Bright Eyes

On a string...

On a string...

On a string, I was held.
The way I move, can you tell?
My actions are orchestrated from above.
So I swing and I sway.
Wave my hand, kick my leg,
And it is always right with the music.

"Until all that swaying starts to make you sick..."

For a song I was bought,
Now I lie when I talk
With a careful eye on the cue card.
Onto a stage I was pushed,
With my sorrow well rehearsed.
So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it)

"We used to think that sound was something pure..."

If I could act like
This was my real life,
And not some cage where I've been placed,
Well then, I could tell you
The truth like I used to
And not be afraid of sounding fake.

Now all anyone's listening for are the mistakes!


(Ah, I'm sorry!)

(Oh, it's okay, it's okay)


1, 2, 3,
1, 2, 3!

In a house by myself,
I hear the ice start to melt,
And I'll watch rooftops weep for the sunlight.
And I know what must change,
Fuck my face. Fuck my name,
They are brief and false advertisements...

...For a soul I don't have.
Something true I have lacked
And spent my whole life trying to make up for.
But I found in a song
And in the people I love,
They will lift me up out of darkness.

And now my door, it stands open,
I'm inviting everyone in.
We're gonna laugh,
We're gonna drink until the morning comes.
That's what we're gonna to do...
Come on!! Come on!!

I wish I saved it for rainy days,
'Cause they're the hardest to stay dry.
Got no self control,
I'm always beggin' into telephones.
And then I,
I bought a little from my brother's friend,
Yeah, well just to get me by.
I don't trust his cup,
The effect's never as high as the markup.
I think I'll print it in the personals,
That I'm looking for a match.
Someone to light me up,
Someone to burn the proof of the things that I've done.
Each day there's hours,
skip like a stone.
I just crawl in a bag,
I'm gonna live my life like somebody's shadow.
I know I'm lazy with the little things,
I mean I never held a door.
But I still loved you more,
Then anyone; Since or before
You're always saying that I owe you one,
Well lets consolidate this debt.
Get on a payment plan,
I'll pay compliments, you can still treat me bad.
But, now this isn't getting easier,
to leave you and this town behind.
I'll do some travelin',
Once I'm gone tell all our friend you've got even
I felt like an object, been set aside
You know, I'm back on the shelve.
Not locked in the drawer.
I'm mint in the box,
But you'd still sell me for cost.
Pull out a parachute.
A blanket on top of you.
The window you're looking through.
Pull out a parachute.
Pull out a parachute.

But if you turn the porch light on and let the marble night withdraw
you can smoke a cigarette on the wooden steps.
The mosquitoes are not vampires. The moon is not your mother
even if she is preparing for a total eclipse.

Get behind the wheel. Stay in front of the storm.

The clouds dream disorder. They make faces. They make mud
on some ancient order that is no longer enforced.
The sugar bowl is full of ants. Your sister is a dumpy mess.
And you are cutting off your head to spite your shoulders.

Get behind the wheel. Stay in front of the storm.
Get behind the wheel. Stay in front of the storm.

First with your hands and then with your mouth.
A downpour of sweat, damp cotton clouds.
I was a fool, you were my friend. We made it happen.

You took off your clothes, left on the light. You stood there so brave. You used to be shy. Each feature improved, each movement refined and eyes like a showroom.

Now they are spreading out the blankets on the beach.
That weatherman is a liar.
He said it would be raining but it is clear and blue as far as I can see.

Left by the lamp, right next to the bed, on a cartoon cat pat you scratched with a pen, "Everything is as it has always been. This never happened.
Don't take it so bad it is nothing you did. It's just once something dies you can't make it live. You are a beautiful boy.
You're a sweet little kid but I am a woman." So I laid back down and wrapped myself up in the sheet.
And I must have looked like a ghost because something frightened me and since then I've been so good at vanishing.

Now I do as I please and lie through my teeth. Someone might get hurt but it won't be me.
I should probably feel cheap but I just feel free and a little bit empty.
No it isn't so hard to get close to me. There will be no arguments.
We will always agree.
And I will try and be kind when I ask you to leave. We will both take it easy.
But if you stay too long inside my memory, I will trap you in a song tied to a melody and I will keep you there so you can't bother me

no news
that's good news
someone's gonna break
see things change
i've been changing everything
it's peaceful
the pitch black
when the last light on goes out
i'm stranded
in my bed
so i think about
the bad luck
the bad blood
that may have come between
two good souls
that's one heck of an offering
so take these gifts that have been given
and ended up with an alphabet
but some words are too wrong to define
now the whole world is waking up
a ribbon cut for the opening
we all knew that day would arrive
up all night
all upset
the outside's growing light
no breakfast
just not much of an appetite
so be cool
and believe in the things you haven't learned
'cause you lost
and it's gone
but it will return
now it's all laid out in front of you
and that's half murdered the mystery
are you still to shy to describe?
now the whole world is waking up
a ribbon cut for the opening
yes, finally the day has arrived
so seek
and rejoice
fill your hands with something tangible
and fly your love
like a flag
and destroy the desire
for that which is impossible
and accept what you get with a smile

claire's turning blonde for the summer i guess
the sunlight just soaks into her hair
and she sits next to me on the motorboat
and shyly replies as to which boy she likes at her school.
so i am reminded of things ive forgotten.
the way doors can open and people just walk in.
its not unexpected, no its just how you planned it.
im beginning to think that it might never happen.
but now it is happening.
theres a show we can see at the base outside of town
where the planes they turn circles in the air.
i watch you stand next to me with your hand over your mouth
and join the crowds heavy gasp.
one for each time they pass overhead.
so we've been selected in this beautiful lottery.
we struggled so long but it ended so easy.
its starting to surface, all golden and godlike
this feeling we had every day and every night.
it bursts in an energy.a door it is opening.

I was living in a devil town
I didn't know it was a devil town
Oh lord it really brings me down about the devil town

All my friends were vampires
I didn't know they were vampires
It turns out I was a vampire myself in the devil town

I was living in a devil town
I didn't know it was a devil town
Oh lord it really brings me down about the devil town

All my friends were vampires
I didn't know they were vampires
It turns out I was a vampire myself in the devil town

I was living in a devil town
I didn't know it was a devil town
Oh lord it really brings me down about the devil town

About the devil town

I was living in a devil town
I didn't know it was a devil town
Oh lord it really brings me down about the devil town

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

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.

