As my last song looked blindly at the sixties for its influences, this one is looking squarely at the eighties. I tried to keep it fairly simple and resisted the temptation to put a massive guitar solo on it. Whether I should have done is a different matter.

Mockingbird

Poverty
The "Schwabengehen", which finds its first mentions already in the 16th and 17th century, experienced its peak in the 19th century. It is estimated that at that time five to six thousand children worked annually on farms abroad as herd boys, maids or as farmhands. The background to this was the extremely low soil yields in the alpine regions and the associated poverty, which drove parents to send one or more of their numerous children abroad.

The Ways
The ways from Tyrol and Vorarlberg or from Switzerland to Upper Swabia were long and arduous. For some of the children, most of whom were between 5 and 14 years old, it led over mountain passes such as the Arlberg, which were usually still covered in snow in March and which many had to overcome with poor shoes and scanty clothing. Usually their companion was an adult, sometimes a priest, who made sure along the way that the children could settle down to sleep in warm stables and who negotiated prices at the markets. The construction of the Arlberg railroad in 1884 made the journey easier for the Tyrolean children.

The "children's markets" in Upper Swabia usually took place around Josephi (March 19). At Simon and Juda (end of October) or at the latest at Martini (November 11) they went back home. In the luggage were then the so-called "Doppelt Häs" (a double set of clothes from the headgear to the footwear) and, depending on the age and the negotiated price, a few guilders.

The Hütekinder arrived at the port of Friedrichshafen by ship from Bregenz. Since 1891, the central market place for the Hütekinder was in Karlstraße in Friedrichshafen. The children who were not placed traveled by train to Ravensburg to be placed there.

The work
In their homeland, Swabian children were exempted from compulsory schooling every year, and in the Kingdom of Württemberg the compulsory schooling that had existed there since 1836 did not apply to foreign children. The politically repeatedly demanded extension of compulsory schooling was prevented until 1921 by an Upper Swabian farmers' lobby.

Schwabenkinder (Swabian Children)

The traditional “Wayfaring Stranger” has been at the foundation of North American music for at least two centuries, its origin is unknown.

Some historians have traced its genesis to the 1780s, others, the early 1800s. Depending on who you’re talking to the song may be a reworked Black spiritual, a lifted native hymn, or even a creation of nomadic Portuguese settlers from the southern Appalachian region.

According to the book The Makers of the Sacred Harp, by David Warren Steel and Richard H. Hulan, the lyrics were published in 1858 in Joseph Bever's Christian Songster, which was a collection of popular hymns and spiritual songs of the time. This may or may not have been the first time the song appeared in English print, and the songwriter is unknown. Steel and Hulan suggest the song was derived from an 1816 German-language hymn, "Ich bin ja nur ein Gast auf Erden" by Isaac Niswander.

During and for several years after the American Civil War, the lyrics were known as the Libby Prison Hymn. This was because the words had been inscribed by a dying Union soldier incarcerated in Libby Prison, a warehouse converted to a notorious Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia known for its adverse conditions and high death rate. It had been believed that the dying soldier had authored the song to comfort a disabled soldier, but this was not the case since it had been published several years before the Civil War in 1858, before Libby Prison was put into service (1862).

Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

[Intro]
Am  Dm  E  Am

[Verse]
Am
I'm just a poor

Wayfaring stranger
             Dm
Travelling through
             Am
This world below

There is no sickness

No toil, nor danger
                Dm
In that bright land
E           Am
 To which I go


[Chorus]
            F
I'm going there
           C
To see my father
            F
And all my loved ones
            E  E7 E
Who've gone on
          Am
I'm just going over Jordan
         Dm  E       Am
I'm just going over home


[Instrumental]
Am  Dm  E  Am      Am  Dm  E  Am


[Verse]
Am
I know dark clouds

Will gather round me
          Dm
I know my way
             Am
Is hard and steep

But beauteous fields

Arise before me
              Dm
Where God's redeemed
E             Am
Their vigils keep


[Chorus]
            F
I'm going there
           C
To see my mother
                F
She said she'd meet me
        E  E7 E
When I come
          Am
I'm just going over Jordan
         Dm  E       Am
I'm just going over home
          Am
I'm just going over Jordan
         Dm  E       Am
I'm just going over home...

Low-fi overdub with my Martin 00-21 guitar, gold tone micro bass, banjo, uke, mandolin, jaw harp and harmonica. JTSUNRISE

Wayfaring Stranger (Mr. Saturday Night)

wave

Autumn (Piano And Strings)

Shamans Boogie

My wife was listening all day to me working on this song. When I added a banjo, her interest piqued, and she wrote lyrics for a country feel.

The Prescription Blues
Lyrics Veronica Krath
Music Mike Krath
Performed and Produced Mike Krath

In the morning when I rise
Gotta take these pills to feel alive
They help me get through another day

Through all my aches and all my ills
My salvation lies in a tiny pill
And my life lies on a prescription pad

Why did the Lord put me on this earth
Just to take all these pills to feel my worth
Wish I could take my body back

Oh Lord, I wish there was another way,
To make it through another day,
Then taking all these pills.

Chorus:
And in the end when I die
My hope is that I’ll find myself in paradise
With no pills and no more pain
Cause to live is Christ and to die is gain.

The Prescription Blues

Vox - https://soundcloud.com/ipg1/heavy-magic-vox-94-bpm
Artist - https://soundcloud.com/ipg1
MOSNAR DET - Remixing, Bass Guitar, Drum Programming
Special thanks to IPG1 for offering up another great vocal track for open collab! check out his stuff!

IPG1 - Heavy Magic (open Collab) MZRPKLPS R3M1X

This music relates the battle of the god Susanoo against the eight-headed dragon Yamata-No-Orochi. He must had the dragon drink a lot of sake to win the fight (I guess you can hear this near the end ^^).
This track is part of the project of my friend Hideo @soundsofthekosmos. It is an open invitation to collab by exploring japanese myths. More tracks - including some from other soundclouders - can be listen here: https://soundcloud.com/soundsofthekosmos/sets/kojiki-project. 
***
Drums by @soundsofthekosmos
Keyboard, Clarinet, Glockenspiel by me

Battle against Yamata-No-Orochi (Ariad + Zanshin)

Our Story

Oh my love
When I see the stars up in the sky
Or touch the earth
Gravity exists for just you and I
And the world spins 
On it's axis
The seasons change across the sky
And though we are small
Amongst it all
Our love can still signify

And no one but we
Can know what it means
Though small in the universal glory
This is our story

It wasn't made for us
But we are here
To witness this time in passing
You and I can celebrate
This beauty, this beauty surpassing

Autumn (Piano And Strings)

Anthony