Don't Look Back is the tenth track on Rick Stone's album "Digital Weirdness".
Vocals and Instruments: Rick Stone

Don't Look Back by Rick Stone

This is the first track on Rick Stone's 1997-2000 album Let There Be Light.
Written, performed, and produced by Rick Stone.

Let There Be Light by RIck Stone

An evening's take on a Stephen Stills song

THE CHANGES MIX

Rain on Bernardo

You had a house 
On top of a hill 
You looked at the city 
in Spring. 
You saw all the cars 
You saw all the buildings 
You saw everything. 

I have a house 
At the edge of the sea 
I look at the ocean 
in Spring. 
I see all the sand 
I see all the waves 
I see everything. 

Sometimes I sit 
Straight-back in my chair 
And I close my eyes 
I hear the blood in my ear 
I hear you there 
I hear you here. 

What time is it? 
It is now. 
What time will it be? 
It will be now. 

There are chairs for sitting 
Or there are not. 
There are bodies for living 
Or there are not. 

What will we be? 
We will be.

Love at the Bardo

 Under Light and Overnight.     Robert Edgar 2025
1 SCALE: E F# G A B C D E

Em7	C/G	Em7	C/G

Em     Am7                      Em    Dmin/F	 
Gray light.		Gray light.
Em	Am7		A7sus4	A
To  -      night.		To	-	night.
A7sus4	C/G	A7sus4	A
Life		less.	Life		less.
FMaj		Am	A7	             D
Day sinks to dusk.	Day sinks to Dusk…

Em7	C/G	Em7	C/G… 

Em	    Am7		Em	     Am7
Star-less sky.		Star-less sky.
Em        Dmin/F	C	E
Still 	night.		Still 	night.
FMaj7		Am7		A	           E7
Girl on the        boat.		Nearing the shore.
Bm	       C			C	       B7
Sea in her eyes		Sea in her eyes.
2 SCALE: A B C D E  F F# G

Am7	         C	      	                 E       E7	
THERE IS A SLEEP-LESS CASSAN-DRA
F	   Am	    F#
IN THE   MOON RISE
                    G	          Bm	         FMAJ7 
CASSANDRA SINGS OVER BREAKING WAVES 

3 SCALE:	E  F  G#  A  B  C   D  E
E
Buckling streets, smoking walls,
E
Melting surfboards. 	
E
Mosaics fade, grout dissolves,
E
Washes through your hands.
E
Rockets flare,  contrails burn
E
A sulfur smell  palpitating lungs.

BREAK
4    SCALE: E A D G B E
G13(no 5th)/E
Her song fades while the ocean recedes.
C
And the ocean hisses its backwash.
Dm	F	G	Dm	Em7	C	Dm
And the sea breeze cools a salty carrion.
G	F	     Em7        Am	F9
Casandra and the sand.


SCALE: E F# G A B C D E
Cmaj7/11/E

Em	        Am7	Em	       Am7
Sha – dow waves.	Sha – dow waves

Em   Dmin/F		Em      C/G
First  light.		First     light.

Em		         Em	Em		         C
Chilled morn – ing dew.	Chilled morn – ing dew.

F	Em		F	  D
Raining.		Raining.

FMaj7		A


Under Light and Overnight

Late Shore

		  E7
Well time runs out.
			A        C#m  B
Why’s time never run in?

                 A
You can sit here ‘til the crows come home
                   C		           B7
You can whistle for Rin Tin Tin.
	C#m       	            A
Well a raven will tap at the window
             F#m                    G
And a dog will bark about
         A#.              B.                C
But time sure never ran in
	            E7
Before it ran out.


TIME RUNS OUT NOT IN

A powerful recording of Orchids on the Orinoco, Robert: vocals and guitar, Shuba: vocals and veena, Nishad: electric guitar, Robin: percussion.

Electric Orchids: Robert, Shuba, Nishad, Robin, 2009

Birth of Cinema The

My arrangement of a wonderful Van Dyke Parks song.

