"Ooga Looga Wyma Ryma" (#401, 201005)

Aina' nuthin' like a girl makes you drop yer vowels
On the kitchen floor
She be cookin' up some dumplin's I be trippin' meatballs
Comin' back fer more

An' I'm tryin' to tell her sumthin' 'bout you look so nice
'Xcept I sound like a fool
Words 'er flippin' sidewers comin' out my mouf
In between the drool

Ooga looga wyma ryma baby what's your name
Chuga luga hunka lunka baby say it again
Youda cute-a meesa please-a winkie dinkie derpee doo
Banana fana fonanna fe fi fum teach me how to talk to you

Took sum clarses back in carlege wit' sum langejjes
A little French and some Mex
F'Ida' know'd then I'd a showed maybe I cudda' lerned
Mora' what to expex

Talkin' gibbrish ain't so purdy I regrets it now
Yeah I gotta' admit
I dang messed it up I never got my educacione
And I sound like ... not good!

Week 41a - Ooga Looga Wyma Ryma (201005)

I remember when you said "let's not let this get complicated"
"Let's keep it sweet and simple," but I was uneducated

Weeks turned into months, a town into what we made it
A garden grows where it wants to

And you maintained that you were leaving, you didn't know the dance called separated
And I knew there was another life, on another coast, that waited

But you were too kind when I played the song called fascinated
A river runs where it flows through
Whether or not you want it to

And it was sweet, and I was simple, and I was captivated
And now it's gone, and I am bitter, and things are compli-doot-doot-cated
 
I remember when you said "let's not let this get complicated"
And I know now, what you meant then
But I'd still fall for it, if you said it again
The heart wants what it wants
Whether or not you want it to

And it was sweet, and I was simple, and I was captivated
And now it's gone, and I am bitter, and things are compli-doot-doot-cated

And it was sweet, and I was simple, and I was captivated
And now it's gone, and I am bitter, and things are compli-doot-doot-cated

Bitter And Complicated - Song a Week 2020, Week 42

The train this week is leaving for sapville. All aboard!

I started with the idea of someone realizing that the "I" in "I love you" had changed while repeating that phrase over time and it kinda went full mopey from there. I really gotta write an upbeat positive tune next week - you'd think "simple and sweet" woulda been the one, but whelp, here we are.

****

Don't like to think what I am leaving behind
It's easier that way
If I tell you that I'm sleeping fine
It's easier that way
I've been falling all to pieces
I've been thinking you've been doing the same
Don't like to think what I am leaving behind
But it's better than staying this same

It's all coming down

Cause I don't recognize me
I've been wondering who am I
In I love you

You've been talking about growing old
I feel smaller now every day
Chipping stone from a statue
I've been wondering what will remain

Cause I don't recognize me
I've been wondering who am I
In I love you
I don't know who loves you

We could keep things sweet and simple
But when we put it like that 
It's hard but what I'm leaving behind
Is getting hollower every day

It's not that I don't wanna stay
It's who'd be left in my place

It's all coming down

Cause I don't recognize me
I've been wondering who am I
In I love you
I don't know who loves you

I've been wondering why
I love you
I've been wondering when
I should be leaving soon, should be leaving soon
I've been wondering where
I'll be going to
I've been wondering what who I used to be would do

Sweet and Simple - Song a Week 2020, Week 42

Sometimes, we fight  - rarely, thankfully
‘Cause I'm not made for that
Though I seem to hold my ground
Inside I'm slipping back
I find every time

When you tell me that
I'm a sewer rat
A little part of me agrees with you and
Kind of thinks it might be true..and when
You SAY you can't believe 
that you stay with me
That part it can't believe it either and
I wonder if you understand

We're both normal fucked up grown ups
With our triggers too
I'm just trying to own my partner
Like I always do
I find every time

When you tell me that
I'm a sewer rat
A little part of me agrees with you and
Kind of thinks it might be true..and when
You SAY you can't believe 
that you stay with me
That part it can't believe it either and
I wonder if you understand

That part will just repeat 
those things you said oh endlessly - 
Endlessly repeat them in my mind
And for every moment that I 
hear you laying in to me
I lay into myself a hundred times

Though I've known I'm like this
Years now, still this parts the same
Thinking if I beat you to it, somehow I'll be safe
only leads back me to this place

When you tell me that
I'm a sewer rat
A little part of me agrees with you and
Kind of thinks it might be true..and when
You SAY you can't believe 
that you stay with me
That part it can't believe it either and
I wonder if you understand

Sewer Rat

“Edit That Part Out” (#405, 201021)

The stars were shining the moon was full
Your hair was silky in the twilight calm and cool
We traced the water step by step
Beside the harbor when the world had gone to bed

And it was epic like a movie
When a perfect ending turns it all around
Never mind all the ways you fooled me
In the memories I edit that part out

Our days were golden our nights were sweet
There was magic in the moments in between
We kissed the rain drops in the summer glow
And in winter we made angels in the snow

It was worth it the years of hoping
Picture perfect up until it all went down
Forget the fact that my heart was broken
When I think of you I edit that part out

Every autumn around November
I could let regret surround me even now
But I choose not to remember
When I think of you I edit that part out

Week 43a - Edit That Part Out (201021)

Back at the dawning of our days
We were a brightly burning blaze
Every star would shine upon us
And then the old world fell apart
Sometimes I wonder who we are
Without a fight to keep us honest 

Are we the spoilt brats of god?
the waste and damage rages on
Without the slightest sign of slowing
I stretch my tired eyes to see
a sign, a chance that we could be
More than just a mother's ruin

