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Lyrics

Gary Furlow & The Loafers


GF&L Live@ CD'

The River

Cateline

Heartbreak Joe

Anchor, Anvil, Stone

Waiting On The Summer Moon

Too-Fast Blues

Oh, Momma

You, Like The Warmth Of The Sun

Louisiana Moon, Kentucky Moonshine

Irma, It's Time To Go

Times Is Hard

A Tuesday Song

Slow Mysty Bayou Blues

Storm On The Ocean

Portland, OR


The River

© 2010-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP

Well, I'm 'a drifting in the darkness... I'm a'floating on the mist...
From levee to levee... and the batture gets kissed...
There's a great wide bend... and the channel it curves...
If the River won't take me, Well, the Devil's got the nerve...

Oh the River, Oh the River... I wanna feel it flow...
Oh the river is a river... Gonna touch my soul...

It'll twist and turn, shifting like a thief...
Through snags and drops and false river reefs...
I'm haulin' load stone coal, in hundred pound sacks...
And bales so high, likes to break my back.

When the bright sun rise... it just tickles them waves...
Still the fires keep blazing, and the fog blows away...
Whoa, see it tumble... And feel it flow...
When you hear it roar, better watch out below...

Oh the River, Oh the River... (Gee, Gosh, Almighty)
Just feel it flow... (Gee, Gosh, Almighty)
Oh, the River, Oh the River, gonna touch my soul...
Gee, Gosh, Almighty... Oh the River� (Gee, Gosh, Almighty)

When you hear it tumble... It whispers a curse...
Salvation ain't got for the price of a hearse...
Make my box water tight... So I can just float away...
And I'll still be dry come'a judgement day...

Oh, the damn ole river... Gee, Gosh, Almighty...
I gotta feel it flow... (Gee, Gosh, Almighty)
Oh the river is a river, gonna rock my soul... (Gee, Gosh, Almighty)
Oh the river - Oh, the river, gonna rock my soul... Gee, Gosh, Almighty...
Oh the river - Oh, the river, gonna rock my soul...

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Cateline

© 2012-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


(CHORUS)
Oh, sweet Cateline... warmest of the women...
Bravest of the outlaws... She's the reader of the omens...
Right at home in hard times... always has the right time...
The keeper of the flame... Oh, my sweet Cateline.

She goes flying with the wind... splashing past the waterfalls...
She cares not a hoot at all... for what you have to say.
Each statement's an epistle... a kind of guided missile...
Aimed straight at your heart and mind... to help you find your way.
She makes no arrangements... minimal pretense...
Brown over blue and intense... you can't avoid her gaze...
There's noble kings and princes... lay down all their defenses...
More and more the time flows by... she's trying to show the way.

(CHORUS)

She hears the footfall on the path... She can always do the math...
Cyphering out who comes and goes... and who just needs to stay...
She nurtures and she guides them... through the rocks and islands...
And heals their battered spirits... then sends them on their way.
She has no preamble... She's not looking for an angle...
Her way is straight and narrow... firm enough to take...
I know that when she finds me... My troubles will be behind me...
Just the sound of her voice... can likely sooth my soul...

(CHORUS)

She sees what we are doing... how we are pursuing...
Gold and lust and silver... It makes her feel so sad...
She sees our children's children... somewhere down the road then...
Looks back at us and wonderin' how we did not understand...
You hear it in her sweetest voice... not without some remorse...
The faint-est loss of choice... of what she has to do...
She'd like to save us all, you know... Even those who won't let go...
And them that reap just what they sowed... they do not have to die.

(CHORUS)

Sweet Cateline... She's the bravest of the outlaws...
Sweet Cateline... She's the keeper of the flame…
Sweet Cateline... She's the warmest of the women.
Sweet Cateline...

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Heartbreak Joe

© 2011-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Two decades on... A gentle troubadour...
Setting out... leaving Babylon...
He's drifting away on a chord... Hang some new notes to go...
I never seen a man so proud... The tale of Heartbreak Joe.

Ruthless kind'a nights... Spent looking to the skies...
Weather's always turning... Storms and droughts and rising tides...
Swaying branches... That cold north wind just gotta' blow...
Forecast is downright foul... predicting the fall of Heartbreak Joe.

(Bridge)
Tried digging gold up in the hills over Josuha Tree...
Then back in town cut the laddies right down to their knees...
Lost his treasure to sweet Bernadette...
Riding the road that runs from sea to sea...

