Songwriting & Performance
Spinning & Weaving
Dear Listener,
Thank you for listening to my handcrafted songs and music. I hope you enjoy the journey these songs take you on and that they help rock your soul during these tumultuous times. ~ Thistle
Warrior's Lullaby
Thistle on nylon string guitar and voice
Matthew Sanborn on nylon string guitar, electric guitar, and acoustic bass
Production by Matthew Sanborn
This song was inspired by my experiences in recent years. Throughout all that has happened, I have had the best friends this world could ever bring to me as we collectively go through the dark night of storms and turmoil on our land. We need to sleep, rest and care for ourselves as we journey on. Climate change is imminent in this song. May the song be a cry for more warrior sisters to come forward to fight and heal. I modeled the song after Winkin’ Blinkin’ & Nod, a poem and song my childhood pastor taught me while I was growing up on the west side of Madison.
Lyrics:
What was I thinking when I spoke the truth in a world swimming in lies?
Did I think a boat would come to carry me through or a bird would take me a flight?
The Sun above sucks the waters dry!
Only salt remains of tears
and though it hurts to put my face up to the sky, I sing a warrior's lullaby
Sleep, sleep, sleep through the night
Steer your ship across the skies
Stars and Moon are your peaceful cocoon
cradling you through the dark night
Where would I be without friends like you? The ones who dared to hear my cry!
And how could it be that we'd come to know the green world through a warrior's lullaby
The Earth and Sky speak to me of rain that washes us all away!
Last night I had a vision that sustains my warrior's lullaby
Sleep, sleep, sleep through the night
Steer your ship across the skies
Stars and Moon are your peaceful cocoon
cradling you through the dark night
However many fish you find in the sea, nothing can stop the power of light.
Rays of gold beam down upon the earth leaving her floors cracked and dried
Goin' home we are each on our own sailing across the starry skies and
to the bone, my words help us to roam singing a warrior's lullaby
On the Edge
Lyrics and music by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - steel-string guitar and vocals
Steve Tyska - trumpets
Matthew Sanborn- electric guitar, electric bass, drums, & 12 string guitar
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
'On the edge' was inspired after I read Lierre Keith's book, The Vegetarian Myth, in which she describes the cycles of life and how all of life involves death and lots of eating, digesting, regrowth and regeneration.
I am a Coordinator of a community garden in my neighborhood where a patch of white thistles grows on the edge, another inspiration for this song.
The triumphant trumpets at the beginning are a reminder that warriors celebrate victory when we love the land, one another, and cooperate and collaborate with nature.
Lyrics:
With the Sun shinin' down on me as I walk to the garden to be with all my friends
There's the birds and the bees, then all the plants I see, thistles grow on the edge
On the edge of a garden, on the edge of a place, seedlings have hardened, becoming food is their fate
It's a place for us to gather where tensions fall away and there's beauty spinning spiders' lace
cuz the worry and the pity and all our stupid games have no bearing if we come to work a space
'
On the edge of a garden, on the edge of a place, spirits have hardened, becoming food is our fate
Cuz we all are blood and bones, even plants that grow and get mowed.
We're made of stardust, each one of us!
I wake again at dawn and come back to this song, the earth beneath me as I walk
cuz you're never really far from the place that's home to all high above in the stars and beyond.
On the edge of a garden, on the edge of a place, spirits have hardened, becoming food is our fate.
The Garden Song
Lyrics and Music by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - Vocals, and guitar
Matthew Sanborn - acoustic bass, accordion, shakers
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
I have been coordinating that Community Garden for a number of years now and I like to write songs about it. This one I used with children in a dance troupe who sang and made up dance moves to it for a performance. I like how the people living in the neighborhood are compared to squirrels. I just saw a guy in my neighborhood today who was talking with the squirrels, imitating their chatter. The cycles of life and death are not without lots of company! I love that I live in a community that supports neighborhood projects to grow food to share.
Lyrics:
Out back behind the dumpsters, we grew ourselves some food!
Broccoli, beans and carrots, you know our lives are good!
Neighbors coming together in the neighborhood
Out back behind the dumpsters, we grew a little food!
The squirrels they are a climbin' up and down our many trees
then out onto the hire wire searchin' for their next tea!
Some squirrels like to write songs and others to gather nuts
still others enjoy the patio, the fireflies light us up! Oh yeah! The fireflies!
And me I've travelled far and wide but I've finally settled down
back to the place where I grew up, you know this is my town!
So thank you for bein' my neighbor, by the land we are bound
Out back behind the dumpsters! We grew on common ground!
