Dog Boy Van

Dan Bern Dog Boy Van Lyrics
1.Jerusalem

When I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love don't test my love
Cause maybe I don't love you all that much

Don't ask what kind of music I'm gonna play tonight
Just stay awhile
Hear for yourself awhile
And if you must put me in a box
Make sure it's a big box
With lots of windows
And a door to walk through
And a nice high chimney
So we can burn burn burn
Everything that we don't like
And watch the ashes
Fly up to Heaven
Maybe all the way to India
I'd like that

All the ancient kings came to my door
They said, 'Do you want to be an ancient king too?'
I said, 'Oh yes, very much
But I think my timing's wrong'
They said, 'Time is relative
Or did you misread Einstien?'
I said, 'Do you really mean it?'
They said, 'What do you think we come here for
Our goddamn health or something?'

Everybody's waiting for the messiah
The Jews are waiting
The Christians are waiting
Also the Muslims
It's like everybody's waiting
They've been waiting a long time
I know how I hate to wait
Like even for a bus or something
An important phone call
So I can imagine
How darned impatient
Everybody must be getting

So I think it's time now
Time to reveal myself
I am the Messiah
I am the Messiah
I am the Messiah

Yes, I think you heard me right
I am the Messiah
I was gonna wait till next year
Build up the suspense a little
Make it a really big surprise
But I could not resist
It's like when you got a really big secret
You're just bursting to tell someone
It was kinda like that with this
And now that I've told you
I feel this great weight lifted
Dr. Nusbaum was right
He's my therapist
He said get it out in the open

I spent ten whole days in Jerusalem
Mmmm Jerusalem
Sweet Jerusalem
And all I ate was olives
Nothing but olives
Mountains of olives
It was a good ten days
I like olives
I like you too

So when I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love
Don't test my love
'Cause maybe I don't love you all that much


2.Kurt

When Kurt Cobain blew out his brain
All the little girls
They cried like rain
And as for me I felt the pain
But I got no T-shirts left to stain
For Kennedy and Jesse James
And Joan of Arc and Kurt Cobain

You can hear them crying down the lane
From Portland to Maryland
From Greece to Spain
As my life drips like coffee down the drain
My eyes dry up like a rusty chain
So Kennedy and Jesse James
Will have to cry for Kurt Cobain

It's a hard life and no one's to blame
When God's not on the morning train
If Cain don't kill Abel, Abel kills Cain
And tears now shed are shed in vain
For Kennedy and Jesse James
And Joan of Arc and Kurt Cobain

There's three new roses growin' in the lane
It was a long hard winter, but now there's rain
If you want my tears tell me your name
Give me you hand let me feel your pain
But for Kennedy and Jesse James
There's Joan af Arc and Kurt Cobain


3.Hannibal

Let the niggers burn down nigger town
Step aside for burning and looting
But if they set foot in Beverly Hills
Time brother, brother time to start shooting

Everything everybody has in their homes
Will be taken away next week Wednesday
And everything everybody ever believed
Will be disproved next week Friday

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

Hitler never hurt a soul
I read it in a book
That I finished up just this morning
I was happy and I just couldn't wait to tell the good news
To all of my dead uncles
When they tore down the Berlin wall
Everybody danced
But between what I feel and what I say
There's a thirty foot barbed wire fence

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

The world is one big cosmic joke
Played on me, I hear
As soon as I leave this room
All of you are going to disappear
Time begins to bend and shift
Maybe you haven't noticed
But just the other day a man in Washington state
Admitted killing Jesus

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

I'm six foot tall and 180 lbs
I can punch through a wall with my fist
But I don't understand how with just one kiss
You can wrap me around your finger
You can wrap me around your wrist

Everybody who has ever ever been alive
Is alive today in Georgia
As for the rest of us, I don't even know who we are
It's a mystery I guess

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

You see, everything I know, I learned from my dad
He learned it all from his
And his dad just happened to be
Wrong about everything

I'm going down to Hannibal
I'm gonna buy a new suit of clothes
I'm going to wear three neckties
You're going to help with the bows
You're going to help with the bows
You're going to help with the bows


4.Live Another Day

Sometimes I walk and wish LA
Was some small town near Monteray
I close my eyes and ask the Gods
To make those Cadillacs dusty dogs
I close my eyes and live
I close my eyes and live another day

Sometimes I think I'll melt away
And in the sidewalk cracks I'll stay
And who will notice, who will call
Whose life would change much, if at all
I close my eyes and live
I close my eyes and live another day

Another day so far
From the farms where I grew up
Another day, another day
From that single pair of eyes
That speak to me of home
Not another night alone

