Waiting for the phone to ring I can hear the mockingbirds sing “You’re out of it and you’re out of touch. Stop trying to make it all mean so much.” Rack my mind. Thoughts just grind. Soul to keep, no time to sleep. Toss and turn, emotions burn. Hunt them down, they can’t be found. The stale motions that bring them praise I sit back appalled and amazed. Their diarrhea pays their rent. I suppose they’re quite content. Rack my mind. Thoughts just grind. Soul to keep, no time to sleep. Purge myself. Destroy my health. Books and bottles knocked off of the shelf. A little nonsense never hurt you, but shallowness is not a virtue. Dueling in the marketplace Marking time and taking up space. You can talk about nothing all night. I’ll shut my mouth till I can say it right. I get too candid for my own good. Sometimes I don’t equivocate like I should. I cast my mind to long gone days When there was more around to take my breath away. Rack my mind for words I can’t find. I don’t even care if they rhyme. I can’t plug gaps with bullshit lines. It just won’t work, no, not this time. I can’t mark time. I’ve got no time.

If the first shall be last and the last shall be first Do the ones in the middle just get bored? Do they have to change their seats? Is their station incomplete? Are they the ones who get ignored? Well I had a talk with God and I found him rather odd He's such a quiet guy You would think in all this time he'd come up with one good line Just to show you that he tried If the devil wants your soul and you owe it to him whole Just say his shoe's untied You'd be surprised how well it works as he's staring at the dirt And you will never die.

You told me I had to have fear, but didn’t mention why. Why give advice when you don’t know what’s true? We’re so far from anywhere else with so much to prove. Couldn’t go back even if we could turn around, there’s nothing left to go back to. Drive on into the dark. Will we all fall over the edge of the world? If I could walk away, search for something higher, with my soul intact and my head on fire, would we all fall over the edge of the world? I’ll take you all over the edge of the world.

Laudanum and terror don’t mix all that well. One warm ticket to dreamland through a thick fog of Hell. I sharpen up my knives and laugh just to keep wide awake And remember all the exits when I don’t know what’s at stake. Venus, Mars and Jupiter Shed your lovely light on her. A queen’s ransom she’d fulfill For extra-planetary swill. It’s creeping up behind. There’s something wrong that she cannot explain But she knows it when she sees it. Now I’m hungry, tired and weak. I’d gladly turn the other cheek. Best not catch me rested and fed. I’d rather see you all were dead. Somebody sent me up to Cripple Creek, but said I could stay there for just one week. I danced all night and I slept in the sun. When it was over, I was finally ready to have fun. Sweated out the poison. Bought a brand new skin. But the jailer woke me up to the same old sin. It’s creeping up behind. I can’t spell it out for you in 25 words or less Ah, but trust me, yeah trust me. It’s looming up ahead. It’s creeping up behind. Confused, dissatisfied, all twisted up inside. Don’t leave me alone here. Please leave me alone.

The man with the loudest voice Surely must have the most to say And all of it means more, you know, If you hear it on the radio He puts his finger on the pulse Crushes it till it turns blue And if they amputate the hand It must not have belonged on you Drown me out, speak your mind Stroke yourself till you go blind Call the shots, fire away Do you win if I don’t play? Grand Inquisitor takes a stand For the ““real people” of this land, yeah, You can tell which ones are real because They’re the ones he never interrupts. In the free market of ideas Who’s that down there tearing up the field? It’s the man with the loudest voice As if we ever had a choice Drown me out, speak your mind Stroke yourself till you go blind Call the shots, fire away Do you win if I don’t play? See those teeth that brightly shine Just another mouth in a long long line We’ve endured a lot from the likes of you No doubt we’ll endure this too.

You have treated her unkind When you romanticized her mind And made unreasonable demands To be the things nobody can She will always let you down Now you think you sing the blues For everything she's done to you But they fade away from sight When you put them to the light She will always let you down Don't you miss the good old days When you always had your way You never understood the girl You wouldn't last one day as her. She will always "let you down"

Can you explain yourself? Can you justify your hate? Itemize your prejudices Clean them up and make them shine Assemble the shards…glue them together Call it a world view Someone might follow you And maybe if you’re lucky They’ll bring their friends around too Call it a party…call it a calling Tapping into that vacant goldmine. And if you were born on the other side You’d be lifting your sword for the other side 12th century fools holding 21st century tools This is the mosque, this is the temple The enemy’s inside, it’s all so simple Tortured, raped and killed for living on the wrong side of the hill But I digress…tell us all about your cause. Can you create a myth? Some heroes and some villains Treacheries, ancestral sins Buried in the distant past A secret pledge…a secret handshake Somebody’s got to pay They made you live this way Subhuman obstacles to a new and brighter day The time is now, and you know just how You’re a leader of men with a sacred vow And if you were born on the other side You’d be lifting your sword for the other side The more you lie the higher you can fly This is the church, this is the steeple Open up that door, slaughter all the people A nation moves as one and time moves backwards when you’re having fun. Are you proud of the history you are making When you look in the eyes of your victims Oh, it must make you feel something.

I lost my way

On a rolling highway I took my car Got off in Texas, thought, "gone too far". I let my hair down, I drank a beer Laid down in the tall green grass and thought, "far from here." Well I've gone too far, well I've gone too far Well I've gone too far, yeah, yeah, gone too far. I took my dress off, it was far too hot Felt the heat, was drenched in thunder Far from here, far from here...

