Old Song Handed Down

An old photograph, it’s in your eyes
The treble clef, the key, the ties
Would there be any more of you?
In the family line who played music too?
Did you stray a little from the score?
Did you ever try to add anything more?
Did you ever try to make things up?
Just little riffs & stuff?

What kind of music did you play?
The kind that makes hard times go away?
Ancient tunes that were passed along?
Was anybody writing songs?
Did people think of you as odd?
Did they think it came from the devil or G-d?
Did they ever tell you to keep quiet?
Did you suffer when you had to deny it?

People probably didn’t play guitars
There wouldn’t have been any popular stars
Who’d come around, who you’d have heard
There was no way to spread the word
Nobody had a radio
Record player or a stereo
No Ipod and no tv
No cassettes and no cds

You had a violin and you had a bow
How far away did you have to go?
To get where no one else could hear
So you could play it loud and clear?
Did you have such a secret place
Where you could go and know the Grace?
A river bank or a favorite tree
Somewhere you could just be free?

As I go from town to town
Small glimpses are all that I’ve found
Would you recognize these sounds?
Are they like the old songs handed down?

When you used to sit & play
Would everyone and everything go away?
Was there anyone else who understood
Anywhere in the neighborhood?
Or anywhere else for miles around?
The next little village, even the next town?
Did you ever see the city 50 miles away?
Did you ever get to hear an orchestra play?

In the village market or the few little shops
Could you get a new string if one ever popped?
Your first violin, who gave it to you?
Was it handed down, was it made for you?
Or did you get to go and pick it out?
In the local shops were Jews allowed?
Did your parents have to sacrifice for years?
Was it music to their ears?

If we could just sit one night under the stars
The same constellations, the very same Mars
Not talk about neocons, or about czars
All I want to do is pick the guitar
You can tune up that fiddle & rosin the bow
If you want we could give it a go
I only really know 3 or 4 chords
I slide this capo thing up the fingerboard

I wonder who you’d be today
Or I’d be back then and what we’d play
A gypsy tune, a Russian waltz
One of mine or something classical
For now I’ll blow kisses, for now I send love
And if you can listen from somewhere above
I hope you can hear that it comes from a place
An old photograph, a familiar face

As I go from town to town
Small glimpses are all that I’ve found
Would you recognize these sounds?
Are they like the old songs handed down?