1. A Song For Larry
2. Stocks
3. A Prayer For Bronwyn
4. Ghosts
5. The Murder Ballad
6. Richard
7. Constellation
8. Imported Cigarillos
9. My Favorite Lies
10. The Regular
11. Angela’s Fight
12. Between the Pavement and the Sky
13. My Tools
Listen to the songs at cdbaby
Jud Caswell: Guitar, bass, saxophone, flutes, whistles, percussion, vocals
Marsey Caswell: Vocals
Nat Hussey: Bass
Alfred Lund: Ashiko, Percussion, Drums, Vocals
Martin Swinger: Vocals
Steve Johnson: Trumpet
Recorded in the Rat Room, Alderdown Music, Brunswick, Maine
Cover Photography by Marsene Caswell
Original Artwork by Kat Logan
Graphic Design by Laura Vigue
There were boxes on the boxes on the couch
And your car was up for sale
Half of your belongings in the living-room and hall
While the other half were in the mail.
Destination: Idaho. Who’d have ever guessed?
Now I’ve come to say goodbye and wish you all the best.
They took you down like Mafioso hit men
When your back was to the door
Another victory for the vindictive
You’re just a victim of their
Dirty little bureaucratic war
They downsized your position:
Farmed it out to the volunteers
Now your stove is cold and clean
And you have finished off the beers.
You get up, you go on.
You don’t need to question why.
You get up, you go on,
You just believe it, then you try
They’re all looking for a clean slate
A state of grace, a place at the right hand,
But you get up, you go on,
And it’s always just the way
You would’ve wanted it to be if you had planned.
The black flies were in season,
There were new leaves on the trees
And all of our shoes were just caked in mud.
Another day for soaking in the mountain and the ocean
Til the salt sea air was in your blood
Then looking back and laughing
At the fate of your career
Counting blessings two by two
Instead of counting years
You get up, you go on...
Thank you for the music you have made
That sacred laughing instrument you play
It has done my soul more good than I can say
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I am the fox, I am the artist
I am the magic man who makes things grow
You give me ten, I give you twenty
You give me water, I give you Merlot
From red to black, Ursa to Taurus
From Flinty Michigan to Mexico
Don’t ask me how, that’s not your business
Don’t make me tell you things you should not know...
You’ve got your class, you’ve got your image
You’ve got your mistresses and families
You need your sleep, need your excuses
And plausible deniabilities
I know your work, I know your problems
Leave those gory details up to me.
We’ll toast the market, we’ll toast to profit
And when we’re done we will discuss my feeÖ
I work for stocks, a gun for hire
I’ll fire everyone you ought to fire
Then change the locks and call the buyer
Collect our Bouillon and we’ll all retire.
Don’t look so shocked, say I’m a liar
Say you’re a businessman who stands for something higher.
Take your time; collect your thoughts.
Then let this opportunity out of the box:
I work for stocks.
I see my history precedes me:
There are a few of you who knew me when
I was a dabbler in guns and slavery
I turned Apartheid into pounds and yen.
Don’t be naïve, don’t be so preachy:
This is now, and brother, that was then.
And this is legal (’til further notice)
And we may never get this chance again.
I work for stocks...
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Don’t you listen to the big men telling you
A little girl should keep her fingers clean
Don’t you spend your precious time being proper
Play the monkey girl who's stealing every scene
You know what’s inside and you don’t have to hide
You know who you are — keep your eyes on the stars
Don’t you listen to the big men telling you
A little girl has got to wait her turn
And don’t you spend your precious time making changes
When they tell you that you’ve got a lot to learn
You know what’s inside and you don’t have to hide
You know who you are ñ keep your eyes on the stars
You can be anyone you can be anything you want to be
You can be anyone you can be anything you want to be
Don’t you listen to the words that are spoken
By the fools on your television screen
Don’t you spend your precious time making changes
If your smile doesn’t fit the magazine
Don’t you listen to the words I’m telling you
My words are always just a little wrong
Just understand that in my heart I’m praying
Your life will be as precious as a song
And you’ll know what’s inside...
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My name is Shanachie, I am a carpenter
But I came to California for the gold
I fought the Indians, I fought Tuberculosis
But now I mostly do as I am told.
I work in San Jose for Sarah Winchester
She’s the widow of the rifle-maker’s son
Her family fortune has cursed and blessed her
With the bounty and the burden of the gun.
