For The Birds

For five years my wife and I had a house at 9000 feet in the mountains of Colorado. With relatively few neighbors, (I say relatively few because here in NYC we have 10 million) we lived on 5 unmolested acres of wooded land in a mountain paradise, in a house of picture windows, each one framing a gorgeous shot of the mountains that surrounded us. Bear, elk, fox, deer and other various animal folk visited our yard every morning. We had bear claw scratches on our wooden deck and outer door frames. Fun for a couple of New Yorkers who visited regularly.

I had a second recording studio there that also looked out on nature and all its glories and my wife, Julia, ringed the house with bird feeders so that we were a regular mall for birds. Instead of waking up in the morning to buses and sirens and NYC, we woke to the songs of birds. And yes, we became bird watchers.

Our hands down favorites were the humming birds. These amazing feathered friends would frantically slurp our spiked sugar water for hours outside our windows. They got so used to us that when Julia would refill the feeders, they couldn’t wait and would drink from the feeder still in her hand.

Sometimes I would be deeply immersed in my music recording, with the speakers cranked, and I would turn in my chair and there would be 3 or 4 staring in the window at me, wings ablaze in flight, doin’ that hummingbird boogie. We loved these little guys and spoke about them and watched them daily and kept paper birds taped to all our windows so they wouldn’t crash into them and break their little necks.

We sold the house. Julia’s job in Boston every weekend prohibited us from visiting. Oh how we miss them birds! But for five years, off and on, we lived with them and they were a big part of our life. So this song is for the birds…

Tweedle ee deet ‘n’ dee dee
Deet
‘N’ dee dee
Deet
‘N’ dee dee

This song is for the birds
This song is for the birds

There’s a blue jay on my doorstep
Tryin’ to steal the laces
Off my runnin’ shoes
He’s some kinda mad kleptomaniac
He can’t help it cause it’s in his genes
He don’t read the magazines
So he don’t know what kleptomania means

Clear of conscience,
But still guilty as sin.

So this song is for the birds
This song is for the birds

There’s a hummingbird at my window
Lookin’ at me while I write this song
And we’re eyeball to eyeball
Listenin’ to his wings beat the rhythm of life
Listenin’ to his wings beat the rhythm of life
Listenin’ to his wings beat the rhythm of life
Hummingbird
Hmmmmmmmmm
Hummingbird
Hmmmmmmmmm
Hummingbird

Tweedle ee deet ‘n’ dee dee
Deet
‘N’ dee dee
Deet
‘N’ dee dee

Birds:

They don’t know where they come from
Don’t know where they’re goin’ to
Don’t have time to wonder
Too busy flyin’ at the moon
Too busy tryin’ to prune
Too busy workin’
For the early mornin’ worms
Singin’
Baby I’ll be comin’ home soon

So this song is for the birds
This song is for the birds

There’s a woodpecker peckin’
On the side a my house
Puttin’ a hole where there ain’t one
An’ it ain’t very nice
I already got me some mice
And they’re fillin’ my life with their holes

Just like the moles.

And oh what a mess
But I got to confess
That I tend to digress

Point being:

This song is for the birds
This song is for the birds

There’s an eagle in my back yard
Wonderin’ what became of America
He’s got the whole world on his shoulders
Musta gone bald thinkin’ about the a-bomb
Musta gone bald just tryin’ ta’ stay calm
He’s still worryin’ about Vietnam

Somebody oughta tell ‘im.
The war’s over.

And this song is for the birds
This song is for the birds

Each mornin’ they sing a new symphony
It’s a soaring cantata to the sky above
An’ it’s all about feathers an’ makin’ love

Tweedle ee deet ‘n’ dee dee
Deet
‘N’ dee dee
Deet
‘N’ dee dee

So this song is for the birds!

You can listen to and buy this song (if you’re a bird lover too) at Watchfire Music, or by visiting Peter Link’s Artist Page.