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This City Won't Sleep

The Sea Goes On Forever...

When Strangers Say Hello

Singles & Other Lyrics

ONCE AND FOR ALL

Down the alleys

Riding out in fits of light

In midnight’s rage

Did somebody say they saw your face?

The evenings hang above us

Now let’s make a scene

Let’s break the law

Did somebody beat you to the draw?

Woah, once and for all

Woah, and for all

Did someone push you away?

When you were young, you’d scrape your legs

You’d hide and seek

You’d carve your name

Did somebody say this was a game?

Many years have cost you what you can’t afford

Your ship went down

Did somebody see you jumping out

They found you mostly lifeless

Like a pile of bones

Reaching for someone

Where no pain is felt

Naked in the moon

Where no river rolls

So each asked themselves

Does love run out?

Until they found her first name

Still in your mouth

CALL ME CUSTER

Their slings and their arrows
Couldn’t keep me in check
I burnt all my bridges
To physical wreck

Flowers on the table
And a velveteen arm
I pray God and money
Never lead me to harm

I’ve never owned nothing
That made me feel so proud
As this dead Comanche
And this sad old hole in the ground

I wake up in the morning
And I putter around
I’ll start counting sheep once
All the wolves have been found

It’s a sorry battalion
That chomps at the bit
You’ve got to know when to hustle
You’ve got to know when to quit

But what a day for a showdown
I’m pacing and taping my palms
And I’ll sure miss Montana
When I am dead and gone

You can call me Custer
And who would object?
I’m so full of fight and
My scalp’s in a wreck

In the heat of the battle
Look how I behave
With my gun, and my saddle,
And a curse on my name

But woah, I kind of made it
I’ll bet you, you never forgot
How I went down swinging
Oh, my God!

FORGET THE RAILROAD

Forget the railroad and the passenger lines
They lead only to the dark edge of town
Forget the highway
Are the engines alive if they’re only bringing you down?

So lay me down
And lay me out
All you needed was some time
Lay me down
And lay me out
All you needed was some proof that you’re alive

Forget the chain gangs and the prisoners' songs
I was never that tough on crime
Forget the landmines and the dangers below
We can make it if we try

Forget the rain clouds, there’s a storm in your eyes
And no one ever has to know

Forget the promise that you broke along the way

It was made a long time ago

Forget the river, if the water runs out
We’ll go swimming down in the aisles
Forget the stage lights we are travelers now
We look only to the sky

SUNDOWNERS

I haunt you like leaves on the wind
I’ll color a riot in red
That’s the way
Them and they
Operate
But anyway
You found me cross-eyed again

Just cause you had love
And you threw it all down
You’re out to get some
To wear it around

I’m not letting you go
Follow me down
Where we're unknown
Would it freak you out
To hide from the sun?

Nature is my angry child
Science has found me unwell
Soft and proud
Raining down
You’d better get to know me now
Because it’s getting harder to tell

Fathoms in soil and stone
We can know stillness at dawn
As I regret
Less and less
We take the most
Then leave the rest
Our hearts remain wicked and calm

I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME

Sometimes at night

Sometimes for days

I get the feeling I can carry twice my weight

I can’t come down

From the top of the stairs

You can find me there

Where the floorboards creak and moan

I’m taking you with me when I go

That’s where you belong

Where you’re at home

I’d seen you around

In some other place

But you found yourself alone

And tired of that side-walking pace

Show me how to make up my mind
I mean it this time

Closer now

It's time that I thought about what I want

It sounds like a song

I'm lost in the notes

And there ain't nothing left

And it's a fool that insists that he knows

DARLENE

Staring at a question mark
You’re faking, Jesus, you’re parading in the dark
You spent the evening cruising for a spark
But there's no highway to the sun
When morning comes again, Darlene
We'll reach out and take a piece
Oh I swear this shadows not your enemy
Believe me, I believe in you, Darlene

I've always wondered what you'd think
You've read so many books you only dream in ink
And every time you let it go it sinks
Down some sad familiar page
The words are softer now, Darlene
Make adventure out of me
And if every chapter ends in misery
Believe me, I believe in you, Darlene

You're a little unimpressed
You left a message on a pack of cigarettes
If no one talks about how good it gets
Then how am I supposed to know?
If there's no telling now, Darlene
Your wheels are begging for concrete
Are you thinking up someplace you'd rather be
Believe me, I believe in you, Darlene

The time that we spend just keeping track
Who's over their head?

