DISCOGRAPHY & LYRICS

Legend has it that Mr. Joe Bell scattered seeds of a wildflower all over Ocracoke – it is locally known as the “joe bell” flower. They are  like the women of Ocracoke - this song is for them.   

JOE BELL FLOWERS

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

She’s singing in her kitchen
While she rocks and sews

Her man’s out on the water

“Old Drum” boiling on the stove

Through her kitchen curtains

A melody floats so sweet

On the breeze

Down the lane

To my heart

Across my sandy street

CHORUS:

Joe Bell flowers

Blooming brave in the rough 

Tempests may toss you

But you pull through

Joe Bell flowers

Beautiful and yet so tough

With some rain

A little sun

Just enough

You’ll become

Little crumbs

I find that bring me home

The ocean whispers softly

Through the cedars and the dunes

I whistle in my kitchen

Cooking up this little tune

I close my eyes to hear her

Sing her children down to sleep

And I weep

Nighty night

And sleep tight

And pray her soul to keep

CHORUS

(Instrumental)

Time will cast our seeds 

To the wind

And we’ll bloom here

And everywhere we’ve been

CHORUS

  This is my argument with circumstance. 

I BEG YOU TO STAY

Marcy Brenner, MRB Publishing LLC (ascap) with Noah Paley, Bostick Hill Music (bmi)

Here, in this I don’t know why
I’m shaking my fists at the sky
I’ve got four walls around me
Keeping my sadness at bay
I can’t eat, I don’t want to sleep
‘Cause I don’t want to dream today

CHORUS:

I beg you to stay

But you’re gone any way 

No matter how my heart still pleads

You’re gone far away

There’s nothing anyone can say

And all I can do

Is bleed

Here, in this every day

I make a sandwich and then I’m on my way

I walk out that door

To do all the things I did the day before

But now every breath, every step

Remind me of you even more

CHORUS

Here, in this great big unknown
Like an elephant, I’m sifting old bones

The memories come

And I wonder was it all really true
I look for an answer, for that one little dancer

In a world that’s forever missing you

I beg you to stay

But you’re gone any way 

No matter how my heart still pleads

You’re gone far away

There’s nothing anyone can say

And all I can do

Is grieve

This was a commission for Annie. If her cat could talk, she might say this.

MEOW

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap) 

I was lost and gone astray

Wandering alone in the dark

When your auntie and uncle find me

And bring me home from the park

You might say I’m truly beautiful 

But you would never call me sweet

I’m a Calico cat with sea green eyes

I lay beside you while you sleep

Chorus:

You know I love ya 

Even though I never show ya

You know I love ya

But I’m too cool to let you know

Meow (I remark to the lark)

Meow (I say to the stray)

Meow

You know I love ya but I’m just 

too cool to show ya

INSTRUMENTAL

I take the choicest spot in any room

To drape my feline bones across

I take my canned food hot

Topped with a homemade tuna sauce

I meow to go outside

And purr you awake when I want to eat

I know I make you happy

I’m sure I make your life complete

CHORUS

This is my study of the choice to feel lucky or unlucky, just like happiness.

SLEEPING WITH LUCKY
Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

It’s my turn

Close up tight

Mop the bar

Cut off the lights

Luck is the place we meet

Sleep-ing with luck-y tonight

CHORUS:

Luck is a stretch for the roses

One door opens and another closes

Luck sits next to me

Nonstop from New York to L.A.

I can’t count 

The ways of luck 

Outrageous fortune in the sky

Lightning strikes

A winning hand

Sleep-ing with luck-y tonight

CHORUS

Happenstance

Up in the clouds

Destined to fate

A sweet romance

You’re my love

You’re my lucky break

Sleep-ing with luck-y tonight

CHORUS

Luck sits next to me

Sleep-ing with luck-y tonight

  Inanimate objects we have around us 

hold memory.

MY LIVE OAK

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap) & 

Marty Morgan (bmi) 

Mom unfolds her final list 

By each treasure is a name

She needs to make sure each child knows

What will pass to them one day

All I want is the kitchen table

Though it leans on worn-out wheels

It bears witness to being a family 

And how that kind of love feels 

CHORUS:

This humble stick of furniture

Weathered by a hundred years 

Bathed in milk and honey 

Stained sweetly by our tears

Burnished by crazy laughter

This battered hero full of hope

Mama’s table is my live oak

A creaky tilted table 

With roots no one can see

A memory in every groove

Once a branch from an ancient tree

A cool hand on a fevered brow

Hands of cards into the night

High chairs and heartaches

Are all there in black and white

CHORUS

Instrumental (half a verse)

BRIDGE

I see a cupcake with sprinkles

And a little white box of treats

I trace the smooth round edges

Where the generations meet

CHORUS

  This is our jaded love song.

