"I NEVER SLEPT WITH ALLEN GINSBERG' was inspired by a visit the poet made to the 'West Virginia Writer's Inc.' Conference in the early 1980s, at the Cedar Lakes Conference Center. I covered his visit as a cub reporter for the Huntington Herald-Dispatch, interviewing him that afternoon. I hung around for a late-night session around a bonfire at which Allen pulled out a small Indian squeezebox. We ended the night singing William Blake's 'Nurse's Song' set to the music of his squeezebox, a raggedy chorus of voices singing: ''And all the hills echo-ed... And all the hill echo-ed...' Additional inspiration came from hearing Greg Brown's song 'Rexroth's Daughter' one night while driving in my car. 'Hey, I should try to write a cool narrative tune like that ...'
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LEAD
VOCAL: Douglas
Imbrogno
BACKING VOCAL: Gar
Ragland
GUITAR: Douglas
Imbrogno
PERCUSSION: Ammad
Solomon
BASS: Gar
Ragland
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All songs by Douglas Imbrogno (except 'Lights' by Rebecca Skeen Webb, 'Rosie's Lullaby,' by Bob Webb and 'Scarborough Fair,' traditional) Copyright 2004.
"I
NEVER SLEPT WITH ALLEN GINSBERG"
words & music by Douglas
Imbrogno (copyright 2004)
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Allen
plays the squeezebox while we pass a joint around/
Singing poetry of William Blake while sitting on the
ground/ Talking of the Rockefellers, how they rule
the roost/ with their ancient dirty dollars and the
power it produced...
CHORUS:
I never slept with Allen Ginsberg, but I miss him still / Yet I visit with him now and then -- Guess I always will.
The campfire spits a dozen sparks, they glow like fireflies/ Above our heads a thousand stars lie frozen in the skies/ I have no place to sleep tonight, I didn't get a room/ I will lay my head beside this blaze as if it were a womb.
CHORUS:
I'm just a tourist in his world, a poet of his times/ About all I can offer are these verses and these rhymes.
I ask about Jack Kerouac."'I loved him," he replies/ He gazes at me smartly with those drooping, knowing eyes/ I tell him of a favorite line of poetry he wrote: 'The million unutterable thoughts of frogs...'/ "Jack gave me that," he notes.
With just a single gesture I cold maybe share his bed/ But it's not his body that I want, but what's inside his head.
The campfire burns to ember, everybody goes to sleep/ In a marijuana vision, I see things that seem so deep/ Trees arround the conference ground, raise up their limbs in praise/ For the everlasting holy moment of these holy days
CHORUS:
I never slept with Allen Ginsberg, but I miss him still / Yet I visit with him now and then -- Guess I always will.
Twenty years beyond that night, I lay in reverie/ With "Mind Breaths" and "Plutonian Ode's" erotic poetry/ I could have been a poem, brought some comfort to the man/ But I was just a timid boy, I was just a wide-eyed fan...
CHORUS:
I never slept with Allen Ginsberg, but I miss him still / Yet I visit with him now and then -- Guess I always will
I never slept with Allen Ginsberg, but I miss him still / Yet I visit with him now and then -- Guess I always will.