Sounds
There are sounds when you hear them, makes you believe
Everything’s different now and maybe we should leave
Fighter jets screaming, a scaffolding collapse
Your mama stops breathing, the ice you’re on cracks
I was standing at attention
In the service of the crown
But there was nothing in my heart
When the chips finally came down
Some kinda trouble in a far away land
With strange looking lives led by strange looking men
From the boats out in the channel
To the pictures on the wall
Electric eyes sweep for dissention
But they’ll never get it all
Hanging out on night shift, smoking by the fence
I was watching on closed circuit when the big black cars rolled in
Up stairs there’s a row of clocks hanging in a room
Power grids, GPS, cellophane balloons
I can see it on your face, I can’t trust what you’ll do
You’re telling me it’s them, I know just as much it’s you
Submarine
Mama sat and waited for a change to come
Helpless to survive her husband and her sons
Winter and the sunset so red and low
Days so short, nowhere for her to go
Like a submarine under the ice
Can’t see anything, just the engine lights
Air so thin, a test there to control yourself
even worse controlled by someone else
Sing to herself, “doo, doo, doo, doo…”
Johnny has a brother who’s 35
Seen the trouble coming all his brother’s life
Boiling up and over such a violent time
Kept the family hostage and terrified
Nothing can explain, it’s just the way it goes
Too hard to contain, too big for all his clothes
Interesting to note that mama waited
While her husband and her sons walked that awful line
Singing, “doo, doo, doo, doo…”
The Country
In the country, they got a sideways stare for your big city hair and your clothes
But it’s pretty l,ike Sofia in the movies with her red lips biting a rose
We’ll fly over the ocean if we get too hemmed in
But I’m already tired of the places we’ve been
I got a taste for the solitude, secrets and sin
In the country things will be good
For a good time, stay home under the birch trees
Laying on the roof with the stars… celestial spheres
Those knuckle-draggers here shoot whitetail deer from their cars
When the snow falls, hard enough to block the roads
We’ll drink cognac and stay warm by the stove
We’ll live here alone, forever in love
In the country things will be good
I’ll go out and chop some wood
You start shovelling, probably somebody should
We’ll ski into town when we run out of bread
Paint the whole place lipstick red
They’ll write songs about the things that we did
In the country things will be good
Summer Haze
That summer time haze it gets in your head
It feels like a stranger and tears at your bed
It takes you to places you never should’ve been
You wake up and see it and you feel it on your skin
She took it and waited and asked for the rest
Was it her used to taking or me used to less?
Just her reflection, even then I knew that
To see her and want her and get nothing back
A face for the ages in all the right clothes
A week in Morocco with sunsets and gold
That one story that never gets told
Is the one story that never gets old
Victorious
Born to be victorious
You should see how we’re living
I guess the rich lost that spirit of giving
and all the horrors I’ve seen
I hate to complain but you know what I mean
Hey, someone’s standing out there…
See them gasping for air
Until that face turns blue
All I can think about is you
Born to be victorious
A hundred stabs… still airtight
Another little sister went missing last night
And there’s the colour of your skin…
What kind of trouble are we in?
Yeah, you should see how we’re living
Too many strikes to eat down at the mission
Born to be victorious
After the murder mama never had a chance
See her slumped over the keyboard in a protestant trance
Sleeping in St. John’s confessional
He’ll be dead in a week if they send him back to mexico
And there’s the colour of your skin
So pale in the moonlight
A hundred stabs and still airtight
Born to be victorious
Singapore
Everybody’s so calm but the plane’s going down
We’re making out in the bathroom ’cause it’s been a long time
I flew down to Singapore to bring you back home
And you look so good in your Singapore clothes
And your strange new accent saying so many things
In your Chinese shoes and your white gold rings
Making out on cab ride, making out on the train
Making out in the airport lounge, and now again on the plane
And everybody’s so calm but I’m burning up
Cause you look like someone famous and I can’t get enough
We’re going down like the truth
Your lips like justice, your hands on the proof
Up over Japan, a technological achievement, and you’re a great looking man
Spring Thaw
The winds of springtime and change bring folly to the whimsical heart
Smashing tall-ships up on faraway shores, breaking old lovers apart
Tormenting people like us
I’m tracing your face with my mouth
Dreaming so deeply of dangerous things we could neither live with or without
It’s so warm, the river is….
There’s no harm in saying that I want to take you down to the water
Somewhere there’s no people, yeah
Hold you up against a tree in the forest
Do things that we’ll both regret
It’s so warm
We woke up that morning alone on the ground
Our limbs hurt from something we’d done
Some old woman’s face, somebody’s eyes…
My head clouded over and drunk
The ice on the river is breaking and soft
They’re dragging it down at the locks
There’s months of bad luck and malice down there
Frozen in translucent blocks
The ice is breaking up in pieces
Jesus waking up and calling home
New perspective, strange diseases, old dictators overthrown
That outfit that you bought last summer
Too small, too tight to wear
Local people coming out of hiding
Up from the basement everywhere
It’s so warm
Funeral
The coffin ain’t even closed yet
Your mouth still twitching and smiling
Some of here are dancing depressed
Or sitting in the living room crying
They’re living it up down at the cultural bar
Screaming at the colour TVs
Someone caught the measles or cancer or smallpox
Or some other terrible disease
Brother’s got money, got kids of his own
But your swinging in and out of this life alone
You can pay for a doctor and a royal parade
Numbers come up on their own I’m afraid
Live yourself out of it brother
Take some money, maybe go on a spree
Change your luck now for the better
Nothing here’s at all how it seems
They’re laughing and forgetting themselves down there
Echoing loud off the tiles
Apparently living out in the open never really goes out of style
Sister saved her money from working so hard
She bought a place by the water and then she retired
She got a Cadillac car, yeah she got it made
But numbers, they come up on their own i’m afraid
Black shirt white tie
Silver dollars on our eyes
Purple lights, limousines, traffic stopping on a green
Big Youth, a pair of tens walking with some Russian Prince
Let’s just try to celebrate… dance until this all makes sense
Call Me Up
Call me up sometime
I’ll take you out somewhere the music’s good
Leave your workweek alone, forget about home
Things there, well they ain’t so good
I’ll take you out dancing, I’ll show you things
You know I’ll be a gentleman
Yeah, sometimes
Living with your fears and all the coming years
Who knows who you’re gonna be then
End up on our own or make us all a home
Nothing that really matters in the end
We could be the kind of guy to lose all track of time
Never quite get where we’re going
Life’s easy to lose, be careful what you choose
Try not to pick something boring
I been a liar, set things on fire
You know, it’s hard to be good
I tried to make living, asked to be forgiven
But you do what you can, not what you should
