LULLABY
Key D
D4 D sus D, D4 D sus D
(D) Close your eyes and tell me. Tell me what you see. In the sleepy landscape of your reverie. (G) Can you count the blossoms in the (Em) garden (A) of your (D) mind? Think about the mountains and the…
HUNGRY EYE
He goes down to a honky tonk to see the people there
He'll pick him out an angel and he'll stare
But it does not really matter if she is alone
It's not his thot to take the lady home
Hungry eyes. Hungry eyes.
He's just come…
I have no memory of writing or recording this song. I have no idea what it's about.
CONNIE'S SONG
Em D C B...
(Em) Before I knew anything (D) about you, I (C) loved you
(Em) Whenever you would show, I stared in (D) wonder
I heard you…
Damn, Jimmy... It says this song was uploaded in March 2020. That was when Covid was just taking off and that was when my world got weird and my Day to Day went crazy. Damn, Jimmy... I missed this song when it came out. I just now listened to it tonight. Damn, Jimmy... I love this song.
Her name was Rosemarie Jean and I have lost contact with her. She wrote the poem I turned into Beneath the August Moon.
I SAW ROSE AGAIN TODAY
I saw Rose again today
And I recognized the way
My heart reached out
With unturned fingers…
SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN
My mom’s dad was a coal miner. Her mother died of TB when she was a kid. When she was twelve, her dad, dying of black lung, slit his throat with a butcher knife. That left her with a cripple little brother to take care of…
Larry Spann
I miss him, too. When he gave me that album he told me I had to check you out. He said Townes van Zandt is a great writer, but he didn’t like everything Townes wrote. He liked EVERYTHING you wrote!
SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN
My mom’s dad was a coal miner. Her mother died of TB when she was a kid. When she was twelve, her dad, dying of black lung, slit his throat with a butcher knife. That left her with a cripple little brother to take care of…
LANCASTER STREET - Em
James Michael Taylor
Midnight in COWTOWN. 90 degrees
Too hot for a blanket. Too hot for a sheet
The trash on the sidewalk is trying to sleep
Breathing the bus fumes on Lancaster Street...
Sunshine brings tacos…
Rose Jeffus
You have such a unique way with words James. Love your song. I will have to share it with my son in law. He is a volunteer twice a week at the homeless shelter. He is about to have surgery on his left arm this morning so he will have to miss a bit.
LANCASTER STREET - Em
James Michael Taylor
Midnight in COWTOWN. 90 degrees
Too hot for a blanket. Too hot for a sheet
The trash on the sidewalk is trying to sleep
Breathing the bus fumes on Lancaster Street...
Sunshine brings tacos…
THE GIFT - key C
An architect in Bakersfield gave him a gift of wine
Napa Valley, California, famous for the vine
When the grape is coupled with the peach, the promise is divine
But he would never pull the cork as he alone would dine…
THE ANGELS CRIED NO - capo @ 4 in Am
Am Em - He lived high up on the mountain top
He lived there with his love
He tumbled to the valley deep
F - When she gave him a shove
And, when he hit the valley deep
It must have broke his heart…
KAWEAH (says the crow)
"Kaweah, Kaweah"
There's a place on up the hill
Redwood trees are standing still
The murmur of the river will invite you
Lay your head down on a rock
You'll forget about the clock
The whisper of the sun will…
The Winnowing Wind
I feel the wind blow thru me
Oh, please don't let it undo me
Let it level and true me
The Wind. The Winnowing Wind
And here I stand, alone, against the wind,
And, who am I to think that I
Can stand alone against the…
THE ONLY THINGS
Any road that leads to somewhere
Any thought that comes to mind
Any sight on the horizon
Any friend that's left behind
Any meal that's ever eaten
Any quilt that's ever lined
Any concert that is set thru
Any document that…
Robert Hayden
Like the concept, great job recognizing those unduspected little flash backs
2h2 hours ago
Reply
Hide
Lazarus Knight
Great! It's like telling her that there's never a moment when she is not the center of focus.
