You waste away
A spinning cage
Mass bided by the sun
You spend your day
Stuck in a race
And life has just begun
A paradise is in eclipse
And lives are lost
And for distress
The wage of sin is money spent
Your life a debt full of regret
We are lost in the maze
Falling
Falling...
And now your life
Amounts to nothing
A fortune has a price
Cause in the end
All humans die
A debt your in the hide
A paradise is in eclipse
And lives are lost
And for distress
The wage of sin is memory spent
Your life a debt full of regret
We are lost in the maze
Falling
Falling....
Falling away again...
(Get! Up!)
Lost in the maze
Falling
Falling...
Deep inside these burning buildings
Voices die to be heard
Years we spent teaching a lesson
We ourselves had never learned
And if strength is borne from heartbreak
Many mountains I could move
And if walls could speak I'd pray
That they would tell me what to do
If you see me, please just walk on by, walk on by
Forget my name and I'll forget it too
Failed attempts at living simple lives, simple lives
(Simple lives)
Always keep me coming back to you
No signs of life here, save the embers, the occasional flame
We'd know the way but can't remember, conception to the grave
Shout confessions from the greatest heights, where no one can hear
All my fears, my insecurities are falling like tears
If you see me, please just walk on by, walk on by
Forget my name and I'll forget it too
Failed attempts at living simple lives, simple lives
(Simple lives)
Always keep me coming back to you
The drones all slave away, they're working overtime
They serve a faceless queen, they never question why
Disciples of a god, they neither live nor breathe
But we have bills to pay, yeah, we have mouths to feed
I won't come back
And if you see me, please just walk on by, walk on by
Forget my name and I'll forget it too
Failed attempts at living simple lives, simple lives
(Simple lives)
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
I sat staring at my toes, how am I meant to know
That someone's waiting for me in the dark
Somewhere outside is a doggy barking
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
All you can possibly know is the way things are
Sometimes that way ain't clear
Don't make it no less real
Lord, I don't mind cryin'
It just can't help chances
Don't change nothing already done
As useless in advance
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
Was just trying get undressed, wasn't feeling my best
I got a girl layed on my bed
Lord, she knows me well, but she knows no dread
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed cryin'
You can't never leave home but you can't get back
I got some friends there in the other room
Oh they know me well, but they know no wounds
Lord, I don't mind cryin'
It just can't help chances
Don't change nothing already done
As useless in advance
I say what're you cryin' for man
Your free to go
You get to walk forever
My heart would hang me if I gave it an inch
It would sing you a sad one
For the sake of seeing you cry
My heart might heal you
It's been with me such a long long time
But these dog eared feelings never bite
Lay your head down lightly
Get layed low and close
Your searching eyes
A little scratch ain't going to kill you
And a little something you are bound to find
A little nothing's found to bind you
And a little something
Well it always seems to try
My heart should thank me
I've been patient such a long time
But these dog eared feelings never bite
Lay your head down lightly
Get layed low and close
Your searching eyes
A little scratch ain't going to kill you
And a little something you are bound to find
My heart would hang me if I gave it an inch
It would sing you a sad one
For the sake of seeing you cry
My heart just kneels there
It's been with me such a long long time
Stay low, careful as you go
If everybody's harmless then there ain't no way to know
Sleep tight, i'm sure you'll be alright
You might feel a little better come tomorrow
But morning's like a walk
Into a blunt narcotic fog
Until you're brought back to your senses by
Eight wheels nearing a dog that's dead or
Sleeping pills
I hear hunters in the hills
They'll only catch a chill
Before the sun goes down
Stage fright
Is proof that nothing's right
Like bird calls on the morning
Of a hopeless sleepless night
Infirm, the outside is a worm
That just slithers on in blindness
If you convert or you learn
Stay low, careful as you go
You won't know yourself tomorrow morning
And who would ever dream
That a laptop and caffeine
Could leave you colder than the voice
Inside an answering machine
Oh no, you don't ever leave the fold
You think your work is done
But then you still have to get old
Twenty-three
Do you remember me?