Manzanar

Shuba Gunapu, Veena and vocal. Robert Edgar, guitar and vocal. Purna Prasad, Mridangam

The Writing Lesson
Music by Robert Edgar and Shuba Parthasarathy,  Lyrics by Robert Edgar, additional text from the Bagahavad Gita            

In the night of all beings, the wise man
Sees only the radiance of the Self;
but the sense-world where all beings wake
for him is as dark as night.

Stumbling through the door, crumbling Troubadour
Coat black like a nun, eyes like cardamom
His goal’s a mountain to climb down
His ink’s a fountain underground.
His paper’s Kon-Tiki icebound.

The whole world becomes a slave
to its own activity, Arjuna;
if you want to be truly free,
perform all actions as worship.

Cast another line, alcohol and brine
Taste the chanterelle, rusty vesper bells

Next door are newlyweds quarreling
Candle-flame shadows are whirling
Eels in a fish tank are swirling
Marble-slab tables are curling...

Crowned with fire, wrapped
in pure light, with celestial fragrance,
he stood forth as the infinite
God, composed of all wonders,

If a thousand suns were to rise,
fixed high in the noon sky, blazing,
the brilliance of that cruel bloom
would appear as Khrishna's being..

This evening will have been solved
Perspective will have been evolved
Tension will have been dissolved...

Grace...

A draft through the window finds his moist forehead
Fingernails reflect in a plastic bedstead
The Troubadour swears in sleep,
and falls from dream to dream.

I am the beginning and the end,
origin and dissolution,
refuge, home, soul's friend,
womb and indestructable seed.

I am atom heat from the sun.
I withhold the rain and let showers come;
I am the dead, and the deathless,
and all that is or is not, Arjuna!.

The Writing Lesson

Pacific Rim	Words and Music (c) 2003 Robert Edgar   
Tuned: D A D F# A D


I took a picture in Brisbane
of flames upon the water
Brought it back and sailed it on a string.
Saw a lace of foam at Big Sur
Folded into a vestment

	If it becomes a cloud
	we can fly into cool mist
Coursing through the droplets like a stream.


I had a dream last night that the sea was boiling
Black as pitch and red as a cardinal's ass.
The windows were hot to touch
Dolphins screamed from the waves.

I rose into the air
Leaned into the heat
Above short-circuit boards
and plastic melted streets.

Altitude turns to vacuum
sucks the air from our lungs
voices smoke from our tongues

	while the time burns away,
	time  burnes away,
	I washed that time away.


Waves drag their fates
on charcoal beaches and China plates
Nothin' there will do.

Feel like a fool that I can't fix 'er,
No cash, no elixer, 
just a homeless shill, and a tinderbox lean-to.

Irradiating children, texting in style
While standing in the puddles of a garbage pile.

There's rain-filled pocks in the straight and narrow
You can make about a livin' with a workin' wheel barrow,
Sellin' stale cigarettes one at a time
Another splice to an overloaded line.

Well, the moon she fills, and blood she flows
Drift wood she dries, the wind she blows
Time gets shorter, the moon she goes.

Light anoints the lunar dust
Forgotten nails aspire to rust
Tectonic plates slowly crush and shear.

Time moves slowly, people move fast
Look, lightning's lit up our mast!
This vote is cast, the inaugeration's in arrears.

I took a picture in Brisbane
of flames upon the water
Brought it back and put it on the screen.

Saw a lace of foam at Big Sur
Made it into a collar for you

	If it becomes a cloud
	we can fly into cool mist
like nothing you or I have ever seen.

Pacific Rim

14 Bindlestick Frank, 2013
(c) Robert Edgar

The River Part Two

I Didn’t Know You Were So Far Away		Robert Edgar, 2019

Sitting on the chair, looking at the curve of your hair,
You feel the cushion hold you up, as you reach for your coffee cup,
But when you stood and looked to see the image of your conferee
I didn’t know you were so far away.

