2025 Competition Entry:

Peace Song by Michael Schulbaum

Genre

Folk

Website

Co-writer(s)

no

Performer(s)

Just me

Description

This was the first song i ever really wrote, back about 30 some years ago. The second half of the lyrics have changed over the years, but I like this iteration best so far. This was the song that seemingly magically transported me into the realms of being a singer/songwriter. It was about midnight coming back to our friend’s barn where a group of our friends all used to regularly hang out. A dear musician friend who I hadn’t seen in a long time’s motorcycle was here so I was very excited to see him. I came in and he, my other dear friend and I took up our guitars and I started playing this song. At that point, this was probably 1993, this song was just an instrumental, and I was shaky at playing guitar at best. But I don’t know how to explain it – from the first notes that I began to play of this song, as my two friends started to join in, our music seemed almost mystically, impossibly perfect. As we played, our smiles grew and we each communicated to each other through our eyes that we were all feeling the same thing. All of our other friends felt the same the same, exact thing as they smoked and relaxed into this divine experience. The music was like a freight train that was passing through the sparkling night and we were just passengers, riding upon it’s groove. I wasn’t doing ANYTHING!! I was in sheer disbelief as my fingers passed from playing rhythm into a solo. Each note was soulfully and perfectly placed and they just kept coming. I gawked at my fingers play these notes that I really didn’t “know” how to play! And then, as the music began to build, I knew that I needed to get up to a high note but I had no idea how I was going to get up there without flubbing this beautiful performance. But then my fingers just started playing the notes. They danced up a simple pentatonic scale that I barely knew and arrived in a perfectly timed crescendo of tension and triumph! I was a puppet being moved by the Divine, unseen hand and it was too much to contain. I bursted out into joyous, hilarious laughter and crumpled on the floor with my guitar just like a 3 year old toddler in giddy ecstasy. My friends were all laughing to the point of tears and we all just sat looking in disbelief of what was just happening, smiling and knowing that we all loved each other and that we were all safe and protected in that golden moment.

Bio

Lyrics

I was sittin beneath an old oak tree
my thoughts were racing – sunset was singin
my eyes were sparklin
An old man walking a dog came by
he sat near me
“Nice sunset” I said
“Yes it is” he replied
We got to talking about the colors of the sunset and how no paint on Earth could ever do them justice
‘Bout how seeing the Lord’s miracles down here on Earth can bust all your chains and clear cobwebs out yer head
Well, I rubbed his dog’s belly and I listened to the man ramble on love and war and truth…

and the birds that fly, silhouetted against the sky in orchestrated, unified perfection
and the geometry of how we see every single molecule each completely differently
but somehow we’ve all agreed to call this speck a seed and deep inside we cling to hope that it may grow
It may grow into something we can all call happiness,
that we can all see as beautiful and wonder
just how somethin can crawl up from the dirty ground and defy every obstacle that looked it in the eye
and with the dignity that only comes from the sacredness of scrapin for every step, it crawled
Yes, it crawled with the patience of the canyon
Yes, it crawled with the perseverance of the pearl
Yes, it crawled with the arrogance of echoing laughter
Yes, it crawled with the beauty of a baby girl

and how we’re all clinging to the hope, our hope that this illusion that we call a seed may grow into something beyond our comprehension
that it may grow into something beyond our grasp
that it may grow into something beyond our ego
that it will grow into something beyond opinion

Leave a comment