(Mellow music)
(Silence)
Intercom: Transfers available
to the four, five, six
and Q, R and W trains.
(Train sounds)
Free.
I don't understand that word.
The land of the free.
You're free to think. Go out there
and try to do some of the shit
you think of. It will put you
away so fast,
and so quick, and you will
stay away.
From being free.
(Train noises)
(Soft string music)
(Fast string music)
(Train sounds)
(Slow string music)
(Train sounds) The quality of
the music and performance,
varies a lot. So a lot of it is quite
annoying and just a nuisance, but
when they're good, they
brighten the place up,
add a little bit of atmosphere,
cheer your day up.
It's always pretty dreary and
disgusting.
So, it's nice to
have a bit of fun along the way.
(Train sounds)
I'm just sitting here
playing a guitar. That's
hard enough.
-Your name? -My name is
Alex. -That's it?
-That's it. It's Alex. That's all.
-Where are you from? -Me? Earth.
I'm a down to earth guy, man.
Anywhere I hang my hat
is home.
(Guitar music) (Train sounds)
This is called the hole, man.
That's right.
You ain't down in the train.
You ain't down in the station.
You're down
in the hole.
I'm gonna leave New York
after the summer. I'm just
tired of New York.
I've been
here too many years
and it's too expensive living in New York.
(Upbeat music)
Female voice: Thank you!
(Drum music)
(Female celebratory yell)
(Female yell)
(Traffic noises)
There's some real talent on the
streets and subways of New York City.
I mean, New York draws artists.
I mean, that is part of the
energy. What gives vitality to
the city. Um... (cough)
And it's a shame that the city
is becoming so expensive now
that artists can't afford to
live here. It's lost a lot of that
artistic quality, yet at the same time,
it's just like the song says:
if you can make it in New York,
you can make it anywhere.
You got a bartender that takes
5, 10s and 20s.
You got a guy at the door
taking money after 10 o'clock.
You want me to go there
and do something for nothing?
You're a millionaire!
You know, you got a fucking
million dollars, man.
You want me for free and everything you got?
You don't give out no free music
when you got new musicians there.
I don't go over to the CD player
and push the button in the back
where it doesn't need to take money.
I don't see open the pool
tables up. You know,
they don't give out spit, but then
they want you and I refuse to do that.
I will not go to work for free for nobody.
(Spanish music)
Look at her all pretty,
got no place to go. Got some
toe tapping.
Wanna shake and shake and
shake.
Mama come your way.
Senorita
(Train sounds)
(Mellow music)
My music is like a fusion of
all the styles that I grew up
hearing and they definitely
involve rock. I mean I love
every bit of Steven Tyler and
Aerosmith as I do,
you know, James Taylor.
-I was inspired by a lot of people.
People that I didn't even know then.
(Clapping sounds)
A lot of where mainstream pop culture
gets its influences and ideas
is from the street. Whether that's
voguing or rap music or hip hop,
hopping and mocking and
krunking.
(Techno music)
Truthfully, I ain't ever worked.
Work is for people that don't play
guitar. That's what I told them.
I agree with them
wholeheartedly. Exactly right.
I am lazy, shiftless,
man... Don't even show me no
kind of tool. I don't even want to go
near Sears.
I get hives when I get
near Sears, man.
I'm a musican,
I make a living at being a musician.
(Honking horns) And I
mean it's no different than
whatever- if you're a cab driver.
You make a living taxing people
around town. You don't pull up
to anybody that sticks out their arm
and go yeah, I'll give you a free ride.
Pretty sure. Yeah, my ass,
and this is
New York City.
(Mellow music)
Most of the time, I think
they're great.
Occasionally,
like later,
in the evening, coming home
from work in particular, if it's louder,
or a large part of them and they're more
aggressive, it can get more annoying,
but genuinely I think, particularly not on
the train, but in the subway stations
they're fantastic. -I've had somebody
pour beer on the case. I've had
like a real psychotic man who
spit at me. But these are
also people that are not well.
-I'm a hustler.
Man, you know.
