Okkervil River

Some nights I thirst for real blood
For real knives
For real cries
And then the flash of steel from real guns
In real life
Really fills my mind
And I really miss what really did exist
When I held your throat so tight
And I miss the bus as it swerved from us
Almost came crashing to its side
Sometimes the blood from real cuts
Feels real nice
When it's really mine
And if you want it to be real
Come over for one night
And we can really, really climb
And those blue bridge lights might really burn most bright
As we watch that dark lake rise
And if you really want to see what really matters most to me
Just take a real short drive
It's just a drive into the dark stretch
Long stretch of night
Will really stretch this shaking mind
And this room, unlit, unheated
And the ceiling striped
And the dark black blinds
I want to know this time if you're really finally mine
I need to know that you're not lying so I want to see you tried
And I don't want to hear you say it shouldn't really be this way
'Cause I like this way just fine
'Cause there's nothing quite like the blinding light
That curtains cast aside
And no attempt is made to explain away
The things that really, really, really, really, really are behind
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide

Maybe we could break your ankle clean and unsuspiciously
An E.R. trip, a doctor's slip and you could share your pills with me
Won't it feel so good though when we're lying
Side by side can't move and I'm not trying

Two thousand milligrams each

A hotel by the pharmacy
With drinking straws in toothpaste tubes
Stash them with your toiletries
And I will share my pills with you

Little Michael sleeping in the child safety seat
Lying with the windows rolled up in the August heat

Three thousand milligrams each
Four thousand milligrams

We're driving down the interstate
You're feeling great, you scratch your wrist
And we pretend your kids, your husband, all you left does not exist
And in some motel that night we're lying
I can barely whisper
It's like dying

Well baby, do you know what I mean
Well baby, did you hear me?
Well baby, you fell asleep

I know I'm weak, I won't deny
We'll see our trial some day soon
When I know we're fucked I'll halve the pile and share my pills with you

'Cause we've felt fully in our bodies
And we've felt totally alive
So we're prepared to float above this dirty bed where we both lie
Where we lie, lie, lie
Will we be fine?
Not this time

Oh, my enemy, you've got company, you're not alone. They're watching over me while each town you pass fades as it folds. So in the night we might get lost in our fright. So in the day softly we'd flow, floating away. And it pours from the faucet's mouth like our fortune comes flowing out - every word of which, without a doubt, will find us together and together bring us down. They'll tie us down with those fine thin threads and run their knives up and down our skin, until what was in will be out again, above the sea on that sunny ledge. And in the day softly we'll flow, floating away. And in the night we will get lost, lost in our fright. La la la la

The president's dead, the radio said,
Dear friends, is it not so horrible?
A shot through my heart, like a knife right through bread,
The newspaper said the president's dead.

The sea doesn't dry and the sky isn't split,
But friends it just seems so wrong, don't it?
A shot from the crowd, and a shot in the head,
The president's lying on the tarmac dead.

He's lying face down with his black-dressed agents
Guns drawn running around and the early Obit's
Say he was a good man, you can't argue with that
Not today you can't, not now you can't.

In the media tent where they spin and they slant,
They just foam the mouth and they champ at the bit,
Those bloodsuckers can wait 'til those vulture's cool in,
The newscaster said, "The President's dead."

And let's imagine the way, let's say 30 years in,
How somebody will say, "What you were doing when...?"
On a beautiful day, I was waking up and
I was lying in bed with my girlfriend
And the eggs on the plate, and the bacon hissin'
And the coffee was great, there was spring on the wind.

If you don't live through a day for the littlest things,
And the littlest ways made you feel you were blessed
If you died right then, well you know you'd be missed,
But there's no better state to cease to exist
And you wouldn't feel sad, and you wouldn't resist
Cause you knew what you had, and were thankful for it

In your own little way, I'm a small quiet man
I've got no wars to win, I don't have a big plan
But I love my new place, and I love my old friends
And I scrimp and save, and one day I'll have kids.

I can truthfully say that my day was like that,
'Til the radio playing on the stand by the bed
Fired out this report and in 3 words they said,
Like 3 shots to my head, "The President's Dead"

"The President's Dead"
"The President's Dead"
"The President's Dead"
"The President's Dead"
"The President's Dead"

There once was desperation
Now just medication
The bathroom walls have always been so scribbled on
Just like your skin
But that's the room I'm hiding in
Is just a vindication

So hang the flag at half-mast
For a blonde girl with a leg cast
Who lay up in that un-lit room
And no one spoke
And no one moved
Until the air filled up with fear
I've never felt my body disappear so fast

I burned your dissertation
I spurned the celebration
You'll find me down this dirty hall
I'm hiding behind this silent wall
But in my darkest midnight
I'll still take an invitation
Oh I will take an invitation
Oh I will take an invitation

Red is my favorite color, red like your mother's eyes after awhile of crying about how you don't love her. She says ??짖€??"I know I don't deserve supervised sight of her, but each day becomes a blur without my daughter.??짖€???? Fall is my favorite season, like falling to reasoning why you crashed from on high. She says ??짖€??"Why is my life so uneven, and what have I done right but given you your life if after I led you on into that bar room???짖€???? ??짖€??"Yes??짖€???? is my favorite answer. I took a dancer home, she felt so alone. We stayed up all night in the kitchen doing my dishes, on and on until the dawn. She said ??짖€??"I know it's easy to have me, but I have seen some things that I can't even tell to my family pictures,??짖€???? and ??짖€??"I'm full of fictions and fucking addictions??짖€???? and ??짖€??"I miss my mother.??짖€???? She'll never know I could never forget her. If I could write her a letter, I'd try with every line to say ??짖€??"She still remembers your touch. And I know that it's not much, but you still haven't lost

The river is deep and the river is wide, and the girl that I love is on the other side. She wants to move to Kansas City: ??짖€??"Move, pretty baby, where the sky is so blue.??짖€???? She's walking down Ellum, turning down Main, trying to find someone to sell her cocaine. She wants to move to Kansas City: ??짖€??"Move, pretty baby, where the sky is so blue.??짖€???? With a dayful of promises dead on her lips, Mark 15:34 tucked next to her hip, she wants to move to Kansas City: ??짖€??"Move, pretty baby, where the sky is so blue.??짖€???? I jumped in the water and started to drown. I thought of her walking and turned back around. I want to move to Kansas City, where the sky is so blue. With her pair of old wings that opened just once, she can walk on two feet now, she can go where she wants. She can move to Kansas City, where the sky is so blue. And I'll tell you one thing that you should never do - never let a woman tell you she loves you. She'll call you ??짖€??"baby,??짖€???? she'll look in your eye, then she'll get on that airplane and wave ??짖€??"bye bye bye bye bye bye, baby.??짖€???? And if I could believe what I want to believe, I'd hold you all close and take you with me, all of you to Kansas City, where the sky is so

You can wash out your lying eyes in the bathroom down the hall. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I guess I didn't know you at all. I can picture you inside some stranger's house, inside some stranger's bed - you're trying to seem mysterious, the covers pulled over your head. It's all right, lady liberty, it's just too bad you couldn't do the same for me. You say you've been used, you've been betrayed. Yeah, and that old bed's been newly made. You just stick around awhile with me until you're strong enough to leave. And I can picture you the first time you decide to spend the night - you wonder if you should give me a call and ask me if it's all right. Yeah, it's all right, lady liberty, it's just too bad you couldn't do the same for me. Don't call me or send me any more letters, baby. I just can't stand to see your hand writing things that you don't mean. I waited, our faded love growing even more faded. The shades were down, I faced the wall, and I could hear you breathing. I tried to bring us back to life. I gave my heart so many times. And was it worth it after all? There is a bathroom down the

Dear Mother, we've all got bad days, and I know you'll understand. Where we open up a foreign door with a pair of foreign hands. Where we find ourselves alone at the foot of a pair of foreign stairs. Dear Mother, you know how our bad days can catch us unawares. Dear Mother, we've all got bad days, and I hope that you'll agree. With a bottle filled up with Vicodin and a child who looks just like me. And a cellar that's as dark as winter's cold (with a hole in the stone of the cold wall). A child like me who's hiding, a child who can't hear your call. There's a string that runs through our bad days, and if you pull that string real tight, the days all crumple together and all that you see is night. And the doorknob becomes your enemy, and the window you see through a haze. Dear Mother, I wish you could stand inside and see all my bad days. My bad days all got together and they stood in a row for me, and I plunged deep into the row, and I couldn't hear and I couldn't see. And I came out after thousands rose and thousands passed away. Now I stand all alone at the foot of the stairs and I wait for more bad

