Before The Bridge

LOWDOWN KIND OF CURSE
It’s tough to walk in pieces
I’m falling through the creases all the time
It’d been nice if once or twice
You had let me know just what was on your mind

The orphans in your orchards
And my choir full of cowards in the shade
So why don’t you all just get together
And pick apart the choices I have made

And tell me where,
Where did I go wrong
This time

Still I wind up in a bottle
When the simplest task is drawn across the sand
And You tried hard not to notice
When I folded like a lotus in your hand

I tried to say I want you
But they gave me this mantra to say:
It’s a lowdown kind of curse
Being good when you’re trying to be great

Tell me where,
Where did I go wrong
This time

I felt it as the time passed
As the warden painted pictures of his dreams
He said I’ve seen it all for miles
And in the miles I saw just how it seems

It seems like everything and everyone
Are strung together, brothers in arms
Bet they fall into the caverns and the craters
That I accidentally carve

But it’s late and I am rambling
And I swear that this’ll be the final time
I gave you all I had to give
Now give me just this little piece of mind

And tell me where,
Oh, where did I go wrong
This time

JOANN

It’s hard to tell which way you’re going
When that salty shadow’s cast across the sun
In the brine of Venice shallows
Where the twisting of our roots have come undone

Maybe our hearts lie over the ocean
Maybe we never should’ve stepped out of this wreck
I’d kill to stand at two roads diverging
Instead of here where fifty thousand intersect

And if I’m restless
Like the gulf of Siam
Won’t you hold me
Like the wolf that I am
And when I’m hard up
Just shackle my feet
And throw the keys in the street, Joann

I wish that I could know just how you’re feeling
Beyond the way a farmer know his field
But I’ll proudly bow to your condition
Better still, I will bear witness to your yield

Someday we will lay in Okinawa
Or that island off the coast of Greece
And we’ll live to be a hundred
Unconcerned with silver apples or Golden Fleece

And if I’m restless
Like the gulf of Siam
Won’t you hold me
Like the wolf that I am
And when I’m hard up
Just shackle my feet
And throw the keys in the street, JoAnn

If our new civilization
Our tributary, aching for the sea
If it dies off trying to get there
Well I think that’d still be good enough for me

SPARROW

Come the morning
Comes a warning
In my sacrum
And in my doldrums

There by midday
There by mistake
Time’s destroying
We can’t avoid it

You pull me down so low
My sparrow
Oh I will, oh I will
Hold the reins so tight
My Clementine
Oh I will, Oh I will, Oh I will

It blackens early
It blackens purely
And aids, abetting
In our forgetting

You pull me down so low
My sparrow
But oh I will, oh I will
Pull the reins so tight
My Clementine
Oh I will, oh I will, oh I will

Holy clover
I’m starting over
In my Gomorrah
In my Aurora

It pulls me down so low
My sparrow
Oh I will, oh I will
Pull the reins so tight
My Clementine
Oh I will, oh I will, oh I will

RUNNING

We’re greeted in the morning
By the fury of the sun
They came to burn our bridges
But we beat ‘em to the punch

Take me to your pastures
That I ruined from the start
Cut off all my hair
And strip my car of all its parts

Now I wake up in the quiet
When the city’s gone to sleep
And I rummage and I ravage
Like the savage through their streets

Is it any use to call you now
Is your river running wide
Can you hear me on the other shore
Or at least pretend to try

‘Cause it’s not reasons that I leave
That are bothering me today
No, the thing that’s hammering on my brain
Are the reasons that you stay

So let’s leave the in-between
To the stiffs and to the slobs
Let ‘em ruminate and reminisce
In the gardens of their gods

Do I understand the meaning
Am I seeming to at least
No, I haven’t understood a thing
Since I was banished to the east

Be my preacher, be my teacher
Take me out into the night
Paint over my eyes
Till I see black and you see white

It’s not reasons that I leave
That are bothering me today
No, the thing that’s hammering on my brain
Are the reasons that you stay

I never read the bible closely
But I know I missed the page
Where they taught you how to tell
Between the hunter and its prey

So is it fear or is it hunger
For the kill or being killed
Cause all I know is that I’m running
And that I always will

And it’s not reasons that I leave
That are bothering me today
No, the thing that’s hammering on my brain
Are the reasons that you stay

EASY RIDER

Come on, you Easy Rider
You misbegotten son
Tell me what you’ve done
Tell me what you’ve done

You’ve been gone, you Easy Rider
For far too long a time
To be this far behind
Be this far behind

Go on, you Easy Rider
You daughter of Magritte
Tell me what you see
Tell me what you see

But it’s no use there’s no excuse
Your lover can lend
Say you’ll try
To come and see me again

Come on, you Easy Rider
You children of the sand
Your home’s in northern lands
Your home’s in northern lands

Just go and find it, you Easy Rider
All you’ve got to do is start
But that’s the hardest part
That’s the hardest part

And It’s no use there’s no excuse
Your lover can lend
Say you’ll try
To come and see me again

Come and see me again

Come on, you Easy Rider
You misbegotten son
Tell me what you’ve done
Tell me what you’ve done

Go on, you Easy Rider
All you’ve got to do is start
But that’s the hardest part
That’s the hardest part

NOT ENOUGH

Let the engine cry
He shouted from inside
As he pulled the visor down
To shade the glare

An untested son
Like a homemade battle drum
His words ringing
Shallow and bare

Past valleys and hills
Strip malls and steel mills
His plan not to panic
Is falling through

Repeating: I refuse to live
Like some goddamn fugitve
As he stares himself down
In the rearview

