1. |
Don't Remember Train
03:37
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Don't Remember Train
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
I don’t remember getting on this train
Already out of town along the bay.
The seats are pretty comfy though
I’ve got some food from home:
Some bread and cheese, an apple;
I’ll sit and watch the shoreline slide away.
But I don’t remember getting on this train.
I never bought a ticket for this train.
Conductor smiles and nods as he goes by.
I ask when the next station is
“Don’t worry you won’t miss it:
You’ll slow way down before you stop
That’s how you’re gonna know.”
And I don’t remember getting on this train.
If I weren’t on this train I’d be out there on the tideflats,
Rake and wire basket digging clams.
Back to the cottage kitchen where the chowder pot is simmering,
Mom and Barb are cackling ‘bout the butcher’s jokes today.
But the laughs I hear are just two gals behind me to my right,
And I don’t remember getting on this train.
Just got back from sittin’ with my Dad.
He’s ridin’ just a few cars up ahead.
He still enjoys the ride, the gentle rocking side to side,
“Look how the sunlight hits that hill
Remember when we climbed it ?”
“Not that one Dad, but yes it surely looked like it that day ...”
And look who’s here beside me now
It’s so long since I walked you home!
You let me take your books, I couldn’t think of what to say.
But here now we can talk about our trials and our travels,
And sit and watch the golden fields roll by.
Still, I don’t remember getting on this train.
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2. |
Turning the World
04:52
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Turning the World
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
Ripples widen in the pool that cradled every ancient soul,
Catch sunsparks, eucalyptus leaves, and sky;
The bark canoe slides forward as he leans back on his pole;
Beneath his breath his Father’s song will rise.
Two thousand years away,
A gondolier leans on his oar;
From turrets, steps, canals and stones
His Father’s Father’s song resounds.
All who pole and all who row
And sing their soul’s song as they go:
You can feel them turn the world around.
From towers all around the town
Long shadows as the sun goes down:
The vesper bells all hear each other ring.
The organ’s diapason honeying the choir’s eleison
To their Father, as the congregation sings.
The spirit moves to minarets,
Muezzins make the call to prayer:
The faithful bow in concert on the ground.
All who sing and all who ring and all who join in listening,
And all who play and all who pray
Will know they move as one, one day.
Hear them as they turn the world around.
You’re both in bed now, feigning sleep;
You’re newlywed, and new to fight;
You’d floated through all yesterday in bliss
Sharp words both ways cut both ways deep
You hope you’ll make it through the night;
Your Father never sang a song for this.
But listen for her breathing: match your drawings-in to hers.
If she sleeps, then so may you;
If not, her hand may yet find yours
Late enemies in unison
Anemones unfurl
Wave together...
Nearer ever...
Hear each other,
You can turn the world.
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3. |
Old Player Piano
04:26
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Old Player Piano
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
Old Player Piano come take me away
From whatever I thought so important today.
For eighteen long years I have left you neglected,
Except for some treasures on top I’ve collected:
Pink shells from the Gulf, a framed tide pool serene,
Two bulldogs, my junior high Little League team.
I’ll sit by this shrine,
Let your vibrations guide me:
To play you again is my dream.
Pictures come take me back out to the lake
Where the evening sun gilds the beach stairs with grace.
Of family out picking cabbage and corn:
Some are still with us, and some have passed on.
But the light that they loved still streams through the trees there,
O’er the vines, up the ridge, toward the clouds and the clear.
Pictures keep beaming
Above my piano
Remind me my loved ones are near.
Old broken metronome brought from my father’s home,
Presto is now the lone tempo you know.
Take me back to the time that you kept time so slow,
Kept me practicin’ when I just wanted to grow up
And follow my brother to the world he had known,
Play guitar, steal a kiss, find a love of my own.
Mahogany metronome,
Keeping time slow
Told me then what I now yearn to know.
Piano I pray thee now: do as you will
With this errant old singer who sits by you still.
Let your chords tie into love locked inside of me:
Songs that can comfort, inspire, and thrill.
You’re part of a dream that just won’t fade away,
And I felt ‘til just now I had no more to say.
So my fingers alight
As your keys black and white
Turn me open, and play me tonight.
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4. |
Wyethstown
04:39
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Wyethstown
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
My family came and settled down, year of thirty-four,
Homesteaded near Wyethstown, your father owned the store.
We played together, laughed and cried, since we were very young,
Over hill and meadowside, of golden-green we’d run.
And there was noone to say I’d regret the day
That the railroad come.
They built the railroad by us when you were twenty-two.