What’s it about our attention, as it shifts, From some distraction, through our mindlessness?
Tumbling through this world, we think we carry it
But ya know, sometimes it leads, or even hides.

I want to draw you a letter, want to get to know you better,
Thought I knew what made you laugh, or what makes you gray,
But what is it you’re listening to as you speak at me, right next to you
Do you know that you’re so far away?

Even in nothingness, Even falling dark, into a kiss,
Even skin to skin, as time is still, Just where and when are we now?

I’m here on this chair, I hear the cars passing through the air
I hear my breath as it enters, and I exhale as if to say
Suddenly I realize my presence was just a compromise,
I didn’t know I was so far away.

I Didn't Know You Were So Far Away V03

Roger Winkelman and I have been working on this song for a couple of weeks. It's not standard issue. I like the chords and where they take the melody. Lyrics hold up too, I think.  I so appreciate having a musician like Roger to work on these songs with me. 

Pacific Rim	Words and Music (c) 2003 Robert Edgar   
Tuned: D A D F# A D


I took a picture in Brisbane

of flames upon the water
Brought it back and sailed it on a string.
Saw a lace of foam at Big Sur
Folded into a vestment
	If it becomes a cloud
	we can fly into cool mist
Coursing through the droplets like a stream.

I had a dream last night that the sea was boiling
Black as pitch and red as a cardinal's ass.
The windows were hot to touch
Dolphins screamed from the waves.

I rose into the air

Leaned into the heat

Above short-circuit boards

and plastic melted streets.

Altitude turns to vacuum
sucks the air from our lungs
voices smoke from our tongues
	while the time burns away,
	time  burns away,
	I washed that time away.

Waves drag their fates
on charcoal beaches and China plates
Nothin' there will do.
Feel like a fool that I can't fix 'er,
No cash, no elixer, 
just a homeless shill, and a tinderbox lean-to.

Irradiating children, texting in style
While standing in the puddles of a garbage pile.
There's rain-filled pocks in the straight and narrow
You can make about a livin' with a workin' wheel barrow,
Sellin' stale cigarettes one at a time
Another splice to an overloaded line.

Well, the moon she fills, and blood she flows
Drift wood she dries, the wind she blows
Time gets shorter, the moon she goes.

Light anoints the lunar dust
Forgotten nails aspire to rust
Tectonic plates slowly crush and shear.

Time moves slowly, people move fast
Look, lightning's lit up our mast!
This vote is cast, the inaugeration's in arrears.

I took a picture in Brisbane
of flames upon the water
Brought it back and put it on the screen.
Saw a lace of foam at Big Sur
Made it into a collar for you
	If it becomes a cloud
	we can fly into cool mist
like nothing you or I have ever seen.

Baby it's Time
Robert Edgar 

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.
	   
Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

There’s no morning light
To show you the way
There’s just your alarm
Announcing the day.

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

Outside the window
Sigh the freeways
But Baby they sound
Like blind ocean waves

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

The sheets are so cool
The air is so cold
The floor is so young
And last night so old

Every step that you take
Is one that forgets
Each exhale you make
Is a dark sun that sets

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

Is there money enough?
Are we currently friends?
Whatever happens next
The present story ends.

This moment is frozen
A photographic print
But you walk through it over
Exposed and distant

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

No time for a bridge
Between me and you.
You step out the door
Without an adieu.

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

Baby it’s time, 
Baby it’s time,
Baby it’s time.

Baby Its Time

Culture of Fear		R Edgar 

"As a power steals your freedoms,
 Don’t obey it in advance,
 Institutions that protect you
 May not have a second chance."
    -Timothy Snyder
     On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Culture of Fear		R Edgar 
2020				DropD

D
Join arms.
D
Join arms
D		         C
Do what? As you greet your lovers
(Join arms)
D		         C
Do what? As you greet your brothers
(Join arms)
D		         C
Do what? As you greet a stranger
(Join arms)
D		         C
Do what? As you greet a danger
        D             C             D               C
Join arms.