We went to school together
But that's ancient history
Stay low, careful as you go
I have never been so frightened
I did not count on getting close
Keep cheer, the end is drawing near
And i will be with you before you know it
I'll be knee deep in long grass
And there's a snake in there who turns and then
I cut off all his heads
But he don't ever seem to learn, man i am
Dead beat, i really need to eat
The old man walked ok
But then we tied him round his feet
She reads my emails
Back home in New South Wales
I have a feeling somewhat disbelieving
Stay low, careful as you go
If there's something worse than street fighting
I'd really like to know
Stay put, shelter here a bit
I will be with you
Are you leaving for the country?
You say the city brings you down
Lately I have fallen behind
And watched the circus leaving town
Are you leaving for the country?
I know a little country town
Where the dogs sleep out in the cold
And the flag pole's falling down
By and high
The whippoorwill flies
Spreads his wings and moves off into space
Do you feel like something ain't real?
Let the spirit move you again.
I feel like a mime losing his job
But i'm just not sure, i'm just not sure
It's like i'm facing down the wrath of God
But i know i aint, i know i'm not
I've made all kinds of weird plans
That can't succeed, won't ever be
And i spend half my time feeling odd
But what do i know
I feel like a canary who's living underground
Singing through the gas
Still worried about my first big night
As the curtains fall, the roof collapses
Your acting's like the end of the world
And i see rows and rows of fresh ditches
What are they for? it don't make no sense
I need a palindrome to keep witches
And get rolling stoned and drop my defences
All this doom and gloom has got to me
It's taken me to lunch
I'm trying hard not to forget you
I can't take another punch
I get nostalgic thinking about you
Made me laugh until i cried
You were useful in a crisis
But it's harder now to lie
Your acting's like the end of the world
I ain't here to say i'm sorry
It wouldn't help you if i did
Your pain was just too great to bear
And i was just a kid
Well it would seem you're on your own now man
You're sitting at the breakfast table in a shirt
You've joined the chorus line of all those useless
things
And wandering all the long while if you'll stay inert
If you'll stay alert
You should move out to the country man
And look after your health
These cities show you to your seat
And then they make you eat yourself
Your acting's like the end of the world
When she left she took much less of me than you
But what am i meant to do?
I try most nights to get you out of my mind
But you're still there silent by my side most the time
I can't help that i let you down
It's too long and too late
And i can't help if i broke your heart
Work for me
Do what I tell you to do
Work for me
Do what I want you to do
I am not an apple
I am not a plum
You can't know the wealth of my seat
You'll sleep on the pipeline
And rise with the sun
Meet the moon on your feet
See the holy roller
Set to rollin'
Rollin' home on a bone
Wearing lace on his face
He don't make me shake
He don't make me vain
I want a man
Had to work for his name
You are not a cripple
And it ain't like you'll run
Yet you stand
With your axe in the shade
This island is ripe
And you have your axe
I want to see you cry
Making my lemonade
See the holy roller rollin' home
In a hot air balloon
Living on the love
Of a lofty birth place
You won't see me swoon
You won't see me shy
I want a man make my
Now that it's time to go
Can you see the chariots
Swinging low
Up over the huon pine and out to the snow
How much treachery
Can you possibly know
Well your chaplain loves these
Death row boys
More than he loves me
As though I have the choice
You pour in from the trees
You say an Irish boy should never
Wear the hood
But I wear it for you
And you are here for me
Tell me how are you coping
Now that it's time to leave
How can you burn more
You've been burning for years
They assumed when you fled
You were good as dead
Was their indifference crueler
Than your nothing to eat
How much of the venom
Can a tiger snake eat
There are no whores in heaven
No boys at your feet
And tell me how do we taste
It's a curious place, a mountain
To resort to customs of the sea
Well your chaplain loves your
Death row boys
More than he loves me
He abandons you to prayer
Turns so he won't see
You standing alone
As you were all along
To descend fear first
Abscond from the earth
Alone
We were meant to meet
Your exile is reached
well, if i could offer you more life, sweet kind
how could you leave the world behind?
