Reservation Girl (song)

words and music by Larry Nicholson


she’s a weapon of destruction
She’s my worst best friend
I give her all I got and then I do it again
I build the fire for you baby
I’m running all the way around the world
you got me disappearin’ mama
you reservation girl

I wanna be her caddy
I’m her love dump truck
gave her daddy all my horses she don’t give a fuck
just a round-dancin’ fool
we’re dancing all the way around the world
get yer mercy on baby,
reservation girl

she stays out all night
shuts the road house town
I was easy pickings baby
hitchin' in from town
I ain’t smoking signals
no I’m talking to you
she lookin right through me
everything I do…

she’s a satellite shooting
through my nighttime sky
I’d be a bigger man but all I do is cry
I’m digging in a hole
She’s running all the way around the world
I keep digging deeper
For my reservation girl…


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

I Thought Of You (song)

words and music by Larry Nicholson


I was still a boy when you made me a man
Didn’t know it then but now I understand
I thought of you (I thought of you)
Like the gambler rolling straight sevens
I see brown eyes half on their way to heaven
And I thought of you I thought of you
Now I dream the dreams of heroes and kings
And I’ve been a fool for lesser things
I know this love’s true ‘cause I thought of you

For the first time this morning I felt awake
When next we meet on that hill all the love I take
I take for you…it’s all for you
Now in my sleep I laugh out loud
When I’m on the street I’m walking proud
‘cause I’m with you I’m with you
I’ve come to believe in this miracle we’ve started
Never again to be broken hearted
It all came true ‘cause I thought of you

We come and we go hand in hand
Over the water across the sand
And I’m with you…I found you
In light of day we see love shine
The kisses we share sweet red wine
I’ll be true…be true to you
And now the wind never blows cold
Dark never threatens, it’ll never take hold
It’s all coming true cause I thought of you…


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

East Van Nightmare (song)

words and music by Larry Nicholson

last night in an east van nightmare
time for one last score
looked hard but there’s no one out here
nobody here no more
might be a thief but you just can’t steal it
can’t find the key
might be in love but you just can’t feel it
looks like her love is leaving me

an indian warrior asleep in the cellar
can’t see the soldiers coming through
so many things that I wanted to tell her
i'll never know if she wanted me to
only bloodshot bugs knew my name here
like waiting for the flood
a cruel wind blew hard through my life, dear
like winter in my blood

no place for you to run to (baby)
no place to hide
when the music stops you go crazy
you’re gone like the tide

now one soft and velvet morning
went down to the sea
at Jericho I was born again
embraced the mystery
the sky was never so blue before
if she could see my world
gonna knock on every door
gonna find that girl

only ever sick as our secrets
it's no place to stay
surrender all the regrets
give it all away


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

Native Son (song)

...this song (Native Son) was one of the first two I ever wrote...looking back I realize that it was in `88 that I strung up the guitar I had, learned some chords - and I was off!...the following year (making this song over 20 years old...fuckin' A!) I wrote this song and a little ditty called The Game and it's been downhill ever since - Ha-ha! both tunes came very easily, this one was probably written in about an hour and by god, NOTHING in my life ever came quite as automatically although elsewhere on this blog is a song that was written in about 25 minutes one night (i won't say which one)...in retrospect, I was corrupted early in life by the ease with which my first two songs came and it led me to think songwriting didn't seem so tough (and maybe it isn’t...for some) - i have many, many songs so achingly close to completion, it's always the case where if i can just find that one line or lyric that will elevate it to...poetry...my problem, as I see, it is that I love Dylan and Springsteen so much and listen to their music so often (both, daily, like medicine) that any song in comparison seems, oh...I don't know...crappy?...but what the fuck!...I’m engaging in the timeless practice of "speaking to the universe" and whatever may happen in this giant, ever-expanding universe, there is only one song called Native Son (well, that's not true, there are several out there, ha-ha!!) but there's only one written by Larry the (aspiring) Cree superhero...I damn near recognize the innocence in the clichéd lyrics that make it precious to me and it never changes that I am moved and find something entirely mystical about creating, conjuring something…out of nothing...as I’ve mentioned before, this blog may be entirely an exercise in ego if that's what the reader wants to think but as of this writing only about 400 visits have come down and each time I add or edit counts as one, so, it's more like I’ve had about 250 visits, no sensible person is trying to get famous buy posting simple songs on Freeblogger - get real!...but hey man, I'm a songwriter, poem maker, word wrangler extraordinaire and what could be more romantic an idea that writing a poem or a song even?...as a matter of fact, it’s ballsy!...onward, and thanks fer stopping by…whoever you are…


