Me & The Originator

 It’s a good thing that I found that trunk.

 I thought it was to store my seventy-eights, 

but what was hidden in it changed my life. 

Just when the record company was on

 us to record originals instead

 of covers, and the guys all looked to me – 

and I had nothing. Not a clue about 

how to write a song – with words at least. 

I knew a lot of chords, and had a million 

riffs I could pull out, but what to say, 

and how to do it? I was at a loss. 

So when I found the papers in the bottom 

of that ancient wooden trunk, and read ‘em, 

that pulled me – all of us – out of the fire. 

I had questions; that stack had the answers. 

Old and yellow, maybe, but to me 

they were pure gold. And we all got rich, 

although we all got shafted, and split up, 

and most of them went broke, but that was later. 

While it lasted, there was lots to go 

around. I never told ’em where I got 

the words, and I felt guilty about that. 

But nowhere on those pages was it written 

whose words they were. Just poems, you might say, 

or maybe there was music too, but not  

written down. I put some music on, 

and we went in and cut ‘em, and the people 

must have liked it. We got pretty famous 

for a while there. When reporters used  

to pester me about the songs, I’d say 

“Shoot, the words are all around us in  

the air, I don’t ask questions, I just write 

‘em down.” And that was fairly true, in fact. 

Whoever wrote them had some kind of life, 

if all those words were true. When I’d look through 

that stack of pages – it was like he read 

my mind sometimes (or she, you never know). 

Seemed like I lived those stories, though they weren’t 

in any order. As the years went by 

I’d get into some kind of situation, 

and sure enough, there’d be a page about it. 

It got so I would wonder which was next, 

and hope that others were a long way off. 

Now I’m near the bottom of the stack, 

and there’s only so many ways to read 

my future in the few that still remain. 

There’s a line of blood from the bed to the door

drop by red drop across the bare wood floor

Don’t know what all that bleedin’ is for

But that’s a high price to pay

Poor boy, this ain’t your day

Pooled out on the porch, that’s gonna leave a stain

trail dies in the driveway, washed by the rain

You might get away in spite of the pain

But that’s a hard game to play

Poor boy, this ain’t your day

Poor boy went where he wasn’t sposed to go

Poor boy learned what he wasn’t sposed to know

Poor boy saw what he wasn’t sposed to see

It happened to him, it could happen to me

Poor boy went where he wasn’t sposed to go

Poor boy learned what he wasn’t sposed to know

Poor boy did what he wasn’t sposed to do

It happened to him, it could happen to you

Road’s gettin’ dimmer in the poor boy’s mind

runnin’ is drivin’ the poor boy blind

Carrying all that he left behind

that’s a big rock blockin’ his way

Poor boy, this ain’t your day

As early as I could, I ran away

from home, and carried everything I left

behind. There was no reason to look back:

I didn’t have to follow it to know

the line of blood led to the witch’s house.

I’d left a drop at every other step.

She knew exactly where to strike, and how

to use her cold words like a spur of ice.

So intimate it was, I held the wound,

after they pierced me, in, as blood ran out.

Hard as the wind blew rain as I approached

the river I was fearful of the currents,

both air and water; so as not to be

swept off I loaded stones in every pocket

and tried the ford; soon in over my head,

I learned how to press on, holding my breath.

Money ain’t love, and love ain’t money

just bein’ me, not tryin’ to be funny

but I’ll make it pay, I’ll make it P – A – Y

I was born to be a lover, be a lover till the day I die

I do what I love, love what I do

don’t get satisfied until I get through

That’s my job, that’s my J – O – B

Gotta keep workin’ to be who I want to be

I play when I work, work while I play

when I can’t tell the difference, I’ve had a good day

How ‘bout you, how ‘bout Y – O – U?

What it takes to make you better, that’s what you oughta do

“Sure,” he said, “it’s okay for a hobby.,

but you need something steady, see? And there’s 

a lot of jobs that you’d be good at. Think about

a trade where you can use your hands, and maybe

be outdoors, you’d like that, and you’re handy.”

He was trying, and he meant well, but

he was talking to the son he thought I was,

not me. My life was never any kind

of steady. Never had a normal job

I didn’t quit within a week. I had to play,

that’s all – never really had a choice.

Found some guys who thought the way I did,

jammed into a Fairlane Ford and pulled

a trailer with our amps and instruments

wedged in with a PA and some speakers,

and dragged around until we found some folks

who let us set up in a corner on

the floor of some dark bar, and pass the hat.

Later we’d play for the door. We had 

a Chevy van by then, with a partition

and blown out shocks, and we would travel

anyplace that we could get to, play,

and make it back home while it was still dark.