EVERYONE STARTS OUT IN LOVE  

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

Wash me with laughter

Change my ever after

Where we’ll end up is anyone’s guess

Love, at best, makes a mess

We’ll both acquiesce 

Everyone starts out in love

It starts sweet like this

Indescribable bliss

The first tender flames of new love

With a word the tide turns

We both will be burned

Everyone starts out in love

CHORUS

Everyone starts out in love

Blind to escapable sorrow

This could all end before it’s begun

Let’s worry about our future tomorrow

Instrumental

So long to my heart

It’ll break when we part

It won’t matter how hard we try

The moon’s in our eyes

All I hear are your sighs

Everyone starts out in love

Everyone starts out in love

Everyone starts out in love

CHORUS

A cross country leap of faith.

DOWN THE DRIVEWAY HOME

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

CHORUS:

Un, deux, trois, et puis quatre et cinq 

Un, deux, trois, et puis quatre et cinq 

Un, deux, trois, et puis quatre et cinq 

Un, deux, trois

Et puis quatre et cinq

Et puis quatre et cinq

This is the day I get away

I’m breaking out of a golden cage 

I’ll pack my old guitar

Hit the road

Make a new start

Tonight I’ll sleep in another state

Around a curve and through a gate

Drag my achin’ bones 

Down the driveway home

Down the driveway home

CHORUS   

Instrumental 

Two-lane roads in four-wheel drive

A skeleton on every side 

Miles rush under my feet

It’s my last 

Cross-country leap

Brand new boots on an empty road 

A lonely Graceland, washed in snow

Come tomorrow I’m gone

Down the driveway home

Down the driveway home

CHORUS 

When we first me, I told Lou about my poor life expectancy after having received a stem cell transplant for advanced breast cancer, and the words he said inspired this song.

FIVE MINUTES

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

The sun is setting low without a sound

And paints a glorious end to a perfect day

Friends are leaving messages

Calling all day

Where you been?

“We’re okay”

We say, “We’re in love”

You’re my hope for love

And you fill my lonely world 

With melody and a song

Your promise in the making

Is a gamble that you’re staking

Odds are sketchy at best

That love can hedge a sweeter bet

CHORUS:

I’d rather see the sun rise only once

Than to miss your smile

And another morning with you

Than to live one more day without you

I’d rather love you five minutes

Than never at all

Bridge:

We surface long enough

For the naked truth to walk in the room

And then proceed to sit right down

On the couch between us

Instrumental

CHORUS

A million prayers for time

Won’t convince the tide

All the wishes in the world 

Won’t stop this train

It will ride as it pleases

Into the sunset with both of us

Either way

CHORUS

I’d rather love you five minutes

Than to never have loved you

Never loved you at all

No matter how difficult life can be, 

the daffodils still bloom every year.

 ANOTHER YEAR BLOOMS

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

My garden in springtime

Returns you to me

In heavenly hues

That could make the living weep

The earthly fragrance of a rose

Fades from me with each season grows

Something new

Another year blooms

Your hopes and your dreams

Pass down to me

And keep you ever by my side

Like the moon pulls on the tide

You call on a celestial dime

From a mysterious room

Another year blooms

Bridge:

Every year the rhythm of the daffodils in spring

Reminds me of your hope 

To have another chance to sing

Even still, now without you

In spite of winter’s gloom

Another year blooms

I have in a drawer

Souvenirs and memories

Silver strands sealed in time

Reaching across the fine line in between 

Our laughter and our tears

It’s a bittersweet perfume

Another year blooms

Another year blooms

A friend pulled out the empty pockets of his cut off jean shorts on the each at South Point and, while looking around all his family and friends, said , "Man, I am the richest man in the world!"

THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

Standing on the edge of the ocean 

Stretched across a canvas of sand

Under the moon on a blanket of stars

This is where it all began

He said no matter what ever happens

I’ll always come back to this spot

Back to summers of boyhood

No matter how much money I’ve got

CHORUS:

I’m the richest man in the world

If ever my pockets seem empty

All I ever have to do

Is find my way back home to you

When stars disappeared behind streetlights

He said I’ve gotta get out of this place

I wanna see the milky way cross the sky

Like freckles on my little girl’s face

Bridge:

God willin’ we’ll all grow old together

Sea turtles always heading for home

Time moves through the seasons

As we watch it disappear

Instrumental 

CHORUS

One day the tide 

Will carry us

Out to sea

Maybe even if it's not true yet, I know it will be all right ... I keep telling myself.

