Nocturnal

I been down And I'm sliding still I been sleeping long Never see the sun
I've been calling friends But they're never home And I eat alot, yeah Just to feel full
I need your weight to get up
It's too late But don't worry My tarot cards Say we'll persevere
I know love Is a crippling thing But at least I got a leg to stand on when you're here
You are the day
And I hang my head in the shade Thinkin 'bout your light as I sit here on this plank
Will you come out and play for another seesaw day
It's a stretch Through another day I bend down Fall down on the way
Yeah I'm all bent out of shape Just trying to run To you
I been struggling And I curse the love Cuz I'll never catch up to you
You are my day
And I'm sitting in the dark On This plank
I hang my head in the shade Thinkin 'bout your light as I sit here on this plank
Will you come out and play for another seesaw day
And the seesaw shine is something. You're the day.

Doublehanded

She wandered into a cold cave Wandered into an icy grave See the frozen bones scattered around
Outside, can't see a thing. Yes she should've known better. Doesn't look like the others will ever find her.
Hard to be alone in the snow But there is nowhere else to go
Time to think, time to be alone. What do I do now that I'm all grown
Do I dig my own tunnel or build my own home?
You know I think I know I think I know what I want but everything costs money and it costs alot
And once you sever the tie you can't make a knot.
None of these things I own but my own (faults) thoughts
But I hold those dear, cuz they're all mine
I've got a million ideas but no time...
I walked out it's all my fault, now just look at where I've landed.
Got one hand behind my back, and if no one searches I'll be stranded.
And if I gave you a rose made out of construction lights from the road
Would you turn out the light and watch it blinking danger
And if I gave you my word that I would do (stay) where I should
Would you turn into a stranger
I can see through the pain in my dreams, it's obvious what they mean
Some things you can only do doublehanded
Walk alone on the road and I'm going numb, if nobody stops for my thumb
I guess I'll just be stranded.

Shallow

Ask me a question that I can't answer and I'll be surprised
Cuz I know everything, everything, that ever crossed through your mind.
Cuz you're shallow.
The way that people put themselves in spaces says alot about who they are.
When you see those pretty faces, you go straight for the bar
Cuz you're shallow.
And once I thought you'ld drown in your mascara when an eyelash broke and made you weep.
But I hear it takes two inches, and I know you're not that deep.
Cuz you're shallow.
Your mind is on vacation, and when you die of mental dehydration, you can quote me here cuz I said it first:
"Let it be known you didn't die of thirst" (You're shallow).
Ask me a question that I can't answer and I'll be surprised.

Park City is not L.A.

Keep me strollin' on my watch, do the watch, do the watch, do the walk walk
And here comes another man who can't find a parking spot-- say, oh no!
So he offers a twenty dollar spot for the spot for the spot (and he gives a little talk talk)
Says "you gotta let me park here cuz I gotta million dollar date with the CEO."
Well I laugh at the things he said and the things that evolve as a volunteer here
I'm slaving away but I get to say no to the hotshots from L.A.
I love the authority that makes all the ladies try to win my favor
One record producer even said he'd listen to my demo if I parked his car
So we got too many people on the planet already and the driving is hell
And it doesn't help a lotta that a lotta people think they gotta right to cut a little bit in line
Park City is a very nice place for a getaway though it only has a few parking lots
And the Hollywood suits on the loose are always in a rush always in a rush always in a
Well I can't for the life of me relate to the suits in their fancy cars, no
Their hair, their chicks, soundtracks to their flicks are the slickest that money can buy
And I bet the only reason they're late is they had to stop for espresso
Now they think that everybody else should go out of their way so they can be on time
I don't care how much you whine, suck it up
So sad to say, but you run a little late, that's what you get now
So I finally get off, I get off when the shift ends, I'm-a-feeling numb so I go and get a beer
And I shake a little snow from my hat and I sit and I wait 'til I can feel my face
And I got a little tag on a chain 'round my neck and it says I'm a Sundance volunteer
A lady asks what I do and I tell her that I try to keep the L.A. types in their place
We laugh as I tell her all about all the things that evolve as a volunteer here
How I'm slaving away but I get to say no to the hotshots from L.A.
How I love the authority that makes all the men try to win my favor
One record producer even said he'd listen to my demo if I parked his car
Who the fuck does he take me for? (suck it up)
So sad to say, but you run a little late that's what you get now

2 Days

And you know there is plenty to do in all of the neighborhoods you won't drive through
And you just need a pen to write don't try to tell me the setting's not right
This is all of my thoughts-- everything else just deserves to get lost
And all you ever said echoes around in the space in my head (and there's plenty of that)

You came around you could pretend-- I can remember the faces that you
Wore around on every occassion-- I can remember the places that you
I can recall everything but I can't prevent it from happening
All the old haunts around this town just seem to remind me of

All the mistakes I made when I thought that I loved you after only 2 days
And all the mistakes I ever have made, I want to leave and start over again
The world is a small world, that makes this town even smaller and I
Feel like the people I know are strangling me like a turtleneck sweater too tight
So I'm about to take flight

And you know how I write down my dreams-- Last night you pulled off your face and I screamed
This is my last chance to flee-- If I fall in love here I'll never be free
And it's over the minute you try-- maybe each word is the last one to write
And it starts just as soon as it ends-- wishing I hadn't said some of the things that I did

Chorus... so I'm about to say bye-bye, little one...