I'm surrounded, each doorway covered by at least twenty men. And they're going to take me and throw me in prison. I ain't coming back again. When I was younger, handsomer and stronger, I felt like I could do anything. But all of these people making all these faces didn't seem like my kith and kin. Colin Kincaid from the twelfth grade, I guess you could say he was my best friend. He lived in a big tall house out on Westfall where we would hide when the rain rolled in. We went out one night and took a flashlight, out with these two girls Colin knew from Kenwood Christian. One was named Laurie, that's what the story said next week in the Guardian. And when I killed her it was so easy that I wanted to kill her again. I got down on both of my knees and??짖€??짝.she ain't coming back again. Now, with all these cameras focused on my face, you'd think they could see it through my skin. They're looking for evil, thinking they can trace it, but evil don't look like any

Why must happy hearts break so hard, leave you curled up in the back seat of a car, staring up at the windshield? When will broken hearts learn how to heal? This boy I knew was five years older than me. His daddy'd left him when he was three. After we went walking by a stream, he held me down and made me feel as bad as he. Why must happy hearts break so hard, leave you standing in the darkness of the barn, staring at those rusty wheels? When will broken hearts learn how to heal? And everybody's searching for a place to put their love. See the people on the street? They go home and what do you think they dream of? Unconditional love. Why did you leave me? Mother, why do you sleep with him? He says he's smothering, then he comes back again, in our house for the weekend. Why must people's breaking hearts pretend? Why must happy hearts break so hard, leave you staring in the mirror at a bar? Leave you talking to yourself, because you can't talk to anybody

Sam, bless him, has died and left this home, the woodchucks running wild, the bushes overgrown. Slip unseen into the skein of trees, slide through dusky grasses and scatter his ashes. It's all over, he's never coming back. There'll be no more roaming. He was only here for fourteen years, and now the branches scratch my face and I can't hold back my tears. Long ago I'd see him running in the snow, he'd come in from the cold and he'd lie down by the stove. Pass along this loping road, the needley grasp of briars on the slope. He'd never been to church, so he doesn't have a soul. He isn't waiting at the place where all of us will go. But the woodchucks wouldn't run so wild, the bushes wouldn't be so overgrown if we were not alone. Bound unbound through the boundless air, remaining wisps of hair. Barking out through everywhere, the trees, the grass, the rain, and Sam in the air. He was in this world, by my side he was curled, but he came uncurled and this world holds him that much ti

Home is where beds are made and butter is added to toast. On a cold afternoon you can float room to room like a ghost. Take the cr??????짢che out and argue about who gets to set up the kings. And I know that it's home because that's where the stereo sings ??짖€??"I've got dreams to remember.??짖€???? But not even home can be with you forever. It's Christmastime and the plane flies me over white hills to a town in a dream, where the sky is frozen and still, and a room (that's not mine but it's just like I left it before, with the wax from the candles all dusty and locks on the door) where I held you so tenderly, and where in summer I opened your letter to me. I'm standing where we knelt and a miracle mile now borders it, but if I turn my back and look at the field I don't even notice it for a second. There's a tangle of greenery where winter scenery ends. And I hear that song sometimes and imagine us much more than friends - like if we stayed in this town, bought the first house that went up on sale, and how each Christmastime would bring inlaws and snowdays and holiday mail. Your dad says you're living in Georgia since last September. Well, ??짖€??"I've got dreams to remember.??짖€???? I've got dreams to remember. Oh Sara, come back to New Hampshire. We'll stay here fo

Down by Okkervil River slow silent thick and black, I stared into the water, and the water it stared back. The night it fell from tangles of the branches on the shore as it had on Okkervil River before. Down by Okkervil River's cigarettes and rusty tires, we made ourselves an altar, we lit our nightly fires. And the smoke lay thick and smothered all the skunk cabbage and vines where Gods were born and Gods lay down to die. With your hand inside my pocket, you whispered in my ear ??짖€??"We have come from ugliness to find some refuge here. With this bracken for a blanket, where these limbs stick out like bones, we have found a place where we can be alone.??짖€???? And I tried to tell you, as I kissed your hard dry lips, all the things I dreamed about. I touched your bone white hips. Far away our parents slept in while we watched our fire burn. They dreamed of nothing and got nothing in return. And the water slipped on slowly past our bodies in the weeds, pulling plastic wrap and razors on its current through the reeds. Then I woke up one cold morning, felt an absence at my back, and I searched and stared but only the river stared

Wish I could remember why it mattered to me. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to me anymore. Now that you're feeling fine, I'll admit that - though I know it's coming down, and see it shattering me - it doesn't matter to me, and I'm not sadder for seeing it come. I'm not going to run. I will just come when I am called. You want to cut me off because I took too much, but don't leave me alone. Take off your scarves, your winter coat. The night's too cold. When we met I should have said you're like a sister to me, how all that kiss her just seem like puny suitors I can see through, how none will do, not for you, how it might as well just be us two. And when I pulled you by the jacket from the clattering street, you started flattering me, you started saying I was so strong. String me along, but I can't become all that I'm called. And I can't claim to know what makes love die or grow, but I can still take control and so refuse to just go home, back down the hall. And as I crawl, as finally all the false confetti blooms up in this attic room, I'm going make my stand. I want to see both of your hands put down the phone. I won't let you go, although the moment stole my self-control from us all and now it can only end with a

Oh, my enemy, you've got company, you're not alone. They're watching over me while each town you pass fades as it folds. So in the night we might get lost in our fright. So in the day softly we'd flow, floating away. And it pours from the faucet's mouth like our fortune comes flowing out - every word of which, without a doubt, will find us together and together bring us down. They'll tie us down with those fine thin threads and run their knives up and down our skin, until what was in will be out again, above the sea on that sunny ledge. And in the day softly we'll flow, floating away. And in the night we will get lost, lost in our fright. La la la la

Safe, safe - enjoy your time feeling so safe, and treasure that smile on your face, okay? Because time will see that it's replaced in a while. So go on, smile. And handshakes all around: that's your style, and no one would call it denial, for you're not even sure what's in store. And it's more than you'll be able to take standing up straight. And it won't be okay. And you won't be somebody who it's just happening to, because it's a trap that you, and only you, have laid. Laid with a towel up over your face, in your armchair, just lying in wait, waiting forces were gathering outside your door. They sharpened their knives and smiled with no smiles in their eyes, a little bit larger in size and a little bit hungrier for that tiny prize. And my mother once said ??짖€??"Son, remember this, no matter what someone did: that they once were just a kid at breast and in bib, in blanket and crib. So just reach inside yourself and find the part that still needs help, find that part in someone else and you'll do good,??짖€???? so I thought that I would. Hey - I love you, it goes without saying. I would give you the world on a tray, though they're already tracing a line across your throat. Far too late in the game you'll find that you have been betrayed: propped up and pushed into your place. I could claim that it all would go great, but the reason I came is to say that it won't. You should know that it won't, and so, Phillip, l

The heart wants to feel. The heart wants to hold. The heart takes past Subway, past Stop and Shop, past Beal's, and calls it ??짖€??"coming home.??짖€???? The heart wants a trail away from ??짖€??"alone,??짖€???? so the heart turns a sale into a well-worn milestone towards hard-won soft furniture, fought-for fast food, defended end table that holds paperbacks and back U.S. News. The mind turns an itch into a bruise, and the hands start to twitch when they're feeling ill-used. And you're almost back now, you can see by the signs; from the bank you tell the temperature and then the time, and the billboard reads some headlines. The head wants to turn, to avert both its eyes, but the mind wants to learn of some truth that might be inside reported crimes. So they found a lieutenant who killed a village of kids. After finishing off the wives, he wiped off his knife and that's what he did. And they're not claiming that there's any excusing it; that was thirty years back, and they just get paid for the facts the way they got them in. Now he's rising and not denying. His hands are shaking, but he's not crying. And he's saying ??짖€??"How did I climb out of a life so boring into that moment? Please stop ignoring the heart inside, oh you readers at home! While you gasp at my bloody crimes, please take the time to make your heart my home: where I'm forgiven by time, where I'm cushioned by hope, where I'm numbed by long drives, where I'm talked off or doped. Does the heart wants to atone? Oh, I believe that it's so, because if I could climb back through time, I'd restore their lives and then give back my own: tens of times now its size on a far distant road in a far distant time where every night I'm still crying, entirely alone.??짖€???? But the news today always fades away as you drive by, until at dinnertime when you look into her eyes, lit by evening sun - that, as usual, comes from above that straight, unbroken line, the horizon - its rising is a given, just like your living. Your heart's warm and kind. Your mind is your own. Our blood-spattered criminal is inscrutable; don't worry, he won't rise up behind your eyes and take wild control. He's not of this time, he fell out of a

