I never ever thought it would be so hard to learn the fundamentals underlying song. I felt like it was meant to be, fated, so I didn’t really think I needed to practice for so long each day. Every Good Boy Deserves Favor [Treble clef] Fat Cows Graze Daily At Elmer’s Barn [Order of Sharps] Great Big Dogs Fight Animals [Bass clef] So I learned by ear what I could, but it took a little longer to become proficient, to have it all sink in. Four hours is too long to do my scales. I want it all now. I don’t want to wait. Great music is in harmony with the Universe [Confucius], but when I create, I just feel out of it. I can’t seem to imbue my notes with the right stuff: Sorrow, satisfaction, anger, piety, joy, and love. Kant distrusts music’s wordlessness. He says it’s not fit for serving culture, and only when married with poetry does music acquire conceptual value. What can I do? I’m just a contrapuntal dunce. No matter how far I get, how much I learn, it never feels like I excel. I’m the jack-of-all-trades and the master of none. Why did God give me the desire, to make music, when I’m clearly not fit? Lyrics ©2020 Todd Franklin Osborn all rights reserved

If I ever forgot to honor you by being stuck in a sad moment of anger, and if I could not prise my mind from frustration enough to show a proper respect for you, I’m truly sorry. When I was young I learned to heap honor on her, but I didn’t know how to offer her my heart, and every time I strayed at all from the path life showed me, it stung me that I hadn’t played my part. On her honor, she will always forgive my weaknesses, but even on my best day, my finest moment, I won’t deserve her. Lyrics ©2020 Todd Franklin Osborn all rights reserved

Spewing lies! Courting spies! You’ve got to wonder when it all will end. The truth’s getting lost in the shuffle as the common person’s losing friends. The argument’s main point, improvised based only on the feeling of an emotional man-child, fits neatly there on bumper stickers. Ahhhh! Oh, it gives you a pause. Mankind takes out its claws on triviality. It gnaws on the bones of much better beings. Pettiness is alive and well, and ever penetrating, burrowing deep in the psyche, wiring and re-wiring, building and destroying the pathways that used to harbor patience, understanding, and critical thinking. Now our population is dumbing down. Evolution is at work, but that does not guarantee that the good in us survives to see us into futures It does not take a team to figure up a good meme, to tell your world your feelings in just a sentence or two. Why read a book when you can rather have a quick look at the anti-complex micro-wisdom herein? Why are you, oh, so angry, hurling curses at me, like you actually know me? You don’t, of course, but anonymity can remake your image. It’s easier to be a tough guy when they’re no consequences. Say exactly what you want to. Ahhhh! Is that what Freedom really is, Liberty and Justice, too, and Responsibility: just words to vomit onto pages? Lyrics ©2020 Todd Franklin Osborn all rights reserved

I tried my best to find her when she ran away. I left the home we both had shared to look for her, one day. I vowed never to return until I returned with her. That may be my downfall. My friends all said, “for sure.” With no easy clues to help me, I thought I had no hope. I didn’t know just where to start, and it was hard to cope. I tried to use what I knew about her from dreams she used to share, places she might have wanted to go, sure to escape my loving care. I’ll return months later, and I’ll scream, and I’ll shout, when I find, to my great surprise, that she has locked me out. Lyrics ©2020 Todd Franklin Osborn all rights reserved

When moments come and go (first in, then out) In/out they seem to flow (and that’s when...) That’s when I’m sure I know (but I don’t) I let my nature show I hold on to a feeling (for as long as I can, I find...) My mind stuck to the ceiling (...and all I am is...) I am out there somewhere (but here I stand) If only I could be there If I expect too much, how can my life ever measure? Uncertain as I am, I should embrace the pleasure of the unknown. All too often, I rush to judge a situation. What was that rush? Frightened of what the future brings, I can only walk one path, as the tightrope swings. Churches of Easter coming...pretty possible pot roast... to have a short sermon...and groups... crazy while have kind gotten while...everyone end to end... although please continue...although continuing outside recess...rescheduled across for the volunteer... named a local brought please...have door visiting tree now... bridges what’s good...with 200 needles... we will and we will...to everyone. Well, it swings back! Now I’m back where I began, And I’ll never get used to this as long as I am in this state of flux. This simple form of a man merely acts like an animal, and doesn’t understand that the choices he makes affects all the others, the fathers and the brothers and the sisters and the mothers, and it doesn’t stop there. Everybody is connected by a radial expansion of the causally directed. Making it all up as you go along will not set you on a path toward finding what is wrong. You have to commit to the basic proposition that what happens in life is all surrender and submission. To build up this flame from a spark using song parts as tinder, so we could hold the torch art of passion at bay. To keep and idea at arm’s length kindles the conception of kinder. To see something as it is matches it with child’s play. To signal the rescue of innocence with wood – words on paper. To fan the fanatic tendencies of a flashing mind. As friction inherently creates situations where the vapor from instruments of steam make tone, rhythm, and time. Lyrics ©2020 Todd Franklin Osborn all rights reserved

There is a rift in between the young and the old me. So many people in my life, trying to warn me, have told me that it is coming. “Just you wait,” they said,” “someday you’ll feel like life drains from you.” They said, “you’ll feel life as it wanes in you.” Where once I had much to give, and I gave so much, I have now become so thrifty. If I hadn’t already half given up on love, still, just one kiss could lift me. Promise me. Promise me. Restore my life with your promise. I’ve lived all my life hoping love would blossom. Now you stand before me looking so awestruck and awesome. Only that I helped you in a time of need – “That which thou hast promised must thou perform.” I’m at your mercy to transform me, to turn my blood from cold to warm. Lyrics ©2020 Todd Franklin Osborn all rights reserved