Absent Friends (2004) by Various Artists on maniadb.com

Absent Friends
Absent friends, here's to them
And happy days, we thought that they would never end.
Here's to absent friends.

Little Jean Seberg seemed
So full of life, but in those eyes such troubled dreams.
Poor little Jean.

Woodbine Willie couldn't rest until he'd
Given every bloke a final smoke before the killing.
Old Woodbine Willie.

Steve McQueen jumped the first one clean
But the great escape he'd tried to make was not to be.
Maybe next time Steve.

Laika flew through inky blue
'Til Laika neared the atmosphere and Laika knew
Laika's life was through.

Oscar Wilde was a lonely child.
He fought and won acceptance from the world.
They smiled, they laughed, they praised,
They drove poor Oscar to his grave.

Absent friends, here's to them,
And happy days, we thought that they would never end,
But they always end.

Raise your glasses then to absent friends.

So suddenly awake.
No light from yonder window breaks, no crowing cock,
Just my old clock, please make it stop.
I try to wrestle free,
But like the dew she clings to me,
"No way Jose, you don't get away that easily".

Leaving today, leaving today, leaving today.

"Release me let me go.
I love you more that you could know.
All I can do is promise to come home to you".
I tip-toe from the bed
And put my head around the nursery door to say good-bye.
It breaks my heart every single time.

I'm leaving today, I'm leaving today, I'm leaving today.

I would stay if you asked me, so for God's sake don't ask me to stay.
My taxi has arrived. Good-bye sweet simple life, good-bye.

The city's waking up.
Dreams fizzle out like raindrops racing down the glass.
They blur the street-lamps as we pass.

William wakes with his clothes on
The morning call has been and gone
And he might not make the flight
But he will try, yeah
Bit by bit, it comes back to him
A bunch of Belgian businessmen
And a strange drinking game
Oh, God, why?

Come home, Billy Bird
International business traveler
Come home, Billy Bird

He hails a cab but the driver sucks
He drives so slowly, and he talks so much
That it hurts Billy Bird's aching brain, yeah
He runs from the cab to the check-in desk
She says "no way," but William begs
On his knees, "please, please, please"
"Well, okay"

Come home, Billy Bird
International business traveler
Come home, Billy Bird

Drenched in sweat he finds his seat
And with the luggage squeezed down beneath his feet
He begins to think that things can't get no worse (Can't get no worse)
But then a voice says, "Bags that can't be stowed
In the overhead lockers must go below
In the hold, please let go, thank you, sir"

Come home, Billy Bird
International business traveler
Come home, Billy Bird
Come home, William, come home

He runs on past the carousel
Screaming, "Damn my luggage all to hell
I can buy a new shirt and tie any day"
He rides from the airport into town
To the high school football ground
Where his son has just begun his big football game

Come home, Billy Bird
International business traveler
Come home, Billy Bird
Come home, Billy Bird (Come home, William)
International business traveler (Come home, William)
Come home, Billy Bird (Come home)
Come home, Billy Bird (Come home, William)
International business traveler
Come home, Billy Bird (Come home, come home)
Come home, Billy Bird (Come home to where you once belonged)
International business traveler (Come home)
Come home, Billy Bird (Come home)
Come home, Billy Bird
International business traveler

Would you like to meet my little friend?
Don't try to shake his hand, he's just pretend
His is Benjamin, that's his name
My mama said, "You're insane,
Boy, you really are the end
You and your imaginary friend"

Daddy drives the mobile library
He works peripatetically
He doesn't get much time to play with us
So we just read and make up stuff
And it drives him round the bend
Me and my imaginary friend

One day we're gonna play hide and seek
And then he'll be up the creek
Never to be seen again
He'll disappear the day that childhood ends
And reality descends
I'll never forget you, my imaginary friend

When the Beautiful set sail,
Back in nineteen seventy,
She was wtate of the art
The flagship of our navy.
But the salt sea took its toll
And the rust began to show,
And with a heavy heart
We took her to the breaker's yard.
I thought I heard her call,
Maybe I heard nothing at all.
I thought I heard her call
From the wreck of the Beautiful.
But like the fattened cow
Can smell the butcher's knife,
She knew where she was bound:
A sad end to a proud life.
That's when I heard her cry
And the waves rose five miles high,
And the men who did not drown
Watched as the Beautiful went down.
I thought I heard her call,
Maybe I heard nothing at all.
I thought I heard her call
From the wreck of the Beautiful.
From the wreck of the Beautiful.

