Old Man Luedecke - Hinterland

I quit my Job

Oh bright minds of poverty
Hold on to your heart won liberties
And discard your store bought realities

Don’t let them take, the joy that you make
On your own

Work when you need to maybe
Don’t let ‘em bleed you baby
They do nothing more than feed you lady

Don’t let them take, the joy that you make
On your own

Don’t fuss, don’t fight it no
Take that wrong and right it ho
Can always live on rice and potatoes
Take your heart’s candle and relight it

I quit my Job,
I’m free today

Should be proud of where I am
All my friends work their dreams with their hands
And truly this is the promised land

Don’t kill yourself about making it
Just be takin it easy but be takin it
There’s enough out there who are fakin it

Don’t let them take, the joy that you make
On your own

Roustabout

Watching the traffic go
Watching the traffic go
In fits and starts I will make a big heart
Watching the traffic go

I used to live in my head
I used to live in my head
The more I looked at fear, the more I found was there
Now I make a big big heart

Gonna grab a girl, gonna live right round the world
Gonna do more than our part
When our race is run in beauty and in fun
They’ll crown us the King and Queen of Heart
We’ll crown ourselves the King and Queen of Heart

Watching my 20’s go
Watching my 20’s go
Keep my youth from the grave, I’ll never be a slave
I will have a big big heart

At the Airport

The static of our phonecalls
Comes crumbling down like brick walls
And you’re so beautiful I can barely see you

It’s like we’ve never touched
Kisses long but rushed
And your cheeks have never seemed so serene

At the airport there are kisses there that cannot be believed
At the airport there are kisses there whose memory never leaves

In the baggage line,
We’re in another time
But mostly all we can really say is “Hey”
I get to take you home,
Where we can be alone
It’s better than any Christmas Day

Cemetaries Downtown

I like the cemetaries downtown
That’s where I take my sinking thoughts to drown
And when it rains on the gravestones, the moss is all around
And it covers marks on me I’ve never found

Death lies under a grassy sheath
Blades planted there like questions of belief
Usually I’m too trapped to think what stars I am beneath
Oh for one ghostly sign that I could reach

Oh Lord I’m a mile beyond the moon, mile beyond the moon I know
Oh Lord I’m a mile beyond the moon, and I don’t see no sign of you

Sometimes they’ll drive away my gloom
It’s like the citie’s most natural bedroom
And I’ve heard music coming from the stones
Guitar picker doing it for the bones

Quiet Creek

Here in bed
And our love’s been fed
The traffic sounds don’t make it up the stairs
I’m in a place
Just beyond your face
Where a small creak runs beneath the soft eye of the moon

A mossy bed
Is where my love is led
Thirst quenched and city life unlearned
It’s hot in June
And hotter in this room
But I’m so near peace by the cool creek’s gloom

I remember pretty clear
The year we spent up there
And you my love flew higher than the sun
I heard this from
The raven’s tongue
About an eagle whose hunger came to town
“He showed up there
Had ‘em all scared
So hold onto peaceful boy and hold it when it comes”

My quiet creek
Your stormy cheeks
The city lost on a Friday afternoon

Wrong side of the country

In Vancouver, I bury my youth here
End of the road come, my eyes were wide and blind

I tried to live in, the myths I’ve given
My imagination since I was eight or nine

That I’m a rambler, true love handler
Running on the fuel of music and wine

By downtown fountains, I laid me down by mountains
I laid me down to sleep and when I sleep I cry

I’m on the wrong side of the country
On the wrong side of my mind
On the wrong side of the country my love
And man, I am hard to find

Guess I’m no traveller, I’m a soul unraveller
But living in me is a map of the country

Made miscalculations on the size of nations
But when the cold winds blow you can’t sleep out at night

So I sit here broke down, in flat near Chinatown
Waiting for tea, wondering why when I speak I cry

Mysteries You can’t even Hide

Thought I’d make a plan
To become a man
And we could dance to the beat of your kicking belly
But dammit I’m so scared
of my frail dreams and money cares
And what if I’m the broken tyrant of the family
But I see you sit and cry and know the reason why
You’ve got mysteries you can’t even hide

In these latter days, ambition in the way
What do we really profit by delay
So you shall have your garden and cottage by the sea
The cradle rocking merrily
I hear it in your voice
I know I have no choice
I will give you a child

Hard times but there’s more love,
See the young family walking slowly through it all
I will give you a child
You’ve got mysteries you can’t even hide

Banjo Underground

Ratlling through a prison of introspection
From the smallest cell can spread the whole infection
For I’m not one to push it all aside
I am one to hurt and to hide

I read the book of Psalms by David
I sometimes feel exactly the way that he did
I am no man I am a worm he cried
If I said it brought me comfort I’d have lied

Here are notes from the banjo underground
Here is the worm behind the sound
When I find my little light you know I’ll let it shine
Mostly a question of Time

And it’s nobody’s fault but mine
When I’m happy I don’t prepare for other times
I’ve worried holes in my heart that will not mend
Wish I didn’t hurt my friends

I’m a Rich Man

I am a rich man /My money is my own
I keep it safe at home /In a drawer with my clothes
Where no one ever knows

When I go out walking /Little coins I sow
In the couches that I know /From the holes in my clothes
They jingle as they go

I am a rich man /I am a rich man
No banker or dishman

My girl goes around /To the couches where I’ve been
She digs down deep therein /Makes the washers and
dryers spin /The cycle starts again

Joy of Cooking

In uncertain hours our forebears looked
To the more certain power of the Holy Good Book
They opened up a verse then they read out the Word
There was the voice of God and the answer that they heard

As for me I’ve a less oracular bent
Spend most of my time
Wondering where my time was spent
But in particular desperation on a Sunday afternoon
When all I held as good in life was in some random swoon

I opened up a book, on the shelf near my Bible
Opened up a book for culinary survival
I took a look in The Joy of Cookin’
Joy of Cookin’ oh! Why? Oh!
If I’m not mistaken, the answer’s bacon
Answer’s bacon oh! Why? Oh!

So I went and got my frying pan and cooked about a pound
Me and my little wife and children sat us down
Grace was spoken in that bacon scent profound
All I had and lost was found

Hinterland

Taking all troubles through the downtown fields of wheat
Heart swells with strangeness of strangers on the street
To make love the city all I can do is eat
In revolving romance for the world at my feet

In spite of all the traffic we all know the good weather
I walk in childish clothing and dream of purple heather
Tweedy thriftstore pockets full of poets I think never
Let a bit of poverty harden hearts to leather

I will find the Hinterland
One that feeds and grows
Keep to the outside that all men know
Fashion a crown out of dead grass and snow
I will find the Hinterland

I love lists of provisions of the gold rush men up North
What pure bread from fifty pounds of flour must come forth
I eat as much bacon and beans for what it might be worth
I need communion with hardship past for the asphalt on my earth