             D
At the cashier, lines were busy
	      G
And each shopper had a cart,
               F
Tabloid headlines sang together,
               A
Of their leader’s poison heart.

             D
All the people screamed betrayal
              G
As they joined their arms to march,
        F
And then the streets grew darker,
                    A
Shadowed by that despot’s arch. 

	              F	
Culture of fear
                                  G
Put your hands up, dear,
                A
And join arms.
D
Hard to see what’s brewing
             G
With a single power rising
               F
And the ethics are subverted
        A
By a hidden subsidizing.
                   F
Culture of fear
                                     G
When you sense it’s here
        A
Join arms.
                         F
Culture of fear
                         G
Grit your teeth, Dear.
                  D
In furious laughter.
            D’
There’s a song to hear inside you
                     A’
It’s a product of your truth
                             G’
There’s a history for writing
                     D’
By experience, and youth.
	(DRONE, D ON A STRING)
(spoken):
Early one morning In Manila,
When Ferdinand Marcos was in power,
The waking people had no papers,
The waking people had no phones,
  All their radios were silent,
 And their tvs all were dark.

    D     
If legislative and judicial
         G
Hide laws of liberty
    F
Is martial law implicit?
A
Have traitors won victory?

        D
As a power steals your freedoms,
           G
Don’t obey it in advance,
        F
Institutions that protect you
                A
May not have a second chance.

		          F
Naive eyes are traumatized,
                        G
Social media weaponized,
                   D        C           D          C
-	Join arms.
	        D
-	Join arms.
	      C
Will you join in now?
	        D
-	Join arms.
	      C
While we need each other
	        D
-	Join arms
         	        C
Against lies that divide us
	        D
-	Join arms
              C
Across the Washington Mall
                   D
-	Join arms
-	               C
Around the silos of Canaveral
	        D
-	Join arms 
        C
As the moon chills your teeth
	        D
-	Join arms
      C
Help a new sun arise
	        D
-	Join arms
           C
For an American Spring
	        D
-	Join arms

Culture Of Fear

Pour Your Meaning

Wooden dock soaks in the river
Mullet grass slides o'er the brink
Outboard motor fuel slick floating
Hold on while I fill my drink.

Herons pose like gray morticians
Needlefish swim on the grass
What's forever now is ending
What the hell has come to pass?

We didn't come this far.
We didn't work this hard
We didn't keep our aim so true
To not learn this from you.

Vapor trail before the fire
Wooden chairs before the grass
Letters sent before Chicago. 
Pour your meaning on me.
Pour your meaning on me.

Pour Your Meaning

Bahalana 

Words and Music by Robert Edgar, 2000 
Tuning: DADGBD 

Let’s drink to the bureaucrats and drink to the Pope 
And drink to the fixers who bless us all with hope. 
Got a meeting at three at the Hotel Manila 
Better have another drink ‘cause the Jeepney ride’s a killa’. 
Let’s drink to our friends and drink to the rain 
We should have another drink ‘cause the meeting’s changed again. 
While it didn’t take the rain to make my shirt start to drip 
The typhoon’s a nice touch to help mark the trip. 
Have a plate of squid in their own black ink 
Sliced and marinating - fresh from the sink 
A plate of monsoon city soaking in its own shadows 
Tell me who stays dry when the deals go down? 
Everything’s a gamble-trade up. 
Everything’s a gamble-trade up. 
Everything’s a gamble-trade up. 
Everything’s a gamble-trade up. 
Everything’s a gamble-trade up. 
When the need exceeds 
What the law allows 
Play between the rules 
Sleep where you fit-squat roadside strips 
Steer where you can-as chance permits 
If the government’s broke 
Where do you look for hope? 
Bahalana! 

Bahalana

Navigating the world driving music and cinema.

Robert Edgar

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks