Barbara McAfee
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While You’re Alive Lyrics

All music and lyrics by Barbara McAfee unless otherwise noted.
​© Big Bug Music
Who You Gonna Be While You Do What You Do?
Who you gonna be while you do what you do?
How you gonna show up while you’re passing through?
I’m living in this question, you can too.
Who you gonna be while you do what you do?
 
You can do all of the right things and still be a jerk
And a really bad temper can wreck a lot of fine work
There’s no sense of direction when you’re going berserk...
 
You could sit up in a corner and criticize
And try to cut people down to manageable size
When an idea hits the table, you could roll your eyes....
 
We could argue all night about the ends and the means
But if you don’t like who you are, don’t mean a hill of beans
When at the end of the day, you and your conscience convene
Could be an ugly scene...
 
They may not remember what you do or say
But people will remember how they felt along the way
You could leave a trail of blessing starting today...
 
People could be glad to see you coming through the door
When you’re running out on patience, you could find a little more
You could be the hero you’ve been waiting for....
 
Who you gonna be while you do what you do?
How you gonna show up while you’re passing through?
I’m living in this question, you can too.
Who you gonna be while you do what you do?
 
While You're Alive
Based on a poem by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky 
Go for a walk if it is not too dark
Say something kind to a stranger passing by
Play a game with the children, help out a friend
Let your true heart be your guide
You might as well do something real
While you're alive.
 
Take your beloved in your loving arms
Gaze at them with your softest eyes
Sing some songs to your pets and plants
Let them get all drunk and wild
You might as well do something real
While you're alive.
 
Let's toast every rung we've climbed on evolution's ladder
Whisper “I love you, I love you” to the whole mad world.
Let's stop reading about God
We will never understand God.....
 
Jump to your feet, wave your hands in the air
Tell the Universe, you do declare
That your heart is not willing to live with less than real love
You might as well have real love
While you're alive.
 
Go for a walk if it is not too dark
Say something kind to a stranger passing by
Play a game with the children, help out a friend
Let your true heart be your guide
You might as well do something real
While you're alive.
 
Brain Rats
Chorus:
Brain rats, I’ve got brain rats
A pestilential blight upon my mind!
 
Brain rats are those wicked thoughts that prove my every flaw
And every hopeful notion gives them something new to gnaw
I hear them chewing in the night and on and off all day
They’ve really got my number -- oh, the awful stuff they say!
Chorus

 
My mother says she loves me, but no doubt she’s telling lies
And my friends are all just enemies in ingenious disguise
There’s no one to be trusted – and that’s including me
The best approach to human beings is fierce misanthropy
Chorus

 
I need a lot more money than I’ll ever live to earn
And late at night I count my debts as I fret and toss and turn
I’m one step from the poorhouse. I can’t make it on my own.
I’ll be just like that match girl dying cold and all alone. 
Chorus

 
They torture with such cunning like little Marquises de Sade
And wreak unstinting havoc beneath my cool facade
They tell me I’m worse than everyone
My problems can’t be solved
And I’m the piece of crap around which this whole world revolves....Chorus

Bite the Lightning
I want to bite the lightning, I want to taste the thunder
Roll it around in my mouth like dark red wine
I want the rain to bathe me, baptize, cleanse & save me
I want the winds to blow away all that’s dead or dying
The sky is crying...
 
I want the storm to last all night
Want to feast on the flickering silver-blue light
Ripping ‘cross the sky
Don’t want to close my eyes (not for a second)
I want fill up on falling water
And be reborn as Neptune’s daughter
Then ride the wild waves on and on
Past the land of dawn....
 
I call the miracle of hailstones-falling ice from a summer sky
I call the cold blue fire that leaves its imprint behind my eye
I call the grumbling of grey clouds
And the thunder’s voice that shouts out loud
I call the blessing of the rain -- love the rain, love the rain
 
Heart of a Warrior
Fear holds no sway in the heart of a warrior
She dances empty-handed into the fray
Rivers of laughter to temper the shadows
From life’s invitation she’ll not turn, not turn, not turn away…
 
Love is the fire in the heart of this warrior
There in her eyes its flames leap and sway
Those who are warmed there do count themselves blessed
To bask in the warmth of her sunfire, sunfire, sunfire array…
 
Deep wisdom runs in the heart of this warrior
A curious mind and the words to say
Mysteries fresh from the lips of the angels
The voice of the earth as under our feet she commences to pray…
 
Grant many gifts to the heart of this warrior
A balance of rest in her rigorous days
Courage to stand forth into her true power
Conviction to know the love all around her is going to stay…
 
Repeat first verse
 
Taste of Midnight

I eat my chocolate 85% cacao
And if it’s not espresso, that ain’t coffee no how
I like the taste of night
In the middle of the day
Takes the edge off the sunlight
Keeps cheerfulness at bay....
 
