1.3,000 Miles
My name is robert wilson,
I'm from eau claire, wisconsin.
I've been living out of a
Suitcase now for fourteen days...
I walked the boulevard in hollywood,
I caught a vegas show that was no good --
Met a dancer there that starred in a broadway play.
But it's a lonely world from this greyhound,
Believe me, i've been here fourteen days.
Three thousand miles,
I've been here fourteen days,
Three thousand miles...
Now twenty-one is as good a guess as any age that i'd confess
to,
Let's just say i'm old enough to get away.
Back in school, i found the only written truth
On bathroom stalls and telephone booths.
I studied awhile, but college got in my way.
I've learned much more from the back of this greyhound,
Believe me, i've been here fourteen days.
Three thousand miles,
I've come a long, long way,
Three thousand miles...
Have you seen？
The world outside is turning --
And it's yours --
We were put here for the learning.
People talk to themselves on greyhounds,
Even the driver strains to hear
They tell the same forgotten story --
Will it fall on forgetful ears？
Down in houston on comes this woman
With two kids and a bottle of booze,
And she cracked them both like match heads
Whenever they ventured too close to her fuse.
And i sat with a girl from boston,
Playing cards for cigarettes.
I lost her name with the poker game,
But her name i will never forget --
You never forget the view from these windows,
Believe me, i've been here fourteen days...
Three thousand miles,
I've come a long, long way,
Three thousand miles...
2.Airplane Pilot
3.All Things Being The Same
She is searching for some form of salvation
In the corner of a bar down the street,
But the gin controls whole conversations
And plays magic tricks with her feet...
She gets up, falls down, breaks even,
Gets caught by the wrong mister right --
Hey, it's a hard town.
I wouldn't want to live in it --
But i wouldn't want to give up in it,
All things being the same...
Back home she's got these pictures on her mirror,
They frame her when she looks back at her face.
They tell her where she's been --
I'll tell you where she's going,
She's got her name on a stool down at eddie owen's place...
She drinks when romance brings her down.
Like the sight of blood is a wedding gown.
Bright lights and smoke fill up this space.
It's a crowded room, but still a lonely old place...
All her friends are nothing more than strangers,
Whose names are just words on a face .
If they bumped into her out on a sidewalk on some sunday,
They wouldn't recognize her outside of the place
4.Angel In Manhattan
Tell the man who repairs the wings for angels
That one has fallen among the mortals on bleeker street
I lent a hand, she looked up at the steeples
As if to blame them for the pavement beneath her feet
She said, 'i never much liked flying, but the job requires
trying
The hard part's avoiding buildings and concrete'
(chorus)
Spread the news, 'cause there's an angel in manhattan
Call out the paparazzi and the television crews
Let the people choose
Would a little faith come to harm them？
Print the headlines up in the new york daily news
It was just another day
Like any other, other day
A tuesday afternoon
I hailed a cab, a crowd gathered as it pulled beside us
And somebody tore at her wings, but i helped her safely inside
'i'm much obliged,' she said, but the driver he looked shaken
He said, 'you're fakin', lady, who's taking who for a ride'
But then we floated up over the traffic, she turned the radio to
static,
And she sang to him in billy holiday's sweet voice
(chorus)
Spread the news, 'cause there's an angel in manhattan
Call out the paparazzi and the the television crews
Hey if you choose
Would a little faith come to harm you？
Print the headlines up in the new york daily news
It was just another day
What will the mayor say？
'good afternoon'
We flew down the length of fifth avenue
She threw out miracles, it was a hysterical ride
And if the crowd on the sidewalk looked skeptical
She took the blue right out of their cynical eyes
'it's all in what you feel inside'
She shook the mayor's hand, and he declared
That he'd hold a press conference,
The fans and protesters blocked the stairs to city hall
'i'd like to thank you all,' he said
And when she stepped before the cameras
It felt like a trial, but she smiled as the questions were
called,
'what do you say to detractors, who claim you're just some
actor？'
She said, 'the question here, is 'do i believe in you？''
It was just another day
Like any other, other day
(chorus)
Spread the news, i saw an an angel fly from manhattan
In front of paparazzi, in front of television crews
And me i choose
I know a little faith wouldn't harm me
Despite what they print in the new york daily news
It was just another day
Like any other, other day
Like any day
5.Autobiography Of A Pistol
I'm a pistol, a forty-five,
I just shot two men in this hot-house dive.
