Coffee & Fried Steak

released June 15, 2017

OPEN SPACES
Words and music by Jim Newsom

Open doors, open windows
Open my eyes to the world outside
Open spaces, where the wind blows
To those places I’m gonna ride
I useta talk a lot about getting back
To a simpler way of living
Without ivory towers or smokin’ stacks
Taking only what’s being given

Open doors, open windows
Open my eyes to the world outside
Open spaces, where the wind blows
To those places I’m gonna ride
I have lived too long as an urban verb
Trying to get in on the action
But this asphalt farm with its concrete curb
Is losing its attraction

There was a time I can recall
There was a movement to free us all
Back to nature and back to the earth
Out of the cities and past the suburbs

I look at high rise condos and highway spans
And at fields and woods receding
I don’t think this is quite what God had planned
When he set us down in Eden.

Open doors, open windows
Open my eyes to the world outside
Open spaces, where the wind blows
To those places I’m gonna ride

Open doors
Open windows
Open spaces
Open my eyes!

VIRGINIA
Words by Jim Newsom
Music by Holly Bishop

As I watch my lover sitting there,
I feel the warmth he radiates
and soon the cold pneumonia winds
are blown beyond my conscious gates
And I am left to meditate
On rainbows that appear too late
The skies have much to say

With the cold wind whipping through his hair
in the Minnesota countryside
His eyes reflect the world we share
and reveal the secrets locked inside
The floorboards creak, the windows freeze
But I stay warm when he’s with me
The snow has much to say

So we travel in my dreams
To Virginia, where it seems
Home is just a mile or two away
Let the north wind’s blizzards blow
Let the cities overflow
In the hills of old Virginia we will stay

I think back to the golden sand
on the beach where ocean waters surge
and the peanut farms that dot the land
where the cloudless open skyways merge
The heat has parched the fields bone-dry
Until the heavens start to cry
The sun has much to say

So we travel in my dreams
To Virginia, where it seems
Home is just a mile or two away
Let the north wind’s blizzards blow
Let the cities overflow
In the hills of old Virginia we will stay
In the hills of old Virginia I will stay

LAST ANTI-WAR SONG
Words and music by Jim Newsom

This will be my last anti-war song
Really, I have nothing left to say
We can find a quiet spot to talk about the past
All the things we’ve shared along the way

But this will be my last anti-war song
Nowadays it’s someone else’s fight
Once upon a time we sang of peace and harmony
Still the bombs and rockets light the night

So this will be my last anti-war song
I’m tired of gunsmoke blowing in the wind
Names pile up on walls and fields keep sprouting monuments
The killing and destruction never end.

But you and I can spend some time together
You and I can maximize our days
You and I can cherish every moment
Making time to sing and laugh and love and play…every day.

This will be my last anti-war song
The time has come to sing its final verse
Always we’ll remember, was it only yesterday
The spirit and the acts behind the words.

And you and I can spend some time together
You and I can maximize our days
You and I can cherish every moment
But this will be my last anti-war song.

STREET SINGER
Words by Jim Newsom
Music by Holly Bishop

I’m just a street singer, a wandering minstrel
I’ve come here to sing you my song
I’ll bring you new faces from exotic places
You’re invited to come along

I’ll sing of your neighbors, I’ll sing of your labors
Maybe bring you a smile
With songs of the good earth, and some songs of real worth
Sit back and relax for a while

I’m just a street singer, a wandering minstrel
I’ve come here to play you my tune
Through oceans of wonder with lightning and thunder
I’ll be with you this afternoon

Bring me your story, I’m in no hurry
If I can, I’ll turn it to song
your facts and your fictions, your revised editions
Correct me if you think I’m wrong

I’m just a street singer…

Love songs and protest, of sleeping and unrest,
music to make gardens grow
We’ll sing songs for certain, and sing songs of hurtin’
Of strangers and people you know

I’m just a street singer, a wandering minstrel
a troubadour here with a song
and strange as it may seem, you’ll all here in my dream
won’t you join me, please come along.

