patiencestuff

Patience

Patience
Sand Dune
On the Highway with the Band
So Much Love
La Palma
Castles in Spain
On the Wings of a Dove
Low Down
My Blue Heaven
Could I Undisillusion You?
Seeds & Stems (Again)

Patience by Ilene Weiss
I met Ilene Weiss when we were hopefuls during the Great Folk Scare of the early 80's in Greenwich Village. I thought Ilene was just about the best of the bunch and I went to see her perform any time I could and was never disappointed. After I left New York City I didn't see her for 13 years. She contacted me through the internet after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Then she came to Austin to play a house concert on October 11th, 1997. I found out I was going to see her about the same time that Teresa Ferguson from KUT-FM called me to ask me to substitute for Sissy Ciero on "Live Set" October 13th. Plus, I was supposed to be making an album but I couldn't come up with a starting point. So I got the idea to build my album around Ilene's song, "Patience." It seemed that issues of waiting (or not being willing to wait) were very prominent in my life just then. So I made a list of songs that were working for me at that time and made my Live Set a sort of trial run of the album.

As it turned out, my girlfriend of the time and I had gotten eviction orders from our evil landlady on October 10th. So we went to Ilene's concert (she was appearing with Anne Hills and Denise Franke) while madly packing to move to a new place we had lucked into. The next night I had a gig in Bandera, Texas, about 100 miles away! The day of the Live Set I cut short a set at Ski Shores, on the outskirts of Austin, to make the sound check at KUT.

The show went really well, thanks in large part to magnificent engineer Walter Morgan and the musical skills of Chip Dolan, who flew in from Las Vegas on a red-eye. Someday, I'm gonna pay him back. I was completely on the edge. There is a live cut from that show on the website over at efolkMusic.org: Nancy Scott's Love of My Life

Ilene was in the audience, as well as Emily Kaitz and Maurine McLean and Lisa Rogers of the Therapy Sisters. Nancy Scott was listening at her home in McDade.

The next day, Ilene helped me and Roddey pack up our house, along with a crowd of other friends. It was such an intense time, it still seems to resonate: the clear October light, the relief of getting out from under a monster landlady. The hopefulness of that time, the support of friends, these things resonated through the next year while I made "Patience," informing and enriching the conception and birth of that album.

You can check out Ilene's albums here: Gadfly Records or on amazon.com. Her album "Obliviously" is one of my top 5 albums of all time. I have copies to sell, too - I bring them to gigs, or you can contact me.

Sand Dune by Emily Kaitz

The first time I ever heard this song was when Gail Lewis asked me to back her up when she sang it at Emilyfest in early 1994. I wasn't much for the song at first - Emily and I played it a lot that spring when we started playing together - but the gently rocking motion and the sweet images of the song grew on me. Audiences loved it, and I remember a party on a rainy day at Emily's house on 34th street in Austin when a huge crowd jammed and sang along with us on "Sand Dune."

I changed the lyrics to this song - Emily's original lyrics on the bridge were: my thoughts will travel away as I'm playing my guitar. Sometimes I change lyrics to Emily's songs on purpose, and she's very patient with me about it. But in this case it's even worse: I just didn't remember the words correctly, and then I wrote the vocal arrangement for Betty and Nancy. When I discovered my mistake, I was too committed to the vocal arrangement to go back to the right lyric. "I'll be thinking of you" worked much better with the backups.

Much later she told me I was missing another lyric: beach grass is supposed to be beach glass. I never knew about beach glass, which is waste glass that has been softened by the surf and sand. Most of the beaches I go to are on the Gulf, and they clean them up too well for much beach glass to hang around, but last time I was in Galveston I was very happy to have Emily with me, and I found a piece while we walked. It's a very delicate color between aqua and sea foam.

Many times I've started this song with the little picture in my head of happiness on the beach, forgetting what's coming up in the bridge - the distance that my work puts between me and my loved ones. When I get to the last verse it's like a knife sometimes - like I said, it grows on ya.

