Get all 8 Blue Ribbon Tea Company releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Sing While You Can, The Devil is Beating His Wife, Railroad Boy, Storyteller 1 - Blue Days and Blue Nights, Working Man, Storyteller 2 - And He Descended Into Hell, Raining by Night, and Living in My Neighborhood.
1. |
Going Nowhere
05:16
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Going Nowhere
W. A. Kostelec, 2004
It’s a long long long train ride, with a baby
Deep deep into the night, with her baby
Nothing but black emptiness outside
Mind numbing hours before she arrives
With her baby
The train just drones its way along through the prairie
Train driver hums without a song through the prairie
His coffee stale as the cabin air
He takes a sip and does not care
He’s half crazy
The town’s asleep as the train rolls by, nobody’s watching.
Another empty nighttime sky over restless dreaming
They know the train will lead somewhere
But most are just too tired to care
They’re going nowhere
It’s a long long long train ride, with a baby
Deep deep into the night, with her baby
Nothing but black emptiness outside
Mind numbing hours before she arrives
With her baby
She’s going nowhere
She’s going nowhere
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6. |
Social Insecurity
03:37
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8. |
White upon White
02:49
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9. |
Georgia Theresa Gilmore
05:48
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By Bill Kostelec
Georgia Teresa Gilmore, she died in the kitchen,
she was cooking a pot of chicken
like she had always done.
Always in the background she did what she could do
to keep the people marching
till they got the battle won.
Georgia Teresa Gilmore, seems like she was always cooking,
maybe not too good looking but a mama to them all
She had her Club from Nowhere with the ladies from Montgomery
raising money selling pastries, her way of battering down that wall.
Georgia Teresa Gilmore she walked slowly to the doorway
the old bouncer stood there stonefaced, said who do we have today
She says I’m nobody special I just cooked chicken for some people
that were doing the work of freedom, guess my heart just gave away.
The bouncer stood there grinning, he pulled her into that blue heaven
there were lots of people standing that she’d known along the way
a big long white cloth table just waiting for a feasting
and the smells of someone’s kitchen,
It was Georgia Gilmore’s day.
Georgia Teresa Gilmore said this food is smalls like heaven
and I sure do have a hunger, why it makes me want to sing
she laughed a great surprise, there were tears in her eyes,
who was doing the cooking, it was Martin Luther King.
At the door came a bold knocking, it was pretty Martha Stewart
The bouncer asked what have you done to come trucking to my door
Why I rich and very famous, I’m a wonderful decorator,
I can cook a gourmet meal, I’m clever cute and more.
The bouncer nodded slowly, you know I’ve heard about your story.
I’m really very sorry but you can’t come in today.
Today we’re feasting someone who cooked for lots of people
she cooked for love and freedom and she gave her heart away.
Georgia Teresa Gilmore, she died in the kitchen,
she was cooking a pot of chicken like she had always done.
She’d say I’m nobody special, I just cooked chicken for some people
there’s doing the work of freedom, until the battle’s won.
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10. |
Let Us Now Praise
06:21
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Let Us Now Praise…
(c) W. A. Kostelec, 2000
Footsteps in the sand from where we haven't been
Traces of the lives that whisper in the wind
Footsteps in the sand crisscrossed over the land
A song of work and life still whispering in the wind
Who built the buildings so high
Who built the buildings so high
Buildings that kiss the sky
Who built the buildings so high?
Who built the bridges so long
Who built the bridges so long
The names and the faces are gone
Who built the bridges so long?
Shadows on the wall Like translucent memories fall
Murmur of a voice that long since fell to still
Crisscrossing of the shadows as generations pass
The passage of the sun and the faded wall is all that lasts
Who made the houses of Love
Who made the houses of Love
It wasn't the angels above
Tender warm houses of Love
Who turned the country to farms
Who turned the country to farms
Millions of acres of grain
Stretching across the Plains?
The wind still whistles by day and raises up the dust
The drizzling rain is cold and the iron turns to rust
The work shoes in the corner are stiff now that the labor is done
A trace of the smell of the work and their years out in the sun
Who picked the crops in the fields
Who picked the crops in the fields
How much did they get of the yield
Who picked the crops in the fields?
Who dug the coal from the ground
Who dug the coal from the ground
Buried in the dark without sound (Buried without a sound…)
Who dug the coal from the ground?
Footsteps in the sand from where we haven't been
Traces of the lives that whisper in the wind
Footsteps in the sand crisscrossed over the land
A song of work and life still whispering in the wind
Who got up at the dawn
Who got up at the dawn
To struggle the whole day long
Left too tired to sing a son
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11. |
Old Mother Jones
02:55
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12. |
Requiem
03:41
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13. |
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Blue Ribbon Tea Company Spokane, Washington
"evocative" "unconventional" "Woody-Guthrie-esque"
Illinois factory towns, Kentucky
heartache, Spokane history...
Singing their stories at festivals, venues, on Public Radio, and on the front porch.
Bill & Kathy Kostelec are "a welcomed flashback to the original American Folk music movement..the real deal." musician and radio host/producer Bob Rice
... more
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