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Listening to the big guy's new CD laying in bed
The one his producer thinks he never shoulda made
But it gets me going gets me into the shower
What a shock to be awake at this early hour
And you're gone
It was time to fly
And all that's left
Is the fact we tried
So thanks for the tunes
And thanks for the time
You're gone now Baby Bye Bye
Them guys from Orange County man do they wail
Shakes my brain and it shakes my tail
New girl on top of me, will this work out
I retreat to the kitchen and sort it all out
And you're gone ...
You left your keys on the table
And on the bed you left a rose
And a note that said my CDs won't fit in the car
You can keep 'em I s'pose
This disc was left out in the sun
It's warped and it's hissing
I can't place the voice and the insert's missing
I turn off the phone so if you don't call it's all right
And maybe I won't listen to nothing tonight
And you're gone ...
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The sermon at the church on Hollywood Boulevard
Is on Adam and the Fall of Man
Now I know exactly what they mean
I feel a lot like Adam myself these days
Fallen to the ground in a '68 Ford
Fallen from grace in the eyes of the Lord
Now I think if I had to live outside the garden of paradise
It might as well be spent looking in your eyes
The lies might as well be your lies
The thighs might as well be your thighs
It might as well be with Eva
It might as well be with you
I wander the streets
And I wonder if there's something I should do
To prepare for the life to come
Maybe I should fall to my knees and try to repent
For the gifts that came and went
I'm fallen to the ground in a devil disguise
Fallen from grace in the angel's eyes
Now I think if I had to live as one of god's fallen ones
It might as well be spent lying in the sun
With your lips telling me I'm the one
Your fingers shooting me like a gun
It might as well be with Eva
It might as well be with
Eva's such a lucky girl
She don't have a care in the world
She sets fire to the foot of her bed
Leaves the righteous shaking their head
I won't be attending the sermon at the church this Sunday On Adam and the Fall of Man
I think I could deliver that message
As good as any preacher in Hollywood
I'm fallen to the ground in a fiery hole
Fallen with the rest of my immortal soul
Now I think if I gotta spend eternity outside Eden's gate
It might as well be worth the wait
So if you're the one buttering the bread on my plate
Then to hell and back on roller skates
It might as well be with Eva
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Superman said I am weary
Superman said let's go home
The trees were strung with crosses and with ribbons
All the towns and churches had been bombed
Superman stood out in the rain
Leaning up against a crumbling wall
Still around were mostly cats and lepers
Birds no longer soared in the sky
Would you come away with me
Someday
Would you come away with me
Some fine day
Superman ducked into a phone booth
Made a call to Lois Lane
He said I will always love you
But it might just be too late in the day
Would you come away with me...
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Please give me notice
So I can buy a ticket for a train
A train I've been hearing
Over and over and again and again
Tonight it seems you're sleepy
So there ain't nothing else to do
'Cept drink and listen to Miles Davis
Down in the Bakerloo
Closer to you, closer to you
Baby let's stop for gas
You can be the leader of the pack
Spain can wait 'til tomorrow
Spain always has
Go ahead try to go further
I'll push your hands away
Don't be worried 'bout
Physically overpowering me today
Closer to you, closer to you
I seen what happens to the boys who love you
Gonna move carefully, real real carefully
I sign for my brothers
Now when I write my name
Shaquille O'Neal don't show up
Drunk for a Laker game
God is down in the mailroom
Sorting what gets sent above
They finally proved scientifically
All you need is love
Closer to you, closer to you
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Walking around the happiest place in the world
But all I do is wonder if your hair's still curled
South of Brownsville, Texas south of Miami Beach
But all it means to me is that you're further out of reach
Everywhere is sand and sun blue sky, water too
I need you
The Spanish moss is hanging and you find a polished stone
You pocket it for luck and then you walk on alone
They'll rent you a bicycle with the tires blown
They'll cook you up a blackened fish and strip it to the bone
A slave ship just came in
I been talking to the crew
I need you
In that house Hemingway is boxing in the back
I go down to the library and check out all the facts
Nowadays it's hard to write a line my own thoughts bore me
I found me an island kid who says he'll do it for me
I'm wiping all my tears away so no one has a clue
That I need you
The last plane out of Saigon did not know that it was
Every man in prison thinks he's locked up for a cause
I need something to do my violin needs to sound
I'm gonna see if Ernest wants to go a couple rounds
Sometimes you get lost and you find something new
I need you
Some bird's flapping in the road on some crazy madman's string
Something's messed up with his wing something's messed up with my Everything
So here's the truth at last I tell you
Hemingway is dead
And everybody wants to find a steak that's slightly red
I thought I could escape myself by just not getting dressed
I thought I could escape you by coming to Key West
Sometimes you get lost and you don't find something new
I need you
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Everything I've ever done's gone belly up or bust
Don't ask you to believe me now I don't deserve your trust
Just let me prove to you that I'm a new man, I gone straight
Next time that I see you let's pretend it's our first date
I looked into my past and I don't much like what I see
A chain around my neck of things that I don't want to be
A chain around my neck of lies and bitterness and pride
A chain that doesn't let you see the man I am inside
Chain around my neck
Can't move this way or that way
A train that jumped its track
It don't let me move forward
It don't let me move back
Chain around my neck
If you left me now, no one could say that you were wrong
But my life is a place where I am certain you belong
I know that our love can be as solid as a rock
All I need is one more chance baby to unlock
This chain around my neck...
