1. |
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In 97 I was walking to work
Tripped on plaque and lookin back
I saw the date of my birth
A time capsule absent of an opening date
Just a burial time and at the bottom underlined
The word wait
So I took myself down to city hall
To get some education information making sense of it all
City hall pass a law that it’ll never be raised
And every 17th of May is now a city wide holiday
And on Waitsgiving Day
The red lights never change
There’s a big parade
That just sits in the shade
And then the grand marshal stands
Signals to the band and they play
We are always waiting
Hoping Praying
For a day that may not come
And with a little patience
Contemplation
We may find
we have enough
So tell your mom and dad
Cancel all the plans they had
and come out and play
We are always waiting
Hoping Praying
For a day that may not come
And with a little patience
Contemplation
We may find
We are
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2. |
Greatness Waitress
02:44
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The perfect idea arrives when it’s able
Forever stamps on an everything bagel
I’m not
an adult but I’m not a teenager no more
And I work at a store
With records and books
I often perform
You should come take a look
But you can’t take a look
The band’s on a break
The time that we took
Was specifically taken for
Waiting on a great idea
I am waiting on the perfect idea
Air conditioning, ice cream sandwich
something so perfect you can’t understand how it
Sits out in front of you waiting to grab from the yard
And I’m bad at guitar
But I think that's ok
Cause the better you are
The less ro
om in your brain
And the room brain
Needs plenty of space
To optimally function
With time that was given for
Waiting on a great idea
I was waiting on the perfect idea
It was saturday, that I found
Found a tape, on the ground
Of a diary, sister made
Ever
ything she’d seen that day
While listening
It was so inspiring
I took it home
Melody
Harmony
A symphony
It came to me
And within a week
And a day
Eagerly
I put my songs to tape
And from a counter top display
I sold all twelve at work that day
I will admit it’s beautifully lame
The time that I spend
Waiting for something to
say it to no one, say it again
I’m not alone I’m just sitting here patiently
Waiting on a great idea
I am waiting on the next idea
I am waiting on the perfect idea
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3. |
Driver Choreographer
03:12
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Because as hard as I try
You can’t find a moment
I can’t carve out the time
To polish your craft
And delivery drive
So dictate a diary
I’ll talk into a mic
Describing your path
Which I’ll adapt onto the stage
Choreograph the downtown route I take
Pecan Elm Hickory Locust Pecan Elm Oak
The limousine I drive
A gift from grampa
And packages climb
Up to the roof
Each afternoon I spy
A man on the corner
Who is scratching his thighs with a
Grapefruit spoon
Which he will use to dig and soon
I turn the corner
He’s gone from view
Another day on the route
Another tape I make with details I’ll use from
Pecan Elm Hickory Locust Pecan Elm Oak
Pecan Elm Hickory Locust Pecan Elm Oak
To my little sister
At the register whose selling books and records
With a special order brought into the store each day
We take the limousine
In late 2003
To elementary
Sing dance on the way
And now that memory I save
Inside an eighth inch TDK
Before the memory it fades
A chocolate limo melts to beige
If everyday from the mundane
I see one dance that I could make
Then when the chance is there to take
I’ll put my opus on the stage
Oh sister, if you write the songs
I’ll find the feet to dance along
And with opening curtains drawn back
A chorus sings triumphantly
Pecan Elm Hickory Locust Pecan Elm Oak
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4. |
BBQ Artist
03:37
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I was raised in smoke as a kid
In the BBQ shack my dad’s dad built with him
And every afternoon sauce from our chins
Dripped on the patio
Dad sang while prepping the ribs
My son, every step adds up in the long run
So I set in place as I grew
I Planted projects that patiently bloomed
I would paint patrons with bbq
Sculpted our smoker
You know her as Piggy Sue my love
She’s got a smoke stack stuck in her lungs
She’s going a quote smack clear cross her front
Every step adds up in the long run
And in 20 years
Word got out
My art covered the shack now a house
Best in state till the morning we found
The building had burned to the ground
It sucks
Losing something you love
Should add up, I’m not sure it does
I’ll do the math waiting for the long run
We pulled the pig from the ash
Fresh coat of pink, garden hose bath
Put her on wheels, rolled her out back
Then went to work on a snow cone shack
My son will ask about a song I once sung
With a purple stain on my tongue
Every step adds up in the long run
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5. |
Bass Digger
04:06
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You don’t have to win
You don’t have to play
You don’t have to believe the ones that tell you that it’s a game
It’s a daily choice
That you choose to make
If you’re waiting on someone to love you
You don’t have to wait
When I was young
I played the bass
I joined up with a band
Recorded some jams
And destroyed the tapes
