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Transnormal Skiperoo
A Town Called Amen
c 2006 Jim White/Mike Pratt
The days of our innocence and grace blow by.
The smiles we wear upon our face blow by.
Oh, the sweet wine of youth
goes sour over time.
Seems like the more that you lose,
the more you ache to find...
A town called Amen.
Like a bright-eyed smile
from some long lost friend.
It's a town called Amen.
Sit at the window sill.
Watch the children rushing by.
Come a flood of summer rain.
Strange increments of time.
How the wild engines run,
burning shadows from our minds.
Lord, when the purging gets done,
I sure pray what's left behind...
is a town called Amen.
Like a bright-eyed smile
from some long lost friend.
It's a town called Amen.
Come lay down on this bed.
Hey, close your weary eyes.
Like the clouds above our heads,
life slowly passes by.
Did you kiss the dog you love,
when you were a little child?
Will you lay in the arms of
some sweet reverie a while?
In a town called Amen.
Like a bright sun rise.
Hey, if you open up your eyes,
you're in a town called Amen.
Amen.
Blindly We Go
c 2005 Jim White/Mike Pratt
Sometimes you gotta take off your shoes,
sit right down in the middle of the road,
kick off the dust, and deal with the news
that you are blind.
These dreams are familiar.
These are places we've been before.
Somewhere in the wild blue yonder,
lies the path where blindly we go.
And I ain't counting on nobody.
Ain't counting on my fingers and toes.
Ain't counting on no superstition,
cause my proposition is we are blind.
These dreams are familiar.
These are places we've been before.
Somewhere in the wild blue yonder,
lies the path where blindly we go.
And on the day that I play my last hand,
as I set out blindly for some promised land,
one thing I know, I'll hope it's dreams not eyes
take a soul where it wants to go.
These dreams are familiar.
These are places we've been before.
Somewhere in the wild blue yonder,
lies a path where blindly we go.
Blindly we go...
Counting Numbers in the Air
c2006 Jim White/Mike Pratt
How we get lost
going from here to there,
counting numbers in the air...
cheekbone to a cool stone wall.
See the fireflies in this mason jar?
They light my smile like a faded scar.
We used to wonder who we are,
these days we don't care...
How we get lost,
how we get lost,
going here to there.
How we get lost,
how we get lost,
counting numbers in the air.
And at times
it seems like we've been here
before but can't recall---
the old familiar signs have disappeared.
As in kind, we conjure from thin air
maps we pray will carry us
far away from fear
to some grace we engineer.
How we get lost,
how we get lost,
going here to there.
How we get lost,
how we get lost,
counting numbers in the air.
Our life's a song, like an old 45---
start to skip in the groove just to stay alive,
but when you close your eyes, what do you see?
Do stars align to light the way?
as the twilight fades to grey,..
will we rise and shine away?
Diamonds to Coal
C2006 Jim White/Mike Pratt
It's the twilight hour.
As the sun goes down,
I see a flatbed Ford with a scrapyard load
rattle off through town.
The railroad crossing lights flash on---
there ain't no train in sight.
A crescent moon will soon ascend
as day gives way to night.
and I feel home...
and I think how far away
I got from home
back in the bad old days,
but I'm done turning diamonds to coal.
Now just before dinner time,
this old drunk comes knocking on my door.
Say he's looking for some girl lived here
twenty-seven years ago.
The radio in the kitchen is playing
Papa Was A Rolling Stone,
and as he strolls away into the night
and the streetlights flicker on,
I get to thinking about home....
and how sometimes there comes a day
when to try to get back home...
all you can do is run away.
But I'm done turning diamonds to coal.
In love we find out who we are,
in sorrow we abide.
Our strength's revealed by what we build
from the broken things inside.
But a day will come when you will know
which way you must choose to go...
to travel on and live alone
or turn yourself around
and try to get back home.
And now way up high two jet planes
weave spider webs across the sky.
As that flatbed Ford has dropped his load---
now there he goes, swinging by.
And the silence gathering round this house
makes such a lovely sound,
that I know for sure that I am cured
from turning diamonds...
from turning diamonds...
diamonds to coal.
Fruit of the Vine
C2005 Jim White/Mike Pratt
Out in the junkyard in the pines
they're working over time
hacking back them vines,
that're eating up their their minds.
Fruit of the vine...
that old fruit of the vine...
We're doing 30 in a 45---
disregarding highway signs.
You learn to take your time,
down south in the summertime.
Fruit of the vine...
that old fruit of the vine...
It ain't no crime in being alive.
It ain't no sin---
we're just trying to get by.
Lead our lives one day at a time.
Hand to mouth---
low down in dirty old south.
Living on the fruit of the vine.
Now some say love come C-O-D
Others turn to G-O-D
Cash it in on PCP, IOUs and IEDs
Fruit of the vine...
that old fruit of the vine
Scraps of paper in a tree,
photographs and memories.
Trainwrecks of tangled dreams,
lives coming apart at the seams...
Fruit of the vine...
that old fruit of the vine
It ain't no crime in being alive.
It ain't no sin---
we're just trying to get by.
Lead our lives one day at a time.
Hand to mouth---
low down in dirty old south...
Living on the fruit
fruit of the vine.
Now that old vine, it never sleeps,
and it strangles as it creeps.
Out in the junkyard in the pines,
fall asleep and you will die;
fruit of the vine...
that old fruit of the vine.
Think you're gonna get you little piece of the sky
up in the sweet by and by?
As for me I believe I'll try
to get mine before I die.
Fruit of the vine---
that old fruit of the vine.
'Cause it ain't no crime in being alive.
It ain't no sin---
we're just trying to get by.
Lead our lives one day at a time.
Hand to mouth---
low down in dirty old south...
Living on the fruit of the vine.
Jailbird
C2001 JIMWHITE/MIKE PRATT
Dixie is a scourge and a scar
and a girl in my heart
and a state of mind.
Jesus is the man with a plan...
he's a short haired Mexican friend of mine.
This small town crowd will drag you down--
can't leave your past behind.
Wipers in the rain tapping out time...
coming up on a new state line.
I wanna be a jailbird,
from the prison of my own damn mind.
Gonna get me a fast car,
set out and see what I can find.
Brick up the well of tears and disappear---
leave myself behind.
I wanna be a jailbird
from the prison of my own damn mind.
Midnight, take a short cut
through the downtown cemetary.
No stepping on graves.
Check the statue of the Virgin Mary.
She's catching moonlight in the shadows---
revealing spider webs.
Can you see the black widow
hung between our lady's hands?
I wanna be a jailbird
from the prison of my own damn mind.
Gonna get me a fast car,
set out and see what I can find.
Brick up the well of tears and disappear---
leave myself behind.
I wanna be a jailbird
from the prison of my own damn mind.
Now used to be when I was young
I was so hungry for oblivion.
My thoughts would linger
like fingers in a deadly web.
But in time, as sorrow showed it's face,
in kind I learned to ache for grace.
To work and pray to one day be
delivered whole, alive and free.
I wanna be a jailbird,
from the prison of my own damn mind.
Gonna get me a fast car,
set out and see what I can find.
Brick up the well of tears and disappear---
leave myself behind.
I wanna be a jailbird
from the prison of my own damn mind.
Long Long Day
C1984 Mike Pratt
Oooh, it's been a long long one day
longer than a country mile
stronger than a hurricane
oooh, it's been a long long
day.
This red barn in the field.
Dusty winds blow round it.
It stands in its place
firm and tall.
So safe inside am I
that I can see
one hundred prairie miles
waving on endlessly.
