Songwriter, Folksinger, Poet & Author
A word-slinging, song-singing, soul-searching, tale-telling, ballad-mongering raconteaur, poet, songwriter & New England folk legend
An American treasure of folk songs, stories & contagious charm
~Doris Kearns Goodwin
American Historian
Listen on streaming platforms
Upcoming Shows
* * * * * *
Fitz & Hatrack
The Sanctuary, in Maynard MA
Wednesday, July 1: 5:30-7:30
* * * * * *
Fitz & Hatrack
Live at The Colonial Inn, in Concord Center
Saturday, July 4, sans Fireworks: 7:30-10:00
Booking
Festivals & Celebrations
Coffeehouses
School Assemblies
Senior Centers
Library Presentations
Songwriting Workshops
House Concerts
Pub Singing
Irish Performances
Poetry Readings
Storytelling & Campfires
Contact
John Fitzsimmons
15 Marlboro St.,
Maynard, MA, 01754
978.793.1553
Press
“””When the eyes rest on the soul…that’s Fitzy!”
~Lenny Megliola
WEEI Radio, Boston
“A masterful weaver of songs whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre.”
~Spirit of Change Magazine
“2003: Best Childrens’ Album of the Year”
~Boston Parents Paper
“Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”
~The Boston Globe Magazine
“The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music…”
Scott Alaric
Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground
Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well
~Boston Globe Magazine
Superman
No Dad To Come Home To
Waterfall
Rocky Top
Ratlin Bog
New on YouTube
Political Songs, Reflections & Diatribes
The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music
~Scott Alaric,
Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground
Live at The Colonial Inn,
Monument Square, Concord,MA,
7:30-9:30 every first & third Saturday
Barside at Sanctuary
Main Street, Maynard, MA,
5:30-7:30 every First Wednesday
Hard Songs for Hard Times…
The Devil's Game: Listen to the full album of songs, live with Fitz's ramblings...
His songs seem to come from deep within the New England earth. Sometimes burning with fire and rage, sometimes warm and gentle, but always honest and clear. In a voice that’s equal parts granite and brandy, John etches unsentimental portraits of real people facing life’s struggles and joys the only way they know how. Sometimes the characters manage to find some distant light, but it’s the journey that’s importan, not the journey’s end…
The Plowman's Road
Lyrics
The Plowman’s Road
This town ain’t no town for no old losers;
This town ain’t no town for no old clowns.
This town is just a town for pick-and-choosers
Born here and left to hang around.
I am a plowman in my hometown;
I clear the roads come every snow,
And every street tells me some old story
About everyone I ever seemed to know.
I hung with the boys bent on drinking;
I hung with some to share a song;
I hung with a few drawn to thinking
And some who never did belong.
Sometimes I stop and let the snow fall
While the road before me disappears;
Then I lose myself in some old townie memory,
And drop my plow and try to push it clear.
I’d pick up Joe and Willy up Bristers’ Hill
And Mendy and Lana off Route Two;
Then Hardy and Muscy by the old mill;
It just seemed like the natural thing to do.
Thwaits’s Mustang squealing hell down Main Street,
Damon’s Fury clunking by the bog;
Jeannie’s Cutlass idling at Great Meadows—
We’d scratch hearts on windows in the fog.
I fell for a girl in Sleepy Hollow
But, we fell out before the month was gone.
I remember her number had three zeroes,
But I can’t remember what the hell went wrong.
I still know a bunch of folks for different reasons—
Therw’s nothing much about us much the same;
We’d live in some space between the seasons,
Sinking in the swamp on Hawthorne Lane.
This town ain’t no town for no old losers;
This town ain’t no town for no old clowns.
This town is just a town for pick-and-choosers
Born here and left to hang around.
I am a plowman in my hometown.
I clear the roads come every snow,
And every street tells me some old story
About everyone I ever seemed to know,
Sometimes I plow by my old home
At the corner of Paul Revere Road;
Christ, the house is twice as big as it once was
And the stories twice as long as we grow old:
These stories never seem to have an ending,
And there ain’t no final page to turn and close
Because the roads I plow are long and bending—
I’m a fool to think I’ll ever know.
The roads in this night are empty meadows;
My truck’s a lonely plow upon a field;
The headlamps disappear in distant shadows;
My blade the only sound that I can feel.
This town ain’t no town for no old losers;
This town ain’t no town for no old clowns.
This town is just a town for pick-and-choosers
Born here and left to hang around.