EVANSTON
Words and music by Jim Newsom & Holly Bishop

We’re on our way up Parley’s Canyon
Out on a quest of our own
Riding along with my best companion
Headed a long way from home

We don’t need a map, just east on 80
Past Summit Park and beyond
Living our dream after years of waiting
Singing our freedom song

They’ve been holding us down and in our place
But we know we were born to run
So here we are blasting our tunes on the radio
going to Evanston

Funny as years go by
I feel those days inside me
I wasted so much time
trying to run away…trying to run away

Follow the tail lights’ glow on the highway
feel the cold breeze in our face
Talk about how we will do things our way
when we’re in a better place

Truckers imbibed with coffee and fried steak
Brag about all that they’ve done
But we’re moving on, there’ll be no heartache
We made it to Evanston

Funny as years go by
I feel those days inside me
I wasted so much time
trying to run away
Trying to run away

I wish I could travel back through those memories
Of innocence, high hopes and fun
Wide open rides and daydreams simmering
And driving to Evanston
Driving to Evanston

A THOUSAND MONDAY MORNINGS
Words and music by Jim Newsom

Monday morning looks too gray today
So I’ll call in sick and hide away
And think back to the college days
When I didn’t know what waited
I dreamed of life in stereo
I hadn’t seen and didn’t know
I might get stranded down the road
In a life incorporated

A thousand Monday mornings only age you twenty years
Twenty years ago, you had no idea you’d be here
On another Monday morning like the ones you’ve known before
And the future holds a promise – you’ll face a thousand more

With a job to keep my bills half-paid
And dreams to keep my blues away
This isn’t where I planned to stay
But the time can’t be erased
All the promises I made myself
Sit broke and dusty on the shelf
Like a photograph of someone else
Whose memory I can’t place

Monday morning dawns in charcoal gray
And another work week stalks its prey
And so I vow to take the day
And rise above the clatter
‘cause when every morning looks the same
And once wild idealism’s tamed
When life’s drymounted, matted, framed
You’ve got to make it matter

COLORS OF THE RAINBOW
words by Jim Newsom & Holly Bishop
Music by Holly Bishop

We are all the colors of the rainbow,
the colors in a crayon box,
We are the spectrum of light
We are all the colors of the rainbow,
the colors in a crayon box,
We are the spectrum of light

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

The most wonderful thing
about these beautiful colors
is blending them to see what they become
We are all the colors of the rainbow,
the colors in a crayon box,
We are the spectrum of light
We are all the colors of the rainbow,
the colors in a crayon box,
We are the spectrum of light

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

The most wonderful thing
about these beautiful colors
is blending them to see what they become

When we open our hearts
to our sisters and brothers,
there is nothing standing in our way

We are all the colors of the rainbow,
the colors in a crayon box,
We are the spectrum of light
We are all the colors of the rainbow,
the colors in a crayon box,
We are the spectrum of light.

SOLSTICE
Music by Holly Bishop

Instrumental

GROWING GUNS ON TREES
Words and music by Jim Newsom

At home, late, on a Friday night
A family dispute erupts into a fight
Words are loose and threats are screamed
The peaceful evening becomes a bad dream
There’s no need to talk it out
Nobody remembers what it’s all about
Amid the escalating curse and shout
One or the other pulls a pistol out
And you who deal in the tools of the trade
Can you really take pride in what you have made?
Firearms galore to meet anyone’s needs
They must be growing guns on trees.

Hungry young minds in their lunchroom chairs
A break from classes, laughing, with no cares
But in an instant it’s a frightening scene
Some crazed invader with an AR-15
And you who deal in the tools of the trade
Can you really take pride in what you’ve made?
This epidemic, our national disease
We just keep growing guns on trees.

Hopped out of bed today to bright sunshine
Checked the news, saw the bold headline
Another mass shooting, more bloodshed
Where was it this time, how many dead?
And you who deal in the tools of the trade
Can you really take pride in what you’ve made?
A mental midget can bring a giant to his knees
Because we’re growing guns on trees

Hate-filled posers in the dark of night
Inanely flaunt their “well-regulated” right
While politicians who are bought and paid
Spew scripted rubbish from the NRA
And you who traffic in misinformation
Is there pleasure in destroying God’s creation
Do we really have such blood thirsty needs?
Why are we growing guns on trees?

BABY JEAN
Words by Jim Newsom & Holly Bishop
Music by Holly Bishop

Baby Jean, sugar crusted blueberry pie
super sweet scoop of vanilla on the side
Baby Jean, don’t you know we love to you pieces
so go on and make the world smile

Rosie cheeks and ivory teeth,
I don’t know how you do it
Turning heads wherever you go
You swing from trees, you scrape your knees,
you babbled before we knew it
You’ve been known to hold your own
with your one-girl show

Baby Jean, sugar crusted blueberry pie
super sweet scoop of vanilla on the side
Baby Jean, don’t you know we love to you pieces
so go on and make the world smile

Push me higher, radio flyer,
nothing can be denied you
Look at how you brighten our day
Bows and buttons, all of a sudden,
little boys sit beside you
Hoping for the chance to dance the whole night away