And papa snores again
while mama lies awake
silently wondering
why that grey
cat that she loved
up and run away,
ten years ago one
dusty day just like today.
Long one day there I lay
under the big windy sky I prayed;
dear Lord make the flickering hands of fate
finally flip the page
to the yellow sun
of my coming age.
Oooh, it's been a long, long long day....
longer than a country mile
stronger than a hurricane.
Oooh, its been
a long long day.
Pieces of Heaven
C2002 Jim White/Mike Pratt
Things that you know.
Places you won't go.
Faces where you see
traces of yourself.
Oooh, life's a big mystery.
In the puzzle of history,
I see pieces of heaven
in photographs of you and me.
Over mountains so high,
through shadows below,
the dreams you will dream,
the love you will show.
In the dust storm of memory,
of triumphs and tragedies,
I see pieces of heaven
in photographs of you and me.
From before you were born
till you're old as sin,
your wild oats strewn
across the fields of time,
my one prayer will always be,
that some day, you, like me
willl see pieces of heaven
in photographs of you and me.
Plywood Superman
c2005 Jim White/Mike Pratt
Down at the drugstore
where they sell medicine
back in the corner
stands a plywood Superman.
He never saves nobody from nothing.
He just leans against the wall
looking sad.
Me, I go climbing on my broken ladder.
Aiming for high places, but I never quite can
lay two hands on the heart of the matter.
Sometimes I feel like that plywood Superman.
Last night at the truck stop,
the cashier at the diesel desk
stopped to talk to me as I paid for my beer.
She's single with 2 kids,
says she loves Las Vegas.
Her dream's one day some rich man
will take her away from here.
When she goes climbing on her broken ladder,
she's searching for some sweet, far-off promised land.
But nobody never breaks free of nothing
wrapped in the arms of a plywood superman.
Now my old daddy, he worked in a factory,
and he used to beat on me
with his mind not his hands.
And though for ten years he's laid
in that grave in Birmingham,
to this day I still hear him saying
what a useless thing I am.
When I go climbing on my broken ladder,
I'm searching for something
but what I don't understand
is how you can climb forever
and still never reach nothing...
trapped in your life like some plywood superman.
Stranger Candy
c 2006 Jim White/Mike Pratt
It was 1967, I was watching a TV show.
When the glowing screen went blank,
I looked out of my window.
I saw 27 crows perched on my antenna.
In the glass a familiar face appeared---
a man whose name I don't remember.
Now mother's milk is dandy
when you're a little baby.
But as the wheels of time grind you down,
you get a taste for that stranger candy.
Back in December of 81,
I saw my dear old friend John
fall-down drunk at the Christmas parade
with his children looking on.
His wife, she'd lost her mind.
She was committed for a time.
She took refuge when they set her free
in some weird eastern philosophy.
Yeah, that mother's milk is dandy
when you're a little baby.
But as the wheels of time grind you down
you get a taste for stranger candy.
This life they say is hard,
but still it's all you know.
You can close your eyes and try to run away,
but pray, where will you go?
Yeah, life is all you know.
Death is dark and strange.
It's the near and worrisome voice you hear
forever calling out your name.
As I was walking down the street
last week in Portland Oregon,
I found the last of many keys I lost.
I picked it up and I grinned.
'Cause sometimes them crows take flight...
and if you can shoo em from your brain,
you will find yourself in the nick of time
calling the devil by his name.
Calling the devil by his name.
Yeah mother's milk is dandy
when you're a little baby,
but as the wheels of time grind you down
you get a taste...just a little taste
for that stranger candy.
Take Me Away
C2002 Jim White/Mike Pratt
That's how they found him...
he was howling at the moon.
Sitting right there on the railway tracks
With the train a'coming.
There was a string of wild flowers
draped around his collar.
And when he saw the men were coming for him,
well he began to holler.
He cried:
"TAKE ME AWAY! TAKE ME AWAY!"
But the men cold not be sure
if he was talking to them,
or talking to the oncoming train.
His mama she watched religion on the TV
each day from dawn to dusk.
And at night when she'd hear him howling,
well, she'd cry out to Jesus.
For years she begged the sweet redeemer
to heal her crazy son.
Until finally she just gave up on miracles
and called the men to come.
She told them:
"Take him away. Take my son away!
cause after 20 long years
I've simply run out prayers to pray."
But as he stood to fight the men,
from the other side of the railway bed,
he thought he heard the calling voice
of an old friend he thought long dead.
But when he turned away from the men
he found it was a stranger calling him
And as if he knew that man,
he smiled and raised his hand
as he stepped into the golden sun
of the headlight of the oncoming train.
And as he did he locked eyes with that stranger
and cried out one last time.
He cried,
"TAKE ME AWAY! TAKE ME AWAY!"
And to this day, in this little town,
not a soul knows what he was trying to say
all them years of shouting take me away.
No, no one knows what he was trying to say
or who that stranger was.
Turquoise House
c2006 Jim White/Mike Pratt
I'll never fit in, so why should I try?
How'm I ever gonna pass for a normal guy?
I can't wear no suit and tie.
Gotta let my freak flag fly.
If I walk the straight and narrow
one more day, I think I'll die.
Because I wanna live in a turquoise house
with turquoise garden and a turquoise yard.
Drive around town in a turquoise car.
Find a turquoise girl with a turquoise heart.
Now faith is a riddle and love is a dream.
Things are seldom what they seem.
If you say your prayers at night,
and comb your hair just right,
you might not feel like you're in hell,
but then again you might.
Because I wanna live in a turquoise house
with turquoise garden and a turquoise yard.
Drive around town in a turquoise car.
Find a turquoise girl with a turquoise heart.
I want turquoise carpets and turquoise shoes,
turquoise papers with all the turquoise news.
Turquoise only---not teal or aquamarine.
I've seen my future and it's a
shade of blueish green.
Now I can't turn back, there ain't no way.
(he's going turquoise today)
When word gets out there'll be hell to pay.
(He's going turquoise today)
This life's not for the faint,
but you can't be what you ain't.
I know I'll never truly be myself
till I get me that turquoise paint..
Because I wanna live in a turquoise house
With turquoise garden and a turquoise yard.
Drive around town in a turquoise car.
Find a turquoise girl with a turquoise heart,
a turquoise girl with a turquoise heart,
a turquoise girl in a turqouise dress
and a skirt and a shirt that's
covering up her pretty little turquoise heart.
Crash into the Sun
c 2006 Jim White/Mike Pratt
When too much beauty numbs the mind,
when what you see ain't what you get,
when digging deeper what you find,
is skeletones best left behind...
We go CRASH! into the sun.
Ain't enough bullets in this here gun!
We got cash! Now who's talking trash?
Jumping up and down on the bus downtown.
We are brash---we all fall down.
We take out our brains
and shake 'em all around!
It's a gas---a real kick in the pants!
Everywhere we go
we bring the house down shouting;
"Hoo-hoo! Who do you know and do you
BLOOOOW MINDS?"
When what the monkey see the monkey do,
some fool's checking out the chump in you.
They got magic hoops for jumping through.
You let some space case say false is true,
and we go CRASH! into the sun.
Ain't enough bullets in this here gun.
We got cash! Now who's talking trash?
Jumping up and down and the bus downtown.
We are brash! We all fall down.
We take out our brains and shake 'em all around!
It's a gas! A real kick in the pants!
Everywhere we go we bring the house down shouting:
"Hoo-hoo! Who do you know and do you
BLOOOOW MINDS?"
The further you go,
the deeper it gets.
