Willi Brown

Blog

  • Slow Boat to China

    Written by Frank Loesser but I first heard this done by Jimmy Buffett (RIP). And is one of the first covers I attempted on my new Uke back in 2014. Dedicated to the ever lovely Colleen Donovan. đŸ€—

  • Holdin’ On

    Holdin’ On

    Words and Music by Willi Brown

    Sometimes I think too much about the fate of the earth
    Sometimes I cannot tell you the truth
    The signs don’t effect anything at all
    Nothing marks but what we do

    • Chorus:
      Holding on under the sky
      Things fall apart but we’re holding on

    Somewhere in the sunlight your smile taking shape
    in the dusty corner of my eye
    I needed you more than I needed the road
    Your voice, your lips brought me back to life

    *

    What I remember changes now and then
    Two lonely people in an empty land
    Forever hunger forever desire
    Forever time passing through our hands

    *

    E A |E A | G D|E A |E A |
    E A |E A | G D|E A |E A |

    *
    C | D | Bm C|
    C | D | E |
    C | D | Bm C|
    C | D | E A| E A |

  • Dark Lover

    Dark Lover

    Words and Music Willi Brown

    Upon your soul / darkness has its way
    Afraid of what you dream / you pull down the shade

    Chorus
    Come out of the dark lover
    I want to see your face too
    Come out of the dark lover
    Oh your lover is out here waiting for your

    Trust takes time / it takes more than talk
    I am just like you / would rather run than walk

    Chorus

    Bridge
    Let your light shine – i want to see It too
    maybe it’ll all work out


    Paint your dreams / across the starry skies at night
    In the morning / bring them out into the light

    Chorus
    Come out of the dark lover
    I want to see your face too
    Come out of the dark lover
    Oh your lover is out here waiting for your

    Note: Not sure now why I changed the chorus in this recorded version. Perhaps to grunge it up?

  • There She Is

    There She Is


    Words and Music by Willi Brown

    When I tell myself that she’ll be back
    Who am I trying to convince
    She never dreamed of me before we met
    She hasn’t thought about it since

    Chorus
    There she is missing me once more
    There she is moving in and out our door
    Passing through the past and the future
    ‘Til there’s just an empty floor
    There she is no she’s not here anymore

    Her wheel was too big around
    To fit here in my corner
    She was rolling long before we met
    And not long after

    Chorus

    Bridge
    Never real what I would feel again (and again)
    Must have been some other pain back when

    Chorus
    There she is missing me once more
    There she is moving in and out our door
    Passing through the past and the future
    ‘Til there’s just an empty floor
    There she is no she’s not here anymore

  • Ending (the fire denied)

    Ending (the fire denied)

    Words and Music by Willi Brown

    There’s no coincidence / miracles surround

    When the sun begins / pass it around

    ** Open time for me we’re ending the fire denied

    I’ll pay your chances / one is your life

    Night dancin’ street talk / c’mon let me drive

    ** Open time for me we’re ending the fire denied

    Slip on a defense / ‘tween wrong and right

    Make me the morning / take off the night

    ** Open time for me we’re ending the fire denied

    Memory has this being written on an old acoustic guitar in the Dundee neighborhood of Omaha in 1989(ish). Trying to write a love song with detachment and cool is fucking hard.

    This version was recorded with some grunge dudes in Seattle in the mid/late 90’s..

  • Waymore Random

    Music: Al Gromer Khan (“Conga Jog”) Words and Remix: Willi Brown

    leaving aside all evidence 
    that discipline is a drag
    Let’s assume that humans
    all want some kind of goal 
    Then the question is how we get there
    and, the input along the way
    that changes your objective 
    and modulates your soul

    …

    Wish I could claim divine inspiration 
    Could unfold a tattered map
    Some ragged paper catcher of my dreams
    then i could point to some direction
    Like I’m the master of my plan
    But this is way more Random than it seems
    Yeah, it’s waymore random than it seems
    


    14 billion light years argue 
    against the limited local view
    So I’m of the mind to wonder
    what’s the point? 
    But unless I’m in depression 
    I’m always rolling somewhere 
    Even if it’s just another joint
    


    I claim to be a poet 
    and it protects me from the game 
    all competitive and thrashing up the stream
    I’m all “just dreams and vague directions”
    (Gorka) too cool 😎 for
  school
    But yeah possibly less random than it seems
    Oh yeah, totally, less random than it seems
    


    So when your heart begins to notice
    Some doubt and hesitation
    Just breathe and make friends
    with another change 
    Whether you march ahead, 
    or you juke and dance around
    May your trip be light and always long and strange

  • Climate Inaction is Wisdom

    Climate Inaction is Wisdom

    I’ve decided that “it” is inevitable and has momentum like a motor car rolling downhill. Climate collapse – death of water bodies, coasts, forests, humans, animals, insects, etc. – is happening now! And humans holding meetings and legislating carbon reduction targets is just theater arising from collective shame. We blew it. 

