petalridge.com
the website of
Derek Kannemeyer
POP SONGSTER
I love to sing. I was probably making up new song lyrics to familiar tunes before I hit my teens. Making up my own songs? I'm not sure. There was one which went "Rain is wet, rain is wet, I'm not a betting man but I'll make you a bet: I think you'll find that rain is wet." I was singing that to the rain when I was 15. I was 18 before I wrote it down, adding new stanzas—but a lot of such songs, over the decades, never got written down. And many that were, especially the pre-digital ones, have been lost.
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From 1966 to 1990, though, I kept song lyric notebooks—and until the late 70s I was good about using them. A surprising number of those earliest songs included snatches of text and melody which I had quite literally dreamed. Everything had a tune of sorts, but I only recorded the lyrics. Mostly, they are embarrassingly florid; clumsily angsty; painfully wiseass. Over the years, though, I would go back through them and still feel connected to some; almost always I would fiddle with those more meaningful texts, striving to "rescue" them.
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The song lyrics preserved here are in chronological batches, with roughly 8-12 songs in each batch: 1966-1970; then 1971-1972; etc. After 1980 there are several gaps in my records, years where I kept no records, or I can't find my files.
Here at the Pop Songster tab I’m archiving some of the texts I have found and which I remain interested in. A collection of song lyrics, I feel, reading my own, can constitute the most embarrassingly frank autobiography. My hope is that the selection here presented does still convey some sense of who I have been and how I have changed; but not too confessional a sense! (Fortunately, the embarrassingly confessional material is mostly the earliest and the weakest; to exclude it is no loss.)
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I'll asterisk songs where for one reason or another the tune matters to me. E.g. because I think it fits well, or I just kind of like it, or somehow it has stuck with me; or because I wrote it first and set the lyrics to it later; or because in a dream John Lennon wrote it and sang it to me. (See "Peel a Radish," in the first folder, "Blistered Feet.") But very few of those tunes were composed on an instrument (thumb piano, whistle), and any imaginary arrangements are rudimentary.
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LYRIC FOLDERS
TEASER SONGS: one per folder
THE WIND IN RAGGED ROSES (1970)
the wind in ragged roses
the off-white scleral sky
a hill's slope of squat houses
cluttering the eye
the I threaded through thousands
the faces someone knows
the barely unique houses
that wind in ragged rows
schoolgirls in shabby blazers
sparrows in Dutch elms
the wind in trees and roses
that woos and overwhelms
these careful fading colours
their dusty browns and greys
these old men growing dahlias
by dual carriageways
these bees in our thin roses
this patch of common ground
this wind that lifts and loses
its way and gentles down
these quiet compromises
I’ll come to understand
the wind in ragged roses
ragged roses in the wind
SUCH A CHILD (1971)
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I'm a child because when I was young
I was too slow to join in the games.
And I'm wild because finding my tongue
I found that it wouldn't run tame.
And I'm hid, because when I'm lost
I don't ever want it to show.
And I’m a kid, because needing to trust
what cool kid lets anyone know?
I play the fool because when I was shot
People thought that I bled for a joke.
And it's cool—to act like you’re not,
And then laugh till you cry and you choke.
Was I daft? It's that needing a wall
the handiest matter was mirth—
so I laughed—thinking, starting to fall,
the sound might balloon me to earth.
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I got coy because worn on our sleeve
my heart falls in love with the spiel.
And oh boy, tries to take back and leave,
to not break like a child and to feel.
So I smiled, because when I'm stung,
I like to deride the bee's aim.
Such a child, because only the young
get to hide like it’s all just a game.
BLOTTO IN BLIGHTY (1973)
Blotto in Blighty, you in your nightie,
me with your head in my lap,
sated with kissing, and talking and listening,
and snuggled too tired to unwrap.
Give me your smile, and I'll give you my wine.
You give me your love, and I'll give you mine.
Tipsy in Totnes, agog at your hotness,
giggling over my burps,
in slurred words confessing
what we wasted time guessing
before our sips became slurps.
Tomorrow hung over; tomorrow, who cares.
We make the nights ours, the nights make us theirs.
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Tomorrow can wait, with its fuss and its fret
Tonight I've a date with the girl I like best.
So nice how the stars that shine down on bars
sing torch songs and dance Fred Astaire.
Still nicer the jazz of my heart’s razzmatazz
as I lie with my head in your hair.
Give me your smile, and I'll bring you my wine.
You give me your love, and I'll sing you mine.
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​Tomorrow can wait, with its fret and its fuss
Tonight we make ours, as its hours make us us.