You can bide your time
But it’s getting rough
You give me all you got
But it’s not enough

In Barstow, there about
The engine just burned out
Like the fire in his belly
And his heart

He leaned against the door
Cried I’m trying to be more
But some folks just don’t
Have the parts

You can bide your time
But it’s getting rough
You give me all you got
But it’s not enough

I’m not too proud to beg
With my tail between my legs
As I’m waiting for
The ending of the scene

But there’s a fire’s eating Rome
And every hero must leave home
So I’ll do my best
To find out what that means

UNTAMED

The city’s growing greater
Oh, heavenly dictator
But the space between our sinew
Is a twisted wired labyrinth
Where you can’t recall what happened to you

Yet still I am reminded
Of waking undivided
Between words we’ll never need know
Wondering in silence
Sheltered from the violence below

Maybe we should move now
To the mountains or some beach town
And live off whatever our car’s worth
We’ll either be alone then
Or be followed to the ends of the earth

And if we are alone then
Could we remain hidden
Would we even belong
We were born inside this city
In its sorrowful and piteous song

But we feel it in our sinew
And we know now what we must do
‘Cause when the dark, it calls us by name
We’ll know we were alive once
And at least for a moment untamed

I WILL NOT BE AROUND

I’m starting now to finally find
I’m bouncing back and forth in time
Between what I lost
And what I’ll never have

It’s the damnedest thing to champ the bit
So long you nearly swallow it
So if I choke
Just don’t dress me in plaid

It’s the long awaited cue to stop
Cause I don’t need a thing you got
So get your kicks and talk your shit
About all the precious things you bought
But please don’t be surprised
When another carney’s crowned
Cause when you look up babe
I will not be around

I moved with every breath you made
Took pictures of everything I ate
And I pressed the flesh
But I guess a different kind

Some days call for honesty
And this one’s got the best of me
You know I’ve always had
A different life in mind

I’ll keep it brief cause few words fit
This is what’s become of wit
The slightest change of aim
And brevity just murders it
But I’ve always been longwinded
And I can’t be changing now
When you look up babe
I will not be around

What could be, I have seen
And not just in my head
If I was made a different way
I might stay instead
Instead

Instead I’ll burn myself in effigy
And that’ll be my masterpiece
You know it’s more about the notes
That you don’t see

When the final ember burns
I’ll be gone as far as you’re concerned
Though you never really
Seemed to be

So if it comes off selfish
Put that one on me
But if it comes off easy
Then it’s probably just this key
‘Cause it breaks my heart to say it
But there will not be a sound
And when you look up babe
I will not be around

TARMAC BLUES

In a world of careless ruthless hands
Whose cruelest task to understand
The vile weed inside of man

When my kerosene refused to fuel
And fever took my favorite mule
My purpose turned to simple rules:

Recognize the mountain’s real
Don’t expect a big reveal
Long after the seventh seal

Your lover loves in fits of rage
Acts out your life on dim lit stages
Throws you in an unlocked cage

It’s your choice to stay in there
Change your name to Frank Voltaire
And one by one pull out hair

So if everything has come before
And there’s no need now for metaphors
I better pawn this for a two by four

Or at least carve into the side
This machine surrounds suicide
And forces it to idolize

So you’re living free of love and hate
Making Utah license plates
I’ll trade your lot for all my faith

There’s no hope in integrity
But there’s comfort in hypocrisy
Imagine it all happily

ALONG THE WAY

I still have dreams about the woman
Who said she had apache blood
But she just never knew her mother
And loved to dance before it flood

She would wake before the sunrise
Drink her coffee ‘neath the stars
Till word come from Houston
About opening up some scars

She stood ‘neath the constellations
But she was staring at the dirt
Carving Hydra with her boot heel
Man, I hope it doesn’t hurt

Oh my god is this the only thing I got
And has the only thing I got gone away
The widowed sculptor’s wife who’d been posing all her life
Just wishing she’d be held like clay

Her brother drove down to the valley
He would sleep by her side
Tell her stories ‘bout the chieftain
Neither cared they all were lies

She’d draw pictures of the window
The winter light of Hudson Bay
But she was dying in the desert
A couple thousand miles away

Oh my god is this the only thing I got
And has the only thing I got gone away
Lord you’ll never know the worth of just circling the earth
Till your orbit starts to rapidly decay

Pick me up
Pick me up
Pick me up along the way

We all know a flood is coming
We all know we’re gonna drown
We all know it’s just a story
We just like the way it sounds

Oh my god is this the only thing I got
And has the only thing I got gone away
Well I’ll wait here to be sure, like I’m waiting for the cure
That for years has been coming any day

Pick me up
Pick me up
Pick me up along the way

MY WILL BE DONE

I have caught up on my fortune
And I’ve burned up all that’s left
What remains is my surgeon focus
That condescends to your success

Take my easel and bury it down
With the illusions of regret
Follow close enough to see me
But not enough to see my debt

Oh, father
Oh, ghostly son
My will be
Oh, my will be done

What is fortune but the chance
To drown your efforts easily
With its lungs all full of salt and plankton
Awaken to the worst of me

With too much luck you end up thinking
Your lowest thoughts are worth their sand
Listen close enough to hear me
But not enough to understand

Oh, father
Oh, ghostly son
My will be
Oh, my will be done

Left bereft of all possessions
Except your postcards from Berlin
I’ll let you know just how I’m doing
From whatever town that lets me in

But fortunes comeback incidentally
Your lord’s prayer gets turned around
So love me just enough to miss me
But not enough to track me down