I am a plowman in my hometown.
I clear the roads come every snow,
And every street tells me some old story
About everyone I ever seemed to know–
And every street tells me some old story
About everyone I ever seemed to know.
Cowboy Blues
Lyrics
Cowboy Blues
The stars are all pinpricks tonight.
The moon is a pebble of light.
I look at the sky
And keep wondering why
I chose this cowboy’s life.
I had a good job in Flint making cars
And a habit of hanging in bars.
I blew every way
To blow all my pay,
And now all I count is the stars.
Yodelay, yodelee,
Yodelay yodeloo
Singing these cowboy blues…
I came here to see the big sky
And live close to the sweet bye-and-bye.
Ornery and tough
Was barely enough,
But the boss said to give me a try.
It’s been thirty-two years or so
Since I came out to Idaho.
I ruined the life
Of a wonderful wife,
But that was so damn long ago.
Yodelay, yodelee,
Yodelay yodeloo
Singing these cowboy blues…
Up here no one can call me a liar,
Sitting alone by the fire.
It’s just me and my saddle
And eighty-five head of cattle
And fence poles and gloves and barbed wire
High boots are better than shoes;
Old songs are better than news.
This high mountain pasture
Is my final hereafter
To sing these old cowboy blues.
Yodelay, yodelee,
Yodelay yodeloo
Singing these cowboy blues…
Yodelay, yodelay, yodelee—hee
Yodelay, yodeled hee—hee
Yodelay, yodelee, yodel hee yo
Yodelay, yodelay, yodelee—hee
Yodelay, yodeled hee—you
Singing these cowboy blues…
Yodelay, Yodeleli
Yodelay, Yodel-loo…
Singing these cowboy blues…
Looking for the Light
Lyrics
Looking for the Light
I was a poor boy in western Texas.
I drilled for oil in sketchy ground,
But I went home a barrel shorter
And a bucket wiser for what I found.
There might be time to make things right,
But you got to run like a child
Looking for the light.
I found God with a Waco preacher;
He helped me see my deadly sins.
I went home with my salvation
And then I lost it all again.
There might be time to make things right,
But you got to run like a child
Looking for the light.
I had a wife who swore she loved me;
I had a bottle who loved me more,
And three darling children who remember daddy
As just some ghost they’d seen before.
There might be time to make things right,
But you got to run like a child
Looking for the light.
I’m heading home a weary hobo.
I can’t undo what I have done.
This bag of bones is just my body—
A tattered soul whose race is run.
There might be time to make things right,
But you got to run like a child
Looking for the light.
So make today be your tomorrow.
Make your life be straight and true.
Heed my sins and endless sorrow,
And just do what you should do.
There might be time to make things right,
But you got to run like a child
Looking for the light.
There might be time to make things right,
But you got to run like a child
Looking for the light.
Land of the Blue
Lyrics
Land of the Blues
You got the sunshine.
I got the rain.
You got the words;
I got the pain
You think it’s something
Worth talking about.
I think it’s nothing
We can’t figure out.
Put us together babe and try to make two
Nothing adds up when I ain’t got you
Give me a plan, tell me what I should do
I don’t understand this land of the blues
I stood in the night
In Washington square,
Hoping like hell
You’d look for me there.
I reached in my pocket
Found a crumpled up ten—
A hit of cheap cotton,
Then I’m sober again.
Put us together babe and try to make two
Nothing adds up when I ain’t got you
Give me a plan, tell me what I should do
I don’t understand this land of the blues
Where it began,
We know it too well;
I’m nearing the end
In my corner of hell.
Inside every junkie
Is a lingering dream
To have it both ways
If you know what I mean.
Put us together babe and try to make two
Nothing adds up when I ain’t got you
Give me a plan, tell me what I should do
I don’t understand this land of the blues
Give me a plan, tell me what I should do
I don’t understand this land of the blues
The Devil's Game
Lyrics
The Devil’s Game
I got one foot in the river
The other foot high and dry.
One foot takes me home;
The other foot says goodbye.
My sweet tooth wants the river;
My wisdom tooth says stay.
My heart is bent on swimming;
My head says walk away…
It’s a devil’s game
When you flip a coin:
Heads or tails
Whose side you join.
It’s a desperate man
Who lives a desperate life;
Quit playing that game.
Go back to your wife.
I got two feet in the river;
No place left to go.
God left me here stranded;
The water’s deep and cold.
