Author: Joel D Canfield

The Moon (by Fiona ER Canfield)

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

uke is tuned F but use mandolin fingerings as below

G               Em              C              D
tat-da-dadadada tat-da-dadadada tat-da-dadadada
you’re a heartmaker, a light to everyone you know 
have the world quaking, get a say in how the story goes 
the perfect smile, in a lonely starless night
see it once in a while, it gives people life

C                               D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face you
Em                               D
in fact there’s no one who could take you
C                         D
they would never know what hit them
C                D                       
disregard oxygen, take them all down again tonight

G          Em
it’s no surprise
C                               D
the potential was clear from the start 
G              Em
see it in your eyes
C                             D
the best thing you can have is heart

slower
C                     D
you’ll be the moon someday
Em                     Em
you’ll be the moon someday 
C                     D
you’ll be the moon someday
Em                     Em
you’ll be the moon someday 

C                               D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face you
                                    (you’ll be the moon someday)
Em                               D
in fact there’s no one who could take you
                                    (you’ll be the moon someday)
C                         D
they would never know what hit them
                                (be the moon someday)
C                D                        [no chord]
disregard oxygen, take them all down again tonight

C                               D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face you
                                    (you’ll be the moon someday)
Em                               D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face you
                                    (you’ll be the moon someday)
                                 (tat-da-dadadada da da da da)
C                               D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face you
                                    (you’ll be the moon someday)
                                (tat-da-dadadada da da da da)
Em                               D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face
                       C
you’ll be the moon someday
                                 D
the moon the sun and stars can’t face
                       G
you’ll be the moon someday

Not True Enough

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

capo 2
C F G
you asked me if I loved you
I wasn’t lying when I said yes
the way my hands are shaking as I write this letter now
it wasn’t quite true enough I guess

I came in from the wilderness to live with you in town
you craved that faster life and brighter lights
your hand slipped out of mine when you were dancing
wasn’t long before I slipped out of your nights

chorus

I was rough and it got rougher
the more I tried the worse it got
my head and hands and heart could only do so much
a man can’t be what he’s not

chorus

Dm [2233] F
love is not love if all it wants to do
C G
is change a man ’cause he ain’t good enough
it shouldn’t bring a tempest down as Billy Bard would say
and block out all the stars a sailor wants to see above

there’s a cabin out up on the mountain
built by a man who thought he was in love
I’ll go there and I’ll try to find the peace I used to know
’cause whatever I feel now just ain’t enough
chorus

Home Like No Place

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

G Em
Huddie sang about that old boll weevil
C D
And how that bug was looking for a home
G Em G Em
Every time I hear that song Seems he got it wrong
C D G
I know that old bug just liked to roam

Even Stephen Foster’s great plantation
And old folks at home were far away
How ever many times We all sing Stephen’s rhymes
He’s wandering creation to this day

C D G
Me and Stephen Foster and boll weevil
We’re travelers not looking for a home
Roads rambled, rivers crossed Some wanderers ain’t lost
We’re forty years from the milk and the honeycomb

Life ain’t some great eternal baseball game
There’s more for you and me than rounding third
Every child knows the poem There’s no place like home
Don’t you believe everything you’ve heard

chorus

Best beloved’s sitting by the fire
Simm’ring supper smell fills the air
But when Foster and the bug Look up from the rug
You’d best believe they’ll take you off somewhere

chorus, then
We’re forty years from the milk and the honeycomb

Huddie Ledbetter, Lead Belly, was such a great performer of folk music that the governor of Texas pardoned him after he’d served 7 years of a 30-year sentence for murder. If you grew up in California in the late 60s during the folk music revival, you knew this famous Leadbelly song about cotton farmers fighting against the seemingly indestructible weevil that destroyed cotton bolls, the seed capsule of the plant:

Boll Weevil

Now the first time I see the boll weevil
He’s a sittin’ in the square
Next time I see the boll weevil
Got all o’ his family there
Jus’ a-lookin’ for a home
Jus’ a-lookin’ for a home

In his 37 years in the early 1800s Stephen Foster wrote over 200 songs, many of which would be familiar to anyone who’s seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Oh Susanna
C G D
Oh Susanna, don’t you cry for me
G D G
For I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee

Camptown Races
G D
Camptown ladies sing this song, doodah, doodah
G D G
Camptown racetrack five miles long, oh doodah day

Beautiful Dreamer
G C
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
D G
starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee

Old Folks at Home

Way down upon the Suwannee River,
Far, far away,
There’s where my heart is turning ever,
There’s where the old folks stay

Greenback Blues

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

intro C G C G
C G
You should have married Andrew Jackson
I know that you think more of him than me
I’ll bet Ben Franklin would be fine with you
D C G
and that’s fine with me as far as I can see

