Track Listing
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1. Powerlines
It’s a long day before you sleep
Scattered and strange like the hours you keep
This is no time to look before you leap
Caroline, let the spotlight beseech you
The darkness can’t reach you
The power lines, they crackle above you
This city that loves you has come alive
And the streets and the bars and the pavement call your name
Ah, the birds and the planes and the streetlights call your name
Livin’ over the mini-mart
Livid soldier with the purple heart
Little auteur of the stop-before-you-start
Caroline, when the peasants impeach you
The light’s out of reach
You devour lines and the powder protects you
When all else rejects you a thousand times
When the face in the bathroom mirror calls your name
And the voice from the nurses’ station calls your name
lay down soldier
2. Gerona Train
Do you remember
The days when the hammers fell and the wheels would turn?
We were oh so young but I still can remember
Stubborn and tender
The sweat would fall and the sun would burn
We’re so far away now it feels like December
And you could ease my mind — don’t you cry
You could break my heart — don’t you try
’Cause you’re the only one that I can depend on
Spent the day sober
A shared remembrance of ’39
And the ways we marched our days in and out of time
On the train from Gerona
You read Bakunin while I leafed through the London Times
And the months fell into place in a crooked line
And you could ease my mind — don’t you cry
You could break my heart — don’t you try
’Cause it feels so cold it feels like forever
And there’s one more light in Oviedo tonight
Cheap beer and Malraux
There’s not enough of either to go around
But there’s a groundswell coming up from the underground
That picture you sent me
Haunts me more and more with each passing day
And your passion touches me more than I can even say
And you could ease my mind — don’t you cry
You could break my heart — don’t you try
3. Do The Right Now
Don’t try to tell your fortune with your telephone
Tomorrow’s a lie and yesterday’s gone
You gotta do the right, do the right, do the right, do the right now
And it makes no difference the mouse or the man
Cause time puts paid to your best-laid plans
You better do the right, do the right, do the right, do the right now
You better do the right now
Some people check out, some people cash in
Some people get paralyzed doin’ the right thing
Instead of doin’ the right, doin’ the right, doin’ the right
Doin’ the right now
And what do you see when you stare at that screen?
Salvation, the grave, or somewhere in between?
Why don’t you do the right, do the right, do the right, do the right now
C’mon and do the right, do the right
Do the right, do the right
Want a little good advice?
Do the right, do the right now
Well the hour makes its plan
And the minutes count their gold
But the sweet second-hand always knows
Which way the wind blows
Ah, get on with the show
C’mon and do the right, do the right
Do the right, do the right
Don’tcha know that time is tight
Now’s the time to get it right
Every day and every night
Fight the fight, do the right now!
4. Saint Spurious
So long ago you took a vow of perjury
We call it lies, you prefer hyperbole
You shoot your mouth off, trigger happy, resolute
You wear that grin like your smile is bulletproof
When you’ve been captured in the act
Laundering the facts
Laughing in the face of truth
That tale grows taller every time you utter it
The gospel smaller the more you stutter it
We swore we knew you now I guess we’ll never know
You tip your hand but the cards don’t ever show
And you don’t ever let the facts stagger in the path of truth
Those days were never white or black
Opposites attract — dishonesty in absolutes
Cry, cry that little white lie
Grows bigger as the myth demands
Your heart’s crossed and you’re hopin’ to die
Maybe we can all lend a hand
’Cause you won’t ever let the facts stagger in the way of truth
Quaint customs fallen to the axe
Opposites attract — fraudulence or naked proof
You dare to draw that chalky line
All around the corpse of truth
Machine gun, bloody valentine
Deceitfully inclined
Every finger points to you
Cry, cry that little white lie
Every finger points to you
5. Minuteman
I filled my days, a broken cup
With empty goals and brittle plans
A futile game of hurry up
Of heaven help the middleman
A waking dream, but I woke up
And I became a minuteman
I became a minuteman
You make your deals, you chase the sun
Searching for divinity
You spin your wheels the more you run
Sinking deep into infinity
Your eyes, your eyes drink in that brilliant light
The lie that lies behind the light
Arise, arise, cast off that blinding night
Arise, tune out that satellite
Sometimes I feel my feet are shackled to the ground
A million pounds
Where would you go if you could free-fall through your life?
Ah, would you dive, would you dive
Or would you rise?
Six billion five hundred believers in the light
They must be right (unless they’re wrong)
One single skeptic stands corrected by the throng
How could the righteous be so wrong?
For so long
And you count the days like prisoners do
Saying “what can this world do for me?”
I hate to say the joke’s on you but hours are centuries
They pass away the way we choose — palace or penitentiary
Hours, seconds or centuries
6. The Hard Way
They tell you boy, stand up and speak your mind
They tell you girl, lean in this is your time
But when the posters read “Dead or Alive”
You find out the hard way
A fairy-tale/nightmare of profiteers
A golden path or broken trail of tears?
