I’ve always really enjoyed old music, but I’m beginning to get scared, because a lot of the “old” music I’m discovering is from the 70s.

First, my friend Chris (he of Supersuckers management “fame”) up in Heber gets me hooked on Bob Dylan, to supplement my Johnny Cash addiction; and now I’m being inundated by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

I think once I complete the Dylan collection, Petty will be next. For the past almost 4 hours, I’ve been watching a great documentary about Tom Petty on the Sundance Channel, tracing his (and the band’s) career from their start in Gainesville, Florida in the early 1970s through modern times.

The fact that Johnny Cash recorded two of Petty’s songs (Won’t Back Down, and Southern Accents) helps.

TOM PETTY & the HEARTBREAKERS - SOUTHERN ACCENTS

There’s a Southern accent
Where I come from
The young’uns call it country
The Yankees call it dumb

I got my own way of talkin’
But everything is done,
With a Southern accent
Where I come from—

Now that drunk tank in Atlanta’s
Just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando,
If them orange groves don’t freeze
I got my own way of workin’
But everything is run
With a Southern accent
Where I come from—

For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it were all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me

There’s a dream I keep having
Where my mama comes to me
And she kneels down over by the window
And says a prayer for me
I got my own way of prayin’
But everyone’s begun
With a Southern accent
Where I come from—

I got my own way of livin’
But everything gets done
With Southern accent
Where I come from.

I hear songs like this, and wonder who the Bob Dylan, the Johnny Cash, and the Tom Petty of the next generation will be.

no such thing

we are always searching for it
we are convinced
it will be
around the next corner,
afforded by the next paycheck,
wrapped in miracle and
happiness.

and it will be
holy and
safe.

maybe one more child,
one more drink,
one more night,
one more line,
one more hour,
one more
one more.

we pray,
but the
prayer
is
long forgotten.

  — christopher cunningham.

From Thru the Heart of This Animal Life, A Measure of Impossible Humor, from Liquid Paper Press. Copyright ©2005. For more of CC’s work, check out the Guerilla Poetics Project.

STREET DOGS - FINAL TRANSMISSION

He had just turned nineteen yesterday
Wanted to be a school teacher someday
Came from a small and modest town
Had never before traveled abroad

He signed on the promise of a college fund
Pop and Mom begged him to stay at home
The last time they saw him was at an airport
He hugged his distraught mother a final time

He went abroad to serve when he was only nineteen
Reality caught up with him, stole a heart full of dreams

He’s never gonna get a chance to chase all those hopes
Lost them all amidst this war and smoke
Can you hear the sound of youth negated?
Watch on TV names are taken
Mother, Mother
My final transmission

Parris Island was plain hell on earth
Got gunny yelling at him, “better prove your worth”
Moved on to Baghdad about six months on
Caught an IED today, now he is gone

He went abroad to serve when he was only nineteen
Reality caught up with him, stole a heart full of dreams

He’s never gonna get a chance to chase all those hopes
Lost them all amidst this war and smoke
Can you hear the sound of youth negated?
Watch on TV names are taken
Mother, Mother
My final transmission

Dad and Mom, I am your only loving son
Hid a written final transmission under my helmet
Love you both in heart and mind
A better set of parents no boy could ever find
Weep for me and say thy prayers
Remember me through all your years
Only got to serve for six months on and
If you’re reading this I have passed and gone

So I harbor my final request
A letter in my memory please send
Off to the President and all his men
Begging him with others to bring the troops back home!

He’s never gonna get a chance to chase all those hopes
Lost them all amidst the war and smoke
Can you hear the sound of youth negated?
Watch on TV names are taken

He’s never gonna get a chance to chase all those hopes
Lost them all amidst this war and smoke
Can you hear the sound of youth negated?
Why are all those young lives taken?
Mother, Mother
My final transmission

Prayers for Marek « I Ride, I Write

Prayers for Marek
Posted on April 8, 2008 by je

Many Utah cyclists probably heard the news at the RMR Crit Thursday, or maybe earlier, but Marek Shon is recovering from a stroke. The Bywaters told us Marek had brain surgery to remove a blood clot and is recovering but has limited speech and it may be a while before he’s out at the races again.

So, if you can, keep him in your prayers.

Get well, Brother Shon … get well. Even this non-religious person of some faith will say a prayer tonight.

JOHNNY CASH - PERSONAL JESUS

Your own, personal, Jesus
someone to hear your prayers,
someone who cares

Your own, personal, Jesus
someone to hear your prayers,
someone who’s there

Feeling unknown
and you’re all alone,
flesh and bone,
by the telephone,
lift up the receiver,
i’ll make you a believer

Take second best,
put me to the test,
things on your chest,
you need to confess,
i will deliver,
you know i’m a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Your own, personal, Jesus
someone to hear your prayers,
someone who cares

Your own, personal, Jesus
someone to hear your prayers,
someone to care

Feeling unknown
and you’re all alone,
flesh and bone,
by the telephone,
lift up the receiver,
i’ll make you a believer
i will deliver,
you know i’m a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Reach out and touch faith

Sausalito Trash Prayer

Sausalito,
            Little Willow,
Perfect Beach by the last Bay in the World,
            None more beautiful,

Today we kneel at thy feet
            And curse the men who have misused you.

  — Lew Welch (1926 - 1971[?]), American Beat poet who disappeared in May 1971, presumed to have committed suicide. His body was never found.