[Psychedelic, Swing, Male Vocals, Grunge, Acoustic, Acoustic Guitar] 🎙️ “CAMPFIRE SNAKE-OIL BLUES (REPRISE)” (Dylan-style surreal folk-blues — 6:00 runtime) [Intro – spoken over crackle and wind] (You can almost hear the match catch…) I was sittin’ by the fire, just me and my head, no one left to argue, all the voices fled. Inside the house the gaslight hummed like a ghost, and outside the stars were takin’ notes. ⸻ [Instrumental – acoustic guitar + soft harmonica (0:20)] [Verse 1] There’s a snake-oil salesman preachin’ in rhyme, he sells bottled forgiveness and charges by time. The archaeologist digs for what he forgot, and the psychologist swears the dirt’s still hot. A fiddler plays sideways, the tune don’t end, he swears he learned it from a dream he can’t mend. ⸻ [Harmonica Fill (0:55)] [Verse 2] The preacher’s stuck on a carousel hymn, the horses are wooden, but the halos are dim. Children lay low with tin-can drums, waitin’ for prophecy that never comes. And I keep hummin’ a song I can’t explain, half mercy, half migraine. ⸻ [Chorus (1:35)] Oh, settle in around the light in the dark, where reason limps home and the truth falls apart. Legends of clarity melt in the flame, and every dream answers to no one’s name. ⸻ [Instrumental Interlude – fiddle & bass groove (2:00)] [Verse 3] A widow in Wheaton counts stars in her jar, she swears each one remembers who you are. A blind man paints what he thinks he hears, and sells his silence for a handful of years. Somewhere a clock laughs itself insane, claimin’ the hours are all the same. ⸻ [Verse 4] An outlaw in corduroy, a poet in chains, a boy with a halo made of broken trains. They trade confession for a spark of doubt, then disappear when the wind goes out. And I think, “These are the things of time,” as the fire bends reason into rhyme. ⸻ [Bridge – spoken, like a sermon gone sideways (4:00)] You ever notice how the dark don’t care who’s tellin’ the story, just that somebody’s there? That’s how the night keeps its balance — with a whisper and a dare. ⸻ [Chorus (4:40)] Oh, settle in around the light in the dark, where reason limps home and the truth falls apart. Legends of clarity melt in the flame, and every dream answers to no one’s name. ⸻ [Outro – softly spoken, like a confession to the coals (5:15)] Children lay low, the witnesses sleep. Somewhere between the sparks and the deep, the snake-oil man starts hummin’ grace, and I swear I see my own face driftin’ in the smoke, smilin’, finally free of the joke. [Outro Instrumental – harmonica, soft fiddle, wind fade (5:45-6:00)]