Alexander Hamilton is only half as much
as Andrew Jackson in your twisted mind
George Washington is peanuts and Lincoln’s not much more
but Grover Cleveland would be quite a find

too bad Woodrow Wilson don’t circulate no more
got your hands on him he’d never leave
but give me just one Roosevelt to call a cab
and I’ll be gone for good you’d best believe

Back to You

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Fiona: drums w/snare on, brush/hot rod | notes
capo 3, play in A
It’s raining straight in my face and I’m losing my place in the lane
as the big rigs go by spitting mud in my face
and it’s all I can do just to hang on and pray
up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the right
and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to meet me
and help me try to make some sense of my day

last night or last week or last month or last year
I’d never have thought I’d be coming back here
to the place that I should never have left in the first place at all
but this morning I woke in more ways than one
underpaid undervalued and under the gun
was the last night week month year of climbing that wall

had a lotta friends who were really great
took the shirt off my back and the food from my plate
but they left me an old mandolin and a song or two
gave a beat up car and an old guitar
and a mandolin I couldn’t play anyway
for this old road warrior that’s bringing me back to you

two iron lungs between my knees
all the leatherwork died of some horrid disease
and I’ll bet you a nickel ain’t no nickel left in that chrome
it’s ragged and ugly but it sure is fast
eating miles and bugs and oil and gas
and time on the road to the hills that we call home

up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the right
and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to meet me
and help me try to make a little sense of my day

bass notes

P-F T-C
walkdown →
             C             B            Bb        A
It’s raining straight in my face and I’m losing my place in the
F           C           F           C
lane as the big rigs go by spitting mud in my 
G             D         G          D           C   G   F C
face and it’s all I can do just to hang on and pray
    C             B            Bb            A
up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the 
F             C         F               C
right and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to 
G           D         G        D           C   G   C bump
meet me and help me try to make some sense of my day

last night or last week or last month or last year
I’d never have thought I’d be coming back here
to the place I should never have left in the first place at all
but this morning I woke in more ways than one
underpaid undervalued and under the gun
was the last night week month year of climbing that wall

had a lotta friends who were really great
took the shirt off my back and the food from my plate
but they left me an old mandolin and a song or two
gave a beat up car and an old guitar
and a mandolin I couldn’t play anyway
for this old road warrior that’s bringing me back to you

two iron lungs between my knees
all the leatherwork died of some horrid disease
and I’ll bet you a nickel ain’t no nickel left in that chrome
it’s ragged and ugly but it sure is fast
eating miles and bugs and oil and gas
and time on the road to the hills that we call home

up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the right
and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to meet me
and help me try to make a little sense of my day
up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the right
and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to meet me
and help me try to make a little sense of my day

walkdown →
    C             B            Bb            A
up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the 
F             C         F               C
right and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to 
G           D         G        D           C   G   C bump
meet me and help me try to make some sense of my day
    C             B            Bb            A
up ahead there’s a curve to the left and I’ll go to the 
F             C         F               C
right and I’ll be home tonight and you’ll be there to 
G           D         G        D           C   G   C C C C CCCC
meet me and help me try to make some sense of my day

A Light Between the Branches

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

capo 1
heading north across the border
to a land that feels like home
to a place a man can step outside and breathe
fill my lungs with all the songs
nature’s singin’ out to me
where there’s room to spread my arms and sing along

D
there’s a light between the branches in a stand of aspen trees
G D A
that lift the stream up to the very sky
D G
it whispers with a voice colored blue and white and gold
D G A D
of peace for every soul that passes by

G D
sky so wide I cannot see it all
G D A
trees of every color as far as eyes can see
G D
listen to the rivers as they call
D
come lie in my arms; find the peace
G A D
that means so much to me

there’s a voice across the prairie that’s calling out for me
to find my way out to another land
and it leads me to a place peace can come to me
with the comfort of a warm and gentle hand

chorus

heading north across the border to a land that feels like home
to a place a man can step outside and breathe
fill my lungs with all the songs nature’s singin’ out to me
where there’s room to spread my arms and sing along

The Note

Posted on by Joel D Canfield
C . . . G . . . Am . . . Em . . . F . . . C . . . F . . . G
She found his wallet and his keys . . . On the counter by the door
Folded neatly on the chair . . . She found his coat
Placed precisely in the center of the table
Was the lunch she’d packed for him the night before
But what she never found however hard she looked
She didn’t find the note

They always leave a note, her mother said
It’s like want someone to know
It was a cry for help so you would come and save him
Maybe if you look a little harder, look somewhere
You haven’t thought of yet . . . You know how you can be

The pretty blonde named Audrey in her group
Said he probably just didn’t have the time
As if he were late to get down to the office
And in the rush it simply slipped his mind . . . His mind

Am . . . Em . . . F . . . C . . . F . . . C . . . F . . . G
He could have left it on the table with his lunch
Or maybe in the pocket of his coat
With his wallet on the counter by his keys by the back door
But he couldn’t leave a thing he never wrote

C . . . G . . . Am . . . Em . . . F . . . C . . . F . . . G
His wallet and his keys are in his dresser
In the sock drawer tucked away there in the back
Someone had thrown his lunch into the garbage
But that night she rummaged out the paper sack
It’s neatly folded, hanging in the closet
Slipped inside the pocket of his coat
She still has everything he ever left her
But she doesn’t have the words he never wrote
She doesn’t have the note

I don’t like writing sad songs. I’ve had all the sadness I’ll ever need, I don’t have to go searching for it.

