Baby Let's Take the Long Way Home

Baby let's take the long way home  
Radio’s playing our favorite song
Feet on the dash, head on your arm
Music in the air to keep us warm.

I remember the night a lifetime ago
Two young lovers hitting the road     
Passion drove us like a summer storm
Not in a hurry to see the dawn  

Baby let's take the long way home
No one’s at home now the kids are grown
We’ve done our job we’re free to go  
Break the grip of the city grind
Let's ball the jack and leave it all behind   
Baby let's take the long way home
If it takes all night, we don’t mind
Throw out the map
Got enough gas, got enough time
Lets just drive!

No place to go we’ll take it real slow
We’ll get off the freeway & take the backroads
Windows down elbows out
We’ll follow our hearts meandering route

Baby let's take the long way home
Nowhere on earth I'd rather be
Than to have you close sitting by me
Feeling like this I hope it never ends
Having you as my best friend

Baby let's take the long way home
If it takes all night, we don’t mind
Turn off the phone
(say goodbye to the city lights)
Lets just drive!
Baby let's take the long way home

Got enough gas, got enough time
Baby let's take the long way home
Hold my hand, let’s drive all night
Baby let's take the long way home
Throw out the map, Turn off the phone
Baby let's take the long way home
The Radio’s playing our favorite songs
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Composed by Nell Robinson & James Nunally
Publisher BMI

I Hear a Southwind

I hear a southwind call my name
beckoning me back to the sunny days
Where the warm wind blows,
over my chilly bones
I hear a southwind call my name

Winter here has been so cold
Nights are long and the days so short
How I long to feel that soft gulf breeze
and the sand beneath my feet

I hear a southwind call my name
beckoning me back to the sunny days
Where the warm wind blows,
over my chilly bones
I hear a southwind call my name

It takes me back to sun-drenched waves
takes me back to lazy days
Where I rest with the sun on my chest
and listen to the sound of the sea
Seems there no time here for the soul
Folks pass through like the north winds blow
Give me the sultry days of summer's haze
To linger with someone I know

I hear a southwind call my name
beckoning me back to the sunny days
Where the warm wind blows,
over my chilly bones
I hear a southwind call my name
-
Composed by Nell Robinson & James Nunally
Publisher BMI

Tempest

Awakened from my winter's dream
I believe I’m in mid-air
The tallest pines rocking ‘neath me
Every blade of grass swollen by storms
You are almost somewhere

Through old pane a liquid light
Bare feet touch cold ground
The ticking stove dispels the night
A spoon-rattled cup, a wind-shaken door
A heart waiting to be found

Within glass, the wild wind howls
The tempest bends the light
Surface silence fools the room
Arms flung wide shatter old dreams
What was in is now outside
-
Composed by Nell Robinson & James Nunally
Publisher BMI

Hillbilly Boy

From dusty fields they came for work in the golden west
Where glorious fields await with bounty to harvest

The stories are true, but oh for so few and for the rest of the dust bowl migrants,  they’re just left over crew

Hey hillbilly boy
Where you gonna work today
Where you gonna get your pay
Where you gonna lay your head
Where you gonna get your bread
Hey hillbilly boy

They claim in Sacramento  the fields are ripe
Well they said that about the Kern,  but that wasn’t right So off we go to the next  picked over rows
Where dreams are dashed with the sun on their backs

Hey hillbilly boy
Where you gonna work today
Where you gonna get your pay
Where you gonna lay your head
Where you gonna get your bread
Hey hillbilly boy

Okies go home reads the sign of the day
My family’s from Arkansas,  but I know what they say
So off we walk, into another hot day
Feeling so ashamed to have to live this way

Hey hillbilly boy
Where you gonna work today
Where you gonna get your pay
Where you gonna lay your head,
Where you gonna get your bread
Hey hillbilly boy
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Composed by James Nunally
Publisher BMI

Pardon Me

Pardon me but I think you’re the one love
That I’ve been waiting on for so long
Pardon me could we walk in the moonlight
Just to sit there and find right or wrong  

Well I met a lot of boys in my lifetime
But I’ve never had a role match in none
I’m just waiting for someone real special
Pardon me but I think you’re the one     

Pardon me but somehow  you seem so different
From the moment you walked in the door
It just seems that my dreams have all come true dear
And I’ve never had this feeling before  

I believe I could search this world over
And never find one sweeter than you
I just think that you’re ready and willing
Just to make my every dream come true…..  

Pardon me but somehow you seem so different
From the moment you walked in the door
It just seems that my dreams have all come true dear
And I’ve never had this feeling before

Oooooooooooo & out
-
Composed by Jim and Jesse McReynolds
Publisher BMI

I'm Brilliant

It’s a family tradition to bury his troubles this way  
I don’t know what else can I do?
So we keep pretending everything’s OK
And I watch him steep in that deep amber booze  

And he says
Everything’s okay don’t you worry about me
I’m brilliant, I’m in control,  I’m beautiful and I’m oh so happy

Sorrow wears him down it has numbed his soul  
We’re tired of talking about it
And nothing ever changes in this world of woe
He wants the oblivion in this bottomless pit

And he says     
Everything’s okay don’t you worry about me     
I’m brilliant, I’m in control, I’m beautiful and I’m oh so happy

Hiding in plain sight,  he tastes solace in his drink
He knows how to dose himself
He just couldn’t bear to have anyone think
That we’re drowning in our own private hell  

