“My heart is taken it’s not lost in space
And I don’t want to see your mooney mooney face
I say why on earth do you revolve around me
Aren’t you aware of the gravity
Don’t need another satellite
I’m happy standing on my feet of clay
I have no wish to swim your Milky Milky Way
I say why on earth do you send your letters ‘round here
Only to gum up the atmosphere
Don’t need another satellite
So circling we’ll orbit another year
Two worlds that won’t collide
So circling we’ll orbit another year
Moon still tries to steal the tide away
Don’t need another satellite
Don’t need another satellite
Abort your mission let’s just say you tried
Before you glimpse I have a darker darker side
I say why in Heaven’s name do you come on these trips
Only to freeze in a total eclipse
Don’t need another satellite
So circling we’ll orbit another year
Two worlds that won’t collide
So circling we’ll orbit another year
Moon still tries to steal the tide away
Don’t need another satellite
Don’t need another satellite [don’t need another satellite]
”

“Stupid on the Steinway
So sick upon a steinway
The sailors drown
See them talk and see them drown
And see them drink and fall around
Upon the floor
Sister of mine, home again
Sister of mine, home again
Lonely in a crowded room
The radio plays out of tune
So silently
The radio upon the floor
Is stupid it plays Aznavour
So out of key
Sister of mine home again
Sister of mine home again
Broken on a ship of fools
Even dreams must fall to rules
So stupidly
Words are all just useless sound
Just like cards they fall around
And we will be
Sister of mine home again
Sister of mine home again
Buy a car and watch it rust
Sister see them fall to dust
They fall around
In another crowded room
Paint me like the shirt I’m in
Honestly
Sister of mine, home again
Sister of mine, home again
Sister of mine
Sister of mine
Sister of mine
Sister of mine
Sister”

“Heartrending, pendulous, steadily comforting, quearying, a long- passed friend’s diary found among their things, a church service, meanderingly conversational, a dot connector, just enough just in case, the gospel of a dream, a waltz between an upright piano and a pump organ. over the years, this song charged the attention of many. would that it will lift you!”

“He is in the blue distance
He is getting nearer
She is in the blue distance
She is getting so clear
I don’t know where they came from
I don’t know how we got here
I just turned my back and suddenly you were here

Oh boy, sometimes it seems like it takes forever
And then with your friends it takes no effort all
Oh it could be a past turn, attachment illusion
That makes distance between me
Leading a double, double life

On the other hand, you know it takes some language
An agreement for the moment making dreams ring true
So with the resistance comes an angel’s assistance
Brings it closer and closer
Leading a double life

She is in the blue distance
She’s a visiting wonder
He’s in the blue distance
He’s a dream come true
Am I sleeping and waking
Or just turning over
A cellular wonder
Leading a double life?
Leading a double life?”

“Heartrending, pendulous, steadily comforting, quearying, a long- passed friend’s diary found among their things, a church service, meanderingly conversational, a dot connector, just enough just in case, the gospel of a dream, a waltz between an upright piano and a pump organ. over the years, this song charged the attention of many. would that it will lift you!”

“He is in the blue distance
He is getting nearer
She is in the blue distance
She is getting so clear
I don’t know where they came from
I don’t know how we got here
I just turned my back and suddenly you were here

Oh boy, sometimes it seems like it takes forever
And then with your friends it takes no effort all
Oh it could be a past turn, attachment illusion
That makes distance between me
Leading a double, double life

On the other hand, you know it takes some language
An agreement for the moment making dreams ring true
So with the resistance comes an angel’s assistance
Brings it closer and closer
Leading a double life

She is in the blue distance
She’s a visiting wonder
He’s in the blue distance
He’s a dream come true
Am I sleeping and waking
Or just turning over
A cellular wonder
Leading a double life?
Leading a double life?”

“As one online listener remarked about this Winnipeg, Manitoba folk duo,
“these guys go together like thunder and lightning””

“Singer, Songwriter, David Massengill was born in 1951 in Bristol, Tennessee. His first recording, Coming Up For Air wasn’t released until the early 90’s. It includes a number of excellent songs including My Name Joe, On The Road To Fairfax County and Number One in America.
-Alan West-


Number One In America
© 1987 David Massengill

In Nineteen hundred and sixty-three
In my hometown, Bristol Tennessee
I was sitting on my mother’s knee
Watching “Amos ‘n’ Andy” on TV

Amos was Santa Claus on Christmas Eve
A little girl was tugging at his sleeve
Saying, “Can I have a doll my own color please?”
He Said, “Honey, you can make believe...”