Spinning & Weaving
Music by Thistle and Matthew Sanborn
Lyrics by Thistle and Elizabeth Miller
Thistle - vocals and guitars
Matthew - acoustic bass, electric guitar, and synthesizers
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
Time to get groovy with spiders, webs, and radical feminist culture. I feel so much gratitude for my sister, Elizabeth Miller, in writing about this song. She commissioned me to write it as part of the anthology she put out by the same title, Spinning & Weaving published by Tidal Time Press. She also wrote me a stream of consciousness of words that I used in crafting the lyrics of this little ditty. At first, I titled it Dross Into Gold as I often do with my songs, naming them by the final theme introduced. But through time, it became clear that this song, the title track, should share the wonderful title of Elizabeth’s book.
Lyrics:
The spider jumps to her web
then dances round and round
above my head
Dark closets - bookcase near the door!
I hear laughter, spinning and weaving, Fear no more!
Fear no more! Fear no more!
Then I'm sailing between the threads
high above my head
Web glowing
now I'm one with the thread
Silk spinning above my bed
I hear voices weaving textiles from texts
a tapestry of sound, a tapestry of song!
Ancient melodies from our mother's who've gone
spinning a song, weaving, weaving all night long
all night long, all night long
Then I'm sailing between the threads
high above my head
Web glowing
now I'm one with the thread
Silk spinning above my bed
The sun comes up
the spider's web glistens
and in my heart
to my Sisters I do listen
Spinning and weaving dross into gold
spinning and weaving dross into gold
Me and my sisters, we are bold!
Spinning and weaving dross into gold
Wolf
Music and Lyrics by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - Lead vocals and guitar
Lara Julian - harmony vocals
Matthew Sanborn - electric guitars, electric basses
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
This song is about climate change and the melting of the sharp corners and enclosed spaces of western civilization as the climate shifts. The wolf represents Nature and the Female Self, struggling to be seen and fed in a system that hates them. The "I" in the song is the patriarchal self of the woman songwriter that eventually is broken down at the end of the song. By paying attention to the "roundness of everything" (the Great Circle of Life and Death), the planet, the cell, and woman's body when it is ripe with child, the narrator sees the true nature of Nature and that western civ is not going to save her. In fact, it is only in its inevitable destruction that we see the pregnancy of a new perception, a freed Female Self, and the continuance of Nature.
Lyrics:
There's a wolf starin' at me from the corners of my mind she is panting and growling and howling "Why don't you see me? and why won't you feed me?" Her eyes glow in the dark after a while she paces back and forth and I ignore her and She is ignored! "Why don't you see me? and why won't you feed me?" It runs so deep and it runs so dry I am trying to get wet when there's nothin' left inside! The forest calls to me in the springtime melting the corners of my mind Everything is round, everything, everything is round.of my mind
Everything is round! Everything is round! Everything is round!
City of Angels
Music and lyrics by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - guitar, and vocals
Matthew Sanborn - electric guitars, electric bass, drums, synthesizer
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
I lived in California for a couple of years in my youth. I hitchhiked down the coast to a party/festival in the Los Angeles area in the summer of '06. This is about the ugliness and fakeness of tinsel town, yet how it is part of our world, and I was drawn to it. I spent most of my time in northern California when I was there, but I will never forget L.A.
Lyrics:
Thrown into the arms of strangers
from the moment you are born
Gone are the tribal arrangements
the fabric of life is torn
But then the City of Angels calls me home
The City of Angels rocks me home
The strength of a single soul
stays aflame in my heart
but the strength of a single blow
rips the threads apart
Til the City of Angels calls me home
The City of Angels rocks me home
Where does your hope lie?
Is it lying to believe
In the power of a union?
One with life and the seed
The City of Angels calls me home
The City of Angels rocks me home
and into the night skies
Mad World
Music and lyrics by Michael Andrews
Thistle - guitar and vocals
Matthew - acoustic guitars, electric guitar, electric bass, drums, synthesizers, & bongos
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
This one reminds me of high school and growing up in the 1980’s.
I love the music, love the lyrics, and I love that I live in MadTown, USA.
Lyrics:
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello, teacher! Tell me, what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Enlargen your world
Mad world
O’ Anna
Music and lyrics by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - guitar, and vocals
Matthew - acoustic guitar, acoustic bass
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
This song is for my dearest Anna who died in the Spring of 2017 after I walked with her for the last time to Tenney park where I used to put out my yoga mat and do yoga while she wandered nearby in a little wooded area.
