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Artist Lament

from 2011 by Gary Alan Barker

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about

What can I say, it's the blues, it doesn't mean anything if it is not true.

lyrics

Fifty years ago,
I picked up a pen,
I put it to paper,
and my troubles began,
I wrote through the evening,
I wrote through the day,
looking for something,
another didn't say.

I sat at my piano,
tickled the keys,
the music that's inside me,
is like a disease,
it took over my mind,
it took over my life,
it set my blood to flowing,
like the cut of a knife.

And I can't let it go,
Though it left me with nothing,
Though I can't believe in heaven,
It captured my soul,
So I sit here all alone,
No one to call my own,
Pictures in my head,
Air in my wallet,
It's the curse of the artist,
Nobody cares.

I should have been a teacher,
led an academic life,
or a political man,
with a white picket wife,
I followed the money,
I followed the dream,
like water through my fingers,
it returned to the stream.

I'm a design engineer,
without the degree,
so no one with money,
will listen to me,
I invented electronics,
I invented a car,
it grew in my head,
which is not very far.

And I can't let it go,
Though it left me with nothing,
Though I can't believe in heaven,
It swallowed my soul,
So I sit here all alone,
No one to call my own,
Pictures in my head,
Air in my wallet,
It's the curse of the artist,
Nobody cares.

credits

from 2011, released July 4, 2013

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Gary Alan Barker California City, California

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