As you know, I don’t have a regular guitar player in the band, so I’m forced to learn more guitar than I ever wanted to know, and in accordance with that aim, I also need my own songbook with our own songs and arrangements in some sort of usable order, and with the songs playable and singable by me.
I am therefore announcing the imminent publication of my Prosperity Path Songbook, which has in it songs we wrote as a group, at Meadow Vista, Grass Valley and Penn Valley, over the past 45 years or so. I want to especially thank all the folks who made it possible. All the credits I know of are listed on each song sheet. I tried to limit the size of the songs to a single page, except in the case of the Government Meltdown Blues, so it’d be easy to use at a gig, recording session, or at band practice.
These songs are licensed for busking where a tip jar is used. If you charge admission or want to record these songs, you MUST have permission, but we’re easy — just ask. We want to know where our songs are going and who is covering them, wouldn’t you???
NOTICE: I have rewritten these songs, to make them easier for me to play.
I have more than 50% rewritten these songs, for which I take full responsibility. If I’ve lost the feel or sense of a song, you can blame me for it. I’ll listen to complaints, but my musical skills are limited to standard open chords, so take it easy on me — a lot of those songs were unplayable by anyone except Parker, Meg, or Jimmi, and that’s a fact.
I’ve made them easy FOR ME to play and sing. If you want the original formats, the original meters, timing and chords as they were, and the original songs as they were sung by Parker more than 35 years ago, you can send for a xerox copy of the Angel Songbook from Iven at, I believe, $35. It does not contain about half the songs my new songbook features.
Myself, I can’t sing them or play them EXACTLY as Parker or Meg or Jimmi or Menlo did — not even remotely like what they did. I just don’t have the guitar and singing skills that they do, so I reworked the songs for my own use, put them in keys that I can easily play, worked out rhythm, meter, rhyme, sense and chord progression changes that are easy, easy, easy for me to play — so easy that even YOU might be able to play them!
I’ve put a solid two months of work into getting this song book together, having already worked on the songs off and on over the past decades, and today, I’m sharing the results of this effort with you. You’ll be able to buy my signed songbook as of today, with our projected shipping date only two weeks away.
I hope you’ll enjoy my collected songs in this new wirebound spiral edition, at only $35 a copy on regular copy paper, and you can make that $45, if you want it printed on heavy card stock. I’ll keep that price as long as I can hold the costs down — printing and paper costs are going up again, and I can’t promise that costs will ever go down to where they were 50 years ago. Things don’t tend to get cheaper and cheaper. Inflation eats everything.
SET #1 — GREEN FELT BELOW ME
- The Alchemist Said
- The Apprentice & The Master
- Gambler’s Song
- Green Felt Below Me
- Midnight
- Prospector Song
- Leprechaun Song
- Work, You Sneakers, Work
SET #2 — EVOLUTIONARY RAGS
- The Women’s Song
- I’m a Rationalizing Dude
- Evolutionary Rag
- Down in Meadow Vista
- To Whom Will You Surrender To?
- Talking in Our Sleep
- I Shipped on Board a Fourth Way Liner
- Thief & a Holy Man
- The Man Who Was Afraid
- Chief Feature is the One
- Diddle Arounder’s Soiree
- Hang Up Your Boots, Dear Ego
- Hesitation Blues
- I Shall Remain
- If Only I Could Do It Again
- Long a’Growin’
- Love, O Love O Conscious Love
- Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Yogis
- Holy Marketing
- Psyche Farewell
- Streets of Bokhara
- There Once Was a Union Made
- You Can Do a Job
SET #3 — ANGELS & HOBOES
- When the Angel Opened the Door
- He’s Only a Fallen Angel
- What Shall We Do With the Fallen Angel?
- Three Great Laws
- So Ask How The Absolute Suffers
- Janitor From Outer Space
- Heart of The Maker
- Everybody Wants a Piece of God
- Blessed is He Who Has a Soul
- A Child is Born in Love
- Holy Hobo Roundup
- Village of the Idiots
SET #4 — GAMING WITH GOREBAGG
- Gaming With Gorebagg
- Goin’ For the Flag
- I’m a Newbie
- My Quakin’ Baby
- Quaker’s Lullaby
- The Weenie Waltz
- We Will Frag You, Double Bag You
- You Can Make It If You Die
- Am I Red? Am I Blue?
- Back in the Lava Again
- Decorate the Base With Dead Now
- Gotta Go On
- The Hatchet Man
- I Guard the Precious
- In The Slime One More Time
- Lost Again
- Low Ping Polka
- The Monkey’s Got the Gun
- My Base
- Legion of the Lost
SET #5 — GORBY SONGS
- Another Face in the Crowd
- Bardo Station #9
- Everything Blues
- Filksinging Army
- The Folk Song Rebellion
- Government Meltdown Blues
- I Got a Martin Guitar
- Mario Super Lover
- Songwriting Blues
- Soul Salesman Blues
- Thank You Tim Minchin This is God Responding
- The Thrill is Back
- White Guys Cannot Sing the Blues
- Zombie Jam
SET #6 — TEAM FORTRESS II SONGS
- When the Demo is Doing His Job
- When an Engie is Doing His Job
- When the Heavy is Doing His Job
- When the Medic is Doing His Job
- When the Pyro is Doing His Job
- When a Scout is Doing His Job
- When a Sniper is Doing His Job
- When a Soldier is Doing His Job
- When a Spy is Doing His Job
- Respawn You Here in TF2
- O Come, All Ye Engies
- Fast the Harried Engies Build
- 12 Days of Team Fortress
SET #7 — RIDE THAT CAROUSEL
- Trenton New Jersey
- Kokomo
- Child Star
- Stand Up & Be Counted
- Deep on the Ocean Floor
- Seven Eleven
- Sewers of Paris
- Ride That Carousel
- In the Light of the Night
- Give All You Got
- Blue Jumpbuck
- Jesus, You’re So Cool
SET #8 — HOT NIGHT IN HELL
- Hot Night in Hell
- GodWorld
- 20 Minutes Left in the Brute World
- God Lives in Hell
- Tell Me What I Think
- Wrong Side of BardoTown
- Carol’s Corner Cafe
- Rot in Hell
- One Night in Hell
- I Will Not Be Your Ghoul
- 20 Minutes Left in Hell
- The Clear Light
SET #9 — BAG LADIES FROM HELL
- Bag Bag Lady Part I
- My Bag Lady
- They Were Poets
- Subway Momma
- Alice the Bag Lady
- It’s in the Bag
- Box Boy Blues
- Used Food
- She’s My Bag Lady
- Wake Bag it & Go
- Bag Bag Lady Part II
- Paper or Plastic
- Esmeralda My Bag Angel
- Dempsey the Dumpster
- Bag Ladies From Hell
- Up-Tempo Man
- Momma’s Got a Brand New Bag
- Blow Me On The Moon
As songs become available, you’ll get a notice of updates. You can also download this songbook and print it out yourself, if you prefer. I like to print my songsheets on heavy cardstock, so they can sit out on a music stand and not fly about or fall. If you want your copy of the songbook printed on heavy cardstock, add $10, making the total $45 plus the usual shipping or your choice of speedy delivery, for the signed edition.