Vanity of Vanities
music, words, and performance by Elizabeth "Connie" Converse
(source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEH6T...)

I've done my best to get the notes that she plays, but there are a handful of moments where I "filled in" some "blanks"; by no means would I describe this transcription as anything close to "definitive"!

anyway, I find Connie Converse's music and life story to be just spellbinding, and and this was the only recording I could find of her singing and playing one of her piano songs (though I understand some others have been discovered and recorded by others). though I must say I prefer her songs with guitar, I thought this an interesting artifact and departure, with some beautiful imagery and certainly a different harmonic idiom than her from more well-known songs.

---

Vanity of Vanities

when I came home to Tombstone
there was man there who changed copper into gold
with a brown bucket full of cloudy water
and a magic ten-penny nail

"this will take a while," says he,
"put your pennies in the pail,
find yourself some scenery."

I don't know just where I went to
and I stayed longer than I meant to
walking in the crystal air
as I dreamed of fortune rare

when I came back to Tombstone
there was a man there who preached sinners into heav'n
with a frock coat that had a velvet collar
and a tongue I'd heard once before

"never mind your gold," says he,
"gold is a vanity
far from eternity
by the needle's eye, you know"

so when I came out of Tombstone
I was heaven-bound and qualified to go