A Moment A Lifetime - Doug Clegg

Hobo Heading West

Sweet Montana Time

My Gypsy Moon

HOBO HEADING WEST

Words and Music by Douglas Clegg and Mike Lopez

All I have is starlight as I walk this road alone

Covering the rocks and trees, makes it look like snow

There’s no nightbird singing in the silent glen below

Where’s the melody of olden times that leads me home?

This road I’m on has brought me up and just as surely brought me down

There are places I have stumbled and some good things I have found

And there are things that the chains I wear cannot allow

But there are fields that lie fallow that I have yet to plow

If it wasn’t for the bottle I’d have never come this way

And if not for just a little bit of grace I could never have walked away

So tonight I wander looking for what’s next

Hoping that I’ll find a place where I can take some rest

I’ll make my bed of dreams and poems and things that I love best

And I’ll wait for sunrise and a freight train heading west

Sweet Montana Time

Words and music by Douglas Clegg

I hit the ground walking taking my time

Something up here tends to steady my mind

Just to the west of the old Great Divide

Flathead and Kalispell on up the line

I’ll take my time

I’ll take my time my sweet Montana time

There’s a man who builds boats for the stillwater lakes

Thinnest of cedarwood – the lightest of weight

A question of balance – the art of design

Takes a few years – it’s all in good time

He says “I’ll take my time

I’ll take my time

I’ll take my time my sweet Montana time”

The ice cut this valley a long time ago

Thing about glaciers and how they move slow

Thing about time is all that we have

One moment a lifetime a tear and a laugh

And I’ll take my time

I’ll take my time

I’ll take my time – my sweet Montana time

My Gypsy Moon

Words and music by Douglas Clegg

You never know

Think you’re alone and on your own

Some strength comes into you

Like a hand on your shoulder

Like the warmth of a fire

Under the Texas sky at night

Fills you up and let’s you know it’ll be all right

Voice of an angel

Feet of a saint

She’ll walk her talk and tell you

Who she is and what she ain’t

She’ll reach her hand out

To anyone who’s fallen down

And she’ll reach to reel you right back in if you’ve left the ground

Me, I’m the lucky one

As I can plainly see

I give my love to her

And she gives it right back to me

How I feel

Is too big to put in words

She’s a lot of lovely poetry that I have heard

My Gypsy Moon

She’s a whispering wind

All the way there and back again

She can grow a garden

She can pull the weeds

And she can easily make do on less

Than what most people need

She’s an all-time woman

And that’s a fact

She’s never taken nothing without giving back

COMING HOME AGAIN

Words and Music by Douglas Clegg

Clegg Yolk Music/ASCAP

I’m coming home again

But I’m changed by the places I’ve been

All the faces I’ve seen

And the work that I’ve done

Helped me become what I am

I traveled far this time

And I learned that the heart does go on

And that misery and pain

Can’t just be washed away

Like houses by buckets of rain

I’m coming home again

But the bridge is so rusty and old

And the water’s so high

And the river’s too wide

And what I’ll find I don’t really know

But I’m coming home again

What is mine remains

I have all that I need to get by

This life that I’ve got

Is much more than I thought

But nothing ever stays the same

I’m coming home again

But I’m changed by the places I’ve been

All the faces I’ve seen

And the work that I’ve done

Helped me become what I am

I’m coming home again

Reptile Baby Blues

words and music by Douglas Clegg

A7 E

Crocks and ’gators are my next of kin

A7 E

Crocks and ’gators are my next of kin

B7 E

I’m a reptile baby, I love that scaly skin

Snakes and lizards are my good friends too

We all come from eggs, sho’ nuf love that barbecue

Dinosaurs live in my family tree

Got a T-rex uncle, watch what you sayin’ to me

Some gots shells, some slither, some have feet

Find us slinkin’ round, from the jungle to the street

Best beware, we all got sharp white teeth

If you lift up a rock, I might be waiting underneath

Don’t treat me mean just ’cause my blood runs cold

I’m a reptile baby, way down to my soul

(Inspired by the children of Arts and Cultural Enrichment Summer Camp, Arroyo Grande, California, June 2004)

America

Words and Music by Douglas Clegg

America

My country ‘tis of thee

We learned all the songs

And we sang of liberty

I was only eight years old

JFK fell

They said it was a magic bullet

But Eisenhower did foretell

And it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way

Vietnam

We had to fight the Viet Cong

More than fifty thousand died

Those that didn’t don’t belong

I was just a bit too young

They said I was caught up in the times

They maybe don’t notice

All the Vietnam vets with the cardboard signs

And it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way

I still believe that the day will come

We’ll stand together and take back the night

Until then there is work to be done

Keep the vigil, hold the light

Nine-eleven

New York City and the Pentagon

That clear morning

Too many systems all went wrong

Three thousand stories

Forty-seven columns of three-foot steel

In dust and rubble

And the broken hearts that cannot heal

And it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way

Twenty-twenty

A year we won’t forget

Fascists and racists

It’s not over yet

I remember different times

People had a voice

We marched to end the war

And to give a woman choice

‘Cause it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way

TURN AND RUN

words and music by Douglas Clegg

With my feet on the ground and my head held high

I walked into town just to see if I

Could get me a job working on the line

I told them I’d even work overtime

But the man said “Boy, we don’t need your kind”

He wouldn’t even raise his eyes to mine

Said to me, “Look, don’t waste my time”

So I turned and I left him far behind

I hired on as a railroad hand

Travelled all across the land

In time I came to understand

That winning ain’t what makes the man

I took up with an old Chinaman

We headed south to the Rio Grande

We got us a pick and a couple of pans

And we looked for gold in the river sand

Rising with the sun

Work till day is done

Don’t sound much like fun

Got to turn and run

The days were long and we worked like slaves

And dreamed of the tales of fortunes made

Each week we’d go into town to trade

And wait with hope as the dust was weighed

Barely earned enough to keep us paid

Not a peso to spend I mean to say

We never got lucky and we never hit pay

But we kept it up from day to day

Then one day as the sun sank low

I dipped in a pool to cool my toe

My head was turned by a yellow glow

That held my gaze like a girlie show

I let out a whoop and I yelled “Hello!”

That echoed all through Mexico

That vein ran deep in the stone below

And me and Chiang were now in the dough

Lazing in the sun

Play ‘til day is done

Don’t it sound like fun

Not to turn and run

In time I rode back through the plain

In a private coach on a railroad train

Came to the town where the man remained

That wouldn’t even give me the time of day

I tipped my hat as I sipped champagne

Saw the man with his life gone down the drain

Stuck in a life that was so mundane

If that was me I’d go insane

Rising with the sun

Work till day is done

Never has no fun

Got to turn and run

FILL MY THIRST

words and music by Douglas Clegg

Lord fill my thirst for a love that grows sweeter with time

Open my heart to the light in her eyes as they shine

Give me to her as a gift of her love realized

And make us a life that will ripen like fruit on the vine

Lord fill my days with the freedom to be what I feel

And to say what I may, as long as what I say is real

Give me the strength to be true to my own ideals

And the wisdom to wait till I know what each moment reveals

Lord fill my purse with only the coins that I need

Teach me to give, and never to suffer from greed

As I let it go, it flows like a logjam that’s freed

The farmer who sows has an endless supply of new seed

Lord fill my life with the peace that I know why I’m here

Keep my mind free from the darkness of worry and fear

The truth is easy to see when I keep my head clear

Give me the grace to accept when it’s truth that I hear