Bright Eyes

Your picture is far too big to look at kid.
Your eyes won't open wide enough
and you are constantly surrounded by the swirling stream
of what is and what was.
Well, we've all made out predictions but the truth still isn't out.
So if you want to see the future, go stare into a cloud.

And keep trying to find your way out of that maze of memories.
It all sort of looks familiar
until you get up close and it's different, clearly.
But each time you turn a corner,
you're right back where you were
and your only hope is that forgetting might make a door appear.

Is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?
An avalanche of opinions
like the one that fell that I am now underneath.
It was my voice that moved the first rock
and I would do it all again.
So I mean, it's cool if you keep quiet but I like singing.

So I'll be holding my note and stomping and strumming
and feeling so very lucky.
There is nothing I know except that this lifetime is one moment
and wishing will just leave me empty.

So you can try and live in darkness but you will never shake the light.
It will greet you every morning
and it will make you more aware with its absence at night,
when you're wrapped up in your blanket,
babe, that comfortable cocoon.
But I have seen the day of your awakening boy
and it's coming soon.

So you can lose yourself in liquor
and you can praise the clouded mind
but it isn't what you're thinking
no, it's the course of history your position in line.
You're just a piece of the puzzle so
I think you'd better find your place.
And don't go blaming you knowledge on some fruit you ate.

Because there's been a great deal of discussion, yes,
about the properties of man.
Animal or Angel? You were carved from bone
but your heart, is just sand.
And the wind is gonna scatter it and cover everything with love.
So if it makes you happy, then keep kneeling, Mom,
but I'm standing up.

Because this veil is has been lifted.
Yes, My eyes are wet with clarity.
I have been a witness to such wonders.
Oh I've searched for them across the country
but I think I'll be returning now
to the town where I was born.
And I understand you must keep moving,
friend, but I'm headed home.

I'm gonna follow the road and let the scenery weeping by
easily enter my body.
I'll send you all this message in code,
under ground, over mountains,
through forests and deserts and cities.
All across electric wire, it's a baited line.
The hook is in deep, boys, there is no more time.
So you can struggle in the water
and be too stubborn to die
or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky.

The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness.
A baby cried hard in an apartment complex,
as I pass a car buried under the influence.
The city is driving me out of my mind.

I’ve seen a child he’s caught
In the sad trap of gravity
He falls from the lowest
Branch of the apple tree

And lands in the grass
And weeps for his dignity
Next time he will not aim so high
Yeah, next time neither will I

Now, a mother takes loans out
Sends her kids off to colleges
Her family’s reduced
To names on a shopping list

While a coroner kneels
Beneath the great wooden crucifix
He knows there’s worse things than being
Alone.

And so I’ve learned to retreat
At the first sign of danger
I mean, why wait around if
It’s just to surrender

And ambition I’ve found
Can lead only to failure
I do not read the reviews
No I am not singing for you
[Woo]

Well I stood droppin’ a coin
Into the pit of a well
And I would throw my whole billfold
If I thought it would help

With all these wishes I make
I should buy something real
At least a telephone
Call home

Well my teachers they built
This retaining wall of memory
All those multiple choices
I answered so quickly

And got my grades back
And forgot just as easily
But at least I got an ‘A’
And so I don’t have them to blame

Well I should stop pointing fingers
Reserve my judgment
Of all those public action figures
And cowboy presidents
So loud behind the bull-horns
So proud they can’t admit
When they’ve made a mistake

While poison ink spews
From a speech writers pen
He knows he don’t have to say it
So it don’t bother him

Honesty accuracy
It’s just popular opinion
And the approval ratings high
And so someone’s gonna die

Well ABC NBC CBS bullshit
They give us fact or fiction
I guess an even split
And each new act of war’s tonight’s entertainment
We’re still the pawns in their game

As they take eye for an eye
Until no one can see
We must stumble blindly forward
Repeating history

Well I guess we all fit into that slogan
On your fast food marquee
Red blooded white skinned and oh the blues
Oh and the blues I got the blues that’s me

Well I awoke in relief
My sheets and tubes were all tangled
Weak from whiskey and pills
In a Chicago hospital

And my father was there
In a chair by the window
Starin’ so far away
I tried talking just whispered
“So sorry so selfish”
He stopped me and said
“Child, I love you regardless
There nothing you could do
That would ever change this
I’m not angry, it happens
But you just can’t do it again”

And so now I try to keep up
I been exchanging my currency
While a million objects
Pass though my periphery
Now I’m rubbin’ my eyes
‘Cause they’re starting to bother me
I been staring too long at the screen