Who's under attack?
When I go, there will be no turning back

I built a stranger in my mind
I paint some pictures but they never come to life
Fixing you is like sharpening a knife
So I have nothing more to say
They’ll turn on Channel 17
Watching from a window seat
And they'll say "Hey, I think I know you from TV"
But I'll say, "Believe me, I believed in you, Darlene"

THE MOVIE UNIVERSE

I counted all the movie stars
In the entire movie universe

I got nothing left to say to you

I'm gonna wait for something good to come
I'm gonna wait for something biblical

Ain't it a shame how my life was taken from me?
And ain't it a shame how they got the better of me?
Ain't it a long, long way down
Man!

My constellations want to burn
I'm at the center of the universe

A MILE HIGH

Come inside
And turn the dial
The song that she'll hear on the day that she dies
With aching speed
Lets her rhythm speak
She sings in her car and she don't care who sees

So you've found yourself a charm
Open arms that leave you guessing
And when it's gone
It breaks your heart
Someone's bound to burn their blessings
And you, you're burning too

A lucky guess
So innocent
A new pair of shoes and a change of address
It spins the same
Like the hurricane
That bought you to life
When it blew you away

The best of lies
A mile high
Sometimes you crash and sometimes you fly

IN THE NIGHT

I guess I never told you

How I’ve let my heart rot

How I’ve been stuck forever

How I have not given up

Or given in

What am I becoming?

How could I have known?

I just want to meet you out

In the night

Now you know

I’ve been losing for so long

It’s got to go

Been losing bad

I’ve gambled down the highway

I have paced this floor

A thousand miles behind me

I’ll walk some more

With the losing score

The losing hand

I've been losing for so long

I've been losing much too long

THIS CITY WON'T SLEEP

News from the borderlines

They send in the best

Then they send in the spies

Beds are for breakfast time

Now take to streets

Honey, take to the sky

I know what they’ve found

I hear them humming

They won’t calm down

They know what’s coming

Oh, don’t look so sad

Baby, don’t look so down

We all start off standing and looking around

I owe it to you and you owe it to me

So this city won’t sleep

This city won’t sleep

This city won’t sleep tonight

They know what’s coming

Sometimes I can’t decide

If a hand is worth shaking

If it’s my tongue that’s tied

This city won’t sleep tonight

On the back of the morning

A flag’s waving high

Lessons in dynamite

The talkers keep talking

Pay them no mind

This city won’t sleep tonight

This city won’t sleep

All this sadness will be gone

It could be so easy

All of this sadness that haunts you will leave

And this city won’t sleep

This city won’t sleep

This city won’t sleep tonight

OH, MY SIERRA

Slow it down
That’s where you found me
Talking to myself
Way out there

Don’t you, don’t you think we can?
Don’t you give up on this plan
Because we’re on track
Oh, my Sierra, take me back
Out where the lonely desert cracks
All the way down to the salt flats

Pick your speed
I'm so glad you found me
There’s no one really here
To complain

You saved me, with your California wine
And maybe, our silence is refined
Take command
Oh, my Sierra understand
How the earth holds you in its hand
Make me a country in the sand

Sometimes, I find you in the squall
And sometimes, it don’t rain at all
And no one knows
Oh, my Sierra, take me home
Carve out a place to call your own
Oh, my Sierra, take me home