Thirteen walls, thirteen doors
Thirteen chandeliers like spiders on the ballroom floor
Thirteen stairs, thirteen posts
To spare Sarah Winchester from ghosts
She dreams in blueprints of twisted architecture
Of a window in a ceiling or a floor
And doors to nowhere designed to foil the specters
Of half a century profit off of war
Thirteen walls, thirteen doors
Thirteen chandeliers like spiders on the ballroom floor
Thirteen stairs, thirteen posts
To spare Sarah Winchester from ghosts
Some say it’s the ghost of Sitting Bull
Some say it’s the karma of the muzzle-flash and trigger-pull
But more than this I’ll never tell
Sarah pays her carpenters too well
So I keep my silence and I keep my hammer swinging
As we bend this aging mansion to her schemes
Never knowing what tomorrow’s bringing
Only knowing that tonight will bring more screams
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Who’s that come a-knocking in the middle of the night?
The moon is on the windowsill and I fear the world’s not right.
Outside in the moonlight she was straightening her hair
As I slid back the deadbolt and hollered out “who’s there?”
She said“sorry ma’am to wake you, but I didn’t have no choice”
And I didn’t understand it then, why I shivered at her voice.
She said “I am a city girl, my car is broken down.
I’m far from where I’m going and I’m further yet from town
But if someone comes to help me I will soon be on my way
And this will be forgotten by the dawning of the dayӔ
So I awoke my brother and the story to him told
Down he fetched the lantern and they headed up the road
And I retired to my bedroom and tried to get some sleep
’til the dog got kind of restless and I heard the front porch creak.
Who’s that come a-knocking in the middle of the night?
The moon is on the windowsill and I swear the world’s not right.
Once again that city-girl was standing on my porch
All alone she smiled at me and held my brother’s torch
She said “sorry ma’am to wake you, but we need another hand
And your brother said your boyfriend’s home: I’m sure he’ll understand”
So my lover and that city girl stepped out into the night
I could not stop my shaking hands: my heart was full of fright
But I cursed my superstition, saying nothing could be wrong
And I counted off the minutes, ’til the minutes grew too long.
Who’s that come a-knocking in the middle of the night?
The moon is on the windowsill and I can see the world’s not right.
Outside in the moonlight stood that same old city girl
One man stood beside her and I cursed this sorry world
For my husband, oh my husband who had beaten me so hard
That I took the kids and ran from him was a-standing in the yard
His hands were dripping black he raised his voice to say “It’s time.
You never should have left me: now I’ve come to take what’s mine.
Both your brother and your lover I have handily laid down.
Now you shall sleep beside them in the cold and stony ground.”
Husband, oh my husband you must surely go to hell
To take from me my brother and the man I loved so well
I can see you in the moonlight with your city girl so fine
And with my shotgun on the windowsill I’m a widow before my time.
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I spent Friday night at Richard’s
In a Massachusetts farmhouse with cold floors
And the sun was gone, the sun was gone
Long before I got there
And the Berkshire winds rattled at the door.
She was gone
The record on the phonograph played Vincent
It was an album I had borrowed, now returned
And through the kitchen door, his voice
Like elegant liquor poured over ice
As he scraped the garlic off the pan he had burned
She was gone
Some past unknown in Kodachrome
They hang on the wall together
She held their child, she held her smile
They hang on the wall together
Richard put the kids to bed and he poured the wine
Turned his whispering attention to the past
And the day they met and the things they tried or hadn’t yet
The way her love died slowly
He lit another candle,
touched a finger to the bead of molten wax
she was gone
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There’s a constellation hiding in the birches
So faint and distant in the northern sky
It’s just a puff of smoke, but it sharpens into diamonds
If you can catch it in the corner of your eye
It’s a game of concentration
It’s trying not to try
To see the constellation
In the corner of your eye
There’s a constellation hiding in our morning
It rises with your clock alarm
Dances through your snoozes and your shower
Reeling like a piper’s charm
It’s a game of concentration...
I dream you in the morning
Like a half-remembered song
Skating through your melody so sweet
Wishing it could last the whole day long
There’s a constellation hiding in the birches
It rises every morning just the same
I’ll have to think to let you know tomorrow
Because surely you’re the one to know its name
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Somebody told me we should’ve had a more romantic start
Kinda like the movies where you get to play the part
I could be a man of danger, a man of action:
Your dashing saboteur
You would be a lady of impeccable taste and breeding:
My debutante du jour.
I don’t smoke imported cigarillos
You don’t play a Stradiveri cello
We don’t know a Bordeaux from a Bordello
Or a saffron from a yello
Or caviar from jell-o
You the seductive Swedish Olympian turned spy
Ransomed by the man with the iron hand
A distinctive limp and a glass eye
With just my razor wits and a laser and a taser
I would chase your evil captor back to Prague
Save the world, get the girl
Honeymoon in Haiti in the epilogue
But I don’t smoke imported cigarillos...
So now I wonder if we’d have had a more romantic start
Would we be you and me or he and she?
Be together or apart?
When the lights go down in tinseltown
Is everybody talking about the sequel?
Or does the love grow cold when the credits roll
And all that’s left of superstars is people?