Loosen the wire, your time has expired, the only word left is ??짖€??"goodbye.??짖€???? In my new dream the light's shining on me, little needles of sodium unstitch the seams of the sky. Hold your head higher, the heavenly choir is settling in for the night. And where I had friends I am left with loose ends; four hours of vision exchanged for four hours of fright. But enough of ??짖€??"the fight,??짖€???? enough ??짖€??"you and I,??짖€???? enough of ??짖€??"prevail??짖€???? or ??짖€??"walk in the light.??짖€???? While the angels stand by I get high as a kite. I'm too tired to smile or know that I'm right. Am I right? And all our best-laid plans, they crumbled in our hands. Our flags fell where they'd fanned. You held in your breath, long after projections of death you sat in the waiting room gasping and rasped on dry land. But the audience is tired; ??짖€??"we've had enough fire, we're entering the age now of ice.??짖€???? And I, feeling older, pull off to the shoulder and wonder, with my head in my hands, should I call my wife and say ??짖€??"enough 'you and I,' enough of 'the fight,' enough of 'prevail' or 'walk in the light'???짖€???? While the angels stood by I got high as a kite, too tired to smile or know that I'm right. And when the spacecraft came down I was left on the ground. Will you keep me around, will you help me survive after my

And we have fun ??짖€" we go laughing and running down to the water, there by the sea where the body just floats like a rowboat and the moon's like a harbor light lit in the sky. And this picture's got a woman who looks like you and a guy who looks just like someone I've seen. When it turns out, I hope that it turns out the way that you dreamed. Embarcadero train station's empty, and I just cannot believe how long it takes to go all the way home through the city. And everyone's looking - at least, it's nice to believe that everyone's looking. And this picture's got a woman who looks like you, and a guy who looks just like someone I've seen. When it turns out, I hope that it turns out the way that you dreamed. Ghostly faces at my living-room window aren't scared of me because they know I can't hurt them. They press up and see, in the lamp-glow, all of the hurt and the love inside of me. It's their final duty to see right through me. I tell them ??짖€??"twelve hours until the dawn, but we've got to hold on. Hold on to me, because we'll be running down to the water this morning.??짖€???? Well, nobody waits for you to believe in ghosts, lit by moonlight or dawning, or in this picture of you a

To cheat on Maine islands - days of laughter, nights of sighing. To love without ceasing - flowering orchards, salty sea-things. To say without shyness ??짖€??"unreal city, you have killed me.??짖€???? When you walked out on her love was it easy? When I left him while sleeping was I dreaming? We take each night's journey to the hotel in a hurry, where we love without worry on a bed that's five days dirty. And we read without irony from a book my husband bought for me. When I fell on the concrete it was lovely, because you could see what's been running so hot in me. But when I fell on the concrete, you went white as a sheet and wished that nothing in this world would ever hurt me. Well, keep wishing. Because when I look in my future, I don't see you and don't wish to. Idle talk made when I'm lying by your side on some Maine island is too funny to me, honey, so let's drop it. If you really want to love me, well, then

He cut your strings so that he could float - lit by lights, lifted by alcohol - over acres of loving coast, far away from your lonely ghost. Now he's cool and all, floating anchorless. Ports of call: where it's fabulous, after all of this watching himself just crawl. Think you see him? He's not there, that's just light that's not yet dead. Wait two hours and watch what'll be there instead. Was he small and cold, like a ring you call up from home, held so tightly his limbs went numb, worn away between your finger and thumb? Well, now he's bought and sold. Cry his call number down the phone, he can't hear you ??짖€" he's on his float, waving down to the folks at home. As the cameras love all of his faces, they hide all the traces of you in his heart. Stand in line to hold forth on his grace, but you won't even get a head-start. As his close-up comes cascading down from above, the eyes of a nation in love are looking on all of their hopes held up. And the words that some screenwriter counted and chose, and then set in their sequence and froze, unfreeze on his tongue as he speaks for all of us but one. And honey, he's gone. And baby, he's everyone's. In the dark sky tonight, cast your eyes on the dim light that he will become. You're like everyone who thinks they see him. He's not there, that's just light that's not yet dead. Wait two hours and watch what'll be there in

You can only talk so much about things
That are never, ever going to happen.
My brother's at home with his dog and his cat
And his wife is at a friend's.

You can only go on so long about feelings
That never, ever actually touch you.
No matter how much she told him "I love you,"
He found it would depend

on the gifts that he bought her,
Or how badly she was hurt
When the boss was cruel at work.
But he'd just say
"I love you,"
And he'd reach out to her.

He was feeling like shit when I came to visit
And walked through the door of his tiny apartment.
We went for a walk through the park by the market
So we could get some air.

And I told to him all things intended to help him,
Especially that, simply because it was ending,
That that didn't mean she was always pretending.
Real happiness was there.

I could see and I could tell:
It was real love that they felt.
And I'm sorry it didn't end well,
But some things
They just don't - that's life,
And you shouldn't blame yourself.

And all of these things, well, I truly believe them.
Our paths and our futures are hidden in mists
That are stretching out over impossible distances,
Totally obscured.

And I really do think that there's probably more good
Than anger or selfishness, sickness, or sadness
Would ever completely allow us to have in this life,
I think I'm sure.

But that doesn't mean it's bad.
We were walking towards our dad,
While getting out of that school bus,
And he just said
"I love you,"
And he reached out to us.

The ladies in my dream are so obliging. They come on down to do the things I need. Whether skies are calm or cut apart by lightning, they're always there to minister to me. And at break of dawn they're sweetly shining, and at quiet of midnight, cold and dim, they say ??짖€??"don't harm him.??짖€???? And when I wake just as their eyes are crying, I see that bed and I just want to climb back in. But let's gather up your friends and drive up to that country inn. We can stay there, feeling water warmly wash across our skin, giving back all of our tears so that we can cry them again. You want to tell your dad you can't believe he's dying, but let's just walk on down the hall and shut our mouths. The AM radio is broken down and crying as on this hour drive we're silent to ourselves. Let's go back up to your house, take our clothes off, and just push and pull ourselves until we're deep inside of sleep. And with your body next to me, its sleepy sighing sounds like waves upon a sea too far to reach. But I'll gather up my men and try to sail on it again, and we'll walk and quietly talk all through the country of your skin, made up of pieces of the places that you've dreamed and that you've been. We will sleep outside in tents upon this unfamiliar land, and in the morning we'll awake, as a foreign dawning breaks, my men and I we will awake and try

Rapt in Star Wars sheets
With my hand across your belly
We waded through the watercolor
We waded through the watercolor

And drunk in your parents' house
Junk coming out of your mouth
We were buried in the ice sculpture
We were buried in the ice sculpture

And you said
I would be anything that you wanted me to be
I would be anything that you wanted me to be
I would be anything that you wanted me to be
But how could I change my body?

I love that picture that your mother stole
Dad holds out the tiny piece he'll release from his soul
Before he flew up in the helicopter
Before he swooped down as a door gunner
Before God gave him the favor
That meant he isn't getting others

He said
I would be anything that he asked me to be
I would be anything that he asked me to be

In the line of duty
You can see into me

Do you want the new me?
Wanna get inside me?

Do you want the new me?
Wanna get inside me?

Do you want the new me?
But how could I change my body?

And I have seen the world of dreams,
Fresh-flown through the trees then dropped off at the curb
Alive, have seen the world awake,
And I don't know which I deserve.
So when sleep nightly comes to me,
With all of these warm blankets piled on my back,
I'll hike to see the church of dreams,
Where all of the shutters are painted black.

And it seems like that's real until the time I awake,
And at midnight the moonlight reflects as the lake
Is shining at me, until night takes it away.
There's one world in the distance, one world in the way,
And not one can stay.

And I have seen the wood of dreams,
Carved grainless and clean with a sweep of one hand,
And have been happy with the leaves on my body when laid under land.
So when sleep finally comes to me
Because it comes for the sleek like it comes for the lame
I'll sink beneath a weight of dreams so full and complete that I'm pushed from my name.

And it seems like that's real until I fall asleep,
And then we load up the car and drive far to some street
Where a new life awaits, until day takes it away.
There's one world in the distance, one world in the way,
And not one can stay

This red-haired girl of mine tore a pinecone from the pine
To cut into her palm, singing the song her sinking lover sung
I shut my eyes, ripped the train from off the line
But a sudden gust of snow blew through a hole in my girl's clothes
Well, my girl knows she's not all right
And I don't mind.
Just give me time, baby, give me time.

Her stinging eyes, and her sixteen-hour drive, and our shared, transparent rope
And our icy dive through hope I'll memorize, and I'll cut into my mind
I can't believe it can be so
I won't believe that my girl froze

Well, my girl knows I'm coiled tight and green inside
Just give me time, baby, give me time

And that weight you hold, it's getting light
And, love, I know you'll raise it easily up high
Just give it time, just give it time

Oh baby, just give it time.

