Get all 9 Bob Hillman releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Downtown in the Rain, More Songs About Birds & Trees, Bob Hillman & Spooky Ghost, Inside & Terrified, Some of Us Are Free, Some of Us Are Lost, Lost Soul, If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home, Welcome To My Century, and 1 more.
1. |
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We read Kerouac as kids
And some of us are tempted by the road
I know going off the grid
Didn’t solve my problems back at home
In my defense, experience comes at a cost
Some of us are free, some of us are lost
Moonbeams, many billion stars
Summer on the beach in Mexico
Smoky after-hours bars
The loneliness of 10th Street in the snow
Traveling is everything but lines will be crossed
Some of us are free, some of us are lost
You can become a microdot
Floating around, an astronaut
Sort of exist and sort of not
As an afterthought
We remember we forgot
Brake squeal, carburetor cough
Wait until Mechanicsville, we’ll see
Service stations of a cross
Pit stops on the road to Calvary
The engine boils: motor oil, tailpipe exhaust
Some of us are free, some of us are lost
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2. |
Shiny Silver
03:28
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Your hair is a shade of silver
Shiny silver
The color of age and experience
Patience and perspective
A sign of decline but it’s not over yet
Not when you know how to blow off regret
Your tongue is like polished silver
Shiny silver
Powerful words, musicality
Eloquent, persuasive
We drown in the sound of supply and demand
And you overwhelm us, exactly as planned
All available data says
You’re a master of appearances
Successful people make their own luck
You look and sound like a million bucks
Your pockets are full of silver
Shiny silver
The comforting jingle of currency
Squeaky clean and vested
The goal is control and you’re all over it
Certainly more than you’d ever admit
Shiny silver
Shiny silver
Shiny silver
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3. |
I'm In Love With You
03:10
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When you made a motion
As if to leave
At eleven-thirty
On New Year’s Eve
Discombobulated
In a flash I knew
Something unexpected
I’m in love with you
In a conversation
For the time it took
To debate the merits
Of important books
The sophistication
Of your points of view
And your sense of humor
I’m in love with you
Elevated spirits and alcohol
Posh party or pub crawl?
The makings of a good, old-fashioned free-for-all
It’s a long, long, long haul
From a lively dance floor
To the hotel bar
And the tiny backseat
Of a rental car
The suburban landscape
That we motored through
Was a ghostly vision
I’m in love with you
I remember churches and highway signs
White dresses and white lines
We can make decisions at decision time
In a long, long, long time
In the early morning,
When I thought we might
Run away together,
You caught your flight
In a daze, I wondered
Could you also be
In the same condition
And in love with me?
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4. |
Hypnotized
04:03
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The morning light was unbearably bright. By the time my eyes adjusted
I could see—more-or-less perfectly—the dehydrated landscape
An idea dawned which the mountains beyond did their utmost to solidify
I was hypnotized
God knows why, but I’m visited by my total-nightmare vision
I'm a fool, wearing shades, by the pool, in idle conversation
The reverie ends and I don’t blame my friends but I might have been living a lie
I was hypnotized
I’m in awe. Having seen what I saw, the flaws in my existence
Feel your way, said a spirit, betray your ordinary instincts
I make a fist, but my demons insist: it’s impossible, don’t even try
I was hypnotized
A philosopher would ride out the spell
Meditating in his room at the hotel
Rocks and trees are persuasive but these other elements mean business
Concrete, glass, gravitational mass of influential buildings
The following day on the superhighway to the city I wanted to cry
I was hypnotized
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5. |
Cocaine Ruins Everything
03:49
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Yesterday I made my children listen to
A fascinating David Crosby interview
The temperamental singer whose life went off the rails
Who battled his addictions and ended up in jail
The story of the sixties was creativity
First with marijuana
Later LSD
The seventies were different:
We were too messed up to sing
Cocaine ruins everything
From the psychedelic rock-and-roll machine
To the meditative Laurel Canyon scene
Intimate communion, consciousness expands
A legacy of music, legendary bands
The story of the sixties was creativity
Living in the present
Open-heartedly
The seventies were different:
We were too messed up to sing
Cocaine ruins everything
Working for a living, living on the bus
Bored off their asses, playing songs for us
Powdering their noses, learning how to live
With creeping paranoia, dark and secretive
The story of the sixties was creativity
A transcendental moment
But, regrettably,
The seventies were different:
We were too messed up to sing
Cocaine ruins everything
Cocaine ruined everything
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6. |
You're Off the Rails
04:09
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I need to talk to you
It’s important
I hate to agitate
But this is important
On second thought
I would much rather not
We’re in a risky place
Re: friendship
I hate to desecrate
Our thirty-year friendship
You might erupt
But I have to speak up
In my dream
You seem to understand
In my nightmare
You don’t care
Intervention fails
You’re off the rails
People are calling me
Telling stories
I hate to escalate
But I’m hearing stories
I lend an ear
Which is why we are here
In my dream
You seem to understand
In my nightmare
You don’t care
Intervention fails
You’re off the rails
Sitting face to face
In a dark place
In a restaurant
We used to haunt
In our younger days
In our crazy days
In an alcoholic haze
In my dream
You seem to understand
In my nightmare
You don’t care
Intervention fails
You’re off the rails