But where was it when I first heard
That sweet sound of humility
It came to my ears in the
Goddamned loveliest melody

How grateful I was then
To be part of the mystery
To love and to be loved
Lets just hope that is enough

Your class, your caste, your country, sect,
your name or your tribe
There's people always dying trying to keep them alive
There's bodies decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where
Squatters made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl
She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair
But when great Satan's gone... the Whore of Babylon...
She just can't sustain the pressure where it's placed
She caves
The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qur'an's mute
If you burned them all together you'd get close to the truth still
They're pouring over Sanskrit on the Ivy League moons
While shadows lengthen in the sun
Cast all the school and meditation built to soften the times
And hold us at the center while the spiral unwinds
It's knocking over fences crossing property lines
Four Winds, cry until it comes
And it's the Sum of Man slouching towards Bethlehem
A heart just can't contain all of that empty space
It breaks. It breaks. It breaks.
*
Well I went back by rented Cadillac and company jet
Like a newly orphaned refugee retracing my steps
All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead
They said, ""You'd better look alive""
And I was off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps
In the Black Hills, the Badlands, the calloused East
I buried my ballast. I made my peace.
Heard Four Winds, leveling the pines
But when great Satan's gone... the Whore of Babylon...
She just can't remain with all that outer space
She breaks. She breaks. She caves. She caves.*
*반복

When panic grips your body and your heart is a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind until you're breathing in reverse
All your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse
Every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
Better find yourself a place to level out

Got a cricket for a conscience always looks the other way
A cocaine soul starts seeming like an empty cabaret
Hey, where have all the dancers gone? Now the music doesn't play
Tried to listen to the river but you couldn't shut your mouth
Better take a little time to level out

I never thought of running
My feet just led the way

Mixed up Signals
Bullet Train
Cars are switched out in the crazy rain
I could meet you any place
If the Brakeman turns my way

All this automatic writing I have tried to understand
From a psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan
So I'm headed for New England or the Paris of the South
Gonna find myself somewhere to level out

Are your brothels full, Oh Babylon, with merry Middlemen?
Never peer out of their periscopes from those deep opium dens
All this death must need a counterweight always someone born again
First a mother bathes her child then the other way around
The Scales always find a way to level out

I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away

Mixed up Signals
Bullet Train
People snuffed out in the brutal rain
I could live to any age
If the Brakeman turns my way

It is an old world it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
I'm a repeat first time offender
Who has rewritten history

Mixed up tea leaves
Phantom Pain
Fuzzy logic in the crazy rain
Getting better every day
If the Brakeman turns my way
Mixed up Signals
Bullet Train
Cars are switched out in the blinding rain
He'll be smiling as he seals my fate
When the Brakeman turns my way

I heard you're scheming new pyramids
Another big idea to get you rich
Make a plan to love me sometime soon

You said you got a foot in the door
You buy and you sell, you buy some more
Make a plan to love me sometime soon

Life's too short
Death doesn't ask
It don't owe you that

Some things you lose
You don't get back
So just know what you have

And make a plan to love me sometime soon

First you want to ride off into the Sun
Then you want to shoot straight to the Moon
Make a plan to love me sometime soon

When you are young the world is a Ferris Wheel
I know we will grow old it is lovely, still
Make a plan to love me sometime soon

Life is too short
To be a fool
I don't owe you that

Do what you feel
Whatever is cool
But I just have to ask

Will you make a plan to love me?
Will you make a plan to love me?
Will you make a plan to love me sometime soon?

See the Soul Singer in the session band
Shredded to ribbons beneath a microphone stand
Felt the quickness of pity like a flash in a pan
For the Soul Singer in the session band

Now a red carpet bagger makes a Blackberry call
To the plastic piranhas in the city of salt
Wasted wheat paste campaign post no bills on the wall
You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault

See the Soul Singer in the session band
Shredded to ribbons beneath a microphone stand
Felt the quickness of pity like a flash in a pan
For the Soul Singer in the session band

I had a lengthy discussion about The Power of Myth
With a post-modern author who didn't exist
In this fictitious world all reality twists
I was a hopeless romantic now I'm just turning tricks

Just like that Soul Singer in the session band
Shredded confetti beneath a microphone stand
Saw the Conflict of Interest slipping cash in the hand
Of the Soul Singer in the session band

His room is on fire since he painted it red
There are a stranger's silk sequins at the foot of the bed
He has been to weddings and funerals but he still never wept
Now sorrow is pleasure when you want it instead