What if there's no hidden track
No journey there, no journey back
The rain falls down upon the same old grass
The rain falls down
The rain falls down
The rain falls down

What if there's no secret word
No matter what you thought you heard
I asked the other son and he averred
No secret word
No secret word
No hidden track

But my words left me
And my heart it just went slack
Just went slack
When I saw it passing
'Cause what if it can't come back
It can't come back
There's no hidden track

What if there's no trapdoor down
The cold hard floor, the cold hard ground
The cold hard car commute back into town
No trapdoor down
No trapdoor down
No hidden track

My words left
And my heart it just went slack
Just went slack
When I saw it passing
'Cause what if they can't come back
They can't come back
There's no hidden track
No hidden track

But for all of us and all of you
There's some things we can't see into
'Cause from the other side no light shows through
I hope that there's a hidden track
It feels like there's a hidden track

Here I am back home again
I'm here to rest
All they ask is where I've been
Knowing I've been West

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

If you love me you'll let me live in peace
Please understand
That the Black Sheep can wear the golden fleece
And hold a winning hand

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

Some nights I thirst for real blood
For real knives
For real cries
And then the flash of steel from real guns
In real life
Really fills my mind
And I really miss what really did exist
When I held your throat so tight
And I miss the bus as it swerved from us
Almost came crashing to its side
Sometimes the blood from real cuts
Feels real nice
When it's really mine
And if you want it to be real
Come over for one night
And we can really, really climb
And those blue bridge lights might really burn most bright
As we watch that dark lake rise
And if you really want to see what really matters most to me
Just take a real short drive
It's just a drive into the dark stretch
Long stretch of night
Will really stretch this shaking mind
And this room, unlit, unheated
And the ceiling striped
And the dark black blinds
I want to know this time if you're really finally mine
I need to know that you're not lying so I want to see you tried
And I don't want to hear you say it shouldn't really be this way
'Cause I like this way just fine
'Cause there's nothing quite like the blinding light
That curtains cast aside
And no attempt is made to explain away
The things that really, really, really, really, really are behind
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide

Black, black sheep boy, blue-eyed charmer, head hanging with horns from your father - oh, in a cold little mirror you were grown, by a black little wind you were blown, alone, alone, alone. Sad smile on your lips, you shake and shiver. Some animal sips where the river flows from a black little crack in a stone. To a crackle in a radio song, sing along, sing along, sing along. Warm light when your eyes fill with laughter. Some animal lies in the pasture, holes in its throat where the blood was drawn, in its mouth where the tongue was torn by your claws, your claws, your claws. I rose from a dream; we were running from every being that was hunting, but we let them get ahead of us. We let them lie in wait for us. We're fucked, we're fucked, we're fucked. I rose from a dream; I had just destroyed everything with one crushing blow, and I woke up and watched it go, and I woke up and wagged my tongue. So long, so long, so

I'm coming into your town. Night is falling to the ground, but I can still see where you loved yourself before he tore it all down. April 12th, with nobody else around; you were outside the house (where's your mother?), when he put you in the car, when he took you down the road. And I can still see where it was open, the door he slammed closed. It was open, the door he slammed closed. It was open, long ago. But don't lose me now, don't lose me now. Though I know that I'm not useful anyhow, just let me stick around while I tell you, like before, you should say his name the way that he said yours. But you don't want to say his name anymore. Oh, Cynda Moore. Baby daughter on the road, you're wrapped up warm in daddy's coat. And I can still see the cigarette's heat. I can't believe all that you're telling me, what is cutting like the smoke through your teeth as you're telling me ??짖€??"forget it.??짖€???? But if I could tear his throat, and spill his blood between my jaws, and erase his name for good, don't you know that I would? Don't you realize I wouldn't pause, that I would cut him down with my claws if I could have somehow never let that happen? Or I'd call, some black midnight, fuck up his new life where they don't know what he did, tell his brand-new wife and his second kid. Though I tell you, like before, that you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours, you want no part of his life anymore. Oh Cynda Moore, don't lose me now, let me help you out. Though I know that I can't help you anyhow, when I watch you I'm proud. When I tell you twice before that you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours, you want no part of his life anymore. Oh Cynda Moore. And it'll never be the way it was before, but I wish that you would let me through that door. Let me through that door, baby.

??짖€??"Once we get to the end of this song, then it will begin again.??짖€???? So you said in our bed. I was watching light slip through blinds to find your skin. ??짖€??"So take your medicine and I won't ask where you've been. Live your lost weekend, I know you've wanted it. Get big, little kid. And I can't say why each day doesn't quite fit the space we saved for it.??짖€???? But if that space now demands that you throw up both your hands and call it quits... ??짖€??"Take your midnight trip. I know you've dreamed of it. Walk your sunset strip, because I think you've needed it to get big, little kid. But just remember that our love only got this good because of the younger days that you'd like to outstrip. So drink your cup down to the dregs and leave that club on shaking legs with another guy, but remember: I'm not him. Take your medicine and I won=t ask where you've been. Live your lost weekend, I know you've wanted it. Get big, little kid. And once we get to the end of this song, then another will b

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling, the loveliest words whispered and meant - you like all these things. But, though you like all these things, you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's smooth and it's cold. And you'd love most to be told that it's all your own. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. And I'm found too fast, called too fond of flames, and then I'm phoning my friends, and then I'm shouldering the blame, while you're picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago. You're out singing songs, and I'm down shouting names at the flickerless screen, going fucking insane. Am I losing my cool, overstating my case? Well, baby, what can I say? You know I never claimed that I was a stone. And you love a stone. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's dark, and it's old, and if it could start being alive you'd stop living alone. And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know. And when that queen's daughter came of age, I think she'd be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago...

ll the latest toughs, you've got to shrug them off or shut them off. With ten-thousand-time-told truths, you've still got to ask for proof. Ask for proof, because if you're dying to be led they'll lead you up the hill in chains to their popular refrains until your slaughter's been arranged, my little lamb, and it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands. Well, I woke up on a foggy morning. Hiding from the sun, he was hiding from the sun. But it came out and it shot its rays down. Burning everyone, it was burning everyone. But they were dying, anyway, to turn to ash, to feel their feelings flash and finally fade away, in a fabulous and fiery display. Look, though, I don't know what notes you want to hear played, I can't think what lines you'd like me to sing or say, and I'm not sure what subjects you want mentioned. So pause and add your own intentions. We've included a form you can print out and fill out and send below:

___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________


___________________________________

All the latest toughs, well, we have seen that stuff, and we have seen enough blood in dying coughs, which means that we have lost. We have lost, and if you're crying to be tossed they'll toss you down the oubliette with all the old things that you let yourself forget because you'd like to love a star who'd throw you down below the ground he thinks you are.

A black sheep boy revolves over canyons and waterfalls.
A black sheep boy dissolves in syringe or in shower stall.

He says
??짖€??"There's plenty of time to make you mine tonight,
there's plenty of time to make you mine.??짖€????

He says
??짖€??"There's plenty of ways to know you're not dying,
all right.
Hell, there's plenty of light still left in your eyes.??짖€????

A black sheep boy grows horns,
breathing smoke through his microphone.
The airwaves stretch and they groan, bleeding, birthing his black diapason.

Says
??짖€??"There's plenty of things to wear when you come to me,
every color of sleeve to be rolled.
Millions of rolling eyes that still cling to me.
Every language of king is concerned.
So why
did you bawl
from the spell of some old holy song
some liar laughed as he composed,
some liar I loved to control???짖€????

A black sheep boy dissolves
in hot cream, in sweet moans,
in each dead bed and empty home,
in each seething bacterium.



Killing softly and serial,
he lifts his head, handsome, horned, magisterial.
He's the smell of the moonlight wisteria.
He's the thrill of the abecedarian.
See the muddy hoofprints where he carried you?

And there's plenty of ways to claim his crimes tonight,
and there's plenty of things to do on his dime.
And there's plenty of ways to wear his hide tonight,
you've got yours, I've got mine.
You've got yours, I've got mine.
So why
did you flee?
Don't you know you can't leave his control
only call all his wild works your own?
So come back and we'll take them all on.
So come back to your life on the lam.
So come back to your old black sheep man.

Says
??짖€??"I'm waiting on hoof and on hand.
I'm waiting, all hated and damned.
I'm waiting, I snort and I stamp.
I'm waiting, you know that I am,
calmly waiting to make you my lamb??짖€????