put on your shoes, put on your coat
you say you want the least but you take the most
there's a feeling on the road tonight
something out there waits with eyes
there's a feeling on the road tonight ...this time
remember while you're young he said
theres something there you can't pretend
put on your shoes put on your coat
say you want the least and take the most
there's a feeling on the road tonight
something up ahead waits this time
there's a feeling on the road tonight ...this time
theres a whole lot more thats waiting up ahead
I lived in the country where the dead wood aches
In a house made of stone and a thousand mistakes
Where the glory of morning got crushed by the burden of
I went down to the seaside and it was light and easy
But it was salt in my wounds man I won't ever be free
Though alone on a beach getting drunk ain't a bad way
to be
But I don't ever want to change
It would all be so much easier if you didn't have to
change
I ran a store for six months
Took a match one night
Left concern impaled on a receipt spike
And all hope petering on a leaky roof
And an electric heater up in the back of the room
Well the assessor came came early to walk the ashes
Showing high spirits wouldn't help my chances
I got the money in a week and for a while there
everything was fine
See your doctor take the cure and then you got it made
But the vertigo is telling me to stay away
In two weeks flat I seen the Zoloft put my baby in the
grave
I don't ever want to change
I don't ever want to change
I know my limits well
They come, they go
They never do not go
They come, they see
They conquer then they leave
With man-eating beliefs
Superior of death
With lineage and myth
And a half-heartedness at birth
I have the same old dream
About a tunnel by my bed
From where the stench of shit of minotaurs
Yawns like lewd and evil breath
But instinct and a map
Has set to work inside my head
Instead of shedding tears
I've learned to drink and piss instead
They come, they go
They never do not go
They come, they see
They conquer then they leave
I am in Rome
And i am going to the games
I see the gulf
And it's going to
Bore my name into the
Green green grass
The catwalks of the past
My head is like an oven
As i rest it in my palms
We were just standing on the beach
When a bull rose from the surf
I said "show him the back door my dear
He'll only paw the turf"
Three seasons came and went
Tracksuits found the dispossessed
My wife had other plans
And now a bastard surfs the web
There's nothing she can do
He does not talk, he does not move
He spends all day looking at porn
Or playing fucking Halo 2
They come, they go
They never do not go
They come, they see
They conquer then they leave
I am in Rome
And i am going to the games
I am the last to find my seat
I'm standing at the gate
Intermission comes
Nerves are touched, and smokes are screened
It's on a pack of cigarettes
Along with all our faults and memes and it says
I was more worried about taxes
When my lovely red-eyed bride
Became a hairsplitting believer
That i should be vilified
She'd see the rudder fail me
Move to Egypt or to Spain
The hammer fell, my fate's altered
Like sparks thrown from a flame
You know the Law
Know the Law
My hopes were razed like three day growth
Then raked by nervous ticks
Was i the bulls-eye or the launch-pad?
I could never find the switch
Her eye received heaven from earth
Like an atoll petrified
Except where Saturn's life-belt
Shields a half life from your eyes
You know the Law
Know the Law
So don't go getting married
You can only change her name
You know the Law
Know the Law
I'm out here on lighthouse duty
Where the foghorns groan through space
Echo into red ant country
Through the doldrums and the wastes
I'd right the wrongs if i could
But some things can't be exchanged
So don't go getting married
You can only change her name
Don't go getting married
You can only change her name
You know the Law
I ain't often one
Who'd be having a crisis in faith
Though I would not be the one
That you'd come asking anyway
I ain't no big believer
In the virtues of belief
Though I would not say that outside looking
Out's a virtue either
And you may...
You may think your right
You may think that you have
But see you have not man
It is all a waste of time
Na, nah nah...
I ain't philistine, friend or ally
I ain't no one's fools 'cept mine
I ain't big on talk of getting on
Or tanning someone's hide
If anything, you come to be
Thus bound to go sometime
Yeah, you can pipe me up your chimney
I was born of clear blue skies
To a white skinned girl with pale blue eyes
Na, nah nah...
I see a million injured eyeballs
Staring into the throat
And they're gutting one another with solicitous joy
And feeding it scraps with a frenzied devotion
A burning river of the worst men have
Is the best you can believe in
Let it balm you, then enbalm you
And you might float your body down it in peace
Aand I'll be fine
Up there on the bank
With my flashlight
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna to lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger...watch it grin
And Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are the key
Is it to be or not to be
and I replied 'oh why ask me?
And suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.