Just like the Soul Singer in the session band
Wailed like an infant atop a white baby grand
We'll need every sand bag and every man
To save the Soul Singer in the session band

Headlights or Taillights it's a flip of a coin
I have been coming and going since the day I was born
And I followed the breadcrumbs but I never got home
I grew old in an instant now I am all on my own

Just like that Soul Singer in the session band
Shredded to nothing beneath the microphone stand
Saw the wave of the future through the crack of the dam
Drowned the Soul Singer in the session band
Bless the Soul singer in the session band

She was a real royal lady, true patron of the arts
She said the best country singers die in the back of classic cars
So if I ever got too hungry for a suitcase or guitar
To think of them all alone in the dark
So I laid some nights beside her in a bed made for a queen
She said I kissed her different, that all the men her age were mean
Gave me anything I wanted, Oh the generosity
I took all that I could, it was free
Now the sky is a torn up denim and the clouds are just splattered paint
It's a room I'm renovating; it's a name I got to change
If I get out of California I'm going back to my home state
To tell them all that I made a mistake

And I keep looking for that blindfold faith
Lighting candles to a cynical saint
Who wants the last laugh at the fly trapped in the windowsill tape
You can go right out of your mind trying to escape
From the panicked paradox of day to day
If you can't understand something then it's best to be afraid

The whole world it loves you if you are a chic chameleon
Intersecting circles she could hang with anyone
But when conducting business she would lie about where she's from
Saying, "Life is how it is not how it was"
I learned to listen felt like I was back at school
She'd talk forever about the phases of the moon
Saying, "Everything is a cycle, you've got to let it come to you
And when it does, you will know what to do"
Without even knowing I guess I took her advice
Painted her front door it seemed a suitable goodbye
It's not that often but I think of her sometimes
Just something quaint, a couple ships in the night

And they keep moving at a glacial pace
Turning circles in a memory maze
I made a new cast of the death mask that is gonna cover my face
I had to change the combination to the safe
Hide it all behind a wall let people wait
And never trust a heart that is so bent it can't break

I traveled through the atmosphere as a wall of feedback climbed
The pegs were gold, the band was old, they played in half time
Now every dream gets whittled down just like every fool gets wise
‘Cause you'll never reap of any seed deprived of sunlight

So I've become the Middleman
The gray areas are mine
The in-between, the absentee
Is a beautiful disguise

So I keep my footlights shining bright just like I keep my exits wide
'Cause I never know when it's time to go, it's too crowded now inside
The dead can hide beneath the ground and the birds can always fly
But the rest of us do what we must in constant compromise

So I've become the Middleman
The gray areas are fine
The "I don't know," the "maybe so"
Is the only real
Is the only true
Is the only real reply

Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows
It is older than Rome and all of this sorrow
See the new pyramids down in old Manhattan
From the roof of a friend's I watched an empire ending
Heard it loud and long the river's Om
Time marching on to a madman's drum

Don't forget what you've learned all you give is returned
And if life seems absurd what you need is some laughter
And a season to sleep and a place to get clean
Maybe Los Angeles, somewhere no one is expecting
On a de-tox walk through the Glendale Park over sidewalk chalk
Someone wrote in red, "start over"
So I muffled my scream on an Oxnard beach
Full of fever dreams that scare you sober
Into saltless dinners

Take the fruit from the tree, break the skin with your teeth
Is it bitter or sweet? All depends on your timing
Like a meeting of chance with the train station glance
Many lifetimes had past in a instant reminded
Of a millstone house in a seaside town
When your heart gave out in a mission bed
So your wife gave birth to a funeral dirge
You woke up purged as a wailing infant
In Krung Thep, Thailand

Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows
It is older than Rome and our joy and our sorrow

Well death may come invisible
or in a holy wall of fire
in the breath between the markers
on a black I-80 mile

from the madness of the governments
to the vengeance of the sea
well everything is eclipsed
by the shape of destiny

So love me now, hell is coming
yeah kiss my mouth, hell is here

little soldier, little insect
you know war it has no heart
it will kill you in the sunshine
or happily in the the dark

where kindness is a card game
or a bent up cigarette
in the trenches, in the hard rain
with a bullet and a bet

he says help me out, hell is coming
could you do it now? hell is here

See the sterile soil, poison sky
yellow water, final scraps of light
bringin' new tears

Well wake, baby, wake
but leave that blanket around you
there's nowhere else safe
I'm leaving this place
but there's nothing I'm planning to take
just you, just you

