Lyrics

New Deal
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written October 13-14, 2007

Headed west on Route 66, the winds never died in 1934.
I used to be a farmer, but my farm ain’t there no more.
Staring out my window passing fallow fields
Whose food could feed our bellies and yet no profit yield
Up before the sun picking fruit I can’t afford to peel
Brother I don’t want your oranges, I want new deal.

In bed in Walter Reed, my left arm embedded in Fallujah
Channel surfing all the talking heads
All they seem to want to do is delude ya.
General on the TV talking ‘bout Iran
What exactly’s on his mind, I think I understand.
So twisted up in lies the truth cannot be revealed
Brother I don’t want your war, I want a new deal.

We’re packed up and ready to go across the river
But there’re white folks on the bridge shooting at us.
Running for shelter from the city that’s drowning
They want us to go back, don’t care if they kill us.
I am an animal just like you
Taking care of my family
What else would you have me do?
Panic in your eyes, hatred you cannot conceal
Brother I don’t want your dime, I want a new deal.

Assimilate
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Lyrics by Dylan Bragg, Music by Tom Archie and Kevin Groh

Visitor from outer space
With re-arranged and foreign face,
Welcome to our humble sphere,
Lend your fuzzy, pointed ear.
Peace be to you and your kind,
For our two fates are intertwined.
Transmit your brainwaves back to base,
And assimilate the human race!

 

Unnamed Lullaby
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written – Music: August 2004, Lyrics: January 8, 2005

Sitting around on a snowy winter day        
Waiting on a new friend to come along my way
Of all the good things I could happen to mention
You always make me want to simply pay attention
To what’s going on.

No matter how easy things go or how hard we tried
You’re helping me to feel so satisfied.
A smile that grows banishes fear without a trace
I just can’t wait to see your curious wet small face
Brightening our room.

I wrote this unnamed lullaby for unnamed you
Long ago, before your delivery was due
We’ll sing together someday when you can speak
For now, I’ll just imagine our first peak at you Holden
Holding you Holden (repeat, adding this to loop)

Sitting around on a snowy winter day
Waiting on a new friend to come along my way
Of all the good things I could happen to mention
You always make me want to simply pay attention
To what’s going on.
Pay attention to what’s going on.
Holding you Holden
Pay attention to what’s going on.

 

Love Being
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written November 17-18, 2006

West of Baghdad breakfast time, streets are quiet and sublime
Morning chill begins to melt away.
Sunni standing in a line, leg cut by a roadside mine
Looking for a job to earn some pay.
His thoughts are on his little girl growing up in a broken world
And all the simple games she loves to play
With friends both real and imaginary, some are friendly, some are scary
She finds a way to laugh sometime each day.

Come sit by me and ease my mind,
Help me leave the chaos of the streets behind
Run to me as I’m coming through the door,
We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for, and
I love being with you. I love being with you.

Evening in the Gaza strip, shots ring out, night air is ripped
Tanks roll through the street below.
Ahmed finds it hard to sleep, his fear and loathing run too deep
Mortar shells rattle his window.
His wife is dreaming of a place, a smile upon her sleeping face.
By the shore lived a man she used to know.
She sees a glimpse from time to time in her husband’s wrinkled lines
When he can surrender and let go.

Come sit by me, let me ease your mind,
I’ll help you leave the chaos of the streets behind.
Run to me as I’m coming through the door,
We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for, and
I love being with you. I love being with you.

I’m living here in the USA, comfortably out of harm’s way
But I’m trying to pay attention.
Pictures of metal twisted, men and women re-enlisted,
Indefinite detention.
My son is not yet two years old, face bright as a pot of gold
It’s not hard to guess his intention.
He laughs and sings and takes my hand, so I’ll play with him in the sand
With no apprehension.

Come sit by me and pass the time,
Leave the negativity of your world behind.
Run to me as I’m coming through the door.
We are the ones we’ve all been waiting for, and I love being with you. I love being with you.

