Hybrid Music From The Middle Of The Pacific

Bumbye

See the keiki playing in the morning breeze 

in a moments joy they are truly free

They will learn to think and calculate

Will they lose the magic of the timeless place?

Bumbye, bumbye, bumbye, bumbye

Mango tree she will surely give

The sweetest fruit that she ever did

With some time and rain and lots of sun

Before you know it mango season come

There’s a boy and a girl they are all entwined

With hearts together like a an ieie vine

But time will tell if the flame will fail

Or the love between them grows and prevails

Tutu kane sitting in the hau bush grove

With dark eyes shining all the mana he holds

In stories he tells of his younger days

Sharing manao in the old Hawaiian ways

Believe

There are many ways beneath the sun

To find your way back home

Some share the burden of the road’

Some walk the path alone

Whatever way you choose to go

Remember there you are

We are all God’s children

Beneath this yellow star

Mister deaf man won’t you listen

Mister blind man can’t you see

Mister stiff man won’t you loosen up

Mister skeptic just believe

You may think that you are special

That you are the only one

Who’s ever felt the pain of loss

Or faced the setting sun

Look around the corner

Just beyond your own back door

There’s another one who’s just like you

Who’s suffered even more

There was a prince who once did rule

Over all that he could see

Until he woke up from that dream

Beneath Bodhi tree

If every ear could listen

If every eye could see

From grain of sand to shining star

the unfolding mystery

Pulelehua

Pulelehua, my little butterfly girl

With eyes that shine like stars at night

Flashing diamonds ever bright

You are my keiki u`i

Pulelehua, my little butterfly girl

With smile to melt the hardest heart

Shoot like an arrow through the dark

I hold you dear to me

You flutter and you fly

Always asking why

You’re reaching out your hand

You know you always can make me smile

Pulelehua, my little butterfly girl

Laughter like the running stream

Smile just like the rainbows gleam

You are my keiki u`i

Haina ia mai ana kapuana

La`akea ma`ikalani 

He inoa no ka beauty

My little butterfly girl

This Guitar Kills Fascists

This guitar kills fascists

This riddim banishes hate

These are the blues to save your soul

When the hour is getting late.

Speaking truth to power

Never wavering

Though your bones were broken 

By the jackboot thugs.

Though they smashed your fingers

So you could not play

Your song rose up above the clouds

And still the people sing.

If I had a hammer

I’d make that freedom ring

In every heart and mind I know

I’d make the truth to sing.

If I had a golden thread

And a needle so fine

I would weave a magic strand

Of rainbow design.

O beautiful for spacious skies

And for the good green earth

This world was made for you and me

And every living thing.

Stand up tall for Standing Rock

You water warriors

Chanting down those corporate suits

With oil blood on their hands.

Gypsy guitar player

Dread lock Rastaman

Outlaw country singer

Sundance oyate

Delta blues street singer

Midnight gospel choir

All you queer and different folks

Gotta sing out louder.

Ulupala Blues

Ulupala blues from my head down to my toes

Ain’t it strange how what you got

So quickly you can lose

Ulupala blues!

What happened to my  green home

Among the upland hills

Commercialized and plasticized

For the mighty dollar bill

All for the dollar bill.

In the forest waterfalls are silenced by the need

For bigger greens and play machines 

Of the corporate kings of greed

All for the kings of greed.

Oceans deep and molten fire 

Can’t stop the rising tide

Of money hungry dreams and schemes

There’s no place left to hide

No place to hide.

Are we going to stand around

 And watch this deal go down

To sell the earth and sky above

 To profit margin clowns

Are we going to stand around

Pueo

Climbing up ma trail up on Haleakala

Saw a great white bird flying into the sun

“Follow me brother “ , I hear he’s sharp cry

And my heart soared with him as he flow form my eyes

O Pueo, O Pueo

Soaring down the mountain to the valley below

O Pueo, O Pueo

Soaring down the mountain to the valley below

First time I met  you shining pale inside the moon

You screamed like a devil and I thought I was doomed

First time I met you nearly scared to my bones

But you taught me to have courage when I am alone

And I thank you, Pueo.

Under bridges down in Hana I have seen your form flying

On the sundown hills you appear like a sign

I thank you Amakua for the lessons I have learned

To take ahold of life on the wind as it turns.