Just then came a call on the telephone
It was the mayor, he asked if my daddy was home
This was for his ears alone
Mom and me listened on the second phone

Mayor said, “The freedom Riders are on their way
And they’ll be here by Christmas day
Our laws they vow to disobey
’Cause our school is as white as the milky way

Well, now we’re really in a fix
We can’t let ‘em show us up like country hicks
But once the races mix
It’s good-bye Jim Crow politics

First it’s forty acres and a mule
Then they want to swim in our swimming pool
Pretty soon they’ll be wanting to go to school
Where we were taught the golden rule”

Imagine them telling us how to live
Imagine them telling us how to live

Chorus:
We’re number one in America
Number one in America
Beat the drum for Uncle Sam
Overcome in Birmingham
Dynamite in a Baptist church
Four teenaged girls lost in the lurch
Fire hoses and the billy clubs
Police dogs and the racist thugs
Nightriders and the lynching mobs
Lawmen say they’re only doing their jobs
To stay number one in America.

Ax-handles vs. the right to vote
All white jury, that’s all she wrote
Back of the bus, don’t rock the boat
Separate but equal by the throat

That was twenty-odd years ago
Where’s the change in the status quo?
The freedom land is lying low
it’s shackled down on rotten row

The black skinned man still gets the snub
When he applies to the country club
But he still gets hired to trim the shrubs
Get down on the floor and scrub

There’s a businessman out on his yacht
He’s a rain or sunshine patriot
He says it’s all a commie plot
To be Number One in America...

[Chorus]
The Ku Klux Klan is still around
With a permit to march in my home town
But only on Virginia’s ground
The Tennesse side turned them down

The sheriff stood there with his deputies
Ostensibly to keep the peace
But he made us this guarantee
”By God, They’ll not march into Tennessee!”

The network cameras were triple tiered
We laughed and cried, we hooted and jeered
But mostly we stood there unfeared
’Til the Ku Klux Klan dissappeared

In some far off distant dawn
When a Black is president and not a pawn
Will they burn crosses on the white house lawn
And talk of all the days bygone

Imagine them telling us how lo live
Imagine them telling us how to live

We’re number one in America...
[Chorus]

Last Christmas Eve at the K-Mart store
A white family there, they was dirt poor
Father said, “Kids, pick one toy - no more
Even though we can ill afford...”

I watched his son choose a basketball
The oldest girl a creole shawl
The littlest girl chose a black skinned doll
And she held it to her chest and all

I watched to see how they’d react
Since they were white and the doll was black
But the mom and dad were matter-of-fact
They checked to see if the doll was cracked

So may you make a rebel stand
Where black and white go hand in hand
Until they reach the freedom land
Where the lion lies down with the lamb

Chorus:
O Number one in America
Number one in America
Beat the drum for Uncle Sam
Overcome in Birmingham
Dynamite in a Baptist church
Four teenaged girls lost in the lurch
Firehoses and the billy clubs
Police dogs and the racist thugs
Turn back the clock to Little Rock
Bought and sold on the auction block
Nightriders and the lynching mobs
Lawmen say they’re only doing their job
To stay number one in America

We shall overcome someday”

“She can burn you up in bed
Just like she said
Cos she’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

She can throw uh pot t’show(?)
She can start a fire aglow
Cos she’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

She puts her head into the fire
Makes you red hot perspire
Cos she’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

She was burnt before she was born
Burnin’ up a storm
Cos she’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

Lick out like flame
‘n’ burn you to a shame
‘n’ bite the burnin’ flame

Things are burnin’ big
She’s a red hot pig
She’s a hobo wire toaster
She’s a circle on a spit

She’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

She can stitch you to a wheel
Take you to her fire
‘n’ spin you round ‘n’ round
Boy, you take you down

Fire Fire Fire

She’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

Burn you up in bed
Just like she said
Cos she’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

She can lick out like a flame
Burn you to a shame
Yeah, bite a burnin’ flame

She can burn you up in bed
Coil you up instead
Cos she’s a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head

She can throw uh pot t’show (?)
She can start a fire aglow”

“One, two, one, two, three, four
Electric waves, a rush of energy
Silent river pouring backward eternally
Through the phase and touch of entropy
Old age in the beginner
To hit the stage and blush wild, laughingly
Crush the rage and rush time tappingly
Call the name so much so vapidly
Dissolving into thin air
Turning the two-fork taped up television
Into tunnel vision
Taking the new fork tactile as revision
Working the revision
Time escaping
Time escaping
There is no reason to go down alonе
Through distortion’s secret telеphone
Separate contact separate
Poison in the ether
Swinging still incessant pendulum
Lavender, nettle, calendula
Separate, contact, concentrate
Drawing out the fever
Time escaping
Time escaping
Ether
Time
It’s music
It’s music
Only the winter wind survives
After the heat rush feeds and thrives
After the bushfire burns and dies
Frozen and bitter
Desert ground so cold and clean
Spreading out like a magazine
Reading the dirt like gossip
What do the weeds say? They say
”Everything, everything, everything falls through
Each dimension breaks in two
Like the two hands clapping
Like the two wings flapping
Everything, everything, everything for free
As it all eventually
Turns to dust and petal
Molten rock and meadow”
Time escaping
Time escaping”

“New Year’s

By Dana Gioia

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.
Eternity has festivals enough.
This is the feast of our mortality,
The most mundane and human holiday.

