Light, Love & A Ballad about Misery

Stuff I find interesting to write about mainly.

Mike tunes

bedtime

The fifth track from Retrospect, The Milk Carton Kids live album, out worldwide: https://itun.es/us/lWQSz

Maybe It's Time (Retrospect)

Cash recorded this duet with Dylan himself during their February, 1969 recording session while Dylan was in Nashville for Nashville Skyline.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. I DO NOT OWN THIS.

Bob Dylan - Girl From The North Country (with Johnny Cash)

Is Love Enough  (lyrics and music © 2023 by Mike Dampf) bass David Leadbitter; mandolin & flute Becky Sora

A summer sun sinks in the bay
amber, crimson, gold
you are somewhere far away
yet near enough to hold

The dog is curled upon the floor
the cat has slunk upstairs
I am here just waiting for
an answer to prayers

Upon the mantle sits a clock
that's running out of time
while we wait the silence talks
and the moon begins to climb

I love you, the water says
I love you, calls the loon
is love enough, I cannot guess
I hope you tell me soon

Is Love Enough

This Little Light (Lyric and music © 2022 by Mike Dampf; Vocals Hana Dampf, Becky Sora, Mike Dampf)

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine
it might be hard for you to see
and you may not know it's me but I hope you find
this little light of mine

This little song I sing, I'm gonna let it ring
I might be howling at the moon
off the wall and out of tune but it's my thing
this little song I sing

Day follows day, night follows night
maybe you pray when things aren't going right
but there's another way to help keep your spirit bright

This little life I live is all I've got to give
it isn't much it's true
but sharing it with you would be such a gift
this little life I live

This Little Light

Ballad of a Miserable Man   lyric and music © June 2024 by Mike Dampf.  Mandolin: Becky Sora/ Bass: David Leadbitter/ Piano: Mike Ryan/ Special thanks to The Tequila Jam Singers on chorus!

I don't really know what I want
I don't really know who I am
everything I once believed lies
like a mirage on the sand

My life's become a time-share
geckos, cocktails and sun
poolside's reserved for the angels
who know how to please number 1

So judge me if you must
I'm just a miserable man
looking for some love and pleasure
here on God's lay-away plan

We paid for this sham paradise
let the lawnmowers keep it all trim
let the palm trees keep it all shady
and let Happy Hour begin

When the jet taxis out on the runway
and the steward greets you with Death's grin
then tighten your seatbelt my lovely
what a hell of a ride it's all been

Ballad of a Miserable Man

Until Your Heart Believes       Lyrics and music by Mike Dampf © August, 2024         Flute - Becky Sora; Bass - David Leadbitter; Vocals Jerneja Medved and Mike Dampf

I can see you hurt
I can read the signs
You smile through loneliness
like winter sun through the pines
this kind of wound is slow to heal
and I know how it feels

One light is on long before the dawn
a half moon rises and then it's gone
soft wind rustles the willow leaves
dreamless, until your heart believes

I see you nearly every day
your eyes say it all
it's just 'Hello' and then you look away
like you hit some kind of wall
Sure, you're fine, nothing's been revealed
but I know how it feels

Look at me
look at you
we shouldn't be alone anymore

Until Your Heart Believes

Too Old to Die Young (music and lyric by Mike Dampf © October 2024)    Becky Sora: flute, percussion, mandolin, vocals/ Dave Leadbitter: bass & vocals

You're really gone, not just gone away
I hurt in the spaces where we used to play
if music is love, my love goes unsung
I'm not too old, just too old to die young

Rumors of an angel, flowers on the breeze
you walked into the room, I went weak at the knees
Like in a church, sweet bells were rung
I'm not too old, just too old to die young

I laughed at love, I thought I had time
I played the game until pride made me blind
Thought I was a rock until 'lonely' cracked open my mind

God knows the reasons, I can't say why
this beautiful summer's so fast drifting by
each leaf's gonna fall as the pendulum's swung
I'm not too old, just too old to die young
I'm not too old, just too old to die young

Too Old to Die Young

LIFE AIN'T BUST          Original song by Mike Dampf © November, 2024  Bass by David Leadbitter; Harmonica by Becky Sora/ Original painting by Jay Dampf

