"Thunderwater" - 1982: Jim Haun (rhythm guitar/vocals), Klyd Watkins (bass/vocals), Toby Tate (drums/vocals), Shelby Tate (lead guitar)

reality part 1: Here's the "Angel Guitar" I designed and carved from a 1958 Fender Musicmaster solid-body while sojourning in Northern New Mexico, summer '74.  (Better pickup and turnpegs also added at that time.)

I'm an ungreat singer and half-baked guitarist, as you will discern as soon as I figure out how to mount audio on this page.  Meantime, I'll at least share a few lyric lines -- which actually do address our Stormwatch theme of worldview confusion.

How 'bout we start with the first ditty I penned within a few months of getting saved in Orlando, Florida.  Like most of my musical efforts, this one follows a strict 12-bar-blues pattern, since -- in true hippie fashion -- that's  all I know!

THIRD EYE BLUES

(all six verses!)

Well I got three eyes, yes I got three:

 Two for watchin' out with, one for bein' free!

Third one's in my forehead, cost me quite a lot --

Found it doin' YOGA, gave up smokin' pot;

Only trouble with it

As far as eye can see:

Is that prince of darkness

Jus' keeps starin' back at me!

All my friends have grown one,

It's really quite the rage,

Funky KUNDALINI has really come of age!

But it keeps me guessin', while your aura gleams,

Jus' what that snake is up to, twinin' roun' yo' jeans...

But I guess it's alright

No matter what the jolt

Funky kundalini is the devil's lightnin' bolt!

Yeah once that eye pops open, now

You better listen well:

All your thoughts are subject...uh, to the plans of hell!

An' as shadows lengthen, the NEW AGE not in sight,

Better look around you, get ready for a fright...

There's only One can save you

From the demon's chain

An' seal your forehead hard as flint

An' soothe your fev'rish brain:

So I'd like t' tell ya, how He done for me,

JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH, once upon a tree.

He seen my heart was broken

Wif fear and guilty shame;

He ast me jus' t' trust in -- the power of His NAME?

I thought that sounded looney

But I had no place to turn,

An' now He's singin' through me

(Sayin') "Sinner, PLEASE DON'T BURN!"

Ev'ry cosmic power, in the sky above

An' ev'ry earthly spirit, must bow before His love.

He's comin' back on stage, read the Script -- you'll know,

An' Satan's gettin' ready, t' put on quite a show!

But I'll jus' guarantee ya

When the dust is cleared,

who'll be bound an' shackled

An' Who'll be roundly cheered!

My sweet an' precious Jesus, God's own livin' Son;

He wants t' call us brothers, now, He wants t' make us one:

He needs us for His Body, 'til He lets out that shout:

He's callin' volunteers t'day, He won't leave room for doubt.

Lay down the lower life,

Let Him perform your story,

It ain't too high a costliness

For  ETERNITY  IN GLORY!

OK, so while we're singing in dialect, might as well trot this one out -- which I wrote a couple years later, with obvious reference to John Chapter 9 and the Man Born Blind:

EGYP' LAN'

(uh-oh...another SIX verses!)

Went down to live in ol' Pharoah's lan'

Down whur th' livin' folks woik fo' th' daid folks

Down whur th' blin' folks all laff at they sight jokes

Down whur th' light folks be loaded wif hard yokes.

Tried t' imitate they dance,

Till I slippt into they trance,

'N purty soon I knowed I'd lost my way.

Sometimes I'd awake an see th' chains on me

Mos'ly I'd jus' sleep an' dream that I was free:

Flyin' high on Pharoah's Lie that I could be

An incarnation of the One who was th' Sea

An' realize th' Self

Bring it down from off its shelf

Or if not now th' nex' big time aroun'...

Pharoah sez that we're all One an' all is One --

Black is white an' white is black an' it's all  fun.

I lik't that  fine cause it tickled my mind

(Didn't know yet I was goin' blind)

Back home I'd known th' light

But Egyp's full of fright

'Specially when they come to carry me away...

Then I heard another Man had paid fo' me;

If I'd take Him as my master I'd be free.

He led me thru a desert place without a single tree;

He said my Egyp' ways would havta die fo' me to see.

He said, "I have chosen you

An' washt you up like new:

Now you mus' prove that I've not chosen wrong!"

Pharoah sent a message up from Egyp' lan'

Said he'd gimmie all th' women I could stan'

-- If I'd only come an' be his slave again,

Said he'd put a dolla' in th' palm a my han'

I knew he had that power

To raise me up like a tower

-- But towers fall an' Pharoah's fallin' too!

Th' King I'm servin' now calls me friend-brother-son

He's my breath, my bread, my rest; He's my head.

He tells me one day that I'll meet Him face to face

In a land whose blinding light is His grace

So blind I'm bound to be

To Egyp's vanity

That I may see the light Who made the world.

Well -- since you insist -- I'll add one more, that, "melodically," was adapted from Bob Seger's Fire Down Below.

An appropriate New Testament statement throwing some light on this next lyric would be 2nd Peter, Chapter 1:2-4: "Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world  through lust."

AUGUSTINE

(big relief -- FOUR verses!)

Augustine was a rounder

Yeah he'd known a girl or three;

Augie's mama prayed for him

That God would set him free.

So heaven turned his life around,

Grace set his thoughts on high,

A prisoner of the Lord at last,

No prisoner of the Lie.

Augie knew the Bible

Yeah he plumbed it like a whale,

And from the deep he brought to light

Fresh import of a tale.

In his own veins he understood

How lust fired high rebellion;

Deep puzzled he the mystery

That made the heart a hellion.

From Genesis he saw a curse

Well turned to suit the crime,

When rebel wills became ashamed

Of "strangers" yours and mine.

Branded then like animals,

Like such in part became:

God granted each a rebel

Which still we hide for shame!

Yet still we bore dim image

Of Him who died for sin:

No wonder now division,

Confusion, strife within.

Born now to serpent wisdom:

To worship rebel self --

To find life now to lose it

And crucify old self.

In our own strength it can't be done,

Our human will's too rotten,

But Christ who saves can sanctify

His own like harvest cotton!

Through the ages smoke has rolled

From the fires of lust:

Blinding to the glory

Of Him in Whom we trust;

Seducing generations

To bow to fleshly gods,

Ever deaf to warnings

This fire returns to sod.

Yet through the smoke a lonely cross

Shines out a sweet release,

Where the blood of God's Own Lamb

Has purchased all our peace.

[Coda]

Augustine was a rounder,

He knew a truth or three

Heed not the benders of the light...

Who flaunt old nudity.

(Should you care to see for yourself what Brother Augustine had to say about the origin and nature of "lust," I refer you to his monumentally influential City of God, Book XIII, Chapters 3, 13-15 and Book XIV, Chapters 16-26.  It seems Christ's Spirit was providing a rare depth to his "speculations" about the appropriate justice of the specific punishments meted out in the Father's disciplining of our first parents -- and us, their descendants!)

Stay tuned!