Lyrics

As a sometime poet (occasionally published), the lyrics are everything for me. And the lyrics usually tell stories. Songs like Savannah Stroll delve into the history of that great southern city in the state of Georgia; or Ghost in the Light which describes an accidental encounter with a past lover who expects things to pick up where they left off – and they don’t.

There are descriptive songs about natural beauty like Kissimmee Prairie Dream that won third prize for best new Florida song competition at the Will McLean Festival in Florida. The lyrics to selected songs are found by clicking on the titles below (check the photos that go with some of the songs). For notes on the background to selected songs see the Recordings page which includes album notes and some songs not on the recent CD. All these pages will be expanded as time goes on.

Ghost in the Light
Savannah Stroll
Kissimmee Prairie Dream
The Dance
Ophelia
The Turpentine

More lyrics to come soon!

Ghost in the Light © Ray Sealey

I’d been long on the road when I finally got home
And went to the old bar at last.
I walked through the crowd, and the band’s playin’ loud
Then I saw a dark ghost from my past.
She leaned on the bar and she saw us apart
Lookin’ over the sound and the space;
But my debt’s been repaid, I can’t go to your aid,
Though you look like you’ve fallen from grace.

Chorus
When the air filled with sparks you were riskin’ your life;
You were swimmin’ with the sharks then you dropped out of sight;
So girl, get away from my light; find your own way home tonight.

Then she crossed the dance floor and walked out the door
Into the cold of the night.
And the neon was strong and the shadows were long
As she stood in the glare of the light.
Don’t you burn the night sky with your silver sad eyes
Lookin’ over your shoulder that way.
Don’t you toss your black hair in a cry of despair,
Like your life is just falling away.

Chorus

Now I’ve got my own world and I got a sweet girl
Takin’ all the blue highways we care to.
Seen the mountain the sea and the country between;
It took all of that space to forget you.
I got the freedom to move and nothing to prove,
Those dark days no longer a thrill.
I’ve been travellin’ so far, but it ain’t really hard,
‘Cause I’ve found my own way to be still.

Chorus

Savannah Stroll © Ray Sealey
(see accompanying photos)

Come for walk now…
Walk down those wide old avenues
Under oaks and Spanish moss
On sidewalks paved with cool dark shade
In the company of the past.
Walk past that house on Abercorn Street,
Green shutters and brown stone,
And if time slips back you’ll see the hands were black
That built that grand old home.

Chorus
This city’s like a fine dressed lady,
A southern belle refined and calm,
Oh Savannah I know your history
But I can’t resist your charm.

“Come on with me now”
Go down the steps to River Road
See the tall ships safely moored,
And in their hold
Is stowed black gold
From Guinea’s distant shore.
Walk by the City Market now
And the stalls on old Bay Lane
And on the broker’s stand
Is a prime black man
And the buyers they bid and call.

“And that ain’t all”
At the Race-Course of Savannah
Was the greatest sale of all.
The buyers look
Write in their book
The names in the stable stalls.
“Oh… that’s how it was done”
The weeping time was dark
When the families were torn apart.
New masters came
Called out a name
And broke another heart.

Chorus

“’Still walkin’ with me?”
Those mighty oaks still stand
But the memories do not last.
Can’t hear the chains,
Can’t feel the pain
Of the city’s golden past.
“Ah… smell the flowers”
Oh, the bougainvillea beauty
In Savannah’s summer haze;
It’s southern slow
With Sunday hello’s
From people full of grace.

Chorus

Kissimmee Prairie Dream © Ray Sealey
(see accompanying photos)

Take the road through the tall grass
By the old fence lines,
Where the cattlemen road in those old prairie times,
Down the hard rutted pathways with their wagons long gone,
By the slews with the gators sleeping in the sun.

Chorus
When you want that great space where the hawk can soar,
When you want the one place that’s far from the shore,
Take the long white shell road to Kissimmee Preserve
And on the wide prairie, find peace with the Earth.

Look across the broad sky, a caracara flies free;
See the hammocks in the distance like islands in a sea
Where stand the ancient oak and the elegant palm;
Hear the birdsong, see the butterflies floating in the calm.

Chorus

After night with star shadows so quiet and serene,
It’s the mornin’, we have to leave this spellbinding dream;
Past the rattler by the roadside, past the old general store,
But please stay in my spirit, Kissimmee evermore.

Chorus

The Dance © Ray Sealey

We met in the cold of the winter at an old time dance downtown.
We drank some wine, lost track of time and danced ’til the band went home.
We walked the streets of the city, drank tea in an all-night café.
We talked ’til the sunrise, I looked in your eyes but I just couldn’t see what you knew.

Chorus
But the dance is sweet in the moment and sometimes it’s destined to pass
But you, you danced in my life, and I loved you like crazy for that.

