Lyrics

I
A drink that makes me miss the way it tasted when I'd earned it
Is like a song I played for you before I thought I learned it
So Proof read the words that have to end up being louder
Don't shoot me, seemingly I'm not worth the powder

Coward

Chorus
Even though I know I'm here to practice
Every underwater world can't be Atlantis
An hour of waterworks sure set me free
I'm closing down the town, drowning the key
I'm deepsea diving, don't come looking for me

II
Frantic, singers singing songs that talk of dancing
Entrancing, a princess missing times when she was rancid
Believe me, I know you know I know your help is needed
But maybe you don't know that you're the one who needs it

So Squeamish

I

A boatswain, the hard kind
loved to see the sights
Subpar to semi-hard
soon to seem quite bright
Now the way he drives reminds him how he sailed
A dreary dream has lost his gaze and bailed

Chorus
So he became a bite sized messiah
All the tales of cocktail pies
Searching for lost alibis
Always too too big to sacrifice

II
You claim land, burn the sand
And treat the trees as toys
A matchbox man, hungry as
A teenage buzzard-boy
The lions that he tames
Are pawns in perverse games
seeking gasoline as he's in flames

Chorus
Know he became a bite sized messiah
All these tales of cocktail pies
Using songs as alibis
Always too too big to sacrifice

III
I gain sight in the dead of night
I fish for therapy
Rewind my assembly line
Grind out hopes and dreams
If hope for change is healing
The choir helps me believe in
A purpose every tainted soul must need

Chorus
Hope I don't become a bite sized messiah
All the tales of cocktail pies
Searching for lost alibis
Always too too big to sacrifice

I
That's all she wrote you said
But why'd you burn it then?
I spared you, why can't you spare me?
I didn't get mad because
our lives just seemed to pause
and I didn't find it to be ordinary

Chorus
When my night ends and
The laughs begin and
It burns when you blow kisses
When I leave the room with
Nothing left to prove then
It burns when you blow kisses

II
My pain's your beer because
Beer is free of flaws and
Beer is all that I can care for
Sometimes you morph into
What I must break in two and
The way things were is waiting at your door

Chorus
When my talk stings and
I say stubborn things then
It burns when you blow kisses
If you'll find someone new then
I will find out who when
It burns when you blow kisses

III
Cursed by a coin toss ghost
I tend to lose the most
Most of me is used to haunting you
An empty bathroom stall
waiting for your tears to fall
I know cause open doors let noises through

Chorus
When my gratitude is
brittle as the bitter truth then
It'll burn when I blow kisses
But till the tables turn I'll
stand knee deep in yearning
It burns when you blow kisses

I

No wonder there's a party in the third

The wagon of the founder of the firm

While a hundred thousand horses and a mule

never been so eager to be groomed

Panic melts over my room

Chorus

Sad and funny simultaneous how that waterlily stung me

As the jellyfish kept wondering

Like the butcher born and bred a priest

Never did I utter a cry for the here ever after

but that butterfly laughter

Is what I'll want to think about the least

II

Our oven resembles a turd

It's what they thought we'd earned

The saver-satin seating in the back

Is further from the end of the track

And takes us there the last

Chorus

Sad and funny simultaneous how we use the same revolver

This isn't what I ordered

Your freakshow friends will faithfully help you feast

Never did I utter a cry for the here ever after

but that butterfly laughter

Is what I'll want to think about the least

Bridge

Water's but a witness when they break the

mare

Porky's still a pig, pay the ticket fare

A big hunk of mutton was the lord's best lamb

A toy dog's

tooth will taste the flesh of man

I
What awaits is better than what you gave
Martha was told by her kid
Feeling right below the weather that day
The final drop disappeared

Come drowning time
She was fine

Chorus
For a second there
she was permanently satisfied
Now the rules were fair
The harder times were a compromise
Your daily dose of dire actions
Everybody's got their backs turned
For Cindy's confession

II
Someone said saliva equals love
and caring is the same as caress
Martha's husband knew a Cindy once
Cindy feels a need to confess

Just one time
So it's fine

Bridge
Imagine only seeing behind the candelabra
Martha greets another floor tile
Learn what you will, what you think is real
Confessions make a sin feel mild

I

From oven to oven
For graciousness sake
I've written as much as
Reading would take
Hours are heavy
when promises made weigh a ton
Hours you spent on care
to make sure I know you don't

Chorus
A workday's worth of worn out
Isn't what you're supposed to be
It's firewater to a coldmouth man
like yours truly
Bow at the fine man's greed
Cause you never knew me

II
Coldmouth was born in
A town of filth and shame
Grew up to be so skinny
his head got smaller than his brain
His words never knew a when
His heart sure knew its where
some anti somethings broke his nose
when tilted the bucket on his head
walked up to them and said

I

Jeremiah Teague from Teague's antiques
set fire to the store as he headed for the door
For the owner, now former, of Teague's antiques
Is to be a better man than ever before

