THE GENIE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE [12-2-17; 1-13-16]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…   

Helen and I are going to see The Nutcracker this afternoon. Anticipating it, I got to thinking back to other musical events we have attended. Since I am still trying to figure out what the message in the bottle really means, I decided to repeat this CIW from 1-13-16.

Bob Butts and Kathy Roberts [married to each other, despite the different last names] took us to a concert by Carrie Newcomer, the delightful Quaker folk singer. During one of her songs, I suddenly got an image of a gravel road I walked as a boy. In the image, I saw a blue glass bottle under some sumac in the ditch beside the road. I went down into the ditch and picked up the bottle, to look inside it, for bottles often contain messages. Indeed, there was a message inside, on a crumpled and dirty scrap of paper. It said, “The genie doesn’t live here anymore.”

So I wrote this song…

The genie doesn’t live here anymore

No, the genie doesn’t live here anymore

You can ask a hundred times

You can rhyme a hundred rhymes

But the genie doesn’t live here anymore

I was going down the road, on my back, a heavy load

I was wishing for a friend to lend a hand

I sent my wish up to the sky, and there came a quick reply

The genie doesn’t live here anymore

My feet were blocks of lead, sun was hot upon my head

I was wishing for a way to turn around

My life was feeling tragic, all I needed was some magic

But the genie doesn’t live here anymore

Wishes are like breezes, they have no hands to help along

As soon as you can make them they are gone

I’ll have to put my faith in God, and put my hand in yours

For the genie doesn’t live here anymore

           

The genie doesn’t live here anymore

No, the genie doesn’t live here anymore

You can make a hundred wishes

You can make them all delicious   [1]

But the genie doesn’t live here anymore

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] Do this line in a Burl Ives voice so that it doesn’t sound like I couldn’t find my rhyming dictionary. [2]

2] As Bruce Springsteen said about his early songs, “A young man with a rhyming dictionary is very dangerous.”]

I tweet occasionally as yooper1721.

I have told only two people that I am writing CIW again. Two others have told me they have found it on their own. Obviously, from the reader count that BlogSpot keeps, many others have discovered it, too. I’m not trying to keep it secret. I’m glad you are reading this. But if I announce that I am writing, I have to write interestingly enough that at the least I am not wasting your time. If I don’t “invite” readers, I can publish stuff like insipid song lyrics.