Shrill as a choir of children
Urgent like the first day of May
False and inflatable feeling
Tugs at my senses, big as the Macy's Parade
One brick on top of another
Such is the measure of man
Planets are inset like diamonds
On a gravity halo, eternity's wedding band
I slept with that dealer all summer
The ecstasy is still in my spine
Coat Check I couldn't remember
Walked into the winter, came out on the other side

In the South the sun is shining
Back in the East the lights went out

Stuck on a ladder to heaven
On trial way back in The Hague
Lullaby sounds from the engine
In my Styrofoam coffin, asleep on the interstate
Black globes, old symbols of freedom
A murderer still on the lam
Cities encircled in iron
On a great silver beltway, democracy's shackled hands
Seance that brought us together
Objects we move with our minds
Coat Check and I lost the number
Short sleeves in the winter, fell back through the other side

Out in the West the cars are crashing
Up in the North the ice gave out

Saada Tekmel B'Lhouria...
Houria...

Leave the bright blue door on the white-washed wall.
Leave the death ledger under city hall.
Leave the joyful air in that rubber ball today.

Just leave the lilac print on the linen sheet.
Leave the bird you killed at your father's feet.
Let the sideways rain in the crooked street remain.

Leave whimpering dog in his cold kennel.
Leave the dead starlet on her pedestal.
Leave the acid kids in their green fishbowls today.

Leave the sad guitar in its hard-shell case.
Leave the worried look on your lover's face.
Let the orange embers in the fireplace remain.

Cause everything must belong somewhere.
The train off in the distance, bicycle chained to the stairs.
Everything must belong somewhere.
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.

Leave the ocean's roar in the turquoise shell.
Leave the widower in his private hell.
Leave the liberty in that broken bell today.

Leave the epic poem on its yellowed page.
Leave the grey macaw in his covered cage.
Let the traveling band on the interstate remain.

Cause everything must belong somewhere.
Sound-stage in California, televisions in Times Square.
Everything must belong somewhere.
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.
Yeah I know that now that's why I'm staying here.

Leave the secret talk on the trundle bed.
Leave the garden tools in the rusted shed.
Leave those bad ideas in your troubled head today.

Just leave the restless ghost in his old hotel.
Leave the homeless man out in that cardboard cell.
Let the painted horse on the carousel remain.

Cause everything must belong somewhere.
Just like the gold around your finger and the silver in his hair.
Yeah, everything must belong somewhere.
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.

In truth, the forest hears each sound,
Each blade of grass as it lies down.
The world requires no audience.
no witnesses, no witnesses.

Leave the old town drunk on his wooden stool.
Leave the autumn leaves in the swimming pool.
Leave the poor black child in his crumbling school today.

Leave novelist in his daydream tune.
Leave the scientist in her Rubik's Cube.
Let true genius in the padded room remain.

Leave horses hair on the slanted bow.
Leave the slot machines on the riverboat.
Leave the cauliflower in the casserole today.

Leave the hot white-trash in their shopping malls.
Leave the hawks of war in their capitals.
Let the organs moan in the cathedral remain.

Cause everything must belong somewhere.
They lock the devil in the basement, God up into the air.
Yeah, everything must belong somewhere.
I know it's true, I wish you'd leave me here.
I know it's true, why don't you leave me here?

I keep floating down the river but the ocean never comes
Since the operation I heard you're breathing just for one
Now everything is imaginary, especially what you love
You left another message said it's done,
It's done

When I hear beautiful music it's always from another time
Old friends I never visit, I remember what they're like
Standing on a doorstep full of nervous butterflies
Waiting to be asked to come inside
Just come inside

But I keep going out
I can't sleep next to a stranger when I'm coming down
It's 8 a.m. my heart is beating too loud
Too loud
Don't be so amazing or I'll miss you too much
I felt something that I had never touched

Everything gets smaller now the further that I go
Towards the mouth and the reunion of the Known and the Unknown
Consider yourself lucky if you think of it as home
You can move mountains with your misery if you don't
If you don't

It comes to me in fragments, even those still split in two
Under the leaves of that old Lime Tree I stood examining the fruit
Some were ripe and some were rotten, I felt nauseous with the truth
There will never be a time more opportune

So I just won't be late
The window closes, shock rolls over in a tidal wave
And all the color drains out of the frame
So pleased with a daydream that now living is no good
I took off my shoes and walked into the woods
I felt lost and found with every step I took