With so much to remember,
it's fun to forget.
Surrender your mind
to life's sweet blindfold.
Hey, don't think twice,
just do as you're told!
Go on and CRASH! into the sun!
AIn't enough bullets in this here gun!
We got cash! Now who's talking trash?
Jumping up and down and the bus downtown.
We are brash! We all fall down.
We take out our brains and shake 'em all around!
It's a gas! A real kick in the pants!
Everywhere we go we bring the house down shouting:
"Hooo-hoo! Who do you know and do you
BLOOOW MINDS?"
Drill A Hole in that Substrate
1. Static on the Radio
3 A.M. I’m awakened by a sweet summer rain…
distant howling of a passing southbound coal train.
Was I dreaming or was there someone just lying here beside me in this bed?
Am I hearing things? Or in the next room, did a long forgotten music box just start playing?
And I know -- it’s a sin putting words in the mouths of the dead.
And I know -- it’s a crime to weave your wishes into what they said.
And I know — only fools venture where them spirits tread.
‘Cause I know -- every word, every sound bouncing ‘round my head.
Is just static on the radio. Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.
Midnight rendezvous with a pretty girl, wearing a torn and tear-stained gown.
Like a ghost ship she appeared from nowhere on a lonely highway and flagged me down.
I gave her a lift downtown to the Greyhound station and in the flicker of the neon lights,
she kissed me goodbye, and in the mirror of her eyes I saw my own reflection.
And I know -- the blind will sometimes lead the blind. And I know -- through shadow lands and troubled times.
And I know -- forsaking love, we seek the signs. And I know -- of truths forever hid behind.
The static on the radio. Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.
Now there’s a church house about a stone’s throw down from this place where I been staying.
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m sittin’ in my truck listening to my neighbor sing.
Ten years ago I might have joined in, but don’t time change those inclined
to think less of what is written than what’s wrote between the lines?
‘Cause I know -- dreams are for those who are asleep in bed.
And I know -- it’s a sin putting words in the mouths of the dead.
‘Cause I know -- for all my ruminations I can’t change a thing.
Still I hope -- there’s others out there who are listening.
To the static on the radio.
Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.
Ain’t praying for miracles, I’m just down on my knees.
Listening for the song behind everything I think I know.
Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.
Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.
2. Bluebird
Bluebird on a telephone line. How are you? I’m feeling fine.
Sweetly do I whisper your name.
Lonely solo taxi ride to a cheap motel on the wrong side of the tracks.
The facts are tricky to explain.
Cold front bearing down, blowing in from Birmingham.
By dawn the window’s wet with icy rain.
Behind fourteen doors, a sad parade of paramours
are throwing little white rocks at sorrow’s window pane.
Me, I’ve found someone to love more than the rain.
Salvation Army ringing bell, kingdom come and wishing wells.
Hey Santa Claus I see your junkie eyes.
It’s the devil and the deep blue sea, with old friends
I hope I never see again all tangled up with misery and lies.
The lonely hiss of passing cars feeds the ache of ancient scars,
like ghosts beneath my bed rattling chains.
No good luck charm or remedy ever proved to soothe my sanity
nor bad medicine served to ease my pain.
Had to find someone to love more than the rain.
Now, old habits will die hard. This pile of junk setting in my yard…
souvenirs from the wrecking ball of dreams.
You spend a lifetime tearing temples down,
it gets to feel like hallowed ground is a
shallow grave where ne’er the bluebird sings.
Last time home when I played this song,
you said “Dad, it’s sad, and way too long.”
And I pulled you close and held you in my arms.
Yes, salvation wears a thin disguise
‘cause I can see the heaven in your eyes.
And I thank God them years I searched were not in vain…
finally found someone to love more than the rain.
Bluebird I love you more than the rain.
3. Combing My Hair in a Brand-New Style
I found a blue hair comb with a busted tooth
gonna comb out my hair in this telephone booth
gonna comb out love, gonna comb out hate
gonna get me a new look and I can’t wait.
I took a lethal dosage of dope in my youth,
bit the hook of Jesus — Oh! The terrible truth.
I swallowed it hard for a damn good while,
but now I’m combing my hair in a brand new style.
Combing my hair yeah. Combing my hair yeah.
Combing my hair yeah. Combing my hair in a brand new style.
I take a midnight stroll in a Love’s supermarket.
I like passing the rows of candy for sale.
See the pale pretty girls in the magazines?
Smiling at me like they know what I mean.
You take your candy dandy, your cheap girls — ruthless!
Soul suckers all gonna end up toothless!
Gumming the truth of life’s discount aisle.
Me I’m combing my hair in a brand new style.
CHORUS
He used a blue hair comb with a busted tooth
to comb out the tangles of his messed up youth.
Returning in glory to the scene of his trial,
he was combing his hair in a brand new style.
Yeah the sorry story of his assorted crimes — his tribulations,
his suffering mind all wiped clean and left miles behind.
See him prowling the street? He got the mojo smile.
He’s combing his hair in a brand new style.
CHORUS
I don’t want no hoodoos, no voodoo gurus, no spooked out priesty-beasty,
no strippers with pasties, self-professed saviors of my soul,
no low-down top-secret CIA moles, no crackpot psychopathic behavior specialists,
no shriners, no shiners, no decisive moment existentialists, that’s right,
no vegetable, no mineral, no institution
gonna disrupt the constitution of my ingenious hairdo solution
— see I got my sly pomade, my jelly in a jar!
Now don’t you mistake me for no movie star,
‘cause I’m just a humble jumble of God’s crooked smile.
Did you check out my hair in the brand new style?
CHORUS
4. That Girl from Brownsville Texas
I say “God, if you ain’t smiling on me, then you ain’t no friend of mine.”
It’s late at night and this motel room’s drunk,
I been listening to the lonesome wind crying.
My best friend once said, “Jim, what you cling to,
that’s the thing that you had best forget.
For ain’t no rose bed ever gonna bloom in an untended field of regrets.”
Guess I been busy killing time counting bullet holes in state line signs.
I led a life of lonely drifting trying to rise above the buzzards in my mind.
You get dizzy chasing ‘round the tail of what you need to leave behind.
Oh sweet Jesus, won’t you help me?
‘Cause all I’m trying to do is plant them seeds of love
with that girl from Brownsville, Texas.
Midnight radio, a crackly white gospel station kicking out the sounds of some half-assed revival.
Me, I never much cared for the feelings you get quoting scriptures from out of the Bible.
For as the crow flies I know only one cure for a permanent tear in your eye.
You gotta crank like hell that rope on old sorrow’s well
‘til the day that the bucket comes up dry.
CHORUS
Now dreams are just prayers without the put on airs…
and though my history of dreams is a scandal of back-assward schemes
and romantic disasters where Lord, you dealt me more cards than I could handle.
Still from the lips of this half-hearted sinner comes the pledge of a half-baked saint.
‘Cause Lord I might finally be willing to become the religious fool you always wanted me to be…
if in return we could just tell that girl
I’m the man
you and me both know
that I ain’t.
CHORUS
5. Borrowed Wings
That night we drank wine from the crazy well.
Shot a shotgun out the window of our automobile.
We was young, we was wild and we sure had our fun.
Until the sheriff caught up with us and we tried to run.
Now we return to Earth on borrowed wings
lifted from the shoulders of sweet dreaming angels.
Now the world beyond the world we never will reach,
‘cause you can’t get to heaven on no… borrowed wings.
Now Lucinda here she once ran a fine beauty parlor,
‘til her boyfriend got twenty years for robbing them liquor stores.