THE ONLY THINGS
Any road that leads to somewhere
Any thought that comes to mind
Any sight on the horizon
Any friend that's left behind
Any meal that's ever eaten
Any quilt that's ever lined
Any concert that is set thru
Any document that…
I think of you very often even when it's not spoken the words are in my mind more than just a token or poem spoken out loud I'm proud to call you a friend who also writes wonderful songs and I often sing along my voice soft or strong always makes me feel real good and I should say it happens every time I think of you. On every guitar string is a note and there's a song at the end of any pencil you might pick up and write down on a piece of paper
Any song you write always fuels my imagination and makes me think and that's a wonderful gift you have Jim thanks nice work
THE ANGELS CRIED NO - capo @ 4 in Am
Am Em - He lived high up on the mountain top
He lived there with his love
He tumbled to the valley deep
F - When she gave him a shove
And, when he hit the valley deep
It must have broke his heart…
Absolutely powerfully beautiful and genius! Love the layered vocals and the lyrical flow
LeAnna
Thank you for letting me hear that!
LeAnna
LeAnna M Christian
You are awesome all-around!
THE ANGELS CRIED NO - capo @ 4 in Am
Am Em - He lived high up on the mountain top
He lived there with his love
He tumbled to the valley deep
F - When she gave him a shove
And, when he hit the valley deep
It must have broke his heart…
ANGLES CRIED "NO!" About Peggy kicking me to the gutter/valley deep. How, even the angles in heaven, were horrified.
8:30 PM
Lee
Lee Snaples
Okay, I did not get that vibe but that makes sense.
Something I missed for many years was singing in a choir. Now that I have multitracking I don't miss it any more.
THE WINNOWING WIND
I feel the wind flow thru me
Oh, please, don't let it undo me.
Let it level and true me
The wind, the…
THE ANGELS CRIED NO - capo @ 4 in Am
Am Em - He lived high up on the mountain top
He lived there with his love
He tumbled to the valley deep
F - When she gave him a shove
And, when he hit the valley deep
It must have broke his heart…
Where did this one come from? I think it demonstrates your range as a songwriter because most of your songs are personal experience and this is very different. Nice job. I like it.
Bali Hi, at 6th and Broadway
Just a little place where people go
To have a quiet drink,
Listen to the band and think.
Maybe meet a friend, you never know
I said, "Hi, I'm kinda lonely.
My wife and I just had a fight.
I've been married…
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” - Charles Dickens
This song contains the body of the first song I ever wrote. A poem sent to me while I was away to school in Idaho in 1959 by Carolyn Opitz that I sat at an old pump organ and sang a thousand times when I was a junior in high school.
YOU CAN…
SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN
My mom’s dad was a coal miner. Her mother died of TB when she was a kid. When she was twelve, her dad, dying of black lung, slit his throat with a butcher knife. That left her with a cripple little brother to take care of…
SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN
My mom’s dad was a coal miner. Her mother died of TB when she was a kid. When she was twelve, her dad, dying of black lung, slit his throat with a butcher knife. That left her with a cripple little brother to take care of…
Candy Davis
I love that album. You gifted it to me a long time ago, and I still think about those hapless men becoming ill and dying, making hickory handled hardware. And "Help!' raises so many emotions in me--that people would just stand on the shore and do nothing while you risked your life alone to save that boy. All of the songs on Slaughter Mountain are ones that are so well written and so memorable!
Randy Brown and I did a little co-write this evening and this is what we came up with...
I MISTOOK IT FOR THE MOON Capo @ 2 Key D (Play in C positions)
I was coasting across West Texas/Had my top down, it was late at night
I caught a coyote…
I just listened to A YEAR IN JAIL. both versions. Yours is much better than mine.
Jeff
Jeff Prince
Thanks. I remember approaching it as a straight-ahead country-and-western song vocally, and the production is good, especially toward the end. Great song. The music is better from the 1st note.
My mom is 91 and still holding on.
The people that help her make it thru
each day have learned that there is no
sense in arguing with her about who they
are or when it is...thus the song.
MAMA HAS A TIME MACHINE key - Em
Mama has a…
You really broke me down on that one. It's like you have been looking into my living room. It took me a second to remember your names is James also. - James Bucannan
Worshiping at an abandoned alter...
