The end of 2011 proved even a bit challenging for me, the eternal optimist.  In the end, the optimism helped a lot, and as I knew it would, everything worked out okay.  Now I have moved into a sweet little house, close to work and Escuela and am just this weekend going to start plugging in again…literally.  The guitars are looking at me longingly.  The keyboards seem sad set up on their sides, and without any connection to the wall.  Rock and Roll is comin’!

In the meantime here are some fun little bits of info from 2011 that you probably have not heard yet.  The first is a neat little film made by Kim Shively about the panel I sat on at the ever-entertaining and fun Feminism and Co. talks at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  What a BLAST!

And here is a fun little song I did for a client this year to remind you all about the Custom Songs that I do and what a fabulorific gift they are.  This couple was kind enough to let me share their 10th Anniversay Song which they hired me to write.  They provided the story and musical references, and I provided the ditty!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO:  Hey Blackjack

Click Here to Listen:  Make Our Garden Grow

What can we grow
Together with our big hands
And our small hands
What can we know
About this unforgiving sand

So little control
Can we carve out
With our dreams filled with green
Can we turn rocks and barren parking lots
Into joy and soil and beans?

We can make our garden grow
Put your fragile foot to hoe
We can make our garden grow

These foothills of gold
A barren patch
Of hardened sand
And a woman who knows
A woman whose wise and brash

Merry tribe of folk
And the rock hard ground
And the spade and fork
Yes the guitars played
In the berried shade

We can make our garden grow
Put your fragile foot to hoe
We can make our garden grow

A little child
Digs a hole
And she puts a seed to the ground to sew
And you kiss me
With my feet in the muddy soil
Of our souls

And we can make our garden grow

Written and performed by Camille Bright-Smith

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO:  Wilderness

copyright 2010 all rights reserved unless I give some to you!

I got two days
On the Roan Plateau
Poison Ivy cold waterfalls
Crazy friends
catching our breath
The canyon is epic

Two nights in a teepee
Buncha kids sleeping knee to knee
12 hours playin’ in the creek
water spiders big screams

We can never get enough wilderness
For quiet nights bright stars and good friends
We can never get enough wilderness
Clean air, clear water good love
Rock climbing getting dirty on the hunt
I can’t wait

We got 3 days in the San Juans
Staggered peaks and mushrooms
Lizard head kept his lizard eye
On happy faces
In the mountain wild

4 nights above Trappers Lake
Coyotes howling and an osprey with a snake
And one night in Vermillion Basin
Spirits of dreamtime
Speaking on the walls faces

Wilderness
For quiet nights bright stars and good friends
I can never get enough wilderness
Clean air, clear water new scars
Rock climbing getting dirty fallin’ stars
I can’t wait

Next summer gonna climb to the top
Of Blanca or Culebra
This winter gonna pack it in
On snow shoes with sloe gin and mandolins
We can never get enough wilderness
For crazy nights and wolf howls and good friends
I can never get enough wilderness
Rainbows and sage grouse and blue foxes
Blue birds and blue grouse and their offspring
Rattlesnakes and lost lakes and elks bugles
Bee stings and tall trees and changin’ leaves

Early morning late night and lots of cuddles

Its so pretty go and get the babies up

Torn pants, torn skin and stinging nettles
Falling in drying off and flower petals

Wilderness

copyright 2010 by Camille Bright-Smith and Travis Dickerson

the way you wear your work boots

Click here for the Denver B-Cycle Web Site
Join us tomorrow, Earth Day, April 22nd 2010 for the B-Cycle Launch at Civic Center Park at 9am. Kazoo’s, Flobot appearances, Brass Quintet, Bike Parade! See B-Cycle for more details!

copyright 2010 all rights reserved
by Camille Bright-Smith

Riding down to Swallow Hill
The breeze is fresh off Pikes Peak
Pedal up to Highland Bridge
Takes me to yummy things

I can ride from here to there
faster than you drive
I can ride my B Bike I can ride ride ride

Serene along the river
Roll into to Cherry Creek
I check her in on Columbine
Shop for fancy things

I can ride to a Rockies Game
To see the Av’s or March with Pride
I can ride to the Peoples Fair
I can ride, ride, ride

I can ride from here to there
faster than you drive
I can ride my B Bike I can ride ride ride

I can ride to the Orange and Blue
I can ride baby two by two
I can ride like a Nuggets Dancer
Meet me at the Double Daughter

I can ride on a first date
I can ride on my last
I can ride to the MCA

To see the Flobots or catch the Fray

I can ride from here to there

faster than you drive
I can ride my B Bike I can ride ride ride

Thank heavens for Travis Dickerson, Lindy Dickerson and John Bright.  Travis produced the song and played various instruments, John produced the vocals and Lindy played guitar!

