Sun Kil Moon - L-48 lyrics

This morning I woke up to
The sound of birds chirping
At some point later today
I'll hear the kids from
The school outside play on the playground
Since 1994
I've been in the same apartment building
Living up on the third floor
If I spent my entire day
Never leaving the house
Those sounds would inspire me
To write about my

Past and my future and my now
Yeah it's an old elementary school
And I've been wondering what
The kids from twenty
To twenty-five years ago are doing now
Yeah, from my living room I can
See the school on Washington
And the San Francisco bay and Russian
Hill and Golden Gate Bridge
And my home is maybe only eight
Or nine hundred square feet
I know it may not sound like
Much for a retirement plan but
I'd be happy to live here for
The rest of my life

If I passed away to the sound of
Those kids playing on the playground
And this apartment's so rich
With memories of friends
And lovers who have come and gone
And beautiful music that's been
Written and recorded here
And so many Christmas's spent
With my cat Pink and with you, my dear
That would be as peaceful of a way
To go as I can think of
My only hope is that I
Die before my girlfriend does
Because she's so much stronger than me
Her beside me while I go is
How I'd like it to be

Every day of my life an adventure
I was in the studio about a month ago
With a few musicians over the winter
And had to take some guitars out of
Some soft cases in my apartment
Put the guitars that I wanted to take
To the studio inside of them
To lighten my travel
One of the guitars that I took out of
The cases was a 1930s Gibson L-48
Tobacco sunburst, arched top with f holes
I bought it at a garage sale when
I was in the seventh grade for sixty dollars
I never loved the sound of it
And found it to be thin

But, I remember working with a great
Engineer over twenty years ago
His name was Mark Needham
Who did lots of records with Chris Isaak
Who also recorded my album Songs
For a Blue Guitar
He told me it's only the f hole style guitars
That leave a lot of room for vocals
So I took his advice at the time and
Opted for a cheaper version of the L-48
It had a fuller sound and it was painted blue

Anyhow yesterday after a five day
Trip filming the tour documentary
Down the coast of California seeing
The grey whales surface
Along highway 1 between loan park and LA
My engineer and I flew back up
To San Francisco from LA
To transfer the film and
Audio files and label
What we filmed between Chico and LA
We finished all that by 10: 10
Pm and I told Nathan
I want to record some guitar music for
An hour before we finished that day
The closest guitar I could find was leaning
Behind my chair in the bedroom
It was a Gibson L-48

I have no memories of ever
Recording with that guitar before
But it did make the cover of
"Songs for a Blue Guitar"
For the tortoise shell pick guard
Completely disintegrated
I improvised to their guitar
Parts for an hour
And the guitar actually resonated nicely
Nathan and I agreed it had been a long day
But we would pick things
Up again after tomorrow
After meeting for lunch at my cafe
Tomorrow is right now and as I'm finishing
Writing these words before Nathan shows up
I can still hear the birds and my ears
Are still slightly ringing from this L-48
And there couldn't be a more peaceful way
To start a day of singing