Once I get started, I can’t stop writing a song until it’s at a stopping place. So that is why it is 3 freakin’ AM on Monday morning. Anyways, here is my version of “Dona Dona”, quite different from the traditional folk version we know from Joan Baez. Please forgive the less-than-professional vocals and mic situation! (I’m doing this on my laptop with Garage Band ‘09.)

On a wagon bound for market
There’s a calf with a mournful eye.
High above him there’s a swallow
Winging swiftly through the sky.

How the winds are laughing, laughing
They’re laughing with all their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And laughing half the summer’s night.

Dona dona dona dona
Dona dona dona don
Dona dona dona dona
Dona dona dona don

“Stop complaining,” said the farmer,
“Who told you a calf to be?
Why don’t you have wings to fly away
Like the swallow so proud and free?”

How the winds are laughing, laughing
They’re laughing with all of their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And laughing half the summer’s night.

Dona dona dona dona
Dona dona dona don
Dona dona dona dona
Dona dona dona don

Calves are easily bound and slaughtered
Never knowing the reason why.
But whoever treasures freedom,
Like the swallow must learn to fly.

How the winds are laughing, laughing
How they laugh with all of their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And laughing half the summer’s night.

Dona dona dona dona
Dona dona dona don
Dona dona dona dona
Dona dona dona don

I need a real banjo instead of a Garage Band loop, but I think the sketch has potential… What do you think?

Ol’ Father Joe is hoping for that apple pie
That Mama Sal will bake he makes that apple eye
And Jane is headed down to bring another boy home
And James is goin’ to play outside with friends.

I know there is another story
All together, summer glory
Evening light, a bowl of cherries
All together, the porch is swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair
Swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair

Old Uncle Bob is bringing grandma home right now
And Auntie Liza swears she’ll shoot down all my cows
That Cousin Shane he’s made the army, going soon
And James is goin’ to play outside with friends.

I know there is another story
All together, summer glory
Evening light, a bowl of cherries
All together, the porch is swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair
Swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair

These pictures, they are memories that I never had
But still I’d like to tell you of the tiny shack
Where birds and hearts are whistling a brand new tune
And James is goin’ to play outside with friends.

I know that there’s another story
All together, summer glory
Evening light, a bowl of cherries
All together, the porch is swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair
Swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair

Swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair

Swinging a chair
And the wind’s in my hair