One Sunday morning
While I was out walking
By the Brisbane's waters
I chanced to stray
There I found a prisoner
Layed half in the water
He'd seen me coming
And he began to say
"I was a native of Erin's Ireland
And before I was brought
To this terrible place
They dragged me away
From my wife and newborn
And my ailing parents
I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie
Norfolk Island and Emu Plains
At Castle Hill and cursed Toongabbie
At all of these settlements
I've worked in chains
But of all the places of condemnation
At each penal station of New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I've found no equal
The tyranny there makes all the rest pale
There I met O'Brien
The defender from Ulster
He'd left Ireland burning
Came here for the wake
He was a schemer
A Jacobite nightmare
He could not be broken
But he became displaced
The Jew had one hand
He was a violent man
He'd worn the 20 pound irons
Since before time began
Just before the dawn broke
His starvation awoke
He'd pick the corn from the filth
He'd find laying around
There ain't no walls at all
So remote is the North
The Commandant Logan
Was the devil for sure
His chief flogger was mad
I heard a prison guard say
He'd wash his lash in a bucket
Then drinks the remains
Well I heard a rumour
In the barracks one night
The Jew and O'Brien had fashioned a knife
They meant to kill Logan
But my will was broke
My brain reeled with this secret
And the next day I spoke
They put me back on the gang
With no word of my actions
O'Brien and the Jew
Got 300 lashes
O'Brien came off his triangle
With exposed shoulder blades
His skin never healed
He turned morbid and strange
We was out on the road gang
Just digging a hole
I was struggling with conscience
My nerves had dissolved
To 15 pairs of eyes
O'Brien proposed,
'Shall we go to the gallows
Be done with our woes?
You know the game
Fair play's all I'm asking
We'll draw 16 straws then nothing is wanting
Why should we grasp at the
straws of our lives
When we're only condemned by our will to survive?'
16 straws we did then did draw
I picked the long one
The Jew picked the short
He said 'pray God forgives you
At least make it quick'
14 pairs of eyes watched me
Pounding a a shiv through his heart
And for a few moments there was no
stopping the blood
Then O'Brien said 'friends!
On a scaffold this ends
But it's a long was to Brisbane
And we are dangerous men'
Well Logan was wild
We filled him with bile
He'd seen the Catholic dodge
Plain suicide
We'd ascended his powers
But not that of the King's
Or the judge down the river's
But we was happy to swing
We were marched through the scrub
Off to Brisbane for trial
Chained into a whaler
Set off at low tide
With 6 nervous marines
And 6 Enfield rifles
The arse end of the world
And indifferent blue sky
Well I turned to torpor
At the stern in the sun
But I gathered the others must have come undone
I woke breathing smoke in a chaos of limbs
A red coat squirting blood
Through a hole in his chin
And a volley of fire in my general direction
There was panic and shot
And the smell of powder burning
I threw a rifle up over the side
It was dark by the water
But I could see the shore lights
Crouched down in the back
The wrong side of the guns
Getting scorched by the powder
I thought surely I'm done
I seen ghoulish things
Men show limb from limb
O'Brien was dead
There were pieces of him
I tore off my shirt
I was quite badly burnt
My eyes poured like well springs
They were swollen and hurt
I'm not sure who survived
My whole trunk was on fire
But they borke the chains off me
And I bailed over the side."
Well I was amazed by this poor wretch's tale
I'd heard not of the friends
He had left in the whaler
But I'd just seen the paper
and I had to explain
How his Commander Logan
had died just this day
"He'd set out behind you
He was out hunting game
When he startled some natives
Took a spear through his brain"
Then the prisoner said "good"
I heard someone in boots
I turned around and that's when
Standing on the deck watching my shadow stretch
The sun pours my shadow upon the deck
The waters licking round my ankles now
There ain't no sunshine way way down
I see the sharks out in the water like slicks of ink
Well, there's one there bigger than a submarine
As he circles I look in his eye
I see Jonah in his belly by the campfire light
See the albatross up in the windy lofts
He gets to beating his wings while he sleeps it off
I hear the jettisoned cries from his dreams unkind
Gets to whippin' my ears like a riding crop
The captain once as able as a fink dandy
He's now laid up in the galley like a dried out mink
He's laying dying of thirst and he says or I think
Well, we're gonna be alone from here on in
Well you are all my brothers, and you have been kind
But what were you expecting to find?