I don’t smoke imported cigarillos...
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We were walking: skirting, flirting with the possibilities
Of turning yearning into love
Holding hands, planning plans, pointing fingers
At the obstacles that we would rise above
Then you told me that you never would forget me
And you told me that someday you would let me
These are a few of my favorite lies
They sing around my head at night like lullabies
I can’t believe that after all these years I’m still surprised
By all my favorite lies
We were falling, breaking, aching with the possibility
Of letting romance fall to rust
Folding hands, planning plans, pointing fingers
At the choke chain on the remnants of our trust
Then you told me all we needed was some rest
And you told me it all works out for the best
These are a few of my favorite lies...
You’re the only one, it’s never been like this
You set my soul on fire and you seal me with a kiss
Life without your love, that would be a life in jail
My heart is in your hands and the check is in the mail
Now I’m pacing, thinking, drinking to the possibility
That I will make it on my own
Take a stand, plan a plan, point a finger
At the choices I have made and chances blown
And then I tell me all the best is still in store
And then I tell me I deserve a little more
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He’s a regular here: muscle shirt, sanpaku stare
He’s trying on a moustache just for size
He notices she’s smiling yet
Crushes out his cigarette
And pulls another loser from his hard-top-pack of lies
She’s a visitor here, cotton dress, carrot hair
Putting on her lipstick at the bar
She flashes him another look
Baits the line and sets the hook
She’s been catching and releasing
For at least a half an hour
It’s not the way he said hello that tipped the scale
It’s not the way she said goodbye that drove the nail
It’s not the way he said hello,
It’s not the way she said goodbye,
It’s the weight inside his eyes that tells the tale
It’s a fisherman’s crowd: lots of smoke, lots of loud
The money comes hard and fast and it goes the same.
He’s figured out she’s ticklish
And her favorite drink smells like licorice
But he hasn’t even figured out her name
It’s not the way he said hello...
He left her at the bar to go and pull around his car
She beat a hasty exit out the side
His friends were all so pleased
When he came back with his keys
They said “she sure was going somewhere.
I guess she didn’t need the ride”
It’s not the way he said hello...
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At the high school ball with a pocketful of hands
I watched from the darkness as Angela danced
Through the dares and the doubles I planned my advance
But I never did ask her once for her hand in a dance.
She left for the city: a chance to make good
Success as a dancer demanded she should
Scared and excited and knocking on wood
If anyone out there could make it, I guess Angela could
This is a small town and it’s a great big world
But in my eyes she was a beautiful girl
If that’s what it takes how can we make it right?
She could be your daughter, your sister, your lover,
Broken, invisible, fighting Angela’s fight.
I was home for the summer, bumped into a friend
He said “Angela’s back just to rest and to mend
See she lost so much weight they predicted the end
But if anyone out there can make it, you know Angela can.”
Then I wished I had told her the way I had felt
Could it possibly matter? Could it possibly help?
This is a small town...
You know it wasn’t the drugs or the hard city streets
That finally did Angela in
It was the dance-hall producers selling talent like meat
Pushing fashion and passion and skin.
The footlights are cruel. They make you compete
And God knows nobody wins.
They keep you hungry. On the edge.
They keep you dancing on the ledge
They keep the audience coming saying “give us a spin.”
And they keep you so terribly thin
They keep you so terribly thin
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Like the cherry-smoke of a long-stemmed
Gnarled-root, after-dinner pipe
Houses smolder in the dark
And my footsteps snap and answer
Snap and answer
Through the sound-stage stillness of the night
Off the rooftops and the stars.
And everywhere I need to be tonight
Escapes in vapor from my mouth
Hanging white before my eyes.
My footsteps carry on but I am crystal in the moment
Caught between the pavement and the sky.
At the corner four roads meet to reminisce
In honeysuckle silence
By the stop sign everyone ignores
And two roads go to nowhere
And two roads go to everywhere
I’ve passed this corner up and down
And both ways going home
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If I had a hammer, I’d pretend that I was Thor
Because thunderbolts and lightning are what a hammer’s for
And I would cause the wind to blow and call the rain to pour
In the springtime I would hammer all the ice away to melt
And I would wear it in a holster on my belt
With my tools.
If I had a handsaw I would rosin up my bow
And I’d draw the horsehair back and forth so delicate and slow
Bend those steely teeth to sing a quavering vibrato
Like the superstars of opera so forcible and large
And I would hang it on the wall in my garage
With my tools.
Shiny corkscrew drillbits can make convincing spears
And crowbars are the crows of choice of choosy mutineers
Take me to the hardware store and watch me grind my gears
You can show me any power-tool and I’ll tell you what that’s for
And then we’ll find a carpenter to fix our broken door
But he can use my tools
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