It's all comes with the turf.
I had a girl give me head in
Los Angeles and pick my
pocket at the same fucking time.
Don't ask me how she did it.
She took me outside of a club,
gave me head, and first we smoked
a joint, she gave me head,
and I went inside to buy a drink and
didn't have a god damn dime
in my pocket and she was gone.
(Guitar music)
Those are the first steel guitars
and when they made them, they
didn't have a name for them and
their name was Delfrea brothers
and they couldn't write it across the
head stock like CF Martin and company
and the instrument didn't really
have a name because it's a steel guitar.
It wasn't a guitar,
it wasn't a classical guitar.
It was a Dobro.
Where I live, you can really
say it's Chinatown and if you go down
one block and you cross the park,
across the soccer field, it's
the all new Dominican republic.
Oh man.
(Laughing)
You go. You don't go, right?
Fucking...
...get the fuck out!
(Crowd yelling)
It's hard in these streets, and
here especially
in the projects and we have
been through this all our life.
We move into shelters, dealing
with everything. You got to take
life as it hits you. That's how
you got to see it.
(Dog barking)
They judge us because
the way we dress, the way act,
sometimes even the way we walk.
This is my mom's. That's my name.
That's where I'm from.
(Soft music)
Trust no one. You know you
can't trust no one in this world.
Beast and M.O.B.
Money over bitches.
All you want to do is buy these.
I need a lighter. You don't got
a lighter?
(Background chatter)
We live it and we love it.
Dancing and nobody else
does it like we do.
(Booming music)
My name is Marcus.
I was born in Brooklyn,
boom. I'm ten. Peace.
(Booming music)
My name is Joshua Himenez.
Middle name Tai... freaky Tai.
That's what the girls call me.
(Hip hop music)
Rey Rosado, I was born in the BX
1-25-81, I'm 24 years old.
(Clapping)
(Train sounds)
I've been doing it over
probably 12 years, 13.
About. He's been doing it for how long?
-Three years.
It's just a hustle we do on
a daily basis. Get that money,
that bread. You know how it is.
If I want to kill the J the R...
-The D, the A.
-Basically
speaking, all trains we have to necessary.
-When performers come
into the subway, um... -Onto the car.
...onto the car, it's almost an
intrusion of sorts,
you know, and as New Yorkers,
we're almost trained. You hear
the speakers, the people
saying, don't give to panhandlers
and stuff like that and it's
almost too much in your face sometimes.
(Train sounds)
You got more self-employed
people in the subway than you
have in the whole world. (Laughs)
Because not just music.
Actually, you have
enterprises underground.
(Train sounds)
So, it's a full eight hour day,
when you think about it. If you think
oh it's only three hours performing,
but it's all the other stuff.
Like, when I'm there
adrenaline takes over. I don't
care about anything.
It doesn't feel hard. The hard
part is the hauling.
I'm actually from- I was born
and raised in New York City.
I grew up in the
Lower East Side.
About seven or eight, we moved up
to an area called Inwood;
it's the top of Manhattan and
we lived in the
projects and we were pretty
poor.
I've been busking for maybe six
or seven years.
But, before that, I didn't have
a license. Before about five years ago
and then I auditioned for program called
Music Under New York, which actually
is sanctioned by the city and
gives you a license
and the opportunity to perform
at various stations
throughout the city and what's
good about that is you won't
run off by the cops and you're
allowed to use an amplifier
which is great because then
people can hear you
and you can
sell your CDs in most locations.
-Put it in the case. Thank you.
-Is this the one I should get?
-Yes, definitely.
-The whole street performance culture
is are there rivalries
between different performers
because of their status
or classification as a result
of something like that? I think
the community of the people
that do this sort thing,
it's fascinating.
-Like, if I come here and
somebody's here, it's kind of
thing where you know each other
and you see each other all the time.
You're like, what time are you
gonna be here until? Oh this time.
Alright, we are just going
to come back.
Could you make sure
that you tell people that it's our spot?
You know what I'm saying?
