Again a Game... Again

Take my hand
Colors seem so black inside your head
Does everything reflect the time you spend?

So tired of thinking
You hide your face
Don't ask me to excuse

...

Save your words
They're never there for those who try
A stranger in a world, no longer mine

Sometimes I'm feeling used
I'll change my place
I'd sooner be excused

...

There are times, I confess, I'm not easy to accept
So come find, I'll react
I'm a reason to be there

I'm only laughing...

-- Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) 1984

Reason or Rhyme

Why must you shed such tender tears
In the evening of your years?
No other love could stem the tide
Of the loneliness I hide.
Open your heart and let me live!

No reason or rhyme, by chance or design...
Just a dance to the music of time.

-- Bryan Ferry (2010)

The Garden

The arrow flies when you dream

The hours tick away, the cells tick away
The Watchmaker keeps to his schemes
The hours tick away....

 

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect
So hard to earn, so easily burned
In the fullness of time, a garden to nurture and protect

 

In the rise and the set of the sun
'Til the stars go spinning 'round the night
It is what it is

And forever, each moment a memory in flight

 

-- Neil Peart (Rush) 2012

Time

Time speaks with golden words
When there's nothing to be heard
Hides behind the stars
Silver in the night
Lies in the coming light

Time living with today
In a lonely way
She whispers never a surprise
She won't tell you why

Time speaks her golden tongue
And when everything is done
She lies to no one

-- Screaming Trees (1990)

Heartland

See the sun rise over her skin.
Dawn changes everything...
Everything.
And the delta sun
Burns bright and violet.

Mississippi and the cotton wool heat.
66 -- a highway speaks
Of deserts dry,
Of cool green valleys,
Gold and silver veins
Of the shining cities.

In this heartland...
In this heartland soil.

See the sun rise over her skin,
She feels like water in my hand.
Freeway like a river cuts through this land
Into the side of love
Like a burning spear.

And the poison rain
Brings a flood of fear
Through the ghost ranch hills.
Death valley waters
In the towers of steel.
Belief goes on and on.

-- Bono (U2) 1988

buried by the blues

Absolved forever into the darkest shades,
I'll vanish from the light to the still-calling me
Enslaved forever or buried by the blues?
Wear your wounds like a soldier; and let your ghosts run loose

Exploding waves, you wish you could belong
A piper at the gates to steal you from the dawn
No suicide could ever change your fate
Fold your hands in reply beneath the trembling rain

Against the night, you will rise and set your body free
Frontier of light, you desire to let your body sleep
Away from the static and noise
Away from the bombs and the war

-- Stephen McBean (Black Mountain) 2010

The King is Half Undressed

Blue Autumns
Sunshine Kisses
Hearts and Flowers
Broken Wishes

-- Roger Manning / Andy Sturmer (Jellyfish) 1990

destiny

veins are shaped like lightning,
like the roots of a tree,
and like rivers that flow down to the sea.
-- melissa swingle (trailer bride) 2003

crossed out name

I kiss her mouth, and I know
For everything there is a word.
For everything but this.

I like the dresses, the shoes, and the clothes
And everything you know that goes
With loving a girl, I suppose.

I wish I could tell you just how I'm hurt.
Pinpoint the location -- it's in another universe.
When I close my eyes, I see a fire so plain
And my crossed-out name.

-- Ryan Adams (2008)

Apparitions

In the night, we'd run around in the streets
jacked up on life in hell.
Thunder love has struck us again;
we're apparitions of a sinful spell.

Elude the harsh reality of our lives,
we saw tears and tragedy.
We joined a pack of rebel angels at night
like apparitions of an infantry.

Let's get out of here.
I want you to come along.

In the sunless days of war,
I was a young pilot strewing death.
I see tears in frightened eyes;
put them to sleep 'til I was out of breath.

A silhouette of jealousy in the sky,
I took revenge on love nightly.
I'll take a hard look back someday
and deny we're apparitions of sympathy.