    It is conceivable (non-zero possibility) that letting it blow is the wisdom action. I could list possible outcomes of that – we get scared straight and prepare, we escape to the stars, we (most life on Earth) just die out – but pondering those outcomes misses the point. We live on a planet in one galaxy that has billions of stars. Doesn’t seem too much stretch to conclude, “big deal if we die”. đŸ€· 

    A dying Earth might be “right” and proper in the evolution of this Universe. The big picture of consequence is too large, distant and complex for us to have an accurate understanding of the universal impact. 

    But hey climate action feels good! Working and changing our behavior in order to preserve this magical Eden. It is a way of expressing our gratitude and love of our Mother Earth and compassion for all the living beings human and otherwise who are threatened by climate collapse. Right?

    But isn’t it insane hypocrisy to take a bus downtown to participate in a march for Climate Action
 or a plane to Brazil for COP30? Our complicity is all pervasive. Just my jeans and tshirt are a carbon footprint embarrassment. True there are big bad players like BP, Shell and Exxon but
 we are them. The enemy is us. We buy a gallon of gas (or a tshirt) and the system goes round and round. 

    Animals use (and are) energy. The answer to climate collapse is clean and renewable. So get your solar panels and move to the wooded hills and turn your car into a chicken coop. But get ready for wild fires. And masses of desperate new refugee neighbors increasing yearly.

    God we want to look hopeful. We want to be seen as cheerful, industrious and positive. A “going concern”. You want to look at your children and feel that you are working to protect their future.

    What if a dying Earth prevents the death of 2 other Milky Way planets? Would that convince you? 

    “Nope. I’m all about me and mine right now and in the future.”

    Again the bias. Even in a hypothetical.

    The bodhisattva vows to eschew enlightenment while one sentient being yet suffers. Even if that being is a mass murderer? Yes! Because the bodshisattva can’t split hairs and abide in dualistic thinking. All phenomena is interdependent. The light, the mirror, the dust, the reflection, the eye. It’s called compounded phenomena for a reason.

    So, do nothing. You don’t know what you’re doing. But do something.

  • Beg Forgiveness

    Beg Forgiveness

    It’s no time to complicate

    To arrange or communicate

    Add more layers to the dress

    Consider angles of load and stress

    Master techniques, straighten lines

    Research approaches, estimate times

    Prepare the process or perfect the plan

    Apologize or repay the man

    No time to add another flock of words

    Just time to vanish like imagined birds

    No time to worry about what happens so

    Just close your eyes and let them go

  • Vanish (demo rough)

    Vanish (demo rough)

    In the thick of this / I miss my drift 
    In this crowded city / I cannot gift

    (pre-chorus)
    Try to swallow my life / Try to disappear in the fog 
    You can only follow my coattail / I’m only wagging the dog

    (chorus)
    I’m leaving town / Driven by the overwhelm
    I’m leaving town / Though my heart just finally got here 
    I’m leaving town / Watch me disappear 
    Yeah I’m leaving / as I watch me disappear

    The world so loud / I cannot think 
    It all gets skinny / become either green or pink

    (pre-chorus)

    (chorus)
    I’m leaving town / Driven by untreated bullshit 
    I’m leaving town / Though my heart just barely got here 
    I’m leaving town / so watch me disappear 
    Yeah, I’m leaving / as I watch me disappear

    I reappear, in another place
    dissolve into my own form. 
    Could I join this party, 
    find shelter in this storm?

    I’m leaving town

    So watch me disappear 

  • Journal entry 31oct25 ïżŒ

    Who will read this? Me? Doubtful! The urge to write is strong. The drive to tell the story as a way of appreciation, a way of savoring the bright white contrails of a plane, heading east in pure blue – stealing time from the Earth rolling slowly in the same directionïżŒ – and now, far past the mountain peak, like just the disappearing tail of a cloud. 

    Sure, I can sit and look, breathe it all in, the desert hills washed in shrubs, succulents and spiny life. The mountains like teeth, the lower jaw of a prehistoric giant. But pre to whose history? Not mine.

    For my passage is so brief and fleeting, like the rare, delicate wind blown yellow, butterfly (moth?) tracing wavy changing trails through the bush. We say, it might as well have never happened. It was without enough consequence to mark.

    Sure, I sit here in my camp chair on BLM land, “dispersed camping” it’s called. Boondocking. With my notebook and pen and a good lot of my worldly in my van. Mountain bike beside me like a loyal steed. iPhone 15 on a camp table. It’s just stuff having its own adventure as I pass through the possession phase.

    Last week I sold a drum for $150 to a man from Ghana in a McDonald’s parking lot in Hutto Texas. I bought that drum at the market in Bamako in 1995. Hauled it back to Seattle on Air France, checked in its own duffel. Was it worth $150? In my history, it was a millionaire. Having resounded its deep bright voice across the country for 30 years. Drums keep time. I let it go.