1. |
What You Have To Do
01:27
|
|||
They say to live from the heart’s not easy,
but you jump in greedy, just you and your Jeep.
And what you have to leave behind is
someone who’s the love of your life.
God knows, maybe.
It’s what you have to do.
|
||||
2. |
Virgin Motorbike
04:47
|
|||
All unborn I, just a virgin of life,
came upon a virgin motorbike.
When I came up to the light it went.
When I came up on life it went.
But then I, and just I,
came up with a version of my life.
And now I’m wastin’. . .
Early on I saw the pictures goin’ by.
Bullfrogs, billboards, everything.
Always comin’ up on the scene in the movie
where I, when I. . . .
A Schwinn is to a Harley,
as a Harley was to me.
So much I saw while goin’,
so much I didn’t see.
So much I had to phone in, lazy.
Lazy me.
Now I’m wastin’ all of my powers
and I’m watchin’ the world go by.
But then I get up close to your body
and that’s a ride.
Just like the perfect magnificent bee
lives under concrete,
my life is. . . beautiful.
Except we don’t have much to hang onto,
except we don’t have much to hang onto,
or. . . nothing.
But just as the future’s hangin’ onto our wings,
while saddled on the stripes,
I hang onto the beautiful side of life.
But I’m wastin’ all of my powers
and I’m watchin’ the world go by/
Then I get up close to your body
and that’s a ride.
I woke up a virgin,
slowed down at the curb.
Ended up emerging,
only that’s absurd.
Turning back into myself,
where I should have been in the beginning,
only now I learned.
Shouldn’t have been chasin’ nobody else. . .
back into myself.
Just like I should have been when I started out--
but in myself.
I ended up in life’s wiggles.
|
||||
3. |
Transportation One
01:00
|
|||
4. |
Hey Mister
01:27
|
|||
Hey mister, I’ve been lookin’ in the mirror at you.
And mister would you kindly tell your woman I’ve been lookin’ too.
And help me find a good man, if you can
get over me.
If I can get over you.
Mister Cartwright
It’s all right.
Mister Cartwright
It’s all right.
Whoa.
Who’s gonna make me change?
I wanna get a real name.
Who’s gonna make me change?
I wanna get a real name.
Until I insist, it will be Mister.
|
||||
5. |
Ella and Joe
02:23
|
|||
It was a book week,
spent just you and me.
Silent days and nights alight
for being free.
The time we spoke of a future,
not laughing, I felt that’s for me.
Now I’m in the middle of two things,
neither of them with you.
I want to get back to the week
when we roasted and knew what to do.
I want to get back to that past,
the one I helped to create.
At last I got my wish,
one year later I went, now I wait.
Nights open to the water,
sky falling like a Rembrandt.
I’m looking for an everyday prayer.
When I try to remember, I can’t.
I’m learning my lessons
all in a simple way.
With lessons this simple,
it’s difficult to be here today.
|
||||
6. |
Half Moon
03:13
|
|||
It appears that it'll rain for peace talks.
I thought “I’ll take off my boots
so I can stand over the half moon and walk.”
But half the moon filled up,
and I jumped out. . .
no parachute.
So now I’m in the middle of
absolutely humorless political conflict,
singing new love songs
about my experiences with the moon and stuff.
Fortunately the rain stopped,
still no peace talks.
I climbed back up.
I wrote a hundred thousand songs in that empty cup
about politics.
Then the moon dumped me out.
And after all, I went back to singing up.
|
||||
7. |
Bittersweet Feeling
03:16
|
|||
Whoa-oh, bittersweet feeling,
Whoa-oh, bittersweet feeling.
Wanted to create something permanent,
make something useful, Joe.
I had that feeling.
And the fact is:
what I manufactured
would only be useful to the soul
when you have that permanent feeling.
The permanence of that feeling, though. . .
I was shooting with a camera,
and immediately thought
that the frames between faces
were the only real shots.
I asked you to move, and you said “What?”
I asked you to move, and you said “What? What?”
Oh, it gives a bittersweet feeling
when you’re feeling bittersweet.
Whoa-oh, bittersweet feeling,
Whoa-oh, bittersweet feeling, oh.
Wanted to create something useful,
something permanent in fact.
I had that bittersweet feeling.
That feeling, oh the feeling, but the fact:
is what I manufactured
could only be used
when you have that feeling
and the feeling is abused.
Whoa-oh, bittersweet feeling.
Whoa-oh, bittersweet feeling.
|
||||
8. |
Boating Alone
02:45
|
|||
It's no trouble, I’ll take over.
Problems, I’ll solve them,
worries, like a motor.
I am your other rudder and you’ll not boat alone.
Last time I took her on the water
I had no companion.
Someone was drowning, I rowed toward.
But they had jumped from an empty vessel
and would not climb aboard.
I rowed through the crags, circling.
I saw four bubbles surfacing.
Boating alone, one less good mood.
Two lungs and I’ll float, boat allowing.
|
||||
9. |
The Red Robin
01:44
|
|||
If we could be like the red robin,
flyin’ over the bridge to see the end,
we’d know how to live,
we’d learn to spend.
When she starts to arrange for daylight,
that’s when there’s only black and red.
And flyin’ over the bay,
home free, she baffles and descends.
Those sailin’ in the patient,
gratitude and chips extend.
Woe in the solvent,
what’s washing west again.
The bobbin’
never met the robin
or a redwood tree.
How come we got to regret, then,
the bird we never came to be?
|
||||
10. |
Could Be Worse
04:20
|
|||
Always walking in a circle,
but things could be worse.
And nothing is for certain.
I know things could be worse.
Like a sculptor and a salesman
imagining what things could be,
not thinking things could get better,
when they know that things could be. . .
worse.
But I’ll be different, I’ll quit stumbling--
quit thinking things could change by force.
And I'll toss my fate to the wind or something,
predicting nothing, though I’ll be wrong.
Then I’ll sing,
“I don’t know how someone could sing something
having forgotten
not only anything,
but the thing
you once remembered
about the feeling of the feeling of the song.”
Then I’ll sing,
“I don’t know how someone could sing something
having forgotten
not only anything,
but the thing
you once remembered
about the feeling of the feeling of the song.”
|
||||
11. |
There She Was In Blue
03:36
|
|||
Reachin’ out to the side
to attain what is hazy.
Wishin’ further out
while invisible won’t face me.
Then one afternoon I closed my eyes.
It was not one of my first or final tries,
and there she was in blue.
Short of sailing,
how I was seeking would never do.
Unimaginable how slow I was to fall into..
and there she was in blue.
Soft, so soft I saw her in you.
|
||||
12. |
Fables
03:10
|
|||
You used to be required to make stories up.
And stories were reliable, because they were enough.
Now the liars and the fakes are held up
to the light of glory-- we like to let them off.
What happens when your own life is tough?
They recommend you call upon the same old stuff.
But there are too many people now alive,
for fables to be relevant, yet the fables still survive.
What happens when you are sick?
You might have to move to get rid of it.
I’m going to a stable sphere,
leaving all the fables here.
A million animals to race against,
until nothing is making sense.
A million animals to race against,
until nothing is making sense.
|
Julian Cartwright New Jersey
Julian Cartwright is a songwriter, instrumentalist, composer and arranger based in the Philadelphia area. Instagram @julian.cartwright.songs
Streaming and Download help
If you like Julian Cartwright, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp