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LYRICS - The Martin Gilmore Trio

Songs:

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1. Christina

2. You're Not Even Trying

3. On the Road to Allihies

4. Golden Vanity

5. I've Got the Blues

6. Song So Sad

7. I'm Not My Body

8. Sweet Sunny South

9. Shove That Pigs Foot Further in the Fire

10. When You're Young

11. Freight Train Blues

Christina

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Christina, I recall that road
Southern sun, weaving through the cold
Winding away
Christina, I still feel that day
My heart, my bones, my back still aches
Like always

 

 

   CHORUS

  Christina all our time was spent
  Long ago, who knows where it went
  Still I can’t keep those things from holding on
  Christina you’re gone

Christina, I blamed you, but I made terms
Like everyone who’s lost, oh I have learned
And that was worth the time
Christina, you thought your dream was ideal
Now I find I’m glad it didn’t turn out real
But that’s just spite

  CHORUS

Christina the things that I recall
Aren’t even memories at all
It’s just how I feel
Christina that’s what’s left of you
Idle chords softly ringing through
Droning still

  CHORUS

You're Not Even Trying

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

He said "You're not even trying
you didn't listen to a word I said
I've been trying to help you..."
She said "You don't understand"
He said "there you go sneering now
You're always off to someone else
help me then to see your grief
don't leave me here by myself."

She said "You didn't even weep for him
As they carried him out the door
You stood still as a slab of stone
I fell grief-stricken on the floor
I cried for days and days
I never once saw you shed a tear
I was in agony, and seemed like you didn't care"


He said "Is that what you think of me?
That I'm a cold and a careless fool
That because I didn't show my grief
I didn't care for him or you?
How should I know what to do?
I thought it best to show that I was strong."
She said "How can call yourself a man
and not weep for your child that's gone?"

She said "You went on as if nothing's wrong
you laughed and you smiled with friends
You asked me to be strong
But I felt like I was near the end
And now it's too late to cry
You never know the right thing to say."
He said "There'll be plenty of time for tears
and hearts are broken everyday..."

On the Road to Allihies

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Instrumental

Golden Vanity

Traditional

There was a lofty ship and she sailed on the sea
and the name of that ship it was the Golden Vanity
and she feared she would be taken by a Turkish enemy
as she sailed on the low, the lowland low
she sailed on the lowland sea

Up steps a cabin boy just the age of twelve and three
and he says to the captain "What will you give to me?"
If I swim alongside of the Turkish enemy
and sink her in the low, the lowland low
sink her in the lowland sea


"I would give you silver and I would give you gold
and the hand of my daughter if you would be so bold
and swim alongside of the Turkish enemy
and sink her in the low, the lowland low
sink her in the lowland sea"

So the boy grabbed his tools and o'er the side jumped he
he swam to the side of the Turkish enemy
and with is drilling tool he bored holes three
and sunk her in the low, the lowland low
he sunk her in the lowland sea


Then he swam back to the side of the Golden Vanity
and called to his captain to haul him from the sea
but the captain would not heed for his daughter he did need
and he left him in the low, the lowland low
he left him in the lowland sea

Oh there was a lofty ship and she sailed on the sea
But she sailed without a cabin boy the age of twelve and three
and She feared she would be taken by a Turkish enemy
as she sailed on the low, the lowland low
She sailed on the lowland sea

I've Got the Blues

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

I've got the blues
I've got the blues
I've got those lowdown lonesome blues
I gave her my love but love she refused
Oh, I've got the blues

I'm doing fine,
I'm doing fine
that's what I tell myself all the time
I'll tell you my problems, Oh never mind
I'm doing just fine

I've been feeling low baby oh can't you see
Don't you ever think of me?

