Only Time

Only Time,
Scott Merrick, April 4, 2012

I’d like to call my mother.
I’d love to call my dad.
I would love to call the little brother
whom only recently I had.
I’d love to call some dear old friends
who can’t pick up the phone--
oh god, oh god, am I not feeling
more and more alone...

I can still call my big brother
and laugh about the past,
but I’m pretty sure that option
will not indefinitely last.
When he’s gone, or I am,
that’s clearly all she wrote.
Our father used to say that
and I’m just now taking note.

So hang in there big brother
We could last 30 more years.
That’s a bucketload of laughter
and several boatloads full of tears.
But it’s not about how long we last,
it’s all about how well,
and one thing we know for certain:
Only time will tell.

Only time will tell.

This One Will Grow--Walkin' Shoes

Said all that we have to say
We have nothin' more to lose.
Sure looks like a pretty day,
Hand me down my walkin' shoes
Hand me down my walkin' shoes

Road ahead is ending now
Right or left I have to choose.
Doesn't matter anyhow,
Hand me down my walkin' shoes
Hand me down my walkin' shoes

I'll take the dog, you get the cat,
I don't win and you don't lose.
This is that and that was that,
Hand me down my walkin' shoes
Hand me down my walkin' shoes

Buyer's Edge

I was thinking about my dear departed dad this Fathers Day morning whilst walking the purebred Tennessee Black Dawg, MacGuyver. This just popped into my head during the mile or so walk, and in my head I hear it played on the banjo with a voice like Dougie Maclean's (or mine, which is very different from Dougie's) singing it. Searching for a picture, I came up with this great one at The Consumerist website, but I don't have rights to share it but I'll just link to it. A great article, too, very much to the point. I share instead a charcoal sketch I did decades ago from a photo of my dad (that's an Antonin Artaud poem with it--yes I was a poser bohemian). I have yet to put a melody to this but it scans pretty nicely, so read it aloud singsong-like, or sing it yourself to a melody you invent. I share:

Buyer's Edge

By Scott Merrick

Daddy sold to country stores
machines to keep things cool,
drove Tennessee backroads
while we were all in school.
Those backwoods local groceries
had meters I am told,
they plugged and plugged with quarters
to keep their foodstuffs cold.
And when he left my mother
who was never to let him go,
his boss, my mother’s father,
took him off the road.
My daddy took to selling cars
each and every day
He worked each workday of his life
and not just for the pay.
His used-car salesman’s secret
I’ll share with you today:
The buyer’s edge in any deal
is the will to walk away.

And my daddy surely had it
until his dying day.
the buyer’s edge in any deal
is the will to walk away.

My Poppy he kept bird dogs
and they were not his pets.
Working dogs are different,
their lives by their work set
He took me out to buy a dog
to a farm one day. 
The price too high he made to go
but the farmer plead him stay.
That blue tick hound became his best
and I learned again that day:
The buyer’s edge in any deal
is the will to walk away.


My daddy surely had it
up until his dying day
The buyer’s edge in any deal
is the will to walk away. 
The buyer’s edge in any deal
is the will to walk away. 
The buyer’s edge in any deal
is the will to walk away. 

Buyer's Edge by Scott Merrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Footsteps on the Ceiling

I write songs for Lee Ann, my lovely long-suffering wife, usually around the Christmas holiday time so that I can have an extra present for her. It's something of a tradition, with the occasional substitution of a poem or a set of poems. I wrote this one, I think, last year--maybe the year before, but I really do like it and I think if you stretch your imagination a little the way it scans does suggest a melody. Add your own to

Footsteps on the Ceiling
by Scott Merrick

I had a dream last night
You were holding me tight.
It was our very first night
Everything was all right.

Footsteps on the ceiling above
No one said the words "I love
you."

I awoke with a feeling.
My senses were reeling.
My world was healing.
Everything was me and you.

Footsteps on the ceiling above
No one said the words "I love
you."