Tie up smokerings, get the clouds to line up
break the piggybank, go say 'porky your time's up'
Respect the soil til you become the ground
Dirt's what makes the dirt folk proud
It's all they know, the dirt folks

II
Bo didn't eat, a day became a week
A few pounds lighter and he just liked the feeling
He counts his grapes now as they number his days
It doesn't matter cause he's not a girl nor teenage

Feed to be fed, swallow your pride and then some
Make sense of why self control is handsome
Respect the soil til you become the ground
Dirt's what makes the dirt folk proud
It's all they know, the dirt folks

III
Heidi signed the paper to indulge in a sense of danger,
replace her husband with a younger stranger
But Bo brought boredom, til the day she last called him
'I miss her' were the last words Bo had spoken

Jeremiah fled, Heidi Teague forgotten
Never to be wed, his life alone is rotten
He respects the soil til he becomes the ground
Dirt's what makes the dirt folk proud
It's all they know, the dirt folks

I

My deer fell to its death to name our town
Greet my herms, though they seldom greet me now
Against my window, you left a trace
A scarf I weave for empty space

Chorus
A cricket choir knows my repertoire's lows,
the utter insignificance of passion grows. And so
My pen bleeds
On feathers in the street

II
The prologue used to be my crystal ball
Now the back of the book tells it all
Drowning dreamers of dried up dreams
The chestnut choices the season needs

III
I smell buns, bitter coffee, I smell fear
What if my wounded bird is like that deer?
Sleepless London tastes like tea
What shifts a town here should alter me

I
Self hatred is a block of stone a prisoner will turn to gravel
Self hatred is a dirty road I know that I can't travel
Does make a bad man out of me?
Seven hundred dirty sins I carry in my rucksack
Seven hundred sharpened pins in a life without a laugh track
Does that make a sad sight out of me?

Chorus
When you see a horse for hire
Find him an underdog
Then a friendly horse for hire
Made him a friend at the marketplace today
And today just happened to be a better day

II
Red, white, the two unite when a street lamp fights the twilight
The worker bee as weak as me, an underdog in her own right
Why not embrace all that exhaust?
A cliché to go and say this dog's not what she's used to
It's a shame that she's a dame to whom I can't seem truthful
We're the same but I suffer at my own cost

I

Another day whistles by with not a care
So wet and wide, a begger's eyes, dissatisfied
And a tape recorder is my biggest fan
An earthly promise to the promised land

Chorus
I'm fearing I will be
Sighting a pyramid
and thinking all I see
is just a yellow building
But I'm not keen on trying to sit and sing
Of how I'm not keen on changing how I think

II
A mortal mind, the tinted kind, requires rest
But seldom lines, the straightened kind, can weaken tides
To be soulful is to be what's closest to whole.
When I sink, so will my thoughts and my soul

Chorus
I'm guessing it'll be
Wielding Excalibur
And deeming it to be
Handy when spreading butter
And I'm not keen on trying to sit and sing
Of how I'm not keen on changing how I think

I feel it over me, I feel it under me

A Lilac’s Tears

I

The lilacs are crying as I walk along a road that winds

Along my desperation like a journey so divine

Blossoms pink and white through radiant lights 

If the wind could heal all that I feel, I'd need more than a sigh

Chorus I

Darling won't I represent the darkest of your fears

Darling will I remind you of a Lilac's tears?

Out of spite I'll go and write a song you'll never hear

I'll listen for the melodies hidden in a lilac's tears

II

You've forgotten who I am, footprints hidden under sand

Like a pedal steel of love that's playing its lonely twang

The C G F is forever grand, a guitar should cut through the land

Oh the songs we would hear if the lilacs formed a band

Chorus II

Darling won't I represent the darkest of your fears

Darling will I be like a lilac's tears? 

Each night we'll eat our dinners in silence, my dear

We'll take turns in chewing as you drink a cup of lilac's tears

III

Lovers lives together end, whether apart or around the bend

The taste of your first love's lips a memory will lend

A single man is blessed with shame, a single woman is never tame

I'm afraid of losing you and wine flows through a wish for fame

Chorus III

Darling will I represent the darkest of your fears?

Darling will I be like a lilac's tears?

