Earthwords and Music

Side 1

• (Good Old Electric) Washing Machine (Circa. 1943)
  • 2:07
• Love Song in 2/4 Time
  • 1:34
• Daytime of Life
  • 5:19
• Whose That
  • 1:50
• There Are No Fools in Heaven (Anyman's Inferno)
  • 4:27
• Earthwords
  • 1:40

• Gentle On My Mind
  • 3:00
• Naked in Spite of Myself
  • 3:05
• How Come You're Being So Good to Me
  • 2:03
• No End of Love
  • 3:18
• Left Handed Woman
  • 1:36
• Baking Soda
  • 1:36

Liner Notes

Earthwords

This white jacket is really black except
for the white areas
acknowledging these words
and the black areas
that define the white . . .
the black and white so depend on each other
Sound cannot be sound
unless it is acknowledged by silence
the "is" and the "isn't"
so depend on each other
A soul doesn't really feel it is a soul
until some other soul
acknowledges awareness of its presence . . .
people so depend on each other
Escaping from indifference
and possessed of a basic natureal showmanship
we each try to prove we exist
during our short journey to the grave . . .
searching for love and hate . . .
that we may confront them and hear them say
either "you is" or
"you ain't" . . . then at least we know
"we are"

Loneliness can be a wonderful thing
it can turn you on with the beautifully
terrifying confusion of things
as your sense of alone expands
into itself . . . and then explodes
reeling in cartwheels
through endless skyways of the mind
but
loneliness
in all it loneliness
cannot exist by itself

I never did say i was from anywhere
'less it was just from my mommy's tummy
and i never did say i was goin' anywhere
'less it was just over yonder
but then someday i'll wind up in the
tummy of mommy earth

In my meandering i sometimes wonder
what it would be like to peel off
all this chrome veneer of society
unhang everybody and EVERYBODY
stand around in their old bones and stringy
muscle fibers and see
if we can find out what "understanding"
really is . . .
millions of extras in some gigantic movie
where there are no stars . . . or
elements in some huge joke
where laughter is secondary only to love
but
did anybody hear the punch line?

the more you scratch
the more you itch
and
the more you itch
the more you scratch
some people scratch their arms
with needles
and their throats with pills
their eyeballs with colors
their eardrums with tones
and we all scratch love
(or hate)
in one way or another
i scratch banjo strings
(among other things)
and pieces of paper
with an old stub of a pencil
and
the more i scratch
the more it itches


Nashville, Tennessee

LSP-3796
Released: 1967

---

Roll Back

John's Home