Lyrics:
You are perched in the grass like a droplet of dew
I'm a flower right next to you
Stretched out on my mat reciting haiku
this moment captured with you
And the stars up above, hidden in the blue, and me, right here next to you
O' Anna, O' Anna, O' Anna my true love true (2X)
You went to your grave on the wings of a maive
the lilacs in bloom just for you
Down in the grass it's earthy and new
a green morning for me and for you
And the stars up above, hidden in the blue, and me, right here next to you
O' Anna, O' Anna, O' Anna my true love true (2X)
​
Eye of the Storm
Music and lyrics by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - guitars and vocals
Matthew - acoustic guitar, electric bass, drums, synthesizer
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
This is my Covid 19 song. I wrote it early on during the Pandemic when I was literally sanitizing the mail before I took it inside. The storm is the climate chaos beginning to happen all around us as we march forward into the future and the ‘calamity’ is Covid. My solution is to speak out and do some positive work around loving each other and Nature. Though, there is a bit of a defeatist attitude in this song for sure, like no matter what, we are headed for further disasters and epidemics but let's sing as we go!
Lyrics:
Lickin' my fingers as I put honey in my tea
Isn't it funny how everything's changin'
Yeah humanity is rearrangin' it seems and so is the storm
The earth is worn down, I am forlorn clown cleanin' up the City!
Isn't it pretty? All the passersby, my how time flies in the eye of the storm!
I enjoy my tea, then I sanitize the jar, I take it that far
cuz I love thee. But what about humanity?
A calamity on hand and we can't even stand on the land hand in hand
cuz that way we'd all die, o' here am I in the eye of the storm!
What if the tundra melts? It's not really "what if", it's happening
and then we're gone. So why not sing a song about everything wrong
then go out and plant some seeds?
That's what we need, worship of the ground! So let's hear a sound for the seeds!
Give me reprieve as I grieve in the eye of the storm
My Name
Music and lyrics by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - acoustic guitar and vocals
Matthew Sanborn - acoustic bass, synthesizers
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
This is my way of thanking my parents for caring for me and standing by me through all of my triumphs and trials. Without their loving kindness and guidance, I am not sure I would have had the fortitude to withstand the challenges presented to me in Madison.
Lyrics:
It was a journey to my childhood
through the west side of town
I made it on my bicycle
to lay my papers down
on the desk of an employee
in this great nation of ours
I made it on my bicycle
to lay my papers down
For my name, form my name!
I traveled through the rain!
For my name, for my name
I had my passport and ID card
plastic bags on my feet
I pedaled through the wilderness
of these wet urban streets
The grasses growin' greener
You could hear their joyful sound
as I pedaled through the wilderness
of the west side of town
For my name, for my name!
I traveled through the rain!
For my name, for my name
And the stars shine brightly at night!
The darkness is overwhelmed by the light!
And in this life, I choose to fight!
For the light, for the light, for the light!
If you're lucky enough to have parents, kind like mine
they will always know you as their child
I couldn't have made it this far
without the kindness along the way
May we all be blessed with safety and the power to name
Would a rose by any other name smell so sweet? I changed my name
but I'm still the same
For my name, for my name!
I traveled through the rain, for my name, for my name
Turtle Song
Lyrics and music by Thistle Pettersen
Thistle - guitar, and vocals
Matthew Sanborn - electric guitar, electric bass
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
I wrote this to promote the Green Party as a viable third party in the United States. I hope we can get it together and break free from the two-party system that forces us to “choose” between the lesser of two evils, the Democrats or the Republicans.
Lyrics
What did the little turtle do? She swam swam, but when she saw the donkey blue, she snapped him in two...
What did the little turtle do? She swam, swam, but when she saw the elephant red, she snapped off his head and he bled into the blue blue river.
Brokedown Palace
Music and lyrics by Grateful Dead
Thistle - guitar, and vocals
Matthew Sanborn - acoustic guitar, electric bass, piano, and vocals
Produced by Matthew Sanborn
Somebody in Garberville, California taught me this song, by the Grateful Dead, when I was on the road on my bicycle back in 2005 - 2006. I played it live on my nylon string guitar with my bare hands for this recording. It’s a recording I would like to hear on my deathbed, please. Enjoy and Fare you Well!
Lyrics:
Fare you well my honey. Fare you well my only true one.
All the birds that were singing have flown 'cept you alone
Gonna leave this brokedown palace on my hands, on my knees, I will roll roll roll
Make myself a bed by the waterside
In my time, in my time, I will roll roll roll
In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul
River gonna take me, sing me sweet and sleepy
Sing my sweet and sleepy all the way back home
It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago
"Mama Mama many years I've come since I first left home!"
Goin' home, goin' home by the waterside I will lay my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul
Gonna plant a weepin' willow on the banks green edge it
will grow grow grow
Sings a lullaby near the waterside
Lovers come and go, the river roll roll roll
Fare you well! Fare you well! I love you more than words can tell!
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul