Recall The Tanager - words and music by Tim Robinson ©2013

With St. Pat's day approaching, why not (apologies to Luke Kelly!)...

The Auld Triangle

This is quick demo of a tune I wrote with a great hook line contributed by the extraordinary songwriter, David Roland Rodriguez.  We messed around with a few tunes and this one holds strong in my mind.  Songs with an ocean in between... thanks, David.

Tell Me Why I'm Blue

Goodbye Diego © Tim Robinson 2012

The Surfing Life © Tim Robinson 2010

Kon - Tiki

CONVERSATION WITH A HORSE (2) © Tim Robinson - 2015

Saint Patrick Hid The Snakes © Tim Robinson 2015

Angry World © Tim Robinson 2012

UTOPIA PARKWAY © Tim Robinson 2015

Late Again © Tim Robinson 2000

Helena's Radio

The Queen of Elmira © Tim Robinson 2011

Tim Robinson's Album

God's Got a Problem ©2016 Tim Robinson

WALK IN THE WOODS WITH A DOG (Something Holy) - © Tim Robinson 2018

When you walk in the woods with a dog, you’re doing something holy
And you can build a church to that if you got the time
Or the stones, or the money, or… I don’t know much about churches
But when you write a poem about a dog, it don’t need to ring

A steeple bell – it don’t need to sing to the rafters
Maybe just throw her an old ham bone when she starts to growl
When you walk in the woods with a dog, you’re doing something honest
She just wants to run and jump, maybe bay at the moon and howl

   And if you do it with her
   If you rock and roll
   That’s something holy, holy, holy, holy, oh…

When you walk in the woods with a dog, you don’t need no rulebook
No ecclesiastical mumbo-jumbo jazz
When you turn to a dog and cry as the leaves are falling
There’s no shame, there’s just those ancient eyes she has

   Do it with her, rock and roll
   Something holy, holy, holy, holy, oh…

Ancient as truth, and hey, just maybe forgiveness
Golden-brown and deep and (hold your shit together, man)
When a dog turns to you, and sweetly begs you to follow
You’re doing the one last bloody truthful thing you can

   Do it with her…

When you walk in the woods with a dog you’re doing something holy
Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, oh…

WALK IN THE WOODS WITH A DOG - ©Tim Robinson 2018

The Ballad of Bill Laimbeer © 4-2016 Tim Robinson

WILDFIRES                      © Tim Robinson 2018


Wildfires, California, dateline yesterday
Southeast winds and a tinderbox of nothing left to say
There’s a gunman at the coroner’s, beneath a snow-white shroud
The seat of power is upside down and the TV’s on too loud

Among the dead there’s always soldiers – tomorrow’s Veteran’s Day
But the firemen need the shovels, so no digging graves today

Butte County, California, Washington DC
America is burning ‘bout as far as we can see
While in Paris, in his hotel room, the devil combs his hair
And a rain outside is wasted on a fire that isn’t there

Twelve dead, barroom dancing, others vanished in the smoke 
And we could lower down their coffins, but the firemen need the rope

There’s flames consuming Paradise – God knows where to run
From the top-down paranoia, from the unrelenting gun
Thoughts and prayers and glass-eyed stares, blame it on the sun
But before the mirror’s melted, take a look at what we’ve done

They’re counting votes in Florida, just like they always do
Yeah, we’re searching for the missing and the firemen are too

As a backdrop for the shooting, we got a wildfire
And a graveyard full of soldiers and a vote down to the wire
And above the midnight ocean, the devil’s jumbo jet
Is flying through the thunder and his hair ain’t even wet

And we’ll do this all tomorrow, just like we’ve done before
Ashes, ashes, ashes, that’s what firemen are for

Wildfires © Tim Robinson 2018

BURNING            © Tim Robinson 2018

All we are is memory and a little bit of hope
A room with two doorways and just enough rope
High wires, highways, a rim-shot for the jokes
Some of us are drinkers – some of us smoke, because

