the cherry tree  - philadelphia -  '77  -  song notes


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on this page, i give brief biographical and contextual information about each song,  how it came to be written, etc.   for a more detailed biographical memoir  by kendell kardt, click the link: ' the poems of bernard rudolph ' on the home page.   be sure to read the disclaimer before proceeding.  


click on the title of any song to go to the 'lyrics' page.


1)   amazon  -   i wrote this song in 1972 in Marin county.  i didn't perform it for several years.  it refers to a murder i witnessed on the streets of NYC in the early '60's.  i saw a young man struck with a knife as he was buying a sandwich at a deli counter.  he never saw his assailant, who vanished in the crowd.  the young man died almost instantly, pierced to the heart.   in 1972 i had experienced a number of crushing disappointments.   i felt shaken and aware of my own fragility.   i thought again of the young man i had been impotent to save.




2)   ( funky song tag ) happy birthday  -  for notes on 'funky song' click here.     'happy birthday' speaks for itself.




3)   hey, buddy  -    i spent much of 1977 intermittently living in NYC again after many years.  i had left Chicago, where i was comfortable and often happy,  to seek my fortune one more time in the big, rotten apple.  don't ask why.  i was a idiot to go there.  i soon discovered that virtually nothing had changed about the place except that, if possible it even colder and more depressing than i remembered.  one night, having a late whiskey in some nearly deserted bar,  i had a vision of Tony Bennett singing 'One More for the Road'.  i wrote this as my contribution to the song literature for lost, down, and out, inebriates everywhere.




4)   take my hand  -  i wrote this for my second wife, Carla Richardson.   perhaps it also intimates the new spiritual afflatus i would experience living in New England.   in any case, Carla and i were happy together for 8 years until wanderlust took me in her cold arms again.




5)   the road  -   i wrote this several years after a road trip with my band, RIG.  we stopped overnight somewhere  in rural Wisconsin and dropped mescaline.  among other things, i experienced the sudden revelation that very ordinary Queen Anne's Lace growing beside the road was actually an alien life-form from the planet Venus, that turned its 'antennae' toward the stars each night to receive messages from outer space.  i also achieved a profound metaphysical insight into the 'meaning'  of abandoned country roads,  which i expound in detail here.




 6)  tutu & the cannibals  -   for a note on this song, click here.




7)   country lullaby  -  for a note on this song, click here.




8)   gypsy dance  -   for a note on this song, click here.




9)   my delight  -     for a note on this song, click here.




10)  walk on the water   -   for a note on this song, click here.