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Gnarled Bones
Gnarled Bones is a song about a man searching for his soul mate. He carries a sadness from this – which he calls ‘gnarled bones’ – with him throughout his life, sometimes catching echoes of her from a past life with his true love. Follow this man’s journey as he searches . . . and concludes he’s a better man for the journey.
Gnarled Bones
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
I’ve no memory of the greatest loving
of my existence, only an odd feeling
of great loss, which I carry like gnarled bones.
All these bones I heft through this strange life, dragging
myself through the long process, yearning, trying
my damnedest to create a pure peace, my tones.
Know you’re out there somewhere, I see,
find you anywhere, I believe,
I’ll never stop searching, I’ll be
a better man for the journey,
just a good man for the journey.
Some call me crazy, living with gnarled bones,
bones in my music, bones in the very eyes
of my exuberance; why do they appear
when my will would grind them down like pumice stones?
Then her spirit hints, a déjà vu, belies
something I cannot grasp; she’s just a veneer.
Artist’s note:
Will and Ariel Durant (1885-1981 and 1898-1981) wrote in “The Story of Civilization,” that “When a Hindu is asked why we have no memory of our past incarnations, he answers that likewise we have no memory of our infancy; and as we presume our infancy to explain our maturity, so he presumes past existences to explain our place and fate in our present life.”
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Jesus & the Buddha
A man dreams he participates in the Crucifixion, and interacts with Christ. Then Jesus abruptly transforms into the Buddha. The man receives two epiphanies from the Buddha, which he reveals in the song, one of them oddly when the Buddha quotes the Blackfoot tribe. All in all, a once in a lifetime dream which changes the singer’s perception of his own life.
Jesus & the Buddha
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
I dreamt I stood below Jesus on the cross,
He peered down, blood dripping, tears dropping, then cried,
“You’re a lost little man, lost, lost, join the cross,
come up here with me.” So I tried, and I died . . .
held his bloody face; soldier’s spear rammed us both;
we flew from Judah, He became the Buddha.
If you take care of all others,
then you’ll find you will often do,
magically, fulfill you too.
A mystery
for me and you.
Jesus & the Buddha
Jesus & the Buddha
The Buddha quoted Blackfoot tribe, who once said,
“Life is not separate from death, it only
looks that way.” We’re always both, alive and dead.
Dreams are how we talk to both sides of ourselves.
“Life is not separate from death, it only
looks that way.” We’re always both, we’re two instead.
If you take care of all others,
then you’ll find you will often do,
magically, fulfill you too.
A mystery
for me and you.
Jesus & the Buddha
Jesus & the Buddha
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Variations on Emily
The song is a tribute to Emily Dickenson, taking some of her public domain poetry and adding original lyrics. The singer concludes Emily changed his life by teaching him to see things in a much different way
Variations on Emily
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.
I soon saw I did not need breath,
I need Eternity.
There is a certain Slant of Light,
Oppresses from afar
on the look of Death, a dull might,
where all the meanings are.
Oh Emily, oh Emily,
Oh how you brought me to see me,
to look askance, is how to see.
I tell the Truth, but tell it Slant,
Success in Degrees lies,
our biting at the Elephant,
so Truth always belies.
Dare you see a soul at white heat?
Our world the finisher,
forging us all, heart beat by beat,
in the rock polisher.
Chorus
Oh Emily, oh Emily,
Oh how you brought me to see me,
to look askance, is how to see.
Artist’s note:
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), New England poet, is one of the country’s greatest poets. Spending nearly all of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, the last half in relative seclusion, Emily came to be known as eccentric. Besides rare contacts with people outside her immediate family, she wore only white dresses and sometimes referred to herself as a wayward nun. Regarding her poems – only eleven of 1,775 poems were published during her lifetime – she advocated the “propounded word.” Her word for herself as a poet was “gnome,” and the poems themselves she called, “bulletins from Immortality.” Her last communication was written the day before her death, a short letter sent to relatives: “Little cousins, -- Called back. Emily.”
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I Need the Beauty of You
This song is an unabashed love song. But with a twist -- the singer realizes the main attributes he loves about his woman all have little to do with her physical beauty. He wants to spend every spare second with her because she enchants him with her personality, her conversation, her grace. He loves the tilt of her laughing eyes, the sound of her divine sighs. He comes to see Love is about never letting it get old. See the video, “Don Whitaker – I Need the Beauty of You.”
I Need the Beauty of You
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
I can’t believe I spend every free second with you,
doing this for years, Mona Lisa, I need your presence,
you always laugh away the time, I see you need me too,
like two couplets and a rhyme, the two of us make sense.
I need the beauty of you,
the tilt of your laughing eyes,
sound of your divine sighs,
all sorrow brought there just dies,
you’re where my soul always lies,
I need the beauty of you.
You’re always there by my side, the better part of my soul,
beside you, I’m inside the truest core of my being.