-It's legal to busk, but it's not
legal to have an amplifier on
the subway platform, even though
some do and they get away with it.
It just depends on if the cops
are feeling good or bad
that day. So, it's legal to busk.
You can busk anywhere acoustically
but the moment you bring an
amplifier into place or
roll out your CDs and start
selling merchandise,
that's when they can ticket you,
write you up, force you to leave.
Or worse, arrest you.
(Guitar music)
Don't worry, they're gone.
So play.
-I got
two weeks on the chain gang
or road gang, whatever you want
to call it for playing guitar in Arkansas.
On a Sunday.
(Passing traffic)
But the funny part about that
was it's just slave labor.
They don't have a department of works
like you have around here.
Prisoners go out and do that stuff.
You know, along the road, and
you work
the half a day on Saturday and then
Saturday afternoon you have free time
and Sunday you have free time,
and on Saturday and Sunday
I could have my guitar in jail
and play my guitar,
but I got put in jail for playing the guitar.
So, you're just slave labor.
(Guitar music)
I started in the subway.
Actually, I started playing in the streets.
In San Francisco.
(Background crowd chatter)
We were new recruits for this
orchestra to back up sax artists.
-I have a little
side project, sometimes private
parties. Gigs that I do,
CDs that I sell live, as well
in the subway. I teach
privately here. I coach
voice and guitar and
songwriting. I do workshops.
Um, usually one on one.
Sometimes groups will come to
me. They're doing harmonies
and stuff like that.
(Piano music)
I don't drink anymore.
I gave it up almost a year. I
don't drink anymore and any time I go
in barrooms is to make money,
but I used to live in a barroom.
And you want to see some crazy
shit go on. I mean, all the time.
(Cough) All the time.
(Background traffic noises)
I mean, you know, stuff that
would make you
just...
(Saxophone music)
(Crowd chatter)
(Distant crowd noises)
So you can say people are like
songs to me now. I've been coming
up here for forty years.
Forty years.
You know. So, when I see a face,
it just automatically brings back a song.
(Saxophone music)
Sometimes, I can sit here for
maybe,
ten minutes and the first ten minutes
of playing, somebody will throw a ten
or even a twenty dollar bill.
And, other times, I can sit
here for another
hour and break my back and I
won't
get maybe some change. So, a
lot of it is luck.
Beautiful to listen to a violin
or
a Spanish guitar or somebody
doing
breakdancing like it was when I
first came to New York.
It's a world. It's like a city.
It's a city. It's not like a
city. It's a city underneath.
Vibrant, vital, moving,
giving us, in a way, some sort
of oxygen
that we really need to survive
up here.
Sometimes, I got people walking
by me and I don't think they know what
I'm trying to lay on them. I really don't.
And then I have the most
obscure people that would come by
and know what I'm doing.
People in their sixties and seventies
and stuff that know what I'm
doing, and like, there are
other people that
they really don't have any idea
of what I'm doing, you know.
You're down there playing them
Hendrix with another guitar.
And they ask you to play Hendrix
and you play them Little Wing,
and you say, man
I am playing Hendrix.
I'm doing it on an acoustic
guitar.
You know, it's like,
what are you asking me? What
are you telling me?
You know, it's like, where the
fuck are you at, man?
You know, but you sort of just
laugh at it, you know. It's...
(Passing traffic)
(Guitar music)
What up?
So what you want to do, bro?
What you want to do this weekend?
Yeah?
I don't have no money.
Some bullshit, man.
(Background drum music)
Whatever. Alright.
Peace.
Alright, let's go.
(Train sounds)
Yo, I'm going to get my wood.
So, hopefully this shit will be here.
That girl looked good, right?
What?
-She's looking at you.
She want them thug, dirty guys,
yeah.
Talk about dirty. This shit is
dirty.
(Background crowd chatter)
(Train sounds)
(Tapping sound)
(Tapping sounds)
(Train sounds)
Doing what we do is real hard because
it's hard on your body, you
know.
The dust... just the
pressure on your legs for three hours
straight. It's happened, you know.
