This is the full album before it was "mixed" for release.  It is raw. It is pure. The poetry of Chris' lyrics are more legible.  The tones are what we were listening to in the studio. The actual release mystified people. It never represented the recording.  It never represented the genius of where Chris could, and did, take the blues and rock paradigms. The album is one of rock's Greatest Misses.  

There are some alternate versions, and a different sequence.  Mostly I am posting this because of the decades of conversation with Whitley fans who don't enjoy the album.  How can you convince someone that "really, it's a milestone and a classic" when the only thing they have heard is a watered down commercial release that has little to do with the actual work that was done?  I hope this spurs conversation about this classic!

Chris Whitley-Din Of Ecstasy

A gripping story with dirty folk vibe.  A fun project in what I like to call "Timmy's tune lab!" Please enjoy and share!

The Devil Rocks Her Soul To Rest

Sunflower Seeds Inside Your Pockets

Take these seeds
And thrust them deep inside your pockets 
So that when you die and your body becomes the earth 
Sunflowers will  grow once again from the land you killed to claim.  
Ballerinas  and  camouflaged beauty queens will greet you in the streets With pirouettes of spinning bullets behind barricades of sheets
My grandmother will serve you  up Molotov’s cocktails.
The orphans you murdered will dance around you sleepless until dawn Sunflowers will grow once again from the land you killed to claim.
 
Do you fear for war? 
Ask of the stillness evermore,
Ask of the field, or ask the breeze, and ask the birch and poplar trees.
Ask of the children who now lie beneath the birch trees and the sky,
and let their mothers tell you once more
Whether or not you should fear for war.  

They died so that our children from ev’ry shore
might live without your fear of war.
Ask those who fought, and those erased,
ask those planted in the rubble of Mariupol and Donetsk Oblast	 
Ask the women you embrace.
ask  your mother –ask my wife–,
and you will wonder never more 
Whether you have cause to fear for war.  

Who longs for war? 
Who longs for war? 
No one but those who are no more.
 No one living longs for war
 But war cares not for longing or yearning or living.
 Or your fears for war 
War will always arrive uninvited to your door.

And when war comes calling to your front door. 
You cannot lock the war outdoors. 
You cannot run and hide behind your armchair 
Or bury your head under the covers of your bed. 
When war comes to your front door 
There is nowhere to run, nowhere to go. 
The corpses of your neighbors will hinder your flight
You cannot let fear become your general 
To give up the fight 
To surrender to might.  

We can stand with the sunflowers in the golden fields 
Stand with our head facing the sun. 
Pour your bravery into an empty coke  bottle 
Pick up a gun. 
Stand for freedom for the children we have lost 
Stand up for liberty against the tide tyranny. 
Stand up for yourself as much as any other. 

  Summon your courage to stand like man,  
Like a clown, like a woman like a child 
The cries of their answer rises loud and clear
for all people, ev’rywhere, to hear.

The message now is as before:
Do not fear 
Do not fear,
Do not fear for war,

For war is already here.

  © Igor Goldkind March 27, 2022 

For the Ukraine and for America


https://wp.me/p2m16z-14a

JAIR- Sunflower Seeds150422a

Blown away on a windy day,
like autumn leaves we fall.
Cast adrift from the mother ship,
we find no port of call.

	 When taking on
	 the great beyond
	 there are no first-borns.
	 There are no chosen ones.
	 We are only, 
	 we are all 
	 ephemeral.

Ash to ash, dust to dust,
remains of stars embrace.
Life goes on, minus one
forever unreplaced.

	 She’s taken on
	 the great beyond.
	 So, where are her first-born
	 and all her chosen ones
	 minus a mommy,
	 without our source?
	 Without our Polly
	 we are all, of course,
	 ephemeral. 
	 Ephemeral.

					© 2014  Fattie Pookins, Esq.

Ephemeral

when you were here with me

MIRROR MIRROR

When You're Strange  1 2 24

undone c. 2024  Tommy Twilite words and music 


unhinged unburdened 

unfettered and unloved

the unchained  sun

sits alone as a dove

in a sky that falls 

as the hawk takes her down

into the leaves and rain

that sets us free

from this life of pain


trees and mountains break

as a rock thrown into the sea

and everything that will be

or ever was

dissolves and drowns

in an ocean of time


unbroken unabashed 

unwashed and outclassed

brother father son

whoever is and whatever comes

from this deep dark hole

will sink back in

mother sister daughter 

child of the water

you will run

you will scream

you will try 

but you will not get away

you are undone


it all comes down to this 

the sweet smoldering remains

of one last kiss









i hung up Mr Cassady

Tommy Twilite

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