Written February, 2021
How come the bad days always seem so long?
Feels like the good times caught that train and gone
Keep your eyes on the horizon, keep on keepin’ on
Even on the bad days, tomorrow’s gonna find the dawn
It won’t stop raining, the ground is soaking wet
I’ve dug one grave, I’m fearing for the next
I pray to God and I persevere
Even when I look outside, the world seems so unclear
How come the bad days always seem so long?
Feels like the good times caught that train and gone
Keep your eyes on the horizon, keep on keepin’ on
Even on the bad days, tomorrow’s gonna find the dawn
Father forgive them, they know what they've done
Buried truth, crucified the Son
All my troubles, my Lord they pale
To the cross, hammer and the nails
How come the bad days always seem so long?
Feels like the good times caught that train and gone
Keep your eyes on the horizon, keep on keepin’ on
Even on the bad days, tomorrow’s gonna find the dawn
How come the bad days always seem so long?
Feels like the good times caught that train and gone
Keep your eyes on the horizon, keep on keepin’ on
Even on the bad days, tomorrow’s gonna find the dawn
Even on the bad days, I keep on keepin’ on
Even on the bad days, tomorrow’s gonna find the dawn
Written December 2021
She was the first hippie in her hometown
Wildflower they had never seen
She moved off to Raleigh
Got a little crazy
Small town couldn’t hold her down, she said
She knew every band
She was the biggest kind of fan
I had an autographed picture by my bed
Oh and Grandma said Aunt Bobbie
Was always trying to save somebody
The Cherokee, the turtles, or the whales
You can ask her siblings,
Nieces and her nephews
She’s the kind the store no longer sells
She was the first hippie in her hometown
Wildflower they had never seen
Crazy and carefree
But I knew that she loved me
Until we meet again Bobbie Jean
So long, Bobbie Jean
When Christmas time was coming
You knew she had the good stuff
Pink Floyd, maybe even Dr. Dre
It was the 1990s
She called us her babies
Loved us more than any words could say
Oh and she was the first hippie in her hometown
Wildflower they had never seen
Crazy and carefree
But I knew that she loved me
Until we meet again Bobbie Jean
So long, Bobbie Jean
I remember Christmas eve
When Aunt Bobbie stayed with me
That was the night that my brother came along
And the day we said goodbye
We hung our heads to cry
And then we got together and wrote her this song
She was the first hippie in her hometown
Wildflower they had never seen
Crazy and carefree
But I knew that she loved me
Until we meet again Bobbie Jean
So long, Bobbie Jean
So long, Bobbie Jean
So long, Bobbie Jean
So long, Bobbie Jean
Written October, 2021
Mom had two kids, was thirty years old
When we lost my daddy, God rest his soul
I don’t remember, I had not turned two
But I’d a hate to had to wear my mama’s shoes
She married a yankee, a businessman he
Moved us away from our family
He had to follow where the money flows
Which was far away from those country roads
Moving on, moving today
Grandma and Papa’s getting farther away
Change your song, change your ways
Pack up buddy, we’re moving away
When I was five we left Carolina
Cousins and my grandparents left behind us
She worked hard to make a happy home
But in my best memories he was gone
He had a temper that could turn to rage
It burned hotter when we came of age
I got older and I found it strange
That I’d lost my daddy and my name was changed
Moving on, moving today
Grandma and Papa’s getting farther away
Change your song, change your ways
Pack up buddy, we’re moving away
When I was thirteen, she’d had enough
After he beat me down when I called his bluff
Grandma was waiting with arms wide open
She’d been praying and she’d been hoping
Said “Come on home, there’s room down here”
And I ain’t seen him in twenty some years
Moving on, moving today
Grandma and Papa’s, coming home to stay
Sing your song in your own ways
Pack up buddy, we’re moving today
Pack up buddy, we’re moving away
Written Spring 2010
Singer wants the world to hear his song
Country boy just wants to go back home
I need you like the flowers need the sunshine and the rain
To make me strong
