The Boxer

My older brother John was an avid Simon and Garfunkel fan.  If we didn't have all of their albums, we sure had most of them.  I remember listening to them on this old RCA record player as a kid.  It had a huge heavy tonearm and a single giant speaker.  I think my folks had it since they were married.  We are talking late 40's.

I had every word of every one of those albums memorized.   I could sing along with any of them still.  I think this was their last studio album.  It has so many great songs on it that it was a challenge to come up with a favorite.  My old friend Kevin taught this to me back in high school.  It brings back such good memories of his friendship.

I surely don't know what New York was like in the 60's.  And I am not sure why this lonely song mesmerizes me the way it does.  I am left with more questions than anything.  But it moves me.  Enjoy.

This is the last of my month long music retrospective.  It has been a blast, combing through my memory, reading over these lyrics, humming along with the tunes, even getting a little misty as they brought back old friends and places like nothing else can for me.  Blogs, by their nature, are pretty autobiographical.  There really isn't much of a conversation going on here.  Not at all like Facebook or other social networking opportunities.  Selecting and posting one's favorite songs is even more introspective than writing about politics or working with children or family biz.  How can you even comment, right?  "Good song" or "Well chosen" or "I like her too" is about all you can say, right?  But it was fun to post a song a day (almost) and think enough about it to write a little something.  Thanks for hanging in there.  



I am just a poor boy 
Though my story's seldom told 
I have squandered my resistance 
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises 
All lies and jests 
Still a man hears what he wants to hear 
And disregards the rest 

When I left my home and my family 
I was no more than a boy 
In the company of strangers 
In the quiet of the railway station running scared 
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters 
Where the ragged people go 
Looking for the places only they would know 

Lie la lie ... 

Asking only workman's wages 
I come looking for a job 
But I get no offers, 
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue 
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome 
I took some comfort there 

Lie la lie ... 

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes 
And wishing I was gone 
Going home 
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me 
Bleeding me, going home 

In the clearing stands a boxer 
And a fighter by his trade 
And he carries the reminders 
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down 
Or cut him till he cried out 
In his anger and his shame 
"I am leaving, I am leaving" 
But the fighter still remains 

Fast Car

We moved to SC in the mid 80's.  I was mesmerized by this song, this singer.  It seemed so anti-popular music.  It was a refreshing change from the current top 40 hits.  Tracy Chapman's voice was so real to me, almost haunting.  I didn't really know her story, but it was clear that she was not one of the groomed and prepped ready-made-stars so common back in the day.  When I first heard this song, I made sure to listen for the artist because I wanted it.  I thought the song would soon fade to obscurity.  I am so glad that I was wrong.  This was during the changeover from vinyl to CD format.  It was the last new record I ever bought.  Years later I bought the CD so I could play it in the car.  

It is a song of desperation and hope, of fear and young love, of being limited by circumstances but looking up and out toward a better day.  You keep rooting for the protagonist in this song.



You got a fast car
And I want a ticket to go anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
I say his body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

I remember we were driving driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs

You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way

People My Age

When I first heard this song, maybe 15 years ago, I thought it was kind of cute, kind of funny.  After all, I was about 40 - not quite of the age when it hit home.  When I sang it for friends or when I played out with my buddy Pete, it got more laughs than just about anything we sang.  Well, laughs may not be quite the correct word.  Snickers, guffaws, grunts, chuckles.  Because the words, what's pleasant in the darkness - is plain scary in the light isn't all that funny when you reach a certain age.  

Of course I AM that age now, and laughing at myself and my age-mates is totally appropriate.  What gravity's ruined they try to fix with a knife.  

John Gorka is not that famous, but he has a small but devoted following.  I have never seen him in person, but I have a bunch of his music.  It is wonderful stuff.  Some political, some personal, some heartbreaking, some just wise.  It's funny when you listen to him speak in the video below because he is one of those whose speaking voice doesn't seem to match his baritone singing voice.  Check out more of his music.  It's brilliant.

People my age
Have started looking gross
I cannot say all
And I shouldn't say most
I've seen 'em in the grocery
I've seen 'em up close
And People my age
Have started looking gross

People my age
Are showing some wear
There's holes where their teeth was
And their heads have gone bare
Their brains are shrinking
Faces sinking into fat
And as for the mirror
We won't be looking into that

People my age
Have started looking gross
Maybe not in Colorado
Or up the Silicon Coast
Back in Pennsylvania
I'd eat scrapple on toast
Those were my first steps
On the road to looking gross

People my age
Are looking overripe
Some are getting operations
To tighten up what ain't tight
What gravity's ruined
They try to fix with a knife
What's pleasant in the darkness
Is plain scary in the light

Gross

Old Man

Since I posted a Jonie Mitchell tune yesterday, I was reminded of Neil Young.  They used to hang out together.  I listened to Neil Young's music a lot as a teenager.  I learned this old song and had a pretty clean version of it.  I was so proud that I could play it - but singing it?  That was another thing entirely!  So much of what he sings is in his falsetto.  Mine sounds terrible - so I am content to play it for myself sitting on the back porch so no one will hear but the dog.  No, she doesn't howl when I sing it.