 I’M ALL RIGHT

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

The newsboy bikes from house to house

He’s on his early morning rounds

For me it’s still the night

I’ll be up until the sunrise breaks

But I’m all right

I’m all right

I hear the birds start their singin’ 

In my ears your words are stingin’

A fresh new day dawns in shattered light 

I’m still breathin’ but I’m barely awake

But I’m all right

I’m all right

Bridge:

So I’ll wash my face of you and act like I’m okay

Nothing I could do or say could have  (arpeggios)

Made you to stay

Not for one more day

But I’m all right

Instrumental

I’ll make it to the brighter side of you

One breath at a time and I’ll make it through

I’ll wait for another stroke at midnight

And maybe tomorrow my heart won’t ache

But I’m all right

I’m all right

I should give Lana Rose co-credit for this song because we made it up traveling on Hwy 101 on a foggy summer day when we had just met.

SAN LUIS OBISPO

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

CHORUS:

San Luis Obispo

Is where we want to be

No matter (no matter) where we roam

It’s where we call our home

When we’re on the highway

And we don’t know where we be

Just follow all the road signs

They’ll take you to San Luis

CHORUS

When we’re on life’s pathway

And we don’t the future see

Just follow where the road winds

Down the coast to San Luis

CHORUS -- Instrumental

When we reach the hilltop

Enchanted by its charm

We see gold hills and oak trees

We’ve made it without harm

CHORUS

Instrumental

Marcy wrote this back in the mid '80s while attending Radford University in Virginia. The house where she rented a room had a summer sleeping porch, where this song was composed on a

 rainy July day.

FIZZY BLUE WATER

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

 This song is from an enchanting evening on the

 Big Sur California coast.

On the edge of an age-old romance

Cliffs above a rolling sea

Silver frames on a grand piano

Posed in a black and white dream

There’s a thin black line for an eyebrow

An angry jaw

Sipping blue water between bites

Would she know the man sitting with me now?

CHORUS: 

The candle’s flame illuminates the past

Shining cobalt into our eyes through the glass

Life today is not so different than she knew

Even then a bottle could be a 

haunting shade of blue

  The hairs around her face are all 

smoke-stained brown

And ironed in place

A handkerchief tucked into her handbag

Chanel No. 5 clinging to the lace

His profile is her shadow

It could be her sitting there

He has all of her luminous beauty

And his father’s broken heart

Instrumental BRIDGE

Our steps crunch a rhythm up the red-rock path 

Nothing in this world’s left to say

Tender fog whispers past my face

And leaves a wet kiss on my cheek

CHORUS

   We are all under the same sky, why can't we take care of each other?

MAKING PEACE TONIGHT

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro  (ascap)

A lonely bell calls my name

Down a long and crowded city street

Sending out a beacon 

Shining on winter’s bittersweet

Tonight I’ll make the same wish

I’ll get down on my knees

I’ll cast my coins with the others

Into an endless sea 

Anything can happen

If I can just believe

A bridge of love between us

All around the world

If miracles can happen

Then hate would lose the bitter fight

The impossible can happen

Like making peace tonight

The sunset on the ocean

Is someone’s early morning sun 

The moon that lights my midnight

When another day is done

Bridge:

No one’s sleepin’ hungry

Or struggling in vain

People of the world are safe

We’re bearing each other’s pain 

And we agree to disagree

Anything can happen

If I can just believe

A bridge of love between us

All around the world

If miracles can happen

Then hate would lose the bitter fight

The impossible can happen

Like making peace tonight

The lyrics of this song were written in Paris.  Years later Lou provided the perfect 

French folk song music.

MAESTRO

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

In a café on Picasso   street 

Drinking memories warm and sweet 

I spend an afternoon with Maestro 

He dares me to be strong

Have clean closets or a book of songs 

Have a smoke with me and tickle the beast

Chorus:

His is a story that will not end 

A rip in a page that will never mend

A grinning coyote that leaves me to play 

With a kiss and a kick

Before slipping away 

Instrumental

Maestro can see into the heart

The truest story inside the art

Catching jewels as they fall from my pen

He still visits from time to time

A song on the radio; a brilliant line

A red-tailed hawk gliding on a breeze

Chorus

This is the first song we wrote together. 

HOME TO ME 

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

I used to say I had no closet space for love  

No room for a set of demands to rise above 

There’s no telling the future with 

some kind of magic  

Not to live while alive, well that would be tragic 

Chorus:

He’s racing up the stairs to my front door  

Smiling cheek to cheek 

He’s coming home 

He’s coming home, to me

Home to me

He used to say that he would rather live alone

Than to sleep in a castle that’s not a home

There’s no telling the future with 

some kind of magic  

Not to live while alive would be tragic 

Chorus

Instrumental Break 

This is the dream we’re lucky to be living

A portion of grace we’ve both been given

There’s no telling the future with 

some kind of magic  

Not to live while alive would be tragic 

Chorus 

I found myself looking at the newspaper after a breakup to read his horoscope. What was I thinking it would tell me?