Now i'm smoking - burning hot barrel of metal.
Believe it or not, i was bought by this guy named ray,
A card carrying member of the nra,
But he left me out in his car one day,
And now the finger on my trigger hasn't seen it's sixteenth
birthday.
Some things they never tell you when you're riding the assembly
line.
Like who'll be the hands to hold you and what's their state of
mind - -
Hey, i'm not much bigger than a pointed index finger.
So who am i to lay the blame？
I'm only here to cause some pain...
The sirens --
I can hear them, they're singing ...
They're singing my song,
'when the sun sets, i get upset --
Darkness fills me and i want to light up the world'...
Would you believe i've seen better days？
I starred in westerns and won rave reviews.
Now i sit on a shelf, tagged for judgment day.
I've got to change the jury's point of view.
You see, guns don't kill people, it's the bullets that do.
I said guns don't kill people, bullets do.
Yeah, the bullets do...
6.Changing Your Name
I judged the distance
To where you ran your hand through your hair
You were startled for an instant , you said,
'take me home,' and i paid the fare.
And you laughed the laugh of the innocent
As the cab cut a path in the street
As the world swept by with it's violence
I thought of the shelter we'd find in the sheets
In the sheets
Chorus
I never asked you for nothing like changing your name
I believed we had something here, but nothing ever came
Were you thrown by the language, by words that we said
When i told you i loved you
Did it get in the way？ get in the way？
You lit a candle,
Then you poured me a glass of port wine
I pulled the oven handle,
The air felt warm, the scent felt kind
And your kiss could heal like medicine
There ain't nothing that it can't overcome
But i could not lean on this evidence,
For fear you'd take the cure and run.
You would run...
Chorus
Cause love won't stop to
Think about the consequences
Turns a fool to stumbling
Over people's fences.
And the moon cut a frown over windy town
But you smiled as you pulled down the shade
And we turned a corner onto holy ground
And got lost in the love we made, that we made...
Chorus
Get in the way...
7.Conversation With A Ghost
I'll respond to you in letters
Sorry so slow, sorry so few
In a nutshell, i'm much better
So far the complaints i hear are few
So how have you been？ have you been to the races？
did you take my mother --
Is your sister in braces？
i wish i could've been there to see you through
Hey, are all those things you told me once still true？
Do you remember that time
It was cold in the park
You were running a race, i was there on a lark
Who would've thought
that new york could be such a small town
Margaret is tired,
Let's let her get some sleep
Bored with these letters,
Let her count her sheep
So goodbye love, goodbye love...
8.Did Galileo Pray？
When he looked
Into a starry sky upon jupiter,
With it's cold moons
Making their weary rounds.
Did he know that the pope
Would claim that he ran with lucifer
And a prison cell
Would be where he'd lay his head down？
Was he wearing a thorny crown？
When he plotted the motion of planets,
Was mercury in retrograde？
But he found the truth when a lie was what was demanded.
When the judges asked him pointedly
He was a' trembling that day.
Chorus
Did galileo pray？
Did galileo pray？
Did galileo pray？
Did galileo pray？
And he said,
'tell ptolemy, tell copernicus,
That the sun is at the core of us
The church, the pope
Can't deny the milky way
And every flower that follows the sun,
Has known all along
What god had done
They whisper truth
As the seasons each give way.
Don't shoot the messenger,
The postman delivers truth today.
And truth will march in birmingham
It will block the tanks in tiananmen.
Put the judges on the witness stand
Let's see what they all say.
Chorus
In the heavens you'll see it
As god has conceived it.
Oh, believe it.
Oh, what have you got to do to believe？
Don't shoot the messenger,
When the postman brings you truth today.
Because truth will march in birmingham
It will block the tanks in tiananmen
Put the judges on the witness stand,
Let's see what they all say.
Chorus
Don't shoot the messenger, don't shoot the messenger
9.Harmony(Poem)
10.Here She Is
If you could paint her, she'd be a picasso.
She's got a few things out of place.
Like when she smiles, it's slightly out of line.
It's half awkward, yet half grace.
While you're unraveling this mystery
Of where she fits in time and space,
She'll drag you into this lover's tale,
Though she will not give a reason.
