
I enjoy traditional ballads and tales. The nineteenth-century legends and folksongs I perform enliven my own lineages from Ireland and England through the Maritime Provinces to New England and along the old National Road to the Ohio River Valley. Reflecting family heritage, I’m apt to recall lumberjacks, boatmen, railroaders, miners, and farmers. Devoted to American Romanticism as I am, I’m likely to sing the verses of lyrical poems. In this way, I’ve interpreted poets ranging from Emily Dickinson to E. E. Cummings. I’ve also transformed the prose of authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville into songs for theatrical settings. As a playwright I’ve produced beggar’s operas, composing ballads in the musical styles of the nineteenth century to tell the multiracial history of Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. Several songs from these shows have escaped the script to be recorded by other performers. I’m an original songwriter as well, telling stories of my own life and times. Youthful treatments of nature, friendship, and community were in hopes of leading a humble and harmless life. My songwriting since then has been about how to sustain these lighthearted quests for wisdom into middle age and beyond. Dillon Bustin |
TABLE OF CONTENT (Click for direct access)
TIMELINE – Music, Film, Essays, Career
MUSICAL REPOSITORY
Ballads and Songs of Indiana (1974)
Dillon Bustin’s Almanac (1975)
Dillon Bustin’s Diary (1976)
Boatman Row (1977)
Steamboatin’ Days (1978)
Look Way Out to Sea (1980)
Folksongs from Hither and Yon (1986, with Bob Lucas)
Tidebook I: The Captain’s Daughters (1993)
Tidebook II: The Education of Joshua Slocum (1994)
Songs from Walden Pond (1994)
Tidebook III: Tallman on the Dock (1995)
My Lost Youth: Bustin Sings Longfellow (1995)
The Wheel on the School (1995)
The Play of Youth (1995)
Lotus Dickey’s Farewell: Bustin Sings Dickey (1996)
Songs for Sailing Alone(1996)
Sailing Alone, Part II (1997)
Booming Ben (1999)
Frozen In (2000)
Ishmael at the Spouter Inn (2001)
Moby Dick the Musical (2001)
American Renaissance (2002 )
Willow of the Wilderness: Emersonian Songs (2003)
I Like My Body: Bustin Sings Cummings (2007)Top Eye Open (2016)
Occasional Verse (compiled 2023)
WRITING
The Morrow’s Uprising: William Morris and the English Folk Revival (1982)
If You Don’t Outdie Me: The Legacy of Brown County (1983)
His Ceaseless, Ever Changing Song (1995)
Hands of the Ancestors: An Assembly of Algonquian Artists (2000)
Luther Burbank: A Hunger for Perfect Foods (2009)
Essay on a Flapjack: Philology and the Urvolk (2009)
Rockport Pilgrimage (2009)
A Song for Hunting the Wren (2010)
A Brightness Like Sunshine (2010)
Top Eye Open (2016)
The Fifth Time I Read Walden (2023)
Dance on Judgment Day (2023)
What Gives (2023)
VIDEOS & LIVE PERFORMANCES
The Rain-Crows – Interview by Duane Busik 1976
Squirrel has a Bushy Tail (Trad) Performed by Dillon Bustin 2019
This Moment Here – By Dillon Bustin 2021
My Life Needs You – Songs of Dillon Bustin performed by his friends 2023
This page is an ongoing and yet unfinished project, the very first version of what will become a media repository of some of Dillon Bustin’s prolific creativity.
Please come back regularly as the library of links will continue to grow.
Dillon Bustin’s Almanac (1975)

Songs composed in 1975, released by June Appal as JA45 in 1983
Co-produced by Bob Lucas and Grey Larsen.
In 1974, in the depths of a great economic recession, I took refuge in the hinterland of Southern Indiana and set about learning the traditional music and dance of the region while living with as much ecological awareness and local self-sufficiency as possible. Songs from that experience spread far and wide by word of mouth, and were eventually released as a phonograph album by June Appal Recordings in 1983. Dillon Bustin’s Almanac, is presently being re-mixed and re-mastered by Grey Larsen for internet distribution.
Banjo and Vocals – Dillon Bustin
Congas – Saaku Saar
Hammered Dulcimer – Malcolm Dalglish
Fiddle – Pete Sutherland
Flute & Guitar – Grey Larsen
Guitar – Bob Lucas
Piano – Willy Schwarz
- Moonshine in the White Pines
- Around My Barn
- More Wood
- This Time of Year
- Awaken to Dreams
- Gardening
- Mae Smith
- La Belle Riviere
- Show Me a Sign
- Shantyboatin’
Download Lyrics of Almanac.
Dillon Bustin’s Diary (1976)

