you know me, i'll listen to anything, but...

just have this weird aversion to dan fogelberg records. i look at his double album song cycle The Innocent Age and i think, you know, if it were some dumb hippie i'd never heard of and it was a double album folk rock song cycle i'd be on it like...something that gets on something really fast.

have this problem with harry chapin too. just can't do it. and tom rush as well. and jimmy buffet. even though i know i would probably like jimmy's old stuff fine. got four kim carnes records in a box of other stuff and i look at them and look at them...i just can't do it. i think i'm like this with art garfunkel too. which makes no sense. cuz i like his voice fine and he always worked with awesome people too and jimmy webb would give him cool songs, but, eh, nothing doing.

these are just some that come to mind.

harry chapin too, though, nobody can blame me there. i think i did actually try once, and man i thought i liked over the top and maudlin, but he is in another league altogther. it goes without saying, i have no interest in don mclean outside of hearing american pie on the radio. okay, one more, loggins and/or messina and/or loggins and messina.

how about john denver?

him too.

harry chapin was a wordy motherfucker.

There Only Was One Choice
by Harry Chapin

There's a kid out on my corner -- hear him strumming like a fool
Shivering in his dungarees -- but still he's going to school
His cheeks are made of peach fuzz -- his hopes may be the same
But he's signed up as a soldier out to play the music game

There are fake patches on his jacket -- he's used bleach to fade his jeans
With a brand new stay pressed shirt -- and some creased and wrinkled dreams
His face a blemish garden -- but his eyes are virgin clear
His voice is Chicken Little's -- But he's hearing Paul Revere

When he catches himself giggling -- he forces up a sneer
Though he'd rather have a milk shake -- he keeps forcing down the beer
Just another folkie -- late in coming down the pike
Riding his guitar -- he left Kid brother with his bike

And he's got Guthrie running in his bones
He's the hobo kid who's left his home
And his Beatles records and the Rolling Stones
This boy is staying acoustic.
There's Seeger singing in his heart
He hopes his songs will somehow start
To heal the cracks that split apart
America gone plastic

And now there's Dylan dripping from his mouth
He's hitching himself way down south
To learn a little black and blues
From old street men who paid their dues
'Cause they knew they had nothing to lose
They knew it
So they just got to it

With cracked old Gibsons and red clay shoes
Playing 1-4-5 chords like good news
And cursed with skin that calls for blood
They put their face and feet in mud
But oh they learned the music from way down there
The real ones learn it somewhere

Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did
Inexperience -- it once had cursed me
But your youth is no handicap -- it's what makes you thirsty

Hey, kid you know you can hear your footsteps as you're kicking up the dust
And the rustling in the shadows tells you secrets you can trust
The capturing of whispers is the way to write a song
It's when you get to microphones the music can go wrong

You can't see the audience with spotlights in your eyes
Your feet can't feel the highway from where the Lear jet flies
When you glide in silent splendor in your padded limousines
Only you are crying there behind the silver screen
Now you battle dragons -- but they'll all turn into frogs
When you grab the wheel of fortune -- you get caught up in the cog

First your art turns into craft -- then the yahoos start to laugh
Then you'll hear the jackals howl 'cause they love to watch the fall
They're the lost ones out there feeding on the wounded and the bleeding
They always are the first to see the cracks upon the walls

When I started this song I was still thirty-three
The age that Mozart died and sweet Jesus was set free
Keats and Shelley too soon finished, Charley Parker would be
And I fantasized some tragedy'd be soon curtailing me

Well just today I had my birthday -- I made it thirty-four
Mere mortal, not immortal, not star-crossed anymore
I've got this problem with my aging I no longer can ignore
A tame and toothless tabby can't produce a lion's roar

And I can't help being frightened on these midnight afternoons
When I ask the loaded questions -- Why does winter come so soon?
And where are all the golden girls that I was singing for
The daybreak chorus of my dreams serenades no more

Yeah the minute man is going soft -- the mirror's on the shelf
Only when the truth's up there -- can you fool yourself
I am the aged jester -- who won't gracefully retire
A clumsy clown without a net caught staggering on the high wire

Yesterday's a collar that has settled round my waist
Today keeps slipping by me, it leaves no aftertaste
Tomorrow is a daydream, the future's never true
Am I just a fading fire or a breeze passing through?

