Another Night of Tears

Words and Music by Willi Brown

Unurban Cafe Santa Monica 2003

I’ve been working all day long sometimes I forget
I have not deserved you since long before we met
We’ll make up for lost time someday in our golden years
But first we’ll have to make it through one more night of tears

The radio in the kitchen playing songs we used to know
Like highways moving backward to places we can’t go
We were perfect for each other we eased each others fears
We never minded holding on through one more night of tears

Funny how that trust got started, funny how our love was made
But I stopped laughing once I saw that trust begin to fade

Now each of us has a private life that the other doesn’t know
And generosity moved away from our house long ago
Yes now we have our own lives our dream has disappeared
We cannot help each other through another night of tears

Memory is that this was written around 1993, either in Omaha or Nashville, shortly after a divorce. So, yeah, it’s a divorce song but mostly fictional. Probably as close as I could get to the feel of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery”.

Evolución (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
    Back at the raunch…

    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”

    Pass Me By

    Words and Music Willi Brown ©1992

    Acoustic Demo version from Seattle ’96

    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 card.
    RMDC Summer 2013

    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

    Old Man Looking at Painting of House

    So This Is (The Future)

    The door opens onto the highway
    which lay there missin the moon
    like a ribbon without a present
    or a string without a balloon

    This morning offers no schedule
    coffee doesn’t mind getting cold
    a bag full of nothing thinks lonely is something
    and that nothing… is getting old

    * So this is the future
    where the past wears a digital mask
    and all my answers don’t seem that important anymore
    and my questions don’t need to be asked

    The war isn’t fought in the papers
    and blood doesn’t run down the wires
    and the piles of limbs they don’t get to him
    because our president is a liar

    * So this is the future
    where the past wear’s a digital mask
    and all my answers don’t seem that important anymore
    and my questions don’t need to be asked

    Chords

    Verse
    D7 C7 G7
    D7 C7 G7
    D7 C7 G7
    C7 A7
    (maybe)
    Chorus
    G F C
    G F C
    G F C
    F A

    Recording Notes

    Probably 2005. In Venice Beach, California. Apartment on Pacific across from the Post Office.
    This might have been recorded on a Sony Mini-Disc with a Sony Stereo Mic. I don’t know what guitar I was playing in those days… Acoustic something.

    What You Left Behind

    Words and Music by Willi Brown ©2008

    Some people think they know ya / or they got a film to show ya
    While I pretend intelligence is bliss
    But there’s blood that you’ve paid / Stone commitments that you’ve made
    They cannot be stolen by an outlaw kiss

    And what you’ve left behind / could be put out of your mind
    Because it isn’t happening right now
    What’s been put out of your mind,What’s been put out of your mind is your soul now
    It’s all… you’ve left behind

    And the weight of present past seems to be breaking your back
    But something else has put a fire in your eyes
    And the weightless little girl who once floated around the world
    Is holding on to dear life as time flies

    And what’s been put out of your mind / may be on the front of your mind
    Even when it’s not happening anymore

    What you’ve left behind / circles back around in time
    Like it never ended for you anyhow
    What you left behind never ended for you anyhow

    Beautiful Blond Sandy Beach Sunlight Behind

    High Abstraction

    High Abstraction
    By Willi Brown Ⓒ 2017

    * something dull wants out / some notion unprofound
    wants equal air time / or to be written down
    it’s no high abstraction / no scene poetic
    no heart transmission / just mundane magic

    outside my house now those / crazy street people passin’
    rucksacks and bottles and cigarettes (always the cigarettes)
    i hide with my possessions behind locked doors and blinds
    severely un happy / it’s all dead to me (it’s all dead to me)

    * something dull wants out / some notion unprofound
    wants equal air time / or to be written down
    it’s no high abstraction / no scene poetic
    no heart transmission / just mundane magic

    there’s a woman at a distance / who laughs with me
    smiling with Joy / and feeling free (feeling free)
    convinced of my darkness / i long to turn away
    join the street passing / not making things worse (… worse)

    * something dull wants out … just mundane magic

    Hallway

    Words and Music by Willi Brown
    Featured on: Scenic Route by Willi Brown

    I can hear you speak in a voice like mine in the darkness the distance
    I can hear you speak a very thin line through yourself about me

    **We lose what we know to know again
    We can always move, we can always wait / It makes no difference

    We can bury the groove, we can cover fate / It makes no difference

    **We lose what we know to know again
    I can hear you speak a very thin line in the darkness about me
    I can hear you speak covering up the things we’ve done tonight together

    **We lose what we know to know again