In the corner stands a guitar that plays only sad songs
Give me when a friend lost his wife
And this fine leather jacket came in a package
The day after he took his own life
In a bar down in Austin, he was drinkin' and boastin'
This ring…
Jimmy, this song reminds me, what great lyrics you can slip into your songs/albums! AND I had forgotten how much I like this song/album. Thanks for reminding me about it. JQ
I was in Spain, in the Pyrenees, working on THE STONE RAFT. I was the only American, read, "English speaker." I was feeling very alone.
SOLITARY WALK Am
INTRO Am F Am F
Am (walking down) G F G
Tho I follow in the footprints of my friends…
Yesterday afternoon, I received my copy of... The Stone Raft, the English translation of a novel by Portuguese writer José Saramago, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1998. A Spanish-language film based on the book, La Balsa de Piedra, was released in 2002 by George Sluizer; see JMT intro above. This is a great JMT song... the lyrics of this song, represent well, the true genius JMT has with words! What absolutely great lyrics!
CALIFORNIA
Capo @ 4 in C/Am
I’m (Am) going back to California
A little place in the San (E) Joaquin
(Am, stepping down A G F# F E)
Where the back pasture builds
To Sierra foothills
And Kaweah tumbles down cool and clean
I’m going back…
CALIFORNIA
Capo @ 4 in C/Am
I’m (Am) going back to California
A little place in the San (E) Joaquin
(Am, stepping down A G F# F E)
Where the back pasture builds
To Sierra foothills
And Kaweah tumbles down cool and clean
I’m going back…
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post, where we would divide up into groups and have a new song ready to perform in one hour) was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. When I got home I had the Tejas/Chaos…
Damn, Jimmy! I am not sure what to make of this song! I really... REALLY... like this song very much! The story makes me feel "sad" ...and yet I find this song quite... ??? ..."pleasing" ??? WELL, It doesn't matter! EVEN IF I do not understand why... the fact remains... I LIKE THIS SONG! And I agree with what Jeff wrote below in COMMENTS... AND I REALLY agree with Violet!
CALIFORNIA
Capo @ 4 in Am
I (Am) come from California
With a banjo on my (E) knee
(Am, stepping down)
I was off to college in Oklahoma
Where I (E) studied (Am) Christianity
I’m going back to California
A little place in the San Joaquin…
WITHOUT THINKING
capo @ 3 in C
C I do things without E thinking
Am (walk down) I admit it's true
But I do C nothing without G thinking about C you
Am I turn a corner
Em I pump some gas
F I fold a pillow case
C I wash a G glass
I stand…
Jimmy, I like this one. You mentioned the other day, that you might consider adding some cello to one of your new songs... ??? This version is only 2:09... seems to me... there might be plenty of room for a few bars of cello instrumental to float around between the words! But you know me... I have often mentioned to you, how good some of your instrumentals really are... and I have often thought that you, yourself, under appreciate yourself... when it comes to your own instrumentals. Good song... JohnQ
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post, where we would divide up into groups and have a new song ready to perform in one hour) was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. When I got home I had the Tejas/Chaos…
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post, where we would divide up into groups and have a new song ready to perform in one hour) was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. When I got home I had the Tejas/Chaos…
TEJAS
Capo @ 2 in C
I met a girl. Her name was Tejas
Shrimping south of Texas City
In her eyes I could see chaos
In her voice I heard confetti
In her purse I found the lip gloss
She bought in New York City
When she jumped I felt such…
I BUY GUITARS
Em
One man might buy cigarettes and waste it all in smoke
Another marijuana and share a friendly toke
Am
Another, with more money, might invest in antique cars
Em
I buy guitars
A man might buy a baseball card
Keep it…
I love that...reading and listening to it..!
Love the sounds...i can feel the amercan poet in the music...and the vocal sound is really full...
That song just makes me want to buy an old guitar....i keep lookin in the second hand stores around here...but theres no guitars...i dream that someday i’ll walk into anthony o hallorans second hand / antique shop, and there’ll be some old gem of a six string , archtop maybe, or a rusty old tele...full of mojo...waiting there for me to find...! I check every time im passing his place....i think i’ll never stop waiting....
But yes...thats a great track....you should send that out to dream guitars shop...in ashville....paul huemiller owns it....or some such shop....i bet one of those places would love that song for a website....im doin my website at the mo....id love to put that track on my instruments page...!
