Bound together by blood and a 7-minute journey, our boys find themselves on the run to Mexico, still finding time to send a note home to mom.

Written summer 2016, the original inspiration for this song was simply wanting to write a “hey ma” lyric. From there I found myself in a shoot-out at 5:25.

Unhe(a)rd

Black Sheep Sons

Ah, 17: so much melancholy, so many D chords, so many bluesy guitar solos — and the time to play them!

Deeper in Love was written in 1979 / 80.  But this was the first time I recorded the song — roughly 30 years later.  Lots of lyrical clichés in here, but it was fun to remain true to the words of the teenage me, while making a recording reflecting my emotional and musical state of mind back then: blue.

Main musical influences on this song: the darker songs from the classic CSN and Déjà Vu albums, Traffic and Cat Stevens spinning on my turntable over, and over, and over again.

Taxi

Deeper In Love

Inspired by Marc Chagall’s “The Birthday”, I wrote this love song back in the late-90′s sometime, and recorded it in 2013. As with all of the recordings here, it’s demo-quality, but sonically I am trying to find that place between sleep and awake, where everything is soft and falls away as you drift between two worlds. To that end the lyric is very simple and unworked — without  a bridge and whispered more than sung.

I'd Like To Fall

Anymore I sketch my songs by recording them as a live track where I’m standing in the middle of a room strumming my guit and singing into a single mic. I’ll choose from 2 or 3 live takes, then overdub electric guitar, a keyboard part, stumble through some sort of snare part, and you end up here: on the internets, playing out of computer speakers.

This is a new song, written in winter 2013, and recorded as this sonic sketch in late spring 2014.  I hope you enjoy its imperfect, a bit sloppy and rough at the edges feel … ’cause that’s the way these babies are coming into the world.  As I go along, I am less concerned with making these songs perfect, and more thankful for my continuing songwriting process, and this crazy life—both still gifting me.

La La La, A Happy Song

Backwards guitars!  I’ve been working with the original recorded material for “Nothing Can Hold Me Back” to see what some digital editing enhancements might add — adding 1 extra guitar part before starting the edits.  So this is the same source material as the previous post — only tweaked in Pro Tools.  Having lots of fun turning the guitar parts backwards (huge Beatles fan) and adding some vocal mic and amp effects.

Nothing Can Hold Me Back

Rochelle was written in 2007ish and is definitely not well, a “happy” song.  Inspired by friends moving to Florida and how their stories DID NOT turn out.  Rochelle’s sad story just unfolded from there as a point to start her journey — but her story went the opposite direction, with one beautiful and giving moment as exception.  Look for a few obscure David Bowie references.

A work in progress. Stylistically, a real departure for me and difficult to sing.

Jerry Buckley

Rochelle

This song is an open letter to that evasive, but ubiquitous “something”.  That could be a relationship not yet found, or words unable to be spoken, or meaning & purpose, or some sense of a higher being.  Pick your poison, it’s open-ended.

On another level, it’s very much a song written to life itself from the faulted, clumsy side of a person, beneath which lies the stuff that’s in us all: potential.  The song is attempting to be a reflection of that faulted thing, with a hint of beauty in there somewhere hopefully.

It wrote itself pretty quickly . . . there was a moment of inspiration when I heard a few measures of a Rick Danko song and had to run to the piano, holding on to that amazing feeling he has, and out it came over the next hour or so.  I tweaked it over a few nights. 

Written in August 2009 with the working title “Sun to Moon”.  Rough piano, vocal, bass, guitar and drums are recorded here.

Boxes of Never

A quick sketch, starting as a vocal with acoustic guitar take recorded very lo-fi on my phone, which provided a projector-like hiss over everything. Keys, additional vocal, and electric guitar added afterwards in Pro Tools.

lyrics:
I just saw Linda Blair
she was wearing your hair
and I didn't know what to do,
stop your spinning baby
I'm just trying to talk to you

We don't want to call no priest
he's the one to trust the least
and he'll just try to take you home,
stop your floating baby
I'm just trying to talk to you

I called you up
you turned me down
and made some kind of guttural sound,
and after I loved you such a long time

I just saw Linda Blair
she was wearing your hair
and I didn't know what to do,
stop your spitting baby ...
stop your floating baby ...
stop your spinning baby ...
I'm just trying to talk to you

words and music by ©Jerry T Buckley

2017

Linda Blair Blues

so fine
I'm yours,
no crying
anymore

unless
they're tears of joy,
so fine
for this lucky boy

Sketches

So Fine jam sketch

I Can't Wait (sketch in G)

Whiskey Girl 

I've tried them all
sweet and tall
mean, and dull, and blue, 
the crying kind
are too easy to find
none of them will do

a radio sings 
of broken things
like hearts repaired with glue,
'bout knowing when
something ends
and not knowing what to do

but I'm not listening
right now
the sky is glistening,
the gulls they turn
this road it learns 
to find my Whiskey Girl

sometimes at night
if my eyes are right 
the stars are guiding me,
I see the bear
and archer there
with my girl dancing free

tall pines at her bare feet
on a moonlit road 
we'll lay on my street, 
a map, the stars
I know they are
to find my Whiskey Girl

someday in this world 
I will be Whiskey Girl'd
someday in this world 
I will be

over time
most everything rhymes
like waves will cap the sea,
the wind it blows
through clouds that know
this all was meant to be

back out on this highway
black tar lanes
that bring her my way,
chrome it turns
and gasoline burns
just to find my Whiskey Girl

So try them all
short and tall
mean, and dull, and blue, 
the crying kind
are real easy to find
maybe one of them will do

I'm back out on this highway
eyes over lanes
that bring her my way,
the gulls they turn
this road it learns 
to find my Whiskey Girl

she'll pour, I'll fill
and stay until
I find my Whiskey Girl

words and music by ©Jerry T Buckley

Very Buckley

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