Let my breaths be as long as her legs
Let my breaths be as smooth as her back
Let my breaths be as cool as her hips
Let my heart be as still as her tongue
Let my mind be as bright as her skin
Let my…
FOREVER
She stares out the window. That look in her eye
How deep can her heart know life's passing her by
The radio's playing. She holds back a tear
A song she's forgotten
Holds back the years...Forever
And she says,
"I wish I 'd loved…
FOREVER
She stares out the window. That look in her eye
How deep can her heart know life's passing her by
The radio's playing. She holds back a tear
A song she's forgotten
Holds back the years...Forever
And she says,
"I wish I 'd loved…
Well, it's like I went down town last night to see Guthrie playing with Ray and I came home with a song.
NOBODY KNOW ME IN TOWN ANY MORE Capo @ 1 in G
There’s a bird in the gutter that’s so sound asleep
He can’t hear the music that’s sweeping…
The lyrics of this song,
as they pertain to plot,
are my exact memory of the event.
I had spoken to the kid maybe a minute before the "action" started about how the pressure of the water was very strong. He was nestled down with his back…
NAAD -Just read your lyrics and liatend.to the son...w
Very beautiful, very moving...beautiful how you he'd on the rhyme scheme an dmade it work...so love the slave t rhymes as well...they're my favorite...super smooth transitions....tell me a bit about the inclusion of you garden reflections in the middle of the song...counter point? Balancing urgency and reality? Love, love, love thisnone...will.ha r to listen again.
"tell me a bit about the inclusion of you garden reflections in the middle of the song...counter point?" it all ties in when I relate it to the weather, "...there's lightning and thunder...but this summer is a wash...what we really need is rain." The reason the river was up that day was because there had been so much rain in the previous days, they were lowering the dam to lower the water lever in the lake that fed this river.
Refuge into the imagination:
Is it crazy?
Is it survival?
Is desire to survive crazy?
THERE SHE WAS Key - G 102811
G
She'd been gone for three years now so he'd been on the road
Playing every truck stop bar and every song he…
Now and perpendicular to now, where shadows are, as we will create the next song of music and make sounds together in the now but also in the perpendicular to now for the theme at sound in. of course any music on theme or not is ok. At right angles…
One night after three month of no rain, as we were driving home from singing at Gringos in Grapevine a splash of water hit the windshield.
I said to myself, "Sweet Rain."
I went home and wrote the song. It's on the soundtrack of a movie called…
I never sing this song the same two times in a row.
The lyric below is pretty close to how I sing it now.
Listening again, this is an awful version of this song...
I have my recording machine working again...I must redo this.
I PLAY C…
Like most or all of your songs, there is always something really stands out and pays off big time. That last verse (or is it the last two) is absolutely, powefully emotion packed. And it is somewhat Vonnegut like in that so much is conveyed so precisely and with elegant simplicity. "... in the dream we left behind" - my God man, it's pure genius. Not the first two times I heard the song, but the first time I "listened" to it, I thought WHAT WAS THAT! And the it sunk in.
I have a new love
Of course she doesn’t know
How can a work of art
Know when lovers come and go
And when the artist is the art!
My eyes are the eyes of the beholder
And my eyes are the eyes of the world…
…when the artist is the art…
Comments on James Michael Taylor's stuff
Thanks for sharing this with me. Lovely.
Excellent
Damn, Jimmy... It says this song was uploaded in March 2020. That was when Covid was just taking off and that was when my world got weird and my Day to Day went crazy. Damn, Jimmy... I missed this song when it came out. I just now listened to it tonight. Damn, Jimmy... I love this song.
Jim, beautiful lyrics. How wonderful you had that kind of affirmation from your father.
Larry Spann I miss him, too. When he gave me that album he told me I had to check you out. He said Townes van Zandt is a great writer, but he didn’t like everything Townes wrote. He liked EVERYTHING you wrote!
Larry Spann Great album! My first of yours. John DeFoore gave it to me about 15 years ago.
Rose Jeffus You have such a unique way with words James. Love your song. I will have to share it with my son in law. He is a volunteer twice a week at the homeless shelter. He is about to have surgery on his left arm this morning so he will have to miss a bit.
Leslie Young Beautiful but sad. Lee Snaples Such a great song, so poignant
"Wow!" laz
Jonathan Ashley White Oh I can totally hear that! Thats such a fun song. The time change at the “the angles said no” part was cool surprise!
https://www.facebook.com/watch/hashtag/imalwaysinlove?__eep__=6%2F
Belinda Stephens Sad and beautiful too
Linda Linder That was lovely . What a wonderful sound of voices in harmony . I forgot how much I enjoy listening to a choir ! Thank you for sharing !!