Then people could send pics of the old guitars they bought and i could post those pics too...wouldnt that be a bit of craic....fun...we all buy guitars....a choir of guitar pickers could sing it....we buy guitars..✌️
Also...i never saw the link between telescopes amd guitars before....but i do now...its a cold night here...and a clear sky full of stars....Matt
I BUY GUITARS
Em
One man might buy cigarettes and waste it all in smoke
Another marijuana and share a friendly toke
Am
Another, with more money, might invest in antique cars
Em
I buy guitars
A man might buy a baseball card
Keep it…
I BUY GUITARS
Em
One man might buy cigarettes and waste it all in smoke
Another marijuana and share a friendly toke
Am
Another, with more money, might invest in antique cars
Em
I buy guitars
A man might buy a baseball card
Keep it…
I BUY GUITARS
Em
One man might buy cigarettes and waste it all in smoke
Another marijuana and share a friendly toke
Am
Another, with more money, might invest in antique cars
Em
I buy guitars
A man might buy a baseball card
Keep it…
Barbara Anne Taylor sings.
Que Paso capo @ 5 in G
Am/G x3
G G bass Em Am bass G bass F#
The man on the radio said we are falling apart
Am bass G bass F# G
Falling apart…
Here is the latest song challenge offered by the Minnesota Asscociation of Songwriters:
. . . . . . . .
Your mission this month is twofold:
1. Try creating a boundary between the production of content versus the judging…
Here is the latest song challenge offered by the Minnesota Asscociation of Songwriters:
. . . . . . . .
Your mission this month is twofold:
1. Try creating a boundary between the production of content versus the judging…
Those guitar tracks are crisper than fresh celery. Great vocal. Really brings the lyric to life. This is the best thing I have ever heard of yours. Killer. Great song.
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…
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…
So sweet.. and I relate sooo well. I only had three, but birthing them in 4 yrs, they seemed double that in number at times. And we were a share the bed family too. I played my guitar and sang for them to put them to sleep. I still have memories of the peace that held for me, and I think for them. Gwyn Henry
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…
Peggy taught me an Eagles song toward the end off our life together. I think it was NEW BOY IN TOWN. (I had no idea what she was telling me.) I took the chord progression from that song and wrote this. Peggy said that was cheating.
WATERMELON…
The 1st time I sang this song in public was at a Nashville Songwriters Association meeting, Fort Worth chapter, and a woman burst out when it hit her. I can hardly sing this song without crying. I really know how to push my buttons.
"...ha! Push your own buttons… I know hat you mean. I listened to the song again to refresh my memory…omg it is so pretty! And yes! I remember well, I did get it that the watermelon man was his father. In fact it brought to my mind another disappearing father, that of my daughter Lisa. He passed several yrs ago. So too late for him now. But your song has beauty and meaning for a lot of folks, I am sure." Gwyn Henry
I saw him live in Dallas about a year before he died. He was sooo good.
His sweet wife sat stage right and frequently he would go over and kiss her. His playing and showmanship were tops and he was like in my living room sharing the things…
LOVE THIS!! Just listened. I'll bet Dale would love it too, He passed in 2019, I just read in wiki, at the age of 85. Your comparison to his doctore may have been apt: He beat colon cancer twice and lived on another eleven years. And he left us his amazing music! - Gwyn Henry
A song I wrote over the last few days. Did a one-take-wonder on the recording, so it's pretty simple. Hope you like it!
Sometimes You Don't
Verse 1
Sometimes in the early morning hours
As the sun lights up the sky
I look back and think…
A friend got me excited about writing short instrumentals for Video, TV etc and posting them on Pond5 ( A site catering to that type of thing). I recorded this little banjo piece this morning.
This is so crisp and bright. Sunlight and rippling waters. It reminds me of one of my rare instrumentals:https://alonetone.com/jamesmichaeltaylor/playlists/slaughter-mountain/sunlight-on-spider-web
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
And here is the first reply to In Your Hands.
I say "first" because I've found another one, When I Try To Be Me, that Mrs R says I have to do too... but that's unlikely to be the next one I post because I'm working…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
OK, let's delve once more into the magical shoebox of unused songs...
