The Hammock Papers: McMurtry

Showing posts with label McMurtry. Show all posts

25 June 2025

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

15 February 2022

James McMurtry, "No More Buffalo"

I never thought they'd ever doubt my words

I guess they were just too tired to care

I'd point to the horizon, to the dust of the herds

Still hovering in the air

Somebody said it ain't any such

Man, you wish so hard you're scaring me

Those are combines kicking up that dust

But I guess you can see what you want to see

You can keep on chasing what used to be there

Top that rise and face the pain

But, man, they were here, they were here I swear

Not just these bleaching bones stretching across the plain

Plug 'er in an' turn 'er up ...

13 September 2019

James McMurtry, "These Things I've Come to Know"

09 March 2019

James McMurtry, "No More Buffalo"

Don't chase that carrot
'Til it makes you sick
What do you think you're gonna prove?
Just let it dangle
'Til it falls off that stick
That's when you make your move

Don't go chasing after shooting stars
Trying to make yourself a name
You could joust at the windmills
With that old Fender guitar
You'd probably do about the same ...

I never thought they'd ever doubt my words
I guess they were just too tired to care
I'd point to the horizon
To the dust of the herds, still hovering in the air
Somebody said it ain't any such
Man, you wish so hard you're scaring me
Those are combines kicking up that dust
But I guess you can see what you want to see
You can keep on chasing what used to be there
Top that rise and face the pain
But man they were here, they were here I swear
Not just these bleaching bones, stretching across the plain

17 March 2018

James McMurtry, "No More Buffalo"

Don't chase that carrot

'Til it makes you sick

What do you think you're gonna prove

Just let it dangle

'Til it falls off that stick

That's when you make your move

07 March 2017

James McMurtry, "Peter Pan"

Let's go chase tornadoes
Just me and you
You don't often catch 'em
But, man, when you do
Just take my catch rope
And crawl out on the wing
We won't come down 'till we own that thing

11 June 2016

James McMurtry, "Forgotten Coast"

31 May 2016

James McMurtry, "Saint Mary of the Woods"

27 April 2016

James McMurtry, "Peter Pan"

Let's go chase tornadoes
Just me and you
You don't often catch 'em,
But, man, when you do ...

14 March 2016

Louis Armstrong & Frank Sinatra, "The Birth of the Blues"

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."