Just a live in-house recording, so no great shakes there. This one is all about the poetry anyway, but I'll make a proper recording of it someday.
 
Born on Bloody Island
 
I was born on Bloody Island in the Mississippi mud
Catfish nipping at my toes
Mama was a’pushing while the water was whooshing
Where daddy was, ain’t nobody knows
I got middle-age spread in the third grade
I was ahead of my time
You say overeater, I say overachiever
It’s all just a state of mind
 
Chorus:
This was my life
What was it worth—
To waste each passing hour
Upon this Earth?
 
Mama caught me tossing cats up in the power lines
I said, “I didn’t know it was against the rules;
Why such a bugaboo ‘bout making ghetto barbecue”
But mama never suffered no fools
I ain’t beat my little sister in almost a week
She’ll think I don’t love her no more
So, when the preacher’s done preachin’ and we get home from meetin’
I’m gonna give that old girl what for
 
Chorus
 
In 1918 daddy landed in France
To show General Pershing how to win at war
But he pulled some kind of stunt, got sent to the Western front
And we never saw daddy no more
Mosey on down to the train tracks
Lay a penny on a rail
While the whole world was sinking, I was flattening Lincoln
It was a plan that just could not fail
 
Chorus
 
Running bootleg whiskey in my 24th year
Seemed like such a good scheme
But a cop pulled a gun, and I knew I was done
When I was floating above the scene
Here was daddy holding the coin I had flattened as a boy
While pointing to a sign below and smilin’
“It said Lincoln came here to fight a duel back in eighteen hundred forty two”
This place they used to call Bloody Island

Nice lyrics + some good light and shade.
 
Love the 'middle-age spread in third grade' line.
 
Thanks for sharing.
 
Good Job!
 
paul

Gee, I hope you really weren't that cruel to those little pussy cats, but we all do some dumb stuff as kids.  Fortunately most of us grow up, but some don't, but I digress...
 
I love a good story song.  Very entertaining, whether it really reflects your younger days or not (obviously doesn't because you're still alive).  I used to write like that.  Sometimes I'm tempted to grab my Martin D 18 and "get back to my roots".  Anyway, I enjoyed your little journey, musically & lyrically.
 
John B.

Well it started out as a poem and I probably should have left it at that. It's really not much of a song I admit. Obviously it has nothing to do with me unless you actually think I was born before 1897. I was born a half mile from Bloody Island though. It quit being an island in Lincoln's day, but people still called that riverbank Bloody Island for many years after. Few people lived there after the ESL tornado of 1897, but it remained a busy railroad hub for about a century. There are still two train lines that go through the area including MO-PAC. Several of my uncles worked at the train yards years ago.
 
I still like the poem but kind of wish I hadn't made it into a song now.
 
Bill

I really enjoyed that.
Fun poem/song that reminded me of some of the music we did when I was in chorus in school.
Love your voice and guitar recording.. Raw, clean and clear.
Now I'll have to hear more so you'll have to point me to where you keep the stash. 

Thanks for listening Arlen. I'm just kind of starting to learn how to sing at the young age of 59. Hopefully I'll keep improving.
 
Bill

This is great Bill. Lyrics are wonderful and you get a taste of where you are going with this.
Really nice

Bill, I love the internal rhyming and pacing of the lyrics. Great job on that and on the singing. Did you write the music first and then the lyrics or vice versa?

We used to flatten pennies on railroad tracks when I was a kid. Still have one around here somewhere.

I enjoyed that Bill great line

Wayfarer 
You say overeater, I say overachiever

If I had a crit it would be to say that the guitar under the vocal is perhaps a little busy, elsewhere fine nice play but under the verses sorry. 

bjornpdx
Bill, I love the internal rhyming and pacing of the lyrics. Great job on that and on the singing. Did you write the music first and then the lyrics or vice versa?

We used to flatten pennies on railroad tracks when I was a kid. Still have one around here somewhere.

It started as a poem and then partway in I thought maybe it could be a song too, so it was part poem and part song.
 
That's how we used to make lucky pennies when I was a boy. If you carried a penny with you that had been run over by a train, then you could never get hit by one yourself. I made one for my great niece a couple of months ago and super-glued it to the flat-ish side of a rock and drew a picture in magic marker on the other side of some cartoon character she liked. She'll be three in February and and hasn't been hit by a train yet, so it must be working.
 
Thanks all,
Bill