Lyrics - Martin Gilmore | Martin Gilmore

LYRICS - Martin Gilmore

Songs:

1. Won't You Come Home

2. Jenny and Jackson

3. Hard Times and Lonesome Memories

4. Laura Lee

5. Bottomland

6. Make a Home

7. Old Time

8. Don't Talk About Hard Times

9. Lost Alone in Your Love

10. Caroline

11. Streets of New York

12. Southbound

Won't You Come Home

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Hey there brother you know who this is?
How are things going? How are the kids?
I hope that you’re all doing fine
We miss you all a lot around here
So I was calling to see if you could make it this year
Please don’t say you can’t find the time

You know that dad’s been sad since mother died
And he’s getting older health is starting to slide
And he asked me if I’d talked to you recently
I told him I had but you know I lied
That’s why I called you tonight
To see if you could make it back here this year

CHORUS

Hey there brother what do you say are you gonna come home this year
Don’t you know that you ain’t been home since mother died
I don’t know what else to say but you know that dad he’s in a bad way
And I know that he’d love to see you again before he crosses to the other side.

I know that we had our fights
and you and dad crossed maybe once or twice
but you know that he still loves you despite it all
He’s been thinking a lot about his past
And his mind is fading pretty fast
And I think he’d like to talk before it’s gone

If you want me to apologize I will
Can’t believe that we’re fighting still
Don’t even remember what it was about
Hate to have to call you and beg
But I told him I’d ask and I can’t go back
And tell him that you said no

Won’t you come home
Won’t you come home

CHORUS

Jenny and Jackson

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Jenny and Jackson they fell in love
Somewhere in a cabin by the glow of a stove
Somewhere in the mountains in the weeks before the spring
Before the mountain tulips bloomed and the birds began to sing

They spent each night together keeping form the cold
They spent each day surviving, feeding their stove
Jackson went out hunting and Jenny kept him fed
And every night they’d sing a song before they went to bed

CHORUS

And the lyrics flowed like fire, it kept them safe and warm
The music seemed from heaven sent, and lent shelter from the storm
They stayed right there together keeping from the cold
That’s how Jackson and Jenny fell so deeply in love

The winter had come early no one was prepared
The river was frozen solid and a north wind froze the air
She’d come down from the highlands blinded by the snow
She didn’t know how she’d found the way to Jackson’s door

She’d run out of food and water, her roof began to fall
She couldn’t keep her fire lit so she went to face the storm
She felt a hand to guide her and followed where it led
To Jackson’s tiny cabin, in the mountain woods

CHORUS

Now it’s been four years and twenty since the winter of that storm
Since Jackson and Jenny fell so deeply in love
Since the town folks found the cabin and the fire that had died
And found Jackson frozen and Jenny by his side

But now up on the mountain in the weeks before the spring
All the birs are silent but you’ll still hear something sing
Some say it’s the crickets, some say it’s the wind
I say it’s two lovers, safe in a cabin

CHORUS

Hard Times and Lonesome Memories

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

It used to be the easy life the way that I lived
Always got something back for what I would give
But then you left me blue as could be
Baby you left me

CHORUS

Nothing but
Hard times and lonesome memories
It’s been so long since you were next to me
Hard luck seems to follow me around
Since you left me all alone

I used to have a home not just these old empty rooms
I sang happy songs not lonesome old tunes
I used to have someone I could tell anything
Baby you left me

CHORUS

I know I was happy once in the past
Thought I had something I knew that could last
I use to smile and it wasn’t show
Now I feel like I’ve known

CHORUS

Laura Lee

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

I set forth from Liverpool in the spring of thirty-nine

I sailed on a merchant trip aboard the good ship Caroline

Seven years I signed to sail and live upon the sea

I left my home in Liverpool and my dearest Laura Lee

Every night upon this ship I dream of her golden hair

I think of her heavenly smile her face so fine and fair

Every night upon this ship I dream of Laura Lee

And think of her so far away and if she'll wait for me

CHORUS

So hoist the sails and set a course to carry me o'er the blue

I'm headed back to Laura Lee, and my home in Liverpool

I've sailed all the seven seas seen wonders far and wide

But nothing's like how I feel when Laura's by my side

Oh someday I'll be home again across the shining sea

And once again be in the arms of my dearest Laura Lee

CHORUS

Bottomland

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

It hasn’t rained in the bottomland you can hear the farmers cry
If we don’t get a storm soon the crops will turn brown and die
I can’t feel sorry for them though their crops are going dry
Cause they own a farm with bottom land and I’m on a hillside

