" Like a man,  this  record is measured  by what it holds in not by what  it gives away."                                                                                    EM Camuoran                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               5stars    
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
 

















Finally, it's about splitting a bottle with Crowson, sitting back and listening to a new song of his weave four, five minutes late at night. There are empties underfoot, a cat somewhere around the toe of your boot. It's pleasantly dark, but maybe that's your vision fading. Crowson plays his new song. You listen to its crooked path without trying to follow it. Your head starts nodding, not with sleep, but in agreement, not like for what Townes did when he reduced a whiskeyed-up farrier to a red-eyed mess, but like for what Dylan did to Peckinpah when he sang him, "Billy, you're such a long, long way from home" over coke, weed and tequila until Sam broke down and said, "You cocksucker, you son of a bitch," with tears in his eyes.     

Paul Bodig 

April 5   

 
pmc@patrickcrowson.com         
P
Publicity, Europe - Peter Holmstedt , Hemifran
http://www.hemifran.com/  

J.  Allen




Handful of Rain




A handful of rain in a broken bottle
A rainbow coming off an oil stain
A broken cork in a muddy puddle
A black top hat on the windowpane 

You can get by quite awhile on alcohol
It’ll tell you sweet lies about happier times
And maybe you’re there
At the bottom of the stairs
But you don’t care
Cause the walls are angels
Just flapping their wings
Just holding you up
Just helping you breathe

A handful of rain in a broken bottle
A rainbow coming off an oil stain
A broken cork in a muddy puddle
A black top hat on the windowpane

For Old Horse

There’s a man with hands of cracked leather
There’s another man with his hand on his chin
One appears too high to get up
Hard to tell where the hell he’s been
One could only wonder what his sins are
Or how the hell he could ever get it right
Just then he gets up
Shouts hidy hidy ho
Another round for anyone drinking here tonight
And when you find me my body will be battered
I had to search the dark for the light
It’s the only light that appeared to me to matter
All the rest appeared to be bright lies 

Let the moon oh hide under milky skies
Let the sun shine through heavy souls
May your fevered lips
Get that first cool sip
Of the wine that makes you feel less alone

There’s a painting of a man with a rifle on his shoulder
But the shadow it cast it appears he’s playing bagpipes
He wouldn’t mind hearing one of those old songs
Before electricity, before electric light
Give him one where God’s amazing grace
Is erased from that book it aint true
Only a man could come up with such rage
A loving God would never turn his back on you
Or maybe one where an angry man finds laughter
Once he beat all the beauty out of his life
Or maybe one where the beat moves a little faster
Something that keeps us on the sunny side of life
 

Let the moon oh hide under milky skies
Let the sun shine through heavy souls
May your fevered lips
Get that first cool sip
Of the wine that keeps you from feeling alone



Finito La Comedia






This is why he might have went on the run
He thought he might have something to say hoping to say it before he was done
He fell for that  cowboy myth whiskey give him rot gut
He was praying for that wine Jesus made would get him good and drunk

This is why he might believe might believe in love
Dotty and Diamond Bill and God without the rod
Mark M Forget and his beautiful bride
The little baby girl they made and the tears that she cried  for him

He wants to thank Mexico for being so poor
For pushing her grandpa so far to the north
He wants to say she taught him more about God then any man should rightly know
But sometimes he prays to cope who else could come up with Mexico

He knows everything's broken and the rich guys won
He knows they won't remember what he knows in ten years to come
And his kinda living just disappears it don't leave no tracks
And his kinda freedom aint never never coming back

He don't want to get himself sober and find she died somewhere else
She was suppose to be the last he saw he don't want to see nobody else
He wants to thank Mexico for being so poor
For putting tequila on the gravesite of those who came before
For putting drugs and dominos and dice in a cup
For teaching him you can't live without love even if you got to make it up




 Hardin




No virgin of sorrow got your porch light off       
The light falls from the moon
What's left of it
Dances at your feet

You got gold and amber chips in your hair
Glowing red in your tiny hand
And it looks like you can't
Get off those cigarettes

You've been giving directions to places unknown
Places no one could ever go
Cause they were never there
Don't hold no memory 

Marybeth you'll  find a way
God could never be that cruel
God'll provide for you
God'll provide for you


I left you in Hardin by accident
The roof fell cause the beams gave in
What's left of them
Were cinders on the ground

Well I took off fast and I took off hard
And I ended up in New York
It's ok
If you like chasing the rent