Now your eyes turn inwards, countenance turns blank
And I'm floating away on a barrel of pain
It looks like nothing but the sea and sky remain
I sing na na nana nananana na
Na na nana nananana na
A harpoon's shaft is short and wide
A grappling hook's is cracked and dry
I said, why don't you get down in the sea
Turn the water red like you want to be?
Cause if I cry another tear I'll be turned to dust
No the sharks won't get me they don't feel loss
Just keep one eye on the horizon man, you best not
blink
They're coming fin by fin until the whole boat sinks
Fin by fin
Fin by fin
Edwin backs into the void
He's not in training now
And the pilot standing 19 feet
From Edwin on the surface
Bleached bone white
Was once a pilot who flew
Sorties in a war
But that don't matter any more
Edwin's three feet from the floor
As the pilot without warning
Takes a piss inside his pants
Hoping his pressure suit don't boil
And Edwin does the same
Charles Darwin's royals
The Eagle too, man's greatest feat
Miraculously intact
All acute angles, knees and elbows
Squats in golden underpants
Much later in the day
Edwin locks the cargo bay
And turns to see the cyclops
Neil Armstrong through the hatch
He's drifting further out of wednesday
Eye clamped between the ice caps
Then Edwin does the same
They're like two orphans at the window of an aeroplane
It's 200 below zero
The sun's shrieking like an owl
Their footprints crush the bones of fairies
People are a waste of food
You'll never hear the end
They're only ever happy
When they're burying their friends
And they take take take
But they never take a hint
The ice caps getting skinny
Still they're not concerned
They're very near extinct
People are a waste of food
The end is nearly nigh
They've always said the sky would fall
Now it is you have to wonder why
You want to shrink your stinky footprint?
Get your tubes tied
Or even better yet
Go commit suicide
They can't say you didn't try
And oh my,
Well i hear the sound of horses' hooves
Come the middle of the night
And oh my,
Its time to get your gun license
I see four horsemen riding through
A cold and endless night
If money is the root of evil
Fear of death is worse
This mortal coil is not a test
And you can't hide in a purse
So don't go casting no dispersions in the street
'Cause the half the world that starves
Will know the half you're in
Does not deserve to eat
And oh my,
Well i hear the sound of horses' hooves
Come the middle of the night
And oh my,
It's time to get your gun license
I see four horsemen riding through
A cold and endless night
People are a waste of food
Don't bother learning Chinese
Thou shalt find oneself perturbed
By less verbose calamities
Just get some Heinz baked beans,
A 12 gauge, bandolier and tinned dog food
We'll eat your dog, bury our dead
Or eat them instead
That's entirely up to you
And oh my,
I hear the sound of unshod hooves come the middle of
the night
And oh why
Well, from now on 'til your grandkids finally get what
you deserve
I'm going to be stuck here with you wookies
Eating fortune cookies
Nail it down, nail it down
Come back home and nail it down
You can't never get nothing up off the ground
If someone don't come along and nail it down
He says he knows, he says he knows
He's never ever been where his mouth goes
Well it's all the same that vicious zeal
But how does what's false apply to what is real?
And why's it got to be a mystery?
You got to lay it out
Like thunderheads creeping down the hill
And pretty soon everyone gets ill
But i slip the net, being tall and thin
And pretty soon the dark turns to dim
I can see a little clearer now
You got to nail it down
Listen here, listen here
Tomorrow is the first day of the year
So cut the work that can't be done
You're either cutting all that work or you won't finish
none
You got to lay your tools out
Pick up one
All storms still stir
Behind a big sea wall
What's the point of something that you can't recall?
Give it time, give it time
It'll go to rack and ruin
And you'll lose your mind
You'll either learn to swim then
Or you'll be left behind
I'll try anything
Anything i think is good
And i'll do anything
Anything i think i should
I'll try anything
If it seems clearer at first light
I'll do anything
Before it's vanished from my sight
Her hair was wet
Her shoes were damp
And as she travelled on the weather licked her like a
stamp
She said "i don't grasp the way you think sometimes
You're like a star that's died but hasn't lost its
shine"
My head is hollow as she turns to go
Nail it down
Nail it down, nail it down
Come back home and nail it down
Can't never get nothing up off the ground
If someone don't come along and nail it down
You break one law you break all laws
Nail it down
I'll try anything
Anything within a breath
I'll do anything
You know you would not want to pine to death
I'll try anything
Anything that's bought or sold
I'll try anything
Even something that you cannot hold
I'll do anything
Said the old man of the sea
I'd try anything
If you would only get along with me
And i've been everywhere
And i've done everything to do
But i'd try anything
I drink to drive away all the years I have hated
the ambitions frustrated that no longer survive.