We said what’s the use
No attention’s paid
To my wife my son my grandkid
Don’t make the same mistake that I did
If no one hears
That don’t mean a song shouldn’t be sung
Oh for Forty Years
The same songs have been stuck on the tip of my tongue
And I sing them now
While I’m digging graves
You should see the machine that the
Graveyard gave me
I call it the candy crane
We walk past funerals
On my lunch break
To my grandson working the snow cone stand
Swear to me now, raise up your right hand that if
If no one hears
that don’t mean a song shouldn’t be sung
And if no one cares
That only means you can sing out whatever you want
And if ever you get where you can’t hear your thoughts
Well now, scream to yourself at the top of your lungs
You don’t have to win
You don’t have to play
You don’t have to believe the ones who tell you that it’s a game
And you don’t need an audience
To be kind and brave
And if you’re waiting on someone to love you
Don’t go waiting on someone to love you
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6. |
Pyrotechnic Geriatric
01:21
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In my younger days
I was in a power trio
I was the drummer of a primo local band
We were bound for fame
Oh I could feel it in the demos
So I go and buy a limo
Cash in hand
I was out of luck
When the band broke up
Oh man
Now my beard is grey
But I can play a decent solo
I haven’t tried it since a year ago last may
In my practice space
I wipe a cymbal down with sterno
just a tiny little pyro technical display
The stand fell the ground
And the lot burned down
OK
And here is my advice
Patience may be nice
But wisdom don’t always come with age
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7. |
Snocone Creator
03:53
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I was listening to the local station when a singer
He asked if we could try and shout a little louder
I craned up my neck yelled at the weather
It looked like the spring, felt like the summer
I raced back inside to try out a flavor
Based on the song heard on the player
Place down a block of ice on the shaver
Raise up the syrup, mix together
And pour the creation on to the other
Find a name move on to another
Glance out the window for my grandfather
Rinse and repeat the beat undercover
One hundred flavors, seven hours
Though I am tired it doesn’t matter
I am a creator I am inspired
Forever and ever and ever and ever
Oh my god
I lost my train of thought
A snow cone thaws
It’s here and then it’s not
If it’s my job to man this stand
I will gladly spend my day
Creating cones for every song the radio plays
Oh I’m not graced with synesthesia
Just impatience to make great
Snow cones
My father made art like my grandfather
I’m trying real hard to get a little better
The way that I’ll start to get a little better
Is part by part, little by little
By my calculation the combination of local station and inspiration
Will equal greatness if I am patient
Here are a few things that I created
The best I could do before it turned noon
A submarine tune banana pineapple
At three I believe I heard sleepy jean
In turn it lead me to coffee dreamsicle
But the cone of the day
Came from a tape
The dj explained she bought it that day from a counter display
It was about grapefruit spoons
So I used grapefruit juice
And syrup infused with flowers my grandfather
Pulls the cup back from his mouth and says to me
Oh my god
You don’t have to try so hard
An awkward pause
Your great the way you are
A flock of birds dock on the power lines a block away
We shut down the stand early
And watch the sunset fade
And toast our styrofoam to yet another brilliant day
Making snow cones
Snow Cones
I was listening to the local station when a singer
He asked if it would be much nicer to be older
Well I don’t think things can get much nicer
And I’m old enough as is
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8. |
Seventies Singer
05:09
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I was thirty-three, in the seventies
When I killed my career
Writing melodies for nobody
I had filled seventeen years
If a tree falls in the woods
Was there ever a tree there at all?
The analogy botched
In my practice garage
Bandmates stare up at the wall
I clarify
If no one is listening
I’ve got a plan where
We bury our last album
Under a two foot plaque on the town square
And we’ll play one final concert
Say that we’ll rise up someday
I hung press releases
Pestered baristas
But in the end nobody came
We dig anyway that we could to move on for good
The leftover merch lit up like firewood
My drummer decides to star limousine driving
The bass built a bbq shack in his old neighborhood
And where we once stood it still sits there today
A time capsule plaque with my first borns birth date
And the word “wait”
I was fifty-three in the nineties
When my daughter found the plaque
The discovery was embarrassing
I held back
so proud as the founder
Of the town’s first Waitsgiving Day
She asked for an anthem
I sat down and wrote one
The last song that I ever made
And lately I’m found jogging downtown
Stopped at the plaque where I’m scratching the ground
With a grapefruit spoon and then one afternoon
A song on the radio calls out my digging some how
The track after that is a song I once sang
About the long run so I run, run away
Past the stand with the snow cones and I hear my old bass player say
That I don’t have to wait.
Now at seventy-three I ask humbly in my garage
If you’d all agree to form a team
And take back the album I lost
If a tree falls in the woods
It might sound like one last final plan
Naysayers say you can’t take back the past
But in this case I think that we can
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9. |
The Last Waitsgiving
04:40
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And so I run my tongue across the gap
In my bottom two front teeth the morning
I try to get my album back
The one I lost so long ago and
Though the crew was briefed and prepped
Nervousness ran through our bodies
the shade parade had stopped its step
I pushed down the first domino
Ear pieces in place, DJ on stage
Curated a mix that she aired over radio waves
Every turntable play in turn would dictate every move that we made
And the first that was made, register teen
Greatness Waitress there on the scene
The band played a deafening Waitsgiving theme
Just a distraction for the real action
DJ swap the record out, trigger the next phase
Of Operation Last Waitsgiving Day
The limousine lurched into place
Followed by a flatbed trailer
Piggy Sue and Candy Crane
Together formed a brand new float
The smoker and digger of graves
Beautifully they weld together
A pig with several scorpion traits
Whose stomach started belching smoke
Father and son reunited as one
Piled the fire until the wood pile was gone
Smoke billowed out to the lawn
Hiding the digger from all lookers on
Grandson looking on: Snocone Creator
Stationed to lookout for oncoming danger
Instead, inspired to make a new flavor
When danger approaches
No one is noticing
Sing out to early end of all at stake: hala la la Last Waitsgiving Day
And then out of the limo the Geriatric Pyro
Leapt on to the smokers float
Whose smoke was slowly dissipating
Oh I must confess it was I who made the mess
I burned your building down that night
But I’m here today to make it right
His cymbal lit with flames
Which brought more eyes that way
So the delivery driver raced
She grabs the mic from off the stage
And she cues the Greatness Waitress band
“Play our new grapefruit spoon jam
I’ll teach the audience to dance”
And the diary she once dictated
Now a mass coordinated
Dance that somewhat went this way
Up down dig in the ground
Up down up down dig in the ground
Up down dig in the ground
Up down dig in the dig in the
Up down dig in the ground
Up down up down dig in the ground
Up down dig in the ground
Up down dig in the dig in the
Ground at my feet the hole now complete
I pulled back the time capsule box and I turn to the street
Before I can make my retreat
A voice in the air it calls out to me
I look up to see the grand marshall say
She’d like for us all to give her dad thanks
It’s my daughter, she wants me to come up on stage
Box in my hand as the audience chants
I give my girl a hug, tears rolls down my face
I hand over the album and I say “happy birthday”
She hands it to the DJ and the DJ presses play
On the soundtrack to the Last Waitsgiving Day
And in the box a letter dedicates
“This one is for those of us who wait”
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10. |
Volunteer DJ
04:32
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I’m a volunteer DJ
At a radio station
Whose transmission stretches
Only five miles
And though I agree the form’s obsolete
I feel that I need to perform with style
Simultaneous playlists
In a red spiral notebook
Of internet treasures
And crate digging gems
And sad as it seems they would feel more complete
If I had both the time and means to hear all
That there is
But I may never know
No I may never know
And my favorite album
I found in the basement
Of a gently used bookstore
A local release
And twenty years since
I’m still not convinced
That an album exists that means that much to me
They were Mid 70’s rockers
They vanish completely
But I own all of their records
The whole discography
And don’t get me wrong it’s ok that they’re gone
But I feel like they stopped before reaching their peak
And we may never know
No we may never know
And in the bookstore last night
I saw the singer of the band stand in line
I must admit I didn’t dare waste his time
I stood and watched as he was selling LPs
To the register teen
Somewhat relieved and impressed
Fifty dollars fifty dollars at best
And a baby is crying in the back bedroom
I write in my notebook
As she gets rocked to sleep
Someday you’ll find the best songs of all time
May they be priceless and worthless
Like all the best things
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