Coyote Waltz

As a songwriter, it’s important to me to talk about more than just love in the romantic sense, though it could be argued that everything is about love. I didn’t just want to write about the back and forth, the comings and goings of lovers, which is another reason I left the more commercial business of music back east. I wanted to bite into bigger subjects sometimes. I wanted to talk about life, the universe, and everything; talk about my lifelong walk of spirit…without preaching a path to follow.

I love lyrics that can be understood in layers, for those who care to. As a performer it’s important, first and foremost, to entertain and not weigh down your audience with a lecture of life as you see it, or a sermon. That having been said, we all know of songs that managed to produce books in our minds, inside the slim four minutes they played.

Coyote Waltz can be seen as a nonsense performance piece. I often sing it straight after “Twisted” for a crazy little set-ender, the stand-up bass bringing in the jazz waltz. It can be left to enjoy just like that (I’m not selling anything, honest!) or the words can be heard with a mind to looking for and finding one’s spirit, within indigenous connections and the major religions. In these lyrics and the music sits my four-minute Theosophy Doctorate Thesis. First Nation stories talk of the coyote as a trickster, a teacher, even a creator…so he was perfect for a song…a waltz perfect for the twirling constancy of movement…the dance we are all caught-up in. What do you think it says?

Coyote Waltz copyright 2001 Lorraine Hart

Sometimes I dance with coyote
And fall on my ass…laughing
He’s a wolf
He’s a fox
He’s a dog
Oh my my my!

Sometimes I dance with coyote
And rise on my toes…gasping
He’s the truth in a lie
Such a fool
Ah…but who am I?

The fool is a wise man
And the wise man’s a fool
Our biggest lesson
Is our greatest tool
Every dance documents
The golden rule
That coyote can show me
Oooh…the jewel of cool!

As soon as he says it’s this
Baby…you know it’s that
Three hundred and twelve
Personalities…
All of them under one hat…
Oooh!