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

There is nothing for
Which I'm responsible
Just this baggage I keep carrying on
As if I had someone
Ok, maybe there is a woman somewhere
Who's still thinking of me
Or a girl with coal black hair
Who's haunted in her dreams
But what they've seen
Well, it wasn't me
It was just some lie
They slept beside
Yeah, I kept this from them
But I can't keep this from you
So will you look for me
In that strange bright place
Where the statues bloom in the park
They don't need no rain
Cause how I ever got to you
I have no idea
It's like some secret door
Well, it just appeared
So, no matter what I do
From now on with my time
You will always stay here
In my mind
I am certain of this
And I am not certain of anything
So I want to get myself attached
To something bolted down
So these winds of circumstance
Won't keep blowing me around
From when I land
To when I leave
There is enough time
To sleep and sing
I keep running around
When all I want is to lay motionless

Let's go place some money on the order of the horses
Break the ribbon of that famous finish line
And we'll gather up our stash babe
Find a little ranch babe
And buy a lonely little pony to ride
Well I know I was lucky when the needle came and stuck me
This porcupine came and poked my cactus hide
So let me finish what I start babe
Open up your heart babe
I saw a land of milk and honey in your mind
Our flesh and blood has found me in your arms again
See the whisper of the wind has found your hair again
And though my heart said give me refuge in you dignity my dear
All I could do was put a seashell to your ear
Our flesh and blood has found me in your arms again
I see the whisper of the wind has found your hair again
And though my heart said give me refuge in your dignity my dear
All I could do was put a seashell to your ear

He always gets so mad things you laugh at.
"Don't get so worked up." you'd say.
but on the back deck you admit that you haven't felt much
like laughing lately anyway.
And so I say, "that could change."

I noticed how you waste no time making your way
across the room.
You leave a wake of tongues still waving after you.
And it isn't no coincidence where you finally choose to stand.
I guess soon you will be leaving your man.

It's a sweet smile and then a denial.
Hey, you are just trying to be nice.
But there is a meaning to every fleeting action you unconsciously
decide.
The clocks they chime. Now it's time.

I know you try and play it cool but there are
some thoughts you just can't hide.
Only in your closest friends do you confide.
The way you say you'll be seeing me.
Oh like it's so offhand.
I guess soon you will be leaving your man.

You stare at me so boldly now.
You have no lack of confidence.
It's just those lessons on sublety you missed.
I know you dream of saving me.
Like I'm some plane that you could land.
But when you fly you'll be leaving your man.

I wish I saved it for rainy days,
'Cause they're the hardest to stay dry.
Got no self control,
I'm always beggin' into telephones.
And then I,
I bought a little from my brother's friend,
Yeah, well just to get me by.
I don't trust his cup,
The effect's never as high as the markup.
I think I'll print it in the personals,
That I'm looking for a match.
Someone to light me up,
Someone to burn the proof of the things that I've done.
Each day there's hours,
skip like a stone.
I just crawl in a bag,
I'm gonna live my life like somebody's shadow.
I know I'm lazy with the little things,
I mean I never held a door.
But I still loved you more,
Then anyone; Since or before
You're always saying that I owe you one,
Well lets consolidate this debt.
Get on a payment plan,
I'll pay compliments, you can still treat me bad.
But, now this isn't getting easier,
to leave you and this town behind.
I'll do some travelin',
Once I'm gone tell all our friend you've got even
I felt like an object, been set aside
You know, I'm back on the shelve.
Not locked in the drawer.
I'm mint in the box,
But you'd still sell me for cost.
Pull out a parachute.
A blanket on top of you.
The window you're looking through.
Pull out a parachute.
Pull out a parachute.

Were you surprised that we never spoke?
That in the still of the night when nothing stirs I woke
and I gathered up some clothes.
I never planned on this, but it's the way it goes.
And now it all seems too familiar,
like pages turned on calendars that
give the same twelve months to fuck things up
year after year.

and I can't believe how down I am
like a well
being lowered in
the water stops
the bucket drops
it's farther and farther down,
farther and farther down.

Well I guess you never knew me,
or at least not well enough.
And so I fill my gut
with that dark red wine
till my brain shuts off
and my eyes go blind.
You won't see me there
in that thick black air.
Yeah, I'll finally make something dissapear.

'Cuz I've been practicing dissapearing
and I think that I got it down.

Now there's no sun,
it's just a cellar.
Nowhere a sky,
just that black, black dirt, yeah
now there's no sun
it's just a cellar
nowhere a sky,
just that black, black, black, black dirt.

Expanding outwards
just echoes for answers.
Not that it matters,
it's backward,
it's forwards.

Unhappy lovers
with baskets of flowers.
Use them as markers,
the place where your bed once stood
at the time when it still felt good.

But you'll get that feeling back.
Yeah, you just need some time to think
and to add up the Hell
get it straight in your mind,
but to calculate costs
that may take some time.

But I'm sure you'll get to feeling better.
Yeah I just need some time to drink.
So I fill my gut
with that blood red wine
'till my insides swim
and my veins unwind.
I'll be riding there
in that hot white air.
Once that something's gone,
it might never reappear
it might never reappear
it might never reappear
it might never reappear

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

Well i left my baby for a dream as lovely
For a love that's only in books i read.
And then i hit the cities, spent all my money
I just left my whole life in a taxi cab.
Cause it's just a memory, I can't love completely
When you're really with me, I'm indifferent.

But i try to get my head clear
It's too full of ideas
That i haven't thought of yet.
And time, clocks keep waving their hands,
Doing all that they can
to get our attention, but

The days fly away
Down a clean interstate
And i'm staring drunk at a map.

So i let my hair down for the second time now,
For the final time, now i had my fun.
But there's no returning from the places we've been,
Just repeat our slogan, never again.

So we split, said you had to get out,
Headed back to the south,
Where everything is gentle.
And i stayed for a couple weeks more,
All the weather reports
Said it would be snow for sure

But the storm moved away
To a neighboring state
I started the car.