You quit your job at Wyeth’s farm to help them put it through.
In summer sun I’d watch you sink the steel into the ground,
Then we’d walk together in the woods on the ridge above the town.
The summer that the railroad come, and I loved you.
Now Wyethstown is weathered-in, all blanketed with snow.
Alone I read your letter in the embers dyin’ glow.
I’ll wait a winter while you court your girls of quality
By sidewalk-light in New Orleans, and never think of me.
And I never thought, when the railroad come, you’d ever go.
Things aren’t much changed in Wyethstown since you left that day.
With six long summers come and gone there‘s little more to say.
But Sunday after church we cross the golden fields of hay
And climb the ridge above the town, to wait along the right of way,
For the white smoke comin’ risin’ in the sky,
Blue, as your son’s eyes followin’ the train, as it goes by.
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5. |
Got a Little Corner
03:35
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Got a Little Corner
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
Hey there buddy, you know you don’t have to snub me,
You can say hello when passin’ on the street.
You got her keys I never had ‘em:
I hope that that will gladden you,
So just be civil anytime we meet.
The lady let me know the score.
You won what you were playin’ for.
So take your prize, enjoy it,
But make sure you treat her kind.
‘Cause even though she made me go
I’ll be okay because I know
I’ve got a little corner of her mind.
(refrain)
I’m in there
Smiling while she’s kissin’ you good mornin’.
You’ll taste my cookin’ in your food
You’ll drink my kind of wine.
And even if you kill me dead I’m in your bed, I’m in her head:
I’ve got a little corner of her mind.
The lady told me yesterday she didn’t love me anyway;
I guess I’ll spend my time now runnin’ free.
I’ll read her letters when she writes me,
And I’ll come when she invites me,
When we’re talkin’ just go in and watch TV.
I took that picture on the wall.
You’ll see my footprints in the hall.
The coffee mug you drink from
At her table once was mine.
You might as well get used to me,
‘Cause where she is there I will be:
I’ve got a little corner of her mind.
(refrain)
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6. |
Pictures on the Wall
04:37
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Pictures on the Wall
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
A board of pinned up souvenirs, upstairs in a forgotten room.
I’d passed them by these many years; I thought I should go through them.
Here, a steeple draws my eye
To sky scrubbed clean with cotton clouds:
The pilgrim church where you and I
Would read our poems, say our vows.
Next, a formal on great stairs with family, friends and flowers:
If we had doubts we didn’t know it;
If we knew, we wouldn’t show it.
Saint Francesca of San Marco, pigeons in your hair;
Running down the beach with gulls,
You’re almost in the air.
Next, astride a cannon in the fort in Nova Scotia-
Elysees, Galatoires, Ocean City bumper cars.
(Refrain)
Pacific Tides would pull you,
I tried but couldn’t hold you.
No picture when you said “you’ve done your best, I just can’t stay”.
No picture when we loaded full your wagon for the West;
I rode with you to Omaha and kissed you on your way.
Here’s the postcard that you sent from Reykjavik last year;
Traveling with new family, found contentment now I hear.
In your Mother’s town, now
No more steeple in the square:
Clapboards, yew trees,
Bulldozed down; just concrete condos there.
(refrain)
One more photo on the sofa
This one I might keep.
Velvet Elvis, dogs, cat, you
All curled up in a happy heap.
That was then, and then was golden
Sheaves of love and laughter.
This is Now and Then is done,
But Now reopens after all:
With trembling fingers, one by one
I’m tearing down these pictures on the wall...
(refrain)
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7. |
Revendon
04:30
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Revendon
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
LYRICS
...And on your way to Revendon
A barefoot girl in calico asks you to go
Share the forest with her, one and lonely.
On such a day, forgettin’ that you’re travelin’ on,
Forsake the highway; take her smile,
And follow to her forest home.
She sits you down in sun-filled rooms, her meal to share,
Of bread and cheese and fresh spring water
From a glistening mug of porcelain.
You talk about your magic town,
And how you’d planned on going there,
And all this time you vaguely feel
You might be getting more than
You could give her, ever;
But for now, you’re two together.
You take her hand, and start to walk, say not a thing,
Slide through shafts of sunshine
While she shows she’s glad to find you.
You stop and stand together by a spring.
Reflected in the rippling pool are you and she-
The waves remind you:
You’d set out on a mornin’ not too long ago,
Searchin’ for a place you’d dreamed you had to go...
Without warning, drop her hand;
You’re hopin’ that she’d understand.
You hadn’t meant to leave so soon:
You’d almost spent an afternoon.