Instrumental break

I want to dream tonight
I am holding you tight.
It's our very first night,
and everything's all right.

Footsteps on the ceiling above
I look at you and say  "I love
you."

I had a dream last night
You were holding me tight.
It was our very first night
Everything was all right.

Footsteps on the ceiling above
No one said the words "I love
you."

Tin Man

I always thought this might make a nice rock song, heavy metal or maybe punk. One folk iteration is included on "Scott Merrick's Songs for Alaska, Featuring the Last Frontier Band." I wrote this one as the result of yet another romantic connection attempt: Life is full of them, if we're lucky. I extrapolated it all into a Wizard of Oz settiing and got:

Wizard
by Scott Merrick

tin man lookin' for a ticker again
settled when a lady wearing knickers come in
he gave her all his metal but she wanted his soul
he said i'd like to stay but you're forcing me to to away

pretty lady looking for a cowardly lion
she'd like to find a young 'un but she's taking her time
she'd love to fall in love but he's too sober to fall
she started drinking vodka when her whiskey bottle
all went dry

where's that wizard, they said he'd be here
we're out in the woods, there ain't nobody near
if i was where i wanted i wouldn't be here
'cause we're out in the woods and these trees
are acting queer.

funny lookin' scarecrow told me which way to go
he acted kinda weird so i guess he should know
toto's gettin' squirrelly and these shoes are too big
a freaky witchy lady said she'd show me soon a trick or two

where's that wizard, they said he'd be here

we're out in the woods, there ain't nobody near

if i was where i wanted i wouldn't be here

'cause we're out in the woods and these trees

are acting queer...

Even If I Did

Released "musicnowords" on "Still Waiting," I am fond of the simplicity here. Hope you like

Even If I Did
by Scott Merrick

i never meant to hurt you baby,
just to find the love you hid.
i never meant to hurt you baby,
even if i did.

i never meant to lie to you baby,
just to bend the truth a bit.
i never meant to lie to you baby,
even if i did.

love's colors change their hues,
love looks the same.
love does not win or lose:
love is the game.

i never meant to love you baby,
just to see if we would fit.
i never meant to love you baby,
even if i did

(instrumental bridge)

love's colors change their hues,

love looks the same.

love will not win or lose:

love is the game.

i never meant to love you baby,

just to see if we would fit.

i never meant to love you baby,

even if i did

Larceny

Written in 1975, I think this may be my masterpiece. I'll start the blog with this. Dana Cox covered it beautifully on her eponymous album sometime in the 1990's: I have the vinyl but there's no copyright date or other date on it. It's also sung by beautifully by Dana on our Last Frontier Band CD. Just google that. I'll set up some links here later.

I clearly remember jotting Larceny down on a notepad while driving Steve Bettis's VW camper from Rainbow Valley toward Anchorage, likely for a gig at the Bread Factory, sigh, Alaska one afternoon in 1975 or '6. It was the early corollary of texting while driving. I wrote this song for a wonderful woman whom I'd left behind in Knoxville, unready as I was to actually be in love, though obviously I was in love.  I didn't feel honest, or ready to be so, hence "Larceny." All you young ladies out there--the guys get it together later. It's an irony of maturity.

All that's a long story, but one I'll likely never tell, except in this song.


Larceny
by Scott Merrick

your touch is what amazed me
the smoothness of your hands
the only softness I have seen
not tied to some demand
or other
it's so hard
to be your lover,
larceny is so simple,
can't you see?

you took you in and made a friend
and i soon lost my restlessness as
distances to overcome
began to matter less and less is
this the long awaited message?
everything is oh so simple
can it be?

opening my heart i felt i'd
opened up an attic window
let the summer breezes then blow through
i love

your touch is what amazed me

the smoothness of your hands

the only softness I have seen 

not tied to some demand

or other

it's so hard 

to be your lover,

larceny is so simple,
can't you see?
everything is oh so simple,

can it be?