Wintertime can cut just like a knife
May and April bring us all new life
I need you like the rainbow needs the sunshine and the rain
To make me shine
So you say the spring is coming on
It ain’t the same now that I’m gone
I’ll be home as soon as time permits me
Hour will be too long
I find myself sleeping all the time
Some might say that dulls the mind
But when I’m dreaming I hear you singing in a voice
Sweeter than wine
I need you like the rainbow needs the sunshine and the rain
To make me shine
I need you like the rainbow needs the sunshine and the rain
To make me shine
I need you like the rainbow needs the sunshine and the rain
To make me shine
Written Fall, 2015
Beat up six string ringing in the night
Imperfect harmonies singing “I Saw the Light”
I hear them log trucks rolling by
The sounds of the country get me high
Got a couple of hound dogs and a mutt or too
It’s quite a choir they make when they all howl at the moon
In the mornings I have heard the wood ducks fly
The sounds of the country get me high
I’ve been in the city, Lord, and I never felt at ease
I missed them open fields and tall pine trees
I’ve got a tin roof, it resonates the rain
When the wind’s just right I can hear a train
I ain’t going nowhere, if you ask the reason why
The sounds of the country get me high
The sounds of the country get me high
The sounds of the country get me high
Written July, 2021
I’ve been a dreamer
For most of my life
Hooked on a feeling
That could cut like a knife
Love was all darkness
Till you brought the light
Like a reggae song singing
“Gonna be alright”
When the rain falls down
She’s there through the storm
On a long dark night,
Her love keeps us warm
When the cold wind blows
That’s when I know
She’s the one
A compass to guide me
Whenever I’m lost
Walking beside me
On the rivers I’ve crossed
Love like a rock
Steady and still
Singing like a sparrow
On my window sill
When the rain falls down
She’s there through the storm
On a long dark night
Her love keeps us warm
When the cold wind blows
That’s when I know
She’s the one
When the rain falls down
She’s there through the storm
On a long dark night,
Her love keeps us warm
When the cold wind blows
That’s when I know
She’s the one
That’s when I know
She’s the one
Written September, 2021
I remember walking down a dusty road
Kandahar, the sky was clear
Praying the culverts would not explode
And end my twenty three years
Nazir and Mustafa, they spoke three tongues
One got out and one’s still there
Ten years later it all fell pieces
And it seems like no one cares
Some folks stab you in the back
Others leave you on the tracks
Most people never cared at all
I can’t find the words to say
I just called him anyway
I just hope he makes it through the fall
Pendulum swinging,and it conquers pride
A battleground, a century
Nazir said it feels just like somebody died
Who am I to disagree?
Hindsighters tell you just what went wrong
They never spoke when it was right
I’m back walking down a dusty road
‘Cause I can’t sleep tonight
Some folks stab you in the back
Others leave you on the tracks
Most people never cared at all
I can’t find the words to say
I just called him anyway
I just hope he makes it through the fall
Leaves behind what’s left of it all
Written September, 2021
I once met a wealthy man
On a plane ride to Wyoming
We spoke of love and Lonesome Dove
The places I was roaming
He said he once was a righteous soul
Free as the western sky
But he traded for the golden goose
And a bigger piece of pie
He said “Wealthy men chase dollars
Foolish men chase dreams
This suit and tie’s a collar
But I live just like a king
I just wish my conscience
Hadn’t lost the voice to sing
Before you chase them dollars
Don’t you give up on your dreams”
He worked as a lawyer
For an oil company
Made a thousand bucks an hour
Getting paid to disagree
No such thing as right or wrong
Just a loophole he could find
Now he was pushing sixty-three
Wondering what he’d leave behind
He said “Wealthy men chase dollars
Foolish men chase dreams
This suit and tie’s a collar
But I live just like a king
I just wish my conscience
Hadn’t lost the voice to sing
Before you chase them dollars
Don’t you give up on your dreams”
