Browse song lyrics

Part of my "Judge" series of old western songs that I like to write whenever an idea pops in my head. This one is about a poor man in the old west with a family to feed, and he decides that some people have too much and he doesn't have nearly enough. He decides to become an outlaw. This was a very true story for the time, though it's not based on any real-life person.

I have a habit of writing songs about women's names. Not sure why, but I usually end up really liking them. There's no real story to this one at all. What I like about it is that it can be plug-and-play with any name that fits at the end. Rebecca, Cassandra, Jennifer, whatever. It works.

For Americans, it doesn't rightly matter which of the two political parties are in office; it ends up being the same result: Life becomes harder for Americans, as we lose more and more of our freedoms. Each side blames the other, and people just stay angry. For me, I think of America like Atlantis, in the sense that everything good about it is seemingly buried. I wrote this song to reflect that feeling.

Unfortunately, this is a song that all too many people relate to now. Myself, I've been out of work for a while, and the bills are piling up and money in scarce. Millions of people are stuck in dead-end jobs and are miserable. Working their fingers to the bone isn't what they wanted to do with their lives. But they need the money. Most of us don't have a choice in the matter. I wrote this song out of respect to all the hard-working people who never seem to get ahead.

A musician falls in love with a girl, and his dream is to travel around and play his music. The girl in this story needs to stay put for her life. Her wants her to go, she wants him to stay. So they end up parting ways. It ends up being something the guy just can't get over in the end. A more poetic take I tried on a classic love song, instead of the same cookie-cutter words and themes.