Waving Goodbye 12: RC Mountain Line

We have to go soon, I think we just have one more song, but I wanted to tell you how the story ends.  You know, the first story, where I was in bed, and I heard bells and saw a face in the moon. Well the next day I was awoken by a knock on the door, and someone must have spoken against me, because some men came to take me away, though I had no idea of what I had done.  I asked the men. “You have to tell me what I’m accused of,” I said.  “This is America.”  One of them laughed.  “Wave goodbye, Johny Blood,” he said. “You can play one more song and then the show is over.  Wave goodbye.” Goodnight everyone.


RC Mountain Line lyrics

Waving Goodbye 11: Waving Goodbye

I remember a bright sunny day in December, the year of the drought. You sat in the dark and said, “There’s too much sun and too much light.  I wish I could go away to where the snow covers everything and it’s quiet.”  I offered to build you an igloo right on the spot.   “I’ll make a snow fort out of sofa cushions. You can put on your Eskimo suit and we’ll pretend the dog’s a walrus.” You hardly bothered to look at me, hardly bothered to shake your head no and said, “I just want to go somewhere dark and cold and sleep through the winter. I just wish it would snow, that’s all.”  Then you hopped on your sled and went away, and I waved goodbye and watched you disappear, already going somewhere I can’t go, already looking happier, not looking back to see that I’m waving, which I am, and I said, “OK, I’ll wait here, blue turns to white then green and when the ice melts, come back and I’ll be here,” all the time waving, waving.  Goodbye.


Waving Goodbye lyrics

Waving Goodbye 10: Ash Wednesday

Five Times You Might Not Wave Goodbye

1) Your winning streak finally comes to an end. You bet everything you have all on one roll of the dice and lose it all.  You’re broke now. You beg the croupier to let you stake the watch your father gave you; it’s solid gold, worth a couple hundred easy. You fall to your knees and hug his legs, begging. “Stand up,” he says. “I can’t help you.” Finally the bouncers come and escort you out.  As the door slams behind them, you do not wave goodbye.

2) You see a man in the street, mercilessly flogging his horse.  You beg him to stop, but he ignores you until the horse collapses, a bloody carcass.  You’re sobbing, just stop it, please stop, but he spits and says, “What’s it to you?” and turns away. You do not wave goodbye.

3) You are the last soldier at Waterloo.  All your fellow soldiers have left.  The muddy fields are soaked with blood.  Your uniform is in tatters and you have no boots. Beginning the long journey back to your little farm in Avignon, you see a Russian soldier hiding in the white birch trees.  He looks even worse than you do, and more scared. You do not wave goodbye.

4) The lawgiver, who left more than a month ago and nobody knew when he’d be back, finally returns.  He saw the idol you’d built, which was just supposed to tide everyone over until he came back, but it completely freaks him out.  He totally loses it and breaks the tablets of the law, then he grinds the idol into a powder and makes you drink it, and then runs to the gates of the city, vowing that the guilty will all be slain.  You do not wave goodbye.

5) On Ash Wednesday, the priest smears ashes on your forehead and murmurs, “Now go in peace.”  You leave, but do not wave goodbye.


Ash Wednesday lyrics

Waving Goodbye 09: Martyrs Die For Love

Dogface offered to take me out for a drink.  He was one of my few old friends that was still around. He knew a place that stayed open all night, which is pretty rare in this town, as you probably know.  He used to go there during the curfew. So we’re having a couple drinks and after a while this guy comes in carrying a guitar and a paper bag.  Dogface gave me a nudge. “You know who that is?  It’s Saint Genesius. You know?  ‘I came to make you laugh, but now I bring you joy.’  That’s him.”  That’s why I love going out with Dogface—he knows all those guys.  So then sometime a little later a girl came in holding an empty bird cage.  Her eyes were blank and scary, and she said, “It’s over, it’s over, he’s gone, my little bird is gone, he’s gone away”, all like that.  And we’re just trying to have a drink, you know?  Genesius walked over and put his arms around her.  “Why are people so awful to one another?” she said.  “I know,” he said.  “So much trouble,” she said.  “So much trouble and for what?” “I know,” he said.  And Dogface turned to me and said, “You know, Johny, some suffering can be redemptive.  It can.”  He took a last sip and finished his drink.  “But sometimes suffering is just suffering.” And he lifted a finger to try to catch the bartender’s eye to order another one.



