Thanks for taking a look at my lyrics. The stories in my songs are the most important thing about the music I make. They’ve come from the books I’ve read, the conversations I’ve had, the various landscapes I’ve called home, as well as the folklore that is alive still within them. Although few of these songs stem from personal experience, I hope that I’ve done enough research to allow them to sound authentic. I hope that their stories, although unusual, varied, and perhaps a little-old fashioned, will still resonate in our modern day, and with you, my reader, as well.
winter’s always dark and cold,
but I know, when summer comes
around again, the fishing boats,
will line its shores.
I never had a care,
until the year, I fell in love
With a mainland boy who told me,
I’ll take you far from here,
from Rankin’s shores,
we’ll set our oars, and row away.
He died that winter,
in the logging camps,
laid down in snow.
folks said you can’t presume to
know the will of God, he called him home,
left me.
Winter came in late that year,
still my father kept the lighthouse burning bright.
Like a star above Rankin’s point,
he led the fishing boats,
home to port each night.
He told me count your blessings,
and hold on tight to what can’t change,
here we’ve got the tower’s light,
the season’s turn, and the seals
to sing your lullabies.
And so the years went tripping by like springtime.
I watched my father slowly getting old.
And when he climbed the tower for the last time,
I manned the light alone.
I learned to count my blessings,to hold on tight, to what’s my own,
I’ll always have the tower’s light,
the season’s turn, and the seals to sing my lullabies.
Yes, I’m the star above Rankin’s point each night.
This song is inspired by the short story Island written by Cape Breton author Alistair MacLeod, and is set on Margaree Island, where the light house keeper’s home still stands. An Innis Aigh a lovely Gaelic song inspired by the island, and written by one of its last light house keepers, Angus MacLelland, is one of my favorites to sing.
but it seems I’ve lost the will To walk back home.
Northern winters last too long,
They’re even longer when you sleep alone.
A telegram came late today,
and it seemed to call me back Virginia way.
I would leave, but when I try,
the guiding stars fall straight out of the sky.
Chorus
Momma always told me twice,
to love a man with all your might,
and when it’s time to up and go,
wait to hear the Orange Blossom blow.
I was never one to fuss,
but grief weighs heavy on me like a stone.
The man I love is gone most nights,
and then he brings his rage into our home.
I was young and pretty once,
but now the years lie etched across my face.
I was free and hopeful once,
until the day I bartered all my faith.
Chorus
I remember what it is to love,
but sometimes love won’t do the trick.
I remember who you were to me,
until the whiskey made you sick.
I can’t stick around to see,
another winter come in dark and strong,
Yellow fields and open skies,
it seems I’ve been away from home too long.
Chorus
I learned years ago that there was once a train that traveled between New York and Miama, where passengers could leave the cold of New England to see, days later, the orange trees blooming in the Florida sunshine. This train was the Orange Blossom Special, from which a famous American fiddle tune gets its name. In this song, my narrator sees it as her escape, a return to the warmer, care-free days of her Southern childhood.
I don’t think I’d waste my time,
leading souls up to those starry gates,
my kingdom waits, I’d let the angels lead the line.
I wouldn’t walk on water,
that old parlor tricks been done before,
I’ll wait until the stars shines o’er the Maples,
and the moonbeams light a staircase from the shore.
Chorus
Punish me my father,
send your famines send your plagues,
I’m still waiting for the second coming,
for the flood to cool the fire in my veins.
Turn loose that old donkey,
set it grazing in my neighbor’s fields,
fire up that rusty sky-blue pinto,
let the good intentions roll beneath its wheels.
Chorus
So preach your fire and brimstone,
sin, salvation, either way I lose.
When Jesus took the sins of man,
he left the vessel and I doubt Eve’s paid my dues.
Chorus
This song is inspired by Nikki Giovanni’s poem, Ego Tripping. I enjoyed her re-imagining of the creation of the world from a woman’s perspective, so I thought I might re-tell the Resurrection from my own.
