Music

A Selection of Texts by Lyricist George E. Clark

I write lyrics that matter to me today, at times drawing on old time music and church music, and at other times more recent traditions.  Sometimes I co-write with a musician/composer , and sometimes I write using music from the public domain (“Suburban Hymn,” “Joseph’s Carol”).  On “Cold Comfort,” I wrote both the music and the words; John Haugland arranged it for banjo.  Here you will find a mixture of both songs (words with music) and texts that do not yet have a musical setting.

I also write verse as poetry, with a recent success as one of the winners of the Concord Poetry Center / Fruitlands Museum Plein Air Poetry competition.

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Most recent postings are at the beginning.
Click here for an alphabetical title list.

I ♥ D.C.

Let’s hear it for my home town.

Nichols and May

Hope for the long-distance commuter.

Joseph’s Carol (With lyric sheet for church bulletin.)

A Christmas hymn without the saccharine.  To the tune “St. Catherine” (“Faith of Our Fathers”)

John Bull

A train song.  The John Bull was the first locomotive in the United States.  It began its work for the Camden & Amboy Railroad in New Jersey in the 1830’s, connecting the Philadelphia and New York markets.

Implement of Destruction

Vroom!

Singers Glen (with audio file)

A love story set in the Shenandoah Valley during the U. S. Civil War.

Jamaica

A sea chanty about religious persecution, white privilege, and the cycle of violence.

Cold Comfort (with audio file)

A parent grieving for a son.

Noemi’s Daughter

A bluegrass gospel poem about failing to live up to your biblical heroes.

Suburban Hymn (with sheet music and lyric sheet for church bulletin)

To the tune of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

Old Man’s Reel (The Curse of Middle Age)

The cognitive dissonance of getting older.  Read this one through to the end.