And if you fight her tooth and nail,
She won't give up until you lose...
She wants the last word, the last dance.
She thinks it's absurd that you believe in second chances.
You're a lost cause, yet here she is.
And that's the mystery. here she is...
She's a poem by ferlinghetti.
She's the angel from a nursery rhyme
She'll set you a place at your table,
Then fill your cup till you're drunk on red wine.
She don't believe in stars or in miracles,
But she reads your horoscope daily.
And if your response is too cynical,
She'll say, 'who are you to know？'
While you're unraveling this mystery
Of where she fits in time and space,
She'll memorize your history
And decorate your place.
11.Intro： Mosh Pit
12.Introduction
13.Look At The Wind Blow
I'm only seventeen,
but i want much more than a small town
girl should bargain for
More than standing in one place,
waiting for the next james dean i live in a town that's
Gripped in the bible belt man,
i bared my back and i took the welts
i only pray to get out of here
Maybe someday i'll find out if the world is green
(chorus) there is nothing to do in this town at night
but sit in my car and watch the streetlights
Or stare out the window at the pizza joint
what's the point？ i wish i could buy my ford a sail
Hey, hey, look at the wind blow
Now the life of the local beauty queen
is tied to the captain of the baseball team
They got a baby on the way at least that's
what the kids are saying and the wedding i'm told,
well it must take place
To save both families from disgrace
but the whole town knows you see,
it ain't like she's not showing...
(chorus)
Tommy bates sits in his car
and he waits for his girl down at lucky's diner
They're at the end of the loop
and he's drinking soup while she puts on more eyeliner
I passed them once, and i'll pass them twice,
and i'll pass them back again
they bought an old range rover from the next town over
And their headlights are my friends, yeah,
those headlights are my friends...
14.Love's Too Familiar A Word
I stepped into the room late last night
Because late is the time i keep
You were sleeping warm as coal
In a pocket of comfort and white sheets
But you don't startle anymore when i step into the room
Though the hour is later than midnight
And neither window can place a moon.
'i missed you,' you say
And it sounds like a promise
When whispered half asleep
Your skin still damp with sweat
From thoughts your dreams refused to keep
I follow my memory to a switch on a light
'shut your eyes' my voice cut short
When darkness turns bright
'do you love me？' you say
But love is too familiar a word
For in this bed 10,000 times a phrase already heard
But, 'yes, i love you' speaks my reply
Though i know i failed myself and you for not
Matching how i feel with words of higher wealth
I know its lonely in the world tonight
Because here is more than what's deserved
And the imbalance can't be summed in black and white
Cause 'love's' too familiar a word.
15.Maria's Beautiful Mess
She fell to the mattress
With the grace of an actress
You're falling like a thief from a roof.
She's asking for proof , 'are you staying？'
Outside you hear mission bells.
Welcome to maria's beautiful mess,
In a cluttered apartment on the west side.
She pulls the blinds while,
You watch how her dress falls round her .
Chorus
And the world slows, a clock shows
A wrinkle in the flow of time
And she steps close, her eyes glow,
Lips pop open like a bottle of wine
And she loves like it's thirst
Like she's never been hurt,
She dances just like nobody's watching.
Is this love？ is this cursed？
It feels like the first time falling
Nobody's watching, nobody's watching,
Nobody's watching, watching
Now she puts on some music,
She asks you to choose it
You sang her back a gershwin line.
Now ella is singing holy, soulfully
Bringing up better times
And beneath the tunes,
She's smiling on an unmade bed
She says, 'what's in the middle that scares you,
Does it dare you
To take a moment and just slow down？'
Chorus
Pull the curtains all down
On the prince or a clown,
She's smiling like the mona lisa.
You could conquer this town.
If your feet touched the ground,
But you're falling boy
I know, i see you
I see you, i see, i see,
I see you
16.Martyr's Lounge
Leo's is the bar up in heaven
Where all the martyrs hang out
Gandhi staggers in with john lennon
They'll start a bar fight, no doubt
Chorus
When you lead, we follow
When you bleed, oh the masses feel your pain
Plant your seed, setting sunflowers
Growing inside our brains...
Now jesus don't need no introduction
He's got a famous old man
And a party for twelve, i see cobain, he's well
He's in the angels that fell,
A local touring bar band.
