Song List: Original Songs
This page lists my original songs which I may or may not do in my Live Stage Extravaganza — how comatose the crowd is generally influences whether or not I subject them to any of these. (I regret that for financial reasons I have found it necessary to drop the dogs, ponies, scantily-clad dancing girls, and computer-controlled lasers from the show. I just play a few of these interspersed with cover tunes now.) Please check out my Creative Commons Songs page also!
Eventually I will put up the lyrics for my songs for your edification and amusement, and links will appear on song titles below. A few there now - one more thing that will evolve over time. Rather like this whole site.
| Title | Description | I play |
|---|---|---|
| Alone Together | Yeah, yeah, another "relationship" song. But it's netted me no less than 3 marriage proposals over the years, not to mention hints at the possibility of less permanent arrangements. I'm serious. I'm careful with this one! Kind of a country waltz feel - I could hear someone like Alison Krauss doing it. With a Jerry Douglas Dobro track - yeah! | Guitar |
| Ballad of Big Celine | The song that tells a story is fast becoming a lost art in this age of sound bytes and short attention spans. This LONG bluesy shuffle is based on a true story – actually 2 true stories – experienced personally in the wilds of North Dakota and Wyoming. | Piano |
| Ballad of Billy Roy | A Bluegrass tune with a surprising, definitely non-hillbilly lyric twist | Guitar |
| Blues Like Thunder | Classic acoustic blues style inspired by a year spent in Chicago. Sorry, Lynn. I didn't know you then. | Resophonic Guitar |
| Corporation Blues | Blues-rock tune about working in Corporate American. Ain't it fun? | Guitar |
| Cross the Line | A politically-charged ballad that smacks of CS&N's influence. With a few political overtones. Kind of political. Did I mention there could be some political stuff in here? | Guitar |
| Desert Storm | A pissed-off rocker in the best 60's protest song tradition. Written in 1990 during Gulf War I, dedicated to a colleague serving in the U.S. Army Reserve who died in that (yet another undeclared) war for squat that I can see. The lyrics have proven sadly prophetic. | Guitar |
| Doin' Cocaine | A John Prine-esque tune about the 1980's. A Coffee Achiever favorite. | Guitar |
| Highway Suite | Bowing to my classical music education, a piece in 3 movements. Two Stills-inspired acoustic instrumentals & a lament about the life of a road musician. | Acoustic guitar |
| Home (is where the heart is) | A tune about lessons learned about life, and what's really important therein. Kinda syrupy with just a dash or corn. I like it. | Piano |
| Keys to the Kingdom | Reflections on wealth and power. It has been mis-labeled as "Contemporary Christian". Baloney, nothing was further from my thoughts, and I certainly ain't one. But yeah, you can tell I was brought up in a church-goin' household. | Guitar |
| La Mancha Moonlight | The Latin-jazz fantasy of a Hemingway sort of character. Written late one night under the influence of a certain quantity of Spanish tinto. | Piano |
| Leningrad Tram | The jazz ballad version (there is, are you ready, a Bluegrass version - really!) Inspired by the trams of St. Petersburg, Russia as they were when I first rode them | Piano |
| Morning Dew | Folk-rockish tune about a Lebanese journalist I once knew | Guitar |
| So Long | I wrote this tune the night before I left Lafayette, Indiana, where I'd lived for a long time, to go to Seattle (see my Bio page). | Guitar or Piano |
| Songbird Lady | A tune I wrote one night after a patio performance by Carrie Newcomer, long before she was famous. | Guitar |
| Walkin' Man | Country-folk-blues tune about the hobo lifestyle. Sort of. Maybe. One of my Creative Commons tunes. | Guitar |
| Wired World | A country-rock song about the high-flying dot com era of the 1990s. | Guitar |
See also: Cover songs list