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DUMB ANGEL Words & Music by Johnny J Blair copyright 1990, 2007 Word2Soul Music BMI
Don't know you well enough to call you buddy
The kids laughed when I called your car a boat
Thanks for the ride to the Bible study
Even though it looked like ya needed a smoke
CHORUS: I saw Elvis crying in the chapel
The dumb angel writes his book
The Carpenter is waiting at the seaside
Used to have a ball in Avis
Waxing nostalgic at 14
Man can sing like birds but the women saved us
From basking in the music of the trees
REPEAT CHORUS TWICE
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Sunday morning
Brings the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning
Sunday morning
It's just a wasted year so close behind
CHORUS: Watch out the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Sunday morning
And I am falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning
Sunday morning
It's on the streets you crossed not so long ago
REPEAT CHORUSES OUT
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Copyright 1969 UMG / Sony ATV Music BMI. Licensed and used by permission.
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I heard someone crying Waterloo
Could be the big one, watcha gonna do?
Yin yang, sorry Arthur
You don't crucify for soap operas
Some girl takin' motion pictures
of some hillbillies in a union house with fixtures
Envision trilateral
Commission subliminal
Chorus 1:
It's indoctrination
Gradual sensation
Bugs in conversation
Next assassination
Could be a politician
Or some kind of musician
Now is the time of salvation
I knew a young czar
Local heavy punker dead Kaiser
Got elected mayor
(He say) no more Kinks, No more Stones
No more Who, metal drone
Saw him buying psychedelics
At the coal mine, erecting the new relics
He banned the cross, gave us all a new savior
Gonna get the mark, or you're gonna get the razor
Chorus 2:
It's indoctrination
ideological rebellion
With no consideration
Next assassination
Deifies the politician
Deifies the musician
Still there is time for salvation
A new prophet, new age centurion
He's such a nice man with a nice one world religion
One mind, one planet
One utopia, one helmet
Someone is pulling all the strings
His name is backwards, and he'll tell you anything
Riling up the left, ruffling the right
But it ain't too long 'fore we tie him up tight
Repeat Chorus 1
Song written by Johnny J. Blair copyright 1985 Singnorbertmusic, Inc. ASCAP copyright renewed 2007 Word2Soul BMI
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LOVE THAT'S HERE TO STAY Words & Music by Johnny J Blair copyright 2011 Word2Soul Music BMI
The world is rough and crazy, and hearts don't get their lift
You hear bad news about the people fallin' for some grift
But love has a way of mending you when you're worn and ripped
And I thank you for coming here and giving me a gift
CHORUS: You build me up from clay
With a smile you send my way
And a love that's here to stay
If I could say a prayer for every lip that was split
If I could write a song for every time I was told to quit
If I could break the news about the love behind my mask
Amazing grace is in your face, all you have to do is ask
REPEAT CHORUS
BRIDGE: I have seen your eyes of green
Looking across an ocean
Your laughter echoes over the waves
Fills my sails and gives me motion
I have seen your eyes of blue
Sunlight dancing iris
Liberating soul ablaze
Love can always choose us
The heart can be so evil, the heart can be cold as ice
But evil cannot stand alone in the blaze of a glorious light
The world is rough and crazy, and hearts don't get their lift
You hear bad news about the people fallin' for some grift
But love has a way of mending you when you're worn and ripped
And I thank you for coming here and giving me a gift
VAMP CHORUS OUT
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THE SLEEPING GIANT (OF LOVE) Words & Music by Johnny J Blair copyright 1991, 2007 Word2Soul Music BMI
Last night there was an awful storm
We were so scared and quite alarmed
Next day we found him quite unharmed
A sleeping giant on the sand
A face so gentle and so grand
What is he doing in our land?
We used to thank the Lord above
We used to dance the songs of love
Have we forgotten how?
CHORUS: Now the giant's sleeping on the beach
A bigger one can be within your reach
Rejoice respond to what can overcome us when
The giant's gonna get us
The giant's gonna wake up
The giant's gonna get us
The giant's gonna wake up soon
We send our shuttles to the moon
We send each other funny runes
But then we forget all the tunes
And when the giant comes around
He'll have the biggest laugh in town (ha ha ha)
Yes we've forgotten how
(Repeat Chorus out)
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UNRESOLVED Words & Music by Johnny J Blair copyright 1991, 2007 Word2Soul Music BMI
How can I get through
To the time to be one with you
Lazy days and half a chance
Make the straight man sing and dance
Even when the Spirit fills your hall
Many things go unresolved
How did I get into this
It's just what you call another fine mess
Lazy days and half a chance
Make the straight man sing and dance
Promises on carousels
Turn my heart and make it swell
Even when the Spirit fills your hall
Many things go unresolved
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MEET JOHNNY J BLAIR, A PICASSO OF POP
Pablo Picasso, the great painter, created work that reached people with images and ideas they could relate to, but he also challenged them with fresh uses of color and shape. Likewise, Johnny J. Blair crafts cogent pop songs, using a palette of diverse influences, painted with an economy of invention.
Daub together old school soul, psychedelia, British Invasion rock, and sunny California pop. Splash it with glam rock and rockabilly. Wash that in a vocalese and melodicism breathed by classical, gospel, jazz, and world music. The finished sonic canvas testifies to the passionate rock’n’roll of Johnny J Blair, “Singer at Large.”
Brian Wilson called Blair “a virtuoso.” Legendary James Brown drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, said Blair is like “a white James Brown” in concert. Goldmine Magazine described Blair’s music as “Pop music with a conscience.”
Picasso’s paintings were grouped according to periods and phases. So it is with Blair’s recordings: From baroque pop, to punk/new wave, to orchestral Americana, to funky gospel, to tango-flamenco flavored rock.
Urban humor, romantic abstraction, and bittersweet spirituality are images in Blair’s lyrical vocabulary, drawn from by The Bible, classic comedy, film noir, and novelists such as Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. Blair’s strong voice transmits this template of tunes to fans of many genres, all around the world.
Since the mid-80s, Blair has issued acclaimed recordings—from the “new wave concept album” Door in the Water, to the soulful masterwork Fire, to the bare-knuckled acoustic “agitpop” of Treadmarks, to the “Ziggy Stardust meets Pet Sounds" expressionism of Grateful, to the metropolitan mysticism of I Like the Street.
Blair’s songs have been commended by Brit-pop icon Sir Cliff Richard, and Blair’s cover of Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” (included on this compilation) was celebrated by the song’s famed co-writer, the late Lou Reed.
Davy Jones of The Monkees, making a posthumous appearance on this compilation, was another advocate, saying that Blair should be “top of the pops.” “I learned valuable lessons from David," adds Blair, who worked extensively with Jones for 20 years, on stage and in the studio (Blair also played bass for the 2011 Monkees Reunion Tour of the UK and USA).
This compilation was assembled especially for
bandcamp.com. The set features representative songs that charted globally, as well as rarities and “fan favorites"--including two (!) Velvet Underground/Lou Reed covers, and, making a bandcamp debut, "Dancin' by The River (Tex-Mex Garage Mix)"–Notes by Gilbert Haywire