C
Cosmic
Active member
Hi All,
The character in this one is an 82-year old distant relative of mine back home in Denmark. All the events are true to his life. I have known him since I was a kid (and that was a while back... ) and I wrote most of this one in the spring of 2005 when I stayed with him for a while.
Please have at it; I look forward to any input on this. I know my rhyming is still pretty elementary, but that's what comes out right now.
Thanks very much.
Best,
CC.
I CAN'T COMPLAIN
(V.1)
He's blind
In one eye.
The hearing's almost gone,
After 60 years
He lost his wife,
He tells jokes
From way back then
Then forgets and tells them again
And laughs at the stories of his life
(Chorus)
He's an old man, sitting in the sun
In a world that's going crazy,
He's just trying to go on.
His memories are his flowers
He tends to them alone
They're as fresh as the roses
That he places by her stone
(1 measure, then Coda to Chorus)
He knows his evening's coming,
He hasn't lived in vain,
He smiles to himself and softly says:
"I can't complain."
(V.2)
They had land,
Where they worked,
Raising crops and raising kids
Endless days of plowing in the heat,
The farm got sold,
An empty nest
They had earned their chance to rest
No more planting soybeans, corn or wheat
(Chorus)
He's an old man, sitting in the sun
In a world that's going crazy,
He's just trying to go on.
His memories are his flowers
He tends to them alone
They're as fresh as the roses
That he places by her stone
(Bridge)
One day she had to leave him
And not come back again,
He sits and waits to join her,
And sometimes wonders "when?"
(Chorus)
He's an old man, sitting in the sun
In a world that's going crazy,
He's just trying to go on.
His memories are his flowers
He tends to them alone
They're as fresh as the roses
That he places by her stone
(1 measure, then revised Coda to Chorus.)
He knows his evening's coming
He hasn't lived in vain
I sit and watch him, thinking to myself:
"I can't complain."
END.
@2006 C. Harding
The character in this one is an 82-year old distant relative of mine back home in Denmark. All the events are true to his life. I have known him since I was a kid (and that was a while back... ) and I wrote most of this one in the spring of 2005 when I stayed with him for a while.
Please have at it; I look forward to any input on this. I know my rhyming is still pretty elementary, but that's what comes out right now.
Thanks very much.
Best,
CC.
I CAN'T COMPLAIN
(V.1)
He's blind
In one eye.
The hearing's almost gone,
After 60 years
He lost his wife,
He tells jokes
From way back then
Then forgets and tells them again
And laughs at the stories of his life
(Chorus)
He's an old man, sitting in the sun
In a world that's going crazy,
He's just trying to go on.
His memories are his flowers
He tends to them alone
They're as fresh as the roses
That he places by her stone
(1 measure, then Coda to Chorus)
He knows his evening's coming,
He hasn't lived in vain,
He smiles to himself and softly says:
"I can't complain."
(V.2)
They had land,
Where they worked,
Raising crops and raising kids
Endless days of plowing in the heat,
The farm got sold,
An empty nest
They had earned their chance to rest
No more planting soybeans, corn or wheat
(Chorus)
He's an old man, sitting in the sun
In a world that's going crazy,
He's just trying to go on.
His memories are his flowers
He tends to them alone
They're as fresh as the roses
That he places by her stone
(Bridge)
One day she had to leave him
And not come back again,
He sits and waits to join her,
And sometimes wonders "when?"
(Chorus)
He's an old man, sitting in the sun
In a world that's going crazy,
He's just trying to go on.
His memories are his flowers
He tends to them alone
They're as fresh as the roses
That he places by her stone
(1 measure, then revised Coda to Chorus.)
He knows his evening's coming
He hasn't lived in vain
I sit and watch him, thinking to myself:
"I can't complain."
END.
@2006 C. Harding
..we'll see.
