Subject: Lyr Add: MAYBE YOU HEARD and DARBY'S CASTLE
From:
Dave'sWife
Date: 18 May 07 - 10:04 AM
The tribute album has Pilgrim Chapter 33 on it covered by Emmylou Harris. It's a terrific song and never gets old. Whenever I hear it, I can think of a new person in my life that it describes to a "T"
My current favorite song from the tribute CD is 'Maybe Your Heard' which is sung by Todd Snider. The lyrics are some of Kristofferson's biting best - it's about people who turn away from friends and family when they're on their way down, or more likely an exhortation to get the listner to not to turn away. The lyrics are wonderful but as with all kristofferson songs, the melody makes them even better:
MAYBE YOU HEARD
by Kris Kristofferson
Verse 1
Maybe youve heard, your ole buddys gone crazy
Searching for words, too deep, sweet reason and rhyme
Living alone, more and more and hes prone to be lazy
Turning to stone, blasted and blind.
Chorus:
Dont turn away there, hey, goddamn you,
he was your brother
Turn on your father, sister, mother, brother
He was your friend.
Dont you condemn him, leave it to strangers
You ought to know him, give him a hand, if you can
But at least for jesus christs sake, understand him.
Verse 2
Maybe youve heard that they say that the ladys been changing
Day after day, more than her mind
Learning to play, where the part has her turning to strangers
Going too far, line after line.
Chorus:
Dont turn away there - hey - goddamn you,
you used to love her
Turn on your father, sister, mother, mister
She was your friend.
Dont you condemn her, leave it to strangers
You ought to know her, give her a hand, if you can
But at least for jesus christs sake, understand her.
The rest of the CD is pretty great but it has some bad missteps such as the failed R&B version of 'Me & Bobby McGee' by Brian Mcknight and the unoriginal cover of 'Why Me' by Shawn Camp. 'Why Me' was so perfect in its original form that covering it as a direct copy of KK's style is always a bad risk. It works well live, but why record it if you aren't going to do something special with it like say, for example, Johnny' Cash's sparse cover it towards the end of his life.
Here are the lyrics for Darby's Castle which I mentioned in an above post:
DARBY'S CASTLE
by Kris Kristofferson
Verse 1
See the ruin on the hill, where the smoke is hanging still,
Like an echo of an age long forgotten.
There's a story of a home, crushed beneath those blackened stones,
And the roof that fell before the beams were rotten.
Cecil Darby loved his wife, and he laboured all his life,
To provide her with material possessions.
And he built for her a home of the finest wood and stone.
And the building soon became his sole obsession.
Chorus
Oh, it took three-hundred days, for the timbers to be raised,
And the silhouette was seen for miles around.
And the gables reached as high as the eagles in the sky,
But it only took one night to bring it down,
When Darby's castle tumbled to the ground.
Verse 2
Though they shared a common bed, there was precious little said,
In the moments that were set aside for sleepin'.
For his busy dreams were filled with the rooms he'd yet to build,
And he never heard young Helen Darby weeping.
Then one night he heard a sound, as he laid his pencil down,
And he traced it to her door and turned the handle.
And the pale light of the moon through the window of the room,
Split the shadows where two bodies lay entangled.
Chorus
Oh, it took three-hundred days, for the timbers to be raised,
And the silhouette was seen for miles around.
And the gables reached as high as the eagles in the sky,
But it only took one night to bring it down,
When Darby's castle tumbled to the ground.
Another really beautiful melody is the one for his song 'The Circle' which is covered by Columbian folk singer Marta Gomez. I wish I could find the lyrics so I can figure out if the song is about The Disappeared or some other horrible tragedy. Anyone have the lyrics or the backstory to that song?
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