I'm at Very Far West

Hello Songminers!  I'm excited to be down at Irvine with a whole bunch of other folkaholics, strumming and networking our little (and not so little) buns off.  It's The Folk Alliance Far West Conference and it is populated by some of the finest folk in the west.  I don't perform till tomorrow so I'm just soaking in the sounds and making the rounds.  What a great group of talented people all doing what they love, for the love of it.  I'll check in again with you tomorrow or before the weekend is over--maybe have a video of me playing or pix from the event.

Lost--LIVE on the Back Porch

© by Bill Burnett

Please click here for LYRICS

Right after I showed you the plums at the front of the house for this week's intro, I walked to the back porch and sang my song "Lost" into Deb's new camera.  There are a few glitches in the video and the synch gets weird, but I still think it's a pretty darn good performance.  The camera takes a little trip south for a moment there but so what?! 

I'm very proud of "Lost".  I think it's a solid piece of writing and tells a good story.  Please, notice how in the first chorus, the lovers were "lost in the blaze and in the blue" and "prayed" that they'd be lost eternally; in the second chorus the were "lost in the roar and in the spray" and "swore" that they'd be lost eternally; and in the final chorus they are lost in a different way, "in the grays and in the blues" and the singer is "afraid" that they'll be lost eternally.  I love rhymes separated by great musical distances like that. And emotionally, the journey from "blaze" to "greys" and "prayed" to "afraid" is a journey we all take, no? 

Still, through it all the singer still believes in Lost.  And so do I. Do me a favor and check out the whole lyric.

Songs Are...

Click here for lyrics...

This newly dug song of mine seemed like a good candidate to kick off the SongMine. After all, in recent weeks the stock casino crashed and burned, the housing bubble burst. Turns out they were illusions all along.  Which just confirms my long held belief that it is the business people who are the deluded dreamers and the artists who place their faith in real substance.  We have our art, no matter what. Art retains its value.  Beethoven's 9th still has its grandeur. The Mona Lisa still sort of smiles. You've still got those poems you're writing, or your photography, or your play or your ballet or your knitting. I've still got these songs.  And the Buckley Smith charcoal behind me in this video still comes to life whenever I look at it.  So who comes out ahead in the end?

If you like this song, you can download the audio by clicking the button below. Remember the 2nd Law of the Post Hitocracy:  "Artists shouldn't starve on the Webiscite!"