Another day is done
I lay my eyes to rest
There is food, I got a bed
There's a roof over my head

Sometimes I think that everyone
Really speaks a foreign tongue
Like I say X and you hear Y
But I push these thoughts from my mind
And close my eyes and live
I close my eyes and live another day

I close my eyes and live
I close my eyes and live another day


5.Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues

I don't know what made me go out that night
At that hour I'd have normally been in bed
But I found myself lookin' up at the sky
At a very bright light straight overhead
It flashed green
Then Red
Santa Claus colors

I stood there frozen in that light
Then I started hearin' this kind of whir
The lights got louder and the noise got brighter
And I felt a sudden chill
Brrrrrrrr
It was cold
I shouldn't have gone out without a coat
My mom was right again

Then this big old spaceship floated down
And hovered 3 feet above the Earth
Never been so scared in all my life
Could've given spontaneous birth
If I was a woman
And pregnant

Then these two little guys about 4 feet tallJumped off that
space age Greyhound bus
They grabbed me by the arms and said
'Start walking, Dan. You're coming with us'
Abduction
They didn't actually speak, but I understood 'em
Telepathy

They strapped me down to this metal crate
Took out the 35-foot long hose
They said 'Don't worry, this won't hurt'
Then they shoved that sucker up my nose
All the way up
I knew my nose way long, but this was a suprise

They examined me from head to toe
Stuck prods in every orifice
This cold gray box came and gave me a kiss
Then extracted a coupld of quarts of piss
I felt dehydrated

Then they waved this wand around my head
Said, 'Now we're reading your thoughts, you see
You got an awful lot of songs in there
Though it seems they're all in the key of G'
I said 'What about Marilyn? That's in D'
They said 'D flat, actually'
I said, 'Yeah, because I tune it down a half step
What about Hannibal?'
They said 'What about Hannibal?'
I said 'Well, technically, it's in G
But it's really a dropped D tuning capo'd up'
They said 'How come you don't play the harmonica more?'
I said 'How come I'm in a space ship
Talking to aliens about my act?'
They said, 'We'd rather talk physics
But you're illiterate there'
Couldn't argue

They dropped me somewhere in Brazil
Took a month to get back to the USA
When I told my friends what I'd been through
No one believe what I had to say
That sucked
It's to be expected, though
Most people think Hannibal's in straight tuning

Well, my life's back to normal now
I do the things I always do
'Cept once a week I meet with 12
Other folks who've been abducted too
I tell my story
They tell theirs
I don't believe them, though


6.Oklahoma

On the 19th day of April
In 1995
There was the worst car bombing
Near 200 people died

In Oklahoma City
On Wednesday nine o'clock
They struck the federal building
Took out near half the block

They thought it was an earthquake
Made trees and lightpoles bend
And folks thought they were seeing
The world about to end

It blew the building open
It lay there like a wound
Twisted pipes and wires
Silent like a tomb

Yeah, they blew the building open
And blew folks lives apart
Firefighters mumbling
And wondering where to start

They rushed out some survivors
But soon could only cry
And place the dead in caskets
And ask the dear lord why

Prayer for the missing
For daughters and for sons
Prayers for the souls of those
Who'd never heard a one

Kevin Small was lucky
His clock needed repair
He overslept an hour
His three-year old son was spared

But for too many others
The news was not so bright
One baby got her picture in the paper
Then she died

The President, he promised
They'd pay dearly for the blast
and all across the country
Flags were flying at half mast

Shock soon turned to anger
'Who would do this?' people said
And everyone suspicious
Had a price upon their head

They thought it was some Arabs
And folks began ton scream
'First tighten up the borders
Then hang 'em from a tree

This proves what we've been saying
'Bout our fair and gentle land
Nobody who did this
Could be an American'

The FBI got busy
Some drawings and some names
And everyone was looking
For someone else to blame

Some 50 hours later
Early Friday day
They found the man they wanted
In jail ten miles away

A so-called right extremist
A patriot government foe
An expert on explosions
And white as drive snow

When people heard the news they found it
Hard to understand
How could such a murderer
Come from our own land

But when we build walls and borders
From fear and hate and guns
The hatred turns around and
Strikes at everyone

Maybe now we'll understand
Maybe now we'll see
Superpatriots are seldom
Friends of you and me

They're scared and weak and cowards
And they think that with their guns
The ones they're most afraid of
Will turn around and run

But when we stand strong together
And let love enjoy its will
Misfortune can't defeat us
It makes us stronger still

Like on the 19th day of April
In 1995
A day all Oklahomans will
Remember all their lives