We’re burning, turning into prophecy and light
Drifting, falling through the perforated night

I knew a guy in college, said he’d grown up on a farm
He had a tattoo of that savior carved into his arm
We dream of such wonders – we harvest and we sleep
Some of us are heartless – some of us weep, because

We’re burning, churning blades of tangerine and red
Racing, chasing down the future and the dead 

All this in a spiral or a theory made of string
Strung through tomorrow like sorrow is a thing
That’s knowable, hey, just throw the ball and show some faith
Some of us are sportsmen – some of us hate that

We’re burning, learning how we vanish while we do
Smiling, all the while wading into the blue, blue

Water, still it outta be a simple thing to see
The horizon rising, out of you or outta me
I said, I like the sound of farming – he said, I prayed that would end
Some of us are heelers – others gotta mend, but we’re all

Burning, earning back the promise of a soul
Sailing, wailing through these years of rock-n-roll

Anyway, I wander, and I grow, and I digress
Everything’s a miracle – no man, everything’s a mess
Live, let live, try and fly above the grave
If some of us are lost – maybe some of us are saved

By burning…

BROTHERS, NORTH AND THE SOUTH

Deep in the Green-Wood shade
Under the oak tree’s glow
Clifton and William Prentiss
What do we need to know?

Brothers first, soldiers last
The bardo, The blood-soaked past
The dying bed, the battleground
A poet’s pen, that crying sound

Enlisted in Maryland
Each one with open dreams
Came to be men at last
Just as a nation screamed

Brothers last, soldiers now
The human trade, the sword, the plow
The whip, the torch, the naked sin
This is where the end begins

   Drink the poet’s whiskey down
   Bight that bullet in your mouth
   Blink if you can hear me
   Cried the brothers, North and the South

Young William, in rebel gray
Had not yet learned to see
All that w	as plain as day
So marched with company D

Brothers lost, soldiers felled
Take his leg, the surgeon yelled
The poet’s ear, each gaping hole
Morphine loves a tortured soul

Clifton, in righteous blue
Commissioned by Abraham
Commanded the sixth to move
The righteous through the damned

Brothers turned, soldiers fled
Oh, my captain, is my captain dead?
The poet read between their beds
Now Green-Wood trees sway overhead

   Drink…

We all will lie, side by side
The poets, some miles away
Freedom is still a war
Still we’re the blue and gray

Brother’s first, soldiers last
The present filled up with the past
The graveyard birds, the chiseled names
This time they’re the very same

   So, drink…

Brothers, North and South

Written for Jack Hardy, after his passing

Closer Now (with Rob Morsberger/glass harmonica)

DONALD TRUMP KILLED JOHN PRINE

When Donald Trump killed John Prine
I grabbed a halfwit friend of mine
Connect the dots, I said, we’re dyin’ here
And just like Donald said he’d do
He shot him on Fifth Avenue
In the last daylight of the darkest year

    But up he rose, yeah there he goes
    Sometimes Easter comes on early, I suppose

As Pontius Pilot washed and washed his hands
And scoffed at common sense commands
A gunshot rang, but folks were hunkered down
In living rooms, on dead end streets
Bedroom slippers on their feets
A tree fell hard but barely made a sound

    Still up he went, what’s heaven-sent
    Smoking guns, broken Presidents?

    And songs were sung on pocket screens
    As folks recalled what beauty means
    Our painted eggs rolled round and round…
    Oh, round and round and round and round and round…

When Donald Trump killed John Prine
Was a Tuesday, early evening time
Good Friday for a moment, then the rest
Crucifixions, strange disease
Jesus Chirst, let’s change this, please
The worst of us, we are knocking off the best

    Up he rose, yeah there he goes
    And he died for nothing, I suppose…

DONALD TRUMP KILLED JOHN PRINE

from the recording Helena's Radio, available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/timrobinson2
 and wildcatrecords.com

Tim Robinson

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