I've got the blues
I've got the blues
I've got those lowdown lonesome blues
I gave her my love but love she refused
Oh, I've got the blues

Song So Sad

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

His father had given him a guitar
his mother had taught him how to sing
he sat by the river as an old man
dreaming of young love blooming in the spring
He sang a song about a girl that he loved dearly
too early she was taken away
and the song that he sang was so sorrowful with pain
that even the hardest heart would break

 

 

   CHORUS

  And he watched that Ohio river roll
  As he sat there on the shore
  And he sang a song so sad for the love he'd had
  That he longed to see once more

He sang a song about a dream of a journey
He'd heard her singing in the night
Across a broad and flowing river
he went to be by her side
He found her way out in the forest
Asked her to follow as he led on
But when they got to the clearing at the riverside
he turned to look and she was gone

   CHORUS

Now you can sometimes hear him singing in the distance
when the leaves don't rustle in the trees
sitting there by the river side
at the place he lost his love in his dream

   CHORUS

I'm Not My Body

By: John Pennell (Solargrass Music, BMI) Admin: BMG (BUG) & Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

I'm not my mother, or my father
but this life I have they gave to me
Daddy's strong heart
And mama's blue, blue eyes
and a spirit, yearning to be free

I've felt my tears burn and my skin bleed
Muscles ache with pain from the fight
Scars I've worn out and will discard them
on the day my soul takes flight

 

   CHORUS

  I'm not my body
  What you see is just skin and bones
  Hanging round me til its gone
  Til I find my way back home
  I'm not my body
  And someday I will escape
  And hand off all my troubles while my spirit lies in wait
  I'm not my body

I've been with you through every battle
now we feel beaten tired and worn
The day is coming when you can't hold me any more
and the gusting win will blow our dust out with the storm

    CHORUS

Sweet Sunny South

Traditional

   CHORUS

​

   Take me back to the place where i first saw the light
  To the sweet sunny south take me home
  Where the mockingbird sings me to sleep every night
  Oh why was I tempted to roam

Take me back to the place where the orange trees grow
To my plot in the evergreen shade
Where the flowers on the river's green margin did grow
and lent their sweet scent to the glade

  CHORUS

They say that the path to the old home's grown green
That the place is quite lonely around
That the smiles and the forms of the one's I once knew
Now lie 'neath the cold mossy ground

   CHORUS

Shove that Pigs Foot Further in the Fire / Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains

Traditional

Instrumental

When You're Young

By: Martin Gilmore (Timtomtodd Music, ASCAP)

Well, Pep said to Wimpy "Do you see that train?
Do you wanna go ride the bum?
There's a boxcar open twelve cars back
And I'm tired of working this field in the sun
We'll tell my uncle to take my car
My mama won't miss me none
We'll ride that train across the old great plains
Into the setting sun."

 

 

   CHORUS

  When you're young you're young
  And time passes by
  So when you see a train
  You should hitch a ride
  No matter if it's right or wrong
  It's a one way track
  And when it's gone it's gone
  You can't go back

Wimpy says to Pep "Hold on!
This mountain's getting steep
I've never been so cold or felt so old
I'm tired but I can't get to sleep
I always thought I'd like to live a Hobo's life
Ramble from town to town
But all this clanking and clinking's got me to thinking
I'm better off settling down."

   CHORUS

Pep and Wimpy met a rum-dum bum
who said "there ain't no beginning or end
a hobo boys ain't got no destination
it's just the way he chooses to live
so have you another cup of mulligan son
and you better be on the fly
cause that train's starting to rumble and this old bum jungle
ain't no place to spend your life."

​

   CHORUS

Freight Train Blues

Traditional

I was born one morning in a boomer shack
just a half a mile from the railroad track
the freight train whistle taught me how to cry
and the rumple of the engine was my lullaby

 

   CHORUS

  I got the freight train blues
  I got them in the bottom of my rambling shoes
  And when the whistle blows I want to go
  Oh, mama don't you know
  There ain't no way to lose these freight train blues

My daddy was a fireman, my mama dear
She was the only daughter of an engineer
Sister married a brakeman and it ain't no joke
She knows how to make a good man broke

  CHORUS

I rode the Burlington Northern and the old UP
The Great Western rail across the San Luis
Rock Island to Denver all across the land
from the mighty Mississippi to the Rio Grande

 

   CHORUS

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