There is nothing like the presence of a horse. The quiet understanding. The gentle strength.
Woodlake, California...1961. I had a horse. She was my friend.
There were times in my teens when Babe was the only being that did not judge me…
SOMERTHING TO BELIEVE capo @ 2 in C
C
They’re rounding up the roosters down in Florida
F
Drowning all the snakes in New Orleans
G
The fires are chasing antelopes in Chyanne…
David Young
This one is really nice! I downloaded it so I can listen a lot more. The guitar part fits perfectly. Your voice is so distinctive -- Leslie was playing the song on her phone and I recognized your voice instantly. (I think it was the first note you sang that gave it away!) You are amazingly talented and I continue to be impressed by your knack for writing thoughtful lyrics and for your incredible output of great songs.
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…
Robert White
Hey James Michael Taylor! Excellent Song and a beautiful Story! "There She Was" That is probably one of the longest songs and the story was so sad! You are a Singer and a Poet! Beautiful Voice! Thanks for Sharing! 🤗
Still struggling with this one...
Maybe not possible to make this work in a country song...MY DICK DON'T KNOW SHE'S GONE
1. She's been gone for three years now. Three years since she walked out
Friends and folks I work with ask me what it…
key - C
I’m clinging to the memories as the world falls apart
The falling leaves, dead Everleys are pulling at my heart.
My quest for rationality, I can’t even start.
So, I’m clinging to the memories as the world falls apart
I’m clinging…
VIDEO - https://www.facebook.com/100001468692811/videos/1120270078888215/
https://www.facebook.com/true.taylor.3/videos/397153049918748
GHOST TOWN capo @ 2 in C
C Em F G C
I…
I wrote this at my dad's urging. He likes it. We sing it together. I have YouTube Video of it up.
EULOGY
He grew up in Clinton, Oklahoma
Red dirt back yard, Gramma's place
Honey suckle in a dust bowl
Life as hard as limestone lace…
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…
IF ONLY
You are my favorite If Only
If only I'd showed up in time
If Only's the name of my pony
And we're always a little behind
If only, if only, if only
It echoes thru my lonely life
If only, if only, if only
I think I'd be ready…
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…
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…
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…
THE COUCH - key - C live - Capo @ 4
https://fb.watch/lIEUn31mBZ/
https://www.facebook.com/100054814402634/videos/2856132984527543/
1-C 4-F
Today we put the couch out by the…
“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…
CATTAILS AND BUTTERFLIES capo @ 4 in C
C G repeat
There was a field around the corner
And a stream flowed cross the field
There were cat tails in the summer time
And monarch butterflies
And tadpoles sprouting wings
E…
Comments on James Michael Taylor's stuff
Lane Beauvais Caught me by surprise!
Laurie L. Ward James, loved it…interesting where you chose to end it…but somehow…just perfect.
Brian Gagnon You do a great job blending stories and music. People should listen.
Kat Angel I love the last line... 🤣
David Young This one is really nice! I downloaded it so I can listen a lot more. The guitar part fits perfectly. Your voice is so distinctive -- Leslie was playing the song on her phone and I recognized your voice instantly. (I think it was the first note you sang that gave it away!) You are amazingly talented and I continue to be impressed by your knack for writing thoughtful lyrics and for your incredible output of great songs.
Robert White Hey James Michael Taylor! Excellent Song and a beautiful Story! "There She Was" That is probably one of the longest songs and the story was so sad! You are a Singer and a Poet! Beautiful Voice! Thanks for Sharing! 🤗
"...you're such a Master Craftsman ." Kelly Cutler
Me - Is this a country song? Johnny Delbert Mcloud - By all means.
That's awesome, James. - John Delbert McLoud
Lazarus Knight The last verse says it all.
https://stefanprigmore.bandcamp.com/track/i-play-c?fbclid=IwAR3UQXa1yThdHIBGgFLgedUn0O6sY4YgOK1fL-IDPore_VP_DZIMCB9J6Vo
Violet Lea James Michael Taylor you really are one of the best songwriters alive.
Violet Lea James Michael Taylor you really are one of the best songwriters alive.
Kat Angel James Michael Taylor soulful
Mary Guthrie James Michael Taylor favorite line:"... We dream deep. And we hold on to each other when we travel in our sleep."
Bravo Bravo, delightful words sung like an angel <3
Sob
Fantastic, poignant, great imagery. You have a beautiful voice.
Lee Edward Orr James Michael Taylor I feel that track.
Dyson Reich -I have to be honest…I got goosebumps at the end of the couch song. You really connected the emotions with the picture you painted.
Comments made by James Michael Taylor
“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.
504 Hathaway, San Luis Obispo, California. 1954