I drink day after day to the chaos behind me
as I drink to remind me that I still am alive.
So I give you a toast to the endless confusions
to the lies and delusions that have swallowed my life.
Yes I give you a toast to the wine and the roses,
to the deadly cirrhosis that can cut like a knife.
I drink to catch a glimpse of the love we degraded
of a life that has faded like the vanishing moon.
I drink, I see the dream to my waiting desire,
to the passionate fire that has burned out so soon.
I drink and I drown in a promise you made me
all the times you betrayed me in your anger and spite.
When you took on the town, when you looked for the
action,
when you took satisfaction like a whore in the night.
I drink to make believe that my life is worth living
that the Gods are forgiving at the end of the day.
I drink because I grieve for dreams when we started,
for the innocent hearted who got lost on the way.
For the children unborn, for their dead phantom faces,
for our sterile embraces in the tomb of your bed.
I drink and I mourn for the harvest that failed,
for the ship that has sailed, for the hope that is
dead.
I drink to find the place where the darkness can hide
till the terror inside me can at last disappear.
I drink to my disgrace till oblivion claims me,
till there's nothing that shames me, till I'm blind to
my fear.
Yes I drink till I burst, till my own degradation,
till the edge of damnation that is waiting below.
Yes I drink with a thirst that destroys and depraves
engulfs and enslaves me and will never let go.
I drink until I'm lost and the street is my hideout
Where I will beat my pride out till I'm gasping for
breath.
I drink to count the cost of a life I despair for,
until God hears my prayer for a compassionate death.
So I spit up my bile at the Gods who demean us,
at the silence between us, at the love none can save,
for a life that is vile, for a soul that is ailing,
for a body that's failing as it heads for the grave.
I drink without a care.
Drink because I must.
Drink for my despair.
I drink to your disgust.
I drink, drink, drink, by God I drink.
And each chance i get to get close to you
The shadows come and the late afternoon makes
The warmth withdraw like a dive bell sinks
The air turns to octopus ink
I met her at the county fair
My first impressions cleaved in pairs
Hair that tumbled, eyes of steam
All nature seemed in harmony
The times you only feel one way
Are times that you remember most
But then you're wrong 'cause most those times
You really have been feeling both
I met her at the chestnut tree
And all despair abandoned me
Down by the armory we walked
And music was the words she talked
Where does all the good luck lie?
Go one, three, five, seven and nine
Show me where those bright lodes glow
Go deeper in the mountain side
Which way if my luck deserts?
Dig deeper in that rock and dirt
Which way when the good luck dies?
Go over under, side by side
And i
I hear a knock on my door
Someone's waiting outside
Waiting outside, what for?
My ride
And beneath moonless hills Chinese nocturnes
Breathe Cantonese through young Joe Byrne
Horsefly, shanghaied, stay home
And you won't ever be alone they lie
The engineer fortuity
Her tool box full with mercury
Lobs heart attacks from chandeliers
Sends rescuers with frozen beards
And other empty monologues
About mineshafts trimmed like synagogues
Man, she don't hate the ones she kills
But she don't love the mouths she fills
And if it's all supposed to mean something
It's nothing he's interested in
One thing Joe Byrne won't never know
Is you only get what you let go
He pitched his tent down Havilah
So he would never have to travel far
It don't matter Chinese or Afghan
All that he wants grows on dry land
Which way when my good luck dies?
Go one, three, five, seven and nine
Show me where the doomed roam free
With poppy seeds and armored hides
Which way if my luck deserts?
Dig deeper in that frozen dirt
Which way when my good luck dies?
Go over under, side by side
And i hear an engine running
And i see a headlamp shine
And i feel my heart is sinking
And lord
Lord my ride
Lord my ride
Is waiting outside what for?
