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Children Live the Fear

by Bill White

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The Fishermen & the Priestess
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1.
Children Live the Fear 04:28
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Stay away from the playground Where the grown ups play Trauma and anxiety is the order of their day But children integrate Imaginatio and reality I am a child I live the fear Whether far Or whether it's near I climb the rocks I fish the stream Sometimes awake Sometimes in dream But I'm not afraid of tomorrow It's already here Saturday afternoons at the movies Children live the fear We get frightened at the movies We swim through the drills at school We try to come up for air But are chained to the base of the pool Insects getting bigger People getting smaller Im running up the aisle to the snack bar and I holler If it wasn't for the monsters on the screen I'd die of fright from reality Grownups are afraid of alien invasion While every day they swallow or inhale Invisible creatures who would consume them Had they the power to utterly assail But I'm not afraid of mutation Or of crossing the final frontier Adults have no cushion to soften the blow While children are living the fear I'm in bed staring at the window It was cloudy now the stars are clear Why should I fear the end of the world Dracula is already here
2.
The Do-It Club 03:05
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chorus We called ourselves the Do It Club But the locals called us rinks The girls we kissed in the commons Scorned us on Newberry Street I didnt kill Kennedy I didnt kill Kennedy I didnt kill Kennedy Of course you didnt kill me. I'm not dead. Fuck you ,man. We are all dead, In those happy days of you i was a pimp and you were a whore what a jolly time we had life was good and we were bad but those happy days of yore Are never to come no more Why do you have to leave the party so soon? Do you have an AA meeting? No. I have to drive a truck to, Ohio Wow. really? You're a truck driver? Yeah, and I have to make the whole trip in one room. What? Yeah, and I must be at the theatre by six. what would you do if i snuck into your room and stole the cupcakes hidden under your bed? you couldnt tell mama because you stole them from grandma who received them from mama as a happy day gift i think these two years of therapy have done you some good. Two years? It seems more like two hours. Life goes by quickly when you are under hypnosis. repeat chorus Do you want to play a song with me? No.I am embarassed by emotion. It is not emotion. It is volume. I dont feel emotion when I sing. It just seems that way because I have a loud voice. Oh for the days of no regret when i seduced you on a bet you hate me now i love you yet and bless the rueful day we met when i seduced you on a bet such were the days of no regret
3.
The Loneliness of the VIP Room 03:21
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I was killing time at the disco bar Drinking club soda out of a fruit jar When a woman on the stool next to me and asked if I was a radio star I wanted to wince but instead I grinned and said I made a record once But it went straight to the bargain bin If she wanted a copy she could get one for a quarter on EBay She said that's good enough for me You might be able to pass for a celebrity And you can escort me to the VIP room So I showed the bartender my music union ID And asked him if he recognized me He said theres a good possibility Didnt you sing at the WGBH ice cream festivities? I said that was me and he lowered the rope and we descended the stairs to a land beyond hope After we went through the door she didnt want to be with me no more She made a run to the corner where the food was on the trays And Peter Gabriel was scarfing up the crudite Elvis costello and roger Mcguinn Were singing Blowin in the Wind And I plopped myself down between Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt Somebody gave me a pink armband someone else put a long tall drink in my hand I felt like a flower that forgot to bloom In the loneliness of the VIP Room The hours were passing painful and slow I would have left but there was nowhere to go Earthy turned to me and winked her eye grabbed the inside of my thigh and said its time for Grace and I to make our appearance Would you be so kind to run interference? I didnt really know just what to say So I stood up and walked away Then I got into an argument with Sting Who punched me when I said jazz wasnt his thing I felt like Dylan's Mr Jones When in walked two of the Rollling Stones I think it was Keith who helped me to my feet But it might have been his brother from Alphabet Street Things were looking brighte, then boom boom boom Sting got me evicted from the VIP Room Now Im back in my old skin Drinking soda water at the bar again Grace is flying around the room like a bat Kitt us pulling monkey men out of a hat And all of the common people like me Are basking in the presence of celebrities But Im still feeling the loneliness of the nobody in the room where everyone else is somebody Id rather spend my life singing the blues Then have my dreams come true in the loneliness of the VIP room
4.
Vacate the Space 03:51
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When i vacate this space I pray somebody better will fill it
5.
All these Witches 03:13
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Worms on their fingers And slugs in their toes Cockroaches follow Wherever they go If give up the world with all of its riches To reverse the curses of all these witches I threw the coconut into the sea Burned all the pictures of my mama and me My rash went away but my ass still itches If like to drop the sky on all these witches Dont drink the soup from grandmother's hands Its full of roasted guts and gutted glands Dig up her garbage and bring it back here Ill make all these witches disappear Only rabbis allowed To sweep out this room In sneak the witches with potions and brooms The ghosts of the harvest rise from the ditches The hills are alive with all these witches Out in the graveyard with nothing to eat Vegetarians are hunting for pieces of meat Maggots and rats in the throats of the choir All these witches still standing in circles of fire
6.
Blood Moon Howl 04:00
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7.
The Spirit Ain't In Me No More 03:02