Martyrs Die For Love lyrics

Waving Goodbye 08: Time EnoughTo Cry

I’d heard the band might be able to get a gig at the Elysian Towers downtown.  Do you know it?  It’s kind of a beat-looking traveller’s hotel, there was a big fire but then they rebuilt it.  It was mid-September when I went down there, you know how it never gets too cool here in the autumn, and the sidewalk was covered with crumpled leaves.  No pretty autumn colors, just brown.  Out front there was a cop, or security, I’m not sure what he was supposed to be, but he was holding a flaming sword and smoking a doobie and it scared the crap out of me.  In the lobby, everyone is dressed in white, looking like they were ready to be put in the ground. I say to the guy at the desk, trying to be pleasant, “I hear you book bands?”  “Well,” he said, “the winter’s kind of a dead time.  The boss doesn’t really book bands, her daughter does most of the booking, and she goes away in the winter.  In fact she just left, today I guess, I didn’t even see her leave.  The boss is upstairs, but there’s really no point in going up. I don’t think she’ll see you.  She always says, what’s the point of music in the winter, most people just come here to crash then.  She always says she doesn’t miss her daughter, but you can see she does.  If you ask her, she just says, there’s always time enough to cry. Plenty of time for that.”   We never did get the gig.



Time Enough To Cry lyrics

Waving Goodbye 07: Advent Calendar

I jumped and I fell and I found myself  facing twenty-five doors all lined up in a row.  I opened the first one, and inside it said, “Each door is day.”  I opened the second, which said, “Each day has a number.”  The next said, “Each number has a secret symbol”.  Then, “Each symbol is an opening”. “Each opening holds a treat.”  “Each treat is the whole world.”  “Each world is a face.”  “Each face is a saint.” “Each saint has a bird.”  “Each bird is a stained glass window.”  “Each window has a message.” “Each message is a piece of candy.” “Each candy is a sunrise.”  “Each sunrise is a candle on a cake.” “Each candle is a nail in your coffin”.  “Each coffin holds a gift”. “Each gift can be counted.” “Each counting is a snowflake.”  “Each snowflake makes a storm.”  “Each snowstorm is a globe”.  “Each globe is a stage”.  “Each stage hosts a tragedy”. “Each tragedy is a window.” “Each window is a mirror.”

The last door just had another door behind it.  When I opened that door, there was a song inside.  The song was called “Advent Calendar”.

Advent Calendar lyrics

Waving Goodbye 06: Jack of Diamonds

I went down to the Sibyl’s cave to have my fortune read.  She was very good, all business. I crossed her palm with silver, as they say, and she started the reading.  The first card was the Five of Spades.  “Ah yes, disorder.  That’s you.  That’s your situation.  It’s all of us.”  Then she turned up the Wheel of Fortune. The blue sphinx and the red jackal. The Sibyl was quiet for a long time and I wanted to make a Vanna White joke.  Finally she said, “Well the Wheel is turning, that’s the thing to remember.  When it’s right side up, good fortune, when it’s reversed, disaster.  What it means for you…very hard to say.  If you can tell which way it’s moving, you can see it turning and win any play.  But sometimes you think you can see which way it’s moving and you’re wrong.  That’s the worst.  Very bad.  Now this one…aha.  The Queen of Clubs.  That’s, well, I don’t know if that’s in your future or not.  It never hurts to hope.  And then the Hanged Man?  Sweet boy.  Very good to see indeed.  Some say he’s the martyr, some say he’s the little bird in the tree who was killed with a shot. It’s very surprising to see him here anyway.  Now this one…Jack of Diamonds.  He brings the news, do you understand?  The door is open, but then it will close.  You’re the one who will have to decide.”

I understood. I walked to the door. I jumped.


Jack of Diamonds lyrics
Tracy can check my Tarot references for accuracy

Waving Goodbye 05: It's A Sin To Despair

When the drought finally ended and the rains came it didn’t feel like relief, it was just muddy and cold and dark all the time.  It didn’t rain hard, everything was just always wet. Then we realized it wasn’t going to stop, we’d waited so long and then finally when the rain came it wouldn’t stop, and some of the guys decided to head out but I thought I’d just stay behind. “Johny you should come,” but I, I don’t know, it seemed kind of crazy, two cubits of this and three cubits of that, gopher wood or whatever, it didn’t make sense to me. An ark, you know, it’s not a boat, it doesn’t have oars or sails, it’s just a box.  It doesn’t go anywhere, it just holds things, so anyway maybe I should have gone along but I’m glad I didn’t, and they were getting in that thing and with all those animals and I like the animals, but I know not everyone does.  It was still raining, it was so bad, so dark and ugly, and they all were hunched over with their coats over their heads getting onto that ark.   I don’t think they saw me but I was waving, bye you guys, see you later, I’ll be here, if only it weren’t so muddy and awful, anyway see you later.  I’m hoping for the best. It’s a sin to despair.