Chorus
Jfk, joan of arc
Sit in the corner, kissing in the dark
Marilyn monroe, jacques cousteau
Talk about the sharks they used to know...
Chorus
17.Mrs. Jones
Mrs. jones wakes up, got a lover in her bed
She don't even know the boy's last name
And whatever excuse she makes up
For what happened in the sheets
Lord knows, some things have got to change.
Chorus
Cover me
With rose petal kisses
Smother me
With wet perfume
Hover over me,
Like you're pulling at the ocean
Tugging at the sand
Oh, sweet gravity's hands
Fill me like the light fills the moon.
Headlights in the driveway
Somebody's in a car, a door slams
Clip clop your man's come home
There's a tumble, there's a shakeup
A knife falls to the floor
God damn, that turns marrow to bone
Chorus
There's a man inside the parlor
His heartbeat paints the floor
A voice on his shoulder is whisperin' his name
In the heart of a desperate hour
Love knocks down all doors
Knowing too well it's too late to lay blame.
Chorus
18.Never Lived At All
Becky's playing a piece by gershwin on her old piano
She's been playing since her childhood, 'too long to recall...'
But the chords that fall from her fingertips, are the same
She played when she could barely sit still, back in '69,
When the keys made her hands look small
And she built her dream around symphonies and concertos
Around traveling the country, and playing the music halls
Four kids later the dreams been reduced to 'what-if' scenarios
But hey, to never dream is to have never lived at all
Never lived at all
Dave's a corporate lawyer in the city of chicago
And for fifteen years, he's had his nose to the old grindstone
Poured his money in the bank to feed the beast called portfolio
Well, if time is money then success is a life alone
You can look out at the skyline for some forgiveness
When you invest in love, the same will be returned
He has prided himself on a lifetime of spoken directness
It took him forty years to hear the lesson learned
Has he never lived at all？
Never lived at all...
Never lived at all
The great american novel sits on top of peter's kitchen table
300 pages on a town he built inside of his head
He signs the cover page, uncorks the bottle with the dusty label
Pours his wife a glass, she says 'baby, bring the bottle to bed'
At 6 am he's out fighting the cars on the freeway
And fighting his manuscript, has he written his own downfall？
But he'll embrace rejection, he'll kiss the seal of each
envelope
Better to live in hope than to never have lived at all
To never live at all
Never live at all
19.New York City Evening Out(Story)
20.Seize The Day
She comes to my bed like a whisper
Slips in the sheet like a ghost
Says to my ear 'hey mister,
You need to take this girl to the coast
I need to kick my feet up in the ocean
Feel the taste of salt sea spray
Baby let's live in the moment
Cause it feels like life is taking the moment away
Let's seize the day, seize the day, seize the day'
In the kitchen in the morning
She poured coffee in my favorite cup
She's been dancing on the linoleum-- bare foot
The squeaking nearly woke me up
She put tom jones on the stereo
- now that i could do without
Ah, but who needs perfection？
I like the tension when there's room for doubt
Seize the day, seize the day, seize the day
Seize the day, seize the day, seize the day
She brought some pens, a couple of notebooks
A postcard, a blanket, a bottle of merlot
And the sky provided the sunset
Me - i brought the music of nat king cole.
'and i'd come back as a sea-gull,' i said,
'if in the next life they'd give you the choice...'
