Cardinal In A River Oak Tree

Steinberg Lounge
1

Wrote this last month during a cold, gloomy, grey, snowy couple of weeks.

Still needs some mixing help and real drums.
Played a baritone guitar, High Strung guitar, bass and pedal steel.

Cardinal in a River Oak Tree
Black and white and gray. Another gloomy day.
Blasting the Ramones. Rattling these old bones.
5 degrees below. It’s trying hard to snow.
6 more weeks of winter. Be glad to see it go.

I’m looking at a bright red cardinal, in a leafless river oak tree.
I can’t keep from staring. He can’t keep from staring at me.
Brings me a glimmer of hope.
And one less reason to mope.
I wonder and worry if he’s lonely and I wonder if he worries about me.

My hair is getting long. Like Samson I feel strong.
My beard’s turned white and grey. I kind of like it that way.
Alcohol and pills. Have ravaged my social skills.
Quarantine has taken its toll. On this old chunk of coal.

I’m looking at a bright red cardinal, in a leafless river oak tree.
I can’t keep from staring at him. he can’t keep from staring at me.
Brings me a glimmer of hope.
And one less reason to mope.
I wonder and worry if he’s lonely and I wonder if he worries about me.

-Bridge

I’m finding it hard to choose. Uppers, downers or booze.
I hope I don’t succumb. To the cliché I’ve become.
-Solo
I’m looking at a bright red cardinal, in a leafless river oak tree.
I can’t keep from staring at him. he can’t keep from staring at me.
Brings me a glimmer of hope.
And one less reason to mope.
I wonder and worry if he’s lonely.
I wonder and worry, Yea I worry and I wonder. I wonder if he worries about me.

2

Joe, have you got some Finnish roots perhaps :wink:

There’s a joke about Finns which goes along these lines:

A Frenchman, an American and a Finn encounter an elephant in the wild. The Frenchman thinks to himself: what kind of food could I make out of an elephant. The American ponders how much money he could make and the Finn wonders: what does the elephant think of me.

1 Like
3

Man, you captured the prevailing mood. Love the guitar sounds you get.

4

Hey Joe, listened several more times. I had never heard of High Strung guitar, so I had to look it up. That’s the acoustic that came in on the right side about halfway through? Really like this one. It will sound better with real drums, and I suppose whoever spends time on mixing it next will try to reduce the fret noise, but I really like the mix right now. I think you try to keep it pure in terms of guitar sounds, and you like to put the guitars very wide. Works really well.

5

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Much appreciated. The high strung guitar is actually a Papoose guitar made by Tacoma. They’re a small bodied guitar with standard tuning but tuned to A.