It’s barely morning, but I can feel the break of day,
and nothing safe can stay.
It’s that West Virginia heat.
It creeps in quiet, and then it knocks you off your feet.
‘till the rain comes cool and sweet.
Chorus
I saw the sky fall down up on old briar hill,
the children left their games with no more fancy to roam,
when the lights on the Monongah led them home.
Let’s go walk those empty roads.
Can you hear them? All those wagons rolling by?
They took the reach out of the sky.
Let’s stop working for a day.
Feel the sun again, let the river wash us clean,
of all the coal-dust sweat and dreams.
Chorus
I saw the men one morning leave their memories in the ground.
What’s better left to missing you can never call your own,
when the lights on the Monongah lead you home.
So can you point me to the West?
The trains are quiet now, but we’re still waiting for our pay,
and those who slipped along the way.
And can you take me to my love?
He lay beside me once, but now he sleeps beneath the ground,
over where the mines fell down.
Chorus
I saw the women mourning over by the burial grounds.
They left their children hungry in those shanties all alone,
When the lights on the Monongah led them home.
This song takes its title and inspiration from Appalachian author Louise McNeill’s poem about the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster in West Virginia, an explosion that took the lives of 362 boys and men, many of them recent immigrants to the country.
there’s a standing hollow tree.
A rope they tied to its lowest branch,
when they set my John’s soul free.
The wind blew cold and the people moaned,
when they cut his body down.
I’m just waiting for the next train through,
to take me from this town.
Chorus
And oh, a man will ramble,
what’s a girl to do?
And oh, a man will sin,
But Johnny I’ll be true to you.
Johnny married me in ’29,
and we built a house of pine.
Way up on a mountain’s face,
rolling dice to pass the time.
In the winter when the wind blew cold,
playing cards around the stove,
he left me with an empty hand,
and a babe not one years old.
Chorus
The law caught on to all his sinning,
and he’s left this world behind.
I struck a match in the early morning,
and I burned our house of pine.
Gonna follow the North Star tracks,
Gonna break free of this life.
Find a place where they don’t know my face,
where I’m not John Hardy’s wife.
Chorus
The traditional song John Hardy in its many versions, leaves much to the imagination in regards to criminal’s wife. She’s often dressed in blue, in the hanging crowd, promising to remain faithful. But was she really that please that her man was a ramblin’, gamblin’, failed outlaw? This is her side of the story.
the farthest stop from home.
A stack of letters and a carpetbag,
was all she called her own.
She came knocking on our front door,
as the storm began.
That summer I was still a boy,
who dreamed of loving like a man.
Chorus
Now her memory haunts me,
and I can’t quite shake her free.
It’s summer in Raleigh,
and Virginia’s walking through my dreams.
She wore dresses on the hotter days,
tied her long hair back.
Sang out loud to the radio,
and threw her head back when she laughed.
She had the keys to heaven tied up
in her apron strings.
When the rain soaked that cotton through,
I could hear the angels sing.
Chorus
Thunderstorms in August,
firefly in a jar.
She gave it to me on my birthday,
said the caught a shooting star.
That summer I was old enough,
to walk to school alone.
She left a letter on the kitchen table,
saying, “find me when you’re grown.”
Chorus
I don’t know where this story came from, but I do know, that in the south particulary, wealthier families often employed maids to raise their children, and so in this song, our narrator finds himself at that heady division between boyhood and all that comes after.
asleep in pulpit one,
never felt the need to cry.
Before he spoke,
he knew the strength of hope.
that faith’s an illusion
and glory a lie.
A little healthy fear,
will keep our savior near.
that’s what his father preached,
the day before he died,
and who can say,
what made the poison take,
there was venom in his veins
you know, but rapture in his eyes.
Chorus
Do you question glory?
Could the faithless form a line?
We’ve got hope for sale:
Kentucky’s sacred child Adenine.
Times were hard.
