Brand new recording. Alas, still a couple of flubbed guitar figures closer to the end. I'll get it right, I swear. but this is an improvement over the first. This one was recorded on September 21, 2009.

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This is a new song lyric about my next door neighbor. His younger sister had a challenge of some kind - perhaps Downs Syndrome. He devoted his life to taking care of her, forsaking other options. At one point she required medical attention for a different issue - maybe gout or something similar. As a result of that, the professional community became aware of her insurance benefits and advised her that she could live in an assisted living facility. She took them up on it, leaving Paul alone. After that, he just gradually declined until his relatives felt that they had no choice but to get Paul into a similar institution. Paul and Joyce ended up in the same place, on different floors. Sadly, they apparently do not know one another is there.

And there seems a cautionary element in this story for us all.

So, naturally, I wrote a song about it

NEIGHBOR PAUL (copyright 2009 Michael J. Redding/BMI)


VERSE 1:
When the kids were small
Back before the mall
We bought this house and
Climbed up all its walls

Back then the work was fun
A mortgage we had won
Now here we are
And here we come undone

VERSE 2:
So when we settled down
Enough to look around
Wea019d see you come and go
With sister Joyce

She was to the manor born
With a crown of thorns
But you cared for her
And gave her world a voice

CHORUS
Somewhere up there a satellite records us
Nothing is unknown to terms of search
Of all the things that we might see before us
The best is just a good man on this earth

VERSE 3:
The years passed like a spell
The kids were one long yell
While the hedges went to
Honeysuckle hell

You never went too far
The diner or the bar
But I never saw the
Two of you apart

CHORUS
I know you could have had a life without her
And when she went away it all came home
They put her in that building on Belair road
With the injured, the old and the infirm

BRIDGE:

VERSE 4:
Alone in that front room
Like the sea without a moon
No one to remind you
Who you are

Youa019d shuffle down the walk
Nobody stopped to talk
Lonesome as a wound
Without a scar

CHORUS
I know you could have had a life without her
And when she went away it all came home
So they put you in that building on Belair road
With the injured, the old and the infirm

VERSE 6:
Now ita019s different on the street
Youa019re not in your car asleep
Or standing out there
Leaning on your cane

Youa019re not asking me for help
So I feel somehow less well
Than when you needed me
Ita019s not the same

CHORUS
Somewhere up there a satellite records us
Nothing is unknown to terms of search
But of all the things that we might see before us
The best is just a good man on this earth

VERSE 7:
Can you hear me neighbor Paul?
Youa019re right down the hall
They just moved me in
So far ita019s all OK

And Joyce has got a door
Down on the 2nd floor
But she dona019t know wea019re in here
Anyway

CHORUS
I know I had a life without you
But when they took you away it all came home
They'll put me in that building on Belair road
With the injured, the old and the infirm