All my drummer friends always
look at me and go man, come on man.
Come on man, I don't understand.
I'm jumping around
three hours, you know.
(Tapping sounds)
Musicians appreciate me and
that's all I care about.
You know,
I really could care less about what
somebody who doesn't know anything
about music.
I mean, I definitely care,
but somebody
who doesn't know anything about music
but appreciates what we do,
that's some shit.
If you let yourself be taken
by that, man,
the streets will crush you real quick.
Subway performers are dope. I
like them. I am a performer myself.
So, I think they're dope. Plus,
they liven up
the train experience.
(Guitar music)
Don't take it.
Put some money, oh no
You got this incredible,
incredible
like cross section of people
coming through at any given time
where you have the ability to
instantly
change and affect and impact
someone's life. I mean,
I have had people come up to me
and say, man, I was having
the shittiest day or man, I felt like I
was dying, and then I heard your music,
and it totally changed things.
(Guitar music)
These are some of them.
You know,
I've got a Fender strat, I've got
a Godin here, I've got an acoustic.
I've actually got two acoustics,
but this is my writing acoustic.
And, I've got Ibanez. I want to
say
Epiphone. You know, my amp.
I have different set ups when I
play with band, you know.
The amp, the electric, and another
acoustic when I play the
subway. I've got a smaller amp
battery operated, chargeable.
So, these things
just get replaced and
then I... Rechargeable batteries
is such a great way
to go because it's cheaper in
the long run.
It goes in here because without
that, won't have power for
too long. See, and you can test
it out.
That light means there's power,
which is a good thing.
I wipe down the strings to my
guitar with alcohol.
Uh, because it gives them a
little bit of a gloss.
And also, it treats the wood.
You know, this is all kind of crazy, but
it helps you play better. It keeps the
wood and the strings lasting longer.
Hopefully you don't break any
strings.
(Soft clunking noise)
Every time I play the subway,
it's a few times a week.
I've got to- this is the same route that
I take. I go to different places, but
always starting from my house.
(Squeaky wheel noises)
Always come up the same blocks.
Rain, snow,
sleet, shine, ice.
See, I only got three left
with time to spare. I made it.
OK, now we kind of need more
towards the middle. So,
I got to walk quick.
(Train noise)
And it's empty.
It means we can sit down.
We can actually sit down. It's
great.
What drives them to be there?
Is it
because they can't find any
other work?
Is it because this is the best
medium for the expression
of their talent? Is it because
they
actually are making a lot of money?
Is it because they're trying to
be found in order to do
something else? You know, to
participate in more traditional
types of art?
What is the source of their
fulfillment, you know, and is it just
the art itself that is enough?
-We're gonna take the Q
to Canal street, get off and
then cast a J and do our thing there.
-First, it's part of New York. I mean,
it's absolutely fabulous. New York
wouldn't be New York without it.
I've seen kids been doing the hip hop
and the flip flops and the
grab on the pole. I couldn't do it.
I'm 56 years old. I couldn't do it!
(Mellow music)
So, you know,
they don't understand we are
out there trying to make a living.
Take care of our kids.
You know what I mean.
Something we are doing for our kids
that our parents didn't do for us.
-Instead of robbing people.
Instead of robbing people out
there.
You know what I mean?
It keeps us out of two places like
they say. Your house and in jail.
(Train sounds) When I was a young kid,
we used to get stopped by the cops
probably more than...
-Twice a day. -In a week,
the whole week from one to
seven, probably five times.
Out of the whole week.
My aunt used to be mad.
Just come and
pick us up at the precinct
because cops want to mess with us
and fuck with us for no reason
because we are out here
trying to make a
living. -Doing positive,
not robbing people.
I had a cop asked me one time in Florida.
"Have you ever been arrested?"
I said, yeah.
He goes,
how many times? About 50, 60.
He goes, for what? Playing the guitar.
(Laughs)
(Guitar music)
(Background traffic and crowd noises)
Music has always added to our
lives and its ways
we interpret things and it's
part of history and you know.
