“Well, son,” my Daddy told me, “gonna give you good advice:
don’t smoke nor drink no whiskey, don’t you fool around with dice.
Don’t chase them fancy foxes. Don’t dance the night away…”
That night I packed my toothbrush and I hit the road next day.
I can’t abide your borders, but I’ll try and treat you nice.
I seem immune to orders and allergic to advice.
My middle name is fission and I fear I’ll always be
a victim of a vision and a slave of liberty.
I rambled ’round a little, and in this little town
I met this little woman and she said, “Let’s settle down.
Let’s buy a fridge and tele and raise a family…”
I said, “I cannot marry, ma’am - I’m wed to Liberty.”
You might of seen her picture on a postcard or TV.
She lives in New York harbor and her name is Liberty,
yeah, that’s the gal I married – with a golden crown.
But then she cheated on me. So I’m leaving town…
I slipped right by them railroad bulls, the brakemen and the guards,
and hopped aboard a boxcar as that freight train left the yards…
Believe me when they leave you, you feel like leaving town…
and if your billfold’s busted you may be boxcar bound.
Now we’re slinking through the darkness with a sinking moon above,
stinking of that diesel and thinking of my love…
Let’s quit this crazy quarreling, Old Lady Liberty…
Well, I’ll come back, my darling… if you’ll be fully free.
YONDER IN WANDER .
I'm yonder in wander again -
from a world too few want to mend.
Shrouded in deadlines, so few feel allowed
to loaf like a mountain or float like a cloud
or forget, like a river, beginning and end -
yonder in wander again.
Yonder in wander again -
coming back - I don't know when.
I'm quitting your cities, I'm heading for trees,
I'm back on the planet and off of my knees,
no bossers to bully, nor fraud playing friend -
yonder in wander again.
Yonder in wander again -
like a pet set free from a pen...
gazing at mosses and scaling some peaks,
waving to crickets and wading in creeks -
and kissing Miss Morning on both of her cheeks -
yonder in wander again.
Wandering yonder again -
back with the forest for friend -
further from worry in woodfuls of fawns,
Arkansas evenings with Tennessee dawns,
on ridges receding in mists without end -
yonder in wander again.
BEFORE THE NIGHT.
Before a bow was ever bent
to lend an arrow flight;
before an apple bent a bow,
and Adam took a bite;
before God ever mentioned what
He meant to do with light –
these knees bent to kneel
before the night.
Before the stars the big bang sent
swirling left and right;
before the neck of sky was bent
with necklaces of light;
before a bone of human knee
was anywhere in sight –
these knees bent to kneel
before the night.
Before the darkness opened space
for orbits of the sun
to hide, with many nights, Night’s face
when nights were one;
before the Milky Way had spilled
her little pail of light –
these knees bent to kneel
before the night.
CROONING CONSCIOUS COUNTRY FOR THE COWS
CHORUS:
My mom don’t ‘low no pickin’ in her kitchen.
And singing in his den, Dad don’t allow.
Every night’s the same old warnin’,
so I light out for the barn ‘n’
croon my country concert for the cow.
One night I drifted picking through the clover,
and by a neighbor’s pasture, played a song.
This whole herd of heifers ambled over
and listened to me strummin’ all night long.
CHORUS:
I made my school of music in the moonlight –
a little hill in Dixie, draped with dew…
Strum half the night until I get the tune right…
and all my faithful fans begin to moo.
CHORUS:
I heard about this country contest last year,
and tried my favorite heifer’s favorite tune.
I won – and when I got back to that pasture
I strummed the herd the hit beneath the moon.
CHORUS:
It’s hard on singers hidden in a haystack
to get ahead or even get a start.
I left fast forward on the way back
to where, to get ahead, you left a heart.
CHORUS:
The Good Lord never minds a little sinning.
He looks the other way and doesn’t tell.
But when he finds a mind all lost in winning,
He ships it fast as possible to Hell.
CHORUS:
Urban Country’s dreaming of that fast bill,
of winning any way the law allows.
Let ’em dream. Let’s keep the cream of Nashville –
strumming Conscious Country for the cows.
