Lyr Add: Bones (Libby Roderick)

Subject: Lyr Add: BONES (Libby Roderick)
From: Barbara
Date: 28 May 09 - 04:02 PM

BONES
(Libby Roderick)

I come from a long line of dead people
I come from a tall pile of bones
My people lie sleeping all under the world
Their souls turn to roots leaves and stones

My grandpa went by whiskey in an LA hotel
His dad died of Ohio coal
And before him and before that they slipped under the ground
Fewer bones walk above than below

My great grandmother's eyes look out of my face
Her skinny bones dance around in my clothes
You can almost hear the whisper of her sweet southern song
In this voice I've been calling my own.

A toast to the living
Watch us walk down the aisle
So these bones can be married
To this flesh for a while
A song, a song for the living
Though this flesh worries when
These bones will be leaving
To join family again...

Repeat first verse.

I love this. It's sort of a bluesy song, slow, sycopated and wailing, like a New Orleans dirge. It's on a couple of her CDs, I got it from "Lay It All Down". Song is also syncopated enough that I don't think I can transcribe it.
When I heard her in concert, she said living with the Alaska native peoples gave her a different understanding of what family and relations and being alive meant, and some of that went into this song.
She is best known for her four line song "How Could Anyone Ever Tell You..."
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Bones, by Libby Roderick
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 May 09 - 10:44 AM

Thanks for posting, Barbara. It's a one-of-a-kind song, that's for sure.