked here,
but only in our dreams;
then we wake up
never knowing what it means

Turn the handle,
slide back the creaking door
as I wonder
if you've been here before.
Weathered iron
is rusting in its sleep
as we sit here
in the silence that we keep

In the morning
if the snow has turned to gold
does it matter
in a story never told (2x)

Turn the corner
to a street beyond a map,
walk much further
till our feet forget the path.
We have walked here,
but only in our dreams;
then we wake up
never knowing what it means

In the morning
if the snow has turned to gold
does it matter
in a story never told (4x and fade)

An Old Song

This song was written a long time ago about a friend with whom I had a shy, almost mystical friendship with. In real life, I wouldn't go out with him because there was always a long line of irrational women in front of him, and he had briefly dated all of them. (He was a guitarist). But in my dreams, and occasionally in life, we had great conversations ...

1) 

Turn the corner

to a street beyond a map,

walk much further

till our feet forget the path.

We have walked here

but only in our dreams,

Then we wake up,

Never knowing what it means

2) 

Turn the handle,

slide back the creaking door

while I wonder 

if you've been here before.

Weathered iron

is rusting in its sleep

As we settle

in the silence that we keep.

(CHORUS 2x)

In the morning,

if the snow has turned to gold,

does it matter

to the secrets that we hold 

1), then CHORUS 3-4x and fade

Part 2 of Yesterday's Post: A Song Emerges

I used to be a singer-songwriter before I divorced my guitarist twenty years ago. Not an incredibly good one, because my husky contralto voice wasn't trained or crystal-clear, but good enough for folk music. My ex would write intricate tunes on his guitar in his semi-fingerpicking style, and I'd listen to it, and the conversation would go like this:

Me: I have words that fit with that.
Him: How can you? It's seven-fourths time.
Me: Try me.

Nowadays, we'd say "Hold my beer" instead of "Try me", but this was the early 1990's.

I believe that I posted some of my old lyrics here -- I don't sing those songs now except a cappella, because I didn't get the chords in the divorce, nor did I learn to play guitar. My ex still performs and has CDs out I hear. For any reader who knows him, please tell me if he ever performs the stuff we wrote together, because there are intellectual property issues involved there.

Anyhow, I hadn't written a song since 1997, because even if I had tunes in my head, I would not be able to write them down or play them on a guitar. My voice has become somewhat rusty out of lack of practice and age and the medication I take.

Yesterday, I posted the first song I'd written in maybe 20 years (see the post called "Christmas in a Time of Despots"). It didn't take me long to write because I've been stewing for weeks about our current sociopolitical situation here in America.

On Facebook, I posted the same thing but asked if anyone could come up with the music part. And one of my musical colleagues/friends answered!

Sometime soon I will get with her to play with the music/words and have a song! For the first time in twenty years.

I don't know if you're reading, Mary Shepherd, but thank you!!

Homecoming Day

This is a song I wrote about 20 years ago; I can't write music; I just sing the tune. This was written years after "Empty Gym" but about the same incident, and it is written from the point of view of an older person to an innocent high schooler who doesn't know how bad things can get:

#1
Chicken wire and crepe paper
wrapped around a hayrack
towed behind a pickup
in the Homecoming parade
in a town as small as this one,
maybe smaller,
but that was so long ago,
my distant past,
my childhood a charade

Chorus: (2x)
I had a dream last night
you turned around and asked me why
I wasn't coming home again --
I couldn't tell you.

#2
Traps set in the corners
of the hallway in the high school
Memories like tigers
crouched and ready there to spring
Always tried my best to be invisible
but that was impossible --
a waste of time,
a waste of everything

Chorus

#3
Tried to tell the people
with their eyes glued to the TV set
to look at something else
outside the color of their hate
I was just a child then,
but I wasn't --
I couldn't be --
you can't go back and change my fate.

Chorus and fade...