We could always break the pattern
It's always darkest before the dawning
When all the pieces come together
Though I every time forget it.
It's always darkest before the dawn but
It kind of seems it’s now or never 

.. You and me back at the start
We were so open in our hearts
We’d show it cause we couldn't hide it
Standing our own two feet
Now living independently
I miss the warmth of stars colliding

I miss the brightness and the fuss
I miss the gentleness of us
That strong and urgent sense of meaning
Despite the progress in these days
I long for old familiar ways
A closer more connected feeling 

Still time to make it better
It's always darkest before the dawning
when all pieces come together
It might take the stormy weather
To blow the dreams into the morning
Before they slip our minds forever
X2

And though they're 
Slipping from my mind
I never leave them quite behind
They seem to hover and they linger like the memory of a place
A certain place where I belonged, 
When I was bright and I was strong
And now the memory takes me back there
And the feeling calls me on

I once was a boy who’d met a girl
She was my bright and perfect pearl
And all the world for her an oyster
too green to even see the blow,
Await me as I let her go
then everywhere I'd hear her voice her ghost,

I felt the memory in the air
her absence found me everywhere
And everywhere a broken purpose
Without a compass or a road
Without the north where do you go?
What's an empty promise worth but

You can always break the pattern
It's just a trigger just a doorway
To the love that binds the child and mother
Seems like you can't recover
But it's always darkest before the dawn 
and gazing in another lover's eyes...

It seems to make it better
It's always darkest before the dawning
when all pieces come together
Might take the stormy weather
To blow our dreams into the morning
Before they slip our minds forever

Dawning

Beyond Belief (A Sunday Drive) 
by Erin Wolf, Laurie & David Easterling 
© 10/18/2020 Little Chute, WI and Oak Ridge, TN 
“... for children, play is serious learning.” ~ Fred Rogers

Riding through the mountain park
Backseat of the family car 
Loaded up with sleepy kids and snacks
Daddy spins around and cries
I drop my book in my surprise​
Hey kiddo look out there it might attack

Take me for a Sunday drive
To see the autumn leaves 
Remindin’ me why we’re alive
Magic beyond belief
Do you see that shadow in the mist? 
I think I hear a dragon hiss
Jackie Paper can’t be far behind
But all I see is a giant tree 
Wait did it wink at me?
Is it a real dragon or all in my mind

Take me for a Sunday drive
To see the autumn leaves 
Remindin’ me why we’re alive
Magic beyond belief

Mermaids swimming in lagoons
Werewolves waiting on the moon
Is there a unicorn behind that tree?
Phoenix rising to the sky
Clouds of fairies floating by
Am I truly seeing what I see?

Take me for a Sunday drive
To see the autumn leaves 
Remindin’ me why we’re alive
Magic beyond belief
Magic beyond

Beyond Belief (A Sunday Drive)

First three lines are Robert Frost's. 

*****

Some say the world will end in fire
Some say the world will in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
And while I'm sorry for the funeral pyre

Those who hold with fire pray
The rain will come and douse the flame
Forgetting hardened hearts of man
Who hold the oceans in their hand

Fire's a mind all of it's own
In time it gets out of control
So when it gets too late to halt
It feels like the fire's fault

But when the world will end in ice
Someone has to make a choice
To lay down in a wintered spring
And to take the blame for everything

So walk the world at the end of days
Past histories that leaving made
The world is full of heroes, burned
And villains into statues turned

While we all can learn from time
And say that we would want the ice
In time we are revealed as liars
Everyone would take the fires

Fire And Ice  - Song a Week 2020, Week 44

This song was inspired by a number of things, but basically it was just me grabbing a newspaper and thinking "hey, I haven't read one of these in a while"
Artwork by me (that's one of the first pictures I took during quarantine!)

Lyrics:

I'm not the kind of girl that you're looking for
cause I've stopped reading the newspaper.
The television's loud so I don't turn it on,
it's just a coping mechanism I've been living off.

I have responsibilities, I have them no more
cause I say I kinda like it then don't like it anymore.
Floating on a cloud of ignorance and doubt,
flying too high for anyone to drag me down.

Can't separate my dreams from reality,
I put them all together just to set me free.
My hope's a little bitter like a cup of green tea,
but I would drink it up, it's better than empty.

My records get stuck at the same old song
about falling in love, and then it turns out wrong.
The clock keeps ticking on the wrinkles of my face
telling me to hurry up before it's too late.

I'm cooking up a rage inside of me,
spice it up, season it up, get on your knees
and pray for the future of your sanity
cause I've been praying for mine since I was 16.

I'm not the kind of girl that you're looking for.
(cause I've stopped reading the newspaper)
I'm not the kind of girl that you're looking for.
(the television's loud so I don't turn it on)
I'm not the kind of girl that you're looking for.
(a coping mechanism I've been living off)
I'm not the kind of girl that you're looking for.
(Say I kinda like it then don't like it anymore)

I'm not the kind of girl that you're looking for...

newspaper

Raging Storms

BREATHE IN

Nashville songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Godin Guitars Official Artist and Founder of www.songaweek.org.

His catalog of 500+ titles includes collaborations with hit writers Mark Narmore, Elliott Park, Steve Dean, and Pete & Pat Luboff, among others internationally from England to Australia.

Redding's music has landed cuts by numerous recording artists including Dan Whitehouse, Emma Gale, and David Easterling.

Week 43a - Edit That Part Out (201021)

James Tristan Redding