I've already recorded several that were written in 1994 (Sleeping with the Ghost, Elizabeth's Room, With Mum Again, If You Knew, A Hundred and…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
And here we go - Edith FINALLY gets it...
Actually, she's been getting it ever since I wrote it on the 29th May. I thought it would take a week or so, but it proved to be more of a fight than I was expecting.
On…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
Here it is in all of its glory...
THIS is the song that Mrs R and I had decided was a suitable response to a request to "Upload something HAPPY, stat!!!!!!!!!"
I tried to record it back in 2013 when I wrote it…
I was once asked to write a happy song. It turned out to be about a woman who killed herself and when I found out THAT SHE ACTUALLY KILLED HERSELF I wasn't sure what to think about my premonition.https://alonetone.com/jamesmichaeltaylor/tracks/a-happy-song. THEN, later an old friend asked if I had any happy songs so I wrote this:https://alonetone.com/jamesmichaeltaylor/tracks/if-it-makes-you-happy-092914-1
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
I was asked (told?) to upload something happy. Hmmm, I thought. This will end well...
So, a few days later, I was rehearsing a pleasant little thing I wrote several years ago that has a working title of "She Was…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
Here's the very latest from the broom-cupboard.
I wrote it one dark night over 23 years ago.
****
**All I Have To Do - A A J Russe**
There isn’t much time to get this out
You won’t hear me if I have to…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
Okies, so I'm working on some other thing and it's taking a while... drums to do and wotnot. But in the middle of it I'm digging how my Martin acoustic is working out. You probs won't even be able to hear it amongst…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
I wrote this one last September.
Allison Jane Sixsmith 1965-2016.
****
**Forever - A A J Russe**
I can see you on your rocking horse now
The one that turned around and kicked you in the teeth
He thought…
I hear you’re drinking at the chocolate fountain
You pulled the handle off the door
But they won’t mind
They’ll be mending it forever..." Great images...
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
I wasn't even sure the recording machine was still going to work after nearly five years... Certainly, bits of me don't work anymore... But, surprisingly, I got this done in 24 hours, start to finish... Strange old world…
A friend asked me,
"Don't you have any happy songs?"
So I wrote one!
IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY capo @ 3
C F C
If it makes you happy I will tie your shoe
C…
Tim Tandy
James Michael Taylor , have loved this song from the first time I heard it. Like so many of your compositions, it's refreshingly straightforward, simple and playful- characteristics all too rare in many relationships.
Comments on James Michael Taylor's stuff
Jimmy, this song reminds me, what great lyrics you can slip into your songs/albums! AND I had forgotten how much I like this song/album. Thanks for reminding me about it. JQ
Yesterday afternoon, I received my copy of... The Stone Raft, the English translation of a novel by Portuguese writer José Saramago, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1998. A Spanish-language film based on the book, La Balsa de Piedra, was released in 2002 by George Sluizer; see JMT intro above. This is a great JMT song... the lyrics of this song, represent well, the true genius JMT has with words! What absolutely great lyrics!
"Where the moon on the beach pushes time out of reach" That's Poetry!
Very catchy
I love it! 26 seconds long to convey a complete thought.
Damn, Jimmy! I am not sure what to make of this song! I really... REALLY... like this song very much! The story makes me feel "sad" ...and yet I find this song quite... ??? ..."pleasing" ??? WELL, It doesn't matter! EVEN IF I do not understand why... the fact remains... I LIKE THIS SONG! And I agree with what Jeff wrote below in COMMENTS... AND I REALLY agree with Violet!
Jimmy... I like this one, too! I like it a lot!