Slow it down
I'm so glad you found me

SONG FOR THE WILLING

Invited by the gale
The sea goes on forever

You should open your sails

Carry my song

We’ll talk of tomorrow

It won’t be too long

Hope can be filling

And mountains can fall

If you are willing

And standing as tall

There’s no shadow hanging over me now

There’s a surge in the wandering tide

There’s a world outside

That spins on its own

Call to the sun

An ode to the morning

There’s battles to be won

Our eyes full of sleep

The colors of the ocean

So cool and so deep

There’s no sense in crying

For what has been split

Have no fear of dying

Someday you will

ROSIE

Meet me out where summer ends

The leaves they were falling when I found you

You flew so long, that when you came down

The sky never bothered to announce you

You spent ten thousand miles on the run

And the radio whined for each one

Rosie, I am not like you

There’s a part of me that can’t stand it in this place

Rosie, half of what I do

Is like a big long list of why I ought to stay

All the time

When time runs out
I think only of the power that surrounds you

The day is done

The lights go out

You reach out into the emptiness around you

I HOPE THIS HELPS

You were wounded in battle

You’ve been talking in rhyme

You found patience in waiting

For some call or for some sign

Someday you’ll rise

The ice will melt

You’ll peak and you’ll smile

At the hand that you’re dealt

That day will come

You’ll see for yourself

For now I hope this helps

You were stranded in trouble

You were lost and confined

You were watching for someone

To turn back the hands of time

THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD

In the year of the flood

It occurred to me

Just how heavy the rain could be

There’s wrong in you and no wrong in me

In the year of the flood

It occurred to me

In the year of the flood

It kept coming down

All our friends were going around

Looking for something that can’t be found

In the year of the flood

It kept coming down

In the year of the flood

We stayed dry

The cities sank and you covered your eyes

Even though we were just getting by

In the year of the flood

We stayed dry

QUEEN OF DIAMONDS

The Queen of Diamonds finally met her match

She sits on beds of roses and broken glass

The hours crawl, the seconds are slow to pass

To be home again

I wanted you to know

It’s time I’m on the road again

And everywhere I go

It feels like I belong somewhere so far away

Long agos of which we never spoke

A dragon’s fast asleep with a heart of smoke

The Queen of Diamonds said when he awoke

To sleep again

RUBBERNECKER

Reading your plots and your lies and your secrets

The rise and fall of all the things you’ve done

And all you’ve done is here and it’s open to anyone

Are you keeping score of wars you’ve waged and won?

It made you look away

It’s a measure of our love of our decay

Hard luck, our luck is not to blame

It’s so easy to explain

Just tell me why

Eluded, but who did you think you were fooling

You’re trying harder and harder not to tell

And you’ll never tell

There’s lines in your face in your prison cell

Where the phone still rings

Is this your living hell?

These are desperate times

Pick yourself up off the pavement

Get your head out of your basement

Are you too tired to break in?

Politely, we’re damned

OLD BLUE

(Traditional song adapted by Anthony Walker)

I had an old dog and his name was Blue

Bet you five dollars he’s a good dog too

Blue chased a possum up a hollow limb

The possum growled

Blue growled at him

Bye bye Blue

You good dog, you

And when he died he died so hard

It shook the ground in my backyard

When I get to heaven, the first thing I’ll do

Is pick up my horn and call for Blue

LIGHT OF MINE

I like sweeping up at night

When strangers say hello

There’s broken bottles everywhere

Graffiti in the snow

You can drag me home and tell me all I need to know

Light of mine

We were bandits long ago

And the money wasn’t bad

When policemen found us out

It only made you mad

I think of all the things we took

And all the fun we had

Light of mine

I invented science

I was pardoned of my sin

I never shook the feeling my attire is my skin

It has not worn or faded

But it has not broken in

Light of mine

I watched you late last dinner-time

You plant a burning seed

You blame it on the earth and things the fever made you see

Then I walked in all out of luck

Another mouth to feed

Light of mine

THE INFORMATION AGE (YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO)

We’ve come to masquerade

The mask you’ve made is wearing thin

Broken-jawed defender of the mouth

Tooth and nail

The words assail

It takes an iron tongue

Just to keep the truth from coming out

But you don’t have to go

You don’t have to talk so slow

Signals tease

The new disease

The clergy is immune

The damned are busy curing all the saved

You noticed how the warning was inviting

And after all

The information really shows its age

You don’t have to go

You don’t have to let me know

Now you want to find a way

Passion is magnetic

Now you’re hopefully aware

Your pilot’s ready

Master of your mind

His broken arrow’s laughing in the face of open sky

What goes up simply must collide

You don’t have to go

You don’t have to fall so low

MYTHS & STRINGS

I live with myths and strings

Winding and unravelling

There’s silence

Then suddenly it sings

It’s revolution baby

And it don’t cost a thing

And you will not pass this by

Long winds in outer space

You know you taught me how to look away

I never thought I say

This illusion, baby, gets clearer every day

Burn

Let it burn

What I’m asking you is are you ever gonna learn?

