Jaik Willis playing Leaving Vancouver at the Camping Stage of the Summercamp music fest in Chillicothe IL , Fri 2pm 5/22/09 , Jaik's 2nd of 8 performances at the festival.

This is a song about the real America that the Right-Wing Fundamentalist Christians & Islamic Fascists hate, our beautiful country where people are free to be freaks or fags or mormons or anything they want and have the right to control their own bodies and lives. Why does the right wing hate freedom ? Reclaim America, Happy 4th of July ! --- Self Portrait - © Jaik Willis 2008 ------- Rolls of fat , weak & sweating ; Slurping corn syrup from a Sixty Four ounce cup Scrawny bleach blonde vomits between meals; washes & preens obsessively Sewing eyebrows onto stretched and swollen faces Plucking shaving waxing away all signs, of sexual maturity Laser bikini lines , shaved vaginas and beardless boys. All that mimics child sex hidden in harddrives... Loveless pornography of every flavor, for fun and profit That's America , love it or leave it, You pious facist religious freedom hating fucks Go to Iran, if you want a nation under a false god mythological cult But this is America, bow before me, the flower of mankind America is freaks and faggots, facial piercings, crystal meth in the corn Bored princes of empire demanding extasy, xbox and taurine whims of fancy, abstract markets, extreme sports of commercial shorts Shock and awe millitainment, mass lynching every Arab Blank faced channel surfers, barely literate enough to shop Video game voting to determine the foreign policy inter-actions Of nations... you've never heard of That's America , love it or leave it, You pious facist religious freedom hating fucks Survival Of Everybody, pray that evolution is a theory when evolution knows we are a poor hypothesis at best a candle burning bright and fast while shedding no light beautiful & terrible, its fire eating all the flesh from all the earth from California to the New York Island sweating writhing freak show finalé halfway between Danté and Shakespeare every last firework explodes , till the smoke descends on the field where the crowd disperses leaving behind on-ly plastic cup and cigarette butt That's America , love it or leave it, Have a safe abortion if you need it Don't believe it just because you read it Or you can join Al Quaeda if you want a nation under a backwards biblical cult But this is America, Bow before me, Bow before me, Bound for glory, Proud & boring, Loudly snoring, Crowds of lonely, Out for only, Shout a warning, Power hoarding, well enDowed & horny, Out on shore-leave, Downing forties, Drowned in morphine, Clowns & phonies, Crowned & holy Worn-out & corny, Bow before me all powerful and blind the flower of mankind

Had a big dream in a small town to be all he could be he wanted to fly that aireoplane that he saw on tv wanted out of Illinois go to the university for free & be some kind of hero like his buddies on the football team his friends who dropped out early cashiered wallmart 2nd shift money passing through their hands but they never could take it with the Recruiter at his highschool filled the forms & said “sign here” it'd be one weekend in a month & 2 weeks in a year. step right up and be a hero step right up and be a man step right up into your dreams and take life in your hands he'd been 6 weeks out of training, back at check out with his friends when he got a voice mail that he was required to check in they told him not to worry he'd be gone only a year deep inside the green zone with a radio on his ear Looking sharp in uniform & his folks they looked so proud waving at the airport close as security allowed he woke up to the sirens saw the men in bloodied clothes commander told him he was being redeployed to fill a more essential post on top of a humvee behind 50 calibers of steel sweating under a helmet hoping no one would come near 3pm in Basra he saw something coming fast running towards the company his life begin to flash acting like a hero he took his aim and let it go deafened by the noise before he’s blinded by the smoke & there along the roadside broken on the trail was the body of a 10 year old & he heard a woman wail her eyes they fell upon him and his head begin to spin and every night for 40 years in his dreams she stared at him -----

If you take her for your next lover Please be careful as a whisper in the night Treat her tender, kind and gentle Don’t just use her because she’s beautiful I’m trusting you with something precious Something I can not keep for myself I don’t want to hold her if it would harm her I set her free, please see she feels that way still Honey on a razor’s edge Out of reach up over head This will melt and thaw and into dew resolve Again And again And again And again If I meet you on some dark daytime In some barroom or under stained glass light Understand I love her, which is why I respect you So long as you love her as I would in some other life.

heehaw

I was in a bad place when we met I might be less of a mess F Yeh you’ve seen me worse Bb You were a wreck back then You could sure use a friend F F7 Drunk, depressed and on the loose G- C But look at you now that I can’t see you Eb Bb She’s in a better place & I know she’s (much) better off Eb Bb F off above the clouds , closer to the sun, where its warm Eb Bb that’s where an angel belongs Bb I was in a bad place when I met you Lived at my dad’s place when I met you F You were at you’re mom’s Bb She knock me on my heels When we go toe to toe F F7 Got each other on our feet, now where you gone ? G- C You used these feet to walk away Eb Bb She’s in a better place & I know she’s (much) better off Eb Bb F off above the clouds , closer to the sun, where its warm C- Bb You were were a sad case in the first place , in your bandaids making lattés left a bad taste, like an ashtray D- C- now you made your escape G- C down the Rio Grandé Eb Bb Eb Bb She’s in a better place, I let her, get away F What if she was the one ? Eb Bb Eb Bb Chicago’s dead n grey Maybe she met her fate F closer to the sun, … Now she’s gone , where it’s warm, that’s where my angel belongs

I love Joni Mitchell, I'm just learning this song, she does it in an alternate tuning, I'm trying to make my own voicings for her chords.

clip from the middle of an improvisation on a zeppelin tune playing a puerto-rican cuatro 4/18/08 inside a cave in the Shawnee Forest