Gray and I set up on his front stoop the night before Holloween this year for the first of what I hope to be many ambient sunset sets. Here is one selection of swirling sounds to slow the senses.

I’ve been singing little protest songs to my self for the past few years. I idolize Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger, so this is only natural. But when I read the headline this week — The White House Goes Dark — I did a double-take.

Could a headline be more poetically descriptive of this presidency? I felt I had been handed a perfect chorus for a protest song. And since it was news, I made the verses a report of this incredible week’s unfolding, the context of the White House going dark.

What a week. The national and international outrage at George Floyd’s murder and everything that has followed is like a colossal dam breaking. I hope my song report does it justice.

Coward In Chief

George Floyd was murdered by Minnesota cops
And the people are marching, enough is enough
Four hundred years and finally phones
Have shown the white folks what black folks have known

This country was built and is ever so
For white folks to go where we want to go
But if you are black there is no safe space
A cop might just kill you for the look on your face

And the laws are set up and a jury will find
He was doing his job, he will be reassigned
Just blame a black man for being a thug
Say he resisted, he must be on drugs

But how many times can we stomach this shit?
We’re crying Bullshit on these old hypocrites!

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
The old patriarch
Is busy gaslighting

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Hating and berating
Stoking petty infighting

But peaceful protesters are flooding downtowns
Marching together black, white and brown
Trying to salvage what can be saved
Of our poor nation’s soul, so long enslaved

Still others are looting and cops are still shooting
And why does it seem like they’re all colluding
To take down the ones whose civility
Make peace and justice a possibility

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Retreating and tweeting
Violence inciting

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Tweeting, retweeting
Inciting rioting

And his staff say Do Something but he has no idea
How to do anything but spread lies and fear
He cannot help, has nothing to bring
So it’s back to his bunker like a cowardly king

And his party is silent as he drags us all down
Dividing and cheating and pushing the bounds
Everything part of his constant campaign
To break down the country for his personal gain

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Retreating and tweeting
Violence inciting

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
Democracy is dying
Putin is smiling

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
But the people are marching
United and crying

And the White House goes dark
The president is hiding
He’s afraid of the people
Cause he sees them uniting
Afraid of the people
Cause he sees them abiding
Afraid of the people
Cause he sees The Uprising

Happy 4/20 from Austin, Texas! I cut out of work a little early today to lay down this old Van Morrison favorite in honor of 4/20/2020. If you couldn’t tell, I’m keepin it weird, dressed as a pack of M&Ms in Maile’s sunglasses (over my glasses).

I’ve been working through the songs on one of my favorite albums, John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. It seemed like a good time to post this one.

 

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Practing “Isolation” by John Lennon while also practing isolation by pandemic.

A post shared by J Molin (@jason.molin) on Mar 28, 2020 at 4:21pm PDT

Have you ever sung Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to a kiddo at bedtime?

Almost every night for the last 10 years Maile and I have taken turns singing to Anais at bedtime. It’s such a sweet ritual that I can hardly believe she still allows it much less requests it. But it still works its magic, on her and on us.

Sitting at her bedside singing softly, star-shaped night-light projected around, stuffed animals looking back in cozy bunches, we’re wrapped in lullaby land’s peaceful completeness and the noisy world is silent for a moment until we tiptoe out.

Maile does a much better job than I do with her gorgeous renditions of Sweet Baby James or Teddybear Picknick. I, on the other hand, am always trying to remember some obscure tune and forgetting the lyrics, humming some improvised ending.

One night a few months ago I was making up this song as Anais fell asleep. It was such a perfect, full moment that I couldn’t stand the thought of letting it slip away, forgotten.

But of course, she is moving on as I am trying to hold on, and this story ends the way it does every evening, Anais asleep, me, singing to myself.

Singing To Myself

I’m sitting here singing to you as you fall asleep
Imaginin’ what you’ll be like when you’re old like me
Just maybe you will have a kid you’re singing to
Just maybe you will be thinking all of these things too

How can I hold on, how can I hold as you fall asleep?
How can I hold on, how can I hold to a moment so sweet?
And I’m left here singing to myself

And as you sing I’ll be punchin up my seventies
What hope have I for still holding to this memory?
How can I tie a ribbon round a breath of air?
How can I save this moment like a lock of hair?

How can I hold on, how can I hold on as I watch you sleeping?
How can I hold on, how can I hold on to something so fleeting?
And I’m left here singing to myself

Time, damn time, keeps rollin on
But I wouldn’t want to stay anywhere too long
Cause I know you got to go and good things go wrong
When you don’t let them grow beyond the garden wall

So I get up, and tiptoe out into the hall
And take it in, one more time before my curtain call
Try to hold on and it’s already gone
Grab my guitar and try remembering my song

How can I hold on, how can I hold on and make it last longer?
I cannot hold on, so I write this song, make a memory stronger
I cannot hold on, I cannot hold on, I’m falling headlong for her
And I’m left here singing to myself