I’m bleeding, man

You’re gonna have to wait your turn

LUCKY NUMBERS

You're on California time
Mother Nature’s only child

And after all those highway miles you took a stand

Curtains fall

You take a bow

The getaways run smoother now

Summer leaves they burn and brown

They fall so plain

So tell me baby what have you to gain

This whole thing’s drying up

You’d better pray for rain

Born at the height of youth

The sunshine it envies you

The sleeping never speak the truth

No false alarms

Out in the sinking west

Wake me when the coma ends

You shake off this brush with death

The madman’s comb

Somewhere else, the faces turn to stone

They would save the world, if not for telephones

I’ve been staying up at night

Taking flight

I’m taking flight

To where the math all works out right

And it’s alright

Bets are in

The odds are stacked

Heads ache and hearts attack

Hard love

No coming back

No closing call

Evacuation

Touch of gold

With lost hope the merry go

Where buried treasures bought and sold

Someplace downtown

They sky is falling

Listen to the sound

All your lucky numbers

They just let you down

BORN TO CRAWL

Something’s watching over me

High above the birds and bees

Honey, we’ll fly south or freeze someday

I’m always going nowhere fast

A memory like laughing gas

Shadows that mistakes have cast won’t stay

You won’t let me in

Oh, what have I done

I don’t know where I’m from

But I know where I belong

You won’t let me stay

What have I done wrong

Don’t send me back to start

I don’t know why I came in here at all

It’s so funny how you draw the line

You live on someone else’s dime

We’re made for glory, we’re gonna find a way

You never say the same thing twice

You love the way that lightning strikes

You took a chance, you rolled the dice my way

This is not how people get along

It’s not so hard to see what’s going on

So round and round and round we go

Some will fall and some will know

Some will die and some will grow again

DARLENE

Staring at a question mark

You’re faking, Jesus, you’re parading in the dark

You spent the evening cruising for a spark

But there's no highway to the sun

When morning comes again, Darlene

We'll reach out and take a piece

Oh I swear this shadows not your enemy

Believe me, I believe in you, Darlene

I've always wondered what you'd think

You've read so many books you only dream in ink

And every time you let it go it sinks

Down some sad familiar page

The words are softer now, Darlene

Make adventure out of me

And if every chapter ends in misery

Believe me, I believe in you, Darlene

You're a little unimpressed

You left a message on a pack of cigarettes

If no one talks about how good it gets

Then how am I supposed to know?

If there's no telling now, Darlene

Your wheels are begging for concrete

Are you thinking up someplace you'd rather be

Believe me, I believe in you, Darlene

The time that we spend just keeping track

Who's over their head?

Who's under attack?

When I go, there will be no turning back

I built a stranger in my mind

I paint some pictures but they never come to life

Fixing you is like sharpening a knife

So I have nothing more to say

They’ll turn on Channel 17

Watching from their window seat

And they'll say "Hey, I think I know you from TV"

But I'll say, "Believe me, I believed in you, Darlene"

RESTLESS

When you need a friend

Your arms around an echo

Invisible heirs

Your stolen crown

We’ll see what’s up your sleeve

Your shoulders and your elbow

I’m dying to lay your burden down

I know

I know you’re like the rest

I know you’re like the restless

Taking you up and down again

So, I’ve come to know and mimic your revival

I’m playing the fool

You play the clown

Come, I’ll know you from the sound of your arrival

I start to believe these things I’ve found

WOLVES CAN WAIT

Sunday morning sermon's full of doubt

They call it midnight when the lights go out

Where do we go from here?

I stomped the earth and I left my guide

I spread the ashes on the mountainside

A fall on a wild frontier

I'm in the same place that I was this time last year

Where you going?

Can’t you stay?

After all, the wolves can wait

That’s where you run to

Where you pray

That this feeling won’t go away

They say they'll wander in eternal bliss

They preach that poison to the junkyard kids

We can't build this dream in bed

When you know you’re right

You just move ahead

STEALIN'

Put your arms around me like the circle 'round the sun

Won't you love me honey like my easy rider done

Don't believe I love you, what a fool I've been

Don't believe I'm sinking, what a hole I'm in

Stealin', stealin'

Honey, don't you tell on me

I'm stealin' back to that same old used to be

I said the one that I love is just my height and size

Heard you got your man but you still see me sometimes

Don't believe I love you, what a fool I've been

Don't believe I'm sinking, what a hole I'm in

HOUSE ON A HILL

If I had a house on a hill

I’d paint it blue and I’d keep it well

Pay no rent, pay no phone bill

I always say it, but I never will

I keep on saying that I never will

I have won and I have lost

I have been on the chopping block

I have had my signals crossed

I only love the things I’ve lost

I’ll never get back what I’ve lost

Tell me to go

To get out of your sight

I never thought I could be so uninspired

I can name the deadly sins

I can make the most of this

I can’t say why I hated him

I wouldn’t know where to begin

I never know where to begin

The city’s not what I had thought

There’s chewing gum on the sidewalks

Horizons look like jagged rocks

And I don’t know whose side I’m on

I never know whose side I’m on

I found a hill with a house on top

No zip code and no mail box

And I don’t need to keep it locked

Don’t need to pick whose side I’m on

Got a house that's right on top

I don’t need to pick whose side I’m on

IF I GO DOWN

Who is it coming?

This adds up to nothing

Who is that thumping in my head?

Noise from the kitchen

Run to the cupboard

All I discovered, leaning in

This is no place to be without a friend

The walls are closing in

If I go down sinking

Would you pull me out?

Would you reel me in?

I’m just wondering if you can

Who is it humming?

Hold onto something

Who I’m becoming who I am

This is no place to be without a friend

If it happens again

Reach out and touch it

Make some adjustments

I got busted, busting in

This is no place to be without a friend

I just don’t see an end