Willi Brown

Author: Willi Brown

  • Golden & Perfect

    Golden & Perfect

    Here, have a hit. I have no idea where it’s from and I love, love, love it and could never play it again a second time the same way ever.

    It seems to have been recorded a week before I was laid off from a gig in Nevada City, California in the summer of ’16.

    💖 Love to Each and All 🌞

    Golden Perfect

    There’s nothing to think about

    but the sun going down

    There’s nothing to sing about

    but the sun coming up

    It’s Golden and it’s Perfect

    There’s nothing to do

    but sing a simple song

    There’s nothing to do

    nothing is wrong

    It’s Golden and it’s Perfect

  • Love Gives Time Space

    Oh …stay my hand that seeks your palm

    forgive my ear that longs to sink

    into the pool of your voice

    which only music

    of the purest tone could bear.

    your skin is buttered, vibrant

    before the crust of my longing

    time is now the blade between

    this midnight poem and the resolution

    of my lust.

    and the chime

    is spreading outwards

    from the central history

    of my desires

    satisfaction has not and will never

    resolve this boy, this pen, this poem chiming

    from you and i

    rippling back to 1985

    and forward to the next line

    all so damned archetypal

    consummation being both

    mythic and mistaken

    i can taste you now

    from across the many futures,

    your delicious moan

    echoes back from yesterday and on

    and on my lonely hand

    pushes time and lust and memory

    out into the waves

    setting free the myth

    and the mistake

    to find me when

    the winds of change

    have changed

    again

  • Queen 👸

    She’s got the eye of an eagle and the tooth of a cat
    she can drain my swamp in seconds flat
    her hair hanging down like old spanish moss
    she’s the queen of the river but I call her the boss

    long before the school in the heat of the bank
    she made gold from a catfish she pulled from a tank
    she got the night wired up and it’s playing her tune
    hound dog bark giving orders to the moon

    she has the judge and the jury drinking mushroom tea
    sliding railroad papers in the land of the free
    governor flames talking highway slack
    she tame baptist preachers with a bullwhip crack

    She calls and I come or my head starts to jerk
    blood curdling moans dog my guitar work
    I got long, jagged holes in the back of my shirt
    my hands disappear ‘neath the railroad dirt

    no mystery spell gonna break her mind
    she take medicine men make ’em wish they was blind
    she live in a house that don’t have no walls
    she’s the queen of the river and she’ll break your balls

  • EvoluciĂłn (safe after dark)

    EvoluciĂłn (safe after dark)

    acoustik version

    Words and Music by Willi Brown

    I introduce myself
    in a modernly sensitive way
    but I can’t help but feel
    hypocritical…
    because i want you

    (and respect you beautiful) 

    But I don't want you to be bugged honey 
     
and a-think i'm just a-hittin' on you 
    
i think it's a drag that a girl don't feel... 
    
Safe. After. Dark.
    
    {Evolution seems like a failure}

      A six pack of pride swallowed tonight
      when i spoke to you / at the slam dance
      it’s always our job to make the first move
      and buy the flowers

      Chorus

      Nah know I’m not your Jesus Christ
      and he ain’t no axe muderer neither
      I ain’t the cream of the wheat / or the cream of the crop

      I’m just confused!

      Memory is that this was written in Seattle around 1994 when I was going to the Crocodile cafe every other night to drink and hit on girls. After reading an article in the Stranger (some feminist propoganda thing *jk*) I wrote these words in a cheap spiral.

    • Independence Day

      Well future stepped into my field…


      Uke version Dechen Dancehall Wimberley, TX 16apr22

      Independence Day written by Vic Chesnutt

      From the album “Little” produced by Michael Stipe.

      For a long time I thought in the last verse the line was “untouchable as the undocumented self”

    • Elvis Came Home Today

      Elvis Came Home Today

      Inspired by this Elvis Frankenstein image mashup

      so this was a bit unrehearsed 
           and seriously
      had spent most of the day
              on housework
      with a brief 
                swimmin' pool brek

      Credits: SomaFM Heavyweight Reggae (background music), quotes from Dylan (“Isis”), Withers (“Ain’t No”) and a Willi Brown tune called “Elvis X2” which can be found …. here!