Everything from the minstrels
all the way up to
what we do now, you know.
(Guitar music)
That's how they make their
living and stuff, but honestly,
they know it going into it.
It's kind of like part of the
thing, you know.
You are just taking that risk.
-Cops are rude motherfuckers.
Man, they're rude. Talking
about stepping on my wood, man?
That's my instrument
you touch it. They are just rude, man.
They think they run the place. It's
ridiculous.
-People that arrested me was
relocated. For one
precinct to another. Somebody
was negligent in the paperwork.
I had grit and atone fast.
(Coughs) Excuse me.
To find my instrument.
And it took them
about half of the nine months
to run it down.
Once in a blue moon, you'll get
a nice cop.
A cop will come over and be
like, hey guys
can you chill out. I can't hear my radio.
Just talk to you like
you're an adult and a real person.
And then there's no problem,
but if they come up to you and
approach you like a child then
we automatically have a problem
with it man because ultimately
we have every fucking right to be here.
-That's right. (Tapping sounds)
(Train sounds)
You kind of have to create your own
outlet. I feel I do it because
that's where the roots is.
That's where the roots come from.
I feel like I'm keeping it real.
(Tapping sounds)
-Describe the sound though.
-I got it, man. That's a good example
because a tap dancer can hear
another tap
dancer and understand the rhythms
from anywhere.
(Tapping sounds)
If you're on the bottom floor
and you hear a tap dancer, you know it
because the rhythms are distinct
the way tap dancers think are distinct
as percussionists. We tend to train
our ears and our minds to where
we can hear fast, intricate
rhythms and as soloists.
(Tapping sounds)
I've hit all over.
I hit Times Square
and Columbus Circle and
Fifty-first and Lex in this
little subway station. I've hit
outside of Columbus Circle,
outside Union Square. Ah,
in Central Park, in Battery Park.
(Mellow music)
Here's where I start thinking
about songs that I'm
working on. That I'm writing.
It is really cool. I find a
train
and running. I also run. So the
times
when I'm running or I'm on the train,
I tend to either practice songs that
I'm working on or write pieces
of things.
(Mellow music)
I'm ready to rock and roll.
Well, at least halfway there anyway.
Three quarters of the way.
Got to get off Thirty-fourth street
and catch an elevator.
I used to do the elevator right there.
Perfect.
(Mellow music)
Twenty days, twenty nights
who can count them. Since
your
smoking lips crave mine
I'm rolling in this sweaty
seat
A thousand miles from your
smile. You have to be a fool
Darling, I don't know
You have be a fool
to think that
ain't trouble. Oh
no, you have to be a fool
darling
I don't know
(Mellow music)
(Train sounds)
Yes, I have supported them
and no, I haven't.
I think that getting back to the point
that you were making about it being
sort of ambient. Street
performers
and the folks that are in the subway,
whether or not they are
singing or playing an instrument,
are sort of part and parcel of
living
and commuting in New York City
and not that you
take them for granted, but
they're there.
The subway. They're not asking
to see you or hear you.
They're not paying money to go
to a club to be like, oh yeah, it's the
Nicola show. No, they're going to and
from wherever they have go to. Job,
interview, boyfriend breaking up
with them, girlfriend breaking up,
any kind of scenario and
they're rushing and you're there.
Oh my god, do I have to listen
to this?
Do I? I didn't pay. I think the
beauty of it, if you want to turn
that around is that if
they didn't expect to hear you,
and they were in that frame or
that zone where they were
rushing and were having a bad day
and were just trying to get
from point A to point
B, but then you got thrown into
the mix. That is
the exciting part. It's like
wow. You know, I can't believe
that I heard that and that
makes your day.
To know that you were able to
change somebody's life, yeah.
(Traffic noises)
And I said and don't get me
wrong. You'll have a fucking
accident in here.
You got the wrong guy, man.
I ain't got no debts,
I ain't got no wife. I ain't got no kids.
I'm one of the bad people you don't
wanna mess with because
I got nothing to lose.