Robert Hayden Like the concept, great job recognizing those unduspected little flash backs 2h2 hours ago Reply Hide Lazarus Knight Great! It's like telling her that there's never a moment when she is not the center of focus.
I think of you very often even when it's not spoken the words are in my mind more than just a token or poem spoken out loud I'm proud to call you a friend who also writes wonderful songs and I often sing along my voice soft or strong always makes me feel real good and I should say it happens every time I think of you. On every guitar string is a note and there's a song at the end of any pencil you might pick up and write down on a piece of paper Any song you write always fuels my imagination and makes me think and that's a wonderful gift you have Jim thanks nice work
Absolutely powerfully beautiful and genius! Love the layered vocals and the lyrical flow LeAnna Thank you for letting me hear that! LeAnna LeAnna M Christian You are awesome all-around!
ANGLES CRIED "NO!" About Peggy kicking me to the gutter/valley deep. How, even the angles in heaven, were horrified. 8:30 PM Lee Lee Snaples Okay, I did not get that vibe but that makes sense.
Absolutely powerfully beautiful and genius! Love the layered vocals and the lyrical flow
And people say you don't write any happy songs. :) Nice job.
Where did this one come from? I think it demonstrates your range as a songwriter because most of your songs are personal experience and this is very different. Nice job. I like it.
Comments made by James Michael Taylor
A true classic. Deceptively simple, yet so many feelings in there: angst, loneliness, and hope, all rolled into one. Candy Davis
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” - Charles Dickens
Wow! Starts of so light and carefree. Then pow to rock lead guitar breaks the tranquility. Contrast. Js Bchard.
David Young That’s the album that got me started loving your music! I used to listen to it often on my drive to work and back.
Candy Davis I love that album. You gifted it to me a long time ago, and I still think about those hapless men becoming ill and dying, making hickory handled hardware. And "Help!' raises so many emotions in me--that people would just stand on the shore and do nothing while you risked your life alone to save that boy. All of the songs on Slaughter Mountain are ones that are so well written and so memorable!
Wow. That is a good one. Michelle Soto
I just listened to A YEAR IN JAIL. both versions. Yours is much better than mine. Jeff Jeff Prince Thanks. I remember approaching it as a straight-ahead country-and-western song vocally, and the production is good, especially toward the end. Great song. The music is better from the 1st note.
You really broke me down on that one. It's like you have been looking into my living room. It took me a second to remember your names is James also. - James Bucannan
Haunting voices and guitar work. Nuno
The line: "The window's a mirror when it's dark outside..." Wow! Nuno
Gerald Ray - I love this.
"Nobody Knows Me". Your voice is so different in that song. Deeper.NUNO
NAAD -Just read your lyrics and liatend.to the son...w Very beautiful, very moving...beautiful how you he'd on the rhyme scheme an dmade it work...so love the slave t rhymes as well...they're my favorite...super smooth transitions....tell me a bit about the inclusion of you garden reflections in the middle of the song...counter point? Balancing urgency and reality? Love, love, love thisnone...will.ha r to listen again. "tell me a bit about the inclusion of you garden reflections in the middle of the song...counter point?" it all ties in when I relate it to the weather, "...there's lightning and thunder...but this summer is a wash...what we really need is rain." The reason the river was up that day was because there had been so much rain in the previous days, they were lowering the dam to lower the water lever in the lake that fed this river.
Cory Michael -I listened to the song and think you should definitely sing it next week. You're a hell of a story teller, James!
Evocative stuff.
Cindy Grayson James Michael Taylor beautiful song
Pamela Steuber Anderson James Michael Taylor I love this song. Thank you.
Like most or all of your songs, there is always something really stands out and pays off big time. That last verse (or is it the last two) is absolutely, powefully emotion packed. And it is somewhat Vonnegut like in that so much is conveyed so precisely and with elegant simplicity. "... in the dream we left behind" - my God man, it's pure genius. Not the first two times I heard the song, but the first time I "listened" to it, I thought WHAT WAS THAT! And the it sunk in.
That is beautiful, James. Thank you. Rachel Eastman
It's fun trying to imagine the movie this is the sound to. "Hoooooonk." Thanks for listening to my music.