EVERYBODY'S KISSING IN PARIS

A salute to a most romantic city

Everybody's Kissing In Paris

Everybody's kissing in Paris
They're smoochin' under jealous gargoyles,
the chaperons of Notre Dame
Cupid's mates osculate at the Musée d'Orsay
where they rendezvous and neck
like the brushstrokes by Lautrec

Everybody's kissing in Paris
Snookums are havin' a snog
by the blushing Virgin of Saint Chapelle
There's lots of lovers locking lips
and steaming up the Louvre
where, I believe, the Mona Lisa seems to approve

Everybody's kissing in Paris
And nowhere do you see more sparking bliss
than Tuileries Garden by Rodin's “The Kiss”
People peckin' without inhibition
Pokin' 'round The Pompidou
by some new exhibition

Everybody's kissing in Paris
In, on, or around the Eiffel Tower,
it's a perpetual kind of Happy Pucker Power Hour
But my favourite place for tête à tête
is where my lover coos
we haven't kisses here yet

Everybody's kissing in Paris
Everybody's kissing in Paris
Ou la la, c'est nous (Wow, it's us!)

JP – vocals
instruments - Big Fish Audio: Jazz Quartet

THE DIAMOND INSIDE

A salute to the Jeromes, the first black family in a North Vancouver neighbourhood. This is also a salute to the present-day students who have transformed Ridgeway school from its racist past.
For several years I was privileged to hear Valerie Jerome tell her story to students. I put her narratives in this song as a thank you for her contributions.

The Diamond Inside

All train whistles blow to lullaby her family
that’s left alone to wonder when daddy will arrive
All eyes, behind closed curtains, can only see her as a problem
a nasty little coal lump on their perfect snowy lives
They’re blind to the diamond inside her
blind to the diamond inside
blind to the diamond inside her

All neighbours conspire to serve her a petition
There won’t be Welcome-Wagons or smiles with open hearts
All flocks around their clergy call out for brotherhood, fortissimo,
but whisper segregation to keep God’s clays apart
They’re blind to the diamond inside her
blind to the diamond inside

The first day of school is full of opportunity
and children dream of wonders, and hope their dreams come true
They don’t expect a nightmare in the day, a schoolyard battlefield
where your brown skin is the target for stones to smack you black and blue
They’re blind to the diamond inside her
blind to the diamond inside

But change comes like rain drizzles
on this west coast salad of a lawn
Your pain may never lose its sizzle
but this failure of imagination just can’t go on

All train whistles blow to lullaby her family
that’s left alone to wonder when daddy commin' home?

JP – vocals

Russ Batchelor – guitar, bass

Tom Neville – violin, harmony

Brian Samuels – cello

WON'T BE THE SAME

A salute to the family and friends we've loved and lost

Won't Be The Same

Oh, the time when Orion commands the back yard,

my lifeguard for one more wet winter

I shiver a wave where he wades in that river of light
that's the Milky Way

In our parkas we counted the stars in his belt

and his bow bent back taking aim

That hunter will rise in the sky again

but without you it won't be the same

Won't be the same, won't be the same...

The drone of the dragonflies madden my cat,

those angels announcing it's summer

So kite-like and frail, they sail on the currents of heat,

un petit cirque du soleil

And at dusk, in the alley, a feline so frantic

to launch himself into the fray, well that feline will jump
the horizon again, but without you it won't be the same

Won't be the same, won't be the same...

The slap of the bow

when you paddle around in the silver

your hydro-affinity puzzled the gulls

and put many a Pices to shame

Our last dance was to circle in fleece by the campfire
Like moths that are hard-wired for flame

Yes sparks will crackle and sigh again
but without you it won't be the same

Won't be the same, won't be the same...

JP - vocals, guitar, percussion

Russ Batchelor – guitar, harmony
Charles Knowles – bass

Brendan Ostrander - drums

Ron Cole – accordion

Anne Mullins - harmony

OCCITUNE

A salute to the medieval Occitaine culture, exterminated by Pope Innocent III's decree in 1209 CE.