I remember that time in the summer, our walks in the park down the road;
The sent of the flowers and all those lost hours, the spell of looking at you.
Our nights were a feast for the senses, as long as an infinite dance.
Held in your arms, I fell to your charms, your beauty was more than I could.

Chorus

It seemed like things were forever, you said you wouldn’t leave me,
But you couldn’t resist to add that strange twist that you needed to be kind of free.
I lived in a lovely illusion that night that I took the big chance;
That glass of fine wine, that stillness of time, oh love is a crazy old dance.

Chorus

Ophelia © Ray Sealey

Oh sleep has finally come to me
With a maiden in my dream.
Are you the fair Ophelia
Picking flowers by the stream?
What brings you to my thoughts
For madness dressed in white?
Flowers tangled in you hair,
You’re the spell that haunts my night.

Chorus
Are you the guardian of my soul,
Will you bear me to the sky,
On wings of creatures mythic,
On the breath of your last sigh?

Are you the flower of my youth,
That beauty unattained?
Will you reveal the words to me
For the fear that stays un-named?
You watch the rippling water
That’s dancing in the sun;
You’re there in contemplation
Of the course the river has run.

Chorus

Ophelia… this vision in the night,
Of fountains made of blossoms
And strange bouquets of light.
Here’s rosemary for remembrance (you said)
And pansies for all these thoughts,
And violets with their purple,
The flowers of never more.

Ophelia you have brought to me
A lesson from the bard:
We briefly strut upon the stage
But the end is never far.
I’ve trod that path of dalliance,
But now you’ve come for me.
You’re the icon of the ending;
You’re the memories we will be.

Chorus
You are the guardian of my soul…

He’s going for a walk in the park; like the night he’s gettin’ kind of dark,
Cause she said it’s all in the past; that she knew it was not going to last.
How can she know, how can she know, when she’s stuck there in her scene?
She was lookin’ for a man with a TV ad Face and she knows it’s not him on the screen.

Chorus
He’s no metro man with a sun parlour tan;
He’s no barstool fan of seduction and scam.
He’s just and honest man who knows what it is to be true.
And who knows?…. He might be right for you; he might be right for you.

So he takes the Metro downtown to her club in the hip part of town
Where the guys they really look cool, so smooth and so slick with the girls.
But how can they know, how can they know? They got food and music and beer;
Can’t they see that it won’t last forever; can’t she see the answer’s not here?

Chorus

He doesn’t know the names of fine wines; he doesn’t go out back for a line;
He doesn’t sport the latest hot brand; he doesn’t know the guys in the band.
So how can she see, how can she see, when that band is playin’ so loud?
Can’t she see past the lights and the mirrors ’round the bar,
…that guy at the edge of the crowd?

Chorus

Now the men they couldn’t find no work
Up there in the Georgia woods.
Pines were bled dry,
The lumber used up
And the hard times had arrived.
An agent came and he told them boys
I’ll get ya free roof and food.
It’s the winter time
And Florida’s fine,
Come down work the turpentine.

Chorus
There’s the scrapers and the chippers
And the pullers and the dippers
Gettin’ the cat face to cry.
Workin’ the drift to feed the still,
Workin’ the turpentine.

Sure enough got a roof and some grub
But they work like dogs in the drift.
The woodsrider’s cruel
And the tallyman’s tough
And all they get paid was scrip.
Got some goods from the commissary,
Ain’t got enough scrip to pay.
It’s in the book
Says the company clerk,
You can pay me another day.

Chorus
You’re just the scrapers and the chippers…

INTERLUDE
Lookin’ for another side of life,
They Finally got some freedom ’cause it’s Saturday night.
Hear the piano in the woods, gotta hear some more
So they sidle up the path… to the juke joint door.
(Come in boys!)
Hear some boogie at the barrel bar
Wonderin’ how you got this far
From home.
Throw some dice, and drink some ’shine,
With the girls from the camp lookin’ so fine
Tonight…..
(Oh, tonight… )
Stone drunk on ’shine,
Tryin’ to forget …the turpentine.

(Verse 3)
When they jumped that train down Florida way
A shadow was trailin’ behind.
They didn’t know
But ole Jim Crow
Was ridin’ to the turpentine.

They’re sleepin’ with their jomo tonight;
Chase that shadow from the long leaf pines;
’Cause black don’t match
The green in them woods
And the Big Man’s still drinkin’ fine wine.

Chorus
They’re the scrapers and the chippers
And the pullers and the dippers
Gettin’ the cat face to cry.
Workin’ the drift to feed the still,
They were slaves to the Turpentine.

Coda
Now listen to the whispers in the Florida pines;
It’s all them ghosts from the turpentine.