Hello my Country
I once came to tell everyone your story
Your passion was my poetry
And your past my most potent glory
Your promise was my prayer
Your hypocrisy my nightmare
And your problems fill my present
Are we both going somewhere?

Step right up young lady -- Your two hundred birthdays make you old if not senile
And we see the symptoms there in your rigor mortis smile
With your old folks eating dog food and your children eating paint
While the pirates own the flag and sell us sermons on restraint

And while blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear
And still you will not answer with that message coming clear
Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory stream
And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?

B*U*Y Centennial
Sell 'em pre-canned laughter
America Perennial
Sing happy ever after

There's a Dance Band on the Titanic
Singing Nearer My God to Thee
And the iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Yes I read it in the New York Times
That was on the stands today
It said that dreams were out of fashion
We'll hear no more empty promises
There'll be no more wasted passions
To clutter up our play

It really was a good sign
The words went on to say
It shows that we are growing up
In oh so many healthy ways
And I told myself this is
Exactly where I'm at
But I don't much like thinking about that

Harry -- are you really so naive
You can honestly believe
That the country's getting better
When all you do is let her alone
Harry -- Can you really be surprised
when it's there before your eyes
when you hold the knife that carves her
you live the life that starves her to the bone

Good dreams don't come cheap
You've got to pay for them
If you just dream when you're asleep
There is no way for them
to come alive
to survive

It's not enough to listen -- it's not enough to see
When the hurricane is coming on it's not enough to flee
It's not enough to be in love -- we hide behind that word
It's not enough to be alive when your future's been deferred

What I've run through my body, what I've run through my mind
My breath's the only rhythm -- and the tempo is my time
My enemy is hopelessness -- my ally honest doubt
The answer is a question that I never will find out

Is music propaganda -- should I boogie, Rock and Roll
Or just an early warning system hitched up to my soul
Am I observer or participant or huckster of belief
Making too much of a life so mercifully brief?

So I stride down sunny streets and the band plays back my song
They're applauding at my shadow long after I am gone
Should I hold this wistful notion that the journey is worthwhile
Or tiptoe cross the chasm with a song and a smile

Well I got up this morning -- I don't need to know no more
It evaporated nightmares that had boiled the night before
With every new day's dawning my kid climbs in my bed
And tells the cynics of the board room your language is dead

And as I wander with my music through the jungles of despair
My kid will learn guitar and find his street corner somewhere
There he'll make the silence listen to the dream behind the voice
And show his minstrel Hamlet daddy that there only was one choice

Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did
Inexperience -- it once had cursed me
But your youth is no handicap -- it's what makes you thirsty, hey kid

Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did

Dance Band...

that reads like a million aussie 'folk' songs with tedious stories muddled out of history, rambling on forever sung through the nose...

ha just heard cat's in the cradle on my way back from shopping - it's a bit better than i remembered, corny but nice production on it

the one where he's a cabdriver is so bizarre to me, but this inspires fear in me - The song was covered by Mandy Patinkin on his Experiment album.

hot damn! Dem lyrics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKIBoMWT14U&feature=related

Jesus fuck! How long is that song? A whole album side? Some grind band should try and cover it in 90 seconds.

it's like 13 or 14 minutes long.

I trust Harry Chapin a lot less ever since I read some poem he wrote about how a girl shat on his chest. The poem was like 4 lines long, too; weird that his songs are so wordy.

Manhood
by Harry Chapin

I was laughing horizontally
In my loose and lusty youth
I was feeling well self-satisfied
Deliciously uncouth
When she slipped out from my covers
With a smile
Saying, "You've got a lot to learn, dear boy
It's going to take a while."

She said--
Manhood--Means that you should
Get someone else, beside yourself
Feeling good
You know a real man would
Do much more than you could
You know he'd wonder if he
understood me!
I said, "I see, let's start again."
She said, "You know you never can."

She put her clothes back on
She straightened up my bed
She hit me with a line
The still does numbers on my head
She says, "Your mind chooses better
Than your hands do
Your heart chooses better
Than your glands do!"

She said--
Manhood--Means that you should
Get someone else, beside yourself
Feeling good
You know a real man would
Do much more than you could
You know he'd wonder if he
understood me!
I said, "I see, let's start again."
She said, "You know you never can."

So I stood there in my shorts
Feeling naked just the same
With her last few words
I knew I was brand new at the game
She gave her gentle smile
She slipped out through the door
Saying, "You're my first and only love
Just like all my lvoes before."