But when the sweet amnesia disappears
You find out the hard way
We can do this the easy way
Or we can do this the hard way
When the one confronts the ninety-nine
Ah, then the sentence finally fits the crime
But when they ask for just a bit more time
They’ll find out the hard way
7. Something To Believe In
They thought they’d steal a car they thought they’d get away
Run, run from their young lives
It caught up to them the very next day
A road block the two of them had made
Two more days and nights shacked up in the doorway
Of that old ghost-town hotel used to be Larry’s Hideaway
Setting fire to a four-leaf clover
This happens when the odds run high
And it happens when we roll the dice
It happens when the reins go slack
And it happens when we turn our back and say…
I need something to believe in
He thought about graves he thought about laughter
He thought about all those pretty disasters
And tiptoed down the hall and out into the light
She thought she’d straightened out she thought she’d come around
She thought she was in love but she lost what she’d found
When he left her with an unmade bed and an unchanged mind
This happens when we smile with our eyes
It happens when we break the ice
It happens when we wish on stars
And it happens when we drop our guard and say…
I need something to believe in
Stay a little longer, I need someone to talk to
Some quiet conversation
Something to believe in
There’s always some backhanded debate
Before we’re one foot out of the gate —no hesitation
Ah, there must be some loose affiliation
8. Don’t Let It Lay You Low
Big stick rules
Out in the yard, out by the school
Fits and starts
The rage and the rant
The bruises and broken hearts abide
Some fuzzy fratricide
The tumour grows, the decades decline
But it’s too late to regret it
If it can’t be changed forget it
Ah, but all the same don’t let it lay you low
One world rule
One of them grins and one of them drools
Subterfuge
Two sides of a coin that’s flippin’ the bird at you
Cold cash — but all this too shall pass
That day the first will become the last
For the criminals that bred it
And the sycophants who fed it
When it all comes down don’t let it lay you low
No, I hope those clowns don’t ever lay you low
Yeah, but it’s too late to regret it
If it can’t be changed forget it
Ah, but all the same don’t let it lay you low
When it all comes down don’t let it lay you low
No, I hope those clowns don’t ever lay you low
9. Sister Jude
I am the son but I ain’t too bright
Please help me get this right
Born ’neath the sign of struggle and strife
Cavemen and troglodytes
Ooh, sister Jude I’ll bleed with you
You’ve been crucified how many times?
I can’t count that high
One for defeat and two for regret
Three for the suffragettes
Looks like it’s farther the closer it gets
But I know we’ll get there yet
Ooh, sister Jude I feel it too
Are you satisfied, or damned and denied?
One day when it’s your way or the highway
No need to see it my way
I’ll be there on that day
When you’ve finally blown away
All those brakes and patterns
Snakes and ladders
Standing in your way
Out of the wind and out of the rain
Out of our heads again
Sorrow and slander, pleasure and pain
Only those scars remain
Ooh, sister Jude I believe in you
You’ve been crucified but I’m on your side
Ooh, sister Jude
10. Infinite
I feel your voice, I hear your heart
The pulse and the strum and the eminence
You haunt these songs, they bleed your name
The throb and the thrum and the resonance
How still is weightlessness?
How far is limitless?
How long is infinite?
No longer than the road I’ll share with you
I steel my will, you steal my thoughts
The late afternoon hides the evidence
How bleak is inclement?
How black is hopelessness?
How blank is emptiness?
As barren as the days without you home
And time after time
The days cash in their pre-paid suicides
But we survive, we abide
How pure is blessedness?
How deep is fathomless?
How rare is happiness?
No rarer than the love you share with me
No clearer than a thousand eyes can see
11. Immortal
Same silly Saturday sad stupid grin
You’re going out the way that you came in
Awash in lavender lies and cowardly chamomile
Alight with halo on high, that Machiavellian smile
Always seemed to be the one to want to rectify
Never were the quickest one to ever realize that…
Some things are better left unsaid
And some things are better left for dead
But nobody wants to tell the dirty truth around here
You used to wonder about the wheres and hows
But you live it up like you’re immortal now
Tall tales and taller denials, the myth of a sick romance
Myopic, solipsistic, three-penny sycophants
Tripping over one another, genuflect to you
Who would even say if they suspected it was true that…
Some things are better left unsaid
And some things are better left for dead
But nobody wants to tell the dirty truth around here
You’re always talking with your mouth full
Half-baked theories so impossible to swallow
Cook up something we can follow
Something borrowed, something blue
So persuasive and confused
All you ever want to do is suffer… so you suffer
Drop dead destructive, deep down dangerous
Shape up, ship out, ship shape, shoot straight with us
Pale petty propaganda poised like a Pulitzer Prize
Return repent rejoice relax and realize
You never had to prove yourself in anybody’s eyes
Never were the quickest one to ever realize it
13. California Gothic
Were you high
When you told her you were leaving?
She didn’t cry
She might had she been surprised
She clicked the locks behind ya
What do you do
When two wrongs make a baby?
Do you run
’Til you feel like you’re someone else?
You let the sun and the tequila warm ya
In California
Tarantula-ed
In the backseat of a limo
From LAX to the Santa Monica Pier
Refracted lights adorn ya
In California
California screaming
Like the Manson family on your own front lawn
Six months gone
The devil’s in the details
Caution tape and hangers-on
All the scheming and scene-ing and scroungin’ and drownin’
In California
Fentanyl and a six-pack of amnesia
You submerge
Like a Soviet submarine
You whisper dasvidaniya
To California