I'm sittin' on a sand dune
lookin' at a red sun
sinkin' in a great lake
oh how it makes my head swim
to be dreamin' of a wish bone
and thinkin' if I had one
I would still be here at daybreak
with my arms around a good friend

now I'm listenin' to the blue waves
lappin' on the shore line
polished stones and beach glass
are ticklin' my bare feet
and I'm longin' for a someday
when I have a little more time
to spend lyin' in the dune grass
with my ear against your heart beat

there is an asphalt road that waits for me
tomorrow with the dawn
there's a van with outta state plates full of speakers and microphones
and at night I'll be up on the stage of some noisy little illinois bar
but i'll be thinking of you (but my thoughts will travel away) as I'm playing my guitar

and I'll be sittin' on a sand dune...

now I'm swingin in a hammock
now I'm playin' on a twelve string
watchin' as the starlight
reflected in your green eyes
and i know I'm gonna come back
after all of this travellin'
and we can dance among the fireflies
beneath the canopy of pink sky

but now the sun's over head and I'm drinkin my third cup of coffee in this roadside cafe
i watch a trucker flash me a smile as he rises from his stool to pay
and as the waitress counts out my change she doesn't catch the little tear in my eye
so I'll just watch that scenery fade in the distance while I drive

I'll be sittin' on a sand dune...

Thanks Emily. I hope we get to walk on the beach many more times...

On the Highway with the Band (Weller's Whiskey) by M.C. Reynolds

I wrote this song while working with a country band in 1977-78. It was after the Willie Nelson-Waylon Jennings Outlaw days, when we thought progressive country was going to take over the world. Oh well. We played a date at Cain's Ballroom where I had a bad cold and could hardly sing. The crowd loved us. They threw things at the stage to show their appreciation. No, I'm serious. That was the Cain's in those days. Then after the gig the drummer drove me back to Oklahoma City - he had to show up at a job Sunday morning and I had to throw my paper route. I got the inspiration for "On the Highway" on that late night drive.

It was a strange time, the first time I had really been out on my own. There was a lot of drinking going on, and harder drugs were around. I wondered about the distance between the good little Church of Christ girl I had been and the hard-drinking edge-existing country and western singer I had become and whether they were even the same person...

ever since i can remember i have feared this day might come
i felt my restless yearning spirit cry out longing for a home
i saw the headlights light the highway out on the road ahead of me
49 more miles to tulsa in a reoccurring dream

spilled my blood on a ballroom dance floor
lost my heart on a one night stand
washed my soul in weller's whiskey
on the highway with the band

now jesus told me this would happen
he said surely you will seek what you can find
why is it so hard to remember
that this is what i had in mind
now i hope it will be over
before the bad blood hits my brain
when i step down from the spotlight
will i see your face again

spilled my blood...

ever since i can remember i have feared this day might come
i felt my restless yearning spirit cry out longing for a home
friends that i have left behind me friends i didn't know i had
friends i know who really loved me people that i need so bad

spilled my blood...

lost my soul to weller's whiskey
lord someday i'll understand

For many years this song was entitled "Weller's Whiskey." I was advised to stay away from trademarks to escape the ire of corporations, so upon release I changed the title to "On the Highway with the Band," which is how most folks referred to the song anyway, when they were asking about it.

So Much Love by Nancy Scott

I used to sit wrapped in amazement and listen to Nancy sing this simple, yet emotionally profound song. I had to charm my way into her band, so I could hear it more often. I'm offering another Nancy Scott song, Love of My Life, on Mp3 only at efolkmusic.org.

How can so much love pass between two people
and then they fall out of each other's lives?
How can you not wonder how she's doin'?
How can she not wonder if you survived?

Some say discontent brings on changes.
I say change brings on the discontent.
You go off in your brand new direction,
leavin' me wonderin' about the time we spent.

Love comes and it goes,
Why it stops no-one seems to know.
What can be done to keep love growin'?

If we don't forever together,
please don't sever all the ties that bind.
Please don't force me to burn all my bridges.
Might want to cross them again sometime.

Love comes and it goes...

La Palma (The Palm Tree) (author unknown)

I first heard "La Palma" from my friend Linda Waterfall in 1991. She learned it working in a Washington State correctional facility as an artist in residence. Between '91 and '97 I forgot how it went exactly. I recorded a version, then asked my friend Molly Romayor to help me find out something about the song. Her husband, Alfredo, is the leader of a norteno band, a fine musician and singer. He gently informed me that my version was all screwed up. When I listened to the tape he made me, tenia que confesar que tenia razon (I had to admit he was right.) But I determined to get it recorded correctly. I started from scratch, changed the key, put in the first verse I had just learned that changed the whole song for me. Alfredo very kindly and beautifully sang the harmony vocal. I can still remember him in the studio - with his hands folded in front of him and his face a study of concentration, he looked like he was standing in line for communion.