I played my hand in the devil’s game
And lost my soul today—
My home is now a lover’s hell
Where fiery passions play.
It’s a devil’s game
When you flip a coin:
Heads or tails
Whose side you join.
It’s a desperate man
Who lives a desperate life;
Quit playing that game.
Go back to your wife.
Every love’s
got a share of pain.
Every joy
Comes back again.
Long, hard nights
Bring back the day.
You’re fixing to drown
If you swim that way.
Now I’m swimming in that river
I can’t undo what I have done.
I know I can’t have two
When you only gave me one
My head is going under;
Hell will be my grave.
So go on and find some other soul—
I’m too far gone to save.
It’s a devil’s game
When you flip a coin:
Heads or tails
Whose side you join.
It’s a desperate man
Who lives a desperate life;
Quit playing that game.
Go back to your wife.
I’m a desperate man;
I led a desperate life.
I lost that game;
I lost my wife.
Diesel Lullaby
Lyrics
Diesel Lullaby
I
I was barely five-years-old
Sitting on grandpa’s lap,
Riding his tractor
Before taking a nap.
Gramps bought that Farmall
Back in the day
When he said that he lived
On heartbreak and hay.
Heartbreak and hay
And turnips and corn—
An old diesel tractor
And hands rough and worn.
He didn’t need much,
And he never asked why;
When he died we all sang him
His diesel lullaby—
That diesel lullaby
Makes you love and makes you cry;
Says hello and says goodbye
When you’re alone…
In the field or on the plow
On the road you’re traveling now,
That diesel lullaby
Will take you home.
II
Dad got the farm
When gramps passed away;
He traded his tool belt
For heartbreak and hay.
Mom started working
At the diner downtown;
Her tips bought more food
Than we grew from the ground.
So dad traded ten acres
To change up his luck
He swapped for Jack Mattison’s
Freightliner truck.
On dark nights I’d stare
At a hole in the sky
And listen for the sound
Of my dad’s lullaby.
That diesel lullaby
Makes you love and makes you cry;
Says hello and says goodbye
When you’re alone…
In the field or on the plow
On the road you’re traveling now,
That diesel lullaby
Will take you home.
III
I was fifteen-years-old
When we lost the farm;
Dad rolled the Freightliner
And shattered his arm.
Dad lived on oxy,
While Mom lived in pain;
I played the same songs
Again and again.
Now I’m a fancy guitar picker
In a traveling country band;
My bunk’s on a bus
Rumbling through the heartland.
I just pray my girls and my boys
Are staring at the sky
Because Daddy’s coming home
In his diesel lullaby.
That diesel lullaby
Makes you love and makes you cry;
Says hello and says goodbye
When you’re alone…
In the field or on the plow
On the road you’re traveling now,
That diesel lullaby
Will take you home.
That diesel lullaby
Makes you love and makes you cry;
Says hello and says goodbye
When you’re alone…
In the field or on the plow
On the road you’re traveling now,
That diesel lullaby
Will take you home.
No Worries
Lyrics
No Worries
I got a sign hung on my front porch;
I got lies to sell today.
You know I once was a collector,
But now they just get in the way.
I thought our love would last forever.
I thought that you’d always be mine;
But now you think that you know better,
I think I’ll just step out of the line.
‘Cuz I woke up today and thought some more;
And it ain’t you I’m living for,
But no worries,
It don’t matter anymore.
You were my first and my last girlfriend
We had our first kiss playing spoons.
The we danced all night to Lead Zeppelin
Underneath the ring around the moon.
Time has a way of taking over
Yesterday’s remembered time;
I still have that four-leaf clover,
But now I don’t believe in signs.
‘Cuz I woke up today and thought some more;
And it ain’t you I’m living for,
But no worries,
It don’t matter anymore.
I guess you’ll probably want this old house,
And most of everything inside.
For a while I was mad as all get out,
But that was just my wounded pride.
Over there is grandma’s book ends,
And there’s the crib we put the boys in;
And there’s the drink I gave your boyfriend;
It had a lethal dose of poison.
Cuz I woke up today and thought some more;
And it ain’t you I’m living for,
But no worries,
It don’t matter anymore.
The Beholder
Lyrics
The Beholder
I… Dreams
Once upon a time I had the world
Tamed and tethered to a string,
Dancing like a paper kite
Spinning aimless circles in the wind—
But then one day the string let go
And I swore I heard it sing,
But it only cried and cussed and cawed,
“What kind of stupid engineer
Would put on me this flimsy,
Lousy, stupid, broken wing?”
