Disc 1 | ||||||
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1. |
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i love you
and you love me and ain't that the way it's supposed to be? i swing my stick legs 'round at the root and pile drive each foot into a platform boot and i'm up and i'm out cuz i'm bouncing off the walls and i come when i'm called and you called i got a super-cute three-piece suit one piece for your body one piece for your smile one more little piece if you stay a while i gotta beeline double time leave my home sweet home for your honeycomb then i show up steady, ready and proud and i find i've forgotten how to talk out loud isn't it just like you to bring me to my knees in my brand new stockings while the cat is out with my tongue isn't it just like you to bring me to my knees in my brand new stockings love makes me feel so dumb |
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2. |
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If you ask me
I'll say yes please to you today So don't ask me 'cause I'm weak that way Just don't ask me o.k. I'm so glad we got that straightened away If you see me walk by You better just let me walk by You better not bat your pretty eyes You better not stop me to say hi I got a sweet tooth today So you better not cut that pie If you ask me I'll say yes please to you today So don't ask me 'cause I'm weak that way Just don't ask me o.k. |
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3. |
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some crazy fucker carved a sculpture out of butter
and propped it up in the middle of the bonanza breakfast bar and i am stuffing toast and sausage into my pockets under a sign that says grand opening while my dog is waiting in the car i wake up, i check out i fill the tank and wash the windshield clean then i'm back out on the highway and BANG that's when i remember my dream: we were standing in a garden and i had a machine that made silence it just sucked up the whole opinionated din and there were no people on the payroll and there were no monkeys on our backs and i said, show me what you look like without skin science chases money and money chases its tail and the best minds of my generation can't make bail but the bacteria are coming to take us down that's my prediction it's the answer to this culture of the quick fix prescription but in the garden of simple where all of us are nameless you were never anything but beautiful to me and, you know, they never really owned you you just carried them around and then one day you put 'em down and found your hands were free so now it's early in the morning at the longitude of memphis and the sun is setting sweetly on hong kong and the big plan is just to keep spinning cuz the big bang is only just beginning and sometimes it's all that we can do just to hang on and what i meant to say is xxoo which means i'm thinking of ya which means i've been thinking of you all along |
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4. |
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a cold and porcelain lonely
in an old new york hotel a stranger to a city that she used to know so well bathing in a bathroom that is bathed in the first blue light of the beginning of a century at the end of an endless night then she is wet behind the ears and wafting down the avenue pre-rush hour post-rain shower stillness seeping upwards like steam from another molten sewer summer in new york they've been spraying us with chemicals in our sleep us / they something about the mosquitoes having some kind of disease them / me CIA foul play if you ask the guy selling hair dryers out of a gym bag chemical warfare "i'm telling you, lab rat to lab rat," he says, "that's where the truth is at" that's where the truth is at that's where the truth is at and everything seems to have gone terribly wrong that can but one breath at a time is an acceptable plan she tells herself and the air is still there and this morning it's even breathable and for a second the relief is unbelievable and she's a heavy sack of flour sifted her burden lifted she's full of clean wind for one lean moment and then she's trapped again reverted caged and contorted with no way to get free and she's getting plenty of little kisses but nobody's slippin' her the key her whole life is a long list of what ifs and she doesn't even know where to begin and the pageantry of suffering therein rivals television tv is, after all, the modern day roman coliseum human devastation as mass entertainment and now millions sit jeering collectively cheering the bloodthirsty hierarchy of the patriarchal arrangement she is hailing a cab she is sailing down the avenue she's 19 going on 30 or maybe she's really 30 now ... it's hard to say it's hard to keep up with time once it's on its way and, you know, she never had much of a chance born into a family built like an avalanche and somewhere in the 80s between the oat bran and the ozone she started to figure out things like why one eye pointed upwards looking for the holes in the sky one eye on the little flashing red light a picasso face twisted and listing down the canvas of the end of an endless night 10 9 8 seven six 5 4 three 2 one and kerplooey you're done. you're done for. you're done for good. so tell me did you? did you do did you do all you could? |
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5. |
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the answer came
like a shot in the back while you were running from your lesson which might explain why years later all you could remember was the terror of the question plus, you weren't listening you were stockpiling canned goods making a bomb shelter of our basement and i can't believe you let the moral go by while you were soaking in the product placement where was your conscience? where was your consciousness? and where did you put all those letters that you wrote to yourself but could not address? i'm a good kisser and you're a fast learner and that kinda thing could float us for a pretty long time then one day you'd realize you've memorized my phone number and you'll call it and find it's a disconnected line cuz i got tossed out the window of love's el camino and i shattered into a shower of sparks on the curb you were smoking me weren't you? between your yellow fingers you just inhaled and exhaled without saying a word where was your conscience? where was your consciousness? and where did you put all those letters that you wrote to yourself but could not address? there's a smorgasbord of unspoken poisons a whole childhood of potions that are all bottled up and so one by one i am dusting off labels i am uncorking bottles and filling up cups so go ahead and have a taste of your own medicine and i'll have a taste of mine but first let's toast to the lists that we hold in our fists of the things that we promise to do differently next time cuz the answer came like a shot in the back while you were running from your lesson which might explain why years later all you could remember was the terror of the question plus i'm not listening to you anymore my head is too sore and my heart's perforated and i'm mired in the marrow of my (well... ain't that) funny bone learning how to be alone and devastated where was my conscience? where was my consciousness? and what do i do with all these letters that i wrote to myself but cannot address? |