You watch her wave, while glancing back toward settin’ sun.
You can’t explain, give word or song or tarry longer, only:
You’re on your way to Revendon.
You’ll have more time for livin’ then,
But now you’re one and lonely.
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8. |
Lucky Lobster Rag
04:00
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Lucky Lobster Rag
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
Way down back of the Good Foods Store
They built us out an ocean floor:
That’s where we lucky lobsters love to loll.
They feed us scraps of hard salami,
chevre, olives, edamame.
Each day we’re on another kind of roll.
Pilgrims thought we were fertilizer;
Later gourmets learned to prize our
Springy sweet white flesh dry-brushed
With tangerine and salmon.
To sell us from captivity is wrong they say
But secretly, we think our great good fortune
Might have more to do with Mammon.
And could they grill us?
No no no...
And they couldn’t just kill us?
Nah
What would they tell
The tofu swells
And the friends of free range buffalo?
Pa got sold before our day:
At a dandy dinner in old Back Bay
In nutmeg, cream and brandy gladly met his destiny.
Now his shell’s out west some forty mile,
The rest of him has cleared Deer Island.
He’s back in the harbor singin’
Nearer my cod to thee.
And would they sell Us?
No no no!
Or braise and jell us?
They’ll have to keep us well, or we’ll cast our spell
And wilt all their radiccio.
Meanwhile my life’s like no other:
I play mah jongg with my twin brother;
We dance the quadrille, sing our songs
Till quarter after three.
Till morning then we fall asleep
On cobble in a happy heap:
Some jellyfish our night light
If we ever have to pee.
Old friends arrive from stores everywhere,
In sacks of rockweed
Next day air!
And could they poach us?
Too slow OO- eee.
They’re going to coach us, with
Yoga classes, meditation,
Ten step meetings,
Each crustacean’ll
Be all the lobster he or she can be....
Now lobster rhymes with dinner bell
For years at sea we’ve known this well.
We thought our last swim would be in
Some big blue speckled pot.
So every day, the chosen many,
We circle round, phase our antennae
With a lobster podcast live at noon
Give thanks for what we got.
Lucky lobsters live forever
Drinkin’ sparkling clementine.
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9. |
Juli and Romy
04:36
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Juli and Romy
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
Sunrise gleams on Park Street spires,
Warblers waken; we arise.
“Good morrow, Coz!” we hear them here
below.
Bleacher-fans and Brahmins know
We’re Juliet and Romeo,
Two swans on garden pond, out turning slow.
We’re christened lovebirds, best of breed,
They placed us in our willowed Eden,
Snowy white on emerald green
To glide in graceful dance serene.
Inspiring love in all who’ve seen us
At our silent minuet,
Though there’s no Romeo between us:
Both of us are Juliet.
Eye to eye and breast to breast
Each doubled twice; our waves caress us.
Ask and listen; curtsy, bow.
Who bowed the last will curtsy now.
As changes ring on carillon
At noon they bring the swan boats ‘round.
Cygnets come from far and wee
To ride on back so tranquilly.
Perhaps a flame-haired, freckled lad
Gives our thoughts voice, and asks his dad
Which swan would be Romeo; who Juliet would be.
“Who will build our nest today?”
“If I warm the eggs we lay,
Would you draw a foe away?”
Turn by turn our love will stay.
Turning world streams setting sun down
Newbury as evening light
Gilds cathedral elms up from below.
Brownstone, redbrick, verdigris facades
Will bow and wink as we’re
Now mirrored in vermilion, turning slow.
Heart to heart and face to face
Necks acurve a third heart trace:
With wings unclipped by love we’ll fly
Circling stars in Sapphire sky,
We’ll glide... and decide...
Which swan will be Romeo; who’s Juliet tonight.
Sun rides in on morning tide
We turn and glide again
“Good morrow Coz”: the song rings from above.
We’re Romeo and Juliet
To Trustees and to trenchermen;
To feathered friends we’re just two swans in
love.
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10. |
Still Point
05:01
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Still Point
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
Time now, time beckoning, time out of memory,
Glimpses of dreams not yet dared,
Reborn romance, second chances past reckoning,
The future, now Now, is repaired.
Here at the high mark where all waters rise,
Before they start falling away,
Widen the moment in front of your eyes:
You can dance through all time in a day.
Lamb in the oven; cinnamon, ginger,
Songs from your Grandmother’s heart-
Easter time, family gathers for dinner-
Take your place till they’re ready to start.
Early this morning, out under the apple tree,
Fall’s drops a-dapple with sun
Cidery air up to blossoms, cerulean...
