"Some Came To Sing, Some Came To Pray ...

...Some Came To Keep The Dark Away."

50 years ago I had just graduated from High School. I moved out of my parents home and into a real life hippie commune near Baxley, SC (a ghost town that the residents deserted for whatever reason in the 50's), the day I turned 18. That was a few days after the Woodstock Music And Arts Festival was held so I didn't make it to Yasgur's Garden. I DID make it to the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron the next Independence Day weekend, though. The Stones Free Concert at Altamont happened in between Woodstock and Byron so I didn't REALLY know what to expect. But back in those days of national turmoil I didn't know what to expect from one day to the next most days - and didn't much worry about it, either. Three friends and I hitchhiked to Atlanta for the Pop Festival weekend and wound up staying for six months or so before we went back to Carolina. We sold reefer and acid on the strip and lived in Bobo's Apartments just off Peachtree. These 50 year old flashbacks are kicking up a lot of dusty old memories. I still had most of my functioning brain cells in those days and the file folders between the gyri and sulci are reawakening some really great memories of that Festival and those wonderful carefree days of impending, imminent nuclear annihilation. Good Times ..... I know some of you all lived those days too. Whooooooole lotta water under the bridge since then.
I read today that Melanie recalls she wasn't paid for that performance but like many of the acts that performed over that August weekend in the Catskills, she wrote a song about the experience that is still helping pay her bills today. Candles In The Rain. Enjoy .....



Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each other's wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace

Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

So raise the candles high
Cause if you don't we could stay black against the night
Oh, raise them higher again
And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each other's wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace
Some came to sing, some came to pray
Some came to keep the dark away

So raise the candles high
Cause if you don't we could stay black against the sky
Oh, raise them higher again
And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
You got to lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

You got to lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
Oh, lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown
Lay down, lay down
Lay it all down
Let your white birds smile up
At the ones who stand and frown

Melanie recalls Woodstock concert and not being paid for it

"The New York State Thruway Is CLOSED, Man! Can You Dig That?"