NATIVE SON

words and music by Larry Nicholson


I was born of the earth
Like my brothers those whom came first
Now I live in a city of steel
some days I forget how I should to feel
My grandmother’s grandmother lived in the days
Where the nation you lived was something to praise
But happened to our love for the land?
Now all that we care is to meet the demand…

Some days I walk through the streets of this place
I see once proud people laid out in disgrace
I’ve heard it said we deserve what we get
We’re useless and lazy, unworthy and yet
If someday you could through my eyes
You’d have understanding you might realize
If you always believe what you see and you hear
There will come a time when we’ll all disappear

I was born the native son
Till the end of time my spirit will run
Say what you like but nothing’s more true
Than I am no better but no worse than you
It’s taken some time but now I can see
Who it is that I’ve been and who I can be
And I’ll be…I will be free…

I hope wisdom will come from days that have passed
And I hope that of my kind you won’t see the last
It’s a time where matters most is what sells
We think we know all but we don’t know ourselves
The measure of a man’s not the car that he drives
It’s how affects another man’s life
There are ones who can see and will understand
we’re all brothers in spirit if not on the land

I was born the native son…


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

Raining Again (The Pissing Song)

words and music by Larry Nicholson


well there’s whole list of grievance
baby and it’s ten miles long
when she kissed me on the cheek
I shoulda known that there was something wrong
there’s size 12 boots underneath her bed
my vagabond shoes are only tens instead
she’s pissing on my back and telling me that it’s raining again
that it’s raining again

I called up the DJ
said he’d play my favorite tune
stayed up all night drawing flies and staring at the moon
at the crack of dawn there’s nothing but dead air
signed off in the morning saying: laissez-fair!
they're pissing on my back and tell me that it’s raining again
that it’s raining again

they keep throwing sinkers
just like you throw a dog a bone
you scratch their back
but when it hits the fan you’re all alone

when the mortgage man winked
I put my name upon the dotted line
I got the keys to the mansion
I’m payin’ for my peace of mind
when the meltdown hit they said: you’re outta luck
I’m sleeping by the river in my pickup truck
they're pissing on my back and telling me that’s it’s raining again
that it’s raining again

preacher man said he loved me
said he’d take away my sin
for 10 hail marys
and all my money for the tin
St Peter shook his head and then he sent me back
now im reaching for a rifle straight up off the rack
they keep pissing on my back and tell me that’s it’s raining again
that it’s raining again


© 2010 Champsteen Publishing

Foolish Destiny (song)

words and music: Larry Nicholson


In the misty silent twilight that nobody knows
the windswept field where nobody goes I stand naked
Listen for the sweet sounds above all the screams
Intruding on dreams of truth and the ones who forsake it
I’m as upside down as I am inside out
Resting in the shade of the hollows in a shadow of doubt

In the skin of a lion on a chestnut mare
You contrast and compare and find only your indignation
To be hounded and haggard but never to break
You say it’s all a mistake and shake your fist at your station
Your love of pride keeps you strong and courageous
You belong to no heart, only to the ages

The faith of convenience is the hollowest faith
It puts free men in bondage, feeds rivers of hate and enslaves us
Investing twenty four-karat hope in uncertain things –
Fools gold-plated rings but the meek shall inherit and save us
In my poetry mama says: “child, don’t cry for me –
I’ve gone to that place behind sleep where everyone’s free”

A candle in the window flickers and fades,
midnight black it invades, still burning for those left uncertain
A glimmer of hope weds a glimmer of grace
reaching out to a place obscured by night’s angry curtain
Is the darkness that I’m in really inside of me?
Is it ancient wisdom I seek or just foolish destiny?



©2010 Champsteen Publishing