    • Genuine Heart of Sadness

      Genuine Heart of Sadness

      Elvis Came Home Today Word Jazz Dub Tribute

      a few years ago 2013 to be frank
      in San Francisco fall weather is like summer
      and thinking about the state of things
      culture environment
      and surfing the web late one night
      mashing up things on photoshop
      he emerged…
      thrust hips on his toes
      the abandon of the arms
      his serious face

      So this weekend it felt like time to print and frame. Enjoy!

      Prints are available: $66 for 12×24, $99 for 24×36.

    • Pass Me By

      Words and Music Willi Brown 


      Acoustic Demo version from Seattle

      Moving on leaving all your books behind
      pages falling from what I need
      Forgot whatever I wanted to find,
      won’t remember what I once believed

      Willi Brown in straw hat holding up a joker playing card.

      I’ll create my own confusion
      get my legend with room to spare
      I pray for patience and something old
      to help me driver to get back there

      *Pass me by I’ve forgotten the way
      Go on ahead, you know the night will stay
      No one can help me – don’t even try
      Go on ahead and pass me by

      No comfort of familiar nightmares
      can hold my wishes back down inside
      Tell my story for me… after I’m gone
      Those questions of right and wrong … let ’em ride

      I’ll take this the wrong way
      It’s happened before (“I didn’t touch a thing”)
      I’m always hopin’ the night will stay
      Like a bird of prey with a broken wing

      Surrender all my expressions of love… with my pride
      A gift to leave back down by the gate of our lives

      *Pass me by I’ve forgotten the way
      Go on ahead, you know the night will stay
      No one can help me – don’t even try
      Go on ahead and pass me by

    • Double Dub

      Double Dub avec beatz

      Seems everybody is just too stunned to look back
      And the look-ahead holds just a mountain of graveyard black
      Yet my watch tells me I got an appointment in the morning
      I don’t need a needle to tell me – morning may never come

      When this year started I said the ’19 can go to hell
      Something didn’t die but it would’ve been just as well
      I got the penalty box for riding out there into harm’s way
      …pain’s easier to face with an option to look away

      *
      They say it always gets better baby
      but I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub (2020) and…
      tattoo my ass

      There was friendship for days and a mountain of golden sunshine
      People coming together singing “Time’s up!“ all down the line
      But then the Suits with the news, they started dumping their shares
      Controlling the story so the people would be unawares

      So we had a paranoid spring and summer confusion kicked in
      And the rich got so richer and casualties kept pouring in
      Yeah the West Coast was burning and cops kept murdering black men
      Yeah the west kept burning and cops kept murdering black women

      *
      They say it always gets better
      but baby I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub
      And tattoo my ass

      Tired of surviving dog eat dogging all day?
      Consumer cellular Netflix those thoughts all away
      Comfort is killer, sugar always comes with a price
      It’s time to take two the hard way first let me add us some spice

      *
      They say it always gets better
      but baby I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub
      And tattoo my ass

      It can always get worse
      I can’t breathe … the past
      Don’t call it 2020
      I can’t see through all this ash

      They say it always gets better
      but baby I think I’ll just pass
      You can take double dub
      And tattoo my ass … goodbye đź‘‹

      Double Dub spoke.word

    • Sliding on Vinyl

      Another insertion

      This time a cab from Newark

      I can’t see a badge but the accent is African

      The sky could be any season

      The air, any industry, sweat and petrol

      I bounce in the back

      Of this yellow Ford

      Generic black interior

      Without breakfast or sleep having

      lost much more than three hours

      Cause certainly my dinner

      in the Sierra foothills

      was half a day ago

      And now sliding on vinyl

      I recognize NewYork approaching me

      First the tool booth cutie

      Do-rag, yellow safety vest, mirror aviators

      Big lips do a little kiss/sniff/purse move

      As we pull away and she

      prepares For the next encounter

      And the cabbie’s sad dixie cup rattles

      with pens and straw

      As my phone charger cord snakes back

      from his lighter plug

      Juicing back to connected life

      For one more day

      And we then dip

      Holland Tunnel US 1 & 9-Truck

      Through the alien wonders of Jersey City

      Why humans spend so much to crowd

      Is now somewhat beyond me

      Cab 91 (dispatched by Patricia Canty)

      Bears me east into MnHaddn

      His garmin promising an arrival time

      Odds averaged against the crowd

      Every passenger a poem, a progress

      We <3 ny