Cancer took a friend of mine
Only thirty years old
Before he died he gave to me
Advice the price of gold
He said “love your kids and love your wife
Be just who you are
Grow your garden, never stop
Playing that guitar”
If wealthy men chase dollars
And foolish men chase dreams
I’m far from a scholar
But I feel just like a king
I’m thankful that my conscience
Hadn’t lost the voice to sing
Before you chase them dollars
Don’t you give up on your dreams
Before you chase them dollars
Don’t you give up on your dreams
Written 2017
He grew up tough
He grew up lean
Sharecropping in the Great Depression
Can make a man mean
He ran away from home
When he was just fifteen
Working in the New Deal
Living the American Dream
Second World War came
He volunteered to go
Jumped out of an airplane
Normandy was waiting below
Became a man
1944
Spent nine hours
As a German’s prisoner of war
He was tougher than the average man
Someone later generations wouldn’t understand
He was born to survive
They say “Thad Hodges was the toughest man alive”
Well he came back home
When the war was through
But he didn’t want to farm
So there was nothing for him to do
He drove across the land
California way
Enlisted in the Coast Guard
They shipped him away (to Alaska this time)
He was tougher than the average man
Someone later generations wouldn’t understand
He was born to survive
They say “”Thad Hodges was the toughest man alive”
Well, after twenty years
He came back home
Planted an oak tree
Never more would he roam
They gave him a badge
Sheriff’s Deputy
Carried a sawed off shotgun
And everybody could see
He was tougher than the average man
Someone later generations wouldn’t understand
He was born to survive
They say “Thad Hodges was the toughest man alive”
My grandaddy was the toughest man alive
Written 2017
We’ve got memories
We sang melodies
Acapella with the family
We all shed some tears
When it came crystal clear
What you mean to me
I won’t leave you behind
We’ve had us some good times
I won’t leave you behind
I won’t leave you behind
String of cars, a lonesome ride
Winding through the countryside
To the place where the family lay
Knowing what’s best for her
Don’t make it easier
Knowing she’s gone away
I won’t leave you behind
We’ve had us some good times
I won’t leave you behind
I won’t leave you behind
I won’t leave you behind
We’ve had us some good times
I won’t leave you behind
I won’t leave you behind
Get back Jack, I’m taking my time
Words with a meaning don’t need to rhyme
People believe you when you’re speaking your mind
Especially when you’re standing alone
Effects of the path that the wiseman takes
Is wider than the wrath of the hurricane's wake
Many are the rules that I had to break
To think up thoughts of my own
A deadend, friend, is living in the past
Guaranteed to get you nowhere fast
Eventually a memory will reach an impasse
If you let it keep haunting your mind
Mind reminds of the things that I’ve done
Everyday racing towards a distant sun
I reckon that’s the reason I’m still on the run
Looking what I can’t find
Looking and taking my time
I went to get ahead and improve in life
Figured I might find it in a suit and tie
It turns out a lot of those people lie
Steal once your back is turned
I lusted for a woman in a short cut dress
Masqueraded love, though I did profess
Even believed it I must confess
But now that bridge has been burned
The new went bad and the old fet good
I wondered on home to my neighborhood
I had returned like they knew I would
I just had to take my time
I still don’t act the way I ought to do
But my mistakes don’t make me blue
They’ve even helped write a song or two
About looking what I can’t find
Looking and taking my time
Fast paced world, you gotta slow it down
Elevate yourself above the sinking ground
High on a mountain where you can’t hear a sound
Ease your troubled mind
My home’s down east, sometimes it gets old
Reckon I’ll be headed where the weather gets cold
Put my motorcycle on a west bound road
Boone by supper time
Still looking what I can’t find
Looking and taking my time
Written Fall 2020
I saw both ends of the rainbow
And I don’t know what that means
Is it just a chance of circumstance
Or was it God shining down on me?