CANCER WARD, TERMINAL WING (1976)
(from conversations with James Treadway, John Brewster, and Doug Brown)
His is
the only truth that matters—
this husk may lie in tatters,
but my soul is His.
Praise be, I’m not what’s dying of cancer,
Death asks for me, I will answer
"Jesus died for me."
Read this book—take a look
and tell me what you think.
This pain
never seems to leave me,
the tablets don’t relieve me,
the treatments are in vain.
I try, but every bite upsets me,
why can’t they just let me
go back home and die?
Read my chart, listen to my heart,
I'm going to sink
Read my scans, make your useless plans,
I need a drink.
If we
return each generation
in some new incarnation
I’d like to come as me.
I guess I’ll soon die of this cancer
but I was a dancer
my whole life said, Yes.
Read your palm, you who sit so calmly
in the pink
Come your time, tell me how they’ll find
you on the brink.
​Come my turn, tell me who I’ll be
as the sea churns over me.
from OLD WISH (early 2020s?)
(a bonus song—just to hit all the decades)
You're such a cold dish
I'm gonna heat
I'm gonna heat you up
It's just that old wish
I wanna eat you up
You're like some goldfish
Here, there in your part
Here, there in your party dress
Swishing your gold swish
In, out my eyes' caress
Me shark, you goldfish
I wanna crash
I wanna splash your bowl
It's just that old wish
I wanna cash your haul
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The way that your eyes flare
Like fireflies
Like fireflies like little stars
A boy feels that old dare
Gotta light up our little jars
M’EN FICHE (1985)
je m’en fiche, je m’en fous
je suis riche, je suis soûl
et ça biche si je triche
donc je triche
et j’y prends goût
tu t’en vas, tu t’enfuis
de mes bras, de mon lit
n’en fais pas, c’est comme ça
dans ces draps
de tant pis
on est chair et esprit
coûter cher, c’est le prix
of our share of l’affaire
rien à faire
c’est la vie
car we’re tous, we are all
hanging loose, off the wall
where our excuse, what’s the use lets its noose
catch the fall
but je m’en fiche, je m’en fous
je suis riche, je suis soûl
et ça biche si je triche
donc je triche
voilà tout
DANCE IN THE LONG GRASS (1999)
Round and round with the moon in the sky
To the sound of an antique hifi
We’ll dance in the long grass tonight
Fireflies making eyes from the woods
Summertime in the old neighborhood
We’ll dance in the long grass tonight
OLD FRIENDS, GOOD WINE, SOME CANDLESHINE
A THREE COURSE MEAL OR TWO
ROUND BACK OUTSIDE, THROW THE WINDOWS WIDE
TO LET THE MUSIC THROUGH
Shadows arm in arm cast on the hill
The darkening charms of their boogie quadrille
As we dance in the long grass tonight
Toe to toe, ass to arse, cheek to cheek
Swinging low, till the stars lick the creek
As we dance in the long grass tonight
I WALK INTO THINGS (2017 version)
(there's also a longer 2025 duet version that leans more into the conventions of song)
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I walk into things.
This welt reddening my forehead​
comes from a kitchen cabinet.
Sometimes its glass door swings
out at me like a warhead—
one hard step will open it.
And I'll walk into things.
I walk into things,
especially in the night.
I've bruised both pinkie toes
this week; this right one stings
like a Jurassic insect bite.
The left just throbs and glows.
Well, I walk into things.
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And the world's full of things!
My heart too has its bruises.
Its calluses, its qualms.
But when the stars flutter their wings,
and desire's blowing our fuses,
and the dark throws wide its arms, I'll walk into things.
CAFETERIA SONG (2004)
The light that rides the racing river
The wind that winks the leaves like eyes
The rain that falls in staves of silver
The storm that clears to starry skies
The way your hand lifts to the tumble
of your sweet hair, and tucks it clear
The way you smile and my breath fumbles
toiling to find the atmosphere
I saw you in the cafeteria
Sitting alone, reading a book
You saw me standing tray in hand there
You smiled and spoke, I smiled and shook
The way your hand lifts to the tumble
of your sweet hair, and tucks it round
The way you smile, and my step stumbles
toiling to find its steady ground
I saw you in the cafeteria
Hand to your hair, I craned to see
Sunlight in leaves, wind in wisteria
Your voice that called my name to me
The way your hand lifts to the tumble
of your sweet hair, and tucks it by
The way you smile, and all my jumble
clears to this star in your night sky
The way your hand lifts to the tumble
of your sweet hair, and tucks it right
The way you smile, and all this mumble
clears in my heart to one pure note