Come into the den, come into the den

You've got a glow

Climb into my arms with blood on your clothes

You've got a glow

And you're no one's but mine

And nobody knows the land where he's lying

No heat in his bones

No heart that was mine

No hand that I'd hold



And you've got a glow, you've got a glow

(And there's no escaping, the thing that is making its home in your radio)

You're light in a lie

You're lithe and you're strong

And you've wanted to do that, my love, for so long

My live and dead men

Come into the den

You've got a glow

Kids get lost, lambs out wandering
Bigger, blacker things go following
Them into a patch of forest
Somebody once planted for this
Songs not over, phones still ringing
Eyes still rolling, eyes still clinging
Something in the air starts singing

Radio switched on and buzzing
Something in the wind starts humming
Something in the field starts hunting
Kids grow up and kids get numb
And kids it's coming, kids it's going to come

> When I'm hosed and they're closing in, maybe only then,
really, I'll try to get right with myself.
So I'll grope down that ladder again, until I'm tumbling -
but really, I just want to slide, I want to crash-land.
While my friend, my associate, he's a regal man.
He bindles and he twists and ties, gives the reckoning,
and then it's back on the road again with maybe thirteen grand.
Moralize all you might like, I don't believe in it.
You've never earned your soul. I know, (x 3)
but I'm gonna try, though, I'm gonna try.
I'm a rich young sophisticate, I've got girls and friends.
I'm doing what I really like and getting paid for it.
There is no key, there's no plan; I discovered that.
And, truly, I don't think you'll find a happier man.
You've never earned your soul. I know, (x 3)
but I'm gonna try, though, I'm gonna try.
You float up high and it isn't a sin.
And there isn't a hell where we'll be sent.
There's only now, and there isn't then. So just breathe it in.

Sit back, no song is written
It's nothing you thought of Yourself
It's just a ghost, came unbidden
To this house

This infection gets stronger every year
This seed in the water of your tear
There is no escaping it

This seed in the water of your tear
The way an unborn baby's ear
Unfolds in your belly

This infection gets stronger every year
This direction of a tear rolling down your cheek
And there is no escaping it

There is no escaping
The thing that is making
It's home in your radio

Bless this tiny alley
we have fallen from tall buildings
we have fallen through the air
Into a garden sweetly smelling of the softest
Sleeping flowers now they sit under the sidewalk
Now they're waiting for the shining of some future sun to show us
All that is your beauty
Oh and all that brings you pleasure
I could sigh into your hide
And say I hope I'm here forever
But Black Sheep Boy with your lovers
With your list of favorite pillows
with your list of missing children


With the wall where you drew windows
Overlooking hidden gardens
Cut apart by jagged mountains
Climbing up into the air
And crumbling down into a fountain
Where the water waits forever
Like a quiet distant treasure
When you rise up to recover
When you leave this tiny alley
When you meet me in the garden
With your horns all hung with cedar
Every spirit brushing past me
Brushing past them in the ether
Scream all this is window dressing
All you are is flimsy curtains
Watch you flame up with a word from us
And won't know that you're Burning!
Burning
Burning!

(There's no escaping
The thing that is making
It's home in your radio

There's no escaping
The thing that is making
It's home in your radio)

Take my sword from the slaughter
Melt it down into vapor, and my armor, too
I hear hot blood flap and flutter
From your temple to shoulder
And all through you

When you hold on to me it isn't easy
When you hold on to me it isn't fair
But when there's no key
Oh, you find me there
Find me there
Find me there
Ooh

I'm turning white, I'm leaves of paper
Turn my hands from this labor and lift me through

When you hold on to me it isn't easy
But you should hold on to me
It isn't fair
But when there's no key
Oh, you find me there
Find me there
Find me there
Ooh

And kids get lost, lambs out wandering
And bigger, blacker things come calling
From outside a tiny garden somebody once laid their hearts on
And kids get lost, kids get broken
Diaries get found and opened
And legs get led astray
And then they lie inside some secret place
Where the sun looks in the open ceiling
And kids grow up, and kids stop feeling
Kids, and feel adults, and face away

But in last love dreams
The lost and passed out of this world are softly sighing
Trying to decide if they should leave the things that keep them crying
And some will rise and keep on living with open eyes, with minds forgiven

The river's flowing is arrested
And resumed after they've blessed it
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
(Over and over and)

Here I am back home again
I'm here to rest
All they ask is where I've been
Knowing I've been West

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

If you love me you'll let me live in peace
Please understand
That the Black Sheep can wear the golden fleece
And hold a winning hand

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy

Some nights I thirst for real blood
For real knives
For real cries
And then the flash of steel from real guns
In real life
Really fills my mind
And I really miss what really did exist
When I held your throat so tight
And I miss the bus as it swerved from us
Almost came crashing to its side
Sometimes the blood from real cuts
Feels real nice
When it's really mine
And if you want it to be real
Come over for one night
And we can really, really climb
And those blue bridge lights might really burn most bright
As we watch that dark lake rise
And if you really want to see what really matters most to me
Just take a real short drive
It's just a drive into the dark stretch
Long stretch of night
Will really stretch this shaking mind
And this room, unlit, unheated
And the ceiling striped
And the dark black blinds
I want to know this time if you're really finally mine
I need to know that you're not lying so I want to see you tried
And I don't want to hear you say it shouldn't really be this way
'Cause I like this way just fine
'Cause there's nothing quite like the blinding light
That curtains cast aside
And no attempt is made to explain away
The things that really, really, really, really, really are behind
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide
You can't hide

Black, black sheep boy, blue-eyed charmer, head hanging with horns from your father - oh, in a cold little mirror you were grown, by a black little wind you were blown, alone, alone, alone. Sad smile on your lips, you shake and shiver. Some animal sips where the river flows from a black little crack in a stone. To a crackle in a radio song, sing along, sing along, sing along. Warm light when your eyes fill with laughter. Some animal lies in the pasture, holes in its throat where the blood was drawn, in its mouth where the tongue was torn by your claws, your claws, your claws. I rose from a dream; we were running from every being that was hunting, but we let them get ahead of us. We let them lie in wait for us. We're fucked, we're fucked, we're fucked. I rose from a dream; I had just destroyed everything with one crushing blow, and I woke up and watched it go, and I woke up and wagged my tongue. So long, so long, so

I'm coming into your town. Night is falling to the ground, but I can still see where you loved yourself before he tore it all down. April 12th, with nobody else around; you were outside the house (where's your mother?), when he put you in the car, when he took you down the road. And I can still see where it was open, the door he slammed closed. It was open, the door he slammed closed. It was open, long ago. But don't lose me now, don't lose me now. Though I know that I'm not useful anyhow, just let me stick around while I tell you, like before, you should say his name the way that he said yours. But you don't want to say his name anymore. Oh, Cynda Moore. Baby daughter on the road, you're wrapped up warm in daddy's coat. And I can still see the cigarette's heat. I can't believe all that you're telling me, what is cutting like the smoke through your teeth as you're telling me ??짖€??"forget it.??짖€???? But if I could tear his throat, and spill his blood between my jaws, and erase his name for good, don't you know that I would? Don't you realize I wouldn't pause, that I would cut him down with my claws if I could have somehow never let that happen? Or I'd call, some black midnight, fuck up his new life where they don't know what he did, tell his brand-new wife and his second kid. Though I tell you, like before, that you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours, you want no part of his life anymore. Oh Cynda Moore, don't lose me now, let me help you out. Though I know that I can't help you anyhow, when I watch you I'm proud. When I tell you twice before that you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours, you want no part of his life anymore. Oh Cynda Moore. And it'll never be the way it was before, but I wish that you would let me through that door. Let me through that door, baby.

