Woman cry -- chase man down street crying "No Chuckie, no, please don't" Another girl comes they run along St. Andrew, turn south on Kensington Meanwhile Chuckie beats it down the alley by the chicken packer's By the time I reach the corner they've all vanished Just a deaf kid talking like Popeye to a large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt You pay your money and you take your chance When you're dealing with love and romance Down the alley past the fire escape a woman is talking on the telephone Kitchen light spills out, laughter riding on its beam In the maze of moebius streets we're trying to amuse ourselves to death Under the deep sky that's squatting so close over us tonight You'd think it was trying to hatch us The numb and confused The battered and bruised The counters of cost And the star-crossed You pay your money and you take your chance When you're dealing with love and romance Confused and solo in the spawning ground i watch the confusion of friends all numb with love Moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night-long conversations, of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices In spite of themselves, graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window Stay or leave, give or withold, hesitate or leap Each step splashing sparks of red pain in every direction And through it all, somehow, this willingness that asks no questions You pay your money and you take your chance When you're dealing with love and romance.
Isn't it hard To be the one who has to give advice? Isn't it hard To be the strong one? I see the skyline blurred through the plastic on your back screen door Not unlike the faces of the people who keep turning up in the places we go The ones we'd never see if things weren't going so well When I was a torn jacket hanging on the barbed wire You cut me free And sewed me up and here I am Isn't it hard To be the one whose phone rings all day everyday? Isn't it hard To be the strong one? Mouths move without vision -- without regard for consequences Eyes fill with memories poisoned by intimate knowledge of failure to love Sometimes, sometimes, doesn't the light seem to move so far away? You help your sisters, you help your old lovers, you help me but who do you cry to? Cause isn't it hard To be the one who gathers everybody's tears? Isn't it hard To be the strong one?
blue billboard on the roof next door makes a square of light on the kitchen floor smokes rises from a cigarette there's a dull glisten where the table's wet soft breath rises from the bed a thousand question marks over my head turn on the tube but there's nothing new the usual panic in red, white and blue "military advisors" marching in the square knife-sharp trouser creases slicing air private armies on suburban lawns shoulders braced against the tidal dawn all's quiet on the inner city front i don't know why i should but i feel content bell in the fire station tower rings out the measure of the racing hours i slip through the door to the roof outside to gaze at the sign hanging in the sky that sailor on the billboard looks so self-possessed doesn't have a thing to forgive or forget all's quiet on the inner city front.
(Instrumental)
neon flame on the window of an upstairs room helicopter beats across the face of the moon got a hunger that sprawls like this galaxy want to wrap my arms around you -- draw you right inside me i want to go walking with you Judy through the movie of the world no matter what i do i feel your presence everywhere i'll be just standing around and your scent comes at me out of nowhere i see your face on the wall -- in the magazine too next thing you know the billboard out my window will be you i want to go walking with you Judy through the movie of the world today was a dog licking crap in the gutter of the street tonight is a dancer oscillating on weightless feet so the fortune teller said you wouldn't end up with me last i heard only God gets to say what has to be i want to walking with you Judy through the movie of the world.
Midnight flight
Fullmoon light
Laughter in the air
It's a party all right
Slate-blue clouds
Iridescent sea
I'm heading for you
And you're headed for me
and we dance and we dance
and we dance...
Down there in the realm of power
Somebody's manicured hands
Play the Ace of Influence
Against the Jack of Demands
I reach of the deck --
Draw the seven of hearts --
Doesn't mean the world
But it's a better place to start
and we dance and we dance
and we dance...
Paradox and contrast
Variety and change
History repeats
But it's never the same
We've got this time
We've got this rhythm
Till the whole thing comes apart
Like light through a prism
and we dance and we dance
and we dance...
What's been done in the name of Jesus
What's been done in the name of Buddha
What's been done in the name of Islam
What's been done in the name of man
What's been done in the name of liberation
And in the name of civilization
And in the name of race
And in the name of peace!
everybody
loves to see
justice done
on somebody else
Can you tell me how much bleeding
It takes to fill a word with meaning
And how much, how much death
It takes to gave a slogan breath
And how much, how much, how much flame
Gives light to a name
For the hollow darkness
In which nations dress?
everybody
loves to see
justice done
on somebody else
Everybody's seen the things they've seen
We all have to live with what we've been
When they say charity begins at home
They're not just talking about a toilet and a telephone
Got to search the silence of the soul's wild places
For a voice that can cross the spaces
These definitions that we love create --
These names for heaven, hero, tribe and state
everybody
loves to see
justice done
on somebody else
Way out on the rim of the galaxy The gifts of the Lord lie torn Into whose charge the gifts were given Have made it a curse for so many to be born This is my trouble -- These were my fathers So how am I supposed to feel? Way out on the rim of the broken wheel Water of life is going to flow again Changed from the blood of heroes and knaves The word mercy's going to have a new meaning When we are judged by the children of our slaves No adult of sound mind Can be an innocent bystander Trial comes before truth's revealed Out here on the rim of the broken wheel You and me -- we are the break in the broken wheel Bleeding wound that will not heal Lord, spit on our eyes so we can see How to wake up from this tragedy Way out on the rim of the broken wheel Bleeding wound that will not heal Trial comes before truth's revealed So how am I supposed to feel? This is my trouble -- Can't be an innocent bystander In a world of pain and fire and steel Way out on the rim of the broken wheel
(From the album "Mummy Dust")
Down at the bus station
shark grins and sandpaper conversation
men's faces women's bodies on the magazine stand
and a headline about Sarajevo and Tehran
They are radiant angels, they are earthly slaves
they are predators moving in their endless days
days of striving, nights of novocaine
never going to bring them freedom from their pain
i'm a loner
with a loner's point of view
i'm a loner
and now i'm in love with you
Wild shadows, acid verbs
eyelids opening dans mon coeur
tu me touche comme la pression
des etoiles sur les tenebres
In the elevator and the empty hall
how'm i ever going to hear you when you call
I'm always living and i always die
on the event horizon of your eyes
i'm a loner
with a loner's point of view
i'm a loner
and now i'm in love with you