Border Waltz

little cabbage

This song was written in Boston during the week of April 15, 2013.  It's dedicated to all the 2013 Boston Marathon runners, rescuers, victims and survivors,  and to the inspiring international community of runners everywhere. 

We watched the runners run
Under the April sun
Running Home
So grateful for the cool sea breeze
Blooming magnolia trees
Running Home

Focused, fearless, in the zone
Can you hear us cheer you on?
Running Home
You race together and alone
LIke drops of water flowing home.

Towards the explosion
We watched the runners run
To lift the fallen ones, 
bind their wounds and carry them
Home

Focused, fearless, in the zone
Can you hear us cheer you on?
Running Home

Racing together and alone, 
like drops of water
running home

Your bittersweet remedy shakes me from my lethargy
wakes me up so I can see 
and taste and touch another Spring
Running Home

So grateful for the cool sea breeze, 
blooming magnolia trees . . .
We watch the runners run under the April sun
Running home

Running Home

Somebody Lookin' For Someone, words and music  by Stephen L. Russell. c. and p. 2017, 2023.
Track 6 from the Grey Cat Records album, The Trouble With Time, c. 2023
Produced by Brian Morris
Stephen's acoustic guitar and vocals engineered by Peter Russell

Acoustic guitar: Stephen L. Russell
Vocals: Stephen L. Russell
Oboe: Carolina Prado
Harmony vocals: Brian Morris and Janet Leahey
Strings and all other instruments: Brian Morris

 This was inspired by a passage in a novel by the Newfoundland writer Lisa Moore. In her book, February, a character remembers checking in to a hotel room and finding the message light on the phone in the room blinking. 

 	   “ … there had been messages on the phone from everyone who had ever called in to the room.  For some reason the messages had never been erased, and one night he had listened to perhaps two hundred messages, some of them in foreign languages. He had just broken up with Sophie for good. All of the messages were full of the kind of voice people use when they are talking to a machine: dislocated longing, tentative, mildly regretful. Children called to talk to their dads. Girlfriends said ordinary things in sexy voices. Someone had to pick up an entertainment center at Sears. A man named Tony had to use a go forward strategy. A very young child said, Nighty-night. Someone’s 	father had stabilized for the evening. Someone’s plane was delayed. John had pressed his forehead to the cold glass, looking down at the cars fifteen floors below, and watched the fat snowflakes fall from a grey sky, and he missed his mother and he missed his sisters and he was in love with Sophie, but it had taken breaking up with her to find that out.” 

Quote from February by Lisa Moore used by permission of the author.

In a hotel room in Toronto, or maybe it was Montreal,
The bedside phone was flashing, as if somebody had called.
And I picked up to listen, as the voices followed one by one,
Message after message, someone looking for someone.

			Somebody looking for money
			Somebody looking for love
			Someone who just wants to talk it over
			Somebody praying for help from above
			And it’s somebody calling from a pay phone
			To say they found somebody new
			It’s just somebody looking for someone
			Someone trying to get through.

“Meet me in the lobby.”  “Meet me at the bar.”
“Maybe we could meet for dinner., maybe rent a car.”
“Sorry I said the things I said.” “Sorry I didn’t call.”
“When are you gonna be coming back?”
“Are you ever coming back at all?”

			Repeat chorus.

“It’s raining in Vancouver. It rains here everyday.”
“Are you still planning on stopping by?”“I’d just like to see you, anyway.”
“Remember me from the party? You said you like the color of my dress.”
“Sorry I never got back to you.” “Sorry I’m such a mess.”

			Repeat chorus.

Somebody Lookin' For Someone

Halfway There, Words and Music by Stephen L. Russell, p. and c. 2011, 2023
Produced by Brian Morris.  Mixed and Mastered by Brian Morris.

Stephen L. Russell, Acoustic Guitar and Vocals.
Jessie Morgan, Violin.
Brian Morris, Electric guitar, bass, drums and harmony vocals.
Peter Russell, Recording Engineer.

Out on the end of Main Street
Out on the edge of town,
There’s an old vine covered tower,
Partly fallen down,
And it held aloft a siren
And its sound would pierce the air.
Each day at noon
That wailing tune
Said, “Come on, you’re halfway there.”

		Halfway there, halfway there.
		The hours that seemed so long before
		Have vanished in the air.
		Halfway there, halfway there.
		Ain’t it good to know
		When that whistle blows
		You’re already halfway there.