-- Sune Rose Wagner (Raveonettes) 2011

Minstrel in the Gallery

The minstrel in the gallery looked down upon the smiling faces.
He met the gazes -- observed the spaces between the old mens' cackle.
He brewed a song of love and hatred -- oblique suggestions -- and he waited.

Then he called the band down to the stage, and he looked at all the friends he'd made.
The minstrel in the gallery looked down on the rabbit-run.
And threw away his looking glass -- saw his face in everyone.

-- Ian Anderson / Martin Barre (Jethro Tull) 1975

Lazy Afternoon

It's a lazy afternoon
And the beetle bugs are zooming
And the tulip trees are blooming
And there's not another human in view
But us two

It's a lazy afternoon
And the farmer leaves his reaping
And the meadow cows are sleeping
And the speckled trout stop leaping upstream
As we dream

A far pink cloud hangs over the hill
Unfolding like a rose
If you hold my hand and sit real still
You can hear the grass as it grows

It's a hazy afternoon
And I know a place that's quiet
Except for daisies running riot
And there's no one passing by it to see
Come spend this lazy afternoon with me

-- John Latouche / Jerome Moross (1954)

shock the monkey

fox the fox.  rat on the rat
you can ape the ape -- i know about that
there is one thing you must be sure of -- i can't take any more
don't you monkey with the monkey
-- peter gabriel (1982)

Science of Imaginary Solutions

High as the moon, deep as an ocean
You fall apart, the pieces hit the ground
I pick up all your inventions
But your science keeps you from being so
-- Autolux (2010)

daydreaming

Think of a place I would go.
To where the sycamore grow.
I’m daydreaming
And oh, if you knew what it meant to me
To be where the air was so clear.
Oh, if you knew what it meant to me.
Anywhere but here.
-- Nona Marie Invie / Marshall LaCount (Dark Dark Dark) 2010

Precious

Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you

If God has a master plan
That only He understands
I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through

-- Martin Gore (Depeche Mode) 2005 

pineapple head

detected as flat
no longer is always flat out
got the number of the getaway car
didn't get very far

as lucid as hell, these images
moving so fast like a fever
so close to the bone
I don't feel too well

sleeping alone for pleasure
the pineapple head it spins and it spins
like a number I hold
don't remember if she was my friend
it was a long time ago

and if you choose to take that path
I will play you like a shark
and I'll clutch at your heart
I'll come flying like a spark to inflame you

-- Neil Finn (Crowded House) 1993

Desire Lines

When you were young, and your excitement showed
But as time goes by, is it outgrown?
Is that the way things go -- forever reaching for the gold?
Forever fades black and comes up cold.

Walking free. Come with me. Far away. Everyday.

When you were young, you never knew which way you'd go.
What once was grace, now undertows.
"Well everyday do what you can,
and if you let them turn you 'round
whatever goes up, must come down."

-- Bradford Cox (Deerhunter) 2010

sunken waltz

washed my face in the rivers of empire.
made my bed from a cardboard crate
down in the city of quartz.

no news, no new regrets.
tossed a susan b. over my shoulder,
and prayed it would rain and rain --
submerge the whole western states.
call it a last fair deal
with an american seal
and corporate handshake.

take the story of carpenter mike --
dropped his tools and his keys and left
and headed out as far as he could
past the city's gated neighborhoods.
he slept 'neath the stars,
wrote down what he dreamt,
and he built a machine
for no one to see,
then took flight
first light of new morning.

-- Joey Burns / John Convertino (Calexico) 2003

what if this storm ends?

What if this storm ends, and I don't see you
As you are now ever again?
The perfect halo of gold hair and lightning
Sets you off against the planets' last dance.
Just for a minute, the silver-forked sky
Lifts you up like a star that I will follow.
But now it's found us like I have a found you.
I don't want to run -- just overwhelm me.
-- Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol) 2008