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7. |
Song for Sarah
06:01
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Sarah left the house at dawn
Compelled by the necessity of earning
Onto an eternity
Of highways, where the wheels are always turning
Disembodied voices who do not agree
And arrive at animosity
Radio free
Radio free
In a drifting state, accelerating
Through a burst of inspiration
New ideas form, a potent
Brainstorm, but of limited duration
There’s a fender bender in the exit lane
And an urgent “move your ass” campaign
Public domain
Public domain
In the office park they chew on
Benchmarks and internalize objectives
This is not a place to face
Your fears or underscore the introspective
Restless body language, exasperated eyes
In the land of never compromise
Or apologize
Or apologize
Sarah sees a foursome on the golf course
From a second-story window
She invents an intense situation
As an exercise or sideshow
Post-apocalyptic, visions of decay
Recreation after judgement day
Artist at play
Artist at play
She accepts an unexpected phone call
With a businesslike expression
Walks a caller through her point of view
And recommends a new direction
A persistent scratching as her ballpoint pen
Sketches plot and character and then
Listens again
Listens again
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8. |
The Surfing Life
03:49
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Finally to bed, in the neighborhood of dead, from a gathering of all personnel
I couldn’t fall asleep, I was conscious of a deep sense of purpose, and a northwest swell
I slipped out of bed in the dark, “embarking,” the journey is never complete
I wrote a pithy note to my son and my wife
Who are sleeping through the surfing life
Though I spend the week, underwater (so to speak), in a critical advisory role
I’ve created space, there are processes in place, for the benefit of body and soul
I’m satisfied with a pre-dawn ride, which—at least—takes the edge off the beast
Weekends are for fun with my son and my wife
And adventures in the surfing life
Average body mass, over foam and fiberglass, balancing harmoniously
Existential dread, when it’s pumping overhead, and you paddle ineffectually
Accelerate, to a heightened state, any other realities fade
On the edge of a knife, my son and my wife
Disappear into the surfing life
Shivering I stand, meditative in the sand, and wondering if I’m getting old
“Practice what you preach,” say the ghosts at Ocean Beach, and I catapulted into the cold
Jolted awake in the breakers, I’ve never felt more intensely alive
Everything is one says my son to my wife
When he contemplates the surfing life
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9. |
Carveresque
04:20
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Raymond Carver drank too much
As everybody knows
Alcoholic tendencies
Render you more likely to express yourself in prose
When you’re in an inebriated state
Pretty words reverberate
Sober at your writing desk
You don’t feel so Carveresque
The literary fairytale:
Read all day and spend the night in jail
Document experience and paint it blue
The latest manuscript is out for review
It’s a breakthrough
It’s a breakthrough
Some of us will write about
Our twentysomething selves
In the name of gravity
The weight of these analyses will overburden shelves
Gritty stories, the bulk of which are true,
Illustrate what not to do
Hard-earned wisdom, out there for
Generations to ignore
The literary fairytale:
Empty bottles and a paper trail
Maybe there’s a person you can turn into
And then incorporate your own point of view
It’s a breakthrough
It’s a breakthrough
It’s a breakthrough
It’s a breakthrough
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10. |
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When you made a motion
As if to leave
At eleven-thirty
On New Year’s Eve
Discombobulated
In a flash I knew
Something unexpected
I’m in love with you
In a conversation
For the time it took
To debate the merits
Of important books
The sophistication
Of your points of view
And your sense of humor
I’m in love with you
Elevated spirits and alcohol
Posh party or pub crawl?
The makings of a good, old-fashioned free-for-all
It’s a long, long, long haul
From a lively dance floor
To the hotel bar
And the tiny backseat
Of a rental car
The suburban landscape
That we motored through
Was a ghostly vision
I’m in love with you
I remember churches and highway signs
White dresses and white lines
We can make decisions at decision time
In a long, long, long time
In the early morning,
When I thought we might
Run away together,
You caught your flight
In a daze, I wondered
Could you also be
In the same condition
And in love with me?
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11. |
Adrift
04:43
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Distant, intense
Unsettled by the day’s events
Meditating on impermanence
In a stand of redwood trees
Vertical here
For going on a thousand years
In the morning I will persevere
But for now I’m ill at ease
I fell asleep to a gentle wind in the leaves
But woke with a start in the dark night, shivering
Frightened and cold
In over my head and feeling old
Goddamn the stress
Of a heavy diagnosis. Yes:
Either Parkinson’s or ALS
On a precipice, in fear
I take a breath
One singular, audacious breath
In the neighborhood of life and death
Where a man can disappear
Into the fog of a long-term treatment plan
Limited hope on a steep slope: steady decline
Losing control
Hanging onto life, a living soul
The future will be
But what about the present? We
Used to talk about eternity
Not a merciless disease
Whatever we do
Is generations overdue
Can be dangerous for me, but you
Have responsibilities
Today, if you like—on a long hike—we can discuss
Anything but what we know will blow us away
Over a cliff
Never looking down but still adrift
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Bob Hillman San Francisco, California
Bob Hillman is navigating the second act of a career that began in the late 90s, flourished in the early 00s, survived ten years of “real jobs,” and resumed in 2016 with the Peter Case- produced Lost Soul.
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