What's the matter now?... He trips from dive to dive...
Betrayed six strings at a time... Live and on 45's...
He sees them bright butterflies... Shimmering black and white...
And he's got those moody kind'a blues... light the eyes of Heartbreak Joe.

(Bridge)
Bathroom stalls at Port o' Call... Burnt paint on them clapboard walls...
Sometimes Coco just gets too loose...
Mardi Gras beads and tomato seeds... Bricks and bodies, And that feeling...
That what you own can end up owning you. (STOP)

Six decades on... An old-timer now...
Still stumbling back and forth... Trying to clear his mind some how...
Blames it on the Bucktown Blues... Once again he's feeling kind'a low...
Searching for way to get back home... and stop the fall of Heartbreak Joe.
Just looking for a little grace... Goodbye Heartbreak Joe.


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Anchor, Anvil, Stone

© 2010-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


I seen it coming... the ground just melting away...
What's left tomorrow... ain't what was just yesterday...
Like it all just sprouted wings and wheels... and torn away into the fray...
Though scattered to four winds... and all around me is laid bare...
Gimme an Anchor, Gimme an anvil, Gimme me a Stone.

Where's the soul... Where's the faith... Is there some peaceful place...
Where my mamma & 'em can gather... and feel some sunshine to warm their face...
On this weary crust of mud and bones, I fight to build my home...
So, hammer hard, Lordy, Lordy... and temper me like steel...
Gimme an Anvil, Gimme an Anchor, Gimme me a Stone.

(Bridge 1)
Sometimes In my dreams... that come both day and night...
We are pilgrims, stripped down and trying to get it right....

Solos

(Bridge 2)
Sometimes, In my dreams, I'm slogging through the swamp and draggin' my hopes along...
I renew... I return... Once again I am born... Oh....oh.....oh....

So, surround me with walls... that will keep the wolves at bay...
And let me build them strong and faithful... so they will not crumble away...
What man and God has wrought, I can resurrect, I have no doubt
All I ask is good earth... and a clear, rising moon...
Just gimme an Anchor, Gimme an Anvil, Gimme a Stone.
Get me an Anchor, Get me an Anvil, Get me a Stone.
Get me an Anchor, Get me an Anvil, Get me a Stone.

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Waiting On The Summer Moon

© 2008-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


The clouds are low and the wind is high.
Fogs rollin' in and the rain's fallin' in my eye
I so damn cold right down to the soul
Still I'm here... Waiting on the Summer Moon.

When will this winter just go away...
Calendar says this should Spring
So, why on earth am I still shivering?
Bundled here... Waiting on the Summer Moon

[Bridge]
Do you remember when the sky was blue?
Those sunny days without a chill
I still recall it twinkled in your smile
Lying here... Waiting' on the Summer Moon

-Solo-

You've grown so cold, its like the walkin' dead
Can't snuggle up to you at all
I blame the weather and that forecast man
While I'm here... Hunkered down... layered up...
I'm under your spell... but, damn it's cold as hell... while I'm still...

Hoping for redemption or a sign from up above...
When will the Global warming start?
I'll try relightin' the fire in your heart...
And keep you here... Waitin' on the Summer Moon.

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A Tuesday Song

© 2011-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Loved ones are strained, as strangers we're lovers tonight...
In a blue collar city, hearts are scattered 'cross the land...
I know all your faults, and you've learned all about my addictions...
Still we let the truth fade and whither away in the night...

I remember those flaming wildflowers on old dusty roadsides...
When high summer reigned, in a Tuscany sky deeper blue...
The hills, they rolled on, and our hands just needed each other...
Touring down to the warm salty waters, the bay and the sea...

Are we Captain or tiller, or sail or the wind that is blowin'...
We feel things are tuggin', but which way they pull us is key...
Headed out for more than Jerusalem's walls, together not knowing...
Is it rhythm and rhyme, is it us, is it you... is it me...

Oh, who's going to fetch you water, who'll cut wood for winter...
When Orion hangs heavy and low in the cold southern sky...
We conjure earth's only story in million-year chapters...
And we live life in numbers that fall in the blink of an eye...

I feel the time's right now to tell everybody our story...
If it saves them some heartache or pain, its the least we can do...
I don't know our ending, but it's Tuesday and I have to go now...
Is it reason or rhyme, is it fiction... or maybe its all true...

For all of our lives, every week has contained a Tuesday...
And lately, it seems, each Tuesday we've needed a song...
Words filter down, in a slot machine, whirlin' and tumblin'...
Marking days and nights and the weeks in a Tuesday song...