- Woman Like a Storm
- Lean Back and Drowse
- Fine New Companions
- I’m on the Run
- Dreaming of You Again
- Ways to Go Before I’m Home
- Making Love to a Melody
- Slow Banjo (You Are My Patron)
- Square Dance of Life
Boatman Row (1977)

- Buffalo Gals
- Cranberry Bogs
- Great Big Ditch
- Rally through the Cane Brake
- Wedding Song of Adam and Eve
- The Lice and the Fleas
- Auction Block
- Sangaree
- Sabbath Has No End
- Lower Mississippi
Steamboatin’ Days (1978)

- Brown Skin Creole Girl
- Bayou Sara
- Rowdy Soul
- Stavin’ Chain / Poor Shine
- Goin’ to Ruin
- The Katy and the Jim Lee
- Come on My Pink
- Goin’ Up the River
- Talk about Your Greenbacks
Look Way Out to Sea (1980)

- Starlight
- Peaceful Times
- Look Way Out to Sea
- I’ll be Your Radio
- Magic Words
- Blue Girl
- The Book Is Written
- You and I
- June Bug
Folksongs from Hither and Yon (1986, with Bob Lucas)

- The Months of the Year
- Ye Maidens of Ontario
- Workin’ on a Pushboat
- Henry the Driver Boy
- State of Illinois
- Shawneetown
- Squirrel’s Got a Bushy Tail
- Bayou Sara
- Stavin’ Chain / Poor Shine
- Cairo Town
- This Whole Round World
- Sangaree
- Have Your Lamps Gone Out?
Tidebook I : The Captain’s Daughters (1993)

- Grandad Was a Sailor
- The Escape of Randall Burton
- Thirty Dirty Sailors
- Poor Little Hearts
- The City of Columbus (Humane Society)
- Earth Crust and Star Dust
- Entracte: Menemsha Jig
- Lead Lightly Light
- In the Old Days
- All Aboard the Spray
- Come to Read the Good Book
- Nina Do Your Duty
- Finale: Hidden Heart (by Matt Darriau)
Tidebook II : The Education of Joshua Slocum (1994)

- Slocum Goes Aground
- The Western Sea
- On the Bay of Fundy / Happy as a Clam
- Hey, Joshua!
- Spare the Rod
- Never Bluff the Duff
- Slow Coming Home
- Coasting Off the Mainland
- Shanteys: Poor Old Reuben Ranzo
- Shanteys: Paddy Doyle’s Boots
- Shanteys: Johnny Booker
- Shanteys: Blow, Boys, Blow
Songs from Walden Pond (1994)

- Prelude: Direction of His Dreams
- The Wind that Blows
- Time Is but the Stream
- Rapt in a Reverie
- What Is the Railroad to Me?
- I Am No More Lonely
- Sauntering Hornpipe
- The House that I Built
- While I Hoe My Beans
- As I Stroll into Town
- Earth’s Eye
- Lull Myself Asleep
- First Snow (by Grey Larsen)
- The Innocent Hare
- Great Scale of Being
- Rife with Life
- Home Cosmography
“….In 1992, facing the need to be self-employed and devote myself to songwriting and performing, I put everything I had learned about theater and music, as well as everything I had learned from Thoreau’s ideas, into composing Songs from Walden Pond. Pianist Jacqueline Schwab and I worked up a recital version of the songs interspersed with spoken recitations; we performed the piece extensively in the northeast from Maine to Maryland.” Read the complete commentary down below from Dillon Bustin himself: “The Fifth Time I Read Walden“.
Tidebook III : Tallman on the Dock (1995)

- Clues
- Tallman on the Dock
- Chappaquonsett’s Bounteous Stream
- Little Black Lamb of God
- Say I’m a Simpleton
- The Giantess
- Works and Days
My Lost Youth: Bustin Sings Longfellow (1995)