LISTEN TO:  Balloon Boy

Will he fall will he fall

From a great blue height

Will he laugh will he laugh

Will he die will he die

Will he suffocate

Will he immolate

Tiny boy of our dreams

Floating silver air streams

What do you want from me

The foolish you

Wish you could see what I see

The foolish you

What do you want from me

Can we see his tiny blue face

In the eye of the mind

Can we feel his mother’s embrace

He is broken

The wind was unkind

Take us away from the war

Take us away

Give us blood or give life

What do you want from me

The foolish you

You are so far beneath me

The foolish you

What do you want from me

What do you want from me?

The foolish you

Is there blood?

Is there blood?

Fear and love….

Listen To: Ft. Carson Colorado

Ft. Carson Colorado
The proud home of our 4th Infantry
The men that pulled Sadaam
out from his hole
Ft. Carson Colorado
Those brave souls of the 31st Dixie
Named after Kit, its the Army’s heart and soul

Ft. Carson’s Deadly Duty
Was the headline on the Sunday News
Now Ft. Carson’s pride is burdened by
Its finest Iron horses running wild

And the army said “some problems slipped right through the cracks’
I wonder what they meant by that
Did they mean the 9 soldiers
turned by war from men to fiends
Did they mean the 6 now dead and gone
Shot or stabbed and left to bleed alone

Ft. Carson’s Deadly Duty
Was the headline on the Sunday News
Now Ft. Carson’s pride is burdened by
Its finest Iron horses running wild

Its constant fear, adrenaline
Its what they are trained to do
Redeployed and torn up limb from limb
And then told to come on home and settle in
Ft. Carson sends ‘em over there
Prepared for every kind of terror
But Ft. Carson doesn’t comfort them back home

Copyright 2009 all rights reserved Camille Bright-Smith

1986
smoking outside the Applejack
Guess I was seventeen
Either lucky or invincible
We were waiting for our mark
He was a chain smoking, Nova drivin’
Loner livin’ with his Mama
We were three young pretty girls
Askin’ for gin and tonic

He said hey girls
Can I give you a ride?
We said sure man
After you go inside
And buy us a bottle or three or four
And a pack of reds
We’ll wait outside the door

Climbed into the Nova
After we paid for our loot
And he started driving
Way too slow, way too cool
The oldest girl up in the front seat
Leaned back and looked at me
With a fearful gleam
With a fearful gleam in her eye

He said hey girls
Can I give you a ride
We said sure man
After you go inside
And buy us a bottle or three or four
And a pack of reds
We’ll wait outside the door

She lied, she lied to him without shaking
Said her Dad was cop
And he lived just ahead
Go on and drop us off
We climbed out of the car
Smelling like piss and Marlboro’s
And we laughed like little girls
Yeah we laughed like stupid little girls

Copyright 2009 all rights reserved
By Camille Bright-Smith (with some WRHS inspiration and thanks to my facebook friends!)

Well we are waitin’
For the baby
For the little baby cuz
Mama’s in the kitchen
Cookin’ 16 things at once
Papa’s talkin’ to himself
Not as eloquent as usual
And when the phone rings everybody jumps

Baby cuz
C’mon and slide out easy
Baby cuz
Your mama’s getting’ sleepy
Baby Cuz
I know its kinda cheesy
You got us ringin’ our hands
Got us laughin’ and weepin’
Baby Cuz
Son of my little brother
Baby Cuz
Come out and meet your mother
We just can’t wait a minute longer
Gotta kiss and hug our baby cuz

Well we are waitin’
For the baby
For the little baby cuz
We are practicing our breathing
Were so nervous we could bust
Now mama’s polishing the furniture
Just to keep from cracking up
Cause we are waitin’
On the little baby cuz

Copyright 2009 by Camille Bright-Smith

featuring John Bright on Guitar

Spring is so sudden here
She pounces on my back
She really digs her claws in
To my sleepy winter neck
Pink disturbs my slumber
Yellow blossoms shock my eyes
The clouds cleared out and left me
With nothing but blue sky

Damn that breeze
Caressing me
Damn the buds
On the aspen trees
Damn the chaos in my head
Just want to hibernate in my winter bed

A full moon brings all the howlers out
The mail box fills with invitations
The sun gets stuck at 5 o clock
The garden sends neglected gazes
Pink disturbs my slumber
Yellow blossoms shock my eyes
The clouds cleared out and left me
With nothing but blue sky

Damn that breeze
I just want to hibernate
I’m goin’ back to bed
Leave me alone
I’m goin’ back to bed
Shhhhh

Copyright 2009 by Camille Bright-Smith