Corporal Richardson came home today Fought in a war that was far far away Two weeks to go from a eight month stay Corporal Richardson came home today Corporal Richardson saw her friends die blood on the road and blood on her eyes truck in the air where birds ought to fly Corporal Richardson saw her friends die Terror's a word we don't know at all Security's politics have put up the walls We don't pay much except taxes and fear and hope it will all go away by next year Corporal Richardson cried in the gloom where an acid burned girl moaned alone in the room No time to think it all happened too soon Corporal Richardson wept in those ruins. Then she got the letter “No lover, no more. Things aren't getting better and I'm out the door” You leave a sweetheart to kill or be killed but it's not for the country or forms that you fill Corporal Richardson can't take no more Her hope and her memory are far distant shores They cleaned her despair and her stains from the floor Corporal Richardson .... (Instrumental) Corporal Richardson came home today Fought in a war that was far far away Two weeks to go from a eight month stay Corporal Richardson came home today ©2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!
Edward StMoritz
Rendezvous of Fools
onAn old flame resurrects into your autumn years. I wanted something with the feel of a Parisian bistro patio, wine, and a pack of Gauloises. And the black magic of memory. I love what Anna did with this.
She turned and fell into his arms for this one time
and he caressed the naked curve below her ear
He swore he’d never let her drop his guard again but now she is so now and here
Remember this? she did not have to ask it when she pressed her hip into his memory so near
she knew as soon as she stepped through his open eyes his cool reserve would disappear
(refrain)
Is this the way old lovers recall a passion’s nova long since cooled
who knows how wintered flesh remembers the touch of a rendezvous of fools
What was this thing? Cafe and consequential fling
that gaze two seconds longer than a heartbeat grows
“How are the girls? Your grandson must be thirteen now did your ex-husband ever know?”
(refrain)
this is the way old lovers recall the suns of passion long since cooled
who knows how wintered flesh remembers the touch
This rendezvous of fools
[Break]
The small talk fades in phantoms of their half-caught breath
there’s no surprise to where this conversation leads
He’s soft, she’s dry, but still they lie in tender naked summer skin filled ecstasy
So this surrender to the history of lips and sweet denial of the of rules
They’d rather be beside each other than beside themselves
This rendezvous of fools
La la, La la, la lala lala lala lala lah la la….ce rendezvous des fous
©2014 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN)
The Ten Minute Test
on“You have ten minutes to live. You have a pen and paper. Write. In 3...2...1...” Thank you my love your body was light Thank you my sons you are hope Thank you my landlord for keeping my nights Thank you my friends for the dope Nothing but memories and single malt scotch Nothing is there when time runs out my watch Everything living and dying at once Here I am there you are and it doesn’t rhyme and I don’t give a shit Get out hypocritical measly church mice your bells never did ring till twelve I’ll get nothing from you but I’ll give some advice: Take a break from your eternal selves Nothing but martinis, old hopes and lost dreams No one to help me with outrageous schemes Everything dying and living at once there you are, here I was and the rhyme doesn’t work for a’ that (Interlude) Nothing is left but my body in bed Everyone's waiting until I am dead Stories and rumours don't mean as much now Here we are, How are you And our time's running out like my breath Farewell to those beautiful women, my friends to music, to food and to wine Goodbye to nakedness, sweat and the bends I’ll be gone, but you’ll do just fine. I’ll be gone, but you’ll do just fine. I’ll be gone, but you’ll do just fine. © 2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!
Writing on the Wall
onThe songwriting assignment: something outside your usual genre about a subject that genre doesn't work with. So I ran with it. Or sat with it... I read your name and didn't want to know you Thought I was alone inside this stall Seven numbers on the side Someone's sharpie, someone's pride I saw the writing on the wall Other men scrawled along beside you Left and right for favours big and small Invitations and abuse Words like hammers grammar loose I saw the writing on the wall Lonesome loops and lines across the doorway Scratches of a child pretending to be a man Threat and insult waiting for an answer Raw desire etched on paint with one lonely hand I could stay and add to shards of stories tell this tiny room I'm tough and tall Sign on for posterity but this bowl has enough of me don't have to say a thing at all I've seen your writing on the wall © 2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!
Foolish Gold
onTwo-thirty in the morning and I wake with “These dusty roads you walk on”. When a lyric snags you sometimes it won’t let go.