Big old house on the hill I sat on the windowsill Leaning out on the breeze Do I dwell in memories Or let them be? I can still hear you sing I see you in everything, in everything It's cold today Headed down the highway Please don't say you're still the same I'll love you if you've changed Big old car rolling down Through the dark and empty town See the sky everywhere Feel it in the open air It's still so clear It's cold today Headed down the highway Please don't say you're still the same I'll love you if you've changed I'll love you if you've changed

I was cold in a dream
somewhere close to the surface
Between the ice and the stream
there is three inches of air
So I swam towards the light
I let my breath get there first
When I opened my eyes
I saw myself in the mirror
And I knew I would do like my father has done
Yes, we will never break from these chains
Your life is gonna course like a history book
Don't be frightened of turning the page
Cause it's is all the same
It will always be the same

I had girl I knew she grew became a woman
now I think that she teaches at one of the schools downtown,
we used to roll the windows down
and play the music loud
smoking out in her car
Lost in west Omaha,
and we?d get drunk and kiss
our bodies twist like shoe laces.
And we never came untied;
I guess you were just my type.
You know that summer never stopped.
I still pretend I?m there.
Bands in the living room,
neighbors ain?t never cared.
So when I sat behind the drum set.
Your heartbeat?s what I tried to play.
With kick and snares so careless not in time.
So you got ahead of me.
And I guess I?m still dragging behind.

I had a friend who changed his name
but couldn?t change himself.
Never quite figured out
how to do with what life had dealt.
He put a needle in his arm
to calm his handsome hell.
who would have imagined it?
Could?ve worked out so well.
Now he's a shape that moves
like echoes through my empty room.
And there?s a voice that speaks
like someone?s right behind me.
I turned around and found
exactly what you would expect.
Clothes I left on my floor.
The papers piled on my desk.
But where the ink is
where the cause effect what?s meant by it
the story is incomplete.
The pictures? left unfinished.
So I am writing my own ending.
I?ll let my pen bleed black or blue.
And I will color in the meaning.
It will be gold and green and true.
And I?ll learn to love my new discovered proof.
I?ll be grateful for this day.
I will be grateful for each day to come.

Anchormen spike their blood, wear masks of mud
Cucumbers cut to fit their eyes
And so no one would know how tired they've grown
Of talking and telling their lies

While your TV's change stations, scroll messages
Victims and Christians both drinking blood
And they'll pray for the destruction of all hatred
More often, just those with hate for us

'Cause it hurts when you discover one's worse and one's better
To suffer or cause others to
And you can live by your conscience, now guilt is a concept
You're no longer subscribing to

There's a virgin in my bed
And she's taking off her dress
And I'm not sure what I am gonna do

There's a song stuck in my head
And I can't help singing it
Oh, how I hope my singing pleases you
'Cause this is not who I've become but what you make me into

Oh, we got no health insurance, no cellular service
No disease, they can't cure
But we need more money to burn
So each person must learn the dollar amount they are worth

And those pills make me dizzy forgetting my body
I watch as it walks away
And I just keep drinking the poison and smoking the cartons
A pack and a half a day

So when time comes to claim me
My friends and my family will gather around my grave
And they'll believe that they knew me
And loved me and missed me, and all call me by my name

So imagine what you want
And then hold on to that thought
'Cause that's as close as it will ever come

And believe you're where you are
Keep acting out the part
But at the end of the day, the trees all get wheeled away
And you'll be standing alone in a blank, blank space

So believe you're who you are and stay in character
But at the end of the play, the audience walks away
And I'll be shivering cold on a well lit stage

The drunk kids, the catholics
They're all about the same
They're waiting for something
Hoping to be saved
Well I have been happy the past couple days
Just thinking of the women who've taken your place
And every night I think I certaintly won't ever sleep sober or alone
And then suddenly it occurs to me
I've slept alone before you
And so I pour myself the stiffest drink my stomach can stand
And convince myself to lay back down again
I'm gonna lay back down, I'm gonna lay back down again
The drunk kids, the catholics
They're all about the same
They're waiting for something
Hoping to be saved
The drunk kids, the catholics
They're all about the same
They're waiting for something
Hoping to be saved
The drunk kids, the catholics
They're all about the same
They're waiting for something
Hoping to be saved
They crawl from the oceans
To paint in the caves
But I'm working all weekend
I need to get paid
They crawl from the oceans
To paint in the caves
But I'm working all weekend
I need to get paid
They crawl from the oceans
To paint in the caves
But I'm working all weekend
I need to get paid
They crawl from the oceans
To paint in the caves
But I'm working all weekend
I need to get paid