 

Bush-B-Gone (aka: Nucular Misunderestimation)
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written March 1-4, 2005

I was sitting around with my friend Kurt
When he figured out a way to diminish the hurt
Brought on by our president’s choice of words
Now you can have silence when he starts to spurt
Kurt’s got an idea to give us all more choice
When we feel we’ve had enough of George W’s voice
With this simple installation, we’ll all rejoice
And with the profit Kurt can buy a new Rolls Royce.

(It’s a) Bush-b-gone from my TV. 
Stop embarrassing American folks like me
Confusing control with liberty,
And ignoring the importance of reality.
Looking over my shoulder in the library,
Sounding more and more like Joe McCarthy,
Karl Rove needs to buy you a dictionary
Bush-b-gone from my TV.  Bush-b-gone from my TV. Bush-b-gone.

Nucular Misunderestimation, 
Relievin’ the rich of unfair taxation
Kickin’ poor folks for big corporations,
Makin’ underfunded rules about education
Claiming that Iraq’s bust is a boom, Bringing bigotry into our bedrooms
Was it the cocaine or all the booze
Or have you just become senile much too soon?

Bush-b-gone from my radio, Stop thinkin’ that the world’s a big rodeo
Saving every single little floating embryo,
So you can kill em’ later when they’re sittin’ on death row.
Dealing social security its deathblow,
To sweeten your buddies’ portfolios
Your nose is getting longer than Pinnochio’s
Bush-b-gone from my radio.  Bush-b-gone from my radio. Bush-b-gone.

Bustin’ innocent people with unwarranted raids
Deliberately making everyone afraid
Deciding who should and who shouldn’t get laid
Making sure overtime workers don’t get paid
Forgetting punch lines to your own jokes
Talking ‘bout Al-Queda and holes and smoke.
Acting like Saddam was never your dad’s bloke
Trying your best to make the US broke.

Bush-b-gone from my internet connection
Don’t want your kind of terrorism protection
With this technological interjection
My computer kicks you out like a viral infection
Ten bucks buys hypocrisy detection
Software honed to political perfection
We all know you stole the 2000 election
Bush-b-gone from my internet connection,
Bush-b-gone from my internet connection.

Bush-b-gone from my TV. 
Stop embarrassing American folks like me
Confusing control with liberty,
And ignoring the importance of reality.
Looking over my shoulder in the library,
Sounding more and more like Joe McCarthy,
Karl Rove needs to buy you a dictionary
Bush-b-gone from my TV.  Bush-b-gone from my TV. Bush-b-gone.

Lost Creek Rising
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Instrumental

Glad
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written May 21- June 29, 2005

Lost all my money in the Second Depression
Way back in 2035
Guess I could’ve been real sad or downright fearful,
Instead I’m glad just be alive.

Grandpappy was a farmer, up before the break of day
In the Appalachian hills where I was born.
Taught me to see the sunrise even when there’s clouds above
I never knew him to feel forlorn.
                 
         Late at night, when I’m sleeping warm and tight
         Grandpappy comes to me in my dreams
         Tells me, “You don’t have to fight, Just feed your family right
         And remember to take care of that stream
right outside your door.”

My father went to college, learned to be a businessman
Never cared much for working on the farm
I used to spend my summers, riding high on a tractor
‘Neath the Tennessee sky in my grandpappy’s arms.

Seems like yesterday, dew dripping in the morning sun
Standing in the field, breathing all alone.
Grandpappy had a dream that night, an untouched virgin land
Disappeared among the trees, and he was gone.
        
         It was 2023, Grandpappy’s farm passed to me.
         Thriving when the planting days were long.
         Raised my family, taught them science and poetry,
         And watched my children grow up kind and strong
             right outside my door.

Anybody who’s a farmer could read the signs.
The growing season got longer, the summers too dry.
Four years with low rainfall all over the country
And the crops in the fields shriveled up and died.

Sooner or later, people get hungry
When they can’t afford the high price of food
Rich folks didn’t notice, too busy watching their portfolios
Betting on the high price of crude.

         Higher and higher, prices rose like fire.
         Down below, all we saw was ash.
         Hotter than a funeral pyre, no jobs left for hire.
         Climate change – stock market crash,
         Right outside our door.

Grandpappy used to tell me that I come from the ocean
Owe a debt to the trees and the sky above.
Said, “We’re all connected – one big family.
There’s life in the living – honor it with love.”