I will crack
you in the head with this
pan, man. What am I gonna do?
Walk out the door.
The cops still have to find me.
What the fuck is
8 dollars an hour? That's 320
dollars a week.
You go home with 278 fucking
dollars.
You know what I was doing for
the rest of my money?
I was selling fucking
weed.
-The business underground
is a raise different from the
top
level. You know how many people
are out of work?
Don't even have their pensions.
Don't even have their social securities.
They have been on the job for 15, 20
years, but they don't have no benefit.
None at all.
(Crowd chatter)
I don't want to be famous. No,
not me.
You can't sue me. You're just like the
person that goes to work every day.
It just so happens that what
you do, people just respond to it.
That's all. -I'm gonna tell Raymond
to stop through some time.
Take care, man. Watch out
for that roadrunner. (Laughs)
That, that, that
that's not how you make magic.
(Footsteps)
If that trickster don't come,
completely and distract you,
the illusion of what he does
won't work.
Because why he's got you
looking at one thing,
(Distant crowd chatter)
that's to draw your attention.
(Saxophone music)
And the magic is
he's got to put 110
percent of whatever it is he's
doing
and that's what this is all about, man.
In order for you to have magic,
you can't be distracted.
-Love is...
To me, love is the most
important thing. You know.
And, even if you don't have
some kind of love
for something or someone in your
life, you can't even create music.
That's love.
If that chemistry is not working
then you're just wasting your time.
And I tell them. When you're
writing a song,
you got to treat it just like
it's a baby.
Like a seed you plant in the ground.
You have to give it water.
You gotta give it
sunshine. If you don't do that,
there's not going to be no love in it.
And what did we just say? Love
makes the world
go around.
(Saxophone music)
(Train sounds)
No matter what you are in this world,
and no matter where you go, it
will find you.
If you're a thief and you go to
Paris, another thief
will find you. If you're a
heroin addict,
and you go to Hawaii, another
heroin addict will find you.
You know what I mean? If you're
a pimp,
another pimp will find you. If
you're a prostitute... You can never
change. Everybody possesses a
look. Or
there's something about them.
Their characteristic that you can detect.
Woo.
(Train sounds)
(Crowd chatter)
(Kissing sound)
I was actually about to go downstairs.
(Train noises)
I'm gonna
put them in my guitar case
so that I can display them
properly.
(Crowd chatter)
(Drum noises) That's pretty loud.
How's that, how's the
Jimbi? Hows's that sound?
-Let's find out.
Oh shit.
(Crowd chatter)
We'll start with a...
(Guitar music)
Will you look at me?
You wanna tell me no
Got too much to work to do
so I see you turn back time
ha ha ha. But I got other
plans for you. I got someone
I know that
you can feel it too. So
baby, get me more
I got to have
that something. It's what you
got. Yeah. I got to have
that something
Here I come baby
your diamond in white
I want you baby
so break down and give me that
something tonight
I'm not holding out
for the music industry and
waiting on them
to sign me or give me some big
wonderful golden carrot.
I don't hold out for that. I feel
independent is the way to go.
You have more control over your
art and your CDs and your
sales and all your revenue.
Just artistic control
and nowadays with the internet
and the way things are for
independent art, it's made it
possible to have it accessible
to the public.
At large. So, I think that
staying independent is a great thing.
I would love to be able to open
for somebody big in a big venue
because that would at least
allow me to sell more CDs and
get my music out
to even more of a mass public.
So, yeah, that would be
cool, but the thing that is
sort of like my motto
is don't wait for things to
happen. There's no such thing
as luck in life. There's no such thing
as good luck or bad luck. Luck is-
you make your own luck.
I got to have
that something, ready or not
(Mellow music)
Here I come.
Your diamond in white
I want you baby. So break
down and give me that
something.
If it's a new thing, you tend to
be consciously aware of it more
often
then you are if it's just
happening more frequently.
If it becomes sort of a pattern
or becomes sort of part of your daily
routine where you hear the guy
singing the opera arias or
playing the buckets that are
like
using them for drums or doing
whatever else, dancing.