Past women always forced demands of my peace, paid their toll;
you’re the blade to slice my edges away, someone freeing.
I need the beauty of you,
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Death Does Not Come Humble
The singer has an epiphany in this song – where he feared death all his life, he comes to see it as an enhancing event at the end, comparable to a lion who comes to whisk him to a better state of being. He realizes he should mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast, and learns he himself is the ‘greatest’ entity in his own life, but conversely also the ‘least’ entity in the panorama of the universe.
Death Does Not Come Humble
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
Death does not come humble, it arises,
a lion, unsettles air, a condor,
it springs from the ocean, canonizes,
like a dolphin cutting the sea’s top door.
Mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast,
for you are the greatest,
for you are the least.
Do not lay in fear, the Receptor, you can’t deny it,
of this last expression of the breathing.
Death does not come forward to humble you,
It arises, an animal, freeing.
Mount the back of this graceful, forgiving beast,
for you are the greatest,
for you are the least.
Artist’s note
George Inness (1825-1894), American landscape painter, was largely responsible for introducing the French Barbizon style in the United States. The victim of epilepsy, he was also given to eccentric behavior and possessed a mystical personality. His son reported his father died viewing a particularly exquisite sunset; though weakened from his final illness, Inness threw his hands in the air while exclaiming, “My God! Ah, how beautiful!” then fell to the ground, dead.
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Temple in the Path of Xerxes
The song is set in 5th century BCE Greece, where a landowner learns the Persian invader Xerxes is nearing his property with a large, murderous army. He quickly sends his wife, children, brother and slaves to the safety of the shore, and resolves to make a suicidal stand with his small guard of mercenaries. The night before the battle, he stands, during a thunderstorm, in the small temple he built on his property, contemplating his gods – why does a man decide to stand and fight, when the very gods have fled this place?
Temple in the Path of Xerxes
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
Stone frigid columns, pungent fumes, incense burning,
biting breeze penetrates the acute night outside,
pillars clammy, expressing my fear from learning
invaders coming tomorrow for genocide.
My children are safe at the coast,
their mother spirited them down,
with the slaves, my brother, and most;
she left my sword . . . . but not her gown.
Wind easily dispels incense and sacred smoke,
I understand our gods have also left this place,
perhaps they too are at the shore, beaten and broke
into human pieces of themselves and our race.
Artist’s note:
Xerxes I (circa 519 - 465 BCE), was a king of Persia. To punish the Greeks for their victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE, he invaded Greece, his vast army penetrating to Thrace, Thessaly, and Locris. Three hundred Spartans made a courageous but suicidal stand at Thermopylae; after ten days Xerxes broke through, and eventually burned Athens. Returning to Asia, Xerxes so disgusted his subjects with his debauchery that he was at last murdered by the captain of his own palace guard.
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Mind To Get Free
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
I’m down in the raw part of town, with a mind to get free,
I’m down in the raw part of town – how to keep you with me?
I try to learn from my history, but it’s so hard to grow,
I saw you wanting a mystery, I never learn, you know.
A new woman is a dream indeed, they always have a glow,
I think it was Nature who decreed, I latch on, then I fail slow.
I’m down in the raw part of town, with a mind to get free,
I’m down in the raw part of town – how to keep you with me?
Bridge
Like Byron said, “I’m mad, bad,
and dangerous to know.”
Never know what I had,
a man of frequent woe,
with a mind to get free
down in the raw part of town,
with a mind to get free,
how to keep you with me?
Canterbury Meditations
This song uses the trope of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to muse about the possibility of reincarnation, how we’re all ‘rocks in the rock polisher’ of life. It follows the struggles of four of Chaucer’s characters: The Nun, The Friar, The Merchant and the The Knight, including long instrumentals to give the listener spacious time to reflect upon the characters’ travails.
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Canterbury Meditations
This song uses the trope of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to muse about the possibility of reincarnation, how we’re all ‘rocks in the rock polisher’ of life. It follows the struggles of four of Chaucer’s characters: The Nun, The Friar, The Merchant and the The Knight, including long instrumentals to give the listener spacious time to reflect upon the characters’ travails.
Canterbury Meditations
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
Canterbury Tales
(The Nun’s Tale)
The Nun’s Tale:
She walks fresh in the waves, his love she forgave,
Descending to her false grave, she must look brave,
She says love’s a new life; his love’s the knife . . .
Cut her an afterlife, she loves his strife,
His bed will preach and show her each
Kiss is only a way to beseech.
It goes against her upbringing,
In her end is her beginning,
Get in line, you’re just one of the flock,
My friend,
Oh, how you’re mocked,
How you’re mocked,
Not a death-wisher, you’re just
Like a rock, like a rock,
in the big polisher.
Artist’s note:
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?-1400), toward the end of his life, turned against his life’s work, including “The Canterbury Tales.” He begged Christ to forgive him for writing “worldly vanities . . . so that I may be one of those at the day of doom that shall be saved.”
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