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1998 |
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The weeks slip through our fingers
Like the dry sand blowing across the dunes
Swept into a cardboard box
Filled with forgotten photographs and abandoned songs
The past few years
Illuminated only by the dim glow
Of a sun setting in the east
Now it's almost night
I scour the landscape
Trying to make out your familiar shape against the horizon
But it's amazing how rarely our paths cross
Considering we share the same bed
The sand stings my face
I keep walking, keep looking
I can barely make out the sound of my own voice beneath the wind
Maybe we'll be alone, maybe we'll be alone
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The darkness will be here in an hour
To leave me completely alone with fears, insecurities
And the ghost of a face that walked into a crowd
And out of this chapter of my life
You've come a long way, you've got a long way to go
Ain't nothing steady in the rhythm of the road
And in fifteen seconds the years flash by and I'm gone
Brand new highway, world on my back, got nowhere to go but on
Tilt back my head, listen to the motor moan
Look back, look ahead, baby we've been alone
And baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Well, that's alright, I'll hold you tight through the long arms of the night
And maybe in the morning, I'll call you on the phone
On the edge, I'm gonna jump
See, I've got, ticket's bought and I've already checked my bag
We've got half an hour, let's sit and have a drink
Talk a bit, a little kiss, then it's into the abyss
I've fallen before, I've got a few falls to go
Once you start falling, you know you never really know
You can overthrow the world, pass the day upon its thrown
But you wake up in the morning thinking maybe you've been alone
And baby, you'll be alone
Baby, you'll be alone
Baby, you'll be alone
Baby, you'll be alone
You can overthrow the world, pass the day upon its thrown
Then you look back, look ahead, maybe you've been alone
And baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
We'll be alone
We'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Baby, we'll be alone
Well, that's alright, I'll hold you tight through the long arms of the night
And maybe in the morning, I'll call you on the phone
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Do you hear that sound beneath the rustling autumn leaves?
You can't hear the words, but you know just what they mean
Gotta tap your toes against the ground so all the bones can hear the sound
To let them know below that you believe
When you hear those spirits calling
There ain't no use to fight
We'll trade faces with the shadows
And change voices with the night
Do you feel that glow behind the rotting willow tree?
Something in there knows much more than you can see
Says there's a task ahead of you, so dawn the mask and down the brew
And peer into the sphere of history
When you hear those spirits calling
There ain't no use to fight
We'll trade faces with the shadows
And change voices with the night
Icklemuck puddlewuck, ting ling zsu
Chulatat psilophat, mug wump chu
Icklemuck puddlewuck, ting ling zsu
Chulatat psilophat, mug wump chu
Icklemuck puddlewuck, ting ling zsu
Chulatat psilophat, mug wump chu
Icklemuck puddlewuck, ting ling zsu
Chulatat psilophat, mug wump chu
When the church bell sounds and the sky drips down
Ain't nothing is a sin
So we'll taste the ground while we dance around
Underneath each other's skin
When the raven calls your name
And the barn owl starts her flight
We'll trade faces with our shadows
And change voices with the night
When you hear those spirits calling
There ain't no wrong or right
We'll trade faces with the shadows
And change voices with the night
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On an empty bus at midnight at the border between two worlds
Neither of which knows my name
The mosquitoes and the driver's snores weave a lullaby around my wrists
That feels like handcuffs
After hours of motion, watching the world spin by
Through a one-and-a-half by one-and-a-half foot portal
I am in complete stillness
And I feel like I'm suffering from lack-of-motion sickness
I close my eyes and the world spins by
Taking me to the edge of my mind
Open my eyes and the sky unfolds
There's no more mystery about eternity
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This is where I am
Where are you?
This is where I am
Where are you?
This is where I am
Where are you?
This is where I am
Just where are you?
Message in a bottle
Or a time bomb
It's hard to think it matters when everything is on
A delay line three weeks long
This is a picture I never saw
And these here are words I never said
And this here, this is a lie I could never tell
And this is where I am, and where are you?
Message in a bottle
Or a time bomb
It's hard to think it matters when everything is on
A delay line three weeks long
Send me a postcard
Just send me a postcard
Send me a postcard
Yeah, send me a postcard
Send me a postcard
Just send me a postcard
Is it a message in a bottle
Or a time bomb?