No matter how I try,
I just can't get her out of my mind
And I when I sleep I visualize her.

I saw her in the pub,
I met her later at the nightclub.
A mutual friend introduced us
We talked about the noise
And how its hard to hear your own voice
Above the beat and the sub-bass.
We talked and talked for hours,
We talked in the back of our friend's car
As we all went back to his place.

On our friend's settee,
she told me that she really liked me
And I said: "Cool, the feeling's mutual."
We played old 45s
And said it's like the soundtrack to our lives
And she said: "True, it's not unusual."
Then privately we danced
We couldn't seem to keep our balance
A drunken haze had come upon us.
We sank down to the floor
And we sang a song that I can't sing anymore
And then we kissed and fell unconscious.

I woke up the next day
All alone but for a headache.
I stumbled out to find the bathroom
But all I found was her
Wrapped around another lover.
No longer then is he our mutual friend.

"The lonely road you choose to travel on,
It must seem awfully long.
Innocence all gone,
It must be wrong to hide your lovely face away.

That music you play, I'm not saying it's bad,
It just seems terribly sad.
Is everything all right?
I'd like to think you'd tell me if something was wrong".

Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth
And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth.
She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross,
But on the inside she's a happy goth.

"Don't worry Mum, don't worry Dad.
The hours that I spend alone are the happiest I've ever had".

That's what she'd say if she ever spoke to you,
But it's something she can never do.
'Cos it's only by herself
That she'll find out what makes her different from the rest.

Well her clothes are blacker than the blackest cloth
And her face is whiter than the snows of Hoth.
She wears Dr. Martens and a heavy cross,
But on the inside she's a happy goth.

It's early morning on I-19.
I ain't got much for company,
A pick-up truck, a brown Volvo,
And a couple of jokers on the radio.

I wish that it could stay like this,
But soon I'll have to put up with
The whole world and his Uncle Joe
Cluttering up my freedom road.

When I was a boy I'd fantasize
About the freedom road. I'd drive
A thousand miles before sundown,
Father a child in every town.

But a hundred thousand miles have passed
Between me and iconoclastic images
Of the freedom road.
I wanna shed this heavy load.

Well I've seen the power of the lightning storm,
I've seen the endless ears of corn,
I've seen the lakes at the break of day,
And that shit takes my breath away.

But if I were to even start
To tell them how it melts my heart,
Never more would my truck-stop friends
Look me in the eye again.

It's early morning on I-19,
A dreamer's waking from his dream,
A driver who has lost his way
Parks up his rig and walks away.

When I hold you in my arms
And look back on my charmed life
My charmed life
I hope, I hope if nothing more
That one day you'll call your life
A charmed life

Well, I never really worried that much
About making lots of money and such
And I always seemed to land upon my feet
And though there's been some difficult times
The good times were never far behind
I snatched all of my victories from the jaws of defeat

When I hold you in my arms
And look back on my charmed life
My charmed life
I hope, dear
Baby, I hope if nothing more
That one day you'll call your life
A charmed life

Well, the course of true love never ran smooth
They broke my heart, and I broke theirs, too
And breaking up was so very hard to do
But I knew I'd find the one
And sure enough, she came along
And not long after that, along came you

Well, sometimes this life is like being afloat
On a raging sea in a little rowboat
Just trying not to be washed overboard
But if you take your chances and you ride your luck
And you never, never, never, never, never give up
Well, those waves will see you safely to a friendly shore

When I hold you in my arms
I know that this is a charmed life
A charmed life