Then we headed down the street for a few minutes to check on his parked car. We were approached by a desperate young Mexican man who had obviously spent more than a few nights on the street. Alfredo talked to him comfortingly for a moment, and gave him a few dollars. I'll never forget the kindness and concern in his voice. It was not that long ago that Alfredo himself was a stranger in a strange land...

Here is the song, then, and my loose translation. It is a composed song, but it is at least 75 years old, from the stories I've heard from folks who have contacted me about it.

Acqui traigo un sentimiento que me agovia y que me mata
Recordando de un ingrata que trato de abandonar me
No quisiera ni acordarme
De ese ingrata y cruel mujer
Que siendo yo su querencia no me supo corresponder

En el mar esta una palma con las ramas hasta al suelo
Donde se van a llorar los que no tienen consuelo
Pobrecita de la palma
Con el sol se marchito
Asi se marchita mi alma cuando tu le dices que no

Yo le pregunte a la palma que si estaba en el floreo
Pa' mandarle por correo cuatro suspiros del alma
Pobrecita de la palma
Con el sol se marchito
Asi se marchita mi alma cuando tu le dices que no

i carry these blues with me, it's like murder
to think of that ungrateful woman, the one that got away.
i'd rather not even remember her
cruel and ungrateful
even though i was her sweetheart, she couldn't return my love.

there's a palm tree down by the ocean, been there for a while,
the branches reach down to the ground,
and people go there to weep, those who have no one to console them.
poor palm tree! baking in the sun
the way my heart aches for you when you say no to me.

i asked the palm tree a favor, if it was in flower,
to mail her four deeps sighs that come from the heart.
poor palm tree! baking in the sun,
the way i ache for you when you say no to me.

If you know anything about this song, please tell me. Thank you. And thanks again to Maurine for translating for the session.

Castles in Spain by Maurine McLean

In which my friend Maurine McLean journeys in the land of Maimonides and there considers whether there is a God or not.

God is good, or God is dead
Either way I'm stuck here making a hundred hotel beds
An ocean away from my home
A language away from feeling like i belong

My backpack holds a diary of empty pages
The check sewn in my jeans holds six month's hoarded wages
Mile after mile from Mom in deceptively painless stages
I'm on my own...

God is just, or God's just mean
The rain in Spain falls mainly on Maurine
Robbed of my cash but not of my attitude
I knock on a convent door and work for food

I thought I'd fall in love by the castles in Toledo
I thought I'd get sore feet from roaming the Prado
Instead I've scraped my knees from praying in the grotto
before the dawn...

I thought I'd dress in bargains picked up at the Ramblas
I thought I'd wander humming snatches of zarzuelas
Instead I'm picking crops to travel like Columbus
Across the sea...

God's omnipotent or God is bunk
Leave my brand new clothes in this dented blue trunk
Fly home in defeat only memories remain
Crumbling like sand castles, my castles in Spain

I first worked this up when Emily and I started working at Artz Rib House a lot. I always enjoyed singing it live but I thought it was too personal to record until Betty Elders urged me to record it.

On the Wings of a Dove by Bob Ferguson (Husky Music Inc & Larrick Music Co., BMI)

I almost didn't put this on the album, but my girlfriend of the time, Roddey Cohn, insisted
on it and I'm glad she did. The publishers kindly extended me permission to sing the last
verse first. I wanted to do that because that's the verse that Robert Duval's character
sings in "Tender Mercies." Once again, I don't want to push my luck by printing the lyrics without permission.

In case you're looking for the original artist and ended up here, it was Ferlin Husky. Of course, "On the Wings of a Dove" is a much loved standard at bluegrass festivals and gospel events..

This cut was done pretty much live, although Caryl overdubbed her vocal. We were
performing it a lot in those days. My dear friend Caryl P. Weiss is a colorful, talented person who is a clean cold expert in American and British Isles folk music, and I got to indulge completely that part of me that sings the wind in the top of the pines while playing with her. She writes great stuff herself, too, and plays guitar and frails banjo. She lives in Annapolis now, and is trying to get me up there to play something.