Clearing rocks out one by one to make some soil to grow
A few things to feed ourselves and sell in the town below
But it takes so long to get them there on the trip they wilt and dry
Before we can even get them there they’re nothing anyone would buy

And I’ve heard them talk about me as I plow the rocky soil into a row
I’ve seen them sit and watch me as they rest on their porches below
What they don’t seem to understand while they’re watching me
Is the farther up the mountain the harder life seems to be

I’ve seen their precious soil plowed into a fertile brown
Surrounded by the green green grass on the road into the town
Their fancy houses whitewashed their barns of bloody red
While the dirt around my shack is as gray as the dead

If I could get some bottomland and acre for my plow
I could work half as hard and get twice as much as now
I could get it into town and sell it on the street
And still have time to spend at home with my family

And I’ve heard them talk about me as I come down to the town
His crops are dry and old and bad why does he even bother to come down
If I could get some bottomland make life easier for me
The higher on the mountain the harder life seems to be

And I’ve heard them talk about me as I plow the rocky soil into a row

I’ve seen them sit and watch me as they rest on their porches below

What they don’t seem to understand while they’re watching me

Is the farther up the mountain the harder life seems to be

Make a Home

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Seven, that’s how old she was following a wagon through the sand
From Amarillo to New Mexico that’s the way they traveled back then
It was nineteen fifteen and her family was struggling headed west to chase the hope of a dream
To the land of enchantment hoping the best would happen along with their family
She told me when I was younger “Son the way that you make it through
Keep your nose pointed to the brightest horizon keep your feet falling and rising
Don’t worry about what you left back east you won’t get nowhere if you don’t move your feet
You know, that’s how you make it home.”

She weren’t no lazy twenty something wishing for the best
She was a child of northern Texas her home always was the west
She never graduated, didn’t call herself educated, she just trying to make it thru
She told when I was younger “Son the future depends on you
Life is easier so new hard times seem harder to everyone
People are too selective; they have no perspective harder things have been done
There’s been too much given, to much careless living, to much wrapped up in the things we own
You’ve got to let it go, that’s how you make a home”

She married young by the standards today raised twin girls in the hardest times
Her husband built roads and the Horsetooth dam and trapped coyotes to make a life
Twelve years her daughters were in school was never in the same one more than eight months
The lived in trailers and stone wall houses sometimes their floors were dust
She told me “Son don’t you ever regret, take any break you ever can get
Happiness isn’t dollars and cents, hard times came and hard times went
But you can’t build a life out of money and stone you build it from love
And that’s how you make a home”

Old Time

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

What's wrong with taking it slow
Sitting on a bench by some country road
Just sitting there watching the old wind blow
Talking to people as they come and go
Sometimes I wonder who would survive
if all our gadgets and gizmos just up and died
and we were left with candles and firelight
fiddles and banjos instead of Tv's late night

CHORUS

Old time, these days they're calling iot old school
Maybe I'm just an old fool
Who wants something to hold
These days, everything's moving at a fast pace
Rocking and a grooving
Can't keep up with the change
So I'm taking it slow

So much to want we forget what we need
we're moving way faster than an average speed
Stuck in a gridlock wanting the best
living with worry and dying of stress
So much to do it will go to your head
Can't stop now you can sleep when you're dead
Take some time to take it in
Trust your neighbors and love your friends

CHORUS

Time told with faces and hands
Dinner made in a pot or a pan
Instead of stuck in a wrapper and made to be fast
we have things to recycle but not to last
The snap and the crackle of an old LP
Movies on a reel not a DVD
It's too hot I'll just stay in
No time to walk I'll just go to the gym

CHORUS

Don't Talk About Hard Times

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Well the wind would blow the fields away in clouds tall as the sun
Sweep across the western plains and settle in the lungs
Of the ones who tried their best to make a living from the land
And the earth on which they hoped to live would end up killing them
Don’t cry about hard times
You ain’t seen no hard times before

So they’d build a little shack of wood a floor that’s made of dust
And the little that they worked to save they’d put in a bank and trust
And through the drought, through storms, those blizzards black as night
They’d assure themselves they will survive come the end of ‘29

Don't cry about hard times

You ain't seen no hard times before

So Frankie came and saw the pain the country suffered through
The farmers in Tennessee got electricity and food
The TVA the CCC Security for the old
But none needed more or suffered more than the one’s in the dust bowl