SCORPIO  

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

Last night a raging river dream 

Took my previous life downstream

It went under in the icy black swirling flow 

Gone forever like the dreams, I have to let go

For so long I dreamed him every night

To be the blue sky and sunshine all of his life

I can’t see the signs; I’m on the wrong road

A habit of sadness to break down slow

When I open the funny pages, I still look for him

In every morning paper I look for Scorpio

Instrumental 

A third wife sparkles in the family jewels  

Asleep on a chaise, a mirage by the pool

But its fools gold under that rainbow

Make no mistake, he was never my home 

And when I open the funny pages, 

I still look for him

In every morning paper I look for Scorpio

Bridge

I was searching for information

A road map or revelation

Then I stopped the daily news 

coming to my door

‘Cause it’s not about Scorpio no more

It’s not about Scorpio no more

We gave the copyright to this song to 

Duck United Methodist Church, where we were married. The words come from a

 Disciples class there.

FOLLOW ME

written by Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro

(Copyright Duck United Church)

Follow me 

I know and I love you 

Follow me  

I give my life for you   

Follow me 

Christ is the door, to my salvation 

I will be safe always for I believe

He protects me from false witness  

The lure of sin, my soul from greedy thieves

The Great Shepherd, who never leaves me

My truest friend, a gift from God above

The light of man, the way to life abundant

All who follow are brothers in His love

CHORUS

His arms embrace me, with deep compassion

I am healed, no matter what my sin

He leads me to the, river abundant 

When by my faith, I receive Him in

And I follow, Him to the Father

Eternal life, now and ever more 

He is the answer, to every question

His is a cry my heart cannot ignore

CHORUS

We wrote this song when we were cleaning up after hurricane Isabel, the flood of hurricane Alex and then a stray water spout all came through.

HURRICANE, FLOOD, TORNADO 

Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

The weather man’s warning 

It won’t be long  

I’m still on the porch

Singin’ a song   

The water’s comin’ up 

It’s blowin’ outside 

No more ferries 

Will be sailin’ outta Hyde 

Hurricane, flood, tornado 

When the first one hit 

I just watched it and prayed  

Last one, I packed it up, 

Turned out I could’ve stayed 

Old friends think I’m crazy 

They know I’m insane 

They say that kind of faith

Is bound to bring you some pain 

Hurricane, flood, tornado 

(Instrumental Break) 

Bridge:

The wind and the waves  

Will do what they do  

I won’t make it through the storms without you   

Hurricane, flood, tornado 

Hurricane, hurricane

Hurricane, flood, tornado

 I wrote the words to this song to "go first" and express what it is like  to walk around  as an advanced cancer survivor.

DEAD GIRL WALKING

(Marcy Brenner & Lou Castro (ascap)

Dead girl walking 

On a lonesome road headed to a chair 

Dread comes knocking

Racking my brain for one good prayer

Dead girl walking

Dropped down in a basement nightmare

IVs and TVs squawking

Balding heads fight despair

Bridge: 

Tragedy happens every day

This fear I carry has many names

Dead girl walking

Please loan me strength I can’t repay

I beg you, keep talking

This shadow never quite goes away

Dead girl walking

That needle stitchin’ my well-laid plans

Uncertainty is stalking

My future’s held in hungry hands

Bridge: 

Tragedy happens every day

This fear I carry has many names

I’m still walking, I have survived

I am a woman who’s finally, finally alive

Dead girl walking

Dead girl walking

  Sometimes love is so deep there are no words, and if we were to try, it might result in

 endless tears.

BEAUTIFUL SORROW OF LOVE

Marcy Brenner and Lou Castro (ascap)

You had to leave town without saying goodbye 

Life called you home but you didn’t say why 

We talk on the phone to make up the time 

You keep telling me everything is fine 

I hang up and wonder if you’re really okay 

Now I can feel what you didn’t say 

At the end of that line, 

staring at your kitchen floor 

Leaving out details that would’ve told me more 

Chorus:

Beautiful sorrow of love is calling 

Tears overflow, sparkling streams falling 

Cross time and space 

From your heart to mine  

Is the love unspoken between all the lines  

Instrumental

I’m tucked in the safety of my family’s love 

Basking in rays of milk and honey from above 

All we can do is breathe and hold on 

Words float between us and then they’re gone 

Bridge: A river of truth through an open hand 

An hourglass can hold an ocean of sand 

The mind can’t explain what the

 heart understands 

Chorus