With You With Me

She is everything that life can give me

Does she know how much she makes me happy?

I don’t always show her I adore her

Let her know I’ll always be there for he


When I’m with her I feel calm and blissful

She restores my soul and makes me peaceful

She inspires my feelings with desire

Lights my creativity with fire


Caught up in an artistic creation

I can wander from heartfelt connection

Still my heart is true and always loves her

And she stays true to me in my endeavor


Loving her I’m growing ever gladder

I’m for her for happier or sadder

Joyful in the two of us together

Learning how to love each other better


May this song, these words, begin to show you

How complete my life is now I know you

How ecstatic life is with you with me

I will always love you and you only



Happiness is a labor

Crawling out of dour

Funk isn’t fun

Smiling is an effort


But happiness can be achieved

Given the right circumstances

And substantial effort

Letting go and letting the groove come


There are other movements of the soul that are good, too

The blues is sublime

Creative passion

Ecstasy–not happiness


Sometimes I wonder why go on

If nothing matters

If nothing matters,

Why not keep going?


I can be happy

If the groove is right

If the right circumstances arise

I can smile

A Future Blues Song

Broke Again

Broke again, and a week until payday

Broke again and I don’t know where it went

Broke again, and a week until payday

Got nothing to show and my money’s all spent


I have a good time till the money’s all gone

I have a good time, I just do as I please

I have a good time till the money’s all gone

And I’m all out of cash and I’m feeling the squeeze


I’m struggling till payday, don’t know what I’ll do

I’m struggling till payday, how will I get by?

I’m struggling till payday, don’t know what I’ll do

It all costs too much for a regular guy

Art Has No Limitations

I remember how disappointed I was when I heard the last symphony of Beethoven’s 9 total.  I was 18 years old then.  One by one, I had discovered each symphony that I’d never heard before.  I would so look forward to hearing another symphony of his that I hadn’t heard yet.  I don’t remember what order I heard them in, but I still remember how sad I was that there were no more Beethoven symphonies to discover.

Then, a few years later I listened to the third symphony again.  For some reason, now I heard things in it I’d never heard before.  Then I heard the sixth symphony played live when I was in Ohio.  Again, I noticed sounds I hadn’t heard before.  When I told this to the conductor at the reception after the performance, he raised his eyebrows as if I were suggesting the orchestra played some wrong notes, which I wasn’t.

Then there is the ninth symphony.  For the longest time, I never understood the first movement.  I have struggled, trying to find a melody.  Melodies are so plain in the other works.  So even though I’d heard the first movement many times, I didn’t get it.  Then I heard a Cleveland Symphony Orchestra performance conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi.  His interpretation finally made sense to me.  Now, I had a glimpse of what Beethoven was doing in it.  I was hearing it for the first time, in a way.

I read a critic from Beethoven’s own time period, Carl Maria von Weber, who complained about the sustained “e” in the first movement, “Always that miserable e,” Weber writes and suggested that Beethoven must have grown deaf to the “e” and was now ripe for the madhouse.  That gave me a new way into the 7th symphony.  I listened intently and heard that sustained “e” I’d never noticed before.  It was like hearing the 7th for the first time.  And as I wrestled, trying to think up with horn lines for my own compositions, I listened intently to Beethoven’s orchestrations–yet another way to hear his symphonies afresh.

Beethoven wrote that the true artist could have no pride.  While he might be admired by a world-wide audience, he realizes that art has no limitations and awaits the time when the greater genius will shine forth like a blazing star.  Art has no limitations.  Great art holds so much that one can return to works of great art again and again and hear, see, read and experience it as if for the first time.  While my ear has listened to all 9 of Beethoven’s symphonies, my soul hasn’t heard all that is in them.  I can keep coming back, and discover Beethoven’s 9 symphonies for the first time.