It's A Sin To Despair lyrics

Waving Goodbye 04: Why Should I Weep

I know it’s foolish, but I keep walking by that café we used to go to, which of course is closed now and completely unlikely to open anytime soon, and even if it did, I don’t think I’ll be seeing you in there.  But I still shade my eyes and peer through the window, imagining that you’re sitting inside, laughing at some stupid thing on your phone, reaching without looking up for your latte and not quite finding it, and what it would be like if you looked up and saw me and waved. Oh, Johny.  Hi. And I started singing that song you always used to sing about the rose in the hedge and the bird in the tree, shot by some careless boy, and the mermaid. The mermaid makes me think of you: I might hear your voice in a dream but I’ll probably never see you again. You’re not in the song any more.  And then—I know this will make you laugh—I started tearing up, not for me, not for you, not for the friends I’d never see again, but for that poor little bird,  killed for no reason.  And I know what you’d say if you were here: Why should you weep, Johny, why should you cry?  He’s gone but his song still hangs by.  I’m sure that’s what you’d say if you were here.


Why Should I Weep lyrics

Waving Goodbye 03: Papa Stay and Fight

I finally went over to see the old man, much as I didn’t want to.  He was lying in bed with a little thin sheet over him, the window open.  He started talking to me, mumbling, his lips weren’t even moving.  It was like how he’d tell me stories when I was a kid, except now he was the one lying down, and I the one kneeling beside him.  “You know how it is, Johny…frogs, lice, pestilence, wild animals.  There’s nothing left here.  I thought I’d even lost you.  Can’t you just put me in a boat and row me over to the other shore?  Look at me.  I’m covered with sores and boils, you can see how it is.  I can’t stay here.  Can’t you see that? There’s a place on the other side of the river where I can be healed.  I don’t want to stay here.  Can’t you take me there?”  “I know Pop,” I said.  “Except I’m staying.  Can’t you stay a while too?  I know it’s probably only going to get worse. I guess…listen, get out if you can.  I’m staying here.”


Papa Stay and Fight lyrics

Waving Goodbye 02: At the End of the World

I knew it was a mistake to get off the bus here, but it was dark and I was lost. I thought, well this would be as good as place as any but basically it isn’t. It’s not as good any, not by a long shot. I know now I got off at the wrong place and now I can’t get home.  I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s a bus that comes by like once a week at some crazy time, Wednesday at 3:17 or something, nobody seems to know.  I keep thinking I’ll be there when it comes by but then I keep missing it, I don’t even know how I manage to waste so much time, but I look up and realize I’ve missed it, it won’t be by again for who knows when, another week or something, I don’t even know.

One day I thought I heard someone say when the bus would be coming, and where it would stop, so I went there in the morning and I waited. Did nothing but wait all day.  Finally, incredibly, after I don’t even know how long, forever, here it comes, and I grab my stuff and get on, and the bus driver says, “That’ll be $6.75 back in to town, sir” and I try to give him a ten, I don’t care, and he says, “Sorry my friend, exact change only.  You don’t have anything smaller?  Don’t worry, get some change and I’ll be back,” and he waved, and pulled away and I just felt like crying.  And I’m still here, I guess I’ll spend the rest of my life right here, here at the end of the world.

Waving Goodbye 01: The Longest Night

For the Along Came Jones CD release show Dennis asked me to write little introductory texts for each of the songs, so I'll present them here 12-nights-of Xmas fashion.  Jimmy, now that the line at the post office should be shorter I'll resend the CD.  Still the Singapore address?


We didn’t think it could happen but it did, every time we thought, well at least things can’t get any worse they did and then they’d get worse than that.  It seemed as if everyone was leaving and I certainly couldn’t blame them.  Some of the guys said, hey Johny you should come with us, but I couldn’t, I should have but I didn’t.  I knew things would get bad, but I, first of all, I wanted to see the old man one more time.  And then, even though I knew you’d be gone, I knew it was ridiculous, but I went to the old places just to see if you’d be there.  Of course not. Everyone was getting out, no one was looking back, and even though I knew it was going to get worse I just went to bed and lay down.  I lay down and I waited.  For what?  For Santa Claus? I don’t know.  For the end of the world? I don’t know.  I lay down in bed and thought about you.  I could hear the bells up in the sky—but what were they?  Were they, like, sleighbells, jing jing jing, or was it that other thing, you know, the toll of the bell, the end of the world.  And then I see the moon’s full, and it’s all red, and a shadow crosses it, it’s Santa, right?  That’s Santa, isn’t it?  And I see your face in the moon, just like Jackie Gleason’s, smiling seraphically above us all, and I don’t know what to do.  It’s the end or it’s the beginning.  It’s the longest night of the year.