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6. |
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it's a heartbreak even situation
nothing lost and nothing gained so i'm 10 years old again standing in the backyard waving at a train i feel you make love to me slightly every time you let a little laugh slip too soon and the moment passes over us so lightly it feels like sand blowing over a dune you try not to let your emotions show but it ain't a balloon you can just let go it's an ice cream cone dripping in the sun sticky hands sticky arms sticky situation it's a heartbreak even situation one part powerful elation one part pitiful and frail and i'm trying to feel my way around a book of promises written in braille there is pressure from within this and pressure from above there is pressure on our tenuous, strenuous love and there's wet wool blankets one, two, three laid onto my chest 'til i just can't breathe and i try not to let my emotions show but it ain't a balloon i can just let go it's an ice cream cone dripping in the sun sticky hands sticky arms sticky situation |
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7. |
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8. |
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i love us both but i don't feel good
so i keep pulling over and looking under the hood i love us both but i'm at wit's end where does your compromise begin and mine end? i love us both but what world's it gonna be? the one according to you or the one according to me? i don't feel good so ... now do my problems include talks with doctors who don't even understand about food? i think in ancient china they kinda figured out how the body works but our culture is just a roughneck teenage jerk with a bottle of pills and a bottle of booze and a full round of ammunition and nothing to lose and is it really the best we can do to arm wrestle over whose world it's gonna be? (the one according to you or the one according to me) i love us both and i'll see ya if you'll see me so ... who are we? |
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9. |
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today we are only whatall is nice about us
today we turned on in the blue light of dawn and made love and you were not a dot dot dot waiting for me to complete you and it was like i just forgot to measure everything that i do we woke up with the notion that enough is not enough without more and then we pushed with one motion like the ocean heaves a wave at the shore (*actually sang with push & heave reversed*) and you were not a dot dot dot leaning forward expectantly and i was not in such a rush to insure my autonomy today we are only whatall is nice about us |
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10. |
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11. |
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she was cuffed to the truth like the truth was a chair
bright interrogation light in her eyes her conscience lit a cigarette and just stood there waiting for her to crack waiting for her to cry his face scampered through her mind like a roach across a wall it made her heart soar it made her skin crawl they said, we got this confession we just need for you to sign why don't you just cooperate and make this easier on us all there was light and then there was darkness but there was no line in between and asking her heart for guidance was like pleading with a machine 'cause joy, it has its own justice and dreams are languid and lawless and everything bows to beauty when it is fierce and when it is flawless on the table were two ziploc baggies containing her eyes and her smile they said, we're keeping these as evidence 'til this thing goes to trial meanwhile anguish was fingering solace in another room down the hall both were love's accomplices but solace took the fall now look at her book of days it's the same on every page and she's got a little tin cup with her heart in it to bang along the bars of her rib cage bang along the bars of her rib cage |
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12. |
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it's rock paper scissors as to whether
i will get over you at all it's hand against hand and both hands are mine it's standing in a circular line which is not to say that i'm not also happy a happy meal with a surprise inside surprise surprise here's another bright light in your eyes exposing all the stuff you're not calculating enough to hide this melancholy that i carry makes me feel so grown up at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation i never thought i'd see the day when i would say i give up and break the stallions of my wildest expectations i do not want to know you this way surrounded by so much pain but how am i supposed to let go of you this way like a bird into the sky of my brain? i think i could accept all these dark colors as just part of some bigger color scheme if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness underscoring each smiling scene desire drags me right out of myself a gas-soaked rope tied to a piece of coal and i'm getting pretty good at looking at the bright side while the flames rip along the sand and swallow me whole |
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13. |
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14. |
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coming of age during the plague