Those dusty roads you’ve walked on
Water them with grace
Recall with gentle kindness
A lover’s sunset face
Memory’s a Greyhound
Drivers, Joy and Pain
Know you’ll never see those pictures
Quite like they were again
Take all the homes you’ve cried in
Fold them in your tears
Stow them in your closets
Won’t need them for years
Sometimes when you’re lovely
Sometime when you’re old
Forget you ever hid them away
So much foolish gold
Chorus:
You’ve been a slave in Egypt You got lost in Guelph
Never found those exit signs from fires in yourself
Now you sit in winter
Snow around your knees
Your dreams sink into drifting
hopes slow down and freeze
Time no longer matters
Sky fell yesterday
One damn thing over and over and over
Black and white to grey
Chorus:
Hostage to remembrance Stockholm in your heart
You’d like to have her to yourself, but you’d rather be apart
Take any road you’ve walked on
travel there with grace
Recall with gentle kindness
Your lover’s sunset face
Memory’s such a Greyhound
Drivers still Joy and Pain
No, you’ll never see those pictures
Quite like they were again
©2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN)
Take No Prisoner Eyes
onI was in the choir and she was in the pew.
Her eyes captured me, and even if we are no longer together, they still do.
To anyone who has loved and lost and loved again.
She got hair like prairie grasses She got fingers like a bird
She got a turn in her ankle that upside downs my world
She got ferris wheel laughter She got party in her mind
And the thing that fin’lly got me were those take no prisoner eyes
Take your Mona Lisas take those Playboy nudes
Take’em all away from me they don’t get me in the mood
Throw away my Mercedes scrap all my silk ties
Lay me down and bury me in those take no prisoner eyes
She got supernova lovin’ she got manners like a queen
She got the best bullshit detector that I ever seen
If I lose her at the station in the smell of sweat and fries
I know she’s gonna find me with those take no prisoner eyes
Take your fancy dining take those fancy sheets
Take ’em all away from me I got what I need
Throw away my illusions lay waste to all my lies
Lay me down and bury me in those take no prisoner eyes
(Instrumental)
Take your fancy dining take those fancy sheets
Take ’em all away from me I got what I need
Throw away my illusions lay waste to all my little white lies
Lay me down and bury me in those take no prisoner eyes
© 2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN)
You’ll Have My Memory
onMaybe 60 is too young to think about death. I remember thinking “What do I leave behind?” One evening after I had finished a set with this song, a woman told me, “My father died three months ago. The question always bothered me, ‘Where is he now?’ Your song answered it. Thank you”.
Thank you, ma’am. It’s one of the reasons why I do this.
When my time is o’er and my days are done When life’s sweet sorrow will end what it’s begun When you burn my bones scatter ashes on the ground You will have my memory to know I was around My God’s a flight of starlings my hope’s a winter moon My love is the lips of my sweetheart my lord a serving spoon Won’t knead my bread no more the old guitar won’t make a sound But you’ll have my memory to know I was around Chorus: And I won’t need a saviour to have my sins forgiven I won’t need a bible to get me into heaven All I’ve needed was your finger’s touch Your voice, the sweetest sound And you’ll have my memory to know I was around Sometimes through the joy and sometimes through the pain You’ll miss my body warm and want me back again You may feel so lost like you never will be found But you’ll have my memory to know I was around Chorus: So don’t go to the churchyard and weep over the stones Just keep me in your heart and you’ll never be alone All you needed was my lover’s touch My voice the sweetest sound And you’ll have my memory to know I was around And I won’t need a saviour to make my living whole And I won’t need a church pew to satisfy my soul All I’ve needed was your lover’s song Your voice, the sweetest sound And you’ll have my memory to know I was around ©2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!
Four Whores of the EndTimes
onRoy Hickling wrote a song with the phrase, “a quartet of horse”. I misheard the pronunciation of the animal. Lengthen the vowel, soften the sibilant. That’s my dark, twisted, apocalyptic mind at work. The phrase hung like a bat in a cave until I went armed with a coffee into the loft of a local cafe (I’m looking at you, Bohemia). I emerged an hour and a half later, read what I had written, and thought, “Which demented little room of hell did my mind just come out of?”