She took some pills in a motel room a mile from his prison cell.
Then she sank like a stone to the blue bottom of the swimming pool.
Now she returns to Earth on borrowed wings
lifted from the shoulders of sweet dreaming angels.
Now the world beyond the world she never will reach,
‘cause you can’t get to heaven on no… borrowed wings.
Between a rock called heaven and a hard place called home,
we wander the shadows so restless and lonesome.
For in the fallow field where what’s reaped is what’s sewn
there lies a road to ruin and it’s paved with our tombstones.
So if you catch my reflection in a sheet of summer rain,
pray tell do remain silent for fear you’ll awaken
them beautiful owners of the wings that we bear
for fear they’ll reclaim them and send us back there.
For we return to Earth on borrowed wings
lifted from the shoulders of sweet dreaming angels.
Now the world beyond the world we never will reach,
’cause you can’t get to heaven on no… no borrowed wings.
6. If Jesus Drove A Motorhome
If Jesus drove a motor home,
I wonder would he drive pedal to the metal, or real slow?
Checking out the stereo.
Cassette playing Bob Dylan, motivation tapes.
Tricked up Winnebago, with the tie-dye drapes.
If Jesus drove a motor home…
If Jesus drove a motor home, and he come to your town,
would you try to talk to him? Would you follow him around?
Honking horns at the drive thru. Double-parking at the mall.
Midnight at the Waffle House — Jesus eating eggs with ya’ll.
If Jesus drove a motor home…
Buddha on a motorcycle, Mohammed in a train.
Here come Jesus in the passing lane…
but everybody smile, ‘cause everybody’s grooving.
Ain’t nothing like the feeling of moving with a bona fide motorized savior.
Now if we all drove motor homes, well maybe in the end,
with no country to die for, we could just be friends.
One world as our highway. Ain’t no yours or my way.
We’d be cool wherever we roam — if Jesus drove a motor home.
7. Objects in Motion
Objects in motion tend to stay that way.
You can’t waste the whole damn day loving what you need to cast away.
Case in point, just yesterday I found
a suitcase full of love letters floating down a cool brown river.
Unsigned and undelivered, they set my mind to wandering
as to the history of the unknown writer.
Did she marry, did she run, was she old, was she young?
Was her heart undone by the cruel business of loving?
These objects in motion.
These objects in motion.
Objects in motion tend to stay that way…
or so I learned on the riverbank just yesterday.
For shortly thereafter I beheld as if in a dream
the body of a young girl adrift
beneath the surface of the cool brown water.
My friends so unnerved was I by this cruel apparition
that I let loose of that suitcase and it tumbled right back in the river.
Then spellbound I watched as a halo of love letters
formed a circle on the surface of the water right over her body
and drifted away.
These objects in motion.
These objects in motion.
Objects in motion tend to stay that way.
You can’t waste the whole damn day loving what you need to cast away.
For from the flame of love comes the cinder of regret.
Sometimes the thing you cling to most is the thing you’d best forget.
These objects in motion.
These objects in motion.
8. Buzzards of Love
Wonder if you know, what you see ain’t what you get.
Wonder have you learned a dirty word — did you forget?
‘Cause there’s talk on the street… say sugar taste sweet…
but it’ll tear you apart…
when what’s easy on the eyes… is hard on the heart…
when you’re loving …loving on them buzzards.
See the shiny-winged angel things catch your eye in the big parade.
You think you got it made.
It’s all monkey see, monkey do,
but in the end the joke’s on you.
It ain’t nothing but a big charade.
Watch the money talk… see the suckers walk…
feel the lonely ache… take its toll, soul-sucking pain, yeah.
Everybody knows… that’s just how it goes…
when you’re loving, loving on them buzzards.
Funny how you feel, like a thing is real, just ‘cause it feels good —
You know what I’m saying? Yeah yeah.
Funny how you run straight for the gun
when you know when the fun is done ain’t nothing but hell to pay.
See the face in the mirror, it looks alone and afraid.
Well, if you think you a player, most times it’s you that’s getting played
by them buzzards buzzards buzzards buzzards, them buzzards of love.
9. Alabama Chrome
Sunday I am young and wild,
Monday I go lame.
Tuesday I start twitching,
Wednesday I’m insane.
Thursday I lay dying,
Friday I’m quite dead.
Saturday I get carried away by things better left unsaid.
But heaven ain’t no place, brother,
and love ain’t no word sister.
And prison ain’t no building made of iron bars and stone.
You can seek the rhyme and reason,
but in the realm of the unknown
you won’t catch no true reflections in that “Alabama Chrome.”
For there’s mountains you will scale with ease,
yet molehills where you stumble.
Sins you so regret and yet other sins that you enjoy.
Harps can beg forgiveness, and the guitars can scream pain,
but the contradictions are larger than any language can explain.
For in the secret territory where the preachers come to steal
the jewel of your heart, for they have no treasure of their own,
there lies a sacred window, in your hand the perfect stone.
You’d throw it, but your arms are bound ‘round with that “Alabama Chrome.”
The heat it is withering, humidity smothering.
Strip of silver tape, a sly lie covering dent in the side of the redneck ride.
Going deep for the Crimson Tide. Yeah!
Gonna bump to the thump of the Selma slammer.
Wanna jump up and down like a wack jackhammer. S
ing a little ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ —
Jimmy gimme wink like a big flimflammer.
Bone tired and so weary of treating truth as a lie,
I been hunkered down in the bunker of some fools alibi.
Squint harder you will see the slim tether of the saints.
It’s whipping wild in the hurricane of all that is and all that ain’t.
‘Cause there’s angels in the shed mother and spiders in the bed brother
and ghosts inside my head father,
no I am not alone.
My mind is teeth without a mouth,
my thoughts are marrow without bone.
My eyes are blinded by a thousand layers
of that god damn “Alabama Chrome.”
10. Phone Booth in Heaven
Oh where are we going? Oh where have we been?
Our hush-a-bye angel, she’s safe and tucked in.
I drive around town, while you sit and watch the rain.
There’s what you think with your heart
and what I feel with my brain.
For those who plant nothing but the seeds of the falling
there is a phone booth in heaven that no one is calling.
It sits on a highway that leads nowhere.
I’ll drop you a line next time I find myself there.
Remembering them days, how we wore our weakness well.
There’s some say that heaven can’t exist without hell,
well if the proof’s in the pudding,
and that axiom’s true,
somehow the heart of the matter escaped me and you.
For those who plant nothing but the seeds of the falling
there is a phone booth in heaven that no one is calling.
Though the ghosts of redemption might whisper odd promises,
I for one don’t put much faith in them specters.
Now the blueprint for sorrow is just to put off the hurt
‘til the price of tomorrow becomes more than love’s worth.
‘Til what’s begged and what’s stole is just the hollow remains
of some beautiful failure that we cling to in vain.
For those who plant nothing but the seeds of the falling
there is a phone booth in heaven that no one is calling.
The truest word heard there is the word that’s unspoken
‘cause you can’t mend what the Good Lord designed to be broken.
Oh where are we going? My darling oh where?
Our sweetheart’s in dreamland, please let her stay there.
We are two separate people, with two separate ways.
Until we come to our senses, it’s our sweetheart that pays.
(11.) Land Called Home
Though the world is sleeping, my eyes are open.
Yet it’s me that’s dreaming that I’m flying over mountaintops.
I am crossing an ocean where at the end I see,
I see a beautiful far away land called home.