Well I'm changing all my strings
I'm gonna write another traveling song
About all the billion highways and the cities at the break of dawn
Well I guess the best that I can do now is pretend that I've done nothing wrong
And dream about a train that's going to take me back where I belong

Well now, the ocean speaks and spits and I can hear it from the interstate
I'm screaming at my brother on my cell phone he's far away
I'm saying nothing in the past or future ever will feel like today
Until we're parking in an alley
Just hoping that our shit is safe

So I go back and forth forever
All my thoughts they come in pairs
Oh I will, I won't, I doubt, I don't
I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter
I guess you call that painting in a cave
And there's a word I can't remember
And a feeling I cannot escape
And now my ashtrays overflowing
I'm still staring at a clean white page
Oh and morning's at my window
She is sending me to bed again

Well I dream of dark on the horizon
I dream a desert where the dead lay down
I dream a prostituted child touching an old man in a fast food crown
I dreamt a ship was sinking
There was people screaming all around
And I awoke to my alarm clock
It was a pop song it was playing loud

So I must find my fears and face them
Or I'll cower like a dog
I'll kick and scream or kneel and bleed
I'll fight like hell to hide that I'm giving up

(spoken) (takes a sip of liquid and swallows) So there’s this woman, and she was um… (clears his throat) …on an airplane, and she’s flying to meet her fiance, sailing high above the ? (swallows) ? the largest ocean on planet earth, and she was seated next to this man who, er, you know, she had tried to start a conversation…and, only ? really the only thing she’d heard him say was ? just to order ? his…his Bloody Mary, and…and she’s sittin’ there, and she’s readin’ this…really arduous magazine article about…a third world country that…she couldn’t…even pronounce the - the name of, and…she’s feeling…very bored, and…very…despondent, ‘n…(takes another sip of liquid and swallows) And then, uh… (turns away from the microphone and presumably places the glass of liquid down on a surface behind him) …suddenly… (turns back to the microphone) …there was this huge mechanical failure and ? one of the ? the engines gave out… (swallows) …and they started just ffffalling ? an’…thirty thousand feet, the, uh…pilot’s on the… (inhales) …on the microphone and he’s ? (swallows) he’s saying um, ?I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh my god, I’m…I’m sorry,? and apologizing and… (inhales) …and she looks at that man, and she - and she says… (begins playing the guitar) …she says wh - she says, "Where are we going??…and uh…an’ he looks at her…and he says, "We’re going to a party…it - it’s a birthday party…it’s your birthday party, happy birthday, darling. We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.? And then um, he starts hummin’ this little tune, and… (inhales) …and, uh, it kinda goes like this, it’s kinda…one, two, one, two, three, four: (end of spoken portion)

We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web
We must rip out all the epilogues from the books that we have read
And in the face of every criminal strapped firmly to a chair
We must stare, we must stare, we must stare

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell
Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell
And in the ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn't dream
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing

And it'll go like this, all right:

While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun
He says, "Death will give us back to God,
Just like the setting sun
Is returned to the lonesome ocean"

And then they splashed into the deep blue sea
Oh, it was a wonderful splash

We must blend into the choir, sing a static with the whole
We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul
And in this endless race for property and privilege to be won
We must run, we must run, we must run

We must hang up in the belfry where the bats and moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
And in the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

And then we'll get down there,
Way down to the very bottom of everything
And then we'll see it, oh, we'll see it!, we'll see it!, we’ll see it!

Oh, my morning's coming back,
The whole world’s waking up
All the city buses swimming past,
I'm happy just because
I found out I am really no one

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours was the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go

So I thought I'd let you know
That these things take forever, I especially am slow
But I realized how I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

I remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed
You felt as if you just woke up

And you said, this is the first day of my life
Glad I didn't die before I met you
Now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy

So if you wanna be with me
With these things there's no telling, we'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery

Besides maybe this time it's different
I mean, I really think you like me

If you walk away I walk away
first tell me which road you will take
I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday
so you walk that way I'll walk this way

and the future hangs over our heads
and it moves with each current event
until it falls all around like a cold steady rain
just stay in when it's lookin' this way

and the moon's laying low in the sky
forcing everything metal to shine
and the sidewalk holds diamonds like a jewelry store case
they argue "walk this way," "no walk this way"

and laura's asleep in my bed
as I'm leaving she wakes up and says
"I dreamed you were carried away on the crest of a wave
baby don't go away, come here"

and there's kids playing guns in the street
and one's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up I say:
"Enough is enough,
If you walk away I walk away."
(and he shot me dead)

I found a liquid cure
for my landlocked blues
it will pass away
like a slow parade
it's leaving but I don't know how soon

and the world's got me dizzy again
you'd think after 22 years I'd be used to the spin
and it only feels worse when I stay in one place
so I'm always pacing around or walking away
I keep drinking the ink from my pen
and I'm balancing history books up on my head
but it all boils down to one quoteable phrase
"If you love something give it away"
A good woman will pick you apart
a box full of suggestions for your possible heart
But you may be offended, and you may be afraid
but don't walk away, don't walk away

We made love on the living room floor
with the noise in the background from a televised war
And in the deafening pleasure I thought I heard someone say
"If we walk away,they'll walk away"
But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start runnin' away
'cause we're comin' for ya!

I've grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So I'm making a deal with the devils of fame
Sayin' let me walk away, please
You'll be free child once you have died
from the shackles of language and measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
till then walk away walk away walk away walk away
So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I'm leaving but I don't know where to
I know I'm leaving but I don't know where to

I know that it is freezing but I think we have to walk
I keep waving at the taxis, they keep turning their lights off
But Julie knows a party at some actor's westside loft
Supplies are endless in the evening, by the morning they'll be gone

When everything is lonely, I can be my own best friend
I get a coffee and the paper, have my own conversations
With the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection
The mask I polish in the evening, by the morning looks like shit

And I know you have a heavy heart
I can feel it when we kiss
So many men stronger than me
have thrown their backs out trying to lift it
But me I'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split
The love I sell you in the evening, by the morning won't exist

You're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
Just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back
Well it takes one to know one, kid I think you got it bad
What's so easy in the evening, by the morning's such a drag

I've got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train
And if you promise to stay conscious, I will try and do the same
Well, we might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain
But what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane

And I'm not sure what the trouble was
that started all of this
The reasons all have run away
But the feeling never did
It's not something I would recommend
But it is one way to live
Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is
It was so simple in the moonlight, now it's so complicated
It was so simple in the moonlight
So simple in the moonlight
So simple in the moonlight

