Purple Love Grass

 

A song I wrote two weeks ago, now up on Youtube. The copy on YouTube gives a little background on the piece, but I will offer a little more readers of this space.

Since Covid-19 struck there's been a distinct uptick in the number of mentally unwell, homeless, and addicted people around the New York City Port Authority bus terminal. I walk through the streets surrounding the terminal four days a week, early in the morning and in the very late afternoon. It’s a journey that takes me outside the safe parameters of my suburban middle-class life and into the belly of the beast that consumes mankind all too easily—if we don't make efforts in another direction.

Speaking as a recovering alcoholic who will, God willing, see my 40th anniversary of sobriety just under a month from now (November 16) I realize that, quite literally, “there but for the grace of God go I.” So while I'm repelled and irritated at the crazy, stoned, and drunken people who alternately sprawl in pools of their own urine in doorways and lurch into me yelling angry nonsense, I also feel a terrifying and overwhelming compassion towards them, because they are also me.

I had a distinct energetic impression several weeks ago of a different level of vision of this piece of territory, where I saw that heaven reaches down into this level, and hell pokes up from underneath into it as well. 

Sometimes the things that look like heaven are from hell; and other times the things that look like hell are from heaven, because we're not trained to see the difference, and pay too little attention in the first place.

This song is about that experience.

Musically, it's perhaps not entirely typical of me, but I suppose that's OK.

Here's the link to the song:

Purple Love Grass

Lyrics below.

I thought I held a fragment

Of some universal truth

A balm to ease my conscience

Restore my fading youth

But Mercury’s in retrograde

And I don’t know what to do

Words begin to fail me

And I’m tangled up in blue

I thought I was so real

Until I woke up late in life 

And I realized I’m just Abraham

Holding up the knife

When there is no God to stop me

I bring the blade down hard 

And then stare across the barren earth

Of the killing yard

  

And sometimes I see angels    

In the middle of the day

Standing in the traffic

Looking for a place to play

And other times the junkies

On the sidewalk catch my eye

But I’m always in a hurry

And there isn’t any time to cry

A thin voice inside me says

You gotta let it go

It’s gonna be alright

Heaven told me so

I said love

And the power of mercy

Gonna bring the light    

I said love  

Is what we smoke in heaven

To put the world at right

Love and the power of grace

They gonna set you free

Won’t you smoke 

A little love grass

With me

I said love grass

A little purple love grass, oh yeah

I said love grass

A little purple love grass, oh yeah

Ulysses didn’t realize

When they tied him to the mast

When it’s time to get those ropes off

You better do it fast.

And sometimes I see angels    

Wandering the streets

Wearing tie dyed T shirts

Looking for some food to eat

And other times the junkies

On the sidewalk heating spoons

Chance to catch my eye

As though I’ll be with them soon

I’ve learned it all the hard way

You gotta let it go

It’s gonna be alright

Jesus told me so

He said love

And the power of mercy

Gonna bring the light    

I said love  

Is what we smoke in heaven

To put the world at right

Love and the power of grace

Gonna set you free

Won’t you smoke 

A little love grass

With me

I said love grass

A little purple love grass, oh yeah

Love grass

A little purple love grass, oh yeah

with warm regards,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola magazine.