To be nailed to a door
To be nailed to a door
Georgie, I can't stop drinking
Seems like every time I try, I can't stop thinking
Georgie, when I was a boy
I would be standing in the shade of a wedding cake
hotel doorway
Watching sister with her liquor in a jar
Talk to older boys in cars
Ether was the town where I was born
They pulled iron from the ground and knife wounds from
the port
They built a prison and it tempered in the sun
It rose up off a plateau like the last tooth in a gum
You went there by train
And you would never be the same
They made the blacks live outside of town
The weekend come they'd tear the whole place down
The Chinese came without weekends at all
And the whites complained the pay was better shooting
them in the war
Home may be where the calm blinds
But I could see that they weren't lying
My first girl's old man was in a later war
He drank like a motherfucker, now I know what for
She took my van, put Louie in the jack
left a suicide note and I've got him to thank for that
And he can thank his statesman hosts
Although his chances are remote
Georgie, I can't stop drinking
Seems like every time I try, I can't stop thinking
Georgie, when I was a boy
I would be standing in the shade of a wedding cake
hotel doorway
Watching sister with her liquor in a jar
Strontium-90
Removed from milk
As curious an entity
As bullshit writ on silk
Cancer's airborne now
Do you hear the sound?
I was hanging out the washing, man
As the rain come falling down
Now the grass lies snakes
Has crowds of iodine and fire
On Jezebel's luminescence
I swear you are my heart's desire
Bomb proof the embassy
Give infanticide a cemetary
You looked so good on the late night news
With your curtain and your deed
Yeah, I love you like a violin
I'll hunt you like an amputee
But I ain't gonna lose my skin
I would love to see you again, again
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
You wrote me a letter
And this is how it went:
It said, 'We're backing up the supply lines
The first division's crossin' the Nile
Through the rushes and up the side
And into the machine gun fire
Tell me that this is not a dream
I've become a steel spring
Uranium tips night vision cruise missles
Gonna cut the belly out of the sky
I rode an Abrams
We stopped in Bethlehem
They made the answers here
But there weren't so many questions then
And there I shot a woman
In a headscarf with my gun
She said 'Does my bomb look big in this?
Am I the only one?'
I was in the blitz you know
My heart was young and true
I had a Caesarean, but it was not any use
Oh calamity! Oh the vanity!
You can't ride a thunderbolt
You can't claim an enemy
See, there ain't nothing here
Except a darkness
I ain't gonna fail no test
I gave my dowry to a finger on a switch
Turn me to a fine pink mist
But I ain't nothing but a stranger still
If I'm even anyone at all
But I ain't gonna lose my skin
I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
I... I would love to see you again
But that ain't gonna happen now
It's no use to pretend
How many people gonna lie?
How many people gonna die?
What's best for the Western and the greed?
Kill 'em all? Let 'em breed?
Another bomb for every atom you injure
Meet the Devil with extended ring finger
Saying 'thou shalt not kill'
But I'm damned if I don't
So I'm thinking I will
Yeah, Dan Pearl
They cut your head off on TV
But I am not a camera
A man is not an effigy
But still all this horror
Has made a trench out of my soul
I'm gonna have to fall in love with a blind girl
So she will not see the shame that I know
Oh, new scar
You have raised the bar
Goliath rides an oil drum raft
Through a cyclone in my ear drums
You don't want a tyrant, we're sure
You'd prefer civil war
And I am gonna lose my skin
And I ain't gonna see you again
Again
I... I would love to see you again
You've gone from perfect to divine
Gone from perfect to divine
Time heals
And time forgets
Your pots pans shoes all your garbage
And your photographs
Had been thrown into the street
And I stood back in shock
Cause now your shit it looked
Lost without you
I broke a window busted your steering lock
And I cleared out of town
Without you
I said that time heals
And time forgets
But time arrived at motel ceiling fans
That just hang there above
Your empty head
After the rent is paid
And your heart's gone dead
Your friends are gone
You have a hunted face
Outside in the heaving fields
Are draped as heavy as lead
Where the dead wood aches
For reprieved from a fate
That seems so fleeting at a distance
Until that distance is tamed
Time does not heal
And it doesn't forget
It just drowns you when you're thirsty and you're lame
You kneel to drink the water
And the water is flame
Time heals
And time forgets
It's doing fine without you
Your radiator still overheats
But now your starter motor
Just refuses to turn
I tell you nothing's really changed
But I am not the same
And you take
Up all my time
You take
Up all my time
You've gone from perfect to divine
You've gone from perfect to divine
I never understood
Although you tried
Tried to explain
While you were alive
What had turned the face I'd loved
Into a stranger's
I'm staring up into
A perfect night
Everything is so wrong
But the time is right
And for the first time now
I'm looking right at you
I am here now
And it does not have a name
You kneel to drink the water
Once i was a supercargo
My own V.O.C.