Gray light new day, leaks through the window
an old soul song comes on the alarm clock radio
we walked the 40 blocks to the middle
of the place we heard that everything would be
and there were barricades to keep us off the street
but the crowd kept pushing forward
till they swallowed the police
yea they went wild

they went wild
yea they went wild
yea they went wild

We left before the dust had time to settle
and all the broken glass swept off the avenue
all the way home held your camera like a bible
wishing so bad that it held some kind of truth
and i stood nervous next to you, in the dark room
you dropped the paper in the water,
and it all begins to bloom

yea they go wild
they go wild
yea they go wild
yea they go wild

just when i get so lonesome, i cant speak
i see some flowers on a hillside
like a wall of new tv's
yea they go wild
yea they go wild
yea they go wild
yea they go wild
yea they go wild
yea they go wild
yea they go wild

Poison oak some boyhood bravery
when a telephone was a tin can on a string
and I fell asleep with you still talking to me
you said you weren't afraid to die

in Polaroids you were dressed in woman's clothes
were you made ashamed? Why'd you lock them in the drawer?
well, I don't think that I ever loved you more

than when you turned away
when you slammed the door
when you stole the car
and drove towards Mexico
and you wrote bad checks
just to fill your arm
I was young enough
I still believed in war

well, let the poets cry themselves to sleep
and all their tearful words will turn back into steam

but me I'm a single cell on a serpent's tongue
there's a muddy field where a garden was
and I'm glad you got away
but I'm still stuck out here
my clothes are soaking wet
from your brother's tears

and I never thought this life was possible
you're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for

the end of paralysis, I was a statuette
now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
and when I press the keys it all gets reversed
the sound of loneliness makes me happier

The sun came up with no conclusions
Flowers sleeping in their beds.
The city's cemetery's humming
I'm wide awake it's morning.
I have my drugs, I have my woman
They keep away my loneliness
My parents they have their religion
but sleep in separate houses.

I read the body count out of the paper
and now it's written all over my face.
No one ever plans to sleep out in the gutter,
sometimes that's just the most comfortable place.

So, I'm drinking breathing, writing singing
every day I'm on the clock.
My mind races with all my longings
But can't keep up with what I've got.
So I hope I don't sound too ungrateful,
what history gave modern men
a telephone to talk to strangers
machine guns and a camera lens.

So, when you're asked to fight a war that's over nothing
It's best to join the side that's gonna win.
And no one's sure how all of this got started,
but we're gonna make 'em god damn certain how it's gonna end.
Oh yeah we will, oh yeah we will!

Well I could have been a famous singer,
if I had someone else's voice.
But failure's always sounded better
let's fuck it up boys, make some noise!

The sun came up with no conclusions
Flowers sleeping in their beds.
The city's cemetery's humming
I'm wide awake it's morning.

You were born inside of a raindrop,
and I watched you falling
to your death

And the sun,
well, she could not save you
She's falling down too
Now the streets are wet

Body of water, toxic and timeless,
Atlantic ocean, New York skyline
I always get lost when I leave the village,
so I couldn't come meet you in Brooklyn last night

But I sing glory from my lowest,
and I will say peace to the people I meet
while the world waits for an explosion,
that instant of light that wipes the slate clean

So don't be fooled.
No, don't get lied to
Love was always cruel

And don't act strange, don't be a stranger
It happened to me; now, it's happening to you
But if you take that train under water,
then we could talk it through

Well, if I could tame all of my desires
Wait out the weather that howls in my brain
Because it seems that it's always changing
The wind's indecision, the sorrowful rain

Yeah, I was a postcard
I was a record
I was a camera, until I went blind
and now I'm riding all over this island
looking for something to open my eyes

But I still sing glory
from a high-rise
And I will say thanks if you're pouring my drinks
while the world waits for an explosion:
that moment in time when we'll be set free

Well, don't stay mad
Just let some time pass
And in the morning you'll wake feeling new

And if I don't come back,
I mean, if I get sidetracked,
It's only 'cause I wanted to
I'm keeping up with the moon on an all-night avenue

Goddamn
You make me cry

If you hate the taste of wine
why do you drink it till you're blind?
And if you swear that there's no truth and who cares
how come you say it like you're right?
Why are you scared to dream of god
when it's salvation that you want?
You see stars that clear have been dead for years
but the idea just lives on
In our wheels that roll around
as we move over the ground
And all day it seems we've been in between
the past and future town

We are nowhere and it's now
We are nowhere and it's now
and like a ten minute dream in the passenger's seat
while the world was flying by
I haven't been gone very long
but it feels like a life time

I've been sleeping so strange at night
Side effects they don't advertise
I've been sleeping so strange
with a head full of pesticide

I've got no plans in all this time
I feel too restless to unwind
I'm always lost in thought
as I walk a block to my favorite neon sign
where the waitress looks concerned
but she never says a word
just turns the juke box on
and we hum along and I smile back at her
And my friend comes after work
When the features start to blur
She says these bars are filled with things that kill
by now you probably should have learned

Did you forget that yellow bird?
How could you forget your yellow bird?
She took a small silver wreath and pinned it on to me
she said this one will bring you love
and I don't know if it's true but I keep it for good luck

You can make a plan
Carve it into stone
Like a feather falling
That is still unknown
Until the clock speaks up
Says it's time to go
You can choose the high
Or the lower road

You might clench your fist
You might fork your tongue
As you curse or praise
All the things you've done
And the faders move
And the music dies
As we pass over
On the arc of time

So you'll nurse your love
like a wounded dove
in the covered cage of night
Every star is crossed
by phrenetic thoughts
They separate and then collide

And they twist like sheets
‘til you fall asleep
and they finally unwind
It's a black balloon
It's a dream you'll soon deny

I hear if you make friends
With Jesus Christ
You'll get right up
From that chalk outline
And then you'll get dolled up
And you'll dress in white
All to take your place
In his chorus line

And then in you'll come
With those marching drums
In a saintly compromise
No more whiskey slurs
No more blonde hair girls
For your whole eternal life

And you'll do the dance
That was choreographed
At the very dawn of time
Singing "I told you son,
The day would come,
You would die, you die, you die, you die…
You would die, you die, you die, you die…
You would die, you die, you die, you die…
You would die, you die, you die

To the deepest part
Of the human heart
The fear of death expands
‘til we crack the code
we've always known
But could never understand

On a circuit board
We'll soon be born
Again, again, again, again…
And again, again, again, again…
And again, again, again, again…
And again, again, again

A house of cards
A supple heart
Is not a place to dwell

Now you have your cake
Don’t hesitate
Come on just do it,
Come on just do it

Put it in your mouth
There is only now
Tomorrow has to wait

But know there’s no backing out
This is gonna be reality
You can never dream it down

I have No way
Of telling
The two apart

Well I made amends
In the general sense
But the devil’s in the details

And I know the cause
And I want to stop
But I can’t do it,
I just can’t do it

There was love I meant
There were accidents
So tell me which is which

‘Cus I just can’t work it out
But for memory and clarity
We had better write it down

I have no way
Of knowing the truth
With time dissolves

I put the past into the ground
I saw the future as a cloud
If theres still time to turn around
Im going to

Its just one day I fell asleep
And all day all night I dreamed
I am the first one I deceive
If I can make myself believe
The rest is easy...