'i'd come back with you--we could go flying,'
She said, ' you'd hear me raise my voice, to
Seize the day, seize the day, seize the day
Seize the day, seize the day, seize the day'
21.Take Me Down
I'm a one man line at the twenty-four hour store
I'm in a town that reminds me of my home town streets
I roamed the aisles a thousand miles from
what i was looking for
A familiar face that would smile at me sweetly
(if you)
Take me down
To where i'm whole
Where everybody knows me
Deep as a soul can go
If you take me down
I gotta know
Did you really know me,
Deeply,
As a soul can go？
We'd drive up the canyon to watch the stars fall down
Watch them turn off the lights
on the church down on second street
There's jack's old man, he's still the only cop in town
He's patrolling the sidewalk on the graveyard beat
And everybody needs a place to call home
A roof over head a bed for dreams of their own
I've never been so lonely as when i told you i was leaving
This time i'm really leaving
22.The World Ain't Slowin' Down
I found you sitting on a suitcase crying
Beneath my feet i feel the rumble of a subway train
And i laugh out loud
ëcause it's the one thing i hadn't been trying
The train came in breathless
The passenger's restless
You say, 'baby, you'll never change'
(chorus)
You gotta get gone
You gotta get going
Hey, the world ain't slowin' down
For no one
It's a carnival calling out to you
And it sounds like a song
It hits you like scripture
You paint the picture
With colors squeezed from your hand
Weren't you the kid
Who just climbed on a merry-go-round
Hey, look, the world ain't slowin' down
Out on the sidewalk
The pigeons do the moonwalk
I'll be dancing like fred astaire
The lampposts are rockin'
The whole town is talking
Like a fool in a barber's chair
And i get the sensation
It's joy and frustration
Like getting caught by a drop of cold rain
Freedom can numb you
When there's no place to run to
It feels just like novocain
(chorus)
You packed up all your handbags
You're throwing off the sandbags
I let go when you stepped free
I didn't want to lose you
You said, 'you didn't choose to --
It's just how your karma came'
But thanks for the vision,
And the twenty-twenty wisdom
It hit me like a south-bound train
(chorus)
23.Tornado Girl!
Sandy has seen a tornado more times than she's seen the grateful
dead...
She lives in oklahoma,
Where the storms come prairie fed,
And the numbers keep on mounting,
It's been twenty times and counting
That she's been in the path of
Splintered trees and twisted lead
That connect the dots between trailer parks
With destruction that's painted blood red
And now she wants to chase them,
With me, in my honda civic,
'we'll keep a safe distance.'
I say, 'give me an instance
Where 'safety' is mileage specific...'
Okemah is where the last one touched down,
(that's woody guthrie's old home town) and,
(as if it would turn me around)
She starts singing 'this land is your land'
I say, 'ok, you win.....terrific.'
Now, i've never been to see something
That i wished wasn't even there,
Though i've heard that said of dentists,
And with in'laws, and from victims of the electric chair
But there i was, heading east on 44,
Getting pelted by hailstones the size of barn doors
So, of course, none of them were missing..
It was as if god was keeping score,
And the heavens were thundering their approval...
Thats when i suggested our hasty removal
Just a mile down the road, this rain of hailstones ceased
And a vaacuum of silence brought a turbulent peace....
The clouds started dancing, dressed up in taffeta green
And enveloped the sky in a jungle party theme--
There they gave birth to a barbed-wire wind
Sandy was frozen, her face had a maniacal grin,
A funnel cloud came roaring, cast down from the sky
Like the knife of the devil but twenty stories high!
Sandy broke from the car in a mad, desperation run
To touch her sole fixation, this wheel where death was spun,
And i could do but nothing, my heart came so undone
For the host of twenty tornadoes,
Who died with twenty-one...
24.Weightless
She's trying to define her faith
Like it's some role that she's playing
I tell her, 'you remind me of someone else...'
But who it is i'm not saying 'hear me out,' she says,
'i'm getting older, i don't need to justify
Myself to you. do you hear me？'
Chorus：
When she walks in a room
It's like she's walking on water
Or stepping across the moon
Like she's gravity's only daughter
She's weightless
Weightless
And i say, 'you're just confused
Because you talk too much to angels
And they faithfully refuse
To answer questions that are painful...'
'but faith has no weight,' she says,
'now, doubt, now, there's the burden...
You're completely right to think you're grounded -
Do you hear me？'
Chorus
25.When We Begin
The black strapless dress fits just right
The calendar's marked 6 friday night
She puts on a little makeup
First time since the break up
But if she's moving on, she's gonna do it right
Chorus
So tell me the story
Of all your past glories
The lovers, the losers, the friends.
Spill all your magic,
The good times, and the tragic
Tonight will this mystery end？
When we begin, when we begin.
His cab driver says, 'here we are.'
It's pouring outside on the boulevard
But he smiles as he tips him,
Though a nervousness grips him
He looks up at the place and pulls the door ajar
Chorus
She takes one last glance in the mirror
He shakes himself off on the stairs
He's fixing up the flowers
She's looking up at the hour
They both make a wish for one goodnight kiss
He's knocking at the door...
Chorus
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