I’d been feeling kind of lonesome
I’d been feeling kind of blue
And there’s something about a rainbow
That feels brand new
You feel renewed
No turning back from where we’ve gone
No taking back the things we say
I still believe God is gonna carry me
To that unclouded day
No turning back from where we’ve gone
No taking back the things we say
I still believe God is gonna carry me
To that unclouded day
To that unclouded day
Written August 2010
Kicking up dust, picking up rust
Riding round in a government bus
Wishing I was back in Carolina
Watching the world turn, sitting in place
Knowing too well I lost the race
Failed every chance I had to qualify
Time, what a crime, it’ll bring you down
Moving so slowly when you’re moping around
When you’re having a ball
Then it all slips away
I had it too easy, had it hard enough
Talking to Jesus
The devil keeps calling my bluff
Worn at the seems, lost in my dreams
Trying to figure out what they mean
Another good old boy down one wrong road
Sitting in a prison of my own design
I sealed up the windows and I closed the blinds
Locked the door just before I lost the key
Hearing the bluebird, envy his song
Sings it to me and then he moves it along
Free is the creature with God given wings to fly
I can’t play music with my hands in the cuffs
So I’m talking to Jesus
The devil keeps calling my bluff
I had it too easy, had it hard enough
I’m talking to Jesus
The devil keeps calling my bluff
Written 2009
Hear he’s got a whole lot of money
Enough to buy you diamond rings
Money can’t buy you the true kind of love
That’s written in the songs that I sing
Ladies all think that he’s handsome
You might agree with them too
But looks can’t compete with the words that I rhyme
In the songs that I write about you
He could give you millions of dollars
I’ll just write you a song
The words that I write are gonna last forever
The money won’t make it that long
Hear he’s got a brand new Mercedes
Likes to drive you around
All he’s doing is showing you off
You talk, he can’t make out a sound
All things that shimmer and shine
Rain knows how to turn into rust
When we get to heaven all these earthly things
The Good Lord turns em to dust
He could give you millions of dollars
I’ll just write you a song
The words that I write are gonna last forever
The money won’t make it that long
He might be too busy
To show you real romance
But I’m telling you girl I can prove you my love
If you only just give me a chance
He could give you millions of dollars
I’ll just write you a song
The words that I write are gonna last forever
The money won’t make it that long
Written November 2021
This is the story of Hollis and Keel
A Smith and Wesson pistol a man can conceal
Hollis had the .32, Keel had the knife
One lost his farm, one lost his life
This is what the paper had to say about John Keel
He was a dangerous man known to steal
He had been to prison, robbing put him on the gang
A second time for murder, he was supposed to hang
But he appealed the sentence, got 30 in the pen
He found himself a pardon, conspiring on a friend
He and Joe Hollis opened up a store
Keel started running women, up on the second floor
Well, Hollis didn’t like it, they decided to split ways
Keel felt that he’d been cheated, and he said that Joe should pay
He told everybody he meant to do him harm
That’s when Joe decided, he wouldn’t go unarmed
This is the story of Hollis and Keel
A Smith and Wesson pistol a man can conceal
Hollis had the .32, Keel had the knife
One lost his farm, one lost his life
Hollis found a .32, Owl Head on the grip
It had a touchy trigger, didn’t take too much to slip
Went to see a man about some lumber, at a house next to the mill
He walked around the corner, coming face to face with Keel
Keel came at him with a blade and the handle of an ax
Joe began to panic, he felt the wall against his back
First shot went through his hat, the third one through the spine
For 6 painful hours, Keel lay their dying
Hollis called the sheriff, turning himself in
And the county was all waiting for the trial to begin
Jury they acquitted, self defense the plea
But the lawyers left Joe Hollis a hefty legal fee
You see, eight hundred dollars in 1928
Was more than most farmers could expect to quickly make
He had to sell the family farm to pay back on the loan
Twenty some-odd acres, now his neighbor owns
This is the story of Hollis and Keel
A Smith and Wesson pistol a man can conceal
If you believe the papers, this is a true song
John Keel was a bully who died with his boots on