- My Lost Youth
- A Psalm of Life
- Fire of Driftwood
- The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
The Wheel on the School (1995)

- Lowlands of Holland
- Were You Once a Girl?
- Stork Dance
- Cherry Tree
- Tin-Maker Man
- Stay with the Boat
- Song of the Storks
- Jeremiah the Prophet
The Play of Youth (1995)

- Betwixt and Between
- Lucky Stars
- My Destiny
- Jehovah Understands You
Lotus Dickey’s Farewell: Bustin Sings Dickey (1996)

- What a Good Life
- Such a Long Time, Old Friend
- Adam and Eve in the Garden
- God Made the Woman for the Man
- David Playing on His Harp
- David Loved Bathsheba
- Has Heaven Gone and Left the Door Ajar?
- Perilous Voyage
- Dark Valley
- Lotus Dickey’s Farewell
Songs for Sailing Alone(1996)

- Nothing Ever Happens
- Listen to Me Captain
- The Finest Kind
- Old Man in the Moon
- Human Beings
- Islanders
- Castillo Chicos
- Sailing Alone
- Y Asi la Vida Es
- Seventy-Two Days
- Dollar, Dollar
- Let the Gods Drink
Sailing Alone, Part II (1997)

- Blank White Page
- Monster of the Deep
- Diamond Jubilee
- Arafura Sea
- Hard to Be a Clam
- How Lovely It is
- I Am a Boer
- The World Is Flat
- Salty, Sour, Bitter, Sweet
- Searching for Ascension Island
- Waltzing Up the Acushnet
Booming Ben (1999)

- Booming Ben
- Won’t Be With You Long
- Jimmy Green’s Song
- Come Into the Nest
- Birds of a Feather
Frozen In (2000)

- Take a Breath of Air
- The Navarch Is Stuck
- The Sky and the Ground
- My Life Needs You
Ishmael at the Spouter Inn (2001)

- Meditation and Water
- When I Go to Sea
- Dark and Dismal Night
- Pagan Friend
- For Ever and for Aye
- Whaleman’s Chapel Hymn
Moby Dick the Musical (2001)

- True Rhymes
- Walk Around the Capstan
- My Own Skin
- Mad at Whales
- Rover, Red Rover
American Renaissance (2002 )

- Always Something Sings (Emerson)
- Pioneers, O Pioneers (Whitman)
- My Lost Youth (Longfellow)
- Little Kingdom (Alcott)
- Sic Vita (Thoreau)
- I Started Early (Dickinson)
- Meditation and Water (Melville)
- Pagan Friend (Melville)
- If You Were Coming in the Fall (Dickinson)
- Smoke (Thoreau)
- Henry’s Flute (Alcott)
- The Fire of Driftwood (Longfellow)
- Song of the Bleeding Throat (Whitman)
- Brahma (Emerson)
Willow of the Wilderness: Emersonian Songs (2003)

Click on titles to listen for free on Youtube
- Goodbye Proud World
- Each Day a Festival
- Fable
- Concord Hymn
- Hamatreya / Earth Song
- Berries and Honey and Love
- Humble Bee
- Patch of Meadow
- My Brothers
- Nantasket
- Patient Stars
- Musketaquid
- Two Rivers
- Brahma
- The Woods
- Old Age
- Walden
I Like My Body: Bustin Sings Cummings (2007)

- In Just Spring
- I like my body
- if you can’t eat
- Anyone lived
- My father lived
- What if a which
- When serpents bargain
- I thank You God
- I carry your heart
Top Eye Open (2016)

- Fields of Plenty
- Own Your Own
- Didn’t He Say?
- Order In the Court
- Jump Jim Crow
- Can’t Hurry This Old Road
Occasional Verse (compiled 2023)

- When I Was a Child
- Brother Francis
- Days that I Was 10
- I Recognize You
- Sonnet Written at Rowe’s Wharf
- I Am Their Seed Courtship of Henry Longfellow
- This Moment Here
- The Courtship of Harry Longfellow
VIDEOS & LIVE PERFORMANCES
Copyright 2023 Dillon Bustin