??짖€??"Once we get to the end of this song, then it will begin again.??짖€???? So you said in our bed. I was watching light slip through blinds to find your skin. ??짖€??"So take your medicine and I won't ask where you've been. Live your lost weekend, I know you've wanted it. Get big, little kid. And I can't say why each day doesn't quite fit the space we saved for it.??짖€???? But if that space now demands that you throw up both your hands and call it quits... ??짖€??"Take your midnight trip. I know you've dreamed of it. Walk your sunset strip, because I think you've needed it to get big, little kid. But just remember that our love only got this good because of the younger days that you'd like to outstrip. So drink your cup down to the dregs and leave that club on shaking legs with another guy, but remember: I'm not him. Take your medicine and I won=t ask where you've been. Live your lost weekend, I know you've wanted it. Get big, little kid. And once we get to the end of this song, then another will b

If you want to see and be seen, then be seen. Your dress is dark red and your opening eyes are bright green. Make a scene, but don't lie on the bed, laid out like you're dead, because honey, you're murdering me. Be a little sheep learning who'll shear and who'll feed. The hands come and they leave. Be hands holding a knife. Be a being on two feet, with his heart trembling, butchering for a king he believes in though he's never seen. Be the princess in that stone tower, crying for that handsome butcher's plight (and, as some princess might, she still calls him a knight.) But the best thing for you would be queen, so be queen. You're all that I need. Though I know that it never can be, I'd be pleased to post your decrees, to fall at your knees, to name all your streets and to sit down and weep when you're carried back through them and set down to sleep, and to lie by your side for sublime centuries (until we crumble to dust when we're crushed by a single sun

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling, the loveliest words whispered and meant - you like all these things. But, though you like all these things, you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's smooth and it's cold. And you'd love most to be told that it's all your own. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. And I'm found too fast, called too fond of flames, and then I'm phoning my friends, and then I'm shouldering the blame, while you're picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago. You're out singing songs, and I'm down shouting names at the flickerless screen, going fucking insane. Am I losing my cool, overstating my case? Well, baby, what can I say? You know I never claimed that I was a stone. And you love a stone. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's dark, and it's old, and if it could start being alive you'd stop living alone. And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know. And when that queen's daughter came of age, I think she'd be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago...

ll the latest toughs, you've got to shrug them off or shut them off. With ten-thousand-time-told truths, you've still got to ask for proof. Ask for proof, because if you're dying to be led they'll lead you up the hill in chains to their popular refrains until your slaughter's been arranged, my little lamb, and it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands. Well, I woke up on a foggy morning. Hiding from the sun, he was hiding from the sun. But it came out and it shot its rays down. Burning everyone, it was burning everyone. But they were dying, anyway, to turn to ash, to feel their feelings flash and finally fade away, in a fabulous and fiery display. Look, though, I don't know what notes you want to hear played, I can't think what lines you'd like me to sing or say, and I'm not sure what subjects you want mentioned. So pause and add your own intentions. We've included a form you can print out and fill out and send below:

___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________


___________________________________

All the latest toughs, well, we have seen that stuff, and we have seen enough blood in dying coughs, which means that we have lost. We have lost, and if you're crying to be tossed they'll toss you down the oubliette with all the old things that you let yourself forget because you'd like to love a star who'd throw you down below the ground he thinks you are.

> Remember when our so-called friend would not call out to you while tumbling loosely out a hole punched through your home? Its pretty clear, though you could hear, you truly finally knew, in time, hed tell his tale the way hed like it told. Now he isnt on the phone, and his story might as well be so. Well, loving is as loving does, and Id say we should know, because we both have loved, have lost, and are alone. Your faces falling tears, to me theyre lovely and theyre dear, though you dont love me and its clear that I will never see you in my arms. Theres no room in your heart for even this finely-sharpened dart; although I had started to think there might be hope, it isnt so. So wake up, make up some new song again around the same tune. The water cools, the leaves they fall, the sun it bends, the summer ends; our so-called friend doesnt need you. So proceed out the door and down the street. Decembers lying near, but in the ovens heat this house is now a home. Sixty days of trips and stays you took to tell me, dear, that you cannot love me because you secretly still love a stone. Although I put my lips to your face, trying to push his kiss out of its place, although my heart started to race, now it has slowed, Ill let it go.

A black sheep boy revolves over canyons and waterfalls.
A black sheep boy dissolves in syringe or in shower stall.

He says
??짖€??"There's plenty of time to make you mine tonight,
there's plenty of time to make you mine.??짖€????

He says
??짖€??"There's plenty of ways to know you're not dying,
all right.
Hell, there's plenty of light still left in your eyes.??짖€????

A black sheep boy grows horns,
breathing smoke through his microphone.
The airwaves stretch and they groan, bleeding, birthing his black diapason.

Says
??짖€??"There's plenty of things to wear when you come to me,
every color of sleeve to be rolled.
Millions of rolling eyes that still cling to me.
Every language of king is concerned.
So why
did you bawl
from the spell of some old holy song
some liar laughed as he composed,
some liar I loved to control???짖€????

A black sheep boy dissolves
in hot cream, in sweet moans,
in each dead bed and empty home,
in each seething bacterium.



Killing softly and serial,
he lifts his head, handsome, horned, magisterial.
He's the smell of the moonlight wisteria.
He's the thrill of the abecedarian.
See the muddy hoofprints where he carried you?

And there's plenty of ways to claim his crimes tonight,
and there's plenty of things to do on his dime.
And there's plenty of ways to wear his hide tonight,
you've got yours, I've got mine.
You've got yours, I've got mine.
So why
did you flee?
Don't you know you can't leave his control
only call all his wild works your own?
So come back and we'll take them all on.
So come back to your life on the lam.
So come back to your old black sheep man.

Says
??짖€??"I'm waiting on hoof and on hand.
I'm waiting, all hated and damned.
I'm waiting, I snort and I stamp.
I'm waiting, you know that I am,
calmly waiting to make you my lamb??짖€????

Come into the den, come into the den

You've got a glow

Climb into my arms with blood on your clothes

You've got a glow

And you're no one's but mine

And nobody knows the land where he's lying

No heat in his bones

No heart that was mine

No hand that I'd hold



And you've got a glow, you've got a glow

(And there's no escaping, the thing that is making its home in your radio)

You're light in a lie

You're lithe and you're strong

And you've wanted to do that, my love, for so long

My live and dead men

Come into the den

You've got a glow

Kids get lost, lambs out wandering
Bigger, blacker things go following
Them into a patch of forest
Somebody once planted for this
Songs not over, phones still ringing
Eyes still rolling, eyes still clinging
Something in the air starts singing

Radio switched on and buzzing
Something in the wind starts humming
Something in the field starts hunting
Kids grow up and kids get numb
And kids it's coming, kids it's going to come

> When I'm hosed and they're closing in, maybe only then,
really, I'll try to get right with myself.
So I'll grope down that ladder again, until I'm tumbling -
but really, I just want to slide, I want to crash-land.
While my friend, my associate, he's a regal man.
He bindles and he twists and ties, gives the reckoning,
and then it's back on the road again with maybe thirteen grand.
Moralize all you might like, I don't believe in it.
You've never earned your soul. I know, (x 3)
but I'm gonna try, though, I'm gonna try.
I'm a rich young sophisticate, I've got girls and friends.
I'm doing what I really like and getting paid for it.
There is no key, there's no plan; I discovered that.
And, truly, I don't think you'll find a happier man.
You've never earned your soul. I know, (x 3)
but I'm gonna try, though, I'm gonna try.
You float up high and it isn't a sin.
And there isn't a hell where we'll be sent.
There's only now, and there isn't then. So just breathe it in.

Maybe we could break your ankle clean and unsuspiciously
An E.R. trip, a doctor's slip and you could share your pills with me
Won't it feel so good though when we're lying
Side by side can't move and I'm not trying

Two thousand milligrams each

A hotel by the pharmacy
With drinking straws in toothpaste tubes
Stash them with your toiletries
And I will share my pills with you

Little Michael sleeping in the child safety seat
Lying with the windows rolled up in the August heat

Three thousand milligrams each
Four thousand milligrams

We're driving down the interstate
You're feeling great, you scratch your wrist
And we pretend your kids, your husband, all you left does not exist
And in some motel that night we're lying
I can barely whisper
It's like dying

Well baby, do you know what I mean
Well baby, did you hear me?
Well baby, you fell asleep

I know I'm weak, I won't deny
We'll see our trial some day soon
When I know we're fucked I'll halve the pile and share my pills with you

'Cause we've felt fully in our bodies
And we've felt totally alive
So we're prepared to float above this dirty bed where we both lie
Where we lie, lie, lie
Will we be fine?
Not this time

Sit back, no song is written
It's nothing you thought of Yourself
It's just a ghost, came unbidden
To this house

This infection gets stronger every year
This seed in the water of your tear
There is no escaping it

This seed in the water of your tear
The way an unborn baby's ear
Unfolds in your belly

This infection gets stronger every year
This direction of a tear rolling down your cheek
And there is no escaping it

There is no escaping
The thing that is making
It's home in your radio

Bless this tiny alley
we have fallen from tall buildings
we have fallen through the air
Into a garden sweetly smelling of the softest
Sleeping flowers now they sit under the sidewalk
Now they're waiting for the shining of some future sun to show us
All that is your beauty
Oh and all that brings you pleasure
I could sigh into your hide
And say I hope I'm here forever
But Black Sheep Boy with your lovers
With your list of favorite pillows
with your list of missing children


With the wall where you drew windows
Overlooking hidden gardens
Cut apart by jagged mountains
Climbing up into the air
And crumbling down into a fountain
Where the water waits forever
Like a quiet distant treasure
When you rise up to recover
When you leave this tiny alley
When you meet me in the garden
With your horns all hung with cedar
Every spirit brushing past me
Brushing past them in the ether
Scream all this is window dressing
All you are is flimsy curtains
Watch you flame up with a word from us
And won't know that you're Burning!
Burning
Burning!

