I guess your default disposition is “don’t wanna know”
An act of surgical precision just to make it so
Cause there’s a natural selection we’re chained to the world
Just like a teenage insurrection it’s inevitable
So put your back in it!

Every idle minute is a murdered one
Cause when hesitation’s the bullet
Procrastination’s the gun
4-3-2-1

So would you keep this on the down-low?
We don’t need spies
And if you need some inspiration check your vital signs
But if you can’t come to your senses check ‘em at the door
Ah, put your shoulder to the wheel
What did you think it was for?!

I’m midway from here to nowhere
This trail of tears is all we have
To lead us back
To lead us back

Each night another round of high explosives
Each day another sword to fall on to
As we try to rise above this kamikaze love

Sun in my eyes
I smell that diesel burning
You dive delectably out of the sky
And I crash my fighter plane into the sea again

Midway from here to nowhere
This trail of tears is all we have to lead us back
To lead us back
To lead us back

Ah, darlin’ I’ll hide Stateside
Safe within your arms
But somewhere out there
All’s fair in love and war

Ah, midway from here to nowhere
This trail of tears is all we have to lead us back
To lead us back
To lead us

When all your money’s gone
The stars are there to look upon
A celestial Morse Code
To that radio inside your soul

Hold on, hold on, hold on

The darkness in your mind
At war with the light in your eyes
Though winter paints it grey
It’s rosy in the spring again

So hold on, hold on, hold on

You’re on your knees
Stillborn seeds
Planting dreams
But digging weeds
Well, some day soon
Yeah, I’ll come around
And I’ll replace that thorny crown
With your name in lights and your face on the poster
Life’s an atomic rollercoaster
So hold on!

Years from now on
When I think about you when you’re gone
How two and two was five
Just trying to keep my sombre sweet old friend alive

Hold on, hold on, hold on

Well it don’t mean shit
When they love you just a little bit
If you’re a lover or a son
It still hurts just like a son of a gun
When romance is for the birds
Ah, when love is just a four-letter word
And when the sand gets quick
You know you’re up to yer neck in it

Well you’re bound to be bored
Workin’ late at the liquor store
But ain’t nothin’ scares me more
Than a stranger walking through the front door
He said my mama named me Bill
But my friends all call me Road Kill
Man, I knew real quick
That I was up to my neck in it

Ah, dreams and schemes and ol’ Jim Beam
Offer such a sweet release
Ah, cats and rats and acrobats rain down on these city streets

Big Bill had a plan
He said “workin’s for the average man”
So while I played guitar
British Bobby drove the getaway car
And I’ll be straight with you son
Ain’t no such thing as a little gun
And you can’t smell the shit
Until you’re up to yer neck in it

Ah, big mistakes and double takes
When you’re livin’ in the past
Ah, hotel keys and PCP are the things that never last

Bill got fried
I guess he’s gone to the other side
And now I’m doin’ ten
But I hear him every now and again
He says, “son have hope
Cause now and then there’s some slack in the rope
But you won’t feel it hit
Until you’re up to yer neck in it
And it won’t help you none
Sittin’ around waitin’ for Jesus to come
Cause he’s late as it is
I guess he’s up to his neck in it”

Oh Genevieve, this town is a guillotine
Sharp tongues like blades so mean they can bleed you blue
And all those neighbourhood boys just want to get in your corduroys
I can’t blame ‘em but they miss the point with a girl like you

Oh, oh Genevieve

Hey there Genevieve, you never had much use for me
But I’ll keep you company until the ambulance comes
With cruel maps of railroad scars, along the tracks of your pretty arms
How the hell did it get so hard just to take life as it comes

Oh, oh Genevieve

No, don’t do it
Don’t climb your bedroom walls
Don’t rise to it
Cause you’re smarter than them all
And I always knew it
I just never had the guts to call
So I hung up once or twice
My fingers cold as ice
And I left you all alone
On the dark side of the phone