In the eyes of the beholder
A dream can really be most anything.
II… Love
I had a rich girl in the mountains
And I had a poor girl who lived out by the sea;
The rich girl wanted money
And the poor girl wanted me
I took the rich girls money
So the poor girl could be free;
Somehow they found each other
And that’s the irony….
In the eyes of the beholder,
Through years of perfect diligence,
Are superbly trained to see
The lingering trail of crumbs of love
Left behind so thoughtfully by me.
III… Faith
Sometimes I really wonder
If Lazarus was dead inside his tomb,
Or if Mary carried grumpy Jesus
Preaching from within her perfect womb?
But it sure makes living easy
When wonder fills the room;
I heard Jesus got his halo
From the ring around the moon.
In the eyes of the beholder
The beginning was over way too soon;
And though we know the song
The scattered sharps and flattened fifths
Make the chorus so difficult
And absurdly out of tune.
IV Reason
I have a friend who sees the world
Like he is staring into a clear and glassy ball,
But he cannot change the interplay
And keep us from bouncing off the walls.
It’s life inside a vacuum
Where no one hears you call,
And the abstruse laws of physics
Won’t stop you when fall—
While the eyes of the beholder
Cannot distinguish what is big
From what is small;
And the eyes of the beholder,
Like a black hole in gravity,
Must somehow pretend
To hold it all.
Portland Harbor
Lyrics
Portland Harbor
The sun lifts slow over Mackworth’s Island.
Another night on the Old Port Road
Drinking whiskey with an old mate’s lady,
Both of us too tired to be alone.
A buddy’s wife is sacred scripture,
But the sea is wide when the trip is long.
He jumped ship in some Asian harbor.
Now nothing’s right when everything is wrong.
For Love is the fickle daughter
Of a raging Furey from the edge of time.
She comes and goes like eastern waters.
And Love will always make you change your mind.
My wife took off with a land-locked farmer;
She took my kid and that old dog, too.
They live up north now in Aroostook County:
Potatoes is all her new guy knows to do;
But he comes home damn every evening,
And comes to her bed damn every night,
But he don’t dream of distant shorelines,
And probably never lost a girl or won a fight.
For Love is the fickle daughter
Of a raging Furey from the edge of time.
She comes and goes like eastern waters.
And Love will always make you change your mind.
Next ebb tide, I’m back on water,
Load up coal from Richard’s Bay.
I won’t be back to see my daughter
Before late April or maybe early May;
Then I think I’ll tramp on a stinking oiler,
Go anywhere’s old sailors go;
Or I might come back to Portland Harbor:
Maybe, but I guess I never know.
For Love is the fickle daughter
Of a raging Furey from the edge of time.
She comes and goes like eastern waters.
And Love will always make you change your mind.
Love will always make you change your mind.
The Rogue
Lyrics
The Rogue
I kicked up my Indian and started out to ride;
I finally listened to the voice I had inside.
I told my old boss he could just go to hell;
I’ve been there myself and I know it all too well.
I rode through the days, and I rode through the nights.
Hell, I’d go anywhere if the feeling it was right.
I gave up on thinking that my life had any plans
Dreams are just chains I cannot understand—
I’m a rogue,
Just a rogue
On the road.
I helped a trucker near Reno
Get his rig out of a ditch;
He gave me twenty dollars
And just said that “life’s I just a bitch.”
But when he drove away
He gave me three blasts of his horn:
The sweetest song I’ve ever heard
Since the day that I was born.
I slept in a graveyard in Three Way Tennessee
With a gal that I met from Boca Chica Key.
She held my hand and told me:
“There ain’t no love that lasts,
But living alone is just a pain in the ass.”
They’re rogues,
Both Rogues
On the road.
I been to Beebeetown to Birdseye,
Toad Suck to Possum Trot;
Found a girl in Brainy Boro;
lost some cops in Kittyhawk—
Lost a wheel in Istabulah;
Lost a fight in Bowling Green,
Caught a mess of trout in Ten Sleep,
I sang a song in Aberdeen—
I know the clacking sound of coal cars
Ain’t the same as hotshot trains;
The smell of grass in Illinois
Ain’t the same in Western Maine;
The taste of dust in Arkansas
Ain’t the same in Idaho;
I just close my eyes and feel the curves
And let my Indian go—
She’s my rogue,
My rogue
On the road.