We would travel North in summer
And we’d pass along the way
Through a forest filled with old pine trees
Where no light had ever strayed.
And when we’d climb out of that valley
Into the summer sun’s white glare
We’d know we hadn’t far to go,
Already halfway there.

		Halfway there, halfway there.
		The miles that seemed so long before
		Have vanished in the air.
		Halfway there, halfway there.
		Ain’t it good to know
		When that whistle blows
		You’re already half way there.

			And, still, there is that push and pull,
			Is it empty, is it full?
			Will it matter at the ending of the day?
			And if we can’t agree, at least we’ll meet halfway.

		I have known the rock of ages,
		I have felt the reaping wind,
		Held a new-born baby in my arms,
		Seen a soul devoid of sin.
		I have seen the grace in letting go,
		And it’s all that I can bear.
		And the siren has gone silent,
		Now we’re more there halfway there.

				Halfway there, halfway there.
				The years that seemed so long before
				Have vanished in the air.
				Halfway there, halfway there.
				Ain’t it good to know
				When that whistle blows
				You’re already halfway there.
				And when that whistle blows
				I’ll be good to go,
				I’m already halfway there.

Halfway There

Middle East peace song-includes Palestinian and Israeli musicians

Muses Use Us

Family Tree

This song was inspired by a 2014 Black Lives Matter street chant by Lu Aya and the Peace Poets; I wrote my adaptation (see earlier upload) in response to a youtube challenge by Samuel Jackson. Thanks to Rick Arnoldi (lead guitar) and (for this latest version) to co-producer Brian Morris (bass, keyboards, guitar, drums).

I can hear my neighbor crying, "I can't breathe!"
Now I'm in the struggle, I can't leave
Calling out for justice and for dignity
and we ain't gonna quit till people are free.
(guitar solo)
I can hear our Mother crying, "I can't breathe!"
Now I'm in the struggle, I can't leave,
for the water that we drink, for the air we breathe
For the children who are coming to the world we leave

I Can't Breathe

Jerusha: additional lyrics and vocals
Rick Arnoldi: guitar, harmony vocal
One more  piece of the multifaceted internet-folk-process response to the Peace Poets' chant, calling out racism and brutality and a rigged system; calling out for justice and dignity for African Americans,  for Mother Earth ––and all her children:

" I can hear my neighbor crying, 'I can't Breathe!'
Now I'm in the struggle, I can't leave"
Calling out for justice and for dignity
"And we ain't gonna stop till people are free
We ain't gonna stop till people are free. "

solo

I can hear our Mother crying, "I can't breathe!"
Now I"m in a struggle I can't leave
for the water we drink, for the air we breathe,
for the children who are coming to the world we leave,
for the children who are coming to the world we leave

I Cant Breathe

vocal: jerusha; guitar: rick arnoldi; violin: alicia svigals
for Y'hudis (Judith Korim Hornstein)first quarter moon Nisan 5756

When's gonna come the Angel of Death who's gonna rescue me?
Who's gonna open the window up and let my breath blow free?

I'm gonna give up the ghost on the 7th night with wonders in the sky
and fly right up with the queen of heaven, and look god  in the eye

everything that is not true is ripped and blown away
I've cursed and kissed and testified
I got nothing left to say

but who's gonna loosen up this knot?
who's gonna set me free?
who's gonna carve my name in stone and sing a psalm for me?

who's gonna hold the candle up and wash my body clean?
Who's gonna sit all night and watch the tide go out to sea?

and keep the mirrors covered up and say the rosary
who's gonna push my prayer for peace into the kotel ma'aravi?

take linen and pine to cover my bones
and soft spring earth and clay and stones
who's gonna cry and laugh and talk and sing and pray for me
and go home over the mystic bridge and let me rest in peace?

This track is from the album Atmosphere and is available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jerushakorim3

Angel of Death

Recorded back in the early 90's  by #thebeatgreens before the beat greens existed. Music, lyrics and lead vocals by Jerusha Korim; arrangement, harmony vocal & all other tracks by Rick Arnoldi. 
We know we can't stop USING plastic, but we can stop buying it, accepting plastic packaging, tossing it and choking ourselves to death with it! (photo from #CapeCool  2014 Climate Pilgrimage in solidarity with Yeb Saño's journey across the Alps to the Paris Climate Conference.)

Stop Using Plastic

guitar instrumental by Rick Arnoldi
Traditional

The White Rosebud

artist-activist, singer-songwriter,  barefoot rabbi 



I Cant Breathe

jerusha

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