Longest Night lyrics

Granpa

i want a grandpa Christmas every year

Along Came Jones: Waving Goodbye Theme Song

Along Came Jones will do a presentation of the "Waving Goodbye" album in full in January, so I wrote a theme song for the show:

Hello! Hello! We’re Along Came Jones
There’s Myles and Kathy Sparling
My name’s Dennis, this is Pete
There’s Tim, he’s such a darling

Please do not text on your phones
Or play some Words With Friends
Just listen most attentively
And clap hard at the end

Some words may be offensive
And not fit for the kiddies
Please cover up their little ears
If we sing of ass & titties

We’re Along Came Jones, and now we’ll wave
Goodbye and not hello
We’re not leaving yet, that’s just
The name of tonight’s show!

Chorus girl: And now… on with the show!

Happy birthday Jymn. You hoped and you hopped and you hopped and you won!

Girl Let's Go For A Ride

Wrap your hair up in a scarf
Come on girl, we’re taking off
We’ll crank Blondie till the speakers are fried
Can’t take the top off my Toyota
We don’t care, not one iota
Girl, let’s go for a ride

Come on darling please say yes
We won’t need phones or GPS
My lack of direction will be our guide
We’ll go to Stinson, up Route 1
We’ve got fog, who needs the sun?
Girl, let’s go for a ride

Let’s turn east and drive this sucker
All the way past Winnemucca
Till we reach the Continental Divide
Or maybe it would be smarter
To head south to Porta Vallarta
Girl, let’s go for a ride



This is dedicated to my dog Odetta, who does dearly love going for a ride.  Note that the scarf/off rhyme in the first verse requires a Jagger-garage white bluesman pronunciation: scowrff

This Prison is a Paradise

Once this world was a prison

Enclosed and yet a blank

Now this prison is a paradise

And for that I’ve you to thank

Once I found I was trapped by

Walls I could not break through

Now this prison is a paradise

And for that I thank you

Dreams, ah I have dreams

I see the world breaking at the seams

And yet now I’ve found peace

I’ve found release, yes I’m released

I couldn’t bear this tiny world

That time and trouble shrank

But this prison is a paradise

And for that I’ve you to thank

Happy happy birthday baby

Hey Johny, thinking of you.

The Prince's Rejoinder

Used to be charms rhymed with arms

Both were currency

To trade and barter for romance

For bliss, for ecstasy

What rhymes with cunt?

A cake of bundt?

What rhymes with cock?

A strap of jock?

How our currency's debased

It's lost intrinsic value

You can't get nothin' for somethin' now

The market won't allow you

You get nothing

You get something

Everything's a bargain

Everyone's an easy lay

We're all broken-hearted

Don't I wish that I could lie

In love in your embrace

Beauty sketched - serene, eternal -

Here upon your face

The spirit that moves me,

The spirit of grace,

Charms, beguiles, intoxicates

Let's lie forever in this state

Between rest and bold desire

Let's lie, the pith of truth to taste,

So sweet, it burns like fire.

La Belle au Bois Dormante

Of all the gifts I’ve been given, though it may sound perverse

My favorite was the one that some called a curse

That I should grow up perfectly, like a flower bud

But fall into a sleep like death when first I saw my blood

And here you are to wake me

You’ve stormed the palace door

But oh my dear Prince Charming

Can’t I sleep five minutes more?

It was you who slayed the dragon, who braved the thorny hedge

Just as I had hoped for, just as you had pledged

We’re living out the story, each the archetype

But what if, when you taste the fruit you find it’s still unripe?

And here you are to wake me

The one I’ve waited for

But oh my dear Prince Charming

Can’t I sleep five minutes more?

When I awake we’ll lead a life of banquets, hunts and balls

We’ll have the servants wipe 100 years of dust off those glass halls

And happily ever after I will be the Charming wife

But can’t I sleep a little more before we start that life?

Now you’re here to wake me

But please my sweet señor

Oh please my dear Prince Charming

Can’t I sleep five minutes more?