I take the needle to the thread And tie the knot as best I can Between the spirit and the flesh Until it comes apart again Fade away, I never knew you all All is said and done Have you thrown it all away Sacrificed all that you can For the smallest crust of bread From a strange and fickle hand Fade away, I never knew you at all All is said and done.

Picture the spring of ’72 Fourteen and a half and friendless I was a target from day one I liked the idea of a universe with justice Eating lunch alone as usual Two fairly cute girls come up to me Would I like to go to a meeting on the hill I was so bored, I said OK In a circle sitting on logs A crowd of friendly hip young people Seemingly unbound by the social rules Open hearts and big bright smiles I was greeted with warm affection They understood my disillusionment With the church and the human race They had a better way Hark the herald angels sing, hello misfits of the world Just how far will you go to end your loneliness? What odious club will you join? What ideals will you espouse Just so you could have someone to talk to? I was no stranger to spirits I did not belive that death was the end Once I heard the cool, calm voice of God When I was hyperventilating I was not a sucker for dogma But Jesus Christ, my soul was starving And these people all seemed to nice And their ecstatic joy was contagious So I got picked up at home in the evening And whisked away to a plain downtown building They served spaghetti and we sang and prayed Insisting all the while that they were not a church A man got up and said that he’d seen great things Great changes brought about by Jesus He’d seen hippies who’d cut off all their hair He’d seen surfers throw away their boards Hark the herald angels sing, hello misfits of the world Just how far will you go to end your loneliness? What odious club will you join? What ideals will you espouse Just so you could have something to belong to? (Secret evil backmasking:) “Yad yb yad ylraen erom eeht wollof dna Ylraed erom eeth evol, ylraelc erom eeth ees ot Yarp I sghiht eerht, Drol raed ho Yad yb yad, yad yb yad.” I prayed every night for God to impress me I couldn’t let down my great new friends I prayed for Jesus to come and convince me That he played by these people’s rules This went on for about a month As a war raged on inside me Striving to improve and purify myself While a screaming inner voice grew louder. How could I be saved if I had not sinned yet? How could I judge a life I had not lived yet? I read the fine print and the void burst open The ball and chain at the end of the rainbow I turned my back on the gates of Eden I expelled myself from paradise I took my chances with the lake of ire It’s my party and I’ll burn in Hell if I want to! Hark the herald angels sing, hello misfits of the world Just how far will you go to end your loneliness? What odious club will you join? What ideals will you espouse Just so you could have something to live for?

We will stay a while on this tiny stone And for this moment we will call it home I can't help but wonder if this is the end Or just a taste of what we'll have again How would you like to float away? You may ask of me what I really am And I will answer if I think I can But we were brought together by coincidence And we can only dream of what it meant How would you like to float away?

How does it feel to be the one They’re always talking about? To be the name on everybody’s lips? And all your slogans are suddenly hip? How does it feel to be so green And so closely observed? They know your routine before your voice is heard How does it feel to be a household word? This is the arena where we work out all our traumas Where we cut ourselves open and make fools of ourselves Over and over again. How does it feel to be the next flavor of the month? A confrontational caricature? Someone that anyone can sum up? How would it feel to hear people say they knew you when Before your image went to your head? They’ll call you on everything you’ve said. How will it feel when your ideals have become an act? A parody of the scars on your heart? You’re set in stone before you even start. This is the arena where we foist our primal agony on the public But you shouldn’t act so arrogant Because the papers love to make you look stupid How does it feel?

I’m in the corner, sucking on a lemon Trying to put a curse on the marching band The trumpet players’ lips get stuck The drums implode and the flags curl up I’m in the corner, sucking on a lemon. A salamander slithers into the spotlight A creature slimy enough to thrive in hellfire He’s come to save us from ourselves I can’t wait to see my cell All aboard for the tent city in the desert Suddenly all we see is you Philosopher king of the evening news The channel changes when you wave your wand This land is your land, we just work here! Human social nature abhors a vacuum Vote for Satan, at least he stands for something I can see the future: a 500 foot high marquee It flashes one single word over and over: COLLAPSE COLLAPSE COLLAPSE COLLAPSE The wind is insane tonight, just hear it roar Hurling fat tree limbs into my front door But the rain falls so gently in the midst of it all And neither one cares a bit what you or I think. Rage is all the rage, in the ’90s rage is money The righteous fury of a baby who won’t share his toys It’s so easy to climb those charts It’s so easy to win those votes Selling pointless phony blind cheap stupid powerless anger (And while we’re on the subject…) Everybody digs it when you’re angry After all, anger is a vital component of rock and roll But dare to tie that anger To something that actually matters And Americans will hate you and tell you you’re too preachy We’re so cute, we’re so cute when we’re angry We’re so cute, we’re so cute when we’re angry And by itself that’s nothing, absolutely nothing We’re so cute, we’re so cute when we’re angry.

Child typing on a gramophone Unaccustomed to the speed at which the ribbon flows A little something for the foreign son Translated from the native tongue A package deal at a higher price A guaranteed facsimile of something nice Look at everything staying up Said the juggler as another dropped Fall start run it into the ground See the woman with the tired hand Catch the only seat on an empty train and hide away A message written on steamed up glass Condensation from a struggle that became a fray Tear away West Portal green If only sleep then you will never dream Buried deep in domestic bliss It's only dark from the sound of it Fall start run it into the ground Goodbye.

All of the medicine that used to nurture and sustain you When did it turn into the poison that burns out and drains you? Confront yourself at night, you lie in bed awake alone What do you really want to be? Man, you’re not even close. What now? You played your party trick Pulled out the rug and left me standing So I’ll shake your hand one last time As I slip into the quicksand What now?