Mike Mullins

WINDOWS OF TIME

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Windows of Time (M. Mullins)

Gather near and lend an ear and a story I will tell
Of Timothy O’Sullivan, Mr. Lincoln knew him well
He worked for Matthew Brady photographing the well-heeled
Until his rolling darkroom led him to the battlefield

From Bull Run to the bitter end, he trailed our Union men
And brought us tearful, face-to-face into the Slaughter Pen
He rolled across the flaming fields and lived the tale to tell
A storms-eye view into the teeth of that fearsome Rebel Yell

Windows of time take me back again
And walk the past horizon with an old forgotten friend
A century of shadows melt before my eyes
And in those frozen moments you can hear the battle cries

Before blue and gray could fade away into the cloak of distant time
The lensman’s bitter harvest kept the battles fresh in mind
Advance, retreat and forward march, it truly is a shame
The images that burned our hearts bore Matthew Brady’s name

On windy Staten Island, he died one wintery day
Now Timothy O’Sullivan sleeps in an unmarked grave
And all you history writers and you keepers of the pen
Look through these windows left behind, hear the cannons roar again

Windows of time take me back again
And follow phantom footsteps with an old forgotten friend
A century of shadows melt before my eyes
And in those frozen moments you can hear the battle cries

 

Streets of Laredo (Trad. Arr. M. Mullins)

As I walked out through the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a poor cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen and cold as the clay

I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy
These words he did say as I proudly stepped by
Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
Got shot in the chest and I know I must die

Let six rowdy cowboys come carry my coffin
Let six pretty women come carry my pall
Throw dozens of roses all over my coffin
Throw roses to deaden the earth as it falls

Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the pipe lowly
Play the dead march as you carry me along
Take me to the green valley and lay the earth over me
For I am a cowboy, I know I done wrong

There is another more dear than my mother
How bitter she’ll weep when she sees I have gone
She’ll come to the green valley and lay the earth over me
And weep for her cowboy she knows done her wrong

As I walked out through the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a poor cowboy all wrapped in white linen
Wrapped in white linen and cold as the clay

 

Young Maverick (M. Mullins)

I am a young maverick, my hair it is red
I wear a bandanna to keep the sweat off my head
I've got sixteen fine horses in a barn made of tin
And they dance just like angels on the head of a pin

I am a young cowpoke, my muscles are hard
The ground quakes like jello when I walk through the yard
If you're looking for trouble I'm the dangerous kind
I've got sixty-five girlfriends but my four wives don't mind

Chorus I:
Whoopie-ty-yi-yo, yippee-yi-o-ki-yay
As I saddle my Cayuse at the cool break of day
My bullets are silver, got spurs made of gold
I'm as long and as tall as this tale that I've told

One day I'll hang up my spurs and my gun
Put old paint out to pasture when he's too old to run
And when the prairie grass covers what's left of my trail
I'll watch the newest young maverick spin his latest tall tale

Chorus II:
Whoopie-ty-yi-yo, yippee-yi-o-ki-yay
As I saddle my Cayuse for a land far away
My bullets are silver, got spurs made of gold
I'm as long and as tall as this tale that I've told

 

Midnight Rails (M. Mullins/W. Barnick)

We’ve been riding on the westbound train
Two fireflies dancing up to the flame
Ain’t no stops along this old branch line
The track runs like an arrow from your heart to mine

Got no words to tell you how I feel
Falling hard and moving fast behind the wheel
Blue steel humming to the end of the line
The engine’s running straight from your heart to mine

Chorus:
I may be crazy and I break the rules
But jumping off a fast train is a game for fools
Starlight embers glowing in your eyes
As the midnight rails go by

I don’t spin tales so I don’t know how
We’ll ever end the story that we’re telling now
No turning back along this old branch line
We’re headed down the burning track
Your heart and mine

Chorus

 

Ballad of St. Anne’s Reel (D. Mallett)

He was stranded in a tiny town on fair Prince Edward Isle
Waiting for a ship to come and find him
A one-horse place, and empty place, some coffee and a tiny trace
Of a fiddle in the distance far behind him

A dime across the counter then, a shy hello and a brand new friend
And a walk across the street in the wintery weather
A yellow light, and open door, a “Welcome friend, there’s room for more!”
And then they’re standing there inside together

He said “I’ve heard that tune before although I can’t remember when,
Was it on some other friendly shore, or did I hear it on the wind?
Was it written in the sky above, I think I heard from someone I love,
And I’ve never heard a sound so sweet since then”

And now his feet begin to tap, a young girl says “I’ll take your hat,”
And he’s caught up in the magic of her smile
A’leap the heart inside him went, and off across the floor he sent
His clumsy body graceful as a child

He said, “There’s magic in the fiddler’s arm, there’s magic in this town
There’s magic in the dancer’s feet and the way they put ‘em down”
People smiling everywhere, boots and ribbons, locks of hair
Laughter, old blue suits and Easter gowns

Now the sailor’s gone, the room is bare, the old piano sitting there
Someone’s hat’s left hanging on the rack
The empty chairs, the wooden floor that feels the touch of shoes no more
Waiting for the dancers to come back

And the fiddle’s in the closet of some daughter of the town
The strings are broke, the bow is gone and the cover’s buttoned down
But sometimes on December nights, when the air is cold and the wind is right,
There’s a melody that passes through the town

 

Rhode Island Bride (M. Mullins)

Trevor married Sarah in 1853
A Rhode Island lad and a down east belle from a Brunswick family
At the meeting hall in Newport Town, they were wearing out the floor
You could hear the strains of Coleraine from Little Rhody’s shore

They unfolded life together, and two sons they did have
Dark-eyed and black Irish as the music of their Dad
While Sarah slept in a shroud of dreams and the nightbirds carried on
Sometimes his fiddle filled the air until the down east dawn

Chorus:
When autumn fills with colors like the lamplight in your hair
We’ll dance just like we used to at the town hall in the square
And when the harvest moon shines down, I’ll hold you to my side
Oh Sarah, my fair Rhode Island Bride

Seven summers passing cast a shadow across the land
And to volunteer and show no fear was the measure of a man
So Trevor joined the Union Boys in the spring of ‘61
And he headed south toward Washington and the meeting at Bull Run

– Chorus –

Now the farm is empty and the milkweed’s grown up tall
When Trevor fell the down east belle left sometime in the fall
But time became her greatest friend and her sons grew tall and fine
And in our family there’s a violin and a letter left behind

– Chorus –