Forty miles outside
Of some old Wyoming town
My Indian blew a gasket
And my iron horse went down.
I laid her down beside the road
And started out to hitch;
That trucker was right—
Life is just a bitch—
I’m happy enough out here
Traveling alone
I got this whole damn country
And every road to call my home.
I’m dirty and poor,
But let it just be said
That freedom is better
Than any feather bed—
I’m a rogue,
Just a rogue
I’m a rogue,
Just a rogue
On the road…
Goodbye Lullaby
Lyrics
My Sweet Lullaby
Roses love sunshine;
Violets love dew.
Angels in heaven
Know I love you.
I am the nighttime;
You are the day—
Everyone else
Can get out of the way.
Get out of my way
And please let me be;
You’re blocking my road
To eternity.
Stand to the side
And let me go by.
Just let me keep singing
My sweet lullaby.
I love the morning’s
Rosey fingers of dawn;
I love the dark
When the shadows are gone.
I love the old porch swing
And you by my side.
I’ll love you forever
And I don’t have to try.
Get out of my way
And please let me be;
You’re blocking my road
To eternity.
Stand to the side
And let me go by.
Just let me keep singing
My sweet lullaby.
I love when you sing
Those old country songs,
The ones I keep singing
But I always get wrong.
Life can’t go left
When everything’s right;
Your my angel from heaven
And my sweet bye and bye.
Get out of my way
And please let me be;
You’re blocking my road
To eternity.
Stand to the side
And let me go by.
Just let me keep singing
My sweet lullaby.
And just let me keep singing
Your sweet lullaby;
I love you forever,
And I don’t have to try.
The Parting Glass
Lyrics
The Parting Glass
Of all the money ere I had, I spent it in good company,
And all the harm I’ve ever done, alas was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit, to memory now I can’t recall.
So fill to me the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Of all the comrades ere I had, they’re sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts ere I had , they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should go and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all.
So fill to me the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
When the eyes meet the soul; that’s Fitzy!
~Lenny Megliola, WEEI Radio, Boston MA
Fitz’s Writing on Amazon Books
Click on Any Title
Fires in The Belly
A masterful weaver of songs whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre.
~Spirit of Change Magazine
Foreward
When I first met John Fitzsimmons in 1989, I thought the Old Man of the Mountains had shaved off his beard, picked up a guitar, and was trying his luck as a folksinger. He was a bit late, covered with small pieces of dirt, and apologized tersely for his condition, saying he’d just finished building a stone wall for a neighbor. He shook my hand and I knew he wasn’t lying, but I wondered what kind of a man prepared for a recording session by handling rough boulders. Several hours, and now several years later, Fitzy still makes me wonder, but I find I’m more often amazed than amused. His songs seem to come from deep within the New England earth. Sometimes burning with fire and rage, sometimes warm and gentle, but always honest and clear. In a voice that’s equal parts granite and brandy, John etches unsentimental portraits of real people facing life’s struggles and joys the only way they know how. Sometimes the characters manage to find some distant light, but it’s the journey, not the journey’s end, that’s important to John.
What makes this disparate collection believable is the road traveled by the writer. Over the past twenty years John has worked as a sailor, farmhand, logger, woodcarver, musician, storyteller, teacher, wrestling coach, and other jobs he refuses to talk about. For the past twelve years he’s held forth every Thursday night in the back tavern of the Colonial Inn in Concord, (once home to Henry David Thoreau’s family) and the place to go if you want to meet some real swamp Yankees, people who lived in these towns before the yuppie exodus made them suburbs. You’re sure to find these folks there: listening to the music, singing along, sucking down brews, and giving Fitzy a playfully hard time.
The other “voice” on this recording is the inspired production and musicianship of Seth Connelly, who plays far too many instruments far too well for a mere mortal. Seth has worked with John Gorka, Catie Curtis, Ellis Paul, Geoff Bartley and others: and when John hooked up with him a couple of years ago, these songs took on new colors and dimensions. they both share a complete trust in each others vision, as well as a friendship as strong as the songs they’ve created.
So I want you to listen to this friend of mine, John Fitzsimmons. His songs give voice to things we all can hear. Put this on, sit back, and hear for yourself…
Eric Kilburn
12/28/95
Campfire
Greatest Camp Songs of All Time
2003: Best Childrens Album of the Year
~Boston Parents Paper
Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist
gently leading us from the songs of our lives
to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well.
~Globe Magazine
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