country music

Fuck Nashville

Dedicated to all those songwriters who’ve been written off, underestimated and overlooked. It’s for the outlaws, freaks, rebels, mutineers and renegade poets.

Turn on the radio

Country station playing crap

You can keep your country hip hop

And your cowboy rap

Chasing trends

Chasing dreams

Everyone trying to be

The next big thing

It’s all flash and flare

Manufactured stars

Songs spit shined and sold

Just like used cars

Ya heard it in a song

Swore it’s’ written just for you

Pedal Steel crying

Voice ain’t pretty, but it’s true

Heard it at the Ryman

And the Grand Ole Opry

You’ll know it when you hear it

Cause it sounds like country

These days, I swear

Johnny Cash couldn’t get a record deal

That’s why I’m here to say

Fuck Nashville

This towns built on music

Child of gospel and blues

Country music is simple

Three chords and the truth

Call me old fashioned

Say I’m an old fool

Cause I still play Merle

Guess that makes me old school

I’m headed back home

This town don’t care for me

Play my music on my front porch

With my friends and family

Turn on the radio

Country music, is this what I get?

Every song sounds the same

Different twang, same old shit

Heard it at the Ryman

And the Grand Ole Opry

You’ll know it when you hear it

Cause it sound like country

These days, I swear

George Jones couldn’t get a record deal

That’s why I’m here to say

Fuck Nashville

You Said You Loved Me (but I think you lied)

Songs available at iTunes, CDbaby.com.

Sweet Memories

A song about how a couple sustains their love over half a century.

She puts his dinner on the table
When they’re thru he washes up the plates

After fifty odd years
Ya learn to give more than you take

She lies in bed reads her magazines
He falls asleep right in his chair

She calls him to bed
He falls up those stairs

How many days
Make up a life

Pulls down the shade
Gives a goodnight kiss to his wife

Baby can’t you see
You’re the better part of me

With our love
We made babies

And gave to me
Such sweet memories

She plants her autumn tulips
He mows his summer lawn

She dusts photos on the bureau
Wonders where the times has gone

Love ain’t like a Hollywood movie
Can’t be captured in a country song

It’s simple as saying sorry
in spite of who was wrong

They move in circles
Shared a bed of dreams

They take their walks in the woods
Another winter gives birth to spring

Baby can’t you see
You’re the better part of me

With our love
We made a family

And gave to me
Such sweet memories

Johnny Lewis

A song about a preacher with mixed emotions and conflicting priorities. Hypocrisy is a bitter pill to swallow. Written in a humors fashion but contains a good life lesson.

A Song For Haley

A song written for my daughter.

She walks in the woods alone

She puts her thoughts down in a poem

Prayer flags and dolls upon her shelf

She’s original, holding true to herself

This world will never break her

She sings along with James Taylor

She dances, alone in her room

She tells her secrets, to the midnight moon

Fathers and daughters

A bond like no other

Believe me brother

I’ll always love her

Puts her make up on in the dark

Blind secrets, hidden in an innocent heart

Her smile makes my world brighter

Her openness sets the darkness on fire

She’s strong and she’s true

She seeks no approval, from me or you

A mystery in the blood we share

In her eyes, like a mirror I stare

Fathers and daughters

A bond like no other

Believe me brother

I’ll always love her

Where I’m Going

When I wrote this tune I had the feeling that this is the kind of music you might hear as you stroll up to an old porch in the Appalachian Mountains. And there would sit several fellas sipping on some moonshine and singing about death and glory of god. The song could use a fiddle, banjo and mandolin, but an acoustic guitar and vocal is fine too. Dance like you’re handling a poisonous serpent in one hand and shaking a tambourine in the other—–Hallelujah!!!!!!!