Color Came One Day presents portraits of American Life from the last century's early days to the present - "The Goat Man," "Dangerous Times," "Miracle in the Hills." Contains some of Brodsky's most daring and deepest songs.
Reflects the good old U.S. of A., warts and all...colorful tales...reminds us there's a whole wide world outside our doors.
-Rolling Stone
What tales this singer-songwriter from Philadelphia has...With insight and good humor, he has taken these life experiences and distilled them into old fashioned story songs brimming with wit and compassion.
-New York Times
One of the finest singer-songwriters in America. There are alot of good ones, but when it comes to the really great ones it boils down to a select few- he1s one of them.
-Larry Gross - Mountain Stage (National Public Radio)
If indeed God is in the details, Chuck Brodsky has a direct line to the powers that be...character studies that are bittersweet, biting, and insightful...a low laying, loose-collared folkie with rockist irreverence and bluesy swagger: an American stranger in a familiar land. A man who's seen it all and done it all, or close to it ... [he] renders character studies that are bittersweet, biting and insightful.
-No Depression
The 9:30 Pint
The Ballad of Stan Rogers and Leo Kennedy
Seven Miles Upwind
G-ddamned Blessed Road
Miracle in the Hills
Trees Falling
Claire and Johnny
The Room Over the Bar
Forest Hills
The Goat Man
Dangerous Times
Al's Ashes and Me
THE GOAT MAN
by Chuck Brodsky
Traffic would get backed up
When the Goat Man came around
And the tv cameras picked him up
Some miles out of town
In his tattered, sooty overalls
And his greasy railroad cap
Going no place in particular
With a wagon full of scrap
Ches McCartney was a farmer
When the Depression hit
He had some land in Iowa
Till the bank foreclosed on it
So he took to cutting timber
For the WPA
Till a mighty tall tree fell on him
And crushed his arm one day
They found him underneath it
They thought he'd met his maker
Till he woke up in the funeral home
And that shocked the undertaker
The big tree left him crippled
But he swore one thing for certain
That he would never sign up for the dole
He would never be a burden
Some folks might've quit right then
After all that had occurred
But Ches still had his Bible
And he still had his herd
So he built a couple of wagons
And he hitched em to his goats
And they all just set out walking
Down the old two lane roads
North they'd go in springtime
South when it got cold
The Goat Man kept on walking
Till he was 85 years old
All through the Carolinas
Virginia & DC
Georgia & Alabama
All across Tennessee
It was every year, or just about
That the Goat Man came around
Camped a couple of nights in somebody's field
On the outskirts of a town
The people would flock to see him
Afraid there was a fire
Cause he made alot of black smoke
Burning little scraps of tires
Yeah, the people would flock to see him
And then he'd have em collared
Sell em postcards for a quarter
3 of em for a dollar
You'd laugh about it later
Down the road a couple miles
How he took you for a quarter
But he left you with a smile
Now the
oat Man preached the gospel
But he changed a couple of words
He was the cussingest preacher
Anybody'd ever heard
And if you needed preaching
Come Sunday 4 o'clock
The Goat Man gave a sermon
Whether anybody was there or not
The things most people slave for
The Goat Man he rejected
It was for the good of others
All the money he collected
He didn't have much use for it
Himself, he used to say
He walked a hundred thousand miles
Giving all of it away
The Goat Man had a bushy beard
With bits of food stuck to it
If you had some fat to chew
He'd sit with you and chew it
He didn't bathe for all those years
You wouldn't just not notice
You might even catch a whiff of it
Looking at some old Goat Man photos
Now the Goat Man had a favorite goat
It's name it was Old Bill
For 30 years they walked together
Up & down the hills
Old Bill got to stop pulling
He earned his right to ride
His last days in the wagon
While the Goat Man walked beside him
The roads all got too crowded
And the cars all got too fast
The Goat Man parked his wagon
And he put his goats to pasture
It was somewhere down near Macon
In a nursing home
Where he found himself a sweetheart
They say he might've worn cologne
Inspiration for this song came from the book America's Goat Man (1994 Little River Press) by Darryl Patton, Little River Trading Post, Route 1, Box 85-A, Leesburg, Alabama 35983 (205) 523-7667
Further inspiration was found in the video Goat Man - The Life & Times of Ches McCartney" (2000 Sub Rosa Studios - SRSPEC 9001)
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