I’ve written a lot of songs that involve a character crossing an endless stretch of frozen land, because I feel a lot of my life has been about perseverance and trying to outlast unbearable situations without going insane- or at least without going insane in a way that is irreversible.
So this song is about a soldier/spice salesman, who uses the warmth of spices to help him and others survive (emotionally & spiritually), a hard, barren, and relentless lifestyle.
Download MP3: Cinnamon House
One of my first songs, with their hyper-simplistic Grandma Moses sensibilities.
I used to write a lot of “free love” type songs, because I had just gotten divorced and had a lot of personal experience with the opposite of free love. I had learned that being married to someone meant they could pretty much treat you anyway they wanted, without consequences. My husband liked to give me what he called “Ego Bats” which were basically insults that he would randomly scream out in public, designed to keep my ego in check for the purpose of spiritual growth.
But the ego bats were not all that bad, because at least they were swift and merciful. Usually, the screamings would go on for hours, beginning in a public place until I would leave to escape the humiliation and he would follow me. It would always be the most bizarre and inconsequential things that would set him off, like whether fruit punch tasted like grape juice, or could I wear white socks with a black dress. The yelling was unbearable. Once I managed to climb into his car and lock the doors before he could get in. I sat in the car for a couple hours while he screamed and threw himself against the windows. Those hours are burned into my memory because they were so safe and peaceful, like watching a polar bear in the zoo.
But normally, I didn’t dare to lock him out. I didn’t know what to do. I started painting a giant black eagle on my face every morning. I don’t know why, it was my way of protesting against him, I guess. It stretched all the way from my forehead to my chin and across my face. Maybe it was a cry for help, but if so, it didn’t work. I don’t recall anyone asking me, “Hey, why did you decide to start painting a giant black eagle on your face?” even though I kept it up for a whole semester.
Besides the screaming, the other horrible part was the brain twistings… he would require me to believe the most ridiculous things– that the moon was just 20 miles from the earth, that classy ladies wore “cutaway tops” (shirts with the center part cut out, leaving their chests exposed), that he had just traveled through a space-time warp (space-time warps came up a lot). If I didn’t accept these truths, well, then it was back to the screaming part.
Which is all to say that free love seemed like a pretty good deal to me, considering what I knew to be the alternative.
Download MP3: Love It Ain’t No Real Estate
This is probably the first song I wrote about the feeling of being lost in an everlasting winter, the color white…
Download MP3: I Ain’t Crying
When I was living in L.A. I went through a phase where I only painted pictures of Jewish people (and I would always write into the painting that it was a painting of a Jewish person, to underscore the point). Why? I have no idea, but now that I am a more cautious and worldly person, it is hard for me to even say the word “Jew” for fear that someone will try to find antisemitism in it. But be that as it may, I ain’t gonna lie to you- I went through a phase where I obsessively painted Jewish people, and I don’t know why.
Download MP3: Baby Blue
Another one of my first “Dusty Stables” songs that would have been lost to the sands of time if James hadn’t pulled up the lyrics on his computer the other day…
This may be the only song I’ve ever written that is intended to convey a positive message…
well, I guess it is not so much a positive message as a desperate question…
I wrote this song after having to declare bankruptcy from making a series of outrageous purchases, ranging from $500 garbage cans to $5000 shirts in an effort to achieve financial stability via the law of attraction. Really, I think I had suffered a financial break with reality when I got married and had to assume my husband’s six-figure debt, something that seemed soul crushing given my $20,000 yearly income. Not to mention that he wanted Porsche’s and caviar and fine dining experiences and it seemed that his spirit would leave this earth if I could not find a way to provide them…
I suppose I could be grateful that my desperation drove me towards the purple end of the insanity spectrum (fantastical thinking) rather than the red and black end of crime and violence.
I remember having to go to court to declare bankruptcy… I was so scared and my legs were shaking… it seemed impossible to go through with it. But in the end the judge was a light & cheery man who just said, “Oh you’re an artist. Well, great! You’re free to go. Keep up the good work!” It felt like he was congratulating me. Sometimes I really love California.
Download MP3: A Fool Is a Tool
Ok, I had to take a break for a few days, because it was becoming too painful to revisit my earliest songs… sometimes they bring up memories that are too much to bear. Anyway, this is another one of my first songs which were all about my love for Dusty Stables. How could I have been in love with someone who had the same hair color as me? How could I have been in love with a tall skinny guy*? Looking back, none of it makes sense.
Download MP3: Town Widow
*No offense… it is just that I perceive tall skinny men as being dreamers** and less likely to enjoy moving heavy crates from place to place. I may be wrong.
**Not that there is anything wrong with being a dreamer, but when you’ve spent the last six months trying to grow wings (literally), a dreamer shouldn’t be what you’re looking for.
Okay… I am going to have to turn this blog around… I can’t pretend to be Mitt Romney any longer… I am cracking under the pressure… from now on, I have to be true to myself…
This is another song from the Odyssey… I think it is from Penelope’s perspective, although I don’t know too much about it. It is one of those songs I wrote and then shoved in a drawer… all I remember is that I wrote it while taking out the garbage in Nashville and the skies were so blue, and in my imagination I was surrounded by stark white mountains capped by the puffiest clouds.
Download MP3: Something bout Words
What can I say? By the time I wrote this song I was basically a red giant, flaming out from having taken such a martial approach to life for so long. I would burn cayenne pepper as an incense, even though it made me cough like a crazy person, hoping it could revive my passion for life and will to live.
Download MP3: 10,000 Men
I just found this song the other day. I don’t really remember writing it, and I’m not sure I ever sung it. Like so many of the songs I wrote in the past, it now seems shockingly crude to me, although ten years ago, I would have felt differently. Words that seemed wholesome and commonplace when I was married to Hugh Heffner, now stand out like gigantic monsters when I’m married to Ned Flanders.
Still, I like it, and don’t think it’s really crude, as long as you’re not a Jehovah’s Witness. I don’t think words themselves really can be crude. To me, words are hollow containers, packed with meaning by the speaker and also the listener.
In the south, people always pack their cruelest messages inside the sweetest words, share affection through teasing, and give praise in a way that sounds like an insult (this allows the praise to be accepted without the receiver feeling like a narcissist.) Therefore, it is hard for me to judge a word by it’s surface meaning.
That is why I feel disturbed by some of the hate speech controversies that have been sweeping the nation recently (Donald Sterling, Don Jones, Robert Copeland, Maurice Price etc.) I feel it would be a horrible mistake to set a precedent of punishing people for their words. If we really want to make the world a safer place, we have to look beneath the surface of things and resist knee-jerk reactions to predictable provocations.
But it would never do us any good to suppress people’s words.
For example, if someone makes racist comments because they are a racist, at least their words are letting us know where they stand so we can react accordingly. If a man makes sexist comments, that could be a useful clue that you don’t want to marry him. Unfortunately, the most dangerous predators probably don’t go around saying dumb things. But when someone does reveal their hand, we can be grateful for the info.
Other times, offensive words may be a cry for help. They may express an immature person’s need for love and attention, or a desire to feel powerful. They may be the ramblings of a mind that has come unhinged and is spouting notions it heard in the past. They may be the bilous expressions of a pain and agony that has become unbearable. In these cases, I feel we can forgive people for their clumsy attempts to get their needs met, and respond to the underlying message, just as we would with a child who is misbehaving to win affection.
One way or another, words are messengers, and as the saying goes, you never kill the messenger!
Download MP3: Something bout Words