“And one more thing, child, upon awaking in the morning
Set your thoughts to the moment, breathe deep.
And as you’re walking through the daytime, be aware of where you are then,
And when you come to the night, lay you down to sleep.”

         “And when times are bad, don’t do no good to just get mad.
         The good, the bad, it comes from within you.
         Whether you choose to feel sad, or refuse and feel glad,
         Remember to pay attention to the view
         Right outside your door.”

Lost all my money in the Second Depression
Way back in 2035.
Guess I could’ve been real sad, downright fearful,
Instead I’m glad just to be alive.

Corporate Coup
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written Jan 29-30, 2005

I want to tell you a story, and while it’s old as humankind,
If you explore for yourself, you’ll be outraged at what you find.
We spend so much time making sure we get all that we need,
No time to pay attention to the power of corporate greed.
It’s not just about their bottom line, it’s about their efforts to redefine
The human rights of a corporation above the people’s representation.
So listen to my tale – I assure you that it’s true.
It’s about the intentions of the corporate few.

The first transnational was the East India Company.
The British government helped them make a monopoly.
The Stamp and Townshend Acts raised colonial taxation,
So the Americans began to boycott this corporation.
When the British authorized the corporate use of force,
Sam Adams felt the colonists had no other recourse.
In December of 1773, at the Boston Harbour Tea Party,
The Sons of Liberty destroyed forty-five tons of tea.

It started with a small group of rich white men
Who learned to take reality and give it a good spin.
Talking ‘bout opening up markets, opening the border,
Best look at what they mean by a “new world order.”
Free trade, NAFTA, GATT and WTO
Local sovereignty is what they want to overthrow.
If we sign the dotted line to please the corporate few,
We’ll give them what they want – a worldwide corporate coup.

In 1886 with the Civil War 20 years in the past,
Railroad tycoons tried to make their wealth and power last.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution
Made slaves equal to white men before our legal institutions.
The US Supreme Court is where the railroads set their sights
To argue that, like freed slaves, corporations have human rights.
The Justices refused to give them rights of residents,
But a clerk reporter’s error would be cited as legal precedent.
100 years later in 1995,
The World Trade Organization was born helping corporate power thrive.
The people organized to bring a peaceful battle,
But all hell broke loose in ’99 in Seattle.
Sixty thousand activists for labor and human rights
Farmers, students, priests from both political Left and Right
Sitting in the streets before police in riot gear
When the call came down to use all means to get the streets clear.
Pepper spray that felt like razors stabbed into their eyes.
Rubber bullets cut their skin, tear gas filled the skies.
The ugly fist of violence was unleashed that day,
But the spirit of peaceful protest will never go away.

It started with a small group of rich white men
Who learned to take reality and give it a good spin.
Talking ‘bout opening up markets, opening the border,
Best look at what they mean by a “new world order.”
Free trade, NAFTA, GATT and WTO
Local sovereignty is what they want to overthrow.
If we sign the dotted line to please the corporate few,
We’ll give them what they want – a worldwide corporate coup

When a local law’s illegal because it interferes with trade,
And a company that feels its rights are trampled comes to invade,
All disputes are handled by a bought-and-paid-for judge
Who rubberstamps such misdeeds as spraying toxic sludge.
In Clarion County, Pennsylvania in 2002,
A townships’ supervisors did what no one thought they’d do.
They looked at corporate factory farms and spit right in their eye.
They passed a local law – corporate civil rights do not apply.

Plutocracy means a government that’s run by the rich.
Ptochocracy is government by the poor folks in the ditch.
The Farmer’s Bureau wants to force the use of pesticides
And the number one cause of farmers’ deaths is their own suicide.
This is not a phase, or a statistical trend.
The idea of corporate rights equal to humans’ must end.
Don’t be complacent - preserve democracy;
deTocqueville warned of “industrial aristocracy.”