As long as we had time each day away

from each other, we could make it work.

After we had made it, what they called

making it at least, we stayed out on

the road for months, which made us want to kill

each other; being that close isn’t natural.

What wore you down was getting to the job, 

and after getting paid and getting home.

The playing part was why we kept it going;

when even that became work, we broke up.

They say he went out drinking and never made it home

He had the start that afternoon but never did let on

He walked the bases loaded, he was looking pretty green

The skipper came out to the hill, didn’t like what he seen

He smelled the whiskey on his breath, his whisper was a shout

“You got yourself into this mess, now go on and get yourself out.

Now you might think it’s funny, but I’m not having any fun

so good luck friend, ‘cause I’m leaving you in if it takes to Kingdom Come.”

The lefty grinned and touched his brim and said “Don’t worry, Skip.

Just sit back and take it easy, we’re going on a little trip.”

The skipper didn’t like his tone, or the smile upon his face

He said “Better hope those boys behind you want to help their so-called ace

I don’t care if you can’t see straight, you’re getting no relief.

And I don’t think you can make it, leastways that’s my belief.”

He sauntered to the dugout and sat down with a smirk

The lefty just asked for the ball and went about his work

He turned to look out at the crowd, and he searched all around

whether friend or foe he could not know, but no one made a sound

So he called his fielders to him, said “Now it’s a matter of pride.”

And he sat them down around the mound, and then struck out the side.

They tell this story about Rube, the lefty

Rube Waddell, who ended his career

in Nineteen-Ten. No man alive has seen

him pitch. I think I know, though, how he felt.

The band quit on me once, in Cincinnati,

before the gig. Not one of them showed up.

Club owner didn’t want to pay me, said

he hired a band and I was just a solo.

Said I couldn’t hold the crowd. I said

“just watch and learn,” and went on by myself.

Told the crowd up front what happened, said

“I’m gonna do this set all by my lonesome,

and you’re gonna love it.” Killed ‘em, and

he had to pay up. While he counted out the money,

real slow, like he couldn’t bear to let

it leave his hands, he made a face just like

the one Rube’s skipper must have had that day.

Her right eye was brown

her left eye was blue

she could look straight at me

and still be looking at you

She said she was a healer

if I was hurt she could relieve it

I’m not a superstitious man

but when she touched my hand

she made me believe it

She said that I was different

she saw it in my smile

and she could make me happy

if I let her stay awhile

She said she could work wonders

she kept something up her sleeve

I was ready to walk away

but she came to my house one day

and she made me believe it

I really should know better

I don’t have a good excuse

Cause she made me an offer

it was easy to refuse

When the time came to quit the game

I found I couldn’t leave it

And all along I knew

what she was saying wasn’t true

but she made me believe it

What makes this blossom stand out to the bee?

Is it a matter of proximity,

some subtle color only she can see,

or some nuance of scent that she can feel?

A factor finally quickening today

deeply embedded in the DNA,

emerging to the surface in a way

that, unaware, the blossom can’t conceal?

To near, helpless before the mystery

of what has chosen blossom for the bee;

to taste, believing that her choice is free

is the bee’s lot, yet the nectar’s real.

You did just what you wanted

didn’t care about no one else

when all your friends were hurting

you were thinking about yourself

Here come your trouble

you asked for yesterday

didn’t pay me no attention

when I said it’d be coming your way

I put up with your mess

made excuses for you too

Now I’ve quit being your fool

just what are you gonna do?

Here come your trouble

and now you’re gonna pay

you never would believe me

but your time has come today

I took every bullet for you

you had some kind of nerve

now I like to see you struggle

it’s just what you deserve

Here come your trouble

I been waiting for this day

say goodbye to your good times

cause your trouble’s here to stay

He had some habits that were hard to break.

He handled money every night. I should 

have known. But we’d come up together, been

through everything, the times we had to split

one hot dog five ways. I trusted him.

Sure, once we took off I made royalties

from publishing and writing, but then I

provided all the songs. The paperwork

was in my name, and when the taxmen came

and popped us seven figures for unpaid

taxes, no one made a move but me –

I bailed them out and paid it off in full,

and never asked how we got in the hole.

When I went solo, I felt bad at first

I didn’t take him with me, so I let

them keep the band name, make the best of it.

Then they went straight down on their own. At first

nobody understood how they could go

so broke so fast, and I got criticized

for leaving them behind. Most people thought

they would have been okay if I had stayed.

So later when we found out he’d been skimming

gate receipts for years, I felt betrayed.

I didn’t talk about it; we’d been friends.

But everything he went through after that,

he had it coming to him all along.