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For a split second back there I had a one in a million chance To break out the windows And join in the dance But now the time has flown by And my feet are too sore I missed the train to glory And the spirit aint in me no more Once I was terrified of heights But walked across the Aurora bridge On the day I was baptized In the Creek below Cane ridge The bible was my sole protection And I survived the jungle war Id go back home and cast out the demons But the spirit aint in me no more I used to preached the gospel Outside the Bon Marche Until two women took me home And tried to make me stay They fed me and they bathed me And they raped me on a wooden floor Made me a worthless rotten reprobate And the spirit aint in me no more The crosses have now fallen From the spires of the church And the broken congregation Has given up the search All that I held sacred Is shipwrecked on a foreign shore Id build a new house like Crusoe did But he spirit aint in me no more
8.
Trouble House 03:03
lyrics
Before you throw a mudpie through the window You better think about where you are at Stay away from Trouble House Don’t look into the eye of the cat Don’t dial that number Unless you know who is going to pick up the phone Don’t make contact with Trouble House Aint nothing inside there but bones Don’t knock on the door Unless you know what is on the other side If you step into Trouble House Trouble will be your guide You are such a beautiful child People love to see you smile But if you step into that house You will come out with a face like a crocodile Before you sit down to dinner You better check out what is on your plate You’re in Trouble House, baby And the hostess, shes already ate So pic up your feet and start running Dont stop til you are out of the woods Don’t ever go back to Trouble House If you do, you;; be stuck there for good
9.
Look This Way 02:17
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Look this way And you will look this way Do as I say And you will look this way Look that way And you will look that way Do as they say And you will look that way But look this way And you will look this way Do as I say And you will look this way All of us are drunk pretending to be sober Trying to survive Until the party is over If I could feel like this on the inside Without looking like that on the outside I;d stay drunk until the witches come On the last day of October repeat first three verses
10.
I Dont Know Life 02:24
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i lived the low life I lived the high life but mostly I have lived the i dont know life its all a mystery a mystery to me i dont know anything Where would i have learned? There are no teachers round here and the books have a been burned Dont test my IQ , dont expect me to be smart I'd try to figure it out but I didnt know where to start WIhen I was a child I read 10,000 essays each one slamming the others and leaving me in a daze telling of women 50 feet tall and men who've shrunk to nothing at all and food that eats you when you try to eat it Its all just 10,000 ways of packaging shit somebody found something inside my spine It was a lobster claw with a satisfied mind filled up with science and history so many things to know more than I could take so i turned on the radio
11.
The Ghost of 1978 03:03
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I was hanging art last night Down at Market Place Looking for a woman Who had an ugly face I found one who looked like Goya’s mama So I said how do you do She said take a walk pretty boy I said Im just as ugly as you I was in the middle of playing That little song In the bookstore I had bought When the telephone rung It was my partner Asking me what was up You were supposed to bring me money For tomorrows lunch The place is packed \i told him Ad the money is rolling in Ill bring it to you tomorrow Ill have plenty of money then He said that wont do my friend I need that money now I eat my lunch at midnight So close that damn place down I laid down my guitar But the crowd wouldn’t let me go They asked if Id be back tomorrow night I said I did not know But rght now everybody here hs got to leave Im closing down the place When I started the song it was 2018 Now its 1978 I knew the song was no damn good Even when I was singing it But 40 years into my past It was a smashing hit My guitar wasn’t so hot back then But I was playing like Hendrix tonight And every one of my old fans Looked young in the mystic light Then all the people disappeared Who came to hear me sing Ad I drove to my partners house With the money he told me to bring But I asked him never to call me at night again When I was at the shop Nostalgia pays in this rock and roll town And you made the music stop Tomorrow night Ill be back again With guitar in my hand But I don’t know if Ill draw a crowd Or if Ill even have a band Tonight my muic brought them all Back home from the dead But i never got to finish my song I had to pay the devil instead
12.
He Had Some Songs 02:18
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his fingers were too small for the guitar but he knew what to do with a tune he spent his days in coffee bars and his nights singing in saloons never could hang on to a day job but he had some songs through his life he kept a low profile he never wanted to be big the mountains around him were ripped with gold but he never knew where to dig the road he travelled was not long but he had some songs he had the music and the words like nothing i ever heard never had much in worldly goods but he had some songs he died of an unknown illness that was never diagnosed when his daughter cleaned out his apartment she found nothing, not even a ghost but somewhere in that room lies the dust of a broken swan he had some songs

about

It wasn’t exactly a theory, more like an unsound idea. When I expounded it to my wife, who usually changes the subject whenever I start jabbering about some new idea that has occurred to me, she suggested I write an article. The idea was that a steady diet of horror and science fiction movies in the late 1950’s vaccinated the children against the fear of the atomic bomb. The last thing I wanted to do was spend a month re-watching all those moviies so I could write an academic essay that maybe a dozen people might read. Instead, I thought, I could send a hour or so writing a song about it, post the song on the net, and receive hundreds of responses in one day. Then it occurred to me that I should take all the ideas I had for articles, plays. novels, and what have you, and instead of devoting years to their composition, use those ideas for songs. So I stated writing Children Live the Fear. In two weeks I had finished writing and recording the album. What started as a dark and brooding collection of ballads soon assumed the form of a collection of songs that were predominanatly blues the subject matter was loosely connected to the relationship of imagination and reality to the emotion of fear. So here it is. Fifteen new songs, two of them collaborations with lyricists Cindy Prince and Elizabeth Petty.

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released July 17, 2018

all songs writte and erformed by bill whte

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Bill White Lima, Peru

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