Hey Gen you know some day, we oughta cut class and run away
Hop a Greyhound to Montreal and start us a band
I’ve been known to play guitar, and you can scream all the pretty parts
Cross your fingers those city dogs don’t tear us apart

Oh, oh Genevieve
My sweet Genevieve
C’mon hold on to me
My sweet Genevieve

People, out in the street
Pounding the pavement
They’re dead on their feet
People, rinse and repeat
Caught in the crossfire
Of divide and defeat

When every day’s a grind and you find
That you’re tired as tired can be
About to lose your mind, it’s a crime, suicidal society
Ah, it’s heartbreak in Hopper Street

People, listen to this!
Your heart is a muscle
And it’s as big as your fist!
When people rise and persist
Love is a struggle too hard to resist

Cause don’t you know they tried and they tried
Until finally the dogs retreat
Cause all they got are spies and reprisals
And sirens and riot police
Ah, there’s tear gas in Hopper Street

You just might find you get it
If you take the time to let it
sink in, sync up, sink down, sink deep
Ah, we’ll see

People, sound the alarm
Your story is written in the face of the stars

And if you ever wonder why we relied on a lie that was incomplete
Just shine a little light in the night hold it tight so the blind can see
Hey and take a little time, raise a cry, make it chime like a symphony
Cause it only takes a “why?” to defy
Draw the line from the “me” to “we”

And it all starts in Hopper Street

Your mama was a poet
Your daddy went to sea
They brought you up on Ginsberg
And rent control and weed
You’re painfully poetic
But your laces are terribly untied
They’d love you down in Rio honey
They’d eat your soul alive

I went to the cathedral
To tender my complaints
I’ve raised a glass with criminals
And janitors and saints
They always ask me where I’m headed
But they never ask me why
Now I’m going down to Rio
Just to stare into the Brazilian sky

Well, you can bribe a man over breakfast
Own him before noon
You can feed him tired slogans
With a shovel or a spoon
Well I bought a man in Reno
Just to watch democracy die
Now I’m goin’ down to Rio
I’m gonna give the same thing a try

I’m gonna shoot out all the streetlights
From the passenger side
I ain’t comin’ home from Rio
Bye bye baby, bye bye

Don’t you know?… baby fell hard
He fell ‘tween the stars and the cars on Grant St.
And ain’t you heard?… baby got burned
Cause Judas got turned by the hissing tongues of Rome
And it’s hard to roam
But it’s so much harder to come home
When their hearts are hardened to cut stone
They’re hardly alone

Did you hear?… baby’s a queer
Those are your words my dear
Naked fear exposed
Ah, but can’t you feel there’s a change in the deal
How can it be real that you can’t bear the thought of a public place?
Would it feel like a punch in the face?
Would you wanna set fire to this place?
Totally erase

Don’t you know.. if baby falls hard
You’ll live with a scar though you can’t see it
Will you catch that scent
The Twentieth Century’s spent
It’s all so irrelevant with the future comin’ on
Like a fire alarm
Five minutes before the dawn
Move on with your life or brother just move the fuck on

Last things first
Well maybe it’s worse
To live with the curse
Of your blind eyes

And first things last
Since you’ve been such an ass
Is it too much to ask
That you simply apologize?

Love is a poison thing
The sweetest sour sting
A joker and a king
Love is a tragedy
A theatre of cruelty
And you’ve got that front row seat
But the actors aren’t free
On a stage lost at sea
And the run’s been extended indefinitely

Hail, hail vanity

Love is a bitter curse
You know there’s nothing worse
For the last free man on earth
When love is a guillotine
Better hope that blade is clean
Cause the end comes quick and mean
And the peasants shade their eyes
And they wrestle in the line
To see that fair fallen bloody valentine

Save yourself
If nothing else
Save yourself from all that heartache, cause…

Love is a genocide
The enemy’s inside
So there’s nowhere to hide
Ah, love is a murder scene
Some psychopathic dream
A gilded guilty plea
Well it’s lethal and sweet
So you rinse and repeat
That same chalky outline on the street

Mmmmm…
Love is a poison thing