Songs Of brooklyn Lyrics
So Many Streets
There are so many streets
Many streets
Streets with names
Streets with numbers
Squared in blocks
Crossing at right angles
Row after row
Occasionally crossed by another street
At an angle
Creating a tangle
Each covered by pavement
Hard by sidewalks covered by blue stone
Surmounted by stoops and steps
Surrounded by houses of brick and brown stone
With only stray blades of green grass
Striving between cracks
Under the heavily soled feet of those passing
From car to curb
From iron underground train
To wheeled bus
To sidewalk
To stoop
Up stairs
Indoors
Inside
The sun bakes down
The sun sets on hot streets
The moon shines if you look up
Once or twice a month
And it amazes
Then we forget it appeared
We’re looking down at so many streets
So many streets
So many streets
All words and music by Dave Hall ©
I see quiet people
Gathering berries, fishing, swimming
Living simply by green marshes
Their skin as dark as the bark of the trees
I see grass and I see boulders
I see brown and sturdy shoulders
I hear the sound of children’s laughter
And singing and chanting
And bickering and panting
And the sounds of calling after
I see mothers rocking babies to sleep
Fathers fishing in the harbor deep
Young girls weave and giggle and coo
Yes, I see them, too
And I see small boys standing on the shore
Arrested, mid-play by the sight of tall masts
On the darkening horizon
Gowanus
Oh, the Redcoats came and the battle roared
And the Maryland regiment trapped in a ford
Loaded each musket, drew each sword
Nearly three hundred men
Soldiers brave and true
In battle dress of ragged blue
Were murdered as the redcoats slew and slew
And Washington looking over the kill
From a safe place on a distant hill
Marveled at the soldiers’ rustic will
Saying “Good, God, what brave fellows this day I must lose”
Indeed. What news.
It’s written on a plaque on the crumbling wall
Of the local VFW hall
How the Maryland soldiers fell, nearly all
You can imagine the ancient drama
If you see the diorama
At the old stone house at the battle’s scene
Up beyond the green
A battle, one of many
Common as a rusted penny
You can read of in a history book
Curled up in a cozy nook
But the ghosts of the soldiers dead and gone
The souls of the ones who passed bloodily on
Some feel their presence on great swaths of lawn
As the stout lady sings and the brass band plays
As we gather on Memorial days
Have you noticed how a little one smiles and sways?
We’re charmed and delighted
We give her a round
As she dances to the bright band sound
Marching her little feet off the ground
It’s my fancy that a soldier, long lost
Buried deep beneath the frost
A soldier boy, both true and brave
Once or twice a year rises from his grave
And respectfully listens to the band
Occasionally offers his ghostly hand
To the one who dances alone on the lawn
And waltzes with her lovingly as we look on
Knowing full well, we and he
That one day we’ll all be
Dancing, after battles, ghostily
Battle Of Brooklyn
Sev’ral bridges
Spreading like arms
Wide like a mother’s drawing in
Strong like a father’s gently sending away
But not so far one can’t return
Can’t hurry home again
Crossing rivers
Crossing gulfs
Bridging time and tides
Wagons, trains, cars, people
Flooding in and out, across
Passing like blood through veins
Answering home’s heartbreaking call
Keening us back, each, all
Into the arms of our beloved mother, city
Just once for a holiday
Then sent right back on our way
To return next year or never
Saying goodbye forever
As we speed away as fast
As our adulthood can carry us
Hurtling toward our self-made reckoning
In the rear-view mirror we can still see
Arching shoulders
Outstretched arms
Beckoning
Beckoning
Beckoning
Bridges
Stooping men with small round caps
Ladies in white or big bold hats
Bearded worthies bowing low
Under tall white towers
Children stuck in stiff white collars
Listening to earnest scholars
Waiting for the music
Looking at the flowers
In the great cathedrals
Under big round domes
Before arks and statues
In our public homes
We put on our smiles
Pack away our wiles
Smarten up our styles
One day a week
One day a week
We get all meek
Fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers
Shaking hands with all the others
Fellow fellows bound together
In a sacred way
Bow their heads is saintly rows
Confident that heaven knows
When a humble servant
Knits his brows to pray
In the great cathedrals
Under big round domes
Before arks and statues
Now one little boy
Alone in his pew
One little boy
With nothing to do
Bored to death
With the hereafter
Looking up and stifling laughter
Spies a bird up by a rafter
That little bird
That tiny bird
That flits about
Unseen unheard
And wiser than
A boy should be
He sees that little bird