I heard you fell into a rabbit hole
Covered yourself up in snow
Baby, tell me where'd you go
For days and days
Did they make you stay up all night?
Did they paint your face that pasty white?
You're thirsty but your appetite
Is chased away

The sun turns us to stone
It's a cloudy day
But we still can't go home
Open our back cellar door
Till we see the moon
We're invisible

No one ever takes the garbage out
A new kid gets dare to touch the house
He runs back only to announce
There's no one home

Does he paint the foil with a flame
Smear the soda, taste butane
For every fear that can't be named
To calm you down

Your heart starts skipping steps
So your farther gone
Then you might expect
If your thoughts should turn to death
Got to stomp them out
Like a cigarette

Did it all get real, I guess it's real enough
They got refrigerators full of blood
Another century spent pointing guns
At anything that moves
Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot
My twitching muscles tease my flippent thoughts
I never really dreamed of heaven much
Until we put him in the ground

But it's all I'm doing now
Listening for patterns in the sound
Of an endless static sea
But once the satellite's deceased
It blows like garbage through the streets
Of the night sky to infinity

But don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is nothing as lucky
Honey, don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free

Don't be a criminal in this police state
You better shop and eat and procreate
You got vacation days then you might escape
To a condo on the coast

I set my watch to the atomic clock
I hear the crowd count down til the bomb gets dropped
I always figured there'd be time enough
I never let it get me down

But I can't help it now
Looking for faces in the clouds
I got some friends I barely see
But we're all planning to meet
We'll lay in bags as dead as leaves
All together for eternity

But don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is no one as lucky
Honey, don't you weep (don't you weep for them)
Don't you weep (don't you weep)
There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free
Or free, or free, or free
There's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing...

It was Don DeLillo, whiskey neat
And a blinking midnight clock
Speakers on a TV stand
Just a turntable to watch
And the smoke came out our mouths
On all those hooded sweatshirt walks
We were a stroke of luck
We were a gold mine, they gutted us

And from the sidelines you see me run
Until I'm out of breath
Living the good life, I left for dead
The sorrowful Midwest
Well I did my best...
To keep my head

It was grass stain jeans and incompletes
And a girl from class to touch
But you think about yourself too much
And you ruin who you love
Well all these claims at consciousness
My stray dog freedom
Let's have a nice clean cut
Like a bag we buy and divy up

And from the sidelines, I see you run
Until you're out of breath
And all those white lines that sped us up
We hurried to our death
Well I lagged behind...
So you got ahead

I'm staring out into that vacuum again
From the back porch of my mind
The only thing that's alive
I'm all there is

And I start attacking my vodka, stab the ice with my straw
My eyes have turned red as stoplights, you seem ready to walk
You know I'll call you eventually, when I wanna talk
'Til then you're invisible

'Cause there's a switch that gets hit and it all stops making sense
And in the middle of drinks, maybe the fifth or the sixth
I'm completely alone at a table of friends
I feel nothing for them. I feel nothing, nothing

Well, I need a break from the city again
I think I'll ship myself back west
I got a friend there, she says, "hey, any time."
Unless that offers expired, I have been less than frequent
She's under no obligation to indulge every whim
And I'm so ungrateful, I take, she gives and forgives
And I keep forgetting it

And each morning she wakes with a dream to describe
Something lovely that bloomed in her beautiful mind
I said "I'll trade you one for two nightmares of mine
I have some where I die, I have some where we all die."

I'm thinking of quitting drinking again
I know I said that a couple times
And I'm always changing my mind, well, I guess I am
But there's this burn in my stomach and there's this pain in my side
And when I kneel at the toilet
And the mornings clean light pours in through the window
Sometimes I pray I don't die
I'm a goddamn hypocrite

But the night rolls around and it all starts making sense
There is no right way or wrong way, you just have to live
And so I do what I do and at least I exist
What could mean more than this?
What would mean more?
Mean more?

Some plans were made and rice was thrown
A house was built, a baby born
How time can move both fast and slow
Amazes me

And so I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and its accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand
You can't hold it in your hand
It won't bow to your demands
There's no difference you can make
There's no difference you can make
And if it seems like an accident
A collage of senselessness
You aren't looking hard enough
I wasn't looking hard enough

An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who makes love to the flower bed
And dies in the first freeze
Oh I want to learn such simple things
No politics, no history
Till what I want and what I need
Can finally be the same

I just got myself to blame
Leave everything up to fate
When there's choices I could make
When there's choices I could make
Yeah, my heart needs a polygraph
Always so eager to pack my bags
When I really wanna stay
When I really wanna stay

When I wanna stay (x4)

The arc of time, the stench of sex
The innocence you can't protect
Each quarter note, each marble step
Walk up and down that lonely treble clef
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive

An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who never thinks not to accept its fate
That's faith, there's happiness in death
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You get to the next on down the line

The levity of longing that
Distills each dream inside my head
By morning watered down again
On silver stars I wish and wish and wish

Move on to the next one
Move on to the next one down the line
Move on to the next one
Move on to the next one down the line

You get to the next one
You get to the next on down the line
You get to the next one
You get to the next on down the line

John A. Hobson was a good man
He used to loan me books and mic stands
He even got me a subscription
To the Socialist Review
Listening to records in his basement
Old folk songs about the government
"It's love of money, not the market"
He said, "these fuckers push on you"

And freedom yells, it don't cry
Whatever sells will decide
But there's no hell when you die
So don't look so worried

He got a night life, lost his day job
Pushing papers, swinging pendulums
Anything to serve a function
Or to occupy some time

You gotta earn this living somehow
You're good as dead without a bank account
But it's funny how alive he felt down
In that unemployment line

With all that trash at his feet
The pools of piss in the street
All of that filthy empathy
For the way we're feeling