Baby Jean, sugar crusted blueberry pie
super sweet scoop of vanilla on the side
Baby Jean, don’t you know we love to you pieces
so go on and make the world smile

One day you’ll move away, out on your own
We’ll marvel at how you’ve grown
I always believed you would follow your dreams
But you’ll always be my Baby Jean

Baby Jean, sugar crusted blueberry pie
super sweet scoop of vanilla on the side
Baby Jean, don’t you know we love to you pieces

Baby Jean, sugar crusted blueberry pie
super sweet scoop of vanilla on the side
Baby Jean, don’t you know we love to you pieces
so go on and make the world smile

FLOOD
Words and Music by Holly Bishop

Through the narrows
I was drifting
Waves of sandstone
towered above me
Isolated in the barren rock formations
I was staring at the sterile stream bed
had I seen a sign was there to warn me
of a deluge that was surging just ahead
a deluge that was surging just ahead

I should have run, run, run, run
to save myself from being overcome
I should have run, run, run, run
this calamity would make me come undone
this enmity would drown me in the flood

Sweeping canyons
years of caving in
what has drawn me
to this beauty?
I stepped over boulders in the path that had
fallen from the cliffs that rose above
As the sky began to shift from starker light
to the grey that only sun-parched lands would love
the grey that only sun-parched lands would love

I should have run, run, run, run
to save myself from being overcome
I should have run, run, run , run
this calamity would make me come undone
this enmity would drown me in the flood

I stepped over boulders in the path that had
fallen from the cliffs that rose above
As the sky began to shift from starker light
to the grey that only sun-parched lands would love

I should have run, run, run, run
to save myself from being overcome
I should have run, run, run , run
this calamity would make me come undone
this enmity would drown me in the flood

THE RIGHT PLACE
Words and music by Jim Newsom

I used to excite you,
Now I put you to sleep
But I still remember
When our love was young and sweet
Things were going our way
The world was ours to take
But you can’t be in the right place at the right time
If you’re not in the right place.

I had dreams of fulfillment
And dreams of wealth and fame
I imagined maybe someday
Everyone would know my name
With a tiny bit of talent
and a big smile on my face
But you can’t be in the right place at the right time
If you’re not in the right place.

You can’t make a hole in one
If you’re not out on the course
You can’t win the Derby
If you haven’t got a horse
You can’t be a big shot
If you don’t know how to shoot
You won’t be voted best dressed in your class
Till you buy yourself a suit

So I take a look around me
And wonder where I am
Something must have gone awry
In my master plan
I’m afraid I might live my life
Then die without a trace
‘Cause you can’t be in the right place at the right time
If you’re not in the right place.

No you can’t be in the right place at the right time
If you’re not in the right place.

DESPERATE DAYS
Words by Jim Newsom
Music by Holly Bishop

These may seem like desperate days
I’ve known such days before
When the howling winds of change proclaimed
That things will never be the same
And the fear that good times left behind
Are gone forever more.

What once felt like transcendent times
Mean even more as days go by
While memory’s tricks, enflamed, remain
More potent than a steam train
When future lives, yet undefined
Await, an unclaimed prize.

Now every day is stranger than the last
And time itself is hurtling past too fast
I grab a moment simply to reflect
But wonder what is coming, what to expect.

Because these seem like desperate days
Unlike any we have seen
The status quo undone, on the run
A new beginning, just begun
We’ll make up time, with heart and mind
And realize our dreams.

A MIGHTY CRY
Words and music by Jim Newsom

Back in 1969, we thought we had the best of times
And songs of love and peace were everywhere
The Woodstock nation, dressed in beads,
In August threatened to secede,
The sound of young ideals filled the air.

While brothers died in Vietnam
And Nixon dropped his secret bombs,
We shared a dream that we’d unite
And wooden ships on waves of air
Brought troubadours with flowing hair
Whose music kept our yearnings burning bright.

We watched the landing on the moon
And knew the words to every tune,
Our future as unbounded as the sky
In tie-dyed shirts and patched up jeans,
From muddy fields to campus greens,
Our voices unleashed a mighty cry.

I taught myself to play the flute
And vowed I’d never wear a suit
Or join the daily grind from nine to five
And I listened underneath the stars
To tambourines and jangly guitars
Relishing the chance to be alive

I watched the landing on the moon
And knew the words to every tune,
My future as unbounded as the sky
In tie-dyed shirt and patched up jeans
From muddy fields to campus greens,
I joined the chorus in its mighty cry.

Those days that seem like yesterday
Are at the same time far away
But smoldering embers still contain a spark
And still I have the strangest dream
That builds to this climactic scene:
The light of love banishing the dark.