Kilakila na Amakua e, 

Take a gentle burden on the might of your wings

Tell her that I miss her and I’m coming home soon

O night flying bird by the light of the moon.

Paradise

If you’re looking for a heaven where you don’t have to work or sweat

Where the fruit on the trees and the honey from the bees

Falls in your mouth when you please

There ain’t a way you can find it if you search for a life time or more

You can try with such haste, you can search the whole place

You never will find that it’s there.

Take your life inside of your hand

Learn the lessons of this land

Finally you will understand 

Paradise is just inside of your hands

Ain’t no good to be seeking in places so far and so strange

Because it’s under your nose, you can feel in your bones

The answer to kill all your fears.

See the wonder right before you, shining just like gold inside of your hands

A thousand miracles new a thousand miracles true 

Whenever you want to believe.

And if you really start living, making every moment a gem

You know you can’t really lose, when you can’t sing the blues

Feeling the sunshine in you.

And when you listen for the knocking of the angel of death on your door

You’ll be be ready to go, you’ll be ready to flow 

Into the ocean that we all become. I have seen your form flying

If Can, Can. If No Can,Than No Can

Plant by the moon

Fish by the tide

Knowing your manao

From the inside

Hee wai kai nalu

Catch the breaking swell

Going with the flow

That’s the best way to tell

No need for indecision 

No need to think too hard

Use your intuition

You know you can’t be wrong!

Kupuna to keiki

Pass the knowledge on

Know your mo’o lelo

Keep the people strong

Imua kakou

Together we can do

The stairway to heaven

And dreams coming true.

Aloha ku’u aina

Mark your place in time

What’s your kuleana?

In your heart and mind

See the arching rainbow

Watch the colors shine

Bending to the heavens

A answer you will find.

Light One Candle

What a funny strange creature is man

Got his head in the clouds and his feet buried under the sand

And if you ask how he’s doing he’ll tell you he’s fine

There’s a raging river running through his mind

Like a jungle roar or a bleeding sore

Some dark desire he’s hungered for

And is there some thing that can ease his pain

Like the cooling mist of an evening’s rain

Lifting sadness from his slow refrain

One thought rings truly clear

Better to light one candle

Burning with  pure light

Better to light one candle

Then to curse the darkness all night

You know that I’ve seen it all before

Barred shut my windows and locked up all my doors

And if you asked how I’m doing I’ll tell you my fear

That I will simply disappear 

In a hostile land, on the barren sand

That never will I make my stand

One thought rings truly clear

‘Cause in the darkest dungeon

That you will find

Lies a human heart and a human mind

And a point of light though cold and dim

Will spark a flame to fire again

What funny queer lives we live

Take every thing but never learn how to give

And if you ask what’s the problem

We’ll search everywhere

But in ourselves we never dare

Save the whales and trees

Set the captives free

But never look inside of me

And is there a way that  we can be

Like a bird in flight soaring fire

One thought rings truly clear.

Wailele

I come to her when I’m feeling lost and low

Up a secret valley where ginger blossoms grow

Over grass and stone on forgotten trails

Deep into the mountains where ancient spirits dwell

Waterfall, O she’s calling to me

Waterfall, in her deep and silver laughter

I will set  my spirit free.

Give Your Heart To the Mountain 

Give your heart to the mountain

Wash your soul in a stream

Dry your tears on a rainbow

Let the stars fill your dreams

Sing with the wind in the forest

Drink the moonlight for wine

Seek the silence of solitude

Let the sun mark your time

Mama, O Mama

I have been too long in this skin

Trying to be someone of importance

Above and beyond all my kin

But these dreams and schemes of great riches

Fortunes that money can buy

Left me cold and hungry for something

That never fades and won’t die

How many times 

Have you looked into your own eyes 

And found a stranger staring back

In the prison of his own device

Built with bricks of goodly intentions

On layers and layers of lies

A fortress of deadly complacence 

With a lonely soul trapped inside

Toureau and Emerson seeking for solitude

Walt Whitman singing, “O wilderness!”

William Blake caught the joy as it flew past his window

Never looking backwards in fear

And if it’s magic then why can’t we make everlasting

And into the mystic we’re one