Refrain: Four whores of the end times hungry as sharks Penelope, Ecstasy, Nightmare and Dark They lie with you , lie to you Tie you in knots No one, nothing will save No one, nothing will save Penelope’s innocent, charming and wise Fools and philosophers fall in her eyes she takes you with guile she baits you with truth She grins as you gaze into fantasy’s booth Ecstasy’s horny as Sunday in hell Wet with desire for your soul’s brittle shell With your brains in her sex She’ll blow out your mind Unchained , unseemly, unhinged and unkind. Refrain With Nightmare it’s weeping and gnashing of teeth You’ll wish you were dreaming ‘way back in Westmeath When she’s finished with you Not much left on the plate except bits of bitterness, terror and hate. How will you pay when the bill comes due, When they stand at the door you just came through? What will you say to their outstretched hands : “I’m all out of flesh - you don’t understand!”? When Dark finally enters you can’t see her smile You can feel her small heat, it may last for a while And when her while’s done She will let you fall into nothing, nothing, nothing at all Four whores of the endtimes hungry as sharks Penelope, Ecstasy, Nightmare and Dark They lie with you, lie to you Tie you in knots No one, nothing will save [Repeat 3X ] © 2016 words and music by Edward Moll(SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!
Cookin’ in the Kitchen
onI like food. I like sex. Any questions?
Walk in the house after working for the man Honey's in the kitchen sweating garlic in the pan Smells so good, smells so sweet I ask my baby “You got any meat for that Chorus Cookin' in the kitchen My baby's so good at Cookin' in the kitchen Just like he should Cookin' in the kitchen He stirs it so fine When he's cookin' in the kitchen he is mine all mine When my baby bakes bread He makes me sing He kneads it and he kneads it like a living thing He got strong hands to slap and fold That dough on the counter It never gets old, that Cookin' in the kitchen With my baby tonight Cookin' in the kitchen till the morning light Put that loaf in the oven and let it rise till it's hard and hot and steamy and oh so nice Dessert is special dessert's a treat dessert with berries he's squeezin' so sweet Whipped cream, chocolate sauce, biscuit on the side We go into the bedroom to go and hide all that Cookin' in the kitchen take it to bed Spread it on your body from your toes to your head Cookin' in the kitchen never stays in one spot Cause when you're cookin in the kitchen every room gets hot Chorus Cookin' in the kitchen mm mm mm Cookin' in the kitchen yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Cookin' in the kitchen never stays in one spot Cause when you're cookin in the kitchen every room gets hot ©2016 words and Music by Edward Moll(SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!
City From The Sky
onTwenty years of United Church ministry left in the dust. Nevertheless, the mystery of starstuff in our bones is nothing to be sneezed at. Written with Pacific ocean salt in my nose.
spent my life with answers stolen from a book one dreamless year I woke took another way question the stars, question the moonlight only heard my breathing no words to say wandering in my garden, taking in salt air searching in that peace but darkness stole the calm Was that the voice of God in new Jerusalem nothing but tv noise and bloody human bombs “O city from the sky! O fabled True and Lovely!” These stories you and I tell to our children fall like glass There is no God on high, there's only what we're hearing: This bag of bones and dreams and tears like light and dark will pass The air is full of bees, they're falling like autumn deserts of clearcuts and slicks on holy ground cancer of our bottom lines just ate up the future. no flying cars here, just hollow metal sounds “O city from the sky! O fabled True and Lovely!” These stories you and I tell to our children fall like glass There is no God on high, there's only what we're knowing: This bag of bones and dreams and tears like light and dark will pass [Bridge] Is my hope a rumour? My faith a barren seed? My love a mix of spit and moan to fill a fleshtone need? These things I am sure of: our bodies rot or burn in the meantime we live for our wond'ring play lightfall wind on poplars, lover's fragrant skin, pain inside our knees, books we'll read someday “O city from the sky! O fabled True and Lovely!” Old stories you and I told to our children fell like glass If there's no God on high, there's only what we're seeing: This bag of bones and dreams and tears like light and dark will pass O city from the sky! O fabled True and Lovely!” Old stories you and I told to our children fell like glass If there's no God on high, there's only what we are.....: This bag of bones and dreams and tears like light and dark will pass This bag of bones and dreams and tears like light and dark..... © 2016 words and music by Edward Moll (SOCAN) Listen to a snippet of the song and buy online today!