Happy Vagrant (song video)
LIVING-ROOM VIDEO #74, “Happy Vagrant”. Just completed today. Here’s my intro from the video: “Sometimes a song comes through and I think, “Well, that’s no epic” and I might begin to dismiss it, as happened with this one. But then I realise that I can’t measure everything on the scale of “epic”. How about the scale of sweetness? Or the scale of simplicity? This is the kind of song you write when you’ve reached a space where you’ve no one to impress, where you don’t have to push yourself, where no one can poke you or prod you to do or be this or that or anything, where you can be a vagrant wanderer without regret, where you couldn’t care less what family and friends may think of you, where your only guides are Love and Truth… and the occasional cheesecake. Picture it with orchestral accompaniment and shimmering strings and you’ve got it”. Here are the lyrics:
I’ve been walking for so long
I’ve got holes in my sandals.
I’m not complaining in this song
It’s not the blues where my words belong —
words belong.
I’ve been singing all of my life;
not just out loud or with words.
This guitar’s my beloved wife;
song’s the great antidote to strife —
to strife.
[Refrain]
I may be weary but I’m smiling.
Doesn’t get me down anymore.
As life fades, I’m reconciling.
Happy vagrant who loves to kick open doors!
I’ve been thinking since first I could talk;
(but not just dumb kiddie whining).
Questions of life asked before I could walk;
took the hard path at every fork —
every fork.
I’ve been diving into the deep;
I had the bends many times.
Into that water I boldly leap;
danger’s outweighed by the joys that I reap —
joys I reap.
[Refrain]
I may be weary but I’m smiling.
Doesn’t get me down anymore.
As life fades, I’m reconciling.
Happy vagrant who loves to kick open doors!
I was longing with my soul
for some great symbiosis.
Thought with flesh I could fill that hole
but that pursuit my contentment stole —
oh, it stole.
Once that fiction had been revealed
many needs were rescinded.
When that light shone on sources concealed
then the need for that search was healed —
it was healed.
[Refrain]
I may be weary but I’m smiling.
Doesn’t get me down anymore.
As life fades, I’m reconciling.
Happy vagrant who loves to kick open doors!
© Alan Morrison, 2021
The Naked Troubadour 