Memory Lane of Music

This poem consists of lyrics taken from various artists through-out the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and into the year 2008. Really a history lesson of our country's people and how things really have not changed all that much in the last forty years, since the summer of love, 1967.

Sometimes my mind takes a walk down that memory lane of music that wants to hold my hand as the lyrics sing joy to the world, all the boys and girls, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me, ‘cause the world is black, the world is white, together we learn to share the light, as music is being played on street corners real good for free…

Janis Joplin screaming to “go ahead and break another little piece of my heart”, and another singing go ahead people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together; try to love one another right now. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it seems as though they’re here to stay, and while I’m away, I’ll write home every day, and send all my lovin to you…eight days a week.

Where have all the flowers gone when their seeds are blowing in the wind and the young girls gone to husbands to soldiers to graveyards to flowers again and the song asks how many times must a man look up before he sees the sky, how many lives will it take 'till he knows, too many people have died…

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, breaking up the scenery, breaking my mind, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign…

As Simon and Garfunkel are at the railway station, with a ticket for their destination, suitcase and guitar in hand, the makings of a one man band, wishing they were homeward bound in the sounds of silence. And the prophet’s words are most definitely written on our subway walls and tenant halls…

I am the egg man, I am the walrus, ku ku ku chu…I’m crying over you, and imagine there is no religion and no country too, nothing to live or die for, just a brother/sisterhood of man living in peace for today. And the wheel goes round and round in the circle of life. In the dangling conversations and the superficial sighs that are the borders of our lives.

‘Cause we could have been more than a name on the door on the thirty-third floor in the air, more than a credit card, swimming pool in the back yard. Instead we pave paradise, put up a parking lot, taking the red apples , and the birds and the bees, and I really don’t want to see all the trees in a museum and pay a dollar and half just to them, with a world full of shooting stars that die too young and live too fast, like the day the music died, singing bye, bye miss American pie, he drove his Chevy to levy but the levy was dry, and the good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing, this will be the day that I die…

People are strange, when you’re a stranger, faces really look ugly when you’re alone, humans seem wicked when you’re unwanted, for have you ever let your lover see the stranger in your self? And do you hear the last call for the poverty train, as the shiny street will let you get your beat on tricks and trash, as it all comes and goes, so that you can see yourself split, become funky, wondering why you were born, cause you started today, but who cares anyway, for they all just surrey down to a stone cold picnic, where there will be trains of laughter, and beautiful music all mixed in with sassafras and honey, to surrey down.

It’s time we stopped, hey what’s that sound, everyone look what’s goin' down. A thousand people in the street, what a field day for the heat, people carrying signs, singing hurray for our side, but nobody is right if everybody is wrong. Some old man is telling me how to run my life, but he can’t even run his own life, and I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine. How much does it cost? I’ll buy it. The meaning may be lost, I’ll find it…

But don’t worry, be happy, everybody’s happy, everybody’s free, we’ll keep the big door open, everyone will come around, but why are you different, why are you that way, you better get in line or we’ll lock you away, 'cause it all comes down to nothing…with too many choices, watching 'the pig' dressed in his finest fine, standing right in front of you with a bomb in his hands, as all the believers stand behind him and smile as the sky lights up with fire…WAKE UP!

All we really need is love, love is all we need, so let us give peace a chance, 'cause that’s all we are saying, for human as to human, the future is no place to place your better days. The things you might have done, but you might die trying…Cry freedom, cry, for in this universe of justice, the eyes of truth are always watching you. It’s time to return to innocence. To change the world all it takes is one step, once you get your gait, you’ll be walking tall, for you learn to live when you begin to give.