Each link on the chain is choking
But each link on the chain can be broken
Each link takes your love away from me
But only your love can set me free
From this chain around my neck...
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So many things to think about
And if I really tried
Einstein's theory of relativity
Could keep my occupied
But no matter what I do
To keep great thoughts in my head
Four little letters makin' up one word
Keep spinning 'round instead
Jane Jane Jane
Your name reverberates through my brain
Jane Jane Jane
I bought a dictionary
All it did was get in the way
Too much ABCDEFGHI
And not enough J
I wake up in the morning
With your name on my lips
I'm thinking of learning how to read in Braille
To have you at my fingertips
Jane Jane Jane ...
Conversation isn't easy
With such a one-track mind
If I thought about science
Like I think about you
I'd win a Nobel Prize
I went to see a therapist
The result was just the same
We played word-association
And all I said was Jane
Yeah there's much too much to think about
Enough to make you go insane
You can all think about everything else
I'll think about Jane Jane Jane Jane ...
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All these questions start to stick to me like cancer
You talk and talk but I don't think I gotta answer
If that's what's meant by confirmation
I don't even want the nomination
Piss on it, piss on it
Throw it in the trash and kiss it
I will not eat crow for you or anyone else
I will not, I will patently not
Maybe someone else will crawl for you
Dress like a Barbie Doll for you
There's things I'm willing to chew on
But your crow is not one of them
I spent the last ten years trying to make your secretary happy with my style
And now that I've seen your trophies
Excuse me if I laugh a while
If that's the reward for suffering
Keep the stuff you're offering
Piss on it, piss on it
Throw it in the trash and kiss it
I will not eat crow for you or anyone else
I will not, I will patently not
Maybe someone else will be your rug
Jump in the six-foot hole you dug
There's things I'm willing to chew on
But your crow is not one of them
Take your turn, take your place
Take a walk out on my face
Try again, you can try to dance
But you'll never get the chance
'Cause I will not eat crow for you or anyone else
I will not, I will patently not
Maybe someone else will hurt for you
Squirt their blood in the dirt for you
There's things I'm willing to chew on
But your crow is not one of them
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I would like to live forever
With you and me as all the people
All the roles would be defined
Here's the church, here's the steeple
But when I start to walk away
I panic when I speak
Don't make me leave
Oh, don't make me leave this place
Can't there be a trap door
When I finally have to go
I could just drop to the earth Through a hole in the floor
The further that I walk away
Brings more pain and fear
Don't make me leave
Oh, don't make me leave this place
Without you maybe I'd be dead
Without you maybe I'd have bled
All of the life out of me
So I guess I gotta figure out
How to break this chain
People can chop you up
'Til nothing remains
It's not that I'm unwilling
To strike out on my own
Don't make me leave
Oh, don't make me leave this place
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You say the city has changed well maybe it's true
Y'say everything moves too fast down the avenue
Y'say you just don't get that thrill tea for two
Y'say the city has changed well maybe it's you
You been east side, west side up and down, all around the town
Stomped through your old stomping grounds, cracked open your old crown
Y'say the sidewalks are made of concrete, 'stead of mountain dew
Y'say the city has changed well maybe it's you
Small-town boy you always thought you were a big-town man
Maybe your orchestra is just a ragtime band
Y'say the city looks different it's somehow lost its charm
Fire engine fly by with its annoying alarm
Did the angels ever really look this sad and blue
Y'say the city has changed well maybe it's you
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Awful still out here, too still for me
I'm used to going outside whenever
And something's open, buy some tea
Feel like you could die here
Middle of Main Street, plain as day
And the sun would bake you dry
And the wind blow you away
Everybody's shifty
Some secret's in the air
Half of me wants to crack the code
The other half don't care
I wouldn't bat an eyelid
If right now someone said
Boy, the folks you're talking to
Have been a hundred years dead
Hey, fly away
Hey, sky is gray
I don't understand why I owe anybody anything
I feel like a tightrope walker and they took away my string
Feel like someone squeezed the juice out of my fruit
Like everyone's in sweatpants and I alone still wear a suit
I used to feel like a Mexican bandit when I picked up my guitar
Now it's nuclear winter and I gotta pay for a new car
Hey, fly away ...
