LYRICS, POETRY AND PROSE 180921

FEATURED POSTS

September 21, 2018

A place to share some sounds of beauty, inspiration, and life. Sometimes when words are not enough and we feel like a little calm and order in our life we listen to music without words. The nice thing about instrumentals is that you can supply your own feelings to the music. All three of our selections have lyrics to go with them, but sometimes for us, words merely detract from the music. Today we give you both versions, with and without music, so you can make your own decision. The first song, Chandelier by the Brooklyn Duo is an instrumental. The second version, with vocals, is by singer and writer Sia. The second song, Clocks is done as an instrumental by the Dallas String Quartet and with lyrics by Coldplay. The third song – Beethoven’s 5 Secrets – is a combination of Beethoven and the OneRepublic song Secret. Again we have it with lyrics and without. Click on the name of the piece to get a video or more information.

– Chandelier as instrumental Artist: Brooklyn Duo; Writers: Jesse Shatkin & Sia Furler

I’m gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier
I’m gonna live like tomorrow doesn’t exist
Like it doesn’t exist
I’m gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry
I’m gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier

– Chandelier with lyrics Artist: Sia

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– Clocks as instrumental Artists: Dallas String Quartet; Writers: Guy Rupert Berryman, Jonathan Mark Buckland, William Champion, and Christopher Anthony John Martin

Confusion that never stops
The closing walls and the ticking clocks gonna
Come back and take you home
I could not stop, that you now know, singing

Come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities am I
A part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease, singing

– Clocks with lyrics Group: Coldplay

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– Beethoven’s 5 Secrets Artists: The Piano Guys – OneRepublic Writer: Ludwig von Beethoven, Ryan Tedder

Tell me what you want to hear
Something that will light those ears
Sick of all the insincere
I’m gonna give all my secrets away
This time, don’t need another perfect lie
Don’t care if critics ever jump in line
I’m gonna give all my secrets away

– Beethoven’s 5 Secrets with Lyrics Artists: The Piano Guys – OneRepublic with Singers Tiffany Alvord; Writer Ryan Tedder

– Secrets Group: OneRepublic, Writer and singer: Ryan Tedder

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.