I am a child of Judah and the mark of Cain is on me I am a fugitive in every place I go. and my name is Joseph Friedman and I tend the olive orchards on a hillside just a short walk from my home. There, the silver trunks are ancient and the olive branches fruitful but the breeze that shakes the leaves still low, "Where is God? Where is God?" I am a child of Esau. I am Ali Abed. I once lived...olives near my home. I would prune the trees in winter when the sap sinks deep in Gaza and the children won't be throwing their stones But the soldiers came at midnight with their power saws remarking and now the sap has nowhere left to go. Where is God/ Where is God? My name is Jimmy Taylor and I am a Future Farmer and my project is nine trees out by the road. and the trees have been neglected all these many years untended a home now for a solitary crow. So, I climb with my saw and clippers up into the brittle thicket busy choosing what will stay and what will go. And I note my meter progress and I wonder if I'll ever rid the olive trees of dead wood, I'm so slow. And I read the Sunday paper and I daily read my Bible and I see the scars of pruning down below. (c) 2002 Royal T Music

lovely ..

Had forgotten how good this was! (It is, and always was, a complicated song to sing).

Nice song. I hope that life in Colorado meets this family's expectations.

as usual james another haunting ballad,comes to life.

awwe, now i love the girl with the purple cheek,didn't finish listening you guys are so beautiful...love this!!!!

awwe i love this lil' boy with the purple elbow poor baby, love this song, so cool!

love that song brother God bless

riveting essay on the realities of this well known avenue

Yeah, very nice! Everything is given proper space to "breathe", so to speak. Really draws me in in that intangible sort of way that music sometimes does.

As Colleen Dillon said, haunting. Crying.

Hokey lyrics (every lab coat is contaminated)??? Music doesn't match the sstory. Run, HeLa Run?? Thumbs down

My friend, George Sluizer was making a film with River Phoenix and asked me to submit some music to possibly be used in the movie. He didn't end up sing this but he did use four other of my submissions.

Great lyrics, love the vocals and music Bravo James

Love this.

very nice sir!!

wonderfully quirky as usual... where u get these ideas ? lovely vocals as per ususal james

Red Dirt Music is a genre into itself. I was just in Stillwater and heard a lot of new, for me, Music.

I meant Tiger Lilies not Threepenny Opera, Lol

Love it! Shades of Leonard Cohen meets Threepenny Opera! Thanks JMT!

Great groove...

Such pathos. We could collect all the Ghost Town songs on Alonetone and have a very interesting album.

It would be cool to put the GHOST TOWN songs in a collection. A great subject with so much sadness... You really capture it here.

Gwyn Henry said, "How random, Jim! What precipitated this sharing??? Don't get me wrong, it is very funny. My reply, "This was about when Peggy, my fuck buddy for 29 years said no more for me. She was giving it to Doug. Not funny to me. So 15 years celebate."

I randomly chose an old album to pick a song from to post and it turned out to be songs one year after Peggy left. I was at my lowest, loneliest, most unconsolable. STRANGER was a song that also spoke to me about my dad having lost my mom. to Gwyn Henry

I also like These are the Only Times I Think of You... You are so prolific and so consistent in quality of work. Gwyn Henry

WoW! What an interesting counterpoint: slow recitation with snappy drum track.

Really snappy and tight. What an interesting lyric.

That pain is incredible and I understand it Alene Brandt

Scott - Thanks for the link. I love how descripted they were i never have smelled the orange blossoms but i bet they are heavenly. Me -The first time it hit me, I was taking Kay Smart for a ride, top down just west of that bridge at Lemon cove. Nothing else like it. Scott - Enter Scott Scott Carson Ausburn I bet ; ) Nothing like smell to jog your memories. I usta be in love with this girl named Belinda that lived up the street from my Grandmothers. We would go bicycle riding often. Her front yard had plum trees that smelled heavenly when the were in bloom. Now every time i smell a plum tree bloom it takes me back to the good times i had with Belinda and wondering what ever happened to her. Me -So sweet. Peggy wore Sweet Honesty perfume. I’m sure if I met some girl with that I would be shaken.

I sang this song at a Sunday night songwriter contest at The Playground in Fort Worth. No cigar.

Gwyn Henry I go farther and farther into my appreciation of you songwriting skills... lyrics poetic... ex Broke Piano.. The line that got me this time was "The only things that moves my strings is when somebody breathes" I once interviewed a popular musician in Tulsa, John D.Levan, in the late 70s. When I asked him where he got his ideas for songs, he laughed and said, "Heck, you just turn your head, and thre's a song!" Your line is saying the same, only more intensely... it's the inclusion of "human breath". goes even deeper.

Gwyn Henry That one would be my fav of all I have seen! They are all great, but my fav... will never forget you underneath that (was it a piano bed?) So many metaphors played into that... and don't we all just want to revert to childhood at times and go hide under the bed, take a crayon, etc. jmt - You are broadening my vision of the video. Yes. Under the bed was always a place of mystery and imagined safety.

Gwyn Henry That one would be my fav of all I have seen! They are all great, but my fav... will never forget you underneath that (was it a piano bed?) So many metaphors played into that... and don't we all just want to revert to childhood at times and go hide uner the bed, take a crayon, etc.

Bobby Huskins I like this a lot! Thanks for sharing.

Kat Angel Psychedelic sound. Felt like a brain massage.

Kat Angel Wow! Through your words, I heard my mother, my father, my sisters and brother, my grandma and grandpa, myself talking to my husband, my best friend. I suppose we are all that predictable in time and in retrospect. You made me think and travel through time.

Kat Angel James Michael Taylor great song. I love the melody and the words

Joseph Brunelle Haunting Sentimental heart on the sleeve and knot in the pine

Belinda Stephens - Lovely, James. Who are you singing about? James Michael Taylor Belinda Stephens Specifically, Peggy. But we all have the voices of our parents and children and other loved ones that we live with.