(There's no escaping
The thing that is making
It's home in your radio

There's no escaping
The thing that is making
It's home in your radio)

Take my sword from the slaughter
Melt it down into vapor, and my armor, too
I hear hot blood flap and flutter
From your temple to shoulder
And all through you

When you hold on to me it isn't easy
When you hold on to me it isn't fair
But when there's no key
Oh, you find me there
Find me there
Find me there
Ooh

I'm turning white, I'm leaves of paper
Turn my hands from this labor and lift me through

When you hold on to me it isn't easy
But you should hold on to me
It isn't fair
But when there's no key
Oh, you find me there
Find me there
Find me there
Ooh

And kids get lost, lambs out wandering
And bigger, blacker things come calling
From outside a tiny garden somebody once laid their hearts on
And kids get lost, kids get broken
Diaries get found and opened
And legs get led astray
And then they lie inside some secret place
Where the sun looks in the open ceiling
And kids grow up, and kids stop feeling
Kids, and feel adults, and face away

But in last love dreams
The lost and passed out of this world are softly sighing
Trying to decide if they should leave the things that keep them crying
And some will rise and keep on living with open eyes, with minds forgiven

The river's flowing is arrested
And resumed after they've blessed it
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
It's over
(Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again)
(Over and over and)

<lyrics>It?s just a bad movie where there's no crying
Handing the keys to me in this Red Lion

Where the lock that you locked in the suite
Says there's no prying
When the breath that you breathed in the street
Screams there's no science
When you look how you looked then to me
Then I cease lying and fall into silence

It?s just a life story, so there's no climax
No more new territory, so pull away the IMAX

In the slot that you sliced through the scene
There was no shyness
In the plot that you passed through your teeth
There was no pity

No fade in, film begins on a kid in the big city
And no cut to a costly parade, that's for him only
No dissolve to a sliver of gray, that's his new lady
Where she glows just like grain on the flickering pane
Of some great movie
Hey, I didn't watch it

It's just a house burning, but it?s not haunted
It was your heart hurting but not for too long, kid

In the socket you spin from with ease
There is no sticking
From the speakers your fake masterpiece
Comes serenely dribbling

And when the air ?round your chair fills with heat
That's the flames licking
Beneath the clock on the clean mantelpiece
It?s got a calm clicking
Like a pro at his editing suite takes two weeks stitching
Up some bad movie

<lyrics>What gives this mess some grace
Unless it's kicks, man
Unless it's fiction
Unless it's sweat or it's songs

What hits against this chest
Unless it's a sick man's hand
From some mid-level band
He's been driving too long

On a dark windless night
With the stereo on
With the towns flying by
And the ground getting soft

And the sound in the sky
Coming down from above
It surrounds you at times
And it's whispering, oh

What pulls your body down
That is quicksand
So we climb out quick, hand over hand
For your mouth's all filled up

What picks you up from down
Unless it's tricks, man
When I been fixed, I am convinced
That I will not get so broke up again

And on a seven day high
That heavenly song
Punches right through my mind
And pumps through my blood

And I know it's a lie
But I still give my love
And my heart's all alive
For your hands to pluck off, oh

What gives this mess some grace
Unless it's fictions
Unless it's licks, man
Unless it's lies or it's love

What breaks this heart the most
Is the ghost of some rock 'n' roll fan
Exploding up from the stands
With her heart opened up

And I wanna tell her, your love isn't lost
Say, my heart is still crossed
Scream, you're so wonderful
What a dream in the dark

About working so hard
About growing so stoned
Trying not to turn up
Trying not to believe in the light on your own
La, la, la, la, oh, oh, oh, oh

I'm the band in a show
'Bout a man holding hands with his wife
On a therapist couch with his face to the ground
After fucking around countless nights

And there's this one episode
Close-up cameras were showing him crying
His red head and his red eyes

I'm the band in a show
'Bout a boy being buried alive
From his head to his toes by a criminal
But with a sensitive soul, with a set of raccoon eyes

And there's this scene in the show
When a hustler knows he's gonna die
The ground opens and he climbs inside

And as he speaks his last line
A thought falls from his mind
And I pick it up and write it through the TV
Oh, oh, is there a hand to take hold of the scene?

I'm a man in a dream
And they're dancing in front of my eyes
Is the queen informed of the flaws
With the eyes all got odd and rumpled into her spine

She rises up like a young group from a heart
Like a claw splits apart like a jaw, like an eye
And she asks me with a sigh

We were so far from right
We were using the fight
We were letting the light weaken it's beam
Oh, oh, is there a hand to take hold of the scene?

I wanted to smile like a glistening shot of a kiss
That's as sharp as a knife, the day expires
In the dry, cracked, trembling lips [Incomprehensible]
But this gets inside
I lift them up to you, I'd like to bear witness to

Our life that is fine
And is filling the cryingest eyes
Gracing each face that is making the waste
That is broken as one's fairly fly

Love that is in us
Of that ol' cynical covetest, cancerous vibe
And a beauty that annihilates all life

Like it's lived in these nights, holding your hatred tight
Like a sign that should [Incomprehensible] you strong
When the doors are shut tight, I will dream you tonight
And my dream will just sweep you along

When all the fires are fanned
We'll shout you our plans
We're too weak to stand on our two feet
Oh, oh, is there a hand to take hold of the scene?

<lyrics>Midnight late last week, my daughter's diary
Didn't know what it might be 'til it was open
I only read one page and then put it away
Talk about your big mistakes, hey, Shan, nice going

Photos show no tears, in her eyes
All those pretty years gone by
I just cannot believe, could do that to a child
A child, a child

Shannon just flew down, four days back in town
She sleeps and lies around and then she goes up
And then one day she's gone, what should I have done?
Joe turns the TV on with all the lights out

Photos on the wall
She's my baby, she's my baby doll
Is she someone I don't know at all?
Is she someone I betrayed?

It's a great day in the fall
And the radio's singing down the hall
And I rise to turn it off ?cause all I'm seeing is her face
Age eight, eight

<lyrics>No one wants to hear about your 97th tear
So dry your eyes or let it go uncried, my dear
I am all out of love to mouth and to your ear
And not above letting a love song disappear
Before it's written

And no one wants a tune about the 100th luftballoon
That was seen shooting from the window of your room
To be a spot against the sky's colossal gloom
And land deflated in some neighbor's state that's strewn
With ninety-nine others

Eight Chinese brothers
Well, there's a reason why the last is smiling wide
And sitting higher than the others
Swinging his arms

You would probably die before you shot up nine miles high
Your eyes dilated as light played upon the sight
Of TVC16 as it sings you goodnight
Relaxed as hell and locked up in cell forty-five
Well, I hope you're feeling better

51st way to leave your lover
Admittedly, it doesn't seem to be as gentle
Or as clean as all the others
Even a scars all in the after hours of some Greenpoint bar

I told you, I can't listen, baby, 'bout the 4th time you were a lady
And how your forthrightness betrayed a secret shyness
Stripped away by days of being hailed as your highness
And what's new pussycat as you were once a lioness
They cut your claws out

Kitten, not everyone's keen on lighting candle 17
The party's done, the cake's all gone, the plates are clean
The chauffeur's near and full of cheerless mezzanine
And in just one year, this straight world could pay to see
What they have been missing

You were caught kissing eight Chinese brothers
Well, there's a reason why the last is smiling wide
And sitting higher than the others
Staking with charm

And he says, lets get lost, let them send out alarms
He says, lets get crossed out and come to harm
Lets make the world's stupidest stand and truly mean it
Lets hit the limit of loss over lover's arms
No, lets exceed it

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the lady-killing sort
Enough to hurt a girl in port

Marie's gone blonde and lost a stone
She lay on her lawn, spun and alone
And when the morning sun it rose
Upon Marie and her lacy clothes

Well, it lit her up, and she walked around
The winding streets of Camden Town
Well, she don't know who she wants to be
And if I knew I'd tell Marie

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the lady-killing sort
Enough to hurt a girl in port

And Cindy tells me she's had fun
Sitting backstage, someone's plus one
Up in her room the records spin
Needle in the grooves that she's worn thin

Well, she lifts her sleeve and she sees a name
And she's got a smile on her face
And she's got a story you can't see
Well, that's just between that name and Cindy

And before Holly made her way
Over the sea and far away
She's telling me inside her car
Driving us back from the Crystal Corner bar

I lost her there, I fell from hell
Cut some fresh pieces from myself
And then for a second something in me
Said leave today, it's time, Holly, it's time

Oh, I'm a weak and lonely sort
Though I'm not sailing just for sport
I've come to feel out on the sea
These urgent lives press against me