Occitune

St. Cirq Lapoppie, c'est loin de mon pays

Et evidement les etoiles brilliant ce sont mes seul amis

La la la la la la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la la la la

Julliet est termine, et mon esprit en paraille

Et malheuresement en ce moment je me se sen abandoner

La lune illume ma voie comme les flacons de joie
Je ferme ma yeul et bouge le cul aux p'tit village en bas

Le chateau aux Moyaine Age il est délabré

une autre fois au nom de Dieu, une race est exterminé

Les grillons pret d'ici, ils adoucissant la nuit

Et sans dormi, les chauve-souris, ils vollent sans-souci

translation:

St. Cirq Lapoppie, it's far from my homeland

and, evidently, the bright stars are my only friends

La la la la la la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la la la la

July is finished and so is my spirit

and, unfortunately, at this moment I feel abandoned

The moon illuminates my view like flakes of joy

I shut my trap, and kick my ass to the village below

The Medieval castle is dilapidated

Another instance, in the name of God, a race is exterminated

The crickets near here, they sooth the night

And, without sleep, the bats they fly care-free

JP - vocals, kabossy, female vocal programming

Brian Samuels – cello

Michael Dunn - kora

NEWFIELAND

A salute to the people and places I encountered on Canada's east coast

Newfieland

When you get to heaven, or so the legend goes,
You can tell the Newfoundlander;
the one that wants to go home

A fluid horizon, cumulus sky, semaphore laundry line
Stunted stands of black spruce, puffins in the cliffs,
and peat under your gumboots, to spring down the road.

This sea bring everyone to her harbours;
icebergs and humpback whales
Fog rolls in slow-mo most days
You don’t leave, you tear yourself away from her

Newfieland, the new found land
Newfieland, the new found land

Silurian sandstone, erratics off shore,
Tableland moonscapes of Gros Morne
Carnivorous bog plants, lupine waving hills,
and peat under your gumboots

When you get to heaven, or so the legend goes
You can always tell the Newfie
the one that wants to go home
the one that wants to go home

JP - vocals, guitar, bass & FX programming

Brendan Ostrander - drums

Tom Neville – violin

ME

A salute to my sister. As a birthday surprise I tweaked her song about ego in a new style.
Her original version was played klezmer style on the piano.

Me by Kathryn Palmer

Compulsive noise maker

soul foresaker 

song baker 

me

Sneaky silence hider

I`m an exquisite spider

See the intricate web around 

me

Beautiful child faker 

soul forsaker 

whinin` pinin`belly-acher

me

Selective friend seducer

I'm a dreamworld producer

A god-damned crayon-eating rainbow factory

I'm an evil-sower 

a darkly-death-river-rower

an all and nothing knower 

me

I'm a sly self-desguiser

and a disguise despiser

an avid criticizer of me

Yeah, harmonizer, synthesizer, none-the-wiser
me

JP - vocals, guitar, bass, percussion, FX & instrument programming

LINES TO WRITE

A grudging salute to National Poetry Month, for each April my wife writes a poem every night.

Lines to Write
There’s a poet upstairs on a Mac in the kitchen
With a grimace she shakes her head t’wards the back
Winter’s litter of lawn-flotsam sullies her conscience
while she waits for The Muse to pick up the slack

She has lines to write before she can sleep
No pillow ‘til poetry spills and runs deep
She has lines to write before we can play
and before she can call it a day

There’s a poet reclined by her brick and board bookshelves
In her mind she is flippin’ the bird at that view
where the porch paint is screaming “neglect” in red neon
and she waits for chiraz to whisper a clue
She has lines to write before she can sleep
No pillow ‘til poetry spills and runs deep
She has lines to write before we can play
and before every ache is obeyed

A promise to keep was “...have and to hold”
And I’ve kept my part of the poetry warm
A man can’t hold on to what ain’t there to view
Get your couplets in here and your assonance too
There’s a poet running low as the glow on her laptop
In her mind it's an eon 'til ice-tea and sun
So she trolls her subconscience for flashes of silver
while she waits for the phrase that applauds that she's done

She has lines to write before she can sleep
No pillows ‘til poetry spills and runs deep
Always lines to write before we can play
and before I dive down her duvet
and before I dive down, onamatapoea,
and before I dive down this good day
Good night!

JP - vocals, guitar
Charles Knowles - bass
Brian Samuels - cello