It's hard to think it matters when everything is on
A delay line three weeks long
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We're on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
Agatha's on a rocket to God
Agatha's on a rocket to God
Agatha's on a rocket to God
Agatha's on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
We're on a rocket to God
And Agatha's on a rocket to God
Agatha's on a rocket to God
We're all off on a rocket to God
Michaelangelo's riding on a rocket to God
The lunatics and hypocrites
Sat discussing ethics
Over coffee on a rocket to God
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Wake up in a room where steel guitars turn to steel bars
You know I've lived here too long
Try to write these songs about being bored
Why am I so surprised when they all prove boring songs?
The second hand holds still while the hour hand slips by
I don't know just how long I've been here
I stare out the window and contemplate the sky
While I grow older than my years
Plucking strings by the side of my bed
By a stack of books, most of which I've never read
I want to capture in sound the way things are
But I'd regret it in the morning if I smashed my guitar
The second hand holds still while the hour hand slips by
I don't know just how long I've been here
I stare out the window and contemplate the sky
While I grow older than my years
Well, they're never gonna tell us
Just what's coming around the bend
But there's one thing I can count on
That's that old man time is not my fucking friend
For the reaper lurks in stillness
But motion too is death
So I just float between them
Moving in and out to the rhythm of my breath
The second hand holds still while the hour hand slips by
I don't know just how long I've been here
I stare out the window and contemplate the sky
While I grow older than my years
The second hand holds still while the hour hand slips by
I don't know just how long I've been here
So I stare out the window and contemplate the sky
While I grow older than my years
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Put our children in this ground
You were in the kitchen while I sat and watched them drown
Put the killing in this sound
So I could have it handy, case those devils come around again
Cut the poison into thirds
Held it to our lips and drank to chat with the absurd
There's a kind of song I heard
I think I could sing it if I knew just how the words begin
Thought I was a violent flame
The longer that I stare, I think that flame looks pretty tame
So if this is really just a game
I'm gonna need a hand now 'cause the pieces aren't the same this time
I think you asked if I was dead
But through eight feet of dirt I couldn't hear a word you said
There have been strangers in that bed
And it seems to me eternity is not going to forget this crime
It's gonna take a miracle
Buried time inside your breast
I had to, it felt like it was kicking in my chest
Put a lie inside each breath
I've been sleeping all these years now, but I really seem to rest
It's gonna take
It's gonna take
It's gonna take
It's gonna take a miracle
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I want music that tears itself apart and takes the lot of you with it
I need a catchy tune like I need a bullet in the heart
So come on, old and young, sing while your teeth grind through your tongues
We're making music that tears itself apart
I want sobs that shake my spine like an earthquake
I want to laugh like cities crashing down
While a thousand slender dames keep chanting out my name
So loud the gods will never forget my sound
I'll practice breathing fire in missile silos
All the ambassadors admire me for my tact
See, I've sailed the seven seas and every port's made of ricotta cheese
And it's time we start acknowledging the fact
I want music that tears itself apart
Yeah, I need a catchy tune like I need a bullet in the heart
So come on, old and young, sing while your teeth grind through your tongues
We're making music that tears itself apart
I'll roll the earth into a fag and smoke it
Just after I've made love to the sky
Have a little chat with time before I choke it
And teach all the earthworms how to fly
I've got an army of lunatics armed with CB radios patrolling the subways
And a warehouse full of underpaid workers transcribing everything they say
So if you're lucky and I feel the itch, maybe I'll go through those manuscripts
And publish the Great American Novel someday
I want music that tears itself apart and takes the lot of you with it
Yeah, I need a catchy tune like I need a bullet in the heart
So come on, old and young, sing while your teeth grind through your tongues
We're making music that tears itself apart
That's right, come on, old and young, sing while your teeth grind through your tongues
We're making music that tears itself apart
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I think that we can breathe now, the world is over
Send all the children over now, red rover
Well, I guess the world stopped spinning
When supply somehow met demand
An uncashed paycheck in my pocket
And atom bombs in Pakistan
Now I'm sitting on a bus
A shade too tired to be annoyed
While two human avocados
A shade too loudly discuss Freud
That's okay, the experts say
'Cause at least the air is clearer now
I think that we can breathe now, the world is over
Waiting in a field of nine-leaf clovers
Sipping tea in an oasis
While we watch the desert spread
And we're counting on our virtues
'Cause it's too hard to count the dead
There's a pretty girl beside me
Think she wants to hold my hand
But she's speaking in a tongue
I think I'll never understand
But that's okay, the experts say
'Cause at least the air is clearer now
I think that we can breathe now, the world is over
We had our chances to be fighters
Now we're burned-out twenty-something poetry writers
Yeah, I guess we all can breathe now, the world is over
Guess there's nothing really left to do
But seal our eyes and nostrils up with glue
And observe the sticky residue that's all that's left of me and...
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