It started with a small group of rich white men
Who learned to take reality and give it a good spin.
Talking ‘bout opening up markets, opening the border,
Best look at what they mean by a “new world order.”
Free trade, NAFTA, GATT and WTO
Local sovereignty is what they want to overthrow.
If we sign the dotted line to please the corporate few,
We’ll give them what they want – a worldwide corporate coup

 

Walk Your Talk
Copyright 2008 Thomas Archie
Written July 11-12, 2004

Joe Dempsey has a reputation as fine, up-standing,
God-fearing businessman from Truckee, California.
Strolling from the Methodist Church, shaking hands with only the right people, saying all those meaningless things, it ought to warn ya,
He wonders why the church don’t just get it over with,
and kick out all the gays and ministers who are not men.
Parading his pretty wife and three young boys in their starched white shirts through the churchyard to their minivan.
Down the street, on the corner of highway 89
Stands a scruffy, bearded man sticking his thumb in the clear blue sky,
Holding a cardboard sign, says “Sacramento.”
Joe says, “Boys, there’s the reason why
We’ve got to round up all the liberals, they’re crazy.
Get rid of welfare – it makes folks lazy.
Preach the Lord’s good word, cut this weed off at the stalk,
And teach these poor folks how to walk the talk.”

Fred Jackson, PhD, is awakened by the Sierra autumn sunrise
Flickering through Douglas fir and cedar trees
From a dream of times gone past
When he thought his job would last -  at Enron.
Ken Lay kept President Bush’s palms greased.
Software engineering, that’s what he did for a living,
He had a pension plan.  He even owned a Harley,
But now his luck has changed, and his new life seems so strange.
He’s standing on a corner in Truckee.
A newspaper in his hands says the economy’s best in years
Yet there’s happy songs in his past he can no longer hear,
So he’s looking for work in construction
What’ya think of that hitchhiker now, Joe Dempsey?
Well, it’s not too funny when you’re nose is always runny
From the dust of wood shavings and bathroom caulk.
And the hammer in your hand makes you too tired to take a stand.
You just want the rest of the world to walk their talk.

Angelina Small says good-bye to her grandfather,
They’ve become great friends
Heading out of town, she sees a hitchhiker with a sign, says “Sacramento”
And she stops to let him in.
Angelina is an epidemiologist at the Sacramento County
Department of Public Health
Running low on vaccines and needing a band-aid for budget cuts.
Tax relief only raises private wealth.
She’s been waiting for 2 long years for money she will never see
Promised by the Department of Homeland Security.
It’s held up in Atlanta, at the CDC, probably with all that tobacco money, too
Well we can kill ten million chickens but the bird flu will do the kickin’
Of our butts when at the cost we balk
Better spare no expense or else we’ll be in the past tense
Microscopic terrorism walks its talk.

Back in Truckee, Sam Cummings is thinking ‘bout his granddaughter
Angelina makes him proud.
On his 85 year-old knees in his garden, his thoughts are shaken by approaching thundercloud.
It’s been three long months since he saw any rain,
The risk of wildfire is alarming
Long ago he got rid of his car, bought a solar panel and a bicycle
Doing his part for global warming.
Now the thing that brings him joy
Is the neighbor’s little boy
Little Joey helps him pull up weeds by hand
Joey’s happy as can be when his dad’s glued to the TV
Sam’s teaching him to take care of the land.
Joey Dempsey, Jr. knows that need is different from greed
And that all legumes start out with a beanstalk
And while the apple don’t fall far from the tree,
A child can help you think critically
Free yourself and learn to walk your talk.

So if you’re feeling a little frustrated and cynical,
anxious, angry, tired or downright frightened
Here’s a simple way to pass the time while you’re waiting around for something to change or to become enlightened
If you’re feet are moving south, be sure they’re headed there with your mouth, otherwise you’re gonna get stretched thin.
It only takes a little practice to let go of ingrained malice
Don’t need help from pot, cigarettes, or gin.
If Fox TV seems fair and balanced, well, here’s a mental challenge
Picture an oversized see-saw that’s built for two
An elephant on one end opposite his donkey friend
The middle – that’s the safest place for you
Breathing deep and telling no lies will help you to grow more wise
And sharpen your mental tomahawk
When you think you’ve lost your voice, remember you still have the choice
To wake up in the morning and walk your talk.

When you think you’ve lost your voice, remember you still have the choice
To wake up in the morning and walk your talk.