They bring us in from everywhere
Lima Peru to Cheboygan
To take care of them and their kids
Luxury became necessity to them

I've written your name on the wall of my room
Where the sun shines in the afternoon
You can't see it all the time
Only when the sun shines through
Only when the sun shines through


Somebody said on the side of the road
A car on the road more like the ditch
All right it was me
I saw everything

I saw it coming smelled the gasoline
Right around Christmas and straight through Spring
I was paralyzed by Spring 
I loved you all the same

You were so cold then a flower would bloom
With as many steps of stairs as there were rooms
Couldn't see you all the time
But when I did the sun shined through
But when I did the sun shined through

Still got your clock under a shelf
Still reads one and chimes two bells
That thing never chimed true
I'm not shouting I'm thinking bout you
Only when the sun shines through
Only when the sun shines through
Only when the sun shines through



Missouri




Maybe you're leaning against a counter
Maybe you got  a picture of yourself on the wall
Maybe you got cuffs in your soldiers pants
Maybe you got a belt buckle on

Maybe you got a picture of your momma
Or Maybe some long haired man
You can see gravity's done a number
 On his or her chin can't tell where it starts and where it ends

Maybe you're from Kentucky
Maybe you got a face like prison bread
And maybe your eyes say I'm happy though
I seen too much to care

Maybe you got a hand in a pocket
At least your fingers and your keys
And maybe your a good man
Though maybe you done quite a few bad things

You go back home you put your boots back on
You fall into the plates
You brake the one her momma gave her
You cry God Jesus musta made at least one mistake

Maybe you had a jealous lover
Or maybe she just had a twin
And maybe you paid her brother
To take her back to Missouri or wherever it else it was she lived

Maybe she was brilliant an administrative genius
Maybe there's a distinction between possession and influence
Maybe she made you trade your gun for a wheel barrel
But first she shot the juice out of a couple hundred plums

Maybe your standing on a corner
And maybe that bus never comes
And maybe you short changed your lover
But God knows you never been taught how to love anyone

Maybe you'll ask for forgiveness
Or maybe you'll just tell a joke
And maybe that bus will finally come
But it's morning and you'll say, "Hey bus driver I think I'll just walk"

I pray for you
 
up

I may be fading
But I aint done
It'd be a whole lot better
If you d come along
There must be somewhere out there
For someone oh so fair
I pray for you to the Son
I pray for you
Yes i do
You're the one that I love
I pray for you
Yes I do
You're the one that I love

We can only hope
There's a new life
Get out of this city
Pray it aint all alike
Hell this aint even where we're from
We gave everything
Maybe too much
You can't get everything back
But how could everything be lost
Sometimes I wish this city would just burn 

I pray to you
I aint getting through
I can handle the truth
I pray to you
They taught me to
That's how we got through


Wanna  to go where the river spills
Four rooms built on stilts
We're river rats
There's no daylight between us
We're crooked crooked back kids
This river runs right through us

I know I been hard
Too hard on you
It's the ones that you love
That you do these crooked things to

Wanna go where electricity ends
Jump in the river get clean again
Wash New York City off my skin
Wash New York city off my skin

I pray for you
Yes I do
You're the one that I love
I pray for you
Yes I do
I pray you pray for me too
I pray for you
Yes I do
You're the one that I love 

Raymags Plea 

So who cares maybe you ran out of chances
And it only feels real when you’re dark and you’re still
And the highway no longer needs you
When nobody misses you back home
 
The highway used to tell you its stories
Now it just tells you baby you’re alone
And you never got to see those who raised you
Grow old hey now they’re gone
 
There  are rooms left to fill never finished never will
There’s a place in the corner to sleep
There are clouds in the cobwebs
Wings in the ceiling
Stained in silver and nicotine
 
 
You’re the prettiest of all the prettiest broken things  
Pass that bottle around
Get all the stink of this world of your bone
Yea you had it hard
And sure you done some bad
I don’t care I still want to be your man
 
 
Been spending all your time with pretty strangers
Taking what you need and movin on
Never knowing the highway could deceive you
Into thinking you didn’t need anyone
 
The highway never gives up its secret
Till you’re too worn out or drunk to get back home
And the only thing really to believe in
Is the past is dead you better leave it alone
 
There are rooms left to fill never finished never will
There’s a place in the corner to sleep
There are clouds in the cobwebs
Wings in the ceiling
Stained in silver and nicotine