I Can't Thank You Enough

I can't thank you, my family, my friends, my fans, and my fellow musicians, enough. That thought repeatedly crossed my mind as I tried to respond the many well wishers on June 10, 2018, my birthday.

I realized again that I have many cousins not only on the Martinez side, my dad's family, and the Hernandez side, my mom's folks, but also the Gutierrez clan, my stepfather's family from Round Mountain, Texas. I realized that the friendships from my hometown are still there, as are the campus friends from Mary Hardin-Baylor, Texas State and Arizona, as are the friendships I've made teaching school and coaching and playing tennis. And, of course, I'm still amazed at the number of souls I've collided with because of music. Souls that have shared the stages, co-written the songs, opened their homes to my music, hired me to play their venues, purchased my music, downloaded my songs, voted for my on Nashville Star, and who often travel for hours to hear me play. It all moves me to keep making music.

Last year one of those souls reached out to me hoping I could get him a copy of "Twenty-two." He had heard me in 1985-86 playing this song in Tucson near the University of Arizona campus at The Sawmill Cafe, where professors would mingle with students and locals in their outdoor beer garden. I wrote the song the night before I turned twenty-two years old. I had never recorded the song other than on cassette in my dorm room. I have now. As a way to say thank you, which of course I can never say enough, I wish to share the song with all of you who reached out to me on my birthday.

Twenty-two

Coffee from Vienna in a handmade cup

Classical tunes in the air

An empty feeling I cannot disrupt

I sit in my chair and star

Tomorrow I turn twenty-two

Still irresponsible that I’ll admit

It’s not that I don’t really care

Here in the empty room I choose to sit

With my pen, my guitar in this chair

Tomorrow I turn twenty-two

Tomorrow I turn twenty-two

Someday a Faulkner, Segovia, or Poe

A John Stuart Mill well I might

So much to see and so much more to know

While I still keep my dream in sight

Tomorrow I turn twenty-two

Tomorrow I turn twenty-two

Tomorrow I’m just twenty-two