You can hear a song that Caryl wrote right here: www.schooner-woodwind.com

Darlin' Don't Forget Where You Belong by M.C. Reynolds

I wrote this song while living in Brooklyn in 1982. Not long after it was finished and I started playing it for people, the questions came, from women friends of mine, listeners, other writers: what's going on here? Why such a politically incorrect song from a self-respecting lesbian like yourself? Why doesn't this character get out of this relationship where she's not appreciated?

The answer is complicated by the fact that the song was inspired not by something that happened to me but what I did to someone else. I was the rascal out on the town every night, while my long-suffering girlfriend of the time waited for me at home in our dark basement apartment. So i imagined the song from her viewpoint. And I could feel somehow that the relationship wasn't going to last, and sure enough it didn't last a year after that. So, the character did get out of the relationship - but she was getting away from unappreciative me.

But I would also beg listeners to consider, in the work of no less of a roots-feminist firebrand as Loretta Lynn, that "Fist City" and "The Pill" exist alongside "drop by anytime and see the home you're breakin' down." Making do in a relationship that's got some trouble is a fairly common condition. I submit that somewhere not too far from you right now, someone is feeling like the singer of "Darlin'..."

It took me 18 months of workin' days
and warmin' up your mashed potatoes
to notice somethin' missin' down inside.
Now when I hear your footsteps on the walk,
it's somethin' like a social call;
You'll be goin' out again tonight.

But I won't stay up to hear your stories.
I don't care to know.
Put the dishes up and turn the TV on.
When you come home I'll be asleep.
I do all that I can to keep
from countin' down the hours that you've been gone.

You could have any woman you want in your arms tonight,
and if that makes you happy, I can see how you don't think that's wrong.
Well, that's all right with me, but don't forget where home is.
Darlin', don't forget where you belong.

'Cause now I've seen through all the bright bouquets
and pretty paper promises
and I've seen the ties that bind for you and me.
Just the wedding gifts we slumber on,
the house we went together on,
the bills that we keep stacked up on the TV. (I sang this wrong on the record - my own song!!)

But I need more than refrigerators
coffee beans and percolators.
I need someone to sleep with me tonight.
I'll let you have your happiness.
I've got my cures for loneliness,
just promise you won't stray out of my life.

You could have any woman you want in your arms tonight...

Low Down by M.C. Reynolds

I kind of wrote this song on a dare, you see, Miss Brown can play blues as well as anyone in my humble opinion, but we're not a blues band per se. Anyway a new blues club opened up in Oklahoma City while I was living in Austin and Louise and I thought we might be able to get a gig there. So one day while driving back to Austin and thinking of blues songs we might learn, I just wrote "Low Down." I'd had the fragment of a song running through my head since 1983 about dogs running loose: somebody gets hit by a car, somebody gets bitten, somebody gets lost. I was trying to shape a metaphor for ill-advised romance, a subject upon which unfortunately I have had many opportunities to consider. So the idea didn't end up being a whole song of its own. But I'm thankful it found its way back home.

The blues club is long gone; Miss Brown to You is still playing the blues.

I went too far when I went along with you
Bad things can happen when you let those dogs run loose
I got low down
Seems like I'm never gonna get up again

People been talkin', you know the way that people do
About how I cried, the way that I do for you
I got low down
Seems like I'm never gonna get up again

Bad companions, bad times
Feels like a wheel, rollin' around in my mind
Bad behaviour, now all those bills are comin' due
Maybe this don't mean that much to you

But I've learned some things, yes I have come around
I know you're never gonna put that bottle down
I got low down
Seems like I'm never gonna get up again

Bad companions, bad times
Feels like a wheel, rollin' around in my mind
Bad behaviour, how your love upset me so
And I'm goin' down, God knows how far I'll go

But if I can escape, live just another day
I'm gonna keep my heart safely tucked away
Low down
Seems like I'm never get...
I got so low down

My Blue Heaven by George Whiting & Walter Donaldson

My mother used to sing this song around the house, mostly just little snippets here and there, "a smilin' face, a fireplace, a cozy room..." I learned it myself in 1992, looking for material to perform in nursing homes. The residents requested it. It's also amazing what you can learn from residents of nursing homes, too - one taught me the verse to "When You Wore a Tulip." I don't have permission to reprint those lyrics, and I wish to respect copyright ownership, so I beg your indulgence.