of reagan and bush watching capitalism gun down democracy it had this funny effect on me I guess I am cancer I am HIV and I am down at the blue jesus blue cross hospital just lookin' up from my pillow feeling blessed and the mighty multinationals have monopolized the oxygen so it's as easy as breathing for us all to participate yes they're buying and selling off shares of air and you know it's all around you but it's hard to point and say "there" so you just sit on your hands and quietly contemplate your next bold move the next thing you're gonna have to prove to yourself what a waste of thumbs that are opposable to make machines that are disposable and sell them to seagulls flying in circles around one big right wing yes, the left wing was broken long ago by the slingshot of cointelpro and now it's so hard to have faith in anything especially your next bold move or the next thing you're gonna need to prove to yourself you want to track each trickle back to its source and then scream up the faucet 'til your face is hoarse cuz you're surrounded by a world's worth of things you just can't excuse but you've got the hard cough of a chain smoker and you're at the arctic circle playing strip poker and it's getting colder and colder everytime you lose so go ahead make your next bold move tell us what's the next thing you're gonna have to prove to yourself |
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15. |
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16. |
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you can doubt anything
if you think about it long enough cuz what happened always adjusts to fit what happened after that and it's hard to feel like you are free when all you seem to do is referee remember when it was just you and me steppin' up to bat? and win or lose just that you choose this little war is what kills you and either/or it's that this war is maybe also what thrills you we thought we left possession behind but truth is i was yours and you were mine and now i've replayed a thousand times exactly what was said cuz nothing is as it appears in the funhouse mirrors of your fears on the roller coaster of all these years with your hands above your head and win or lose just that you choose this little war is what kills you and either/or it's that this war is maybe also what thrills you i don't care how fast you run just tell me, baby, that when you're done with your little marathon you still got cab fare home cuz the finish line is a shifty thing and what is life but reckoning and, you know you are still the song i sing to myself when i'm alone and win or lose just that we choose this little war is what kills us and either/or it's that this war is maybe also what thrills us |
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17. |
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Who's gonna give a shit
Who's gonna take the call When you find out that the road ahead is painted on a wall And you're turned up to top volume And you're just sitting there in pause With your feral little secret Scratching at you with its claws And you're trying hard to figure out Just exactly how you feel Before you end up parked and sobbing Forehead on the steering wheel Who are you now And who were you then That you thought somehow You could just pretend That you could figure it all out The mathematics of regret So it takes two beers to remember now And five to forget That I loved you so Yeah, I loved you, so what How many times undone Can one person be As they're careening through the facade Of their favorite fantasy You just close your eyes slowly Like you're waiting for a kiss And hope some lowly little power Will pull you out of this But none comes at first And little comes at all And when inspiration finally hits you It barely even breaks your fall Who were you then And who are you Now that you can pretend That it'll all work out Subtract out the impact And the fall is all you get So here's two beers to remember why And three more to forget That I loved you so Yeah, I loved you, so what I loved you So what |
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18. |
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19. |
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imagine that i am onstage
under a watchtower of punishing light and in the haze is your face bathed in shadow and what's beyond you is hidden from sight and somebody right now is yawning and watching me like a tv and i've been frantically piling up sandbags against the flood waters of fatigue and insecurity then suddenly i hear my guitar singing and so i just start singing along and somewhere in my chest all the noise just gets crushed by the song imagine that i'm at your mercy imagine that you are at mine pretend i've been standing here watching you watching me all this time now imagine that you are the weather in the tiny snow globe of this song and i am the statue of liberty one inch long so here i am at my most hungry and here i am at my most full here i am waving a red cape locking eyes with a bull just imagine that i am onstage under a watchtower of punishing light and in the haze is your face bathed in shadow and what's beyond you is hidden from sight |
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20. |
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21. |
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the sky is grey
the sand is grey and the ocean is grey and i feel right at home in this stunning monochrome alone in my way i smoke and i drink and every time i blink i have a tiny dream but as bad as i am i'm proud of the fact that i'm worse than i seem what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore you walk through my walls like a ghost on tv you penetrate me and my little pink heart is on its little brown raft floating out to sea and what can i say but i'm wired this way and you're wired to me and what can i do but wallow in you unintentionally what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore regretfully i guess i've only got three simple things to say: why me? why this now? why this way? with overtones ringing and undertows pulling away under a sky that is grey on sand that is grey by an ocean that's grey what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore |
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22. |
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white people are so scared of black people
they bulldoze out to the country and put up houses on little loop-dee-loop streets and while america gets its heart cut right out of its chest the berlin wall still runs down main street separating east side from west and nothing is stirring, not even a mouse in the boarded-up stores and the broken-down houses so they hang colorful banners off all the street lamps just to prove they got no manners no mercy and no sense and i'm wondering what it will take for my city to rise first we admit our mistakes then we open our eyes the ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots in the city of good neighbors that history forgot i remember the first time i saw someone lying on the cold street i thought: i can't just walk past here this can't just be true but i learned by example to just keep moving my feet it's amazing the things that we all learn to do so we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water and the old farm road's a four-lane that leads to the mall and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall i'm wondering what it will take for my country to rise first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes or nature succumbs to one last dumb decision and america the beautiful is just one big subdivision |