Once free
Is every bit
As trapped as he
Towers
The streets were hot as the sun shone bright
The dancers shimmied in bright noon light
There wasn’t one little patch of shade
At the mermaid parade
The floats were funky and the grins were grand
As music blared from each marching band
People laughed and their hips all swayed
At the mermaid parade
On a sunny day on the road by the sea
Everyone came who happened to be free
Everyone came to get unstaid
At the mermaid parade
A preacher preached about greed and sin
And the choir sang in a heavenly din
The people cheered as they gamely prayed
At the mermaid parade
The revelers waltzed past the men in blue
Who seemed out of place as they always do
Though they looked quite amused
Their nerves unfrayed
At the mermaid parade
O a sunny day on the road by the sea
Everyone smiled with a fulsome glee
They danced they posed
They, hm, sasheyed
At the mermaid parade
Dances were danced and songs were sung
Drums were thumped and bells were rung
Grownups laughed as if unafraid
At the mermaid parade
Rules were invented and promptly broken
And promises were whispered and loudly spoken
Some games were won and some unplayed
At the mermaid parade
On a sunny day on the road by the sea
Everyone suddenly knew they were free
And so they brayed and yayed and heyed
At the mermaid parade
No one was heavy, no one was sad
Everyone was light, everyone was glad
Every true heart went unweighed
At the mermaid parade
No one was crying
No head was hung
No one was dying
Everyone was young
As if every brow was still ungrayed
At the mermaid parade
As if we never learned to trade
As if we never ever got paid
As if great plans were never laid
As if we left our beds unmade
As if we were back in second grade
Before we knew our memory would fade
At the mermaid parade
At the mermaid parade
At the mermaid parade
Mermaid Parade
Oh, say!
A song for parents from far away
Who crossed the ocean one ancient day
To live on these streets where now we play
Oh, say!
Do you recall their smiling faces
Sepia snapped in far off places?
Do you recall their warm embraces
Oh, pray?
Their accented voices snag in your ears
To put you to sleep or dry your tears
They echoed the sounds of olden places
The smelled of different kind of soil
They sweated from a different kind of toil
You counted all the lines on their wrinkled faces
Where have they gone?
Where have they gone?
Are they still sitting, hands on canes
In front of houses, on park benches
Do they live in their graves
Unvisited on a hill?
Are they remembered still?
I walk along Atlantic Ave
Where the grocery stores all have
Open hearted bins of beans and spices
Overflowing bags of grains and rices
With misty eyes I inhale
Lentils stream through my fingers
Like tears the lentils fall
I gather up them all
And paper bag in hand
I wander home
And recall
Atlantic avenue
We call it “Greenwood”
And it is
Green
“They did a good job
Mama looked good
Se wore her blue dress”
And there’s a wood
With strong green trees
And a view
“So many flowers
So many cards
Everyone came”
A green wood filled
With the great and the small
With towers for those who stood very tall
With humble places for those
Who mattered not at all
She was laid in a satin bed
A silken pillow cradling her head
In a splendor she never enjoyed before
She was driven in a grand gray car
Grander than any other car
Than she’d ever employed before
“We found a nice little shady spot
She would have liked it there”
We call it green wood
When it’s alive
Green
“It’ll be a nice place to visit”
Yes
Greenwood
Come to Brooklyn
By winter’s glow
You know it looks so pretty
Under newly fallen snow
Come to Brooklyn
Come to Brooklyn
Live in my brownstone
And I promise you
You will never live alone
Come to Brooklyn
(Chorus)
Live with me on the very same street
Where your grandparents happened to meet
Come to Brooklyn
When the flowers bloom
Come and see the colors
From the window of my room
Come to Brooklyn
Come to Brooklyn
Walk across the bridge
Climb up to my roof
See from Williamsburgh to Bay Ridge
Come to Brooklyn
Walk the park under falling rain
See the roofs of houses
From the windows of the train
And listen to the neighborhood’s
Quiet mad refrain
Come to Brooklyn
Hear the children play
On the streets and sidewalks
On a humid summer day
Come to Brooklyn
Live with me
Come to Brooklyn
When the colors change
Smell the scents of autumn
As the leaves all re-arrange
Come to Brooklyn
Come to Brooklyn
Spend a gentle year
And stay with me
Stay with me
Stay with me here
Come to Brooklyn
Walk the park under falling rain
See the roofs of houses
From the windows of the train
And listen to the neighborhood’s
Quiet mad refrain
Come to Brooklyn
Come To Brooklyn
WeEksville
Beards & Beer
What is happening? What is up?
