Learn a song each week, by heart.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love

Hey – I didn’t know that lyrics were so easily available on the web. I learned 3 songs (the real words, not half humming) this week and I’ll try for 3 more next week. This is fun.

On long walks I find the time and space and inspiration to compose. This is very exciting! I am stimulated to recover what had been lost for years.

Here, for example, is some of what I was composing while I walked from a location in the black neighbourhood north of MLK in Claxton, then via the bog and brush under the power lines to Highway 301, thence south along the highway out of Claxton through Evans County through Goose Neck in Tattnall County through Birdford to Glenville. Since I didn’t have good walking shoes and change of socks, and I was not in shape for this, it took me the better part of a night. I reached my house at six and some minutes in the morning.

I gotta girl an’ her name is Sue
She look might fine,
She know what to do!
When we go out all the folks take note
...

Well I forgot what I had composed, but I think I can do it again.

Right now I’ve got too many things on my mind, and things to do. There is no room for songs right now:)

this week’s song:

-it’s the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine) by r.e.m.

this is highly ambitious, sure… but i want to be the person who knows it and can sing every word when it comes on at a party and not be amongst the stupid idiots mumbling and bobbing their heads up and down…

there are two contenders for this week…
-desperately wanting by better than ezra
and
-walken by wilco

i’ve been listening to a lot of 90s rock lately… maybe because i miss it… but i can’t believe how much stuff i just “listened” to and didn’t really “know.” it’s kinda funny/sad. so now i’m pulling out all this old stuff and it’s as though i’m hearing it all for the first time. but that’s okay, cause i love it. although some of the songs i’ll listen to and recall loving them, and then wonder why… “tomorrow” by silverchair… what exactly was the attraction?

i am also listening to the new wilco because i need to do that more often… it needs to get into my head the way all wilco does… i want to wake up with lyrics from this album in my head, the way i find “jesus, etc.” or “forget the flowers” or “passenger side” in my head and it makes me wonder how crazy my dream was to have a wilco song as the soundtrack…

i have had two songs in my head for the last three weeks, so i think this week i’d like to learn each of those songs…

-fishin in the dark by the nitty gritty dirt band
-two dozen roses by shenandoah

oldies but goodies… so why don’t i know them as well as i’d like?!

by cafegroundzero on April 16, 2006. © All rights reserved

http://allpoetry.com/poem/show/1949808

Baby don’t ya love me, I’ve got the log truck blues;
Oh baby don’t ya love me, an’ ain’t ya heard tha news?
I’m over my depression, over leavin’ ya now.
I’m over my depression, I’m gonna live somehow.

My Peterbilt engine grunts groans and grinds!
My rumbles and clanks distract eyes ears noses and minds.
On my long flatbed trailer with side beams for holding
While above us squirrels chatter and blue jays scolding—
The logs that I haul from the field to the mills,
These trips I make would be toddler boy thrills!
I haul mostly two or three kinds
Loblolly, longleaf, and slash pines.

Baby don’t ya love me, I’ve got the log truck blues;
Oh baby don’t ya love me, an’ ain’t ya heard tha news?
I’m down here in creation, down in ol Georgia state,
I’m down here in our nation, a haulin’ pine wood freight.

Each trailer trip I carry brings ‘bout a k worth of wood,
I’d rather win the lotto if I only knew I could,
My efforts win the wealth of folks I hardly ever see,
Endless miles o’ macadam through pine woods can soothe me,
‘tween swamps, creeks, clear-cut fields ebb’ry day I drive!

Baby don’t ya love me, I’ve got the log truck blues;
Oh baby don’t ya love me, an’ ain’t ya heard tha news?
I’m always gonna miss you, knowin’ I left ya now.
I’m over my depression, I’m gonna live somehow.

(I learned by asking one driver that each load, on the avererage, is worth between eight and nine hundred,
Dollars U.S. Wealth, timber wealth, on each haul motor thundered
With clank of suspension springs and coils,
For wealthy land barons, invisible breed of men, my structure toils.
Along endless miles of black macadam through pine plantations,
Between swamps, creeks, and cays thread our endless invasions.)

Over the river and thru the wood,
To grandfather’s house we go;
The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh,
Thru the white and drifted snow, oh!
Over the river and thru the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

Over the river and thru the wood,
To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bell ring,
“Ting-a-ling-ling!”
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day-ay!
Over the river and thru the wood,
Trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

I started this morning, trying to do sing for my son and for me too. Then we looked for the disks to the Led Zeppelin album I had, and found them missing.

I’m not sure what to do now. Try learning another song instead of “When the Levee breaks”?

After a quarter hour of fruitless searching, I can only conclude the disks are lost or stolen. Too strange that BOTH disks are missing. At times I’ve left the doors unlocked, so theft is a possibility though maybe not a probability.

Then we postponed the search and decided to continue with our previous idea of learning “Yellow Submarine.”

Yellow Submarine
(Lennon/McCartney)

In the town where I was born
Lived a man who sailed to sea
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines.
So we sailed up to the sun
Till we found the sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
In our yellow submarine.
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.
And our friends are all on board
Many more of them live next door
And the band begins to play.
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.
As we live a life of ease
Everyone of us has all we need
Sky of blue and sea of green
In our yellow submarine.
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in our yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

(Thanks to Marcos and to the Beatles and all who helped bring this song to us and the public:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/6797/submarine.html )