Find a line, a note... a chord for a Tuesday Song...

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Times Is Hard

© 2011-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


(Funky N.O. Street rhythm)
Johnny had no life to speak of, so he barely spoke at all...
Ninety-nine weeks just shuffling in line, but he never got the call...
He says that he's been down on his luck... for what seems a long, long time...
Standing there with nothing left to lose...(STOP)
Just skin & bones.

Now, Mary was a pretty thing, her picture tells the story...
Down the streets she traveled, cobble-stoned, high-heels and weary...
Winter's breath is on her now, the moon, it's lasting phase...
She's just gotta' survive these melancholy days... (STOP) She sees...

(CHORUS)
That wind that's blowing in from the South was born near New Orleans...
Ramblin' up through cracks and dust to wipe the country clean...
From a clear, crystal, star-lite sky, the blues came raining down...
The just about to make some front page news...
Oh, times is hard... Yea, ain't they hard.

-SOLO-

Delachase ran the boat, Brother manned the deck...
Plowing the gulf, wide and flat, dragging that old shrimp net...
Then, ten wseeks pushin' that oil boom, can drive a man insane...
They been broke before, guess they'll be broke again... (STOP)
Laissez les bons temps rouler...

You can fly in the sky, you can ride the rails, you can go by submarine...
You can pick your poison, howl out loud and sing a mornful tune.
Don't need no souls to walk away, no whiskey till I'm dry...
Sure don't need no religion till I die...

(CHORUS)
'Cause I seen that wind that's blowing in from the South was born near New Orleans...
Ramblin' up through cracks and dust, wipimg the country clean...
From a clear, crystal, star-lite sky the blues came raining down...
The just about to make the front page news...
Oh, times is hard...
Oh, times is hard...
Look out, Times is hard...
Oh, times is hard...

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Irma, It's Time To Go

© 2010-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


(DADGAD)
Desire strikes... when you least expect...
Cross the room, catch her eye... And a little peck on the cheek...
As she stands there... arms folded under her breasts...
The way some women do...
Like she's got all the time in the world...
She listens... while she plays with a curl...

I've been warned by your before...
Not to motion too quickly toward the door...
To let the band plays just a few more...
And watch those dancers swirl 'cross the floor...
But, I need to break in... give the code...
We've made up excuses before...
And drifted out while the party goes on...
'Cause I just want to get you alone...

(CHORUS)
Irma, it's time to go... time to settle down...
Time to gaze into each other's eyes... Let our arms and legs intwine...
End a perfect night in perfect bliss... and then fall away to dreams...
That's my late night scenario... but first we have to go.

-SOLO-

I stand there... mystified.. Why are you still talking to that guy...
It's just mindless party chat... it has nothing to do with us...
I believe... I pretend... this night will have a happy ending...
As the Flambeaus shine on the streets... And the rain begins falling in sheets...

(CHORUS)
Cause, Irma, it's time to go... time to quiet down...
Time to gaze into each other's eyes... Let our arms and legs intwine...
End a perfect night in perfect bliss... and then fall away to dreams...
That's my late night scenario... but darling, first we gotta go.

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Too-Fast Blues

© 2011-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Chance conversation... we talked until dawn...
Dim lights... first names... and a new favorite song...
You left to call somebody on the phone...
There's a fine line between being bad... and doin' wrong...

That old washer woman... I hear singin' the blues...
For all the lost... and lonely, got nothing left to lose...
She knows you're gonna leave me one day...
It's a fine line between hitting the road... and runnin' away...

-Solo-

We're traveling down that road... I got the pedal clear down to the floor...
Seems the faster I go... I can't keep up any more...
And everything I do seems to make you cry...
There's a fine line between danger... and good-bye...

(Bridge)
It's the difference between a one-man woman... and one at a time...
A chance encounter... two stories... both of them lies...
Still, tonight is all flowers, lavender and lace...
There's a fine line between stumblin'... and fallin' on your face...

Shall we hold on... like tomorrow will never come...
Postpone the inevitable... just one more day...
Happier endings... are mine to choose...
It's a fine time for the Too-Fast Blues...
It's a fine time for the Too-Fast Blues...
It's a fine time.

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You, Like The Warmth Of The Sun

© 2010-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Through a patchwork lens... I see you now and then...
Another petal falls... a different seasons where you've been
It might be waterfalls or shopping malls and black-topped highway runs...
Through broken clouds and endless miles, I feel you, like the warmth of the sun...

