Lama Mountain Blues
Words and Music by Joe Bolinger

Got caught doing 90 east of Kansas City
Heading west on I-70.
Seemed a portent of calumny
To  come.

Caught again with the pedal down
Makin revenue for a speed trap town.
Can’t stop me, I’m desert bound
Alone. 

I left Indiana back across the plain.
A 19 year old girl there Is driving me insane.
My only assets are the letters by my name,
It’s true.  

Chorus:
And if, if, if, if
New Mexico’s like this.
Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss,
Me in my dreams
In my dreams
So, so, so, so,
So what about the snow?
Cry cry cry cry
Cause I’m here
And she’s there.

  My friend lives in a hut at the base of the Latirs.
And they ain’t seen a snow like this in over 15 years.
The mountains sure are pretty but don’t they look fearsome
too.

My first day in New Mexico I crashed into a Saab.
How was I to know my tires were so bald.
How’s I s’posed to know that I was getting old
So fast.

Then up on Lama Mountain the blizzard came like death.
Like the kiss from a demon queen who steals your very breath.
The rumbling in my stomach said the twinges of regret
Had begun.

Chorus

Now I’m hole’d up in El Rito right next to my friend
Who knew me back in Indiana, back when I was thin.
A quarter life crisis and a heartbreak on the mend
Will do. 

One by one they’re married, my friends are all gone.
The Times They Are A’Changin turns to Blonde on Blonde
The memories of the peepers and the ashes on a pond
Come through.

Just the other night I saw a ring around the moon.
I walked around, the dead of night, as bright as any noon.
A night like this the morning always comes a bit too soon
For me. 

Chorus

  When it’s just you and silence together and alone
You hold each other tight and stroke each other’s bones.
Find out if you love each other like when you were young
And brave. 

Some call me a master, and some call me a slave.
Some call me a hero who fights another day.
Some call me a coward, and I say either way
It’s true.

I’m old enough to know I’m not going all that far.
I’ll never be the President, I’ll never win a war.
But a 19 year old girl has my heart up in a jar
Back home. 

Chorus