Emily and I performed "My Blue Heaven" quite a bit in Austin, and it was a big audience favorite. I was fortunate to have the wonderful personnel to make this cut: Millie Marlow worked up a guitar part in homage to Eldon Shamblin at my request. Louise and Cindy Cashdollar worked together like they'd been playing together for years, and they still haven't met. Emily played the bass just right, just like we did it at Artz Rib House, and Leeann Atherton and Maryann Price put down just the right vocal. Mother loved it.

Could I Undisillusion You? by Emily Kaitz

It was January 24th, 1997. I was getting ready to go into the studio to begin working on "Patience." Emily and I were playing at Artz Rib House and our capable musical guest that evening was the affable, talented and painfully handsome Chip Dolan. As we were about to start the second set, Chip was playing around with the opening of "Undisillusion" and hit upon a cool rhythm. "That's it!" I said, and I got it together on the guitar, and so it was Chip who wrote the opening figures of this arrangement. Thanks, Chip. All the best to you, always.

Sometimes i wish i'd known you
before you'd been disillusioned by love
But then i wonder if we would have made the same mistakes
Maybe it's just a part of being young
Cause when i met you we were older
Broken dreams had left their mark on us both
And although i know you've come to care for me
You're still afraid of getting too close

Could i undisillusion you
Would you trust enough to lay down your guard
Would you open up and let my love erase
the pain the past has written on your heart
For you have undisappointed me
I feel old heartaches now beginning to fade
Maybe together we can find a way to go on
undisillusioned and unafraid

You showed me your old photos
I smiled to see you look so fresh and unscathed
You were fixing up a house with your first love
and there was pleasure painted on your face
I know that something happened to change you
along the line between that time and today
and although i'm gonna let you be who you are
won't you listen to me when i say

could I undisillusion you...

For a song that has touched and inspired many, and is really really fun to sing, thank you,
Emily Kaitz.

Seeds & Stems (Again) by William C. Farlow, Jr. & George Frayne

When I was planning "Patience" I asked my friends and fans to suggest what they'd like to hear on an album from me. "Seeds and Stems (Again)" was the song most requested, to my endless amazement. But you know, I was living in Austin in those days, and we were all hanging out at Artz Rib House, and "Seeds & Stems" was a big favorite there. Time seemed to stop in those sweet days. Of course, it hadn't stopped, as we later found out. But still.

This is how we started doing the song: Emily had just written her "My Heart Hasn't Heard a Thing" which has begins with one of the rarer chord progressions - I to III. We were playing at Artz one night, supposed to be entertaining the clientele but instead I'm afraid I must admit we were standing up there goofing off, talking about other songs that began with that chord progression. "A Fool Such as I" was one, and we played that, and then I thought of "Seeds & Stems" that I hadn't sung for years. I thought I could remember the words, Emily thought she could remember the chords, and our capable musical guest that particular evening was multi-instrumentalist Greg Lowry, who can play anything that doesn't play him first. We launched into it and it went just perfectly. I mean, perfectly. Of course, we had a saying in those days: no rehearsal, no problem. Anyway, it was so much fun that we did it often, and I made up strange lyrics on the spot sometime, some of which the publishers kindly granted me the permission to use in my recording.

When it came time to record the thing, what I wanted was to get the feel of Artz on the CD. So I got together as many of our capable musical guests as I could reasonably get on the stage at one time, being Darcie Deaville, Greg Lowry and Beth Galiger plus Emily and myself. We played two sets on July 17th, 1997, recording them live, and got the recording that appears on the CD, with the help of many sincere friends in the audience. A special thanks also goes to Dr. Kim Galusha, who made the recording possible by treating me for a nasty infection that threatened to throw the project.

The lyrics of this selection are for the most part out of my control, but here are the weird lyrics of the evening, the story of Bobette:

well i ran into your old friend Bobette today, she's up from Bougainville
she's driving that new two-tone lavender and purple gold-chrome coup de ville
well i could not hide my tears from her when she asked me about you...

Thanks for listening to my first solo album.