This live version is very cool.  He had only written the song recently so it is nice and fresh.  Even if you know the song, it is worth listening to and watching.



Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
And there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
That don't get lost.
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
The whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
The whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true.

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

Court and Spark

This song is such a time capsule for me.  It is high school, and my old dear friends, and the sand dunes in northwest Indiana.  It is sunsets over Lake Michigan who was a companion, not just a body of water.  It is late night bonfires on the beach, steel string music and sore fingers and faces sore from smiling and laughing.  It is Alice, and Katie, and Kelly, and Kevin, and Andy.  It is Joyce and Karen-now-Kerry, and Bruce and Craig and Cary and others whose faces are now a blur.  It is friendships meant to last forever when we didn't know how far the future could spread, how far we would go.  This song is a story, sure.  But it is a time and place and it takes me back like no picture ever could.  



Love came to my door
With a sleeping roll
And a madman's soul
He thought for sure I'd seen him
Dancing up a river in the dark
Looking for a woman
To court and spark

He was playing on the sidewalk
For passing change
When something strange happened
Glory train passed through him
So he buried the coins he made
In People's Park
And went looking for a woman
To court and spark

It seemed like he read my mind
He saw me mistrusting him
And still acting kind
He saw how I worried sometimes
I worry sometimes

"All the guilty people," he said
They've all seen the stain-
On their daily bread
On their christian names
I cleared myself
I sacrificed my blues
And you could complete me
I'd complete you

His eyes were the color of the sand
And the sea
And the more he talked to me
The more he reached me
But I couldn't let go of L.A.
City of the fallen angels

Yesterday

A while back a friend of mine told me about the "Mozart Test".  I'm not sure if it was his idea, but what it meant was that you could judge a song's longevity, its timelessness by the running it by Mozart.  If you honestly think that Mozart would have liked the song and appreciated its beauty - then it would be destined to be just as effective 10 years or a hundred years down the road.  

"Yesterday", by the Beatles passes the Mozart test for me.  It is simple but brilliantly elegant.    The lyrics have less than 100 words.  The chords relatively simple.  No harmonies.  Few instruments but the string quartet is certainly timeless.  At just at 2 minutes long, it is one of those songs that carries so much emotion in few words and notes.

This remains one of my favorite songs of all times.  I can't think of a more perfect song.


Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, I'm not half to man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.

The Hand Song

A few years ago I sang this song at my old church on Mother's Day.  I was thinking of posting a Nickel Creek song for a while but wasn't sure which one.  Then, Mother's Day.  This one seemed perfect.  Those of us blessed enough to have a close relationship with our moms can proably relate to the first part pretty strongly... The boy only wanting to give Mother something and all of her roses had bloomed...

 I remember not having any money for a gift on Mother's Day, which coincided with my Mom's birthday some years (May 9) and feeling an intense desire to do SOMETHING for her.  Maybe I was in 3rd or 4th grade.  So I made her a little beaded necklace.  It wasn't much.  I think it had a tiny piece of turquoise on the end, small glass beads on the rest in a simple pattern. It wasn't much.  I'm sure that my older sisters probably pulled something much nicer together.  My beads weren't much.  But they meant a lot to me.  And my mom recognized that when I gave them to her.  And she put it on right away.  And she said how pretty it was and how much she liked it and how much she loved me.  She acted as though I had given her a gold necklace, like it was one of the nicest presents she had ever received.

That was just one of the million or so powerful lessons she taught me about life, about giving and receiving, about something's relative worth.

Then, while we were sifting through her things when she was so very ill, when she was preparing to leave her home in the forest for the last time, I was helping her to go through her jewelry.  She had some big expensive pieces.  She had accumulated a lot over the years.  She had outlived 3 husbands, had 86 birthdays and Christmases, 64 or 65 Mother's Days. She had earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces.  There among the extravagant pieces she had collected over the years was the tiny string of beads I had given her as a child.  She had kept it through all of her travels, homes, relationships.  She had kept it almost all of my life.

I remember playing this song for her at her home on the trees in Brevard, NC not long before she passed away.  She always listened when I played.  More than anyone.  God, I am missing her.

"The Hand Song"

The boy only wanting to give mother something,
And all of her roses had bloomed.

Looking at him as he came rushing in,
knowing her roses were doomed.

All she could see were some thorns buried deep,
And tears that he cried as she tended his wounds.

And she knew it was love, it was what she could understand.
He was showing his love and that's how he hurt his hands.

He still remembers that night as a child, on his mothers knee.
She held him close and she opened her Bible, and quietly started to read.

Then seeing a picture of Jesus, he cried out:
"Mama he's got some scars just like me!"

And he knew it was love, it was what he could understand.
He was showing his love, and that's how he hurt his hands.

[instrumental break]

Now the boy is grown and moved out on his own.
When Uncle Sam comes along.
A foreign affair, but our young men are there.
And luck had his number drawn.

It wasn't that long till our hero was gone, he gave to a friend what he learned from the cross.

But they knew it was love, it one they could understand.
He was showing his love, and that's how he hurt his hands.

It was one they could understand.

He was showing his love, and that's how he hurt his hands.