River Songs

(alexander/badlees)

Well, i take off my shoes
When i walk in her door
And try my best to levitate
'cross her living room floor
'cause you can't leave tracks
When you're on hollowed ground
She'll just make you sweep 'em up
Like you're being hunted down

(chorus)
She's the queen of perfection
Everybody knows why
She's the queen of perfection
And she's soon gonna die

She says, "your body is a temple, boy
You ought to treat it well
But you trash the place and rent it out
Like it's some cheap motel"
Then she takes away my plate
Before i've finished by meal
And works on my hygiene
Against my will

(chorus)

Well, marie antoinette, she said,
"let 'em eat cake"
While she should have been planning
Her own damn escape
Now i smile 'cross the table
At my lady supreme
Knowin' that her coffee's laced
With mr. clean

(chorus 2x)

(feltenberger/badlees)

Well, he died at 39
Some kinda pill and homemade wine
He left his english bride
And a love he couldn't deny behind

Folks have come to say
He nearly gave the land away
He couldn't understand
How a man could own the land anyway

(chorus)
When grandpa had had his fill
He'd take a walk up old ore hill
To the land of a thousand shadows
And things would come around

From the day that he was born
The mountain had been his home
He'd sit late afternoon
Watch the shadows reach the moon alone

Then shewanakw-nan came
And things began to change
He dealt against his will
And moved down off the hill ashamed

(chorus)

Well, he died at 39
Glad to leave this world behind
Tired of holding on
To a place he didn't belong
To find.....

That grandpa had lost his will
To take a walk up old ore hill
To the land of a thousand shadows
And things would come around

(chorus)

We used to drink our bacardi
Behind the old school
And bitch about dreams
That would never come true
Then you heard a callin'
That i hadn't felt
I liked you better
When you hated yourself

Now you spend lots of time
At that natural food place
Buyin' fresh blocks of tofu
Just like mom used to make
You kicked your bad habits
You're in perfect health
But i liked you better
When you hated yourself

Change, it came a blowin'
Like we never met
Your inner child and you play games
That i just don't get
Somewhere it's written
That this too shall pass
But lately you've just been
A pain in the ass....

Ask me if i care
Well, i guess i still do
Friends don't come easy
Even assholes like you
And that shrink of yours
She can go straight to hell
I liked you better
When you hated yourself

Last time i saw you
You were on donahue
Discussing your book
And everything you've been through
Now you've got your glamour
Your fame and your wealth
But i still liked you better
When you hated yourself

(alexander/badlees)

You've got a right to be angry
You've got a right to complain
But just being right
Ain't gonna change anything

You want understanding
Without saying a word
You want admiration
Even though it's undeserved

It ain't no secret
Time took its toll
I can't believe it
We're gettin' old

One of us should stand up
One of us should scream
One of us should step out
And say just what he means
One of us should say
Just what it is were fighting for
But no one says nothing much
Of anything no more

We all have defenses
And opinions to sell
We all have our methods
Of defending ourselves

But there's nothing as lifeless
As a tree that don't bend
There's nothing as worthless
As a fair weathered friend

It ain't no secret
Time took its toll
I can't believe it
We're gettin' old

One of us should get up
One of us should say
One of us should get out
Of the other one's way
One of us should face up
To what no one can ignore
But no one does nothing much
Of anything no more

I am he as you are he
As you are me, but we disagree
Now it ain't anything

And it's a world full of anger
It's a world full of pain
It's a world full of people
Lookin' for someone else to blame

But it don't make no difference
If it don't make no sense
'cause the world goes on a changing
With or without our consent

It ain't no secret
Time took it's toll
I can't believe it
We're gettin' old

If one of us was angry
If one of us was sad
If one of us was guilty
It might not be that bad
If one of us was anything
We might know something more
But no one is nothing much
Of anything no more

He was the king of the back seat
Of drunk reverie
Saw him escorted out of a mets game
On network t.v.
Kept his head in the clouds
With any cheap high he could cull
In his cancered impala
And his hog shirts
And his head tapes played dull

He lived in a company house
In the pardeesville woods
With a stir crazy dog
And a graveyard of old "jimmy" hoods
Sundays we'd run for his stash
At the new york state line
That summer when moments of
Circumstance altered like wine

(chorus)
This is for the man
This is for the days that we killed
Was it my wind of change
Or just a breeze at the top of the hill
He didn't talk the gold ring
He just schemed for a skeleton key
But when you think you met thunder
You only see what your head wants to see

He threw back-mountain parties
Five deep at the "well"
With his girlfriend, louise, who'd get lit
And tell us all "go to hell"
Then he'd get liquored up
And throw me the keys and yell "drive"
With him and louise in the back
Doin' "american pie"

He'd talk of out west over beer
And the garbage that we ate
'bout the punk band he'd managed
In phoenix in '78
I was this kid of sixteen the enamored
Impressionable kind
In the poetic pull of the passion
Of life with the lines

(chorus)

He just disappeared that mid-august
Not even a shout
Then i read in the news that september
That his time had run out
How he tried to outrun a state trooper
Down 93 south
A charge of possession is why he fled
Said word of mouth

The paper said nothin' was left
But the seats and the frame
And i read in the write-up
For the first time his real name;
Birthplace unknown, not from nowhere
No close family
Just a wild river running
That cut it too fast to the sea

I still raise a glass once a year
On the night that he died
Though hindsight says
He only let me believe that we'd ride
Lord, he still taps a vein in my mind
Like a summer rain cools
Long after that river ran dry
And reality ruled

(chorus2x)