On other days we misinterpret time,
Pretending that we live the present moment.
But can this blur, this smudgy in-between,
This tiny fissure where the future drips

Into the past, this flyspeck we call now
Be our true habitat? The present is
The leaky palm of water that we skim
From the swift, silent river slipping by.

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along—to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.”

“Today, the story of the woman The New Yorker called “a forgotten American literary treasure.” That’s Emily Hahn, born in St. Louis, Missouri (1905), known to family and friends as “Mickey.”

In college, she changed her major to Engineering after an advisor told her that a woman’s brain was “incapable of grasping mechanics or higher mathematics.” The male students and faculty discouraged her, but in 1926, she became one of the first women to get an engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She went to work for a mining company in St. Louis, but they would only let her do menial office tasks, so she left after a year.

Hahn was always on the move — one of her catchphrases was “Nobody said not to go.” After college, she and a friend dressed as men and drove across the United States in a Model-T Ford. She wrote letters home to her brother-in-law, which were later published in The New Yorker. That began a career with the magazine that would last almost 70 years. She was also a tour guide in New Mexico, worked for the Red Cross in the Belgian Congo, lived with a tribe of Pygmies for two years, and crossed Africa on foot.

At 30, Hahn moved to Shanghai, where she lived in a red-light district and worked as the China correspondent for The New Yorker. She had an affair with the poet Sinmay Zau, and took up smoking opium. She once said: “I always wanted to be an opium addict,” and eventually she became one. It took two years of regular smoking, but she persisted. And then she kicked the habit through hypnosis.

In 1941, she gave birth to a daughter, the result of her affair with Charles Boxer, who was the head of British army intelligence in Hong Kong. Hahn and Boxer were married four years later and had another daughter together. The family settled in England, but after five years of domesticity, Hahn was on the move again. She got a place in New York City and made frequent visits to her husband and children back in Dorset.

And through all of this, she wrote: 54 books and more than 200 articles for The New Yorker. Her books all got good reviews, but she was hard to pigeonhole, because her style flowed from genre to genre. Her very first book, Seductio ad Absurdum (1930), was a comic look at men’s wooing techniques. She wrote about her travels throughout Asia, including her wartime romance with Boxer, in China to Me (1944). She wrote many biographies and a few novels. She wrote books about diamonds, and the Philippines, and apes. And just a couple of months before her death, she published her first poem in The New Yorker. It was called “Wind Blowing.”

When Emily Hahn died in 1997, at the age of 92, her granddaughter Alfia Vecchio Wallace gave her eulogy. In it, Wallace said: “Chances are, your grandmother didn’t smoke cigars and let you hold wild role-playing parties in her apartment. Chances are that she didn’t teach you Swahili obscenities. Chances are that when she took you to the zoo, she didn’t start whooping passionately at the top her lungs as you passed the gibbon cage. Sadly for you, your grandmother was not Emily Hahn.””

“I see the shapes
I remember from maps
I see the shoreline
I see the whitecaps
A baseball diamond
Nice weather down there
I see the school
And the houses where the kids are
Places to park
By the fac’tries and buildings
Restaurants and bars
For later in the evening
Then we come to the farmlands
And the undeveloped areas
And I have learned
How these things work together
I see the parkway
That passes through them all
And I have learned
How to look at these things and I say
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me
I wouldn’t live like that, no siree
I wouldn’t do the things the way those people do
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to
I guess it’s healthy
I guess the air is clean
I guess those people
Have fun with their neighbors and friends
Look at that kitchen
And all of that food
Look at them eat it
I guess it tastes real good
They grow it in those farmlands
Then they bring it to the store
They put it in the car trunk
Then they bring it back home and I say
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me
I wouldn’t live like that, no siree
I wouldn’t do the things the way those people do
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to
I’m tired of looking
Out the window of the airplane
I’m tired of traveling
I want to be somewhere
It’s not even worth talking
About those people down there
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, ga, ga, ga
Goo, goo, goo, goo
Ga, ga, ga, ga”

“Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her
And you know that she’s half-crazy but that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind
And then you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind
And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them
But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind
And then you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind
Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river
She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind
And then you know that you can trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind”

“Eighty-year old Peter Rowan was born in Wayland, Massachusetts. He has had an amazing career. Inspired by Eric von Schmidt and Joan Baez, he took up guitar and soon thereafter mandolin. He became a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys in the early 60’s. In 1967 he left the band and teamed up with David Grisman to form Earth Opera. A few years later he joined Seatrain and four years later with Grisman, Clarence White, Bill Keith and Richard Greene formed the bluegrass band, Muleskinner. In that same year, he and Grisman along with Jerry Garcia and John Kahn formed Old & In The Way. The man has been busy ever since.