Jimmy, I like this one. You mentioned the other day, that you might consider adding some cello to one of your new songs... ??? This version is only 2:09... seems to me... there might be plenty of room for a few bars of cello instrumental to float around between the words! But you know me... I have often mentioned to you, how good some of your instrumentals really are... and I have often thought that you, yourself, under appreciate yourself... when it comes to your own instrumentals. Good song... JohnQ
The lyrics are so descriptive and visual, such as the lipstick from NYC. Did you read about a suicide or make up the song from scratch? Jeff P
"Your songs are so heartbreaking sometimes. I love it. Don't change a thing." Violet
Thank you for sharing
I love that...reading and listening to it..! Love the sounds...i can feel the amercan poet in the music...and the vocal sound is really full... That song just makes me want to buy an old guitar....i keep lookin in the second hand stores around here...but theres no guitars...i dream that someday i’ll walk into anthony o hallorans second hand / antique shop, and there’ll be some old gem of a six string , archtop maybe, or a rusty old tele...full of mojo...waiting there for me to find...! I check every time im passing his place....i think i’ll never stop waiting.... But yes...thats a great track....you should send that out to dream guitars shop...in ashville....paul huemiller owns it....or some such shop....i bet one of those places would love that song for a website....im doin my website at the mo....id love to put that track on my instruments page...! Then people could send pics of the old guitars they bought and i could post those pics too...wouldnt that be a bit of craic....fun...we all buy guitars....a choir of guitar pickers could sing it....we buy guitars..✌️ Also...i never saw the link between telescopes amd guitars before....but i do now...its a cold night here...and a clear sky full of stars....Matt
Cool song, well written, vivid, and fun with a wicked twist at the end.
i buy guitars....i can't play them properly .... but i buy guitars too
Excellente
Really great track!!!!
What a gorgeous voice Barbara had and what a touching song. John O'Malley
soundtrack to riding in the West Texas desert with the top down?
A bit of a departure from your usual reflective messaging. This one is a real toe tapper.
Comments made by James Michael Taylor
I thot I sent you a response... Can't see it now.
Those guitar tracks are crisper than fresh celery. Great vocal. Really brings the lyric to life. This is the best thing I have ever heard of yours. Killer. Great song.
Gwyn Henry - 😊 be-yoo-ti-full!!
Wow! I sampled all the songs, it’s a great album and I will listen to it more tomorrow. Thank you! Ken Mcintyre
So sweet.. and I relate sooo well. I only had three, but birthing them in 4 yrs, they seemed double that in number at times. And we were a share the bed family too. I played my guitar and sang for them to put them to sleep. I still have memories of the peace that held for me, and I think for them. Gwyn Henry
Seems ea song I hear of yours for the first time is my new favorite song of yours! Gwyn Henry
The 1st time I sang this song in public was at a Nashville Songwriters Association meeting, Fort Worth chapter, and a woman burst out when it hit her. I can hardly sing this song without crying. I really know how to push my buttons. "...ha! Push your own buttons… I know hat you mean. I listened to the song again to refresh my memory…omg it is so pretty! And yes! I remember well, I did get it that the watermelon man was his father. In fact it brought to my mind another disappearing father, that of my daughter Lisa. He passed several yrs ago. So too late for him now. But your song has beauty and meaning for a lot of folks, I am sure." Gwyn Henry
LOVE THIS!! Just listened. I'll bet Dale would love it too, He passed in 2019, I just read in wiki, at the age of 85. Your comparison to his doctore may have been apt: He beat colon cancer twice and lived on another eleven years. And he left us his amazing music! - Gwyn Henry
Such pathos. Your voice captures the sadness so well... Sometimes you don’t feel the love until you’ve lost it..."
This is so crisp and bright. Sunlight and rippling waters. It reminds me of one of my rare instrumentals:https://alonetone.com/jamesmichaeltaylor/playlists/slaughter-mountain/sunlight-on-spider-web
Simple and clear...
"Teddy bead kisses..." So sad.
Sounds like another suicide song to me... We can feel the pain in your voice.
I was once asked to write a happy song. It turned out to be about a woman who killed herself and when I found out THAT SHE ACTUALLY KILLED HERSELF I wasn't sure what to think about my premonition.https://alonetone.com/jamesmichaeltaylor/tracks/a-happy-song. THEN, later an old friend asked if I had any happy songs so I wrote this:https://alonetone.com/jamesmichaeltaylor/tracks/if-it-makes-you-happy-092914-1
"But still I love the comfort I find in misery…" Great line. Beatle like...and that's always good.
Great guitar sound.
Love this. Beautifully done. Tonight I was trying out a song from that era: Twilight Time...https://www.e-chords.com/chords/the-platters/twilight-time
I hear you’re drinking at the chocolate fountain You pulled the handle off the door But they won’t mind They’ll be mending it forever..." Great images...
Rock on Dude...! Good to listen to some of your tunes. It's been a while. Strange relationship in this song.
Tim Tandy James Michael Taylor , have loved this song from the first time I heard it. Like so many of your compositions, it's refreshingly straightforward, simple and playful- characteristics all too rare in many relationships.