Erotica

Round dials I can turn with my toes in ceramic white bowls like a
Buoy I float in a moat in a mind time only of my own
Skin buckles up like a prune like a dried grape will I ever escape
Growing older, water gets colder, and then I awake

She calls on the telephone says are you alone I say
As a matter of fact I'm up to my neck in water
She says let go of the phone put down the receiver
She says it'll be your death, I don't believe her

Ingenuously I ask her if she'll come over
Dry me off and dress me maybe caress me with her nails
She knows what I like she's done it a hundred times or more
Then electricity courses through me and my heart fails

Drowning now Like a dream Won't you come And rescue me
Dangerous Helplessly Feel the light Leaving me

She has her own key comes running to me jumps back with a start
Tries to resucitate me she places her hand on my heart
Not even a sound-- from one little spark I'm dead as a door
It tears her apart her tears fall on the apartment floor

My body is stiff and blue, my body is cool
She gathers me up, she's pulling me out of the pool
She will dry me off dress me up bring me to bed put me in
For you my love one last time her fingernails bloody my skin

Give me love One last time Give my skin Scarlett lines
Write it out On my chest I love you so I love you so

She calls the police they come in no time ten seconds flat
She tells em I died in the bath he says then how'd he get that?
He looks at the blood on my chest he says your fingers are stained
He says you're under arrest she says
Wait
I can explain

Trouble in the World

Got a will of stone but a troubled soul Makes me shake my head, say no no no
Somebody lift me up, everybody taking Free my heart from all this greed and all this hating
I should think you should wanna should wanna do some good, so
Put your heads together and change the neighborhood...

I see it all the time, trouble everyday Everybody's in everybody's way
Somebody wake me up from this dream I'm living-- Too much giving up in the air we're breathing
Trouble in the world...
If we all get down to earth, we can make it work. Everybody, everybody lend a hand-- take me to the promised land

There are children here today who have never learned to play there is truth in what you say now
You can blame their absentees, you can blame economies, but your words don't do a thing now
So give what you got, give it if they need it, give what you got, lifting up a spirit
You know you got alot, chasing your own dreams... you wanna be
In true love, safe from fear, in the black, a good career,
Think about all you got in your life
Other people just trying to get by...

[Nate:] You get up grumbling, you're mumbling, with reality you're fumbling, stumbling to the bathroom-- the experience is humbling. Keep staring at the glass darkly cuz you can see all too clearly that your face is looking bleary-- you slept for twelve hours but you're still fucking world weary. Keep trying to think but nothing happens, you're mind is jumbilng-- why? --cuz you're stomach is rumbling, got the blues like Hubert Sumlin, boom babies got fat, now all that's left for you is crumbling. Take a look around, morale is down, morality's tumbling-- meanwhile, beauro-fat-crats be busy bumbling. Their gazes avert from the blood on your shirt; it asserts that we live in a world full of hurt. Pickin through the rubble tends to burst your bubble people lookin through a Hubble when the earth is full of trouble has a hovel look to it, needs a shovel took to it: Anand, it's time for you to do it.

I want every child to feel a mother's love
I wanna leave this world a little better off
I want every baby to feel a mother's love...

In Your Room

Talking on the telephone last night Never told you that my eyes were wet the whole time
You said you thought of giving up for good cuz giing up is all you feel you're strong enough to do
In your room
Everything we do is an escape from something dark and terrifying we cannot face
How does anybody find the strength I'm slowly driving myself crazy in this place
In this room
Into the surrounding darkness Into the surrounding gloom
Staring at the mirror every hour Disebodied voices echoing between the walls
In your room
Loneliness is hungry for its prey Let the hole get wide you slip away
I used to think that I could think all things But to think of life without you is too terrifying
In your room

Hangman's Tree

Everybody knows that one man's rise is half a dozen others been wrestled aside so smile when you get there and don't show the blood on your face
If you got debts you can never pay don't fret it or regret it just let it slide away and when they come for the money stay one step ahead of the chase
Everybody makes a promise they can't keep then finds themselves hung up in the hangman's tree so if you wanna win a pardon you've got to make a powerful friend
Some will tell you there's no honor among theives but if you don't steal away you will never be free you gotta live for the moment and laugh until the bitter end