I’m not some little kid, so I take my licorice black
And my toast looks like a cinder off a railroad track
I like the taste of shadow
When it’s bright high noon
When the stars are all in hiding
I still taste the moon.....
 
If I can see the light shine through my wine
Then it’s not red enough
And devil’s food’s more heavenly than that angel food fluff
My bread is pumpernickel
My pepper’s fresh-ground black
And if my chicken ain’t downright burnt
I gonna send it back.....
 
I like blackened catfish straight from Mississippi mud
And my heart is pumping Guinness stout instead of blood
I like the taste of midnight
On my tongue
You’ll get a mouthful of your own
By the time my song is sung.....
 
I only eat my chocolate 85 percent cacao
And if it ain’t espresso, that ain’t coffee nohow
I like the taste of midnight when it’s bright high noon
When the stars are all in hiding, I still taste the moon.
​Body
I like my body
I like my body just fine
Knees kind of knobby
Eyes that sparkle and shine
 
I like my body
I like my body just fine
Long drink of water
Tall as a towering pine
 
He's just a baby
She's a hundred and nine
They got their bodies
You know everybody's body's
Just fine.
 
I like your body
I like you body just fine
Anywhere you go
You know your body's not far behind!
Anywhere you go
You know your body's not far behind!
 
What a Wonderful World
By George David Weiss and Bob Thiele
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them blooming for me and for you
And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”
 
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself,  “What a wonderful world.”
 
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, saying “how do you do”
They’re really saying, “I love you.”
 
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world”
Yes, I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”

Good Morning
Based on the poem “Why I Wake Early” by Mary Oliver
Hello, sun in my face
You who make the morning
Dear star, good morning!
 
You who make the morning and spread it over fields and flowers
And into the windows even of the miserable and the crotchety....
 
Hello, sun in my face
You who make the morning
Dear star, good morning!
 
Best preacher that ever was, you who are so near us
To keep us from ever darkness
To ease us with warm touching
And hold us in great hands of light....
 
Hello, sun in my face
You who make the morning
Dear star, good morning!
 
You who make the morning
And spread it over fields and flowers
Watch how I start the day now
In happiness, in kindness....
 
Good morning!
 
Navajo Chant
Words by Kabir, music by Jody Healy
When you were born, you cried
And the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die
The world cries and you rejoice.
 
Rat Race
Up at six, breakfast fixed, sweep the floor, out the door
Should do more . . .
Gotta test my luck, make a buck, what was it that I do this for?
On the bus, look at us -- looking, then looking away
What would we say anyway?
 
Keeping so busy helps make me feel all alone
I'll just keep on running till every last fuse in blown
If I'm leading a full life, why then this empty heart?
Where did this mad spin start?
 
I'm tired of hearing myself say how tired I am
I'm gonna lie down one of these days for a year
I'm running on sheer adrenalin and a lot of caffeine
I'm living my life in high gear.....
 
Back I go, undertow, could I be running scared?
I'd gladly give this all up yesterday if I dared
I'm watching my loved ones all running around just like me
Let's all make a pact and go free!
 
Where Do All the Tears Go?
For Dad
Where do all the tears go that I swallow?
Are they in the hollow place inside my heart?
What do they take with them wherever they go?
What joy swims in that salty sea?
 
It doesn’t cost me much
Just my human touch
Just my peaceful sleep
Since I’ve forgotten how to weep
 
There is something stirring, warm wind blowing
Something melting here inside my heart
I think it’s going to hurt some before it gets better
Like frozen skin burns as it comes back alive
 
It won’t cost me much
Just my favorite crutch
Just my Berlin Wall
I can’t believe it’s gonna fall
 
I am Rip Van Winkle, slowly waking
To a world that is totally changed
All that was familiar is now illusion
Pardon my confusion, but there’s such sweetness in the pain
 
Oh, it cost me dear
The loss of all those years
But it gets easier to take
With every moment I’m awake
 
What has cracked me open is quite beyond me
And I thank my stars that it happened in time
With every breath remaining, I will keep on praying
To live this life being fully alive
I’m alive......
 
Healing All Generations
Chorus:
Healing all generations
Coming down through the women’s line
We offer our veneration
To the ones who walked before
The ones who walk beside
The ones who come behind...
 
We carry your stories
Though we may not know your names
Your features in our faces
Here among us you remain....Chorus
 
We live here together
In shared space and time
Through bloodline and heartline
I claim you as mine....Chorus
 
You dwell here among us
Our kin yet to be
We sing you our welcome
New buds on the tree...Chorus
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