Or playing the guitar.
-It's just really hard to, like,
be honest in this world at
times.
Well, most of the times.
Yeah
You know that
(Mellow music)
Give me that something,
something
tonight
Yeah, well I don't think that
there is any other way to be but
honest. -The fringes, historically,
tend to sort of influence
the mainstream and the mainstream
sort of moves over to the fringes.
As I said before, you know, so much
of the cultural contributions to
our pop culture, to American
pop culture, have
come from the streets. -You don't
pick being an artist. It picks you.
So, we fly by the seat of our
pants. We
wear our heart out on our
sleeve. We are very
um, fueled by passion. So for
some-
We don't futurize and make
plans the same way
that people that are not artists
make plans.
Being a musician
has its downfalls.
People either look at you as
like
oh cool man. It's alright. It's
really good.
If you're making big money at it,
yeah, then you're like yeah, far out.
Like to hang out with you, but
if you're just like somebody like me,
you're a tramp. You're lazy.
You're
a schemer.
You know what I mean?
You're somebody's
husband, somebody's
father, you know what I mean?
(Traffic noises)
You're just a tramp.
A talented bum.
(Traffic noises)
Being a rebel. I mean, being a
rebel is somebody that lives out of
context with everybody else and
everything that they do is not
desirable or scorned upon
and then if they hit on something that
they become famous for, then everything
they look like and act like and be like
becomes fad, and it becomes money.
(Traffic noises)
So, being a rebel is what?
(Guitar music)
I don't know.
(Guitar music)
I got the dimes. Right now, I'm
kind of
focused. I took a little break
for a while, but now I'm really
focused on a lot more on hooking
on street. To try to like, you know,
support myself.
(Train noises)
(Crowd chatter)
Um, you know sometimes you have
good nights.
Sometimes you have bad nights.
Sometimes, I don't know. I see
a couple
of twenties in here. So maybe
it's not all that bad, but
on a good night, I might fill this up
to here where it doesn't even close.
And on a bad night, I don't know,
let's see, am I going to make it half full?
I don't know. (Laughs) I try not to
dwell on that because you're always
going to have one or two people
that don't get it, but then again,
songwriting is a very- and performance
and music, is such a subjective
thing. It's art. So if you go
to a gallery, no two people
are going to like the same painting.
So, I try not to take it
personally. I try not to let that
effect. I do what I do and hope
that
I reach a reasonable cross section
or the majority of the people
and that they do like it.
Um, and I think that I've
had reasonable success and
proof to know that that's so,
but yeah, there's always gonna
be people that don't like it and
I try to not let the whole oh
well maybe if I
did this way or did it that way,
or changed this. I used to think
that and I used to dwell on the
under appreciation factor, but I think
when you turn it around and
look at the positive aspects of it,
it changes your life. It changes
why you do what you do and it makes
performance so much more enjoyable.
(Train noises)
Where do I see myself in five
years? In a mansion.
(Cough) Yeah.
Oh yeah.
And without any strings
attached, you know. No contracts.
(Cough)
Just playing
and getting paid.
(Crowd chatter)
(Train sounds)
Right now, my living conditions
are very, very
depleted.
(Train sounds)
(Mellow music)
Twenty days
twenty nights. Who can count
them
Your smoking lips crave mine
I'm rolling
in this sweaty seat
a thousand miles from your
smile. You have to be
a fool.
darling not to know
You have to be a fool
(Mellow music)
to think that ain't trouble
Oh no. You have to be a
fool
darling, not to know
what a trouble you
I'm
combustible
Oh, darling, don't ya
Hey. You
have to be a fool
Darling not to know
Mmmm. You have to be
a fool
to think this ain't trouble
You have to be a
fool.
Oh no. Darling not to know
Mmmm. One look from
you
I'm combustible.
Oh, yeah
Don't you know that you do
this to me? Oh
from that old cover
keeping the lid on tight so it
don't blow.
When it's smoldering
got to wonder if there's a
fire
where there's
ash and smoke.