Not Just Believe

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Cm E♭ Gm Cm | Cm E♭ G

A caravan of angry camels tramping o’er the dunes
Precious cargo swaying to and fro
They circle round and round the map that’s tacked up on my wall
As I lay restless, dreaming here below

They never seem to tire as they make their dusty way
Endlessly they circle ’round and ’round
They never take me with them on a journey far away
To see the things that Marco Polo found

I want to know the world is round
Not just believe

I read about those far off lands and wonder what it’s like
To wander through a market in Peru
To taste the precious spices of Madagascar’s coast
And ride a camel into Timbuktu

Let me see the sails of a flying clipper ship
Grow on the horizon as it nears
Show me what the jungle’s like in darkest Africa
And the beauty of the garden in Algiers

chorus

With Slocum and with Dana, two years before the mast
Help Amundsen find Scott in frozen lands
Then warmer climes with Ibn Battúta, out of old Tangier
Learn wisdom’s seven pillars in the sands

I want to tramp with Halliburton that romantic road
For seven years I’ll ponder in Tibet
Fly with Saint-Exupéry into the desert sands
And make a mark no one will e’er forget

chorus, then Not just believe [x3]

It’s Cold Out There

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

capo 3

I can’t go, it’s way too cold out there
The wind is howling, growling like a bear
Thermometer’s gone in its shell
And I can see it’s cold as, well,
I just can’t go; it’s way too cold out there

Blizzard’s blowing snow all through the air
Drivers in this stuff ain’t got a prayer
I considered going but
I think the door is frozen shut
I can’t go it’s way too cold out there

I know it’s time for work but I don’t care
They never even notice when I’m there
They treat me like a chessboard pawn
And I feel a sick day comin’ on
I just can’t go; it’s way too cold out there

I am well aware I’ve got responsibilities
And you’ve got work from here to Timbuctu
But let’s not do it out in minus 42 degrees
Here inside it’s nice and warm with you
We can think of something else to do

Let’s sit here by the fire in my old chair
And I don’t mean to chat about Voltaire (or even Moliere)
That look I love is on your face
And I’m smokin’ like the fireplace
I just can’t go it’s way too cold out there

I’m tellin’ you it’s way too cold out there
The wind is howling, growling like a bear
Thermometer’s gone in its shell
And I can see it’s cold as, well,
I just can’t go; it’s way too cold out there
I just can’t go; it’s way too cold out there
I just can’t go; it’s way too cold out there

Take a Boat

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

mandolin G | notes

if you’re thinking just like me
that you’d like to go to sea
I’ve some words of good advice
that you should note
your floating will be better
and you end up far less wetter
if you’ll only take along
a little boat

now boats are fancy things
says the dry man as he sings
for keeping all the ocean
from your socks
and even if they match
you can bet they’re not a patch
on a boat for when you
leave behind the docks


C G
take a boat that’ll float
A
and you can quote me when I say
D
a boat is better any day
G D
if you’re thinking just like me
C G
and you’d like to go to sea
C D
if you’ll only take along
G D G
a little boat

 if you’re thinking just like me
that you’d like to go to sea
there’s another bit of wisdom
you should note
your health will be robust
and your joints will never rust
if you’ll only take along
a little coat

a coat’s a wondrous thing
says the warm man as he sings
for keeping all the chilly
from your throat
if it buttons or it zips
it’ll keep the frosty nips
from your throat
while you’re out sailing
on your boat
chorus

(spoken)
now, we’ve talked about boats
and we’ve talked about coats
and there’s only one thing left
to talk about: goats

 if you’re thinking just like me
that you’d like to go to sea
I’ve some final words of wisdom
you should note
as you’re loading up your boat
in your warm and fuzzy coat
don’t ever ever ever bring a goat

goats, the hungry things
will eat your sofa to the springs
and if there’s eating to be done,
well here’s my vote
put the goat into a pot
and we’ll serve him up right hot
and prevent the creature
butting up our boat

chorus
C D
so take a boat and get yer coat
G C
and eat the goat and stay afloat—
G D
your floating will be better
C G
and you end up far less wetter
C D
if you’ll only take along
G D G
a little boat