The billboards shade
The flags they wave
The anthem was playing loud
The baseball game was letting out

And all at once
he saw the dust
And heard every tiny sound
Got in his truck and turned around

Drove out through the crowd and the cops
Drove out past that center mall
Drove out past that sickening sprawl
Out past that fenced in crawl

And maybe he lost control
Fucking with the radio
But I bet the stars seemed so close
At the end
At the end
At the end

I wanna be the surgeon that cuts you open
That fixes all of life's mistakes
I wanna be the house that you were raised in
The only place that you feel safe

I wanna be a shower in the morning
That wakes you up and makes you clean
I know I'm just the weather againt your window
As you sleep through a winter's dream

Someones churning the earth
Someone's stirring the sky
Every color at once in a column of lights
Bacteria breeds on a microscope slide
The worm in my heart's the apple of your eye

Don't adore what is impossible
We have built this ship in a wine bottle
But if you knew how it worked
We'd have to grow old

Someone's eating at you, wakes you up in the night
If you're digging the past, who knows what you'll find
Read the newspaper print off the microfiche slide
And you're holding your breath for the rest of your life

Don't you love what is intangible
I have built this ship in a wine bottle
But if you knew who I was...
You would never grow old

First with your hands and then with your mouth.
A downpour of sweat, damp cotton clouds.
I was a fool, you were my friend. We made it happen.

You took off your clothes, left on the light. You stood there so brave. You used to be shy. Each feature improved, each movement refined and eyes like a showroom.

Now they are spreading out the blankets on the beach.
That weatherman is a liar.
He said it would be raining but it is clear and blue as far as I can see.

Left by the lamp, right next to the bed, on a cartoon cat pat you scratched with a pen, "Everything is as it has always been. This never happened.
Don't take it so bad it is nothing you did. It's just once something dies you can't make it live. You are a beautiful boy.
You're a sweet little kid but I am a woman." So I laid back down and wrapped myself up in the sheet.
And I must have looked like a ghost because something frightened me and since then I've been so good at vanishing.

Now I do as I please and lie through my teeth. Someone might get hurt but it won't be me.
I should probably feel cheap but I just feel free and a little bit empty.
No it isn't so hard to get close to me. There will be no arguments.
We will always agree.
And I will try and be kind when I ask you to leave. We will both take it easy.
But if you stay too long inside my memory, I will trap you in a song tied to a melody and I will keep you there so you can't bother me

death

data entry

ant hill law

encoded arc our common cause

drink liquid clocks 'til I see God

crystal display

can't turn it off

shh...shh...shhhh

don't talk

don't talk

Sitting around, no work today.
Try pacing to keep awake.
Laying around, no school today.
Just drink until the clock has circled all the way.

It's late afternoon, as you walk through the rooms
of a house that is quiet
except for unanswered telephones.
You stand near the sink,
you mix up a drink.
You think you don't want to pass out
where your roommates could find you again.
Stumble 'round the neighboorhod, nothing to do.
You're always looking for something
to sniff smoke or swallow.
Calling over next door, see what they've got.
But you would settle for anything
that would make your brain slow down or
stop this circle of thoughts you chase
before they catch back up with you.
And your parents notice your thinning face,
All the weight you've lost,
All the weight youre losing.
You said "I'm done feeling like a skeleton,
no more sleep walking dead."
You're going to wake from this coma.
You're going to crawl from this bed you've made.
Stop counting on the camera
that hangs around your neck,
cause it will never remember what you choose to forget.

And you try to find one source of light,
try to name one thing you like.
You used to have such a longer list,
And light, you never had to look for it.

But now it's so easy, it's so easy to--
it's so easy, it's so easy to
second guess everything you do
until all you want, all you want is to
finish this half empty glass
before the ice all melts away.
This feeling always used to pass,
seems like it's every day
seems like it's every night now.

If you could change your days, arranging them in some sweet new sequence
Like any new arrangement's gonna make a difference
Cause it's the moment that you're living in and not the one that follows
That makes this mess you're cleaning in your head
Time still drags you forward, though you keep resisting
You know it's what you leave behind, you'll soon start missing
And the people you once counted on now say it's all depending
On how you act and how you treat yourself
And that's not very well
So baby, when I call for you
I want you to come
Explain yourself to everyone
You nod in an acknowledgement of your frequent mood swings
Yeah, what good's an acknowledgement, it still don't change things
We've tried all forms of encouragement, but it's still no better
You just can't seem to fake or force a smile
Not even a little one
But baby, when I call to you
I want you to come
And lay it out for everyone
Exactly how it was before any of this happened
And why you can't leave it behind
Now don't just, don't just sit there when I call to you
I told you to come and lay it out for
Don't feel awkward
Lay it out for everyone

lately i've been wishing i had one desire
something that would make me never want another
something that would make it so that nothing matters
all would be clear thenbut i guess i'll have to settle for a few brief moments
and watch it all dissolve into a single second
and try to write it down into a perfect sonnet
or one foolish linebecause that's all that you'll get
so you'll have to accept
you are here
then you're gonei believe that lovers should be tied togehter
and thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather
left there to drown
left there to drown
in their innocencebut as for me i'm coming to the final chapter
i read all of the pages and there's still no answer
only all that was before i know must soon come after
that is the only way it can beso i stand in the sun
and i breath with my lungs
trying to spare me the weight of the truthsaying everything you've ever seen was just a mirror
you've spent your whole life sweating in an endless fever
now you're laying in a bathtub full of freezing water
wishing you were a ghostbut once you knew a girl and you named her lover
and danced with her in kitchens through the greenest summers
but autumn came, she disappeared, you can't remember
where she said she was going tobut you know that she's gone
because she left you a song
that you don't wanna singsinging i believe that lovers should be chained together
and thrown into a fire with their songs and letters
and left there to burn
left there to burn
in their arrogancebut as for me i'm coming to my final failure
i've killed myself with changes trying to make things better
but i still ended up becoming something other
that what i had planned to beallright!now i believe that lovers should be draped in flowers
and laid entwined together on a bed of clover
and left there to sleep
left there to dream
of their happiness

In the morning when you throw up water
And your skin, it turns a pale, pale yellow
Well, every day you lose more color
Do you think that someone paints your mirror?
Do you think that someone paints your mirror?

