When I was young / I went off to college / But I flunked out ‘cause I could not pass no test / My old man barely made it past fifty / And I reckon that I’ll follow his footsteps / But it ain’t gon’ be bad health that’s gonna kill me / It won’t …
Tag: songwriting
What I Ain’t Got
I don’t know where I am / And I don’t know where I’m going / I reckon it don’t matter anyway / What factories are left here are mainly hiring Mexicans / I reckon that they’ll work without much pay. Years ago, it had been the site of a filling station. Then it was …
A Keyboard, Not a Grindstone
What have I read this morning? (1.) A sordid story about former big-league baseball player Mel Hall and his victimization of young girls, (2.) a contention that drinking almond milk instead of eating almonds is really stupid, and (3.) a few more pages of American Caesar, a biography of General Douglas MacArthur. I don’t know …
What I Ain’t Got, Part Two
My life ain’t so hot / But I’m past the point of caring / About all the things / I ain’t got. Sitting on the tailgate of a pickup and haggling over squash was simple compared to, oh, writing a book. Sam Maitlin tended to ruminate on the simple pleasures while he waited on …
I Don’t Want To Bug You … But I Must
I think of “Bones” on Star Trek: “I’m a doctor, Jim, not a tour guide.” The age requires versatility, and I am sadly lacking, in general, but also where my books are concerned. Put me in front of an audience, and I am fine. I’m perfectly confident in my ability to talk about my novels, …
Scuppernongs and Muscadines
Here's the whole shebang for those of you who haven't been following along. My daddy used to say / You gotta be a man / You gotta pull your weight / You gotta work the land / But every time I tried and failed / He turned away from me / By the time I …
Scuppernongs and Muscadines, Part Three
When I left the farm / To make it on my own / He didn’t take it well / Sitting home alone / Without me to disagree / The bottle started to win / It burned a hole / Into his soul / And cancer filled it in. Alan Reuss’s understanding of what happened …
It’s Only Fiction (A Song)
Here are the lyrics to my latest song. I wrote most of it a couple months ago, but I wasn't particularly pleased with it until this morning, when I finally got around to dickering with the words again. My daddy was a drunkard but I didn’t write about him in my song I claimed …
Between Short Stories
From whence do the short stories spring? The majority of the stories on this site began with songs I’ve written. “Facebook Friends,” for instance, began as a song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnmKXEPGCnU As a matter of fact, http://www.wellpilgrim.wordpress.com evolved into a depository for short stories. I split time between working on novels* – “Crazy by Natural Causes” is …
Facebook Friends
The world is changing / Always rearranging / From birth to the end / With my Facebook friends. It’s not that Jerry Lennart opposed Facebook. He spent a goodly amount of wasted time on it. It wasn’t that it was worse than Twitter or whatever new flavor inevitably followed. It was that word that followed …
Nightrider's Lament 