And them stars they sure are pretty,
and while I do admire the distance their light,
it travels, to shine down on me…
still I would go further than the furthest star shine…
just to find myself walking in a beautiful faraway land called home.
Wanna find myself walking in a beautiful faraway land called home.
And you can take all the money in all of the banks.
You can take all the fame in Hollywood.
You can take all the pretty girls in Paris, France.
You can take my own name if you think it’ll do you some good.
You can take all them things that perish, and you can throw them all right in the sea.
‘Cause ain’t but only one thing that matters.
Ain’t but only one jewel in this world.
Ain’t but only one feeling of all of life’s feeling that I wanna feel.
That is the feeling of a beautiful far away land called home.
No Such Place
1. Handcuffed To A Fence In Mississippi
©1998 Jim White
I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi.
My girlfriend blows a boozy good-bye kiss.
I see flying squirrels and nightmares of stigmata.
Then awakening to find my Trans-Am gone.
Still, I'm feeling pretty good about the future.
Yeah, everything is peaches but the cream.
I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi,
where things is always better than they seem.
Things is always better than they seem.
I see the guitar that my cousin played in prison,
floating with the tv in the swimming pool.
I'm calling for the owner of the motel,
then noticing the bloodstain on the door.
I'm reaching for the shoes under the bushes,
just in time to hear the sirens sing.
I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi,
where things is always better than they seem.
Things is always better than they seem.
You know freedom's just a stupid superstition,
'cause life's a highway that you travel blind.
It's true that having fun's a terminal addiction.
What good is happiness, when it's just a state of mind?
For in the prison of perpetual emotion,
we're all shackled to the millstone of our dreams.
Me, I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi,
where things is always better than they seem.
Things are always better than they seem.
2. Wound That Never Heals
©1996 Jim White
Long about an hour before sunrise
she drags his body down to the edge of the swollen river
wrapped in a red velvet curtain
stolen from the movie theater where she works.
Quiet as a whisper, under the stanchions of a washed-out bridge
she cuts him loose...and watches as the flood waters spin him
around once, then carry him away. Then she removes the golden
ring upon her finger...and she throws it in.
And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you...
Baby why don't you cry?
Three days later in a bar in southern Mississippi she meets a man
by the name of Charles Lee.
She introduces herself to him as "Lee Charles".
"What a coincidence." he says...and one week later they are married.
He wakes up one night six months down the line
to find her staring at him in the oddest way.
When he says, "Honey, what's wrong?"
she says, "Oh nothing dear...except that tears are a stupid trick of God."
And by the time they find his body six weeks later...
Well hell, she's a thousand miles away.
And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you...
Baby why don't you cry?
She runs from devils. She runs from angels. She runs from the
ghost of her father and five different uncles. Blinded by their memory,
seared by their pain, she'd like to kill 'em all...then kill 'em all again.
She don't think much about what she's done or the funny feelings that
she feels. No, she don’t. To her it's just a condition she picked up as a
child... a little thing she calls, "the wound that never heals", she calls it,
"the wound that never heals"
And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you...
Baby why don't you cry?
3. Corvair
©1998 Jim White
Sunlight in the weeds...I wish that I was blind...to the ghosts
dancing in the breeze…blowing through my mind.
Got a Corvair in my yard. It hasn't run in fifteen years.
It's a home for the birds now. It's no longer a car.
Last night I dreamed that I was swimming in a sea.
Like always, with everything I went in too deep.
Got a Corvair in my yard. It hasn’t run in fifteen years.
It’s a home for the birds now. It’s no longer…a car.
Got a simple friend out west, and in the blink of an eye,
I'd swap him straight, his life for mine...and never wonder "Why?".
CHORUS
4. Wrong Kind of Love
©1998 Jim White
Nothing's prettier than a pretty girl digging a heart shaped
hole in the ground. Hear that sound?
That's the fortress 'round your heart crumbling down.
Feeling like...like you kinda...like the feeling...feel like falling...
head over heels...into the hole...that she's digging...and you're thinking you should go...'cause you know...
that she wants the wrong kind of love,
wants the kind of love you can’t give her.
She wants the wrong kind of love,
but you don't hold that against her,
'cause if that's the kind of love she wants,
then that's just the kind of love you'll have to give her.
Come beg, borrow, steal, or fight, 'cause you never felt nothing
so real or right as this wrong...wrong kind of love.
Like a tombstone in a snowstorm, she's so cool, pale and gloomy.
Her affection for affliction's just sleight of hand---a stolen picture taken from some loving fool, who just like you, mutely surrendered...and this snapshot of the future is a map of your undoing...'cause you know that you should go but you don't go...though
she wants the wrong kind of love,
wants the kind of love you can’t can give her.
She wants the wrong kind of love,
but you don't hold that against her,
'cause if that's the kind of love she wants,
then that's just the kind of love you'll have to get her.
Come beg, borrow, steal, or fight 'cause you never felt nothing so real or right as this wrong…wrong kind of love.
Your love's a tale told by idiots, signifying nothing more than
a wise hunger for destruction, for in the temple of your loving,
scrawled upon the wall just there behind the portrait of yourself
there lies a prayer written in your hand, it says, "Girl, come and destroy me." And you know...why you don't go.
'Cause you want the wrong kind of love,
want the kind of love no one can give you.
You want the wrong kind of love,
and she's just the girl to give it to you.
And if you beg to object, well I will beg you to reconsider
'cause this little twist in the story is just the seed of your salvation...
'cause this wrong...wrong kind of love...wrong kind of love...
is your kind of love.
5. 10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road
©1998 Jim White
They tell me miracles abound now more than ever, but
I don't care. They say it's better to be blessed than it is
to be clever, but I don't care. 'Cause I got 10 miles to go on a 9 mile road,
and it's a rocky rough road, but I don't care.
For life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer,
you keep your head held high, a'walking and a'talking ‘til the power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you...you....
You don't get nothing for free, 'less of course you steal it,
at least that's what the people say. The sad irony of Love is how so seldom you feel it, yet it's all you dream about, night and day.
From the splinter in the hand, to the thorn in the heart, to
the shotgun to the head, you got no choice but to learn to glean solace from pain or you'll end up cynical or dead.
Me, I got 10 miles to go on a 9 mile road and it's a rocky rough road, but I don't care.
For life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer, you keep your head held high, a'walking and a'talking and a'talking and a'walking, 'til the power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you...THERE!!!
Sometimes you throw yourself into the sea of faith, and
the sharks of doubt come and they devour you. Other times you throw yourself into the sea of faith only to find the treasure lost in the shipwreck inside of you! There ain't no guarantees, none of that nonsense like on tv, just gotta roll the dice, and take your lumps. You're gonna get yourself knocked down, so better learn to stand back up, for those who dwell on disaster let sorrow be their master.
Me, I got 10 miles to go on a 9 mile road and it's a rocky rough road, but I don't care.
'Cause life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer, you keep your head held high, a'walking and a'talking 'til the power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
My buddy Phillip works as a gas station attendant. Strangers call his name to him a thousand times a day. They don't know him, they're just asking "Phillip" for a "fill-up". Funny how fate plays tricks on us...that way---through the power of Love....
6. Christmas Day
©1999 Jim White
Where in the world did you come from my dear? Did some mysterious voice tell you I'd still be here? I bought this ticket to Mobile, but I been stranded all day...p.a. said the bus broke down ten miles away from the station. So seldom a door...so seldom a key...so seldom a lock like the love between you and me. But seldom comes happiness without the pain of the devil in the details since I saw the smile on your face as I was crying in a Greyhound station on Christmas Day...in 1998.