I tend to cry when lilacs bloom as I song I can hear

Mistakenly I listen to the sound of a lilac's tears

I
I find myself asking from time to time
Should I wait for a change? Am I yet to find fame?
I'm easy to pick on cause weaknesses
are my stock and trade, I'm self-made

I'm a know it all
I've seen loss and shadows, I've seen it all
I'm gonna greet the gallows and I won't bawl
Push me, I'll fall

II
I find myself leaping from line to line
Should I broaden my range? Am I searching for shame?
My dignity is draining me of hollowness
It wallows in waves and spells my name

I've planned it all
I apologize that I can't make it legible
I'll crumble when you lean, I'm not a good wall
Push me, I'll fall

III
Like a wise old chief in a wigwam
Forsaken by the tribe, he seems paralayzed
Age means nothing, yet it's everything
To cling to, to make me a fool

My hidden flaws
The little things that you have deemed unbearable
I'll never hide them, I will make you bear em all
Push me, I'll fall

I

From the speed of sound to standing still
We left the truth at the bar&grill
A holiday can't be more than what it brings
Like the water that drowned the wishing well
The words wore out when looks could kill
I'm still no more than all the songs I sing

Chorus
I observe as you struggle to run this sacred land
As I run my mouth to hear it go,
Little miss Misunderstand
You don't run the firm, you just bought the brand
So run while you still can, little miss misunderstand

II
Below the middle like a big bass fiddle
Mr Misunderstood is wrapped in riddles
Keep on counting on him always counting on you
Few are bald when their life does halt
He couldn't find a hat to hide the scars
being in a band only counts if he can sing

Bridge
You taught them what you thought you knew about the faults you found in me
The fire on the float is a flash of the fellow who's lost his dignity

I
She talks to a willow's branch
And never her son, because of his past
Forgiveness is a frantic task
The values she taught are all that she has

She sees the world in a sepia light
Through sepia glasses, a sepia mind
Bronze and brown now ivory white
Protecting each thought of a sepia kind

II
Vegas was the wild-man's wart
Remember his mom and all that she taught?
The deck of cards is a glock
Now that his god is all that he's got

He sees the world in a sepia light
Rolling those bones and thinking of dice
Hope she's proud of his sepia mind
Keeping him going in a sepia fight

III
Take my all or all that you need
Desire my blue and desire my green
And so I vow for as long as I breathe
to keep in my heart your sepia dreams

I

I feel stripped naked of all my lies 

It's unsettling to witness 

No more need for devious plans 

And I've never felt so heartless

When all I had were stories to tell

I felt much more protected 

And as they think I'd feel at ease

My brain's twice as infected 

Chorus

Sometimes my mind being empty's worse

than grabbing the wheel on my very own hearse 

Sometimes my thoughts and reckless ways

Would smile at me and lie to my face

II

The copper buckle and the cool shirt

are my proudest of posessions

The moon-shaped trinket on the floor

Was an apology for agression

But you found out what I had said

To keep my mind at ease some more

And now I can no longer think 

Of how not to make you sore 

Chorus

Sometimes saying what I couldn't mean

would masquerade as everything that I might need

Sometimes everything I loved to chase

would smile at me and lie to my face

III

If bluntness was to talk of love

then lies were what to live for

All I did was paraphrase 

And wiped my feet at your door

A nickel a day and a tear at night

We never could talk business

I wrote the message on a wall

And you still need a witness 

Chorus

Sometimes you take us two as one

Each time I promise myself we're done

Sometimes my unconditional love 

will smile at you and lie to your face

I

A prophet of malaise
knocked on my door again last night
Nothing to hear of
But a sight to behold for knife-struck eyes
The drink I made for him I quite despise
But the soundtrack to my life became his whine

Chorus
Set on them withering smithereens
Riding that terrible timing steed
He looks like where life leads
But the dreaded time-chameleon likes me

II
Licking the frosting
of a memory's the perfect weight loss plan
My only friend is hanging
By a thread that's so thin it cut my hand
It's time he picked on someone his own size
The name of my guest might be my demise

Chorus
Set on them withering smithereens
See how I sodomize how I seem
I live a pipe-type dream
And the dreaded time-chameleon likes me

III
So we got to talking
You should hear the profound things my guest could say
The wit of Stephen Hawking
And he sins just twice a week but not today
Attentiveness just seems to be the key
Chameleon, give me your therapy

Chorus
Set on them withering smithereens
Painting the murkiest landscapes green
He smokes the breath I need
Cause the dreaded time-chameleon likes me

I
I'm making up a town for Monday morning
Knowing full well it'll wash away
Fine folks, like mine, like the town they live in
bow at the trash that we throw their way

II
The sweepers, up and down, give fair warning
as black and white cover up the gray
The sweeper wears a gown of leatherbound silver
Step up son, you got a debt to pay

Chorus
Like a child's chalk on asfalt
Still life will drift apart
The finest of fine lines will be washed away
The fake in a taker's tears
A mouthful of malice to the maker's ears
We'll crumble a couple at a time
come the washaway

III
A guy named Cal was taught by his father
That stolen food has a bitter taste
Calamander's old man got promoted to an angel
Hoping his son would learn a trade

Chorus II
But like a child's chalk on asfalt
Cal's life just fell apart
washed away
The fake in a taker's tears
A mouthful of malice to the maker's ears
We'll crumble a couple at a time
come the washaway

Bridge
Cal did well doing other people's laundry
But here you just can't compete that way
The sweeper swept Calamander's family
So Cal washed his very own life away