John Gorka Home videos
28th homemade video (October 18, 2020)

On October 18, 2020 John wrote:"
One Song Concert and Home Video # 29 is the Sentinel, a song about a fellow who used to help people park their cars in the Fountain Hill section of Bethlehem, PA. whether they wanted that help or not. His name was Francis. I hope you like it!

Francis just stood by his house on Seneca Street and would tell people where they should park their cars. In that section of Fountain Hill all the streets were named after Native American tribes.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Seneca Street on google maps in 2020

The other 'one song concerts':

- Click here for Red River Valley (April 5, 2020)
- Click here for Better times Will Come (April 12, 2020)
- Click here for Polly Wally (April 19, 2020)
- Click here for Soap Opera (April 26, 2020)
- Click here for Maya May I, (May 1, 2020)
- Click here for My Creole Belle (May 10, 2020)
- Click here for Careless Love (May 17, 2020)
- Click here for You Can Run (May 24, 2020)
- Muting the Sea (May 31,2020)
- Click here for Ignorance and Privilege (June 7, 2020)
- Click here for The Mercy of the Wheels. (June 14, 2020)
- If I Could Forget To Breathe (June 21, 2020)
- Let them in (June 28, 2020)
- Unblind The Referee (July 5, 2020)
- The Dutchman (July 12, 2020)
- Morningside (July 19, 2020)
- Cowboy Song (July 26, 2020)
- That's How Legends Are Made (August 2, 2020)
- If Not Now (August 9, 2020)
- Arroyo Seco (August 16, 2020)
- Shenandoah (August 23, 2020)
- Outside (August 30, 2020)
- Outnumbered (September 6, 2020)
- Brown shirts (September 13, 2020)
- Jack’s Crows (September 20, 2020)
- Where No Monument Stands (September 27, 2020)
- Blue Chalk (October 4, 2020)
- Zuly (October 11, 2020)
- The Sentinel (October 18, 2020)
- Where The Bottles Break (October 25 2020)
- If I Could (November 1, 2020)
- Particle & Wave (November 8, 2020)
- True in Time (November 15, 2020)
- Edgar The Party Man ( November 22, 2020)
- The Water is Wide (November 29, 2020)
- The Streets of Laredo (December 6, 2020)
- Spanish is the Loving Tongue (December 13, 2020)
- Christmas Bells (December 20, 2020)
- Riverside (December 27. 2020) Recorded earlier
- Auld Lang Syne (January 3, 2021)

Click here to go to the John Gorka "Home videos homepage"

The Sentinel (Lyrics)

Francis called me Joe
But that is not my name
I told him what it really was
But he lost it just the same
When they made the Francis plan
They took too much off the top
The sentinel of Seneca, the 800 block

He would scare the kids
And the would run away
Till they found he was one of them
Though he was big and gray

Already 55
He dressed as though he cared
He wore his time out on the block
Beneath his close cut hair
He always had a word
For anyone who stopped
The sentinel of Seneca, the 800 block

He'd say you can't part there
And strangers they would go
They would do just what he said
Because they didn't know

Francis lived alone
And that's the way he died
I wonder if they'll need a guard
On the other side
Some people roam the world
To make some kind of change
The parking up on Seneca, will never be the same

They say he got a job
On some other hill
And if you don't miss him
I know the neighbors will

Francis called me Joe
But that is not my name
I told him what it really was
But he lost it just the same
When they made the Francis plan
They took too much off the top
The sentinel of Seneca, the 800 block

You can find this song on the 1990 Windhamhill records release "Land of the Bottom Line" It was John's second album. Here's more info about this fantastic CD

Clicke here for the chords & tabs of "The Sentinel"