Things sure are different than when I was a pup
Five dollar hot dogs, strange, fancy beers
Young skinny boys with their pants below their rears
Young pretty girls who cover up their hair
Bearded lumberjacks everywhere
Nowadays things aren’t what they used to be
You don’t see all the things you used to see
This wasn’t what the place was meant to be
I feel like I’m living in another century
Not sure if it’s a new or an old one
A modest or a bold one
Maybe I’ll move to that place on the shore
Not sure I can take this place any more
But I’m not sure ‘bout the sound of the sea
That's the kinda thing that could really get to me
Call me a curmudgeon, call me a nuisance
When I was a boy, a hot dog cost a few cents
A jar of pickles cost a dollar and a half
Now I see a jar for ten, don’t make me laugh
What did you say? It’s artisanal?
What does that mean? It’s medicinal?
When I was a young man here were like three beers
Now there are breweries comin’ out your ears
Every bar I step into
Has another micro brew
Hearty lager, frothy ale
Muddy brown or deathly pale
Maybe I should go down the 95 corridor
Move in with my sister down in Florida
Sit in swelterin’ tropical heat
Ah, the people down there
They don’t know how to eat!
And what’s with those kids
And the crazy things they wear?
Young pretty girls with scarves on their hair
Don’t they know that’s their prettiest part
That best way to reach a young man’s heart?
And these boys on skateboards
With hats and sunglasses
Loose-fitting jeans that sag below their asses
I can think of nothin’ more obnoxious
Than the sight of a teenager’s boxers
Maybe I’ll stay with my son on Long Island
There at least the streets are silent
But what would I do, how would I keep
It’s too quiet there, how would I sleep?
Now don’t get me started on the guys with bushy beards
That a look that I find a little weird
Every guy’s a mix of Paul Bunyon and Walt Whitman
It’s enough to make me want to call a hit man
Like we used to do in the good old days
There was nothing wrong with the good old days
Ah, who really cares
Hell, I sure don’t
I can’t change them if they sure won’t
I’m too old to change
Don’t tell me I’m not
I’ll just sit here in my shady spot
On my bench here by the park
Where I’ve always left my mark
And who knows, maybe I’ll exchange a few sneers
With the skinny kids with the pants below their rears
Smile at the Muslim girls, the sweet young dears
Try me one of them fancy beers
Say how aw ya to a passing lumberjack
See if he might say how aw ya back
Decide things aren’t quite as bad as I feared
But I won’t, won’t, won’t, won’t , won’t, won’t, won’t
Fuhgeddabowdit
Grow a beard!
Freedom is sweet
And sometimes it’s fleeting
Like a bird on the street
Or flying or tweeting
The songbird you’re greeting
There on the sill
May fly away still
May fly away still
Freedom is grand
Even when it is small
As the palm of a hand
Or a bug on the wall
Yet, freedom is all
It’s everything
So let it ring
So let it ring
But not too loud
But not too strong
Remain in the crowd
But not too long
Long enough to get away
Not long enough to stay
Freedom is wise
Freedom is mad
Free as the skies
And just as glad
Freedom is sad
But most of all
Freedom is small
Yes, freedom is small
Freedom is sometimes granted by princes
And the granting sometimes evinces
A certain attitude
Of bowing gratitude
And freedom thrives in sheltered places
Enjoyed by the most enlightened of races
Until, under bold attack,
The trusted prince takes freedom back
Freedom is fine
Freedom is golden
Freedom is mine
I am unbeholden
My freedom’s unfoldin’
Like a bitter rind
In my mind
In my mind