Grandfather’s blessing’s begun.
At a still point,
And you yearn to stay,
But the world turns,
And it slips away.
Gone now the apple tree,
Long gone the family
Raised in the home that they built in its place.
You ride to the strains of a loopy calliope
Reaching for brass rings they no longer make.
But you’re finding apple trees everywhere now:
The forest in new-fallen snow,
Gull above beach cliff, towers in Tuscany.
Cradle them, then let them go.
In the windlessness on the canyon floor
Breathe the sky down in.
And again before
Each dip of the paddle,
Each flick of the pen,
As God writes your name in his hand.
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11. |
Buffalo
03:01
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Buffalo
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
When I was a lad up in Buffalo
My daddy brought me home a guitar.
I played all night till the rooster’d crow
But Ma thought I was goin’ too far.
She said “Son I like your playin’ and I like your song,
And I wouldn’t have you think you’re doin’ anything wrong,
But when you grow a little higher,
You’ll maybe find out why your
Ma don’t want you playin’ all night long.”
Well I had to find a place where folk’d listen all night,
So I headed for a bar in town,
But they tried to close the place about half past two
When I started playin’ one more round.
We were a singin’ and a clappin’
At a quarter to three
When the man came in and arrested me.
He said “We can’t have people thinkin’
Folk are still in here drinkin’
So you can’t play guitar all night long”
So they took guitar and my fingerprints
And they put me in the county jail.
I got the brothers going on a little song
Cause I had no-one to go my bail.
Well they couldn’t stop the singin’ so they had to set me free,
They threw my guitar out after me,
Got my fingers and my songs so I’m going on the road
And I’m gonna play guitar all night long.
I met a little girl and we bought a little farm
We got everything we need so far.
And Saturdays I take my guitar into town
Just to keep a little money in the cookie jar.
And evenings the kids all join in the song:
I bought ‘em guitars so they could play along,
But my darlin’ and me we stop at half past ten,
So we can take a rest and play it again.
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12. |
Seasons Search
05:38
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Season's Search
@2017 Rick Drost (ASCAP)
I loved a girl in winter, though
In February’s thaw our love
Fell off forlorn like icicles
From afternooning eaves.
She kissed me, maid of spring and sprightly,
Not unkindly, quite politely,
Laughing evanesced
Into the limey-dimey leaves.
Thinking that there must be more,
Not knowing I was looking for the love I’d lost
I searched a season, set my heart at ease.
I searched on cheery city nights
Of liquor laughter pretty lights,
But friends and busy men
Could not outweigh the bleary days.
While I searched, it seemed they’d found.
They’d pass me by eyes on the ground,
Like polished marbles fallin’ through
some molded plastic maze
On a summer sailboat ride,
Shiftless, drifting with the tide
Between the sky and sea
a playful dolphin circled me.
Of silent rounds he had his fill,
Then smiled and did a belly roll
And flashing plumbed the greening depths
of crystal mystery.
I dove to follow,
Swallowed only blue salinity.
Sitting in an August orchard,
Having lost all lust, a tortured,
Sultry, sulky youth
With naught to do but lie and laze,
There came a man in coveralls-
He seemed to be a lover of all life
And as he saw me out
His cheerful voice he raised:
“Glory in the golden sunshine;
Gather grapes and make sweet wine.
For Son, you know the nights
Will soon be longer than the days.”
And saying this he picked himself
A pocketful of apples,
And whilstling disappeared into the silver August Haze
Sitting in an August orchard,
Having lost all lust, a tortured,
Sultry, sulky youth
With naught to do but lie and laze,
There came a man in coveralls-
He seemed to be a lover of all life
And as he saw me out
His cheerful voice he raised:
“Glory in the golden sunshine;
Gather grapes and make sweet wine.
For Son, you know the nights
Will soon be longer than the days.”
And saying this he picked himself
A pocketful of apples,
And whistling disappeared
Into the silver August haze.
I met a woman in October
With my season almost ovesr,
On a dusky hilltop
Overlooking everywhere.
Words of greeting had we none:
By silent, secret marks we knew
We’d found a place for winter,
And we’d see each other there:
Casting slender shadows
In the cold November sun,
Throwing out sharp shadows
In the gold November air.
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Rick Drost Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge-based Rick Drost writes songs of depth and heart—songs likened to impressionist paintings. He sings from a long
background in folk, classical, and choral traditions.
Early songwriting inspiration came from Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen; now a retired engineer he loves to play open mics, songwriting workshops and small live shows and festivals
www.rickdrostsongs.com.
... more
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