And you think that things sound different
At the time when you speak
There are visions much clearer
Than these blurs that you see

And like Neely O'Hara
You swallow your sleep
And you wake up in the morning to find out
You are not, you are not who, you are not who
You used to be

You don't recognize behavior
Or the spelling of your name
And the shape that's in the mirror
You swear it's not (you swear its not the same) the same

And like Neely O'Hara
You swallow your sleep
And you really can't remember
But you know you are not
Think you are not
No, you are not
who you used to be
Who you used to be, who you used to be
Did you used to be, did you used to be
(No you are not, no you are not)
Who you used to be, who you used to be

There's a car parked where the block begins
And these people singing praises
Say it's all because of him
And there's a bird perched on a frayed wet wire
And his voice sings out for a lover
But it's covered by the choir
Of voices reaching way beyond the rafters
With devotion they perform these sacred tasks
They cross themselves and offer up their checkbooks
Slight suffering is not too much to ask
Besides, we all are making money
And we're all fucking alone
And we don't know what we're doing
Maybe just buying us some hope
Because we know that we are lonely
Well, yeah, lonely that's for sure
And the older ones are coughing
Yeah, the older ones they're dying
Maybe we're all dying
I pass a graveyard on my way to work
Today I saw two dozen white roses
on a fresh new mound of dirt
And I wondered about the occupant
When the darkness finally swallowed him
was he calm and content?
Or was he sweating in a struggle to keep breathing
Ripping apart the sheets that dressed his bed
Crying out loud for someone to help him
Then collapsing on his back all pale and dead
Maybe it's me who's this unstable
Always obsessed about the end
Why can't I let what happens happen
And just enjoy the time I spend?
Oh, how I wish it was that easy
But when there is no point to anything
You know it gets a bit confusing
Why it is that I keep going
Why is it that we keep going?

I know that it is freezing but I think we have to walk
I keep waving at the taxis, they keep turning their lights off
But Julie knows a party at some actor's westside loft
Supplies are endless in the evening, by the morning they'll be gone

When everything is lonely, I can be my own best friend
I get a coffee and the paper, have my own conversations
With the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection
The mask I polish in the evening, by the morning looks like shit

And I know you have a heavy heart
I can feel it when we kiss
So many men stronger than me
have thrown their backs out trying to lift it
But me I'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split
The love I sell you in the evening, by the morning won't exist

You're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black
Just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back
Well it takes one to know one, kid I think you got it bad
What's so easy in the evening, by the morning's such a drag

I've got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train
And if you promise to stay conscious, I will try and do the same
Well, we might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain
But what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane

And I'm not sure what the trouble was
that started all of this
The reasons all have run away
But the feeling never did
It's not something I would recommend
But it is one way to live
Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is
It was so simple in the moonlight, now it's so complicated
It was so simple in the moonlight
So simple in the moonlight
So simple in the moonlight

I get my whiskey from a well, except on holidays then it's on the top shelf. But tonite I don't mind if I spend a little more because you are a tolerant woman and the world is at war. I know you witnessed my decline. You used to push back the darkness like a floodlight, but tonight that is a secret like the soul of a whore that if you want to have fun you will just have to ignore. Now let my troubles solve themselves. I used to get involved but I'm just no help, but tonight let's pretend that we are just like we were. Let me stay until the morning I will sleep on the floor. And we can talk in circles, no dollar figures, just what is owed or paid. And you can make predictions I know you see the future and I agree. We agree tonight is not happening.

When I got dry as a desert I got mean. I was as lonely and empty as a canteen. With no anesthetic you are bound to be sore but tonight I and drinking all peaceful and warm. And just when I got fed up with the gray sky. The sun came out of nowhere like a bar fight. And it knocke out the wind and it bruised me with light. And I felt grateful for living just like I feel tonight. I know that you feel safer in a group where you could be anyone or they could be you. But tonight we'll take risks that you can afford. You still have bars on your window and a hole in your door. So we can talk in circles around a dirty mirror. Night trickles down our throats. And we could make a timeline to last our whole lives but we don't know. No one knows what is further up the road. Just wait and see. Just wait and see. All in time. All in time.

This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours was the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go

So I thought I'd let you know
That these things take forever, I especially am slow
But I realized how I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

I remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed
You felt as if you just woke up

And you said, this is the first day of my life
Glad I didn't die before I met you
Now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy

So if you wanna be with me
With these things there's no telling, we'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery

Besides maybe this time it's different
I mean, I really think you like me

I am a blue blood
I will admit that
I dance in blue shoes and wear a blue hat
Live in a blue house
On a blue street
In a blue town
By a blue creek
I write my blue songs
With my blue pen
I sing the blue notes
To my blue friends
Now I don't that much about you
But I like you
Because you're true blue

I had a blue dream
About a blue star
In it I drove there
In my blue car and when I got there
I met a blue dog
With a blue tongue
We had some real fun
We bounced a blue ball
It broke a blue glass
We banged on blue drums and call it blue grass
I guess the thing I'm trying to tell you
Is that it's best, kid
If you're true blue

Once I had gangrene
I got it real bad
So the doc came with his black bag
I said 'You know, Doc, I dont feel swell,
if you had a blue bag, I think I'd get well..'
So he came right back
With a blue sack
He said 'Will this do?'
I said 'Why not, Yeah"
That's why im here today
To tell you
That it's best, man
To be true blue

Out on the blue sea
I sailed a blue ship
I had a first mate
Always had blue lips
His name was Bluebeard
He had a weird twitch
He flew a blue flag
On a big stick
And we ate blue gill and we ate blue chips
Oh I felt real blue, eating that blue fish
Because there ain't much that I won't do
Unless it keeps me from being true blue

Once in a blue moon
There's a blue sky
I wear my blue jeans and fly my blue kite
Thing's like a bluebird, until the wind dies
And then the tears pour
Out of my blue eyes

If it's your birthday
We'll bake a blue cake
And then we'll eat it off these blue plates
'Cause kid I don't know much about about you
But I like you
Because you're true blue

Yeah I don't know much about you
But I like you 'cause you're
True!
Blue!

When the President talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the President talks to God?

When the President talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute on down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God says ever change his mind
When the President talks to God?

When the President talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the President talks to God?

When the President talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop?
"We should find some jobs, the ghetto's broke"
"No they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke"
That's what God recommends

When the President talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess God just calls a spade a spade
When the President talks to God

When the President talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe He's not
That that voice is just inside his head?
When he kneels next to the Presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the President talks to God?