The burden of love is the fuel of bad grammar. You stutter and stammer--what a bitch to convey the crux of the matter, when the words you must utter are hopelessly tangled in the memories and scars you show no one. So seldom a door...so seldom a key...so seldom a hit like the hurt you put on me. But seldom comes happiness without the pain of the devil in the details since I saw the smile on your face as I was crying in a Greyhound station on Christmas Day...in 1998.
I remember quite clearly, a bad Muzak version of James Taylor's big hit, called "Fire and Rain" was playing as you crouched down and tearfully kissed me, and I thought, "Damn, what good fiction I will mold from this terrible pain." So seldom a door...so seldom a key...so seldom a gift like the gift you gave me. But seldom comes happiness without the pain of the devil in the details since I saw the smile on your face as I was crying in a Greyhound station on Christmas Day...in 1998.
Amazing grace, how sweet the smile upon the face I never thought I'd see you again...especially here in this Greyhound station...on Christmas Day...in 1998.
7. Bound To Forget
©1998 Jim White
Fools wind blowing up brown bible verses. Dust storm of memory. Truck stop reverie. 3 AM in my home town, not a soul stirring around. Mr. Trucker Man, don't slow down in this little town. 'Cause I'm traveling faster than the speed of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget. In the blindness of being, what I was born seeing I was just plain bound to forget. Yes, I was just plain bound to forget. Now my tank run dry two hours out of Tucson by three little crosses on the side of the highway. Still as a box full of busted watches, I settle debts with the dead and keep right on...I keep on keeping on. Pedal to the metal on the wide open highway. Criss-cross the high plains of bright-eyed solitude, I tailgate a truck-load of tabula rasa...'til my mind go clearer than the highway west of El Paso. Guess I'm traveling faster than the speed of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget. In the blindness of being what I was born seeing, I was just plain bound to forget. Yes I was just plain bound to forget. Now, 24/7 in the end my friend, gotta go at God's speed, no never relent, lest the soul-sucking, sneaky-deaky, belly-aching past like a ssssnake in the grasssssssss ssssstrike and bury your assssssss. So keep your eyes on the prize on the distant horizon. Be wary of the wind and the bad moon rising. Knowing in your going, somehow, some way, that you'll out-run your shadow…yes you will, one fine day. 'Cause you're traveling faster than the speed of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget. In the blindness of being what I was born seeing I was just plain bound to forget, yes I was just plain bound to forget.
8. God Was Drunk When He Made Me
©1998 Jim White
Jesus and the fiery furnace. Devil and the deep blue sea.
Preacher say I'm gonna burn in hell for all eternity.
But when I have my judgement day and I lock eyes with my savior, well, this is what I'm gonna tell him when he asks about my behavior...
I'm gonna say;
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
And that's why I'm so crazy.
Jesus and the fiery furnace. Devil and the deep blue sea.
God was drunk when he made me…but that's okay 'cause I forgive Him.
See if it was God who made forgiveness, then before that he musta made sin. And who built the house of brotherly love, then let the Devil come dancing in? If it was God that saved the miracle child from the peril of the fiery flame, well then it musta been him that killed the two hundred others just to glorify His name.
That's why I say;
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
And that's why I spout heresy. Jesus and the fiery furnace, Devil and the deep blue sea.
God was drunk when he made me but that's okay...'cause I forgive Him.
9. King of the Road
©Roger Miller
10. Ghost-town of My Brain
©1997 Jim White
I like to go out walking in the ghost-town of my brain.
Kick the rusted scrap-iron of my memories and dreams.
Yeah, here's a busted compass...look, the needle's standing still.
Much as some folks hate to lose their way, me, I pray to God that I will.
I got a confession; I never ever had no appetite for pain.
So it's a mystery to me why I like walking in the ghost-town...
ghost-town of my brain.
I'm on a coal train headed south, guess we're bound for Birmingham.
Thick as thieves with a black girl twice as messed-up as I am.
The smile upon her face betrays the sorrow in her heart.
Like the testimony of a fun house mirror that some fool broke apart.
Girl listen here; you're just a leaf caught in God's secret hurricane.
And on this cold and dark wild midnight you are dancing in the ghost-town...
ghost-town of my brain.
Feel them magnets in the shadows? Hear the voice of stranger virtue?
Take no comforts with them specters 'cause you know that they can hurt you.
Sweet mother load of secrets, feed my wild and endless hunger.
Seek the misty trail beyond the veil where the world gets torn asunder.
Gimme needles in the haystacks, Lord and riddles in the rain...
'cause I like to go out walking in the ghost-town...ghost-town of my brain.
11. Hey! You Going My Way???
©1999 Jim White
Bus stop rain...busted power train...
got a broke down '69 LTD…
I hocked my tools…to buy my brain…
a funeral wreath…from the FTD.
Blank billboards on the highway of life.
Counterfeit bills in the neon lights.
This stick-shift driven saw-dust dream,
show-biz sho' ain't what it seems.
Little hipster dufus with the guitar in a coffin.
I been copping his licks about every so often.
Then I flip-flop, go the other way...
I rip off the dude where the colored girls say;
doo-doo-do-doo-doo-do-doo-doo-do-do-doooo-dooooo
See, I cut my teeth on the white lines of life's endless lonesome highways.
Taking stock in the horizon...
shouting at every fool that come my way---
"HEY!" I been shouting, "HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Are you going my way?"
"HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Someone gimme a ride!"
but ain't no one going my way.
Now downtown they got the prison of shame.
See the castaways of the Hollywood game?
Tricked out whores with invisible pains.
Cardboard people, dancing in the rain...
to the same old tune, circling like a vulture
with the busted juke-box of the popular culture.
If it ain't got a beat, they won't put you on the street.
Heavy on the bass, light on the feet.
I meet the street poets in the bummed out bars.
I hum my single as I jingle down the "Walk Of Stars"
with the geeks and the freaks and the crooks and the hookers---
the burn-outs of life's pressure cookers.
Now, these are my people, my church without a steeple,
and though I never waste a tissue on an incidental issue,
still I sympathize, 'cause I realize when I see the sorrow in their eyes.
'Cause I cut my teeth on the white lines of life's endless lonesome highways.
Taking stock in the horizon...
shouting at every fool that come my way---
"HEY!" I been shouting, "HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Are you going my way?"
"HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Someone gimme a ride!"
but ain't no one going my way.
Now in the field of my mind
I’m plowing the topsoil of my memory.
Digging up bones and skeletones---
rusty relics from my past.
Gotta put a new shine on the twists of time,
redefine this old cemetery...
Clear out the weeds, sow new seeds,
sure I'm scared, but still I'm gonna carry on.
'Cause never did a body find their way home
without showing first firm as a stone
the conviction, the strength the courage that it takes
to make a journey start.
For you got to be true, you got to be strong,
'specially when the long road home
leads smack through the smoking ruins of your broken heart.
And I know.
'Cause I cut my teeth on the white lines of life's endless lonesome highway…
Taking stock in the horizon...
shouting at every fool that come my way---
"HEY!" I been shouting, "HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Are you going my way?"
"HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Someone gimme a ride!"
but ain't no one going my way.
12. Love That Never Fails
©1998 Jim White
Devils’ tools not hammer, nor nails.
Everyone loving feels unnamed fears.
Call them hummingbirds, 'cause the real words no one can say...hey-hey-hey...
It's not why I'm here, it's who I'm with. From baby's breath to the rattle of death...
I seek the love that never fails. I seek the love...the love that never fails.
Oh, beautiful world!