All those things that drive me crazy... Ahhh, But, girl, you give off sparks
Like thunderclaps and lightning strikes... leaving indiscriminate marks...
Got my boots on, I'm walking out... while you're talking your way back in...
It only takes a moment... and you... like the warmth of the sun.

And then I turned... and then you spoke of what brought you back to me...
And then I stepped up... and then I touched you... and then I heard you moan.

-Solo-

I knew together we couldn't last... Seems we're better when apart...
Oh, I wish some things were different... and I could survive... your wandering heart.

I still read the paper with the TV on, my life's been off the hook so long...
And on occasion I still get my gospel according to Jack Daniels... get my preaching all alone...
But, in those quiet times and old headlines, I feel old enough to run away...
'Cause, it lingers... you, like the warmth of the sun...
It's a wonder, it's an acheing, it's you... like the warmth of the sun.

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Louisiana Moon, Kentucky Moonshine

© 2011-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Was it that big Louisiana Moon or that Ken-tucky Moonshine,
A magical combination... rattlin' round my brain... She said 'Let's...
Grab a jug and take a walk... the air outside is fine... filled with that...
Big Loui-si-ana Moon... and that Ken - tuc-ky Moonshine.

Well, it was one of those nights that happen now and then, where you put yourself in a situation...
Where your heart is pure but your mind's adjusted with some spirited libation...
Sometimes it ain't fair, it's a conspiracy of heart-changing proportions...
Where the fates step in, the stars aligned and the planets stop their motion...

I'd been just rolling along, clear-eyed and strong, just sliding by a bit...
And with the state of my job and the plight of the world, I'd run out of 'give a... ssss So...
There you were, all pretty and bright with those big brown eyes and such...
You set your sites, you made your plans... for me, it was all too much of that big...

Big Louisiana Moon or that Ken-tucky Moonshine,
A magical combination... rattlin' round my brain... She said 'Let's...
Grab a jug and take a walk... the air outside is fine... filled with that...
Big Loui-si-ana Moon... and that Ken - tuc-ky Moonshine.

-SOLO-

In hindsight, as I think of it now, that walk down by the river...
Was just a ploy to get me alone where my defenses were all a'quiver...
My momma taught me that a gentleman, he don't talk about such things...
But, we already established that, in my case, that really don't apply to me...

Well, I like Mississippi mud and Florida sunshine, Memphis Blues a lot...
But, that Louisiana Moon didn't phase me much till I took a shot...
Of that Blue Grass-Grain concoction and it really warmed my heart
And realized now that you knew something I hadn't let thunk... about that big...

Big Louisiana Moon or that Ken-tucky Moonshine,
A magical combination... rattlin' round my brain... She said 'Let's...
Grab a jug and take a walk... the air outside is fine... filled with that...
Big Loui-si-ana Moon... and that Ken - tuc-ky Moonshine.

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Slow Mysty Bayou Blues

© 2009-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


It's a slow misty bayou... dim in the moonlight...
Been stuck on this levee since... damn near midnight...
Truck's broke down, won't start - and neither can I

Light a young man's fire... with a young girl's spark...
Says she learned it on the bayou... how to trap a man's heart...
Leaves you all torn up and wondering... where you are...

That slow misty bayou... full o' cypress knees...
Packed with gators and water moccasins... skunks and thieves...
But the thing that will nab you is... back on shore...
When those smokey eyes say, she don't want you anymore.

Her smile as warm and sultry as the Louisiana sun...
And her lips, salty and tender, but... let me tell you one more thing...
Her heart is dark and cold as the Misty Bayou's mud...

-SOLOS-

Asked too many questions... got too many lies...
Got two fifths of whiskey and... too many sighs...
Foreboding, two-timing, three-fingers, then...
It all adds up to one... "See you later, friend"...

Ask her why... she'll reflect that life is so unclear...
Blame it on the wildness and the water... and one too many beers...
Still, she wished me well - Ha! that cost her nothing...
But that's how it ends... with these Slow Misty Bayou Blues...

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Oh, Momma!

© 2009-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Hey Momma, come over here...
You sip your wine, I got my beer...
While the skeeters and the flies...
Tap on the screen door.

Hey, Momma, Ease on back...
What 'ca do... just relaxed...
Ain't had no shoes on... since the first of May...
'Cept when we stroll down to church… come Sunday.

