greatest songwriter?

how bout some lesser known geniuses?
I recently bought Ellis Paul's newest, American Jukebox Fables, and song 2, Kiss the sun, has grabbed me.

Kiss The Sun (A Song for Pat Tillman)

When I was nineteen,
I joined up with the reserves
And I fought on weekends
paid my college tuition
But out in the killing fields,
you come to question all you learn
is peace the truth
a universal truth
or some man made superstition

(chorus)
I dreamt I ran through Kansas wheatfields
slept in the shadows,
where the Rockies kiss the sun, they kiss the sun
I dreamt I could hear freedom’s sweep
in Martin Luther King’s speeches (Lenny Bruce, Woody Guthrie)
Wasn’t he reaching for the promise of America?

I heard Pat Tillman died
in the hills of Afghanistan
He came for justice
not for greed, not for ego
His truth came through the fog
like the hometeam’s marching band
Are you a warrior, or a savior,
or the great American hero?
(chorus-lenny bruce)

My wife, she’s writing
the war’s on CNN
“It looks pretty bad from here…”
“You should see it from my end –”
I’m just a sentinel
Just a sentinel
Fighting an oilman’s war
And I need to know, I need to know
Is that what Pat Tillman died for?
(chorus- woody)

now that's a statement.
and from Speed of Trees (now only a writer would use that title)
The Ballad of Chris McCandless
from The Speed of Trees

We met on the highway.
He was smilin’,
A mystic in torn blue jeans.
The kid left his trust fund to come out walking.
He said, “I’m Alexander, Supertramp,
A Star catcher, a Chaser of dreams…”
I could’ve sworn he heard the earth a’talkin’,
talkin’…

“Sometimes,” he said, “don’t it feel
like the concrete’s closing in?
We’re putting bricks on the horizon…”
Was he chasing fool’s gold,
Or a holy man walking
a dirt road till the end?
I don’t know but
I hitched a ride with Chris McCandless.
I stepped in the wild of a dream.

The horizon in South Dakota
was an ocean of harvest grain.
In a dusty silo we found work for the taking.
We’d hitched up from California,
But he never told me his real name.
Never told me what past he was out here shaking.
We’re all shaking something.

“Sometimes,” he said, “don’t it feel
like technology’s closing in?
We’re raising towers on the horizon…”
Was he chasing fool’s gold
Or a holy man walking
A dirt road till the end?
I hitched a ride with Chris McCandless
I stepped in the wild of a dream—

a stone,
a path,
a river of glass,

The night sky—
Hey, can you see stars
From wherever you are?

With both feet on the planet
Can you feel this old world
Spinning around you?
The pull of the magnet
Is gonna take you from your town,
Your home town.

In a broken school bus they found him
In the heart of the Alaska range
The journey ends
When the heart stops beating—
Our time is so fleeting

Sometimes, don’t it feel
like the concrete’s closing in—
like we’re putting bricks on the horizon?
Are you chasin fool’s gold,
Or a holy man walking a dirt road
till the end?
I don’t know, but
I hitched a ride with Chris McCandless,
I stepped in the wild with Chris McCandless,
And I felt alive with Chris McCandless.
I was wide awake in the dream,
the dream,
the dream.

and from Translucent Soul:
Translucent Soul
from Translucent Soul

I get a call from Vance he's an old friend
He's got some you-won't-believe-story to share
He's the place that I go when I need someone who knows me
He brings the smile of a billionaire

And I laugh when he pretends he's a white guy
'Cause he knows how bad I fail playing black
He says, "If even you could, I don't advise that you should
'Cause once you go there you might not want to turn back"


(chorus)
There isn't a thing
in this God-all-mighty world that I wouldn't do
to help him outta trouble
Seein' as how we're friends and
that goes deeper than skin can go
to a translucent soul
Deeper than color will show
translucent soul


He says, "Now, you and I, I know we look a little different,
but, I was raised middle class, same as you.
But, let's make it clear even on the way here,
I had to watch for blue lights in the rear view "
He says, "Last week, I was visiting L.A.,
walking the streets where the riots went down.
You got black killing black killing black killing black,
while all the whites were sweating bullets across town"


(chorus)


He says, "In L.A., they're whispering race war,
like it's something that has yet to begin
like they can plug up the cracks
in four hundred years of history
and prove that the melting pot's not broken"
He says, "In the event of some unlikely disaster,
we find ourselves armed, and face to face "
I said, "I'd turn around, I would protect your ground"
He said, "I'd do the same thing for you at your place"


(chorus)


There isn't a thing
in this God-all-mighty world that he wouldn't do
to help me outta trouble . . .

Embrace what you have in common,
celebrate what sets you apart
It takes more than the color
that you find on a palate
to turn humanity into an art
into the form of an art
translucent soul
translucent soul
soul


© Ellis Paul Music (SESAC) 1998

I have a short interview with him from my college days on my site:
http://www.angelfire.com/music/hooperchick/ellis.html