I wrote this for my favorite yoga teacher who moved away from Los Angeles.

When You're Gone

Verse 1

Driving down on Sunset now
I can feel your ghosts around
Blowing, through my soul

Laurel Canyon or the Hills
Heard the stories heard the thrills
Lasting, all this time

All the folklore I’ve been told
All the dreams that I’ve been sold
Echo, through my head

Did you think that this would last
Decades gone and we still grasp
Hoping, to get close

Chorus

Ghosts of LA everywhere
You’ll come close but you won’t scare
Ghosts of LA did you know
That your myth it still gets told

Ghosts of LA haunting me
In the mountains at the beach
Ghosts of LA still survive
It’s true legends never die

Verse 2

Culver City, Hollywood
I can see them when I look
Smiling, through my soul

Celluloid or TV
It’s not hard for you to reach
Constant, all this time





Bridge

I see your hills are burning
Spirits filled with fire
You know that I’ve always loved you
Cause you take my spirit higher

Ghosts Of LA

Verse 1 

Always dreaming 
Never fully living in today
My head’s in space

Now I’ve landed 
Now I’ve got the sand beneath my feet
No more concrete

Chorus

I am - in the place where I belong
I see - why Brian Wilson wrote that song
I ride - all your waves from dusk til dawn
In California

Verse 2

There’s a calling
There’s a pull that’s felt across the sky
I can’t deny

Sometimes wonder
Are you real or made up by my mind
Is this divine?

FAWM2017

In California

I'm changing this one to - The Loser Of Lying

Verse 1

You’ve been telling the same old lies 
And you’ve tried to elude my eyes
But my sunglasses will still let me see - let me see

Pre chorus

When your mouth is moving I know it’s dishonesty

Chorus

You’re the loser of lying, you can’t tell the truth
And you try to deny it, after all the proof
You’re the loser of lying, you are not smooth
And you try to deny it, after all the proof

Verse 2

I’ve lived with you for all these years
Your words chosen and engineered
A failed craftsman of fiction and deceit, on repeat

Pre chorus

When your mouth is moving I know it’s dishonesty

Chorus

Bridge

The loser of lying
Here we go again
The loser of lying
Here come the lies again

Business of Lying

Song I wrote for FAWM 2023

Verse 1

Ever since I was young
I dreamed I would become
Someone who could be loved
But instead I was judged

Lovers threw me away
Told me I could not play
Said that I could not stay
And they sent me to pay

Chorus

I don’t know what I did to be banished and stranded in this place
I’m sentenced to unlovable island

Verse 2
 
Never knew what I did
Found my name on the list
All my freedom was stripped
All my words were dismissed

So I’ll die here alone
With no love of my own
Mercy never was shown
Hope the next life is gold

Unlovable Island

Verse 1

Dreaming, I am playing
With Donald and Walter B
Nervous, but I’m excited
We play tunes like Hey Nineteen

Chorus

Night after night we play Aja
Josie and Peg
Will Any Major Dude wake me
And take off The Fez

Verse 2

Playing with Keith Carlock
Who will do his best Steve Gadd
Time for Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand

Steely Dan Dreams

Verse 1

I’m but a kid
And I’ve hardly lived
Still you objectify and traumatize my skin

Your force is brute
Your rules obtuse
How do you justify and give out such abuse

Chorus

You beat me in the front of class
Raise your paddle whip my ass
Cannot show a lick of fear
Or lest be mocked by classmates’ jeers
 
Watch me when I take a shower
Sick pervereted use of power
Bashing boys at age thirteen
Subject to your sick routine

Verse 2

I’m powerless
To your defects
Don’t know how to combat how I might protest

I cannot fight
I cannot cry
All I can do is play along til I am unconfined

Your Sick Routine

Can't find the lyrics but written by my friend Kendall Krishna

FAWM2016

Nowhere And Everywhere


México tiene mi corazón 
Las mujeres más bellas del mundo
Estoy listo pa hacer de este lugar mi hogar
Ahora es el momento
Eso Eso!

Chorus

Me voy a Mexico
Nos vemos pronto
Quiero ver tus playas
Quiero comer tus comida

Me voy a Mexico
Nos vemos pronto
Quiero conocerte mejor
Quiero sentir tu calor


Verse 2

Guey no entiendes la magia de esta tierra
La cultura no se cierra
puedes ir y ser bienvenido
aunque seas gringo



Me Voy a Mexico

Chorus

i like Hawaiian music
feels like i’m at the beach
i like Hawaiian music
see an ice cold drink, within reach

i like Hawaiian music
feels like I’m surfing the waves
i like Hawaiian music
so i’ll play ukulele and wear my lei

Verse 1

working all week at the office job
and the AC makes me freeze
dreaming i could live right on the sand
cooled by an ocean breeze

stuck in a jungle that’s concrete made
nowhere near the coast
but i can play some island tunes
to give my soul some hope

Verse 2

i’m not built for cold and snow
winter brings me pain
need the sun to make me smile
heat to soothe my veins

Summers that don’t ever end
Riding waves all day
this is what I dream of
and it makes me wanna say

©2015 Jam It Up Your Music
James N. Staubes, Jr.

(I Like) Hawaiian Music

Versatile, collaborative musician, songwriter and producer. I play keys, guitar, bass, drums and I sing. I'm fluent in Logic Pro. Most of these are the first drafts from February Album Writing Month (FAWM).

whispersandmegaphones

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