Why is the car still running
Won't someone turn it off
Who's looking in my window
I heard somebody cough
Things so important
A few months back
Now barely catch my interest
I feel I'm losing track
Of people, of names, of places, and of friends
Excuse me for not keeping up with all the latest trends
Hey, fly away ...
Well excuse me for behaving in a manner that seems rude
Most of my waking moments deal with finding food
Something for my family
Something for my nation
Designer boots for grandma
Designer drugs for my patients
I have been rejected
I have been collected
I have been injected and inspected and infected
Don't be dejected
You will be protected
Send me all your money so that I can get elected
Hey, fly away ...
Well I lost my sense of balance and I lost my sense of smell
In a car accident near the Liberty Bell
I lost my sense of timing and I lost my sense of touch
From commercials and checking my e-mail too much
I have no taste lots of people tell me that
My eyesight was pretty much shot right off the bat
All that's left is some skewed inner vision
And some obsolete info on nuclear fission
Hey, fly away ...
Well I got this town to myself finally
Think I'll go and park myself underneath a tree
And sleep off this headache and sleep off this war
Maybe my dreams will tell me what it all was for
I might steal some clothes and get my face all dirty
And hop on the freight train that rolls in around 4:30
Maybe I'll see you up in the sky
If we flap our wings and learn to fly
Hey, fly away ...
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Mississippi Delta shining like a National guitar
Paul Simon wrote that song about Graceland while driving in his car
Mark Cohn wrote that other one
It was a big hit it made Mark Cohn real
I'm walking in Memphis do I really feel the way I feel?
Well look at me Lord I am at Graceland
On a Saturday afternoon
I threw up last night at a rest stop
From eating cheese grits at the Waffle House
I felt like hell then, I feel all right now
I am at Graceland and I feel all right
I know that Graceland has sacred meaning
Deep, deep meaning for lots of people
For me it don't mean all that much
Okemah means more that's
Woody Guthrie's home
I don't have shrines to Elvis Presley
On the dashboard of my RV
I haven't spotted Elvis lately
In the tool section of the Wal-Mart
But I travel around the country
Playing my guitar for whoever will listen
So I'm at Graceland,
I am at Graceland
I am at Graceland and I feel all right
He had the coolest shoes
He had the coolest hair
He sang the coolest songs
He made the coolest movies
He moved his hips like wheat fields waving
He was even cool in the army
Well look at me Lord I am at Graceland ...
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Are you gonna scribble in the dark with a marker or do you gotta have the latest pen
If you tell a good joke and somebody laughs do we gotta hear it over again
If you give someone a present is it just to make 'em happy or just to keep 'em at bay
Are you gonna follow your soul
Are you gonna follow your soul
Are you gonna follow your soul
Or just the style of the day
Win a penny, lose a penny, here's a penny, penny, penny penny's gonna come and go
How many years will you sit there waiting for the wind to change how it blows
Do the skeletons in your closet all got 20 pairs of shoes to choose from, baby
Are you gonna follow your soul ...
Now I feel the changes coming down between you and I
Lions gotta roar and monkeys gotta bonk
Birds gotta swim, fish gotta fry
It's just a question I ain't necessarily leaning either way
Are you gonna follow your soul ...
Now I feel the changes coming from the north
Old Man Winter's gonna blow us off the porch and back inside
Every time I go downtown I see something beautiful behind glass
All the money in the world won't buy back a day of your past
I hear that you been crying
I wanna tell you that it's OK
Are you gonna follow your soul ...
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