Poet of the Age

I wanna make music but I wanna keep control of it and I wanna make laughter as long as I'm the only cause of it and I wanna make sunshine at night and never have to get up early and I wanna make my problems everybody's
I wanna make babies but never ever have to raise them and I wanna have parties and never ever clean up after them and I wanna make money so I can be around the right crowd and I want everybody to just shut up so I can be loud
And I wanna scream my creed across the frozen wastes and watch as millions race across the ice in search of something that I said, just a fragment of a sentence, thirsty for the wisdom of the Poet of the Age
I wanna be written on every page of every book right next to the numbers and have everyone believe that I am holier and humblier than thou and I wanna be famous and generally considered a success and I wanna be left alone so I can wallow in my excess
And I wanna go where no one else has gone before and I wanna be a hero of a popular war and I wanna be a saviour to the sick, the hungry, and the poor as long as I don't have to go out my front door
I wanna carve a hole into a place called "I tried" and I wanna heave my obligations to one side and I wanna look both ways and then crawl in and hide and leave my body and my brain to rot from the inside
And I wanna give nothing to this world, I'm just gonna take take take

And I ain't never gonna think about the past no, I'm just gonna take take take
And the world sucks so I don't give a fuck how long I last, I'm just gonna take take take

New Year's Eve

I am older, and you are young, and we clown around
I am bolder, but you have time, so we share the same ground
You say I'm jaded-- I cry out in self defense that you're naive
But I would rather defy my conscience than be alone on this New Year's Eve

Give me quarters for the man who rings the bell so I can start my New Year's resolution
You say that charity should come from in yourself but I have given up myself in this confusion

I'm no dancer, but I can listen, and the music makes me sway
But you're a natural, so let me hide and watch from far away
You envision-- say you dream of-- a world of true escape
Where everyone is equal, everyone is equal, and everyone participates,
Well,
That is not the world I know nor the one we can acheive
And there is nothing you don't know, you've got it all inside your sleeve
But you will learn one day as I have that love does not mean ease
And I mistrust the simple answers, but that's not what you believe
And so I follow you although I feel ashamed at how old I feel
On this New Year's Day

You can give me momentary joy but you cannot give me peace
And the choice is, should my disappointment prohibit that release?
I am older, and you are young, and we fall around
But when this snow has melted these unprotected leaps will leave me on the ground

Little Black Boots

There was a young woman who lived in her shoes
She slept and she swam and she bathed in her little black boots
And every time she found she was faced with an important decision to make
She could feel all her unchosen paths slowly erase
And isn't it strange to feel like your choices are all irreversiblr traps
To worry that we may have chosen poorly and won't be allowed to go back
And every step we are flirting with gravity trying to follow a path
Through the darkness hoping we leave behind traps

There was a young woman who lived in her shoes
And all of her mud and her clay stained the sheets of my bed
And once with those shoes digging into my back,
we rolled on the floor getting dirty and wet,
She asked if I thought she was someone I'd never forget
And isn't it sad to reveal our invisible lives through a physical act
Searching for sustenance in each performance just hoping the crowd will react
And all I can say is I don't make predictions about how my mind recollects
But my darling, I haven't forgotten you yet

When she sleeps she hears voices and she cries in her sleep
As they tell her reports from the perfect lives that she chose not to lead
And so she wakes up determined to find where she went wrong
She retraces her steps from the mud she has left in her wake
And so she spends her time trying to retrace
Reliving the pain that caused her retreat in the first place
and she will never unlace those little black boots

She knows her own footprint
She proudly imprints it
On the hearts of the men who have laid down in front of her path
And isn't it sad to feel like your choices are all irreversible traps
To worry that we may have chosen poorly and won't be allowed to go back
And all I can say is I don't make predictions about how my mind recollects
But my darling, I haven't forgotten you yet

Pretty Song

I can sing my pretty SONG, sing it all day LONG

Feels so good it can't be WRONG singing my pretty SONG

I just got back from the songwriter's convention

They told me to add an A7 Augmented fifth chord for tension

So I sing my pretty SONG, sing it all day LONG

Oh woah woah woah oh taking hits from the BONG

--what?

Long Introduction

I know what it is that makes you happy and I know you're standing in the way
And I know what you'll say when he finally stops introducing me: then you'll smile and look away
And I know what it is that makes you sorry: when you let a good thing pass you by
Well you can sit in your manhole and hear the conversation overhead but you don't have the strength to try
Try

(notes)

notes coming!

All contents copyright (C) 2000 Merlin Pool Music