“Finders Keepers”

Olivia Brownlee describes the process of writing "Finders Keepers" as an alternative to the John Newton song, "Amazing Grace."

Olivia sings “Finders Keepers.”

Alternative for “Amazing Grace,“ by John Newton

Keeps the waltz meter, pentatonic scale, and long phrases of the best-known melody of Amazing Grace (a much older tune called “New Britain”), and borrows from the inspiration’s themes of lostness, wretchedness, and what seems to me to be a universal desire to be found and cherished.

“Finders Keepers”

© 2020 Olivia Brownlee (BMI), OliviaBrownlee.com
Permission granted by the songwriter to use for personal and educational purposes. All other rights reserved.

If you find me, you can keep me. I been all over earth
Never knowing where I’m going or what I am worth.
I’m a wretch, ah, but I betcha that ya seen plenty worse.
If you find me, you can keep me. I been all over earth.

It’s a story and it’s gory. It’s a blessed tragedy
About a person for the worsen, and the person is me.
Gotten beaten, hardly eatin’, and forgotten my health.
I roam with no home in my heart for myself.

It is written that I’m smitten with a lot to beat Job.
Can’t free me, can’t see me anywhere on the globe.
I got ten thousand cares in the pack on my back
And I’m lost on the long lines of railroad track.

They say finders are keepers, but nobody keeps me.
Their troubles are doubled anywhere that I be.
So just to listen is to blessin’ this beggarly soul
And to makin’ all achin’ humanity whole.

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Here’s how Olivia recorded it:

/C - -/C7 - -/F - -/C - -/

/C - -/Am7 - -/D7 - -/G7 - -/

/C - -/C7 - -/F - -/E7 - -/

/Am7 - -/C - -/F - -/C - -/