About my all-time favorite artist, Brian Wilson, who struggled with and overcame incredible adversity to finish his musical masterpice, SMiLE, nearly forty years after beginning it.

Thank You For SMiLING
Copyright 2013, 2022 by Kid Charlatan

Well, there once was a time when the world was mine for the taking:
Close to perfection, a strong wind at my back.
But lately it seems all the waves in my life are breaking
In the wrong direction; no one's cutting me any slack.

When caught between failure and complacency,
One needs to vanquish his demons and their psychic debris;
Your greatest achievement makes it seem you agree,
So I'd like to thank you for SMiLING at me.

Now I'm floating on air, can't keep my feet on the ground;
Your SMiLE still produces the most wonderful sound.
After all these years, the music's finally free,
And the SMiLE that I heard I thought that I'd never see.

So I thank you for SMiLING at me.

Well, it all fell apart so fast that it sent you reeling;
Severed connections turned your dreams to incomplete rhymes.
A hostile environment could only leave you feeling
The soulful dejection of someone not made for his times.

When you couldn't deliver on your guarantee,
They blamed your sandbox piano and the LSD.
But the music hid a truth in its mystery:
It was your only source of refuge from the insanity.

Bridge

Artistic redemption helps provide certainty
That the past blends with the present in smooth harmony.

And now you're back on your feet; so glad to have you around!
Your SMiLE still produces the most wonderful sound.
After all these years, the music's finally free,
And it set the world virating to a new frequency.

So I thank you for SMiLING.

I wanna thank you for SMiLING at me.

Lack Of Demand

Thank You For SMiLING

As Hunter S. Thompson famously stated, Americans get the government that they deserve.

"Lack Of Demand"
By Kid Charlatan (Copyright 2016)

Another night of work goes by, and I can't wait 'til I get high,
So I stop by the bar and have a beer;
The cable news TV show is asking someone I don't know
How hedge funds grow, but I don't wanna hear.

His phony smile burns as the camera slowly turns
To some bankster brat-turned-startup executive,
Who says he wants to run for a seat in Washington
So he can have himself a say in how I live.

But he supports unnecessary wars,
And he's motivated only by his greed.
His so-called "plan" ignores ever citizen in need;
He's thoroughly unqualified to lead.

It wasn't very long ago our nation made the choice to go
And fight for show in the Middle East;
The thousands who died in the fray had no connection to that day,
But some still say, "We need to feed the beast."

Ambitious neocons couldn't wait to drop their bombs,
So they highjacked a national tragedy
To justify an invasion and the subsequent creation of
A bold and new American century.

But I saw it with my own two eyes,
And I heard it with my own two hears:
Their threats consist of lies told to manipulate our fears,
While each mother cries ten thousand tears.

The corporations own the politicians on both sides,
While we're the ones whose fates they decide.

Who can find a righteous man? A moderate who tries to stand
And reprimand the evil he might see?
Someone who is slow to speak yet swift to hear and humbly seek
Her own technique for setting people free?

He's sharp, but he won't cut; she's pointed, but she won't pierce.
He's straightforward, but he's not unrestrained;
She's brilliant but not blinding, and every day they're finding
That nothing is this life is foreordained.

But our candidates are only frightened men
Who treat compassion like it's contraband.
The absence of enlightenment is hard to understand;
It must be from a lack of demand.

I think it's from a lack of demand.

I wish there weren't a lack of demand.

The absence of enlightenment is hard to understand;
It must be from a lack of demand.

Lack Of Demand

Kid Charlatan

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