Along Came Jones: Waving Goodbye

Yeah, so the Moron said you should come out with me, I have to wait for the bus, it leaves at 5 AM but there’s a bar next to the bus station, just come out with me, and I did, we went to the bar next door to the bus station and stayed up all night drinking. The bar wasn’t very nice. The people looked all gray in the bar light and most of them were just staring, not at their phones like normal people but just, you know, waiting.  And the Moron said, yeah so I guess I’m really going, I have to go see the old man, I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone, and it made me feel bad, I didn’t really want him to have to go and I had a feeling he wouldn’t be back but I didn’t know what to say, so we talked about stupid stuff, and he looked at me with that dumb, perpetually surprised look that’s so infuriating, until finally he said well I guess it’s time, it was just before 5 and we went out to the bus and the Moron said OK well thanks for coming out and got on the bus and found a seat and put his stuff overhead and took out a book and started to read.  And I was just standing there and he looked up and waved and then looked back at his book and the bus pulled away and I was just standing there, goodbye goodbye goodbye.  And that was it, the bus was gone, the Moron had left, goodbye. The sun wasn’t even up and it smelled like diesel fuel and I tried to remember how to get back home. 

Another year has gone by
Due to the orbit of the earth
And so we once more celebrate
The day of Tracy's birth

Many happy returns of the day Tracette!

While you're wondering what to do with your life

You've done something to your face. An eye's a little smaller, something's happened to your mouth. My body's improving, but it will never change. Every little bloom, fluorescence, suggests decay in foretelling. If it's not broke, you can't fix it. If it's impatient, it will mistake. The fields, the jungle, are over-subscribed. The market's high, but it will fade. My mother, the liar, has discovered honesty in literature (!) at an advanced age. That means, I hope, permission to be ugly, mean, unkind. Though permission is not and never was and will never be required to be an asshole. It comes naturally. Fighter planes roar across the evening sky, practicing for the show, which is itself a dry run for the real thing. Then, again, everyone will suffer and die and wonder at the wasted, golden years gone by. What happened? Was I dreaming? Why didn't I prepare? The end is always the same, anyway. It's what you leave behind -- but that's out of your hands, and has been since it came out. There's been a murder next door. Don't yet know who killed and who died. It came to light by the smell. Around the same time, the garden was being plundered by thieves who shit to mark their attendance at your place. All this while we're sleeping and the guard's afraid to leave the guardhouse. When that happens, the police have to hurt somebody. No wonder the poor girl hung herself in her cell. Let's make a pact. OK, let's lie, but pretend we believe it and maybe some of it will come to pass -- like the existence of Switzerland from the Treaty of Vienna. It was a small clause, but helped a lot of people who have lived and died since 1815. Bless them.

After the well-loved sing-along classic!

Anyone got the lyrics to the Pete Gilbert masterpiece?

An Almost-Pefect Day

A lightweight tribute to Lou:

Sitting outside, reading Frank O’Hara

Spinach omelette and café au lait

Billie’s singing “Say It With A Kiss”

This could be an almost perfect day

It was foggy when I got up this morning

But by noon the fog had blown away

If only you were still here in my life

This would be an almost perfect day

If I manage to forget

That you’re not here to turn to

And I can learn to

Practice self-deception

The day’s complete perfection

Tonight I’ll meet up with some friends for cocktails

And when it’s time to finally hit the hay

I know I’ll go to bed alone and lonely
Still, it’ll be an almost perfect day

Happy birthday, dear Critter.  Ain't no snafu.

Time Enough To Cry

If some day, when I am dead and buried

You forget and smile instead of sigh-

                                                      ing sadly

Don’t feel badly, please do not be worried

There is always time enough to cry

If you find that veils look silly

Or you don’t have time to buy
                                            some black clothes

Save the roses, do not bring my lilies

There is always time enough to cry

Some may scold

If they hear you sing

You’ll be told

You should bring

                           some flowers

There's no rush to come and say goodbye

There is always time enough to cry

                                                                                                   

What's so funny

I was lucky to be in London for work this evening. Great house band, including Roxy/Bryan Ferry stalwarts Mel Collins and Neil Hubbard. Wish you were there.

I got to see both Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser within the last two weeks.  In addition to a couple of hot songs of his own, Mr. Kaiser did "Alice in Blunderland" with the Beefheart tribute band I used to play with.  His band included a drummer whose name I hadn't heard before, but whom I'd heard before, on records at least, William Winant.  It's nice to live near Mills College!