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    Scott Cook

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    1. Long Way to Wander

    From the recording Long Way to Wander (2007)

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    Long Way to Wander

    Scott Cook
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    Lyrics

    back when I was younger, and even goofier
    me and some friends of mine went off to the woods to have ourselves a camping trip
    and in addition to the tents and sleeping bags and tarps and lawnchairs and firewood,
    a potentially-dangerous cookstove and Frisbees and hacky-sacks and Trix cereal and beer,
    we took along a little one-inch-by-two-inch rectangle of paper
    and found we didn’t need so much beer

    that night we laughed ourselves breathless
    and got scared, and staggered in the woods, eyes all lit up
    and when we had no other choice but to lie down
    we saw our bodies join with the Earth, and saw the trees dance

    in the morning these people came by and gave us the bum’s rush
    left us to wander down the road, and through the woods
    and contemplate the tiny mosses and lichens and mushrooms and flowers and dewdrops
    and the tall bearded trees, and wonder just how it all came to be
    and just how it was that somebody could own land

    one of these days I’ll go rollin back
    to all the things I forgot to write down
    for now I’ll keep on wandering along
    itching in my shoes, don’t know where I’m bound

    and this walking rhythm reminds me of my buddy Raoul
    he’s forty-something, from Venice
    he’s got a handlebar moustache even wider than his smile
    he’d walked across who knows how many countries,
    and the locals everywhere thought he was hilarious
    no shoes, only a small bag and a guitar across his back

    well, fortunately I had a guitar too
    this little cardboard three-quarter-size with a Nike swoosh on it
    that I picked up in Chiang Mai for fifteen bucks
    ended up giving it away to a kid in Bangkok who wanted to learn
    but in the meantime it sure came in handy on that boat ride

    and you had to listen real carefully to hear them
    over the roar of the old diesel engine
    that the boatman had to keep bailing out as it flooded with river-water
    and we rolled down that muddy Mekong
    and sang all the English songs he knew
    and couldn’t think of anybody in the world we’d rather be
    although I did consider being the boatman

    and offhand I asked him, “hey man, you own a boat?”
    he says “I’m a Venetian, I have five boats!”
    and later on in that Indian restaurant in Luang Phabang he was on fire,
    making toast after toast, yelling out for “more Beer Lao! More chapattis!”
    and the shine in his eye made me wonder
    whether he’d spent the night with that Israeli girl
    or whether he’d somehow temporarily unlocked that great unspeakable mystery
    or whether he was just drunk, or all three

    and the last time I saw him I was rushing to catch a bus
    the two of us crammed painfully into one of those little
    cage-like, sidecar-like contraptions that rides alongside a motorbike
    and I was aching to be leaving so soon,
    with so much left to see and do,
    and I turned around to the road behind me
    and took the picture on the cover of this record
    and I hugged my brother goodbye and ran for the bus
    forgetting that this was Laos, and after all a schedule is just paper,
    and in any case you can’t be going anywhere without the tunes!
    so I had a half-hour to cool my heels while the boys got the tape deck half-working
    and wowing and fluttering we disco’d off into that great, vine-tangled thatch-hut night

    and every now and then I get to thinking about him
    and wonder where he is, and what he’s doing
    him and all the other folks we’ve split paths from back along the way
    Tom Uduoj, where are ya?
    and how about Craig Smart?
    and that Danish punk Christian Plaschke?
    and Heather Kehe and Isaac Marquez?
    one of these days, I’m gonna roll on down to Eugene,
    and ask around, and find you

    out on a curving road it’s a different situation
    white lines count the seconds of your life rolling by
    peeling back the gears and stripping away the years
    and like a fresh young thing you still know how to cry

    one of these days I’ll go rollin back
    to all the things I left lying around
    for now I’ll keep on wandering along
    long way to go, don’t know where I’m bound

    • stay kind •

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