Ahmed The Beggar Boy is from his 2004 studio album with the brilliant guitarist Tony Rice. I don’t know many Iraqi war songs, let alone any others that use Armageddon in them. This one is one of many that show how great Peter Rowan is as a songsmith and vocalist.
”

“Ahmed The Beggar Boy

Ahmed was a beggar boy
Living on the streets of Old Baghdad
With his little brother by his side
Sharing every thing they had

One night Ahmed and his little brother
Were sleeping outside the mosque
When it seemed like all the stars in heaven exploded then
They thought everything was lost

Oh the night sky’s alive with fire
Where will we run?
Oh the night sky’s alive with fire
Is this Armageddon, Armageddon?

They ran down the street to the camel yard
Ahmed and his little brother by the hand
They stole a camel with two big humps

They headed out across the desert sand
They rode all night through the boughs of hell
They rode on through the slaughter

Burning oil wells where the smart bombs fell
At sunrise that camel he smelled water

Two towel-heads approaching sir along the Saudi Arabia line
Lock load take aim and fire when ready
But as I drew the crosshairs of my weapon on their faces
I saw my own two kids back there in Texas

Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t shoot I cried
In a voice so true
And that crazy camel he never looked back
As Ahmed and his brother came riding through

Oh the night sky’s alive with fire
Where will we run?
Oh the night sky’s alive with fire
Is this Armageddon, Armageddon, Armageddon?

.”

““Ohm”

Sometimes the bad guys come out on top
Sometimes the good guys lose
We try not to lose our hearts, not to lose our minds

Sometimes the bad days maintain their grip
Sometimes the good days fade
But the rain today hurts the head to dream

But nothing ever stays the same
Nothing’s explained
The higher we go, the longer we fly

’Cause this is it for all we know
So say goodnight to me
And lose no more time, no time
Resisting the flow

I heard you calling from far away
I thought I heard you cry
Having the voice to make it right
So I just cry

I felt her slipping, slipping away
Before I could even see
Tried once more, lost my grip, you were gone

But nothing ever stays the same
Nothing’s explained
The longer it takes, the looser the ties

’Cause this is it for all we know
So say goodnight to me
And lose no more time, no time
Resisting the flow

Doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo dood doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

But nothing ever stays the same
Nothing’s explained
The stronger the wind, the faster we’ll fly

’Cause this is it for all we know
So say goodnight to me
And lose no more time
No time

Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow

Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow

Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow

Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow

Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow

Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow
Resisting the flow”

“Yesterday
Any way you made it was just fine
Saw you turn your days into night times
Didn’t you know?
You can’t make it without ever even tryin’
And something’s on your mind, isn’t it?

Left these times
Show you that you’re breaking up your mind
Leaving all your dreams too far behind
Didn’t you see?
You can’t make it without ever even tryin’
And something’s on your mind

Maybe another day you’ll want to feel another way
Can’t stop cryin’
You haven’t got a thing to say
You’re feel you want to run away
There’s no use tryin’ anyway
I’ve seen the writing on the wall
Who cannot maintain will always fall
Hey, well you know
You can’t make it without ever even tryin’
And something’s on your mind, isn’t it?
And it is not, isn’t it?
Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?
And it is not, isn’t it?
Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?”

“I was an August baby
Conceived by the Christmas lights
I came into the world by the setting sun
On a humid summer night
When my grandmother held me for the very first time
She thanked God I looked like my daddy
And I never quite knew just what she meant
But I knew she was a little too happy
And now I see...

You can’t change a stubborn mind
You can’t see the world if your eyes are blind
What does it matter anyway?
In our darkest hour we’re all just shades of grey

They got married in a tiny chapel, 1965
Malcolm X was on the radio
When he took her as his wife
And she looked so pretty that September day
And her older brother cried as he gave her away
And the minister looked like he didn’t know what to say
And then he spoke

You can’t change a stubborn mind
You can’t see the world if your eyes are blind
What does it matter anyway?
In our darkest hour we’re all just shades of grey
Hey, Hey, Hey

And when my grandmother held me for the very first time
She thanked God I looked like my daddy
And I never gave a damn just what she meant
But I knew she was a little too happy
And now I see...

You can’t change a stubborn mind
You can’t see the world if your eyes are blind
What does it matter anyway?
In our darkest hour we’re all just shades of grey
In our darkest hour we’re all just shades of
Darkest hour we’re all just shades of grey - Hey, Hey, Hey
It doesn’t matter anyway
Don’t give a damn
Don’t give a damn
Don’t give a damn what they say
We’re all just shades of grey
We’re”

“fear is the root of all courage”