I won't go there. There ain't no room for dreamers in heaven.
Silver linings seldom appear---except in horrible storms.
See, it's not why I'm here, it's who I'm with.
From baby's breath to the Angel of Death I seek the love that never fails.
I seek the love...the love that never fails.
Now hope's a tricky...a tricky little snare.
I'm stuck on the corner of "Confused & I Don't Know".
Been waiting for that long, long, long, long overdue ride home.
See it's not why I'm here, it's who I'm with.
From baby's breath 'till the final kiss of death.
I seek the love that never fails. I seek the love…the love that never fails.
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Wrong-Eyed Jesus
1. Book of Angels
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Big ole car moving fast, watch the world go spinning by...
Little wheels inside my brain, God I wonder where I’m going...
Where you going? Need a ride? We got time to see a movie...
It’s all right. it’s okay, I can tell you my big secret:
Sho’ is cool. Sho’ is cool. I’m like a mad tap dancing fool.
I got my car, and I got my dreams, but won’t you help me
help me write my Book of Angels. Book of Angels.
And it’s a gloomy ole house in a spooky town,
you make that light, better just keep rolling,
higher still, climb the mountain,
’course what you’ll find there, you can’t be certain.
’Cause when you’re free, well you’re just free,
ain’t that scary, ain’t that wild?
And don’t you feel, feel just like
chucking freedom out the window?
Sho’ is cool. Sho’ is real. I dance just as good as I feel.
Feel just like a hurricane, say my name...
help me write my Book of Angels. Book of Angels.
I’m counting trees, I’m counting miles, I count the distance between your smiles...
give me something to hold on to — no not that. I don’t want to.
And if you drive, drive your car fast and hard a million miles,
well you might finally find yourself alone way out there on the highway...
Sho’ is cool. Sho’ is wild. Once I was a little baby (child),
but I lost my car, and I lost my dreams, so won’t you help me
help me write my Book of Angels. Book of Angels.
2. Burn the River Dry
© 1996 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Door is locked... .no one’s home...
frame is empty... .picture’s missing...
throw that rock right through the window.
Hey, I know him, he’s a singer.
Roam around... another town... looks like Phoenix, Arizona...
borrow the car from it’s owner.
That sleepy-head... he’s dreaming the dreams of suburbia.
Yeah suburbia.
Me, I don’t care... I just pay what it takes to feel alive.
Cause somehow somewhere,
hell everyone I know is waiting...
just waiting to burn the river dry.
And nothing works more than once,
it keeps you restless, always moving
fretful searching for a brand new spanking form of deliverance.
Movies stars... heroin,
dreams of wild old fucking grandeur!
Snap your fingers, now you’re famous...
Close your eyes as you sell out
to all them suckers that you hate.
Yeah, them suckers that you hate.
Me, I don’t care... I just pay what it takes to feel alive
Somehow, somewhere
everyone I know is waiting...
just waiting to burn that river dry.
Burn that river dry.
Hands that once reached for heaven
grabbing at the penny in the sewer.
Smell of your soul burning on the skewer,
and all that dirt that you have swallowed.
The howling voice from the closet,
better run away just because it
seems to know a little bit too much about
all them shallow graves that you got buried
in the field of your experience.
Me, I don’t care... I just pay what it takes to feel alive.
Somehow somewhere, hell everyone I know is waiting...
just waiting to burn that river dry.
3. Still Waters
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Well I was shacked up down in Mobile with a girl from New York City.
She woke me up one night to tell me that we weren’t alone.
She said she saw the ghost of a woman staring at me.
I told her not to worry, but in the morning when I woke up, she was gone.
So I headed on to Florida where I tangled with some sailors.
And as I lay bloody on the wharf, I cursed the ship they sailed on.
Wouldn’t you know, twenty four hours later that ship sank into the ocean...
disappearing like an unwanted memory beneath the waves.
I guess it’s ’cause, still waters run, run deep in me
’cause I got this crazy way...
crazy way I’m swimming in still waters.
And I was woke up just before dawn by an old man crying in the rain.
He was drunk and he was lonely and as he passed by he sang a hymn.
And as I lay there listening, well I almost joined him in that song...
but instead I just held my peace, and waited ’till that old man moved along.
Then later on that day about a quarter mile out of town,
I found his body hanging in a grove of pines, swaying in the wind.
And as he swang that rope sang another hymn to Jesus,
and this time though I don’t know why, I somehow felt inclined to sing along.
I guess it’s cause, still waters run, run deep in me
’cause I got this crazy way...
crazy way I’m swimming in still waters.
Yes and there are projects for the dead and there are projects for the living...
thought I must confess sometimes I get confused by that distinction...
and I just throw myself into the arms of that which would betray me.
I guess to see how far Providence will stoop down just to save me.
And it’s all because, still waters run, run deep in me...
’cause I’ve got this crazy way...
crazy way I’m swimming in still waters.
4. WHEN JESUS GETS A BRAND NEW NAME
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Damn them dogs is really smart... ..think I’d better lose the snowshoes...
thought the skid marks on the road’d throw them off, but damn them dogs is
smart & on Devil’s Island of the heart, you can’t afford to make a big mistake
you gotta plan your jail break carefully... very carefully!
And them crickets chirping in my hair... they’re about to drive me smack insane.
I don’t know quite who put ’em there... but everytime I hear ’em it sound just like;
When Jesus gets a brand new name! When Jesus gets a brand new name!
Now I’m hiding in a funky shadow... I see a TV show through the window...
there’s lawyers riding in a speedboat... .they’re solving cases on the ocean.
I’m going over the waterfalls... I’m a lamb to the slaughter ya’ll
better duck because that flying thing... is coming back this way!
I tell you what the hay! Friggin A! A certified genius couldn’t do it better.
You disagree? Well, that’s okay, we’ll notify you with a letter!
When Jesus gets a brand new name! When Jesus gets a brand new name!
Golden dust, golden bones, golden opportunitones.
You flush ’em all down the rusty drain---better laugh, boy, before you feel the pain.
And get yourself good and saved, make sure that you are well behaved;
you should part your hair, you should shine your shoes,
you should say your prayers, you should pay your dues---
you do heart surgery with a hammer... then you lock ’em all up in the gospel slammer
’till there’s nothing left for this corpse to say... except “Drag my stinking butt away!”
When Jesus gets a brand new name! When Jesus gets a brand new name!
My friends;
Cross your fingers, cross your hearts, ’cause they’ve ripped that sucker clean apart
And don’t catch my whole guitar on fire... as you embrace the lips of my wild desire.
Now you’re messing with my superstition---hey, what about the Inquisition?!
Yeah I like ’em big, like ’em chunky, I like ’em pasty faced, like a superjunky.
You steal the water from the well of love, it’ll sit in your tummy like O.J.’s glove...
So don’t you give me none of that dadgummed shango,
’cause I know that it takes two to tango!
When Jesus gets a brand new name! When Jesus gets a brand new name!
5. SLEEPY-TOWN
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
I whisper beautiful secrets into the drainpipes at night
for the old folks while they’re sleeping...
something to help them with their dreams.
I climb the wall to the cemetary,
lay down on the grave of my father...
I hear him asking me for forgiveness, so I close my eyes in prayer.
And then a rainy-rainy-rain falls down... a cool rainy-rain upon my head.
It makes the river overflow it’s banks, and wash my cares away to Sleepy-town.
I pour whiskey in the honeycomb,
it makes the bees all turn to angels.
I watch ’em fly off into heaven...
disappear where I can’t follow.
