THE BRANDY TREE

©1967 Gordon Bok, BMI

 

Gordon – Vocal and Spanish guitar

Women’s chorus.

These are the women who came to speak Captive Water: poets, painters, farmers, teachers, therapists, mothers, folks you'll find in your community, too – fine uncommon people.

 

I got most of this song from a small otter who used to hang out in the same woods I did, around Sherman's Point, many years ago. Many folks have asked me about the name of the song: I was never sure of what that word was, (Bandy Tree, Bundy Tee?) nor do I think it matters. I've come to think of it as a place inside ourselves where, once we've been there, we know how to find it again.

 

I go down to the brandy tree and take my nose and my tail with me

All for the world and the wind to see and never come back no more

 

Down the meadowmarsh deep and wide, tumble the tangle by my side

All for the westing wind to ride and slide in the summer rain

            Sun come follow my happy way, wind come walk beside me

            Moon on the mountain go with me, a wondrous way I know

 

I go down to the windy sea and the little gray seal will play with me

Slide on the rock and dive in the bay and sleep on the ledge at night

            But the seal don't try to tell me how to fish in the windy blue

            Seal's been fishing for a thousand years and he knows that I have too

 

When the frog goes down to the mud to sleep and the lamprey hides in the boulders deep

I take my nose and my tail and go a hundred thousand hills

            Sun come follow my happy way, wind come walk beside me

            Moon on the mountain go with me, a wondrous way I know

 

Some day down by the brandy tree I'll hear the shepherd call for me

Call me to leave my happy ways and the shining world I know

            Sun on the hill come go with me, my days have all been free

            The pipes come laughing down the wind and that's the way I go

            That's the way for me

 

 

The Brandy Tree is recorded on the albums Clear Away in the Morning, Seal Djiril's Hymn, and Other Eyes, and is also in the songbook Time and the Flying Snow