Song #1 (Or, "Personism and Free Dinner, Drinks and Tips")

As life would have it, I am on the road, Highway 99 to be exact, in a van, an '86 (i think) starcraft. The interior is red, and relatively comfortable. I drafted the back seat, which is a long bench that lies half covered in gear and sleeping bags, but still leaving me plenty of room to kick my sneakers towards a window and lay down and stare at the wood paneled ceiling. And read.

I was just reading a Frank O'Hara biography that was given to me years ago by an ex-girlfriend. I only recently rediscovered this book.

A little academic (both the girl and the book), but the book is really fun when it comes to the parts that Frank wrote.

If you don't know Frank O'Hara, you gotta go read the guy. A true weirdo. One of the best. A poet.

Okay. Point II : I recently figured out that I can record directly into my laptop using the internal mic and a program called Audacity. Which is way super ghetto. My audiophile friends (let's call them Matt and Aaron) would for sure eschew such amatuerism, but being I have no choice, I am going to embrace it.

I have been writing songs, and in the spirit of my reading for the trip, and in tribute to Frank's totally rad movement (Personism! (The exclamtion point is mine)) I am going to dash off as many songs as I can while I careen around the country.

I wrote this one a couple weeks ago and just recorded in Joey's garage in Merced today.

DOWNLOAD : Free Dinner, Drinks, Tips

Lyrics and more after the jump.

You woke up in your old bedroom.
Woke up in your old bed.
Same glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.
Same pillows under your head.

Same clothes you left hanging in your closet,
but they don't fit you no more.
Same notes you left in your top dresser drawer,
same view out the window,
same catch on the door.

Maybe there's no place like Booklyn.
No place like Queens.
No place left to go home to. No place left to fit me.

But I remember a day on the river.
I remember a day in the park.
I remember a restaurant with horrible service
where I would go to watch you play guitar
over the din and the clatter
and table-clothes spattered with cheap red wine from the bar.

The calamari was so-so
but time could move slo-mo
when you struck a note and it shimmered like a star.

It was a pretty good gig, I guess.
Free dinner and drinks and tips.

Sometimes I wanna go back,
look around for the address.
SOmetimes I wish time would move backwards.

Wish I knew which magic words would work best.

I woke up from a dream.

I saw your face in a dream.
A light turned on.
A door slammed shut.
I fell several stories.
Then woke up.

It was a dream.

My goal is to give you the real shit as I shit it. Take it or leave it. Right?

Write now, and when I write songs in general, I feel like it is my job to navigate the tight-wire, take up the ball, and just work my ass off to arrive on the other side.

Some people say you shouldn't show anything until your finished with it.

Now that I have crossed the river, i mean i think i got the song, and i am no longer on "this" side of the song and I am now on the "canvas" so to speak, I feel like the remaining work is more like that of a painter.

Colors and such. Well. Here it is in glaring black and white.

Hey Aaron! Hey Matt! When I come home let's color.