I doubt it

It was Don DeLillo, whiskey neat
And a blinking midnight clock
Speakers on a TV stand
Just a turntable to watch
And the smoke came out our mouths
On all those hooded sweatshirt walks
We were a stroke of luck
We were a gold mine, they gutted us

And from the sidelines you see me run
Until I'm out of breath
Living the good life, I left for dead
The sorrowful Midwest
Well I did my best...
To keep my head

It was grass stain jeans and incompletes
And a girl from class to touch
But you think about yourself too much
And you ruin who you love
Well all these claims at consciousness
My stray dog freedom
Let's have a nice clean cut
Like a bag we buy and divy up

And from the sidelines, I see you run
Until you're out of breath
And all those white lines that sped us up
We hurried to our death
Well I lagged behind...
So you got ahead

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

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

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

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...

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

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?

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 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

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?

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

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

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

The language in the dimmer rooms
Seems to represent the light source well
How soft they speak and seem to be at peace
With the movement of the music and the madness
That is pulling me into this
And the shades of the lamps are woven red
The light, it stains and consecrates
Anointing all forgotten forms
That swirl and smoke and haunt this place
The girls in gowns all nurse the dark
Pulling it near to their swelling breasts
And watch as it seeps to their hearts
And beats within their virgin chests
And here I know seduction breeds
From wanton hearts that would seduce
And grows and spreads its vine and leaves
Embracing those who might have moved
But now remain to drink the night
From vials black and thick with steam
Such intoxicating delights
That leave you drunk inside this dream
And you watch them take the light from you
And you find yourself
On a velvet couch
Tasting the skin of a foreign girl
Her eyes are black
And wet like oil
And she ties your hands with a string of pearls
And you tremble like a frightened bird
As she closes in and captures you
To place you in the silver cage
Deep within her poisoned womb
And once you're safe inside
She might let you out to fly
In the circles around the room
But it's always night
And there is no moon
And you wonder if you are alive
And you're not sure if you want to be
But you drank her sweat like it was wine
And you lay with her on a bed of blue
And it's awful sweet
Like the fruit she cuts and feeds to you

You contrast and compare
Between the busy ones and the ones who don’t care
Until there is no one
That you really know
So I drift through these days
Of appointments and promises made
They will all end up broken
And quickly replaced
Weeks are slow, days drag on
Even practice and parties seem long
but I find myself going
I guess there's nothing to do, oh well
Group of kids, line of cars
more will show up after the bars close
There’s this boredom that drowns everything
Bottles break, music plays
conversations competing for space
I look for a corner or a quieter room
There’s no heat in this house
I can’t breathe with these words in my mouth
But I’m not going to say them
Yeah, I've made that mistake before
On the stairs, she grabs my arm
Says whats up, where you been, is something wrong?
I try to just smile
And say everything’s fine

I dreamt of a fever,
one that would cure me of this cold, winter-set heart
With heat to melt these frozen tears burned with reasons as to carry on

Into these twisted months I plunge without a light to follow
But I swear that I would follow anything
just get me out of here

But you get six months to adapt
and you get two more to leave town
And in the event that you do adapt
we still might not want you around

But I fell for the promise of a life with a purpose
but I know that that's impossible now
And so I drink to stay warm and to kill selected memories
cause I just can't think anymore about that
or about her tonight

And I give myself three days to feel better or else I
swear I'll drive right off a fucking cliff
because if I can't learn to make myself feel better
how can I expect anyone else to give a shit?

and I scream for the sunlight
or a car to take me anywhere.
just get me passed this dead and eternal snow

cause I swear that I'm dying
Slowly, but it's happening
and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere
just take me there
just take me there
just take me there
and say and lie to me and say and lie to me and say
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright
it's gonna be alright..

I spent a week drinking the sunlight of Winnetka, California
Where they understand the weight of human hearts
You see, sorrow gets too heavy and joy it tends to hold you
With the fear that it eventually departs
And the truth is I’ve been dreaming of some tired tranquil place
Where the weather won’t get trapped inside my bones
And if all the years of searching find one sympathetic face
Then it's there I'll plant these seeds and make my home
I spent a day dreaming of dying in Mesa, Arizona
Where all the green of life had turned to ash
And I felt I was on fire, with the things I could have told you
I just assumed that you eventually would ask
And I wouldn’t have to bring up my so badly broken heart
And all those months I just wanted to sleep
And though spring, it did come slowly, I guess it did its part
My heart has thawed and continues to beat
And I visited my brother on the outskirts of Olympia
Where the forest and the water become one
And we talked about our childhood
like a dream we were convinced of
That perfect, peaceful street that we came from
And I know he heard me strumming all those sad and simple chords
As I sat inside my room so long ago
And it hurts that he’s still shaking from those secrets that were told
By a car closed up too tight and a heart turned cold
And I went to San Diego, and the birthplace of the summer
And watched the ocean dance under the moon
There was a girl I knew there, one more potential lover
I guess that something’s gotta happen soon
Cause I know I can’t keep living in this dead or dying dream
As I walked along the beach and drank with her
I thought about my true love, the one I really need
With eyes that burn so bright, they make me pure
They make me pure, they make me pure
I long to be with you
They make me pure, they make me pure
I long to be with you

I had a brother once
He drowned in a bathtub
before he'd ever learned how to talk
And I don't know what his name was
but my mother does
I heard her say it once
Padraic my prince, I have all but died
From the sheer weight of my shame
You cried but no one came
And the water filled your tiny lungs
Appear, my dear, and cry for me
Six years ago today
That I laid you in your grave
Your sweet young skin was shining then too
So tonight to celebrate i will...
I will poison myself
Another coughing, shaking fit in a bathroom
That is spinning
And I close the door
And I rest my head on the tile floor
Sickness and sleep turning me cold
I'm still not sure
Is there some better place I could be heading towards?
Where the selfishly sick and self-absorbed...
Are welcome
I saw the future once
I was drunk in a phone booth
My eyes were wet and red
But I could not tell what was said
And through the screams of the traffic
Voices carried
Saying I'm sorry
On a day so gray it's black inside
Watching churches on TV
In a coma you don't dream
You just hope that someone sits with you
Babies turn blue when they're ignored
Like the sky on summer days
Before you turn and walk away
It has changed you
So tonight to compensate I will...
I will poison myself
Another coughing, shaking fit in a bathroom
That is spinning