Digital Tradition Mirror

A Thousand Songs

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

A Thousand Songs
  by Bill Steele

I woke up smelling bacon with a pinecone in my side
I stuck my head out in the morning sun
There was one guy fixing breakfast and twenty singing songs
So I knew that breakfast never would get done
I crawled out of my sleeping bag and picked up my guitar
To start the day with coffee and a song
We'd built a singing city underneath the spreading trees
To join it all you do is sing along

  We started in the morning with a hymn to the sun
  We sang through lunch and dinner and we've hardly just begun
  We'll try to sing a thousand songs before this day is done
  And tomorrow there'll be a thousand more

I met a girl down by the fire from a green Missouri farm
She sang a song she said her mother made
She sang about her father and the love he had to give
And I offered her a song of mine in trade
She said she didn't have the time; she had to catch a train
And I feel a little sorry now and then
But when you hear a thousand songs I guess it has to be
There's some that you'll never hear again

A kid came up and said hello and said he knew my name
And he thought my songs were really where it's at
And then he sang a song of his - he said it wasn't much
But I wish that I could write one song like that
They used to say that making songs was only for the few
But we took these old guitars and proved them wrong
For music is a language most anyone can learn
And if you sing then you can write a song

We sang around a lantern when we should have been in bed
And everybody took a turn or two
Whenever one crawled off to sleep, another took his place
And everybody brought in something new
I used to think I knew most every song there was to know
I could sing out any one you cared to call
But now I'd need three lifetimes just to learn what's going round
And if everybody's got a song, then no one's got em all

recorded by Bill Steele on Garbage
SOF

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!