Everything’s okay don’t you worry about me     
I’m brilliant, I’m in control,  I’m beautiful and I’m oh so happy     
I’m brilliant, I’m in control,  I’m beautiful and I’m oh so happy
-
Composed by Nell Robinson
Publisher BMI

Home's Where I Long To Be

Lonely roads I’ve traveled far away
Leave me with a feeling I have today
Longing to be back, in a place I know well
Home’s where I long to be

I think about the stories I love to hear
Memories of the old times we would share
Yearning to be back in a place I know well
Home’s where I long to be

Here’s a word to my friends and folks back home
When I return with stories to tell
You’re the reason to be back
In the place that I know well
Home’s where I long to be
That’s where I long to be
Home’s where I long to be
-
Composed by James Nunally
Publisher BMI

Sophia

She stood in trampled moss
Shaking head to foot
In rapture and dread
Grandma found Sophia among driftwood
Fear and spirits circling her head

The island bright
In the moonlight
The night was wet and warm  
Grandma plucks a beach pea
A wisp of dry beach grass
Amulets from harm

From the woods  
Two pebbles smooth
A bit of bearded moss
Each placed in a small palm then a worn pocket
Some fern, a dead moth

The moon bled red  
As grandma led  
Sophia on apath of moonlight
And spirits slunk across misty sand
Offshore and out of sight

Now moonlight rests  
On narrow shoulders and old breast
The apron holds her charms
Misfortune averted,  misery and death
No cause for alarm

Grandma says now go to bed
The moon sank into the sea
Sophia, sleep
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Composed by Nell Robinson & James Nunally
Publisher BMI

Shackled and Chained

Shackled and chained to a work gang
That’s how I spend my time
Hoein' and a shovelin, slingin' and a choppin',  ever day from 5 to 5  
Yeah that's how I spend my time
Every single day, for the rest of my life
Shackled and chained to a work gang

When I was a younger man,  I thought I had a plan
I could run any scheme of about anything  
But they caught up with me
And with no place for my sprees
Here I’ll waste my life away
Shackled and chained to a work gang  

Shackled and chained to a work gang
That’s how I spend my time
Hoein' and a shovelin, slingin' and a choppin', ever day from 5 to 5  
Yeah that's how I spend my time
Every single day, for the rest of my life
Shackled and chained to a work gang

If I could turn back the hands of time
I’d fly away from this cell
I’d set a straight path, do as they ask
And live a life away from this hell
But that’s just another dream
And here I’ll toll my life away
Shackled and chained to a work gang  

Shackled and chained to a work gang
That’s how I spend my time Hoein' and a shovelin, slingin' and a choppin', ever day from 5 to 5  
Yeah that's how I spend my time
Every single day, for the rest of my life
Shackled and chained to a work gang
-
Composed by James Nunally
Publisher BMI

Complicated

It's way too complicated to say
I feel like honey I feel like dirt
I love you I hate you I’m afraid

Honey I’m so lonesome tonight
But I want you to leave me alone
I’d rather have your warm embrace
than the cold comfort of the phone

Well My heart says one thing, my head says another
my words come out wrong too
Why are things so complicated
when it comes to you? 

Why don’t you come and get me
Or better yet just go away
I don’t think I can stand to see you
But why can’t you just stay?

I hate it when you ask me how I am
It throws me into disarray
At any one moment I feel a 100 things
You don’t have time to hear me say

Well My heart says one thing, my head says another
my words come out wrong too
Why are things so complicated
when it comes to you?
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Composed by Nell Robinson & Gregory Beattie
Publisher BMI

I'd Jump the Mississippi

I been lonely much too long
I’d give a yankee dime if you come back home
Honey, won’t you let me hold you tight
Tears keep a fallin’, my eyes are blurred
f I had the wings of a pretty little bird
I would fly right to your arms tonight

I’d jump the Mississippi deep and wide
if you was waitin’ on the other side
Honey, just to hug and hold you tight
I’d jump across and never get wet
Right there by your side I’d set
Yes, indeed everything would be alright

If you would come back home to me
Make me happy like I used to be
I'd start and meet you halfway
I'd leave here and never look back I'd run a mile
in a minute flat
To get to you before the end of day.

I’d jump the Mississippi deep and wide
if you was waitin’ on the other side
Honey, just to hug and hold you tight
I’d jump across and never get wet
Right there by your side I’d set
Yes Indeed everything would be alright
-
Composed by George Jones, Johnny Mathis
Publisher BMI

Mirror

Red-haired baby sleeping at my breast
Sleepless nights bring daydreams of the girl that I love best
Fiercely holding fistfuls of my tangled hair
Then striking out on her own belaying from chair to chair

Home-made dresses,  stripes on flowered clothes
Climbing trees and skinning knees,  
freckles dot a sunburnt nose

In this face I see it’s true
Every moment of these twenty years
At once appear in you

Now her secrets blooming in dark and hidden ways
All at once she’s Daddy’s girl, she pushes me away
Full-blown rebellion has only just begun
A stranger looks me in the eye, her battle fought and won

In this face I see it’s true
Every moment of these twenty years  
At once appear in you

Farewell milky days when you and I were one
Tender kisses for my girl, as she walks into the sun Goodbye brave student of the far-flung world
You’ve flown a thousand miles away, the world an oyster you the pearl

Home-made dresses, stripes on flowered clothes
Climbing trees and skinning knees, freckles dot a sunburnt nose

In this face I see it’s true
Every moment of these twenty years
At once appear in you

Daughter will you ever have a thought for me
When you’ve your own red haired girl
that you’ll love for all eternity
-Composed by Nell Robinson & James Nunally
Publisher BMI