The great white God of great white goods
With shoes upon my feet
And for that they wrack their minds in pidgin
Thinking i'll return
But i'm not an American
I've never worked alone
Yeah, it's like we're never there
They say "our John Frum's coming,
He's bringing cargo...." and the rest
At least they don't expect to be
Surviving their own deaths
It's probably not a good thing
To believe in all that shit
When one way or the other
You'll get thrown into a pit.
Yeah, it's like we're never there
And i am ruin borne by sea
The stone age smoked by dysentery
I'm patient zero to the lusts of Papuans
Who trade one woe for another one
South of the isle of Pentecost
I wound up on my back
If they want to see me one more time
Then typhoid's seeing to that
They are just like all the white folks
The whites are just like them
They take pain and superstition
And then they call it something else
And they build airfields in the jungle
That no plane can land on
Fill me with penicillin
That shit don't do nothing at all
But then everybody's got their price
Most just go a little cheap
Thinking the best the rest are hoping for
Is to be dying in their sleep
You want to make good with a cannibal?
You've got to show him how to freeze a priest
Let the drones go free
Open up the back door to the alley
Will they act like men
Or build weapons against the Americans
Will we build them with our own bare hands
One quick decision
We can tear them to the ground
I'm so mechanical, rational
For the automatic slave
Where the trick's makin' myself believe
I am truly free
So lie me up in the streets and malls
Where I'm a number, not a name
And we'll be selling conversations soon
There's nothing left, nothing left to save
Let the drones go free
Live the rest of their lives happily
In the motor heart
Lined up in a row symmetrically
So just follow me down the production line
Where robot arms with memories build us to another time
I'm so mechanical, rational
For the automatic slave
Where the trick's makin' myself believe
I am truly free
So lie me up in the streets and malls
Where I'm a number, not a name
And we'll be selling conversations soon
There's nothing left, nothing left to save
[instrumental interlude]
I'm so mechanical, rational
For the automatic slave
Where the trick's makin' myself believe
I am truly free
So lie me up in the streets and malls
Where I'm a number, not a name
And we'll be selling conversations soon
There is a glow at the horizon
The night's leaving, day is soon to come
Upon first gaze, the glory of the sun is all to overwhelming
As the shadows cast unto the earth
It's all overwhelming, it's all overwhelming
They are seen!
Is this reality? Could this be happening?
The world slept at peace and awoke to the end
The lifeless beasts are closing in
Is this reality? Could this be happening?
Through the cracks the light shines to cast a view of what lies ahead
Through apparitions dancing with the flickering light
It's all overwhelming, it's all overwhelming
They are seen
Is this reality? Could this be happening?
The world slept at peace and awoke to the end
The lifeless beasts are closing in
Is this reality? Could this be happening?
Glued to the television
Taught to be just like everyone else
Kill sense of self-impression
Silence every whisper for help
Held by the leash of culture
Nobody learned to love themselves
In the wake of mental foreclosure
No one has found a place
How can you live like this
Are you humans or drones?
Surrendured every sign of life
You might as well be a drone
Artificial is your reality
Plastic perfection starting to melt
Praise in conformity
Follow the fashion until your death
The mind's a terrible
Thing to waste but you threw yours away
Just another clone
Another senseless mumbling slave
How can you live like this
Are you humans or drones?
Surrendured every sign of life
You might as well be a drone
Defined by everything else
No one inside
This artificial reality
Is your only home
Worship the emptiness
Absense of sanity
Dead in a world of
Artificial reality
You'll never wake up
You'll never wake up
You'll never wake up
You're already dead
How can you live like this
Are you humans or drones?
Surrendured every sign of life
You might as well be a drone
How can you live like this
Are you humans or drones?
Surrendured every sign of life