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23. |
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i'll sing you a song that starts out descriptive
and locates a time and a place like a dinner table where a whole family is just sitting down to say grace an old old song that moves into action taking its sweet sweet time and waits until we all say amen again and again in rhyme it's the story of a father and a mother who battle each other over nothin' with a couple of kids trying to figure which way the plot's spinning who's winning and who is bluffing it's a story as common as a penny, son it ain't really worth anything to anyone poor little sore little song that aches like a muscle each time that it moves sad little song that you play and you play and you play and you play 'til you lose while history is outside writing a recipe book for every earthly pain this song is inside finger painting dark swirls again and again and they all look the same cuz what if you come home from school one day and you find your whole family's at war and there's this ominous silence just waiting to be broken and there's secret places for hiding underneath the floorboards and everyone seems to be bracing for the subharmonic thunder of the next bomb and everyone seems to be waiting for the cops to bust in with their guns drawn at the bleak light of dawn it's a story as common as a penny, son i don't think it's worth anything to anyone |
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24. |
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how sick of me
must you be by now while you're standing just outside of what your pride will allow always reaching into yourself to find a new way to understand me when i'm sure that there's no one else in the world who could withstand me the first person in your life to ever really matter is saying the last thing that you want to hear and you are listening hard through the splintering shards of your life as it shatters and you're standing firm and you're staying close and you're seeing clear i took to the stage with my outrage in the bad old days when you were the make-me-mad guy but the songs they come out more slowly now that i am the bad guy and i say, i'm sorry i'm so crazy I am astounded by your patience and you say, believe it or not, baby the joy you bring me still outweighs it the first person in your life to ever really matter is saying the last thing that you want to hear and you are listening hard through the splintering shards of your life as it shatters and you're standing firm and you're staying close and you're seeing clear how sick of me must you be by now? |
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25. |
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26. |
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she went over to his apartment
clutching her decision and he said, did you come here to tell me goodbye? so she built a skyscraper of procrastination and then she leaned out the twenty-fifth floor window of her reply and she felt like an actress just reading her lines when she finally said yes, it's really goodbye this time and far below was the blacktop and the tiny toy cars and it all fell so fast and it all fell so far and she said: you are a miracle but that is not all you are also a stiff drink and i am on call you are a party and i am a school night and i'm lookin' for my door key but you are my porch light and you'll never know, dear just how much i loved you you'll probably think this was just my big excuse but i stand committed to a love that came before you and the fact that i adore you is just one of my truths and what of the mother whose house is in flames and both of her children are in their beds crying and she loves them both with the whole of her heart but she knows she can only carry one at a time? she's choking on the smoke of unthinkable choices she is haunted by the voices of so many desires she's bent over from the business of begging forgiveness while frantically running around putting out fires but then what kind of scale compares the weight of two beauties the gravity of duties or the ground speed of joy? tell me what kind of gauge can quantify elation? what kind of equation could i possibly employ? and you'll never know, dear just how much i loved you you probably think this was just my big excuse but i stand committed to a love that came before you and the fact that i adore you is just one of my truths so i i'm goin' home to please the one i so love pleasing and i don't expect he'll have much sympathy for my grieving but i guess that this is the price that we pay for the privilege of living for even a day in a world with so many things worth believing in |
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27. |
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28. |
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you were so in love
that it was all you could talk about and i think i felt a little left out you were on cloud 9 all the time while i was levelling i was wringing my hands and you were revelling but then why shouldn't you? it was such a beautiful thing to do would that i could get me some of your yum yum delirium i could level off the ground that we stand on but with you down on bended knee always looking up at me that feeling of standing up together is gone and though i love you through all time and space my love always seems to take second place you were so in love that it was all you could talk about and i think i felt a little left out you were on cloud 9 all the time while i was levelling i was wringing my hands and you were revelling but then why shouldn't you? it was such a beautiful thing to do |
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29. |
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even when i look right at you
i always just see through and i always just see new things to admire about you. am i what you thought you were getting? does this love we make-make you proud? does it look like it did on the menu? minus, of course, the little dark clouds. of course, when we signed up for forever... we had no idea it was in here. i guess always is all this and then some. i guess at least that much is clear. and whenever i look at you you know i always just see new things to admire about you... you |