“Rural Renewal”

Eric Clapton on acoustic guitar with the Crusaders pianist Joe Sample, saxophonist Wilton Felder, drummer Stix Hooper, and trombonist Wayne Henderson

Fumbling Towards Ecstacy

All the fear has left me now
I’m not frightened anymore

It’s my heart that pounds beneath my flesh
It’s my mouth that pushes out this breath
And if I shed a tear I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love

And if I feel a rage I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love
Companion to our demons
They will dance, and we will play
With chairs, candles, and cloth
Making darkness in the day
It will be easy to look in or out
Upstream or down without a thought
And if I shed a tear I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love
And if I feel a rage I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love
Peace in the struggle
To find peace
Comfort on the way
To comfort
And if I shed a tear I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love
And if I feel a rage I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love
I won’t fear love
I won’t fear love

Lazarus Heart

He looked beneath his shirt today

There was a wound in his flesh so deep and wide
From the wound a lovely flower grew
From somewhere deep inside

He turned around to face his mother
To show her the wound in his breast that burned like a brand
But the sword that cut him open
Was the sword in his mother's hand
Every day another miracle
Only death will tear us apart
To sacrifice a life for yours
I'd be the blood of the Lazarus heart
The blood of the Lazarus heart
Though the sword was his protection
The wound itself would give him power
The power to remake himself at the time of his darkest hour
She said the wound would give him courage and pain
The kind of pain that you can't hide
From the wound a lovely flower grew
From somewhere deep inside
Every day another miracle
Only death will keep us apart
To sacrifice a life for yours
I'd be the blood of the Lazarus heart
The blood of the Lazarus heart
Birds on the roof of my mother's house
I've no stones that chase them away
Birds on the roof of my mother's house
Will sit on my roof some day
They fly at the window, they fly at the door
Where does she get the strength to fight them anymore
She counts all her children as a shield against the pain
Lifts her eyes to the sky like a flower in the rain
Every day another miracle
Only death will keep us apart
To sacrifice a life for yours
I'd be the blood of the Lazarus heart
The blood of the Lazarus heart

Mercury falling

Mercury falling
I rise from my bed
Collect my thoughts together
I have to hold my head

It seems that she's gone
And somehow I am pinned by
The Hounds of Winter
Howling in the wind
I walk through the day
My coat around my ears
I look for my companion
I have to dry my tears
It seems that she's gone
Leaving me too soon
I'm as dark as December
I'm as cold as the Man in the Moon

I still see her face
As beautiful as day
It's easy to remember
Remember my love that way
All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
The follow me down
I can't make up the fire
The way that she could
I spend all my days
In the search for dry wood
Board all the windows and close the front door
I can't believe she won't be here anymore
I still see her face
As beautiful as day
It's easy to remember
Remember my love that way
All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
They follow me down
A season for joy
A season for sorrow
Where she's gone
I will surely, surely follow
She brightened my day
She warmed the coldest night
The Hounds of Winter
They got me in their sights
I still see her face
As beautiful as day
It's easy to remember
Remember my love that way
All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
They follow me down

Journeys of a Dreamer

Cliffs of Moher

It Takes A Lot To Laugh ...A Lot To Cry.

Well, I ride on a mailtrain, baby,
Can't buy a thrill.
Well, I've been up all night, baby,
Leanin' on the window sill.
Well, if I die
On top of the hill
And if I don't make it,
You know my baby will.

Don't the moon look good, mama,
Shinin' through the trees?
Don't the brakeman look good, mama,
Flagging down the "Double E"?
Don't the sun look good
Goin' down over the sea?
Don't my gal look fine
When she's comin' after me?
Now the wintertime is coming,
The windows are filled with frost.
I went to tell everybody,
But I could not get across.
Well, I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don't wanna be your boss.
Don't say I never warned you
When your train gets lost.

"The Lark in the Morning."

Paddy: “can I have this dance Mary?"
Turning to Nora Mary says: “will you dance with Paddy Nora I’m sweating.?"

I was brought to my senses

Alone with my thoughts this evening
I walked on the banks of Tyne
I wondered how I could win you
Or if I could make you mine
Or if I could make you mine
The wind it was so insistent
With tales of a stormy south
But when I spied two birds in a sycamore tree
There came a dryness in my mouth

Came a dryness in my mouth
For then without rhyme or reason
The two birds did rise up to fly
And where the two birds were flying
I swear I saw you and I
I swear I saw you and I
I walked out this morning
It was like a veil had been removed from before my eyes
For the first time I saw the work of heaven
In the line where the hills had been married to the sky
And all around me
Every blade of singing grass
Was calling out your name
And that our love would always last
And inside every turning leaf
Is the pattern of an older tree
The shape of our future
The shape of all our history
And out of the confusion
Where the river meets the sea
Came things I'd never seen
Things I'd never seen
I was brought to my senses
I was blind but now that I can see
Every signpost in nature
Said you belong to me
I know it's true
It's written in a sky as blue
As blue as your eyes
As blue as your eyes
If nature's red in tooth and claw
Like winter's freeze and summer's thaw
The wounds she gave me
Were the wounds that would heal me
And we'd be like the moon and sun
And when our courtly dance had run
Its course across the sky
Then together we would lie
And out of the confusion
Where the river meets the sea
Something new would arrive
Something better would arrive
I was brought to my senses
I was blind but now that I can see
Every signpost in nature
Said you belong to me
I was brought to my senses
I was blind but now that I can see
Every signpost in nature
Said you belong to me...

famous blue raincoat

It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening.

I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.
Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?
Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You'd been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene
And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody's wife.
Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane's awake --
She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.
If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.
Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.
And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear

Sincerely, L. Cohen

Raglan Road

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I passed along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
Oh I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint without stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had loved not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.