She said--
Manhood--Means that you should
Get someone else, beside yourself
Feeling good
You know a real man would
Do much more than you could
You know he'd wonder if he
understood me!
I said, "I see, let's start again."
She said, "You know you never can."

Bummer
by Harry Chapin

His mama was a midnight woman
His daddy was a drifter drummer
One night they put it together
Nine months later came the little black bummer

He was a laid back lump in the cradle
Chewing the paint chips that fell from the ceiling
Whenever he cried he got a fist in his face
So he learned not to show his feelings

He was a pig-tail puller in grammer school
Left back twice by the seventh grade
Sniffing glue in Junior High
And the first one in school to get laid

He was a weed-speed pusher at fifteen
He was mainlining skag a year later
He'd started pimping when they put him away
In jail he changed from a junkie to a hater

And just like the man from the precinct said:
"Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better of dead
Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."

They threw him back on the street, he robbed an A & P
He didn't blink at the buddy that he shafted
And just about the time they would have caught him too
He had the damn good fortune to get drafted

He was A-One bait for Vietnam, you see they needed more bodies in a hurry
He was a cinch to train cause all they had to do
Was to figure how to funnel his fury

They put him in a tank near the D M Z
To catch the gooks slipping over the border
They said his mission was to Search and Destroy
And for once he followed and order

One sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po Valley
With the ground still steaming from the rain
There was a bloody little battle that didn't mean nothing
Except to the few that remained

You see a couple hundred slants had trapped the other five tanks
And had started to pick off the crews
When he came on the scene and it really did seem
This is why he'd paid those dues

It was something like a butcher going berserk
Or a sane man acting like a fool
Or the bravest thing that a man had ever done
Or a madman blowing his cool

Well he came on through like a knife through butter
Or a scythe sweeping through the grass
Or to say it like the man would have said it himself:
"Just a big black bastard kicking ass!"

And just like the man from the precinct said:
"Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better of dead
Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."

When it was over and the smoke had cleared
There were a lot of V C bodies in the mud
And when the rescued men came over for the very first time
They found him smiling as he lay in his blood

They picked up the pieces and they stitched him back together
He pulled through though they thought he was a goner
And it force them to give him what they said they would
Six purple hearts and the Medal of Honor

Of course he slouched as the chief white honkey said:
"Service beyond the call of duty"
But the first soft thought was passing through his mind
"My medal is a Mother of a beauty!"

He got a couple of jobs with the ribbon on his chest
And though he tried he really couldn't do 'em
There was only a couple of things that he was really trained for
And he found himself drifting back to 'em
Just about the time he was ready to break
The V A stopped sending him his checks
Just a matter of time 'cause there was no doubt
About what he was going to do next

It ended up one night in a grocery store
Gun in hand and nine cops at the door
And when his last battle was over
He lay crumpled and broken on the floor

And just like the man from the precinct said:
"Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better of dead
Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."

Well he'd breathed his last, but ten minutes past
Before they dared to enter the place
And when they flipped his riddled body over they found
His second smile frozen on his face

They found his gun where he'd thrown it
There was something else clenched in his fist
And when they pried his fingers open they found the Medal of Honor
And the Sergeant said: "Where in the hell he get this?"

There was a stew about burying him in Arlington
So they shipped him in box to Fayette
And they kind of stashed him in a grave in the county plot
The kind we remember to forget

And just like the man from the precinct said:
"Put him away, you better kill him instead.
A bummer like that is better of dead
Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head."

"Manhood" sounds like the worst song.

weirdly harry chapin has come up in conversation around my house recently ("dad who are your least favorite singers of all time?") reading his lyrics >>> listening to his records.

scott - i would've guessed that you liked tom rush! a couple of his albums fit in that west coast folk/rock s/s bag (even though he was from new england or thereabouts)

yeah, see, that's the thing, there is no reason why i wouldn't listen to tom rush. i just don't. i don't know why. i saw him once when i was a kid. my mom was a fan. yeah, he was big in boston. and he hung out a lot on marthas vineyard back in the day.

I'd go to the mat for The Circle Game, "Urge For Going", "No Regrets", etc....great, great LP...agreed on the others, would probably add Jim Croce to the mix...of course, things do turn around...I used to feel this way about Gordon Lightfoot, Judy Collins and Bread, but now see how truly transcendent their best stuff is...