Pixels & Millimeters

We'll need take a little break
And hear about lite beer
The referee will take a look
At what has happened here.

When we return from
A word from our sponsors,
Instant replay will slowly replay
Detailed answers.

CHORUS
The red flag has been dropped.
The balance of the game teeters.
It's no longer fourth and inches.
It's pixels and millimeters.

If the play doesn't get over-ruled
The home crowd will stand and roar.
But until that final word comes back,
Let's play it again once more.

Remember those leather helmets?
We're so much more sophisticated.
We'd hoped the future would clear things up.
Instead, it's pixilatated.

CHORUS

We hold our collective breath
And hold each others' hands
Hands on his hips, the referee says --
The ruling on the field stands.

CHORUS

***

Just found this one hiding in my SoundClick account. One of my first uke songs, and I'm pretty sure I wrote this during a Super Bowl three or four years ago.

Toil and Spin

I've been thinking of the ways
That I have blown the bubbles
of my days

I've been blinking in the gaze
Of the bright & tempting baubles
in my maze

toil & spin
begin again
reap & sow
above & below

I've been toiling in dark mines
My canary soul is caged
And confined

I've been roiling in past minds
Over larks & lovers laughing
All the time


I've been spinning round my heart
A swirling centrifuge pulling
Love apart

I'm beginning a new start
One where I can travel
Off the chart

consider this
inside a wish
there is a bearer
of prayer

05.14.10

Leave This Room

I have a book
I'm gonna read it real soon
Until the day I read it
I'm never gonna leave this room

I have a song
I'm gonna sing it real soon
Until the day I sing it
I'm never gonna leave this room

How can I be so sure
That there is so much more
On the other side of my door?

I have a prayer
I'm gonna pray it real soon
Until the day I pray it
I'm never gonna leave this room


I have a bed
I'm gonna go to sleep soon
And when I go to sleep
You know I'm gonna leave this room

04.11

Uke
D G
G D
F G D

Gm7 A7

(G C
C G
Bb C G

Cm7 D)

Mysterious

She's a lingering breeze
On an August afternoon
Brushing past the wind chimes
Hear that ephemeral tune

And you lean a little closer
And you get a little curious
But she leans a little further away
And stays mysterious.


She's the sudden shower
On a prairie in spring
All the little flowers open
What a fresh smell they bring

And you dance a little closer
And get a little delirious
But she leans a little further away
And stays mysterious.


She's a lilting laughter
On el dia de mi santo
Though nobody knows
You should go light a candle

And you speak so softly
And try to get so serious
But she leans a little further away
And stays mysterious.

03.05
STE-036
Uke
(guitar shapes)
D G C
D G C Am C Am

*

There are two recordings of this song on the jukebox. The uke one was caught just after I wrote it, but the second one was recorded a few weeks later on a reentrant tuned guitar. Normally, a guitar is tuned (from lowest pitch to highest pitch) EADGBe. A reentrant tuned instrument changes things a bit. The reentrant tuning I used is EAdGBe; the fourth string is one octave higher than on the standard tuning for guitar. I took off the fourth string of the guitar and replaced it with an extra first string I had sitting around. Note that capo 5 is used to make it sound at the same pitch as the ukulele. The guitar used is a Yamaha FG110 from the Nixon era.

To hear another tune using this reentrant tuning, please check out The Water Will Hold You.

Toaster Too Short, Bread Too Tall

From February 2009.

I'd bought the uke (a Kala Mahogany Tenor Archtop!) in Jan and started writing songs on it. This was probably one of the first songs I wrote on uke. The tag line actually came from a poster on one of the uke forums. It was just too tempting and too good to let languish in uke forum obscurity -- the uke forum in question isn't defunct, but it did change servers (or whatever) and all the old posts were lost.

One of the greatest thrills I've ever had in my performing life was at a house concert and seeing the Gorman Family Dancers dance an original dance to this song. I wish I had that on video!





Toaster Too Short, Bread Too Tall

My friends call me up and they are worried
But they can't understand, oh no!
Though my toaster's still under warranty
It doesn't toast from head to toe

CHORUS
Toaster too short, bread too tall
Toaster too short, bread too tall
Why I bother getting out of bed at all
When my toaster's too short and my bread's too tall.

There needs to be a standard bread size
To avoid this calamity
The government needs to legislate
This threat to national security


I can overlook the big things in life
But the little things have so many details
If they could only be fixed right now
Every day wouldn't be a living hell.