“Buzzard” - a song about comparison
Story Pairing
I’ve almost hit a turkey buzzard multiple times while operating a motor vehicle of some sort. The closest call was when I was on my motorcycle and the wing actually hit my helmet. I was riding along a road with a ditch and must have startled a couple that were picking at something. They flew out of the ditch like a shadowy whirlwind and it took a second to realize what had even happened. Close up like that, those are big birds.
The most recent close call was while driving through Texas. I was coming from Tulsa and was on my way to the Austin area to play a songwriting festival. Right after crossing the border, there was a single buzzard picking at what looked to be another buzzard that must have gotten hit. When I got a few car lengths away, it took to the air and flew straight at me. I swerved into the next lane, which was luckily empty, and the big dumb bastard kept flying away. Made me wonder if it had made a pact with its deceased buddy.
I guess buzzard is kind of a regional term and one that is also misused. What we called buzzards or turkey buzzards back home are actually a vulture and should be called Turkey Vultures… but such is the nature of language. It shifts and becomes what we need it to to convey a thought. If that mission succeeds, then it did its job.
As I drove around I ran the idea of a buzzard with a broken wing around in my head, and settled into the idea of one being callously shot in Texas and then it drinking away it’s sorrow. Not from just being shot, but from the fact that it doesn’t believe that it would have been shot if it was prettier. The story sprouts from that idea of comparison. The song came together fully after I played the festival and I spend a couple days at a local state park. That concept was fresh in my head after playing alongside songwriters from all over the US, with a big chunk being from Nashville. That city has such a pedigree that it’s easy to feel less than your peers that call it home. When you think songwriter, do you think Ohio? Probably not. If they are the songbirds of this industry, what birds are the rest of us?
Song Structure
Chords:
Intro/Outro - G / G7 fingerpicking lick
Verse - G / C / A7 / D / D7
Chorus - C / G / G7 / C / C# / D / C / A7 / C / D / G
Voice Memos
Notebook Page
I lost my notebook in NC… however some amazing person found it and they are mailing it back to me.
Anyone that knows me and my notebooks knows how happy I am not have lost it permanently.
Lyrics
Just a buzzard with a broken wing
Too ugly to love, too twisted to sing
No samaritan is stopping to give me a thing
I'm just a buzzard with a broken wing
They shot me on the Texas line
Serving my sentence, biding my time
Picking at bones they left behind
Not much glamour but the jobs all mine
I ain't as pretty as my cousins in sky
Aint much too it, no wondering why
Here I am bleeding from lead whizzing by
Cause my face doesn't pacify
Just a buzzard with a broken wing
Too ugly to love, too twisted to sing
No samaritan is stopping to give me a thing
I'm just a buzzard with a broken wing
Ima limp down to Austin tomorrow
There's a crow down there and if I beg him to borrow
He'll give me enough for a dusty half bottle
Burns hot and strong to counter to my sorrow
I'll be out all night hearing thrushes rhyming
Envying finches with impeccable timing
A blackbird begging me to quite my cryng
Bullet in my shoulder but a fool still trying
Just a buzzard with a broken wing
Too ugly to love, too twisted to sing
No samaritan is stopping to give me a thing
I'm just a buzzard with a broken wing
My back to a live oak, My breath hard with rye
A wish to be loved just once fore I die
Like a swan on a still lake, with a mockingbird sigh
To be looked on with lust while my voice satisfies
A dream, too busted, to fly
Just a buzzard with a broken wing
Too ugly to love, too twisted to sing
No samaritan is stopping to give me a thing
I'm just a buzzard with a broken wing
I'm just a buzzard with a broken...
Sense of reality
The limbs an analogy
Escape is a fallacy
Hope is a malady
Comparison a tragedy
Like a broken wing