Clutching At Straws

I went to morrison's grave at pere lachaise cemetery
The stony flowers and the matching graffiti were guiding me to the steps inside of me

And what will you do if i got down on my knees to you
What will you do if i lied to your face
Could you still hold your dreams
Could you live in your silent face

So what would you do, would you walk right through me
Would you stand in the way like the others before
Get in the way
Would you drink to me next beaujolais day

Tell me the truth, save a prayer for me
I would love to leave you but you would cry all night long
Eternal romantic, victory failed on beaujolais day

I heard a wheelchair whisper across a stale silent gymnasium
Trailing an ivy league jacket like a matador
Through the jitterbug steps of the night before

Through the chalk white chill and the tear fandango
Heading away to the inner wrangle
Do we cry for a cell
Do we need for a sell

What would you do, would you cry for me
Could you set off (?) could we go gently
Blame it away
Do you really want to head for the open door

Got to crack a bottle while you dream for me
Just an absent friend and a misery
Laying awake do we stay right there
'till beaujolais day

On beaujolais day

So what will you do, would you lie to me?
Would you sit right back in a victory
Would you play for me
Could you die for me

So what would you do, would you walk right through me
Heading away saying it's just another victory
This is beaujolais day

Where do we go from here?

They're boarding up the synagogues