The following are the 14 songs that make up the collection of Requiem for a Folk Singer, by David Piper/PipersWing Music/2024. All songs were written by David Piper. 

1. Cook My Chicken - This is a love song. I’m not known for writing love songs, so this may be as close as you’re going to get if you wanted a representative example.
2. Requiem for a Folk Singer - This song started with the title and a complaint, but morphed into a full blast diatribe against anybody caught emoting with a guitar and a song. I might be biting the hand that feeds me, but I’m not sure I ever fully trusted that hand in the first place.
3. Don’t Cost Nothin’ (to be kind) - There was a much longer version of this song written a few years ago, and prepared for the retirees of the school where I worked. Since I was only given a couple of minutes for my presentation, and the song I had prepared took eight minutes, I had to choose a shorter selection. This version is only five minutes long.
4. The Whistling Tune - For anyone who has been through a major surgery with the fear of not knowing how things might work out, and then coming out ok on the other end, I offer this song.
5. My Heroes - I often walk above the school where I have worked for twenty years. There’s an amphitheater cut out of a hillside where the acoustics are truly remarkable. Somewhere over the course of this time period and upon one of these walks, this tune came rolling through my head with the words, “I came upon a child one time”. I finally finished it.
6. Numbers - Many years ago I was seated in front of several four year olds with a guitar in my hand and completely out of ideas as to how to capture and corral their collective energy. I started counting, to which the kids immediately responded, and so came the birth of this song.
7. BatOuttaHell Driving School - You’ve seen them out there.. or you may be one of them.. the kind of driver who rides your bumper, honks or flashes their brights at you to speed up or get out of their way. There’s something about some people in a car that changes them into an entitled, open-space-closing, lane-jumping, aggressive speed demon. 
   Be careful out there. Things can change in a hurry.
8. Honey with that Hot Sauce - If you’ve ever had this concoction on a piece of fried chicken, you have probably come away thinking that the balance of those flavors just works. The same goes for enduring relationships, if you’re lucky enough to figure out how to survive them.
9. No Worry - The muse, when she comes, is fleeting at best. 
10. Oh John - My cousin, John, died as a result of an overdose. He was alone when he passed. John may have been a black sheep in the family, but he was no less loved. 
11. Beautiful - The Nisenan Indian Tribe, situated for centuries near the American River in Northern California, was driven from their land by gold seekers in the mid 19th century. Part of that area exists now as a town called Coloma, a name derived from the Nisenan word for “beautiful”. 
12. Love I Pray - Ok, you convinced me.. this is also a love song.
13. Song for Philomena - my Mother, Philomena Miguela CdeBaca, known as “Mike Piper” in Ohio, heard me playing this song on piano and remarked about it. She liked it, which of course meant the world to me. 
14. Arlo’s Lament - On Arlo’s Lament, the final track, Arlo the dog lets out a non-rehearsed howl to whatever I was playing on guitar at the moment, which I happened to be recording. However difficult it may be for me to take full credit for the writing of this tune, I don’t think Arlo would mind.