And I would write Jesus a letter,
but I hear that he don’t speak English...
so instead I’ll just throw these cobblestones until I ring that old church bell.
Until the rainy-rainy-rain fall down... cool rainy-rain upon my head.
It makes the river overflow it’s banks, and wash my cares away to Sleepy-town.
In Sleepy-town, you let the wild wind blow away your name.
In Sleepy town, you let the healing rain just wash your pain away.
I see a light on in the station,
yeah someone is waiting for a train.
And I envy them their leaving
as I turn to head back home again.
For soon the morning sun will rise
and this little town will open up its eyes..
and return from the land where I’ve never been
from a Sleepy-town... that’s free...
from all that rainy-rainy-rain fall down.
The cool rainy-rain upon my head
make the river overflow it’s banks
and wash my cares away to Sleepy-town...
6. A PERFECT DAY TO CHASE TORNADOES
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Way down south I know a girl who is blind.
She walks alone along a lonely highway each day.
She dreams that one day a man will pull up in a car.
He’ll open up the door, she’ll climb in and he will say:
“Hey babe, whatcha know? Hope you’re ready to go...
’cause today’s a perfect day
to chase tornados.”
Yeah when the wild wind whips around your head you know,
that you have found a perfect day to chase tornados.
And what about that preacher man on the run from the law?
He killed a girl in Memphis and ran ’till the dogs tracked him down.
They shot him by the river and as he lay dying in the mud,
well someone asked him, hey Preacher, where’s your soul going now?
And Preacher said, “Well, I do not know, but wherever it is I’ll gladly go...
cause today’s a perfect day
to chase tornados.”
Yeah when the wild wind kicks around your head you know,
that you have found a perfect day to chase tornados.
Sometimes I think that the sky is a prison and the earth is a grave.
And sometimes I feel like Jesus, in some Chinese opera.
And sometimes I’m glad I built my mansion from crazy little stones.
But sometimes I feel so goddamned trapped by everything that I know.
And I wish it wasn’t so, cause the only thing that anyone should ever know
is that today’s a perfect day
to chase tornados.
Yeah, when the wild wind whips around your head you know,
that you have found a perfect day to chase tornados.
7. WORDMULE
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Your world is in flames there ain’t even a name
for the feelings you feel as you watch it all burn.
There’s a girl in the distance, she’s calling your name,
but the name that she’s calling is not your name, she calls:
THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE!
but he’s plowing the field...
THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE!
but he’s plowing the field...
And you can’t walk on that water, I know ’cause I tried.
It’s our spider web-thinking, it’s just too heavy with holes.
And our thoughts they are made up of red Georgia clay,
we think we know everything, but man we don’t know:
THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE!
but he’s plowing the field...
THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE!
but he’s plowing the field... here come THE WORD-MULE!
My friends,
look out for hustlers for preachers for sheisters,
them silver-tongued saints who pretend to do good,
’cause they’re geeks biting chicken-heads off with their witty rejoinders
they ain’t nothing but greasy fast food for:
THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE!
but he’s plowing the field...
THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE! THE WORD-MULE!
but he’s plowing the field...
8. STABBED IN THE HEART
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Upon awakening I find myself lying in some woods,
and for the longest time I’ve sat here, just trying to remember
why I feel like I am floating, why blood is running down my shirt
then my memory returns to me as the pain comes flooding;
into my heart,
my baby she stabbed me in my heart.
left me here to die,
my baby she stabbed me in my heart
and I know why...
I hear the sound of distant footsteps, and I know that she is running
from that past which will pursue her until the day that she dies.
’Cause I know about her family, and their crimes upon her body...
so I guess it wasn’t me at all that she was trying to kill...
when she drove that knife
into my heart
my baby she stabbed me in my heart
left me here to die
my baby she stabbed me in my heart
really came as no surprise.
Over the hill there is a highway, now I hear a truck is stopping...
she’s flagged somebody down and asked ’em for a ride.
And I would try to follow her, but I don’t seem to be able
to lift this heavy body anymore, as the light fails, and the darkness falls
into my heart
my baby she stabbed me in my heart
left me here to die
my baby she stabbed me in my heart
so now I’ll just, I’ll just close my eyes
close my eyes as the darkness falls
into my heart
my baby she stabbed me in my heart
into my heart
I’m falling, I’m falling, I’m falling... .
9. ANGEL-LAND
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
I cannot be superman no more...
I cannot walk upon the high wire in my mind.
And now that I understand the extent of my mortal coil,
suddenly and somehow I have lost all my desire...
to shine, to shine like the sun...
to shine, to shine like the sun...
on a sunny day in Angel-Land.
And I guess sometimes you find that the river just runs dry...
and you’ve got to get up out of the boat and walk.
And I suppose you might try to find another river,
but sometimes, sometimes it’s just too hard..
to hard to shine, to shine like the sun...
to shine, to shine like the sun...
on a sunny day, in Angel-Land.
Mostly now these days I’m dreaming normal dreams...
little things like who I spoke to, or what I did today.
I have not written a speech for God to say in years.
’Scuse me if I leave that undertaking up to those who say...
who say the wanna shine, to shine like the sun...
to shine, a shine like the sun..
on a sunny day, in Angel-Land..
sweet Angel-land
10. Heaven of My Heart
© 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
Radio song, playing in the car, don’t even know where we are...
don’t know the time of day or the color of the clothes I’m wearing.
Would you look at that sky, pretty little stars twinkling far above in heaven
sorta makes me feel like dancing, right here in the moonlight.
But this little girl, well she’s so shy,
she won’t even look up, into the sky... ..
At the shiny stars, guiding stars pointing the way to the heaven of my heart...
guiding stars pointing the way to the heaven of my,
the heaven of my heart.
Got a funny-bone, laugh like a mule, always did pretty good in school
but still I cannot decipher her arithmetic.
Cause I’d walk to the moon, I’d lick a spittoon,
I’d wear wooly underwear in a sauna,
just to show her how much I wanna be her loveable lunatic.
But she’s so demure, that it’s no surprise
when I tell her I love her, well she just closes her eyes... .
To the shiny stars, guiding stars pointing the way to the heaven of my heart...
guiding stars pointing the way to the heaven of my, the heaven of my heart.
Yes she’s a brainy girl, that is good. She’s smarter than me but then so is wood,
but that don’t mean I should submit to her authority...
’cause I wanna make her laugh, I wanna make her sing,
but she won’t do a doggone thing, and don’tcha know
when she don’t it makes her even more adorable.
I guess that’s why, it’s the way she fights me... .
it makes them stars burn extra brightly
Them shiny stars, guiding star pointing the way to the heaven of my heart,
guiding stars pointing the way to the heaven of my heart ETC.
11. The Road that Leads to Heaven
©1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
If you like me won’t you stay a little while?
We could count the falling stars above our heads.
Will you walk with me another lonesome mile?
And if you should hear a distant voice
calling from the bottom of the well...
Well, it’s just me---I fell in years ago,
when I stumbled onto
the road that leads to heaven.
See the pretty cloud? It’s shaped just like a dove.
There is a gust of wind, now it’s a famous movie star...
it’s reminding me of someone I once loved...
another gust of wind,
and now it’s just a cloud again...
with so much wrote between the lines
you can go crazy trying to read the signs
on the road that leads to heaven.
And on the road map of my heart you are a city
throwing bright and shining lights into the sky
but this highway I am riding, it just goes on
passing by, sorry I
would love to
hold you in my arms
but today and always
I’m afraid...
Yes I’m afraid I’m on the road that leads to
heaven...
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