Recorded by Walt Wilkins – Streetlight (2016)
Music and Lyrics by Owen Temple and Walt Wilkins
I may never be Monet, but I love it just as much
The silence, the canvas, the colors on the brush
It changes every morning, I never know what I might find
Some new mix of sun and clouds that last night left behind
I’m the painter by the lake, I’m out here everyday
Just trying to catch a shade of a slant of light across a wave
Keep it clear, tell a story, get some motion in the scene
And trust the one who sees it next— with the time and space between
This offering from the painter by the lake
I sell them on the weekends, tourists take them home
A frame of borrowed beauty like wine, like a poem
A memory of a feeling, wild and serene
A momentary balance of red and yellow, blue and green
I don’t do it for the money, I don’t do it for the praise
This is who I am and how I make my way
To set down the truth and the beauty that I see
That moves like water, like the wind through these trees
I’m the painter by the lake, I’m out here everyday
Just trying to catch a shade, a slant of light across a wave
Keep it clear, tell a story, get some motion in the scene
And trust the one who sees it next, with the time and space between
With this offering from the painter by the lake
So go and take this with you if you think you’ve got a place
For my best intentions, my humble saving grace
I don’t hold on to these pictures I always let them go
Into the wide creation from this little place I know
This offering from the painter by the lake