Sometime up, sometime down
this old life is a steady pound
freezing rain, burning heat
best step aside if we meet

Give me things that I can trust
Show me how this life ain't bust

Stand in line, hurry, wait
one at a time through the gate
fold your arms, hide your fear
ask yourself why you're here

Give me things that I can trust
Show me how this life ain't bust

Keep quiet, don't gripe and don't make a big fuss
They need you alive but beware 'cause this life
is gonna break you down to dust





Life Ain't Bust

Pretty Loose music and lyrics © 2025 by Mike Dampf and Dave Medcof
Bass: David Leadbitter; Mandolin, percussion, vocals: Becky Sora

Buddy called, said 'Get off the couch'
you're old but that's no excuse
let's meet at the station with a pint and a plan
everything's been getting pretty loose

So we met on up and we strolled on down
down to where they bury 'who vamoosed'
had a drink and a tear over long gone friends
then we started getting pretty loose

He said 'I heard there's a party just down the line
jump a trolley to the Long Branch Loop'
so we climbed aboard, left the dead behind
and rolled along feeling good 'n loose

It was a-pull down the guitar, rosin the bow
treat your liver and your banjo with abuse
sing out the heart, forget about the head
and everyone was getting pretty loose

The good Lord made many lovely things
I've seen a beaver, a cougar and a moose
but nothing's half as lovely as the way I feel
when the music is getting good and loose

Now it's late, I'm back on the train
so sleepy that I drag my own caboose ...
yes I'm old but the day is young
and everything's been getting pretty loose
Ya everything is getting pretty loose!

Pretty Loose

A love song for strangers. Music and lyrics by Mike Dampf and Becky Sora © February, 2025 Becky plays mandolin, vocals; David Leadbitter plays bass. 

THIRD EYE BLUES

God has nothing to say to the sober
He leaves them high and dry but they don't complain
And God knows there ain't anything faster
Than a fall from grace, I'll never clean that stain

Do you know anyone here, you whispered
We were strangers sitting in a pew at the Church of the Homeless Angel
No but I'm gonna know you, I whispered
And by the way you really rock red at a funeral

I'm gonna live forever if it kills me
And I'm gonna love you for all time
Whatever made you want someone this crazy
I've got a third eye but sometimes I'd rather be blind

We balance on the edge of the moments between hope and fear
It seems to me
You and I ring, we're each other's everything
And alone together isn't so lonely

Third Eye Blues

Damien Jurado - "Beacon Hill" from 'Saint Bartlett', released 5/25/10 via Secretly Canadian

Saint Bartlett opens up with a grandiosity yet unheard on a Damien Jurado album. It strips away the many layers of paint from the house down the street where we know Jurado has occupied for the last decade. The new coat is exhilarating. It makes the whole neighborhood shine. It's a modest grandiosity; still homegrown. The mellotron swells, heavenly handclaps ring in stereo and big drums create a sky for the songs to fly in. And the words. Words spring forth from within the volcano of Jurado, full of hope. There's so much hope, in fact, that album opener "Cloudy Shoes" turns into a call-and-response with himself, as though it were a dialogue between two halves of himself.
"I wish that I could float up from the ground / I will never know what that's like"
Heavy stuff. Richard Swift's Spector-esque production is spot-on. He ferries Jurado across the river, where the metamorphosis occurs. He then ferries him back, and it is through Swift's lens that we see Jurado not as a folk singer, but as a mystic -- somewhere between Van Morrison, Scott Walker and Wayne Coyne. Saint Bartlett was made entirely at Swift's National Freedom studio in Oregon, in just under a week with only Jurado and Swift as the performers.

Damien Jurado - "Beacon Hill" from 'Saint Bartlett', released 5/25/10 via Secretly Canadian


Saint Bartlett

Beacon Hill

Damien Jurado - 'Beacon Hill'

Graceland - Tallest Man On Earth (Paul Simon cover)

Honey Jars by Bryan John Appleby

Writing songs and kitchen party playing with my many musical friends ... pretty much sums it up.