I stopped like a clock

when you walked on into my life

Couldn’t get no sleep

you cut me deep as a boning knife

You gave me the feeling

that your dealing wasn’t on the square

and you were bad as I thought

but I forgot how to care

When you came to my room

your perfume went right to my head

and when I heard your voice

my choice was to believe what you said

if you left me alone

I was a stone dropping through the air

I knew the end of the plot

but I forgot how to care

I hung on every word you said

hung on through your silences too

maybe coulda had a life instead

of holding my breath for you

But you were off buying shoes

that you used to walk away from me

And you were wearing the shades

that made you think I couldn’t see

But I saw all right

every night that you were out somewhere

You can believe it or not

but I forgot how to care

When I first saw her in the last page ad

while finishing a DC comic book,

I didn’t know what I was looking at.

“Learn to Draw!” it said, and there she was,

a fashionable beauty in a wrap,

hand-drawn in lines, but young and flawless-looking,

with a feather in her hair. I liked

to look at her but didn’t think much of it.

Then one day, all at once, I saw the crone:

withered, dry lips drawn tight – optical

illusion, flipping from the beauty to

the crone according to the way you looked.

“Pictographic Ambiguity,”

so called. Some claimed to see them both together;

for me, the beauty fled at once, like milk

which curdled in the bottle overnight,

and after that the crone was there alone,

declaring the true face of the young model,

reminding me how hard it was for her

to be as beautiful as she appeared.

You were up at his house again last night

Don’t know what you call it, but you can’t call it treatin’ me right

You forgot about your promise, but this I know

I’m not gonna be the first one to go

The years we’ve had together, they’ve been good

You said you wouldn’t leave me, looks now like you would

Might not be good for me, even so

I’m not gonna be the first one to go

Last thing I’m gonna do

is give you a good excuse

It ain’t about givin’ up on you

just because you cut me loose

Our home is not a happy one that’s true

But you can bet that lettin’ go is something I won’t do

You’re gonna have to make that choice, you know

I’m not gonna be the first one to go

This is just the way some people roll.

You grab the wire, and if the juice is on,

you can’t let go, it’s out of your control.

You’re burning up, but your will power’s gone.

I caught this more than once when I was young.

The drama was like living in a thriller.

One kept showing off a borrowed gun;

I wised up when she wanted me to kill her.

It seems like almost everyone I know

has got into this rut sometime or other.

You feel like every kind of dope, although

you shouldn’t. Every fool is like another.

You’re human. You were born to take the fall.

Maybe blues is universal, after all.

You got a smile for the mailman when he brings you a letter

a different one for the neighbor boy, cause you like him a little better

All I want is what you got for me

if you ain’t got somethin‘, I don’t want nothin’ you see

For your horse you got a saddle, for your washing you got a line

I got no expectations, I only want whatever’s mine

All I want is what you got for me

if you ain’t got somethin‘, I don’t want nothin’ you see

Didn’t come to crash your party, it’s you that makes the call

I go where I’m invited, or I don’t go at all

All I want is whatever you got for me

if you ain’t got somethin‘, I don’t want nothin’ you see

I gave you some attention, and I might like some too

but I ain’t askin’ for nothin’, so what are you gonna do?

All I want is what you got for me

if you ain’t got somethin‘, I don’t want nothin’ you see

Coming from the hundred-plus degrees

of the sun-punished downtown square, the air

conditioning inside the jewelry store

refreshed me like a pool plunge, instantly.

My band was still out playing, backing up

a singer from South Africa whose rhythm

section got held up en route. Forever

looking for an extra taste, they all

agreed to stay out on the griddle for

another set in all that blinding heat.

I wasn’t needed, so I lunged away

and found the cold spot that the festival

promoters had provided for the bands:

cool jewels and a local microbrew.

I saw him as an icy swallow danced

its way down, chilling every inch. I felt

the liquid sluice, delicious, and he smiled,

standing over by a diamond case.

I figured he was from another act,

but he was from another place entirely.

“You’re So-and-So,” he said, “I follow you.

I know a lot about you.” And he started

talking like I knew him, like we’d grown

up together, telling me about

my life: I did this, I did that, I went

here, and after that...He told me things 

about myself that even I’d forgotten. 

I wasn’t going back out in that heat,

so I put up with it. He didn’t seem

dangerous, just hopelessly obsessed.

I only wished he hadn’t picked on me.

He never seemed to tire of telling me

about myself. He said ”The first song on

your last album, was that about your wife –

the first one – how she left you for your bass

player in the middle of a tour?”

“Sure,” I said, “you’ve got me figured out.”

That made his day; he kept on happily,

and I thought if he only knew the truth –

I don’t know who that was written about,

I just put some music to it. He’d

run with it from there, like they all did.