I'll tell you tales of gods and might...
You spin yarns of queens & knights...
Or when Piaf sang at Le Ger-ny...
And prowled cafe's with Hemingway...

Oh, Momma, what's on the stove...
Mimi's gumbo and some French bread rolls...
Got the candles all lit... and it smells like rain.

Oh, Momma, set on down... I'll refresh the glasses all around...
I hear the first drops plinkin'… on the front porch stair....
It's a quiet ole evenin'... we ain't goin' nowhere.

-SOLO-

Is that a hound dog wailing o'vr 'cross the fence...
Or a tugboat crying out from Bayou Teche...
She would wax as I would wain...
With scary stories of hurricanes...

Oh Momma, come over here...
You sip your wine, I got my beer...
While the skeeters and the flies...
Tap on the screen door.

Oh, Momma... Hey, Momma... Oh, Momma... Hey, Momma...
Oh, Momma... Hey, Momma... Oh, Momma... Hey, Momma...

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Storm On The Ocean

© 2010-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


There's a storm in the ocean... riding the tide...
A storm in the ocean... burning inside...
Storm in the ocean... Oh Lord...
I don't even know it's name.

Storm is a coming... No place to hide...
Storm is a coming... No phoenix this time...
Storm is a coming... pounding the waves...
And I don't even know it's name...

Oh, the wind is a-rising, the chop turning into swells…
And troughs so deep you see all the way to hell…
The compass twirling' round, ya don't know which way to go…
Just hangin' on with a front row seat at the show…

-Solo-

Black water raging... Boiling down...
Black water raging... Bubbling around...
Black water raging... Pullin' me down...
And I don't even know it's name...

Now Jesus wouldn't walk on this water, no way...
And Mary couldn't calm these seas, no matter how hard she'd pray...
The Saints don't sound so strong, rightous and so sweet...
But, Judas still got that silver laid at his feet.

There's a ghost town burning... badman's game...
A ghost town burning... dying in flames...
There's a ghost town burning... ashes and shame...
I don't even know my... don't even know my...
I don't even know my name.

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Portland, OR

© 2008-Gary Furlow/Cypress Bayou Music, LLC - ASCAP


Well, I was just a Crescent City beau, Been yearning to go westward, ho.
Been livin' life as freelance, Now it's time to take a new chance.
I’m looking for heaven, I’ve heard it’s in Portland OR.

So, I go through Dallas, Amarillo, Colorado Springs and Denver, Oh,
That Cheyenne’s such a sleepy town, They ought’a shut the whole thing down.
It’s nothing like heaven, It’s nothing like Portland OR.

Out there them plains are pretty plain ,you know.
That Great Salt Lake. she's Mormon owned,
The mountains are oh so green.
I had to ask a guy which way to go, He couldn’t say, he don't know,
I think I’ll take a left at Boise, Idaho.

Well, I’m driving like trucker’s son, I’m on my way to Or-e-gon,
The gorgeous gorge and waterfalls, I think this place, it has it all,
Now, I’m livin’ in Heaven, I’m livin’ in Portland OR.

-Solo-

Out here they’re piercin’ lips and tongues and eye-brows,
I don’t know if it's very high-brow, Puttin’ holes where no hole should be.
They’re tatoos too, it's all so gothic, My Lord, it’s so ironic,
Wonder if Lewis & Clark would approve.

Well, some women here are kind’a rustic, I’ve seen some very bust-tic
Neighbor ladies, large and small, They don’t need no men at all
Still, they found love in heaven, They found love in Portland OR.

Out here they wearin' fleece and shorts and sandals
Other towns would be a scandal
Dressing like that the whole year round,
See, they dress the same when its pouring,
Or in the summer when its boring,
When its hot or when there's snow on the ground.

Well, I've heard they're making mini beer here.
And they like to keep it weird here.
That's any easy thing to do
I mean, Hell, just look at me and you...
It's a Portland Moment...
Only in Portland Or...

Out here, they say it rains from time to time. That weather’s just a state of mind
I'm telling you it ain't no lie.
You see, the clouds roll in about October, but before you know it’s over
The sun breaks through about the Sixth Of July

Well now I'm living on the ole Williamette, I think its groovy, damn it.
Trees here are so mighty fine, There’s people hugin’em all the time
It’s just like Paradise,, Right here in Port…
With what I’ve been through, it’s my last resort…
It’s just like heaven, Now I’m livin’ in Portland AND
There’s no place of similar description.
It’s Paradise, it’s heaven, in Portland OR.

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