Down by the old churchyard,
the preacher’s wife led Adenine
skipping through the mud.
To the waiting man,
she said you’ll understand.
there’s kindness in the child’s heart,
but poison in his blood.
In the falling rain,
she watched them pull away.
She waited for a lighting bolt,
she held out for the flood.
In the years to come,
he’d learn to trust no one,
but the bully-faced announcer,
and the gold and silver gods.
Chorus
They came from near and far,
to see Kentucky’s star,
the preacher’s golden child,
with the venom in his veins,
and they called it faith.
The Savior kept him safe.
Trick or intervention,
sometimes it’s all the same.
And they left restored.
Doubt and suspicion cured.
Angels walk among us,
and they rise above the flames.
Still he showed no fear,
each time the snakes drew near.
Hell had found him long before
he’d lie down in his grave.
Chorus
Rattlesnake baptists aren’t as common today as they once were, but I remember a friend of mine, a Southerner, telling me that followers would allow themselves to be bitten by the venomous snakes, assured that the grace of God would save them. More often than not, it didn’t, and so they left behind them a slew of orphans. This is the imagined fate of one such child.
Black crow sitting on a walnut tree.
Blackberries in the early fall,
Ladder across the old stonewall.
There’s a new moon at the window,
Her moonbeams on the floor.
Lace up quick your walking shoes,
You ain’t got no time to lose,
Don’t come ‘round here no more.
Ragweed up on Mandrake hill,
Morning dew on the moonshine still.
Crabtree fiddle with a broken bow,
Coon-cat crying in the April snow.
There’s a trail through Sandy’s holler,
A bloodhound couldn’t track.
Turn your face to the rising sun,
It’s time for you to cut and run,
I think the devils at your back.
Cold wind blowing through the pines,
June bugs in the dandelions.
Empty saltbox on the sill,
summer breeze with a winter’s chill.
There’s a rusty copper penny,
at the bottom of the well.
It seems to me the signs are clear,
It’s best that you get out of here,
find your own way back to hell.
Again, this song borrows thematically from Louise McNeill’s poetry. It’s about all things symbolic that somehow equal, or cause a person bad luck.
ship captains mother,
let them chase that ocean grey,
and in the red dawn,
of the waiting storm,
let them cast their lives away.
Let them be all,
foot soldiers mother.
let them heed that bugle call,
and on the cold ground,
of a foreign shore,
let them rise only to fall.
Let them be all,
coal miners mother.
Who forget the light of day,
and in the black heart,
of those southern mines,
let them toil their lives away.
Let them be all,
ship captains mother,
let them chase that ocean grey,
and in the red dawn,
of the waiting storm,
let them cast their lives away
This is my own version of a Gospel Ballad, with a little twist of Ireland and Scotland.
Mi torrach mi trom
Chann ann le balach mo throm
leis an lasgaire dhonn
Mac fir Bhaile nan Long
Leis an èireadh na suainn
Gaol ise gaol i
Gaol air Anna ni’ n Nill
Mi dualach mi donn
Mi gu biorshuileach binn
Mi ma smeòrach an craoibh
Mi mar chuthaig an coill
Gaol ise Gaol i
I am heavy with child
By no ordinary lad is my child
But by the dark-haired hero
Son of the Laid of the Ships
With whom warriors would rise
My love is she
Love for Ann daughter of Neil
My hair curly and brown
Keen my eyes – sweet my voice
Like a cuckoo in a wood
Like a thrush on a tree
My love is she
‘S e òran luaidh a th’ ann an ‘Gaol ise Gaol i,’ a tha ri chluintinn anns na h-eileanan siar an-diugh fhathast. Chaidh an t-òran a’ chlàradh le Floraidh MacNèill anns a’ chlàr Òran Floraidh, far an d’fhuair mi an dreach agam.
This is a Gaelic walking song that can still be heard today in the Western Isles of Scotland. This song was recorded by singer Flora MacNeil, on her album, Songs of Flora, primarily from which I learned my version.