Don't cry about hard times

you ain't seen no hard times before

And so he said, and so he sang, and so he told us all
This land is ours and when it’s gone the rest of us will fall
He told their stories, he felt their pain and he said how to survive
And somehow they came through what was the worst of the hard times

Don't cry about hard times

You ain't seen no hard times before

Lost Alone in Your Love

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

If you’ve ever been lost somewhere

Well, then you’ll know exactly how I feel today

Course I ain’t really lost

Gotta know where yer going first to get that way

I guess that makes me a rambler riding on the plains

And lately I been a thinking I’d come home again

Then I find I’m lost in your love

If you’ve ever been lost somewhere

Trying to find someone to find you

You’ll know what I mean

Sweetheart I miss you,

But I’m scared of coming home to you.

Cause I’ve been gone for so long

And I think that coming home would be wrong

I’m lost alone in your love

So I’ll just keep ambling round this open range

Sleeping neath the stars thinking of you again

Should I come home or should I stay away

Honey I love you still, but I’m still to lost to say

I’m coming home, I’m lost alone in your love

If you’ve ever been lost somewhere

You’ll do anything to find your way

So I guess I should try

Sorry I hurt you so,

I guess We’ll come find our home

I hope you staid

I’ve always been a rambler, ambling on the western plains

But I’m headed back to the Kentucky mountains to be with you again

And maybe I’ll get lost in your love

Caroline

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Caroline, We never saw California
We never walked hand in hand
On some moonlit beach
We never fell in love, Never had a romance in Paris
And soon you were gone
And we were out of reach

Caroline I know we had our moments
There were times I think we knew
We were closer than that
Oh and me, I wish I was in Oklahoma
On the road back to you
Back when there was a chance

CHORUS

Caroline, I miss you so
I miss you more than you could ever hope to know
You are my girl, the sweetest in the world
Oh Caroline

Caroline, I can’t help but love you
And I’ve tried to let you go
Because you’re gone
And It’s on my mind the night that you kissed me
The one night you were mine
Out on my lawn

There was a halo, round your head
You are an angel but I never said
Caroline, I love you I need you
Oh Caroline I do

CHORUS

Streets on New York

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

I sailed west across the ocean

My destination was New York

I enlisted in the army in time to fight the Civil War

I didn’t have a reason

No particular side or cause

Except I was starving to death on the streets of New York

And that’s the only job there was

I fought on the fields at Antietam

And the hills of Gettysburg

Along the banks of the river at Shiloh

And I watched Atlanta burn

And when it all was over

And the country took it’s rest

I stayed in the army and the army sent me west

CHORUS

But I didn’t leave my homeland to die upon the plains

I didn’t join the army to be sleeping in the rain

I know I don’t belong here

At this distant western Fort

But I suppose that it’s better than starving to death

On the streets of New York

The dawn just lit the morning

Two weeks on the march

We heard a cry from the south of the camp

And the Indians made their charge

The men all made the scramble

But it was to no avail

I got separated from the rest of the group

As we followed the Indians trail

I’ve been twelve days lost upon the range I hope someone finds me soon

I can hear a lonely desert wolf howling at a harvest moon

I’m lost alone and hungry there’s storm clouds to the north

And I can’t help but wish that I was back in New York

CHORUS

[First verse]

Southbound

By: Arthel "Doc" Watson & Merle Watson

I’ve been here a month or more stuck in this old city

People have to call it home, they’re the ones I pity

Oh lord I’m homesick, and the blues is all the songs I ever seem to pick

I get out and walk the street, til I get blisters on my feet, I’m southbound

I’m alright til late at night I’m setting by my window

Counted sheep but couldn’t sleep for listening to that train blow

I begin to pine, when I hear that big old engine rolling down the line

I’m a going back to spend some time where I can have fun when I ain’t got a dime, I’m Southbound

South Bound she’s burning the ground and I don’t mean maybe

Sure am glad I caught this train cause I wanna see my baby

I been lonesome, long to see those hills that I come from

Listen to the engine rattle and roar, taking me back home once more, I’m southbound

I’ve been here a month or more stuck in this old city

People have to call it home, they’re the ones I pity

Oh lord I’m homesick, and the blues is all the songs I ever seem to pick

I get out and walk the street, til I get blisters on my feet

I’m a going back to spend some time where I can have fun when I ain’t got a dime

Listen to the engine rattle and roar, taking me back home once more