I'm just aghast, I'm not apart
My tender head with my easy heart
These several years out on the sea
Made me empty, cold and clear
Pour yourself into me

Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the lady-killing sort
Enough to hurt the girl in port

<lyrics>This week's cash for last week's grass your crew collates
While you sit in the van and wait
Gassed and trashed and smashed, young cads roasting away
On a sunny summer day or, okay, an August night anyway

And you're living on air, while on the 25th floor up there
They'd fan a million bucks before your face
Marie's passed out in a chair with her once fussed-over hair
All mussed into an? I've just been fucked shape

Just an hour before, she crashed, all cashed
She said, I'm done with looking back, and you look your age
Which is thirty-seven, by the way, and not twenty-eight

And fucking let them stare because at this point I don't care
I have been your bride stripped bare since ?98
And our silver-screen affair, it weighs less to me than air
It's a gas now, it's a laugh, just how far several mil can take it

This week's fast as last week's flash of interstate
When you starved and never ate
This week's splashed a sick, gold cast across your face
As you roam on silk, ripped tippy-toe alone through Silver lake

Splayed astride a snow-white mare, on a non-stop all-night tear
What a ghastly sight you smear in every face
In that fat, fur-trimmed affair that your lawyer lets you wear
You'll destroy your chance to ever get repeatedly engaged

<lyrics>All of the stage names evaporate
And it's just a blood flushed and heart rushing rates
Either to kick off too soon or stick around too late
To be far too dear or too cut rate

Hold my hand again like at the lake
Hold that mirror babe, up to my face
Hear the whippoorwill
Am I breathing still?

A Hollywood Babylon bikeathon for break dancers
All broken down in their beds
Now intravenously fed
From a bag hanging over their heads

Can I put you down for some miles?
What do you say?
?Cause don't you know it's going to be a long, long way
But if you've got the cash, I'm ready to bust my ass

So take this thin broken down circus clown
Reject and give her the name of a queen
Don't I know her from the mezzanine?
She didn't look like no princess to me

But with the proper words bestowed
And with her morning shoot, her evening clothes
Don't call her a prostitute, well, she ain't one of those
Just call her a proper little statue come unfroze

<lyrics>By the second verse, dear friends
My head will burst, my life will end
So I'd like to start this one off by saying
Live and love

I was young and at home in bed
And I was hanging on the words some poem said
And thirty-one
I was impressionable, I was upsettable

I tried to make my breathing stop, my heart beat slow
So when my mom and John came in I would be cold

From a bridge on Washington Avenue
The year of 1972
Broke my bones and skull
And it was memorable

It was half a second and I was halfway down
Do you think I wanted to turn back around
And teach a class
Where you kiss the ass that I've exposed to you

And at the funeral the university
Cried at three poems they'd present in place of a broken me

I was breaking in a case of suds
At the brass rail, a fall-down drunk
With his tongue torn out
And his balls removed

And I knew that my last lines were gone
While stupidly I lingered on
Other wise men know
When it's time to go and so I should too

And so I fly into the brightest winter sun
Of this frozen town
I'm stripped down to move on
My friends, I'm gone

Well, I hear my father fall and I hear my mother call
And I hear the others all whispering, come home
I'm sorry to go, I loved you all so
But this is the worst trip I've ever been on

So hoist up the John B. sail
(Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets
(See how the main sail sets)

I've folded my heart in my head
And I wanna go home
With a book in my hand
In the way I had planned
Well, this is the worst trip I've ever been on

Hoist up the John B. sail
(Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets
(See how the main sail sets)

I've folded my heart in my head
And I wanna go home
With a book in each hand
(With a book in each hand)
In the way I had planned
(In the way I had planned)

I feel so broke up
I wanna go home

Untied again
When you were used to being bound in
When you were usually found forgetting the wild wind from the sea

Let wet breaths begin
Widen your mouth to suck them in
They're coming out above your chin and then they slide in there so sweet

And to some silent bird, I sang
"Have you heard that icicles hang from your feet?"

What passed as fine
You'll think back on that sometime
When from the darkness of the mine a few last diamonds lined your beam

Into some shooting stream I'd spit out the dream
That you would swim away with me
Though from this milky sky I can remove my eye
And sigh upon my side
Instead some future kiss that might not exist
I will send to unbind your hands
And hang the hope you still don't miss the rope
Upon the star that shone on an aching night alone
And then some shaking song you might not sing along
I'll float upon the rough and loving winds

You're untied again
You're untied again
And that door is open
That door is open
That door is open
You can walk through it

And I have seen the world of dreams,
Fresh-flown through the trees then dropped off at the curb
Alive, have seen the world awake,
And I don't know which I deserve.
So when sleep nightly comes to me,
With all of these warm blankets piled on my back,
I'll hike to see the church of dreams,
Where all of the shutters are painted black.

And it seems like that's real until the time I awake,
And at midnight the moonlight reflects as the lake
Is shining at me, until night takes it away.
There's one world in the distance, one world in the way,
And not one can stay.

And I have seen the wood of dreams,
Carved grainless and clean with a sweep of one hand,
And have been happy with the leaves on my body when laid under land.
So when sleep finally comes to me
Because it comes for the sleek like it comes for the lame
I'll sink beneath a weight of dreams so full and complete that I'm pushed from my name.

And it seems like that's real until I fall asleep,
And then we load up the car and drive far to some street
Where a new life awaits, until day takes it away.
There's one world in the distance, one world in the way,
And not one can stay

This red-haired girl of mine tore a pinecone from the pine
To cut into her palm, singing the song her sinking lover sung
I shut my eyes, ripped the train from off the line
But a sudden gust of snow blew through a hole in my girl's clothes
Well, my girl knows she's not all right
And I don't mind.
Just give me time, baby, give me time.

Her stinging eyes, and her sixteen-hour drive, and our shared, transparent rope
And our icy dive through hope I'll memorize, and I'll cut into my mind
I can't believe it can be so
I won't believe that my girl froze

Well, my girl knows I'm coiled tight and green inside
Just give me time, baby, give me time

And that weight you hold, it's getting light
And, love, I know you'll raise it easily up high
Just give it time, just give it time

Oh baby, just give it time.

What if there's no hidden track
No journey there, no journey back
The rain falls down upon the same old grass
The rain falls down
The rain falls down
The rain falls down

What if there's no secret word
No matter what you thought you heard
I asked the other son and he averred
No secret word
No secret word
No hidden track

But my words left me
And my heart it just went slack
Just went slack
When I saw it passing
'Cause what if it can't come back
It can't come back
There's no hidden track

What if there's no trapdoor down
The cold hard floor, the cold hard ground
The cold hard car commute back into town
No trapdoor down
No trapdoor down
No hidden track

My words left
And my heart it just went slack
Just went slack
When I saw it passing
'Cause what if they can't come back
They can't come back
There's no hidden track
No hidden track

But for all of us and all of you
There's some things we can't see into
'Cause from the other side no light shows through
I hope that there's a hidden track
It feels like there's a hidden track

Oh gather round people I'll tell you no lies
How John Lewis did murder poor little Omie Wise
He told her to meet him at Adams' spring
He would bring her money and other fine things

So fool like she met him at Adams' spring
He brought her no money no other fine things
He brought her no money but flattered his case
"We will go get married, there will be no disgrace"

"John Lewis, John Lewis, please tell me your mind
Do you intend to marry me or leave me behind?"
"Little Omie, Little Omie, I'll tell you my mind
My mind is to murder you and leave you behind"

"Have pity on my unborn child, spare me my life!
I'll go and I'll admit that I was never your wife"
But he kicked her and he choked her and he turned her around,
And he threw her in deep water where he knew that she would drown

Little Omie was missing they all did well know
And hunting for her to the river did go
And there found her floating on the water so deep
Which caused all the women to sigh and to weep

The neighbours they came for to see the great sight
While she lay a floating on the water all night
So gather round people and I've told you no lies
How John Lewis did murder Naomi Wise

Wrap your blackest coat around your throat
Tonight.
There's a brand-new tune around the moon
Tonight.

And your father's standing by the water
Without his daughter.
And your mother's standing in the cellar,
You didn't tell her.

And there is something near that you can hear
Tonight.
There's a brand-new storm around your form
Tonight.

And that dress you wore has fallen to the ground.

Take the brightest scream out of your dream
Tonight.
There's a brand-new sweet forbidden treat
Tonight.

And your mother's standing in the cellar,
You didn't tell her.
And your father's standing by the water,
Without his daughter.

Wrap your blackest coat up round your throat
Tonight.
There's a brand-new tune around the moon
Tonight.
And there's some brand-new proof that you're aloof
Tonight.
There's a brand-new song for you to sing.
Sing along tonight.