But later on I thought some more about it.

That lyric was about the way I felt,

the first couple of years after she left.

If I could write, I could’ve written it.

It made it so I felt like singing it,

like I owned a little bit of it,

like anybody would who felt like that.

So maybe he was right. It took some years,

but I got over it. It took more years

to find a bassist good as Sam had been.

She kept him off the road; they’re still together.

That’s how it was with us, one or the other.

You had a woman, she was just your style

stayed around to love you, for a little while

you let her go without a fight

but you all right

Well now nobody can take her place

she said she was leavin’ just to see your face

and now she’s gone every day and night

but you all right

Now you had friends said they’d stand by you

but your luck ran out, now they quit you too

you’d shoot ‘em all, aw just for spite

but you still all right

Everybody’s leavin’ and you keep on

they can’t quit you twice, aw once they’re gone

now every wound is sewed up tight

you gonna be all right

After you go solo, nothing stays

the same. You still need help to keep it going;

there’s too much on your shoulders otherwise,

and any good team lets you be your best.

But you’re not equals like you used to be;

now they’re just employees, and you’re the boss.

It’s your name out front, you take the risk.

They come and go, and they’re all at your mercy.

If they want their jobs, they stay in line.

But they stick together, and they talk

behind your back. There’s always some resentment.

Your face is in the lights, they’re on the margin.

But you get used to being isolated;

there’s comfort at the center of attention.

You get so good at going it alone,

in fact, you can forget you started out

relieved to have the company of equals,

facing the common trials for the same reason.

What hardens in you then can make you pass

on every other kind of company:

The future likely will be like the past;

what probably won’t work’s not worth the effort.

You’ve learned to trust relying on yourself.

Living alone trains you to keep your distance.

I can hear the whistle blowin’

but there ain’t gonna be no train

the one that set us down in this Dead Man’s town

ain’t comin’ back again

ain’t comin’ back again

Now time is crawlin’ past us

and only time will show

if beautiful you and used-up me

can make a go of it or no

can make a go of it or no

People round here are talkin’

in a lingo I can’t understand

and they don’t seem to care at all

about a woman and a man

‘bout a woman and a man

So it’s gotta be you and me baby

we’re left here on our own

for all the help we’re likely to get

we might as well be alone

we might as well be alone

So let’s saddle up some ponies

and summon up our will

there’s a trail that needs a-blazin’

and a world of our own to build

a world of our own to build

It’s said the old will not sort with the young:

what’s been already; what is yet to come.

Faith creaks with every step across the floor;

doubt tries the sills and locks at every door.

Differing desires need different tending,

one eye on the beginning, one the ending.

How to share a world one is conceiving

daily, which another thinks of leaving?

Before me, after you, time has its turn,

declaring if we two will have to learn

to hurry through too early or too late

one opening, the other closing, gate.

You might think to look at me that I’m riding high today

But I got me some debts that I never can repay

and I’m sorry, so sorry

I’ve been so wrong for so long, and I’m sorry

I made it to the promised land across the track

but I got there by standing on another fella’s back 

and I’m sorry, so sorry

I’ve been so wrong for so long, and I’m sorry

I’ve had a string of good luck, you couldn’t cut it with a knife

still I don’t deserve even a minute of this life

and I’m sorry, so sorry

I’ve been so wrong for so long, and I’m sorry

I’ve tried to help a stranger, been good to my friends

but I don’t see a way that I could ever make amends

and I’m sorry, so sorry

I’ve been so wrong for so long, and I’m sorry

Whoever wrote that could have read my mind,

but not when I first read it. I had risen

at no one’s expense: I’d yet to rise,

not having put those words to proper use.

My luck had not yet run to good; I’d reached

no promised land. I’d eyed it from across

the tracks, from the dry place where I began.

I hadn’t even started being wrong.

But as the years went on, and I dug deep

into the sheaf of paper I’d discovered,

I came to be the teller of that tale

whose life was indistinguishable from it.

Seeing it at first, I had no notion

of the kind of guilt it spoke about,

nor did I know how I would come to feel it,

a sentence no confession could commute.

I got tires as bald as Grandma’s knees

patches on one that flap in the breeze

How long it’ll last no living man knows

If it goes, it goes

Cracked a molar last night, it’s hangin’ by a thread

every bite I take drives a spike in my head

When I drink ice water I’m curling my toes

If it goes, it goes

My hair’s falling out, I see it in my comb

those kids I had, they’re all leaving home

My time’s about to run out, I suppose

If it goes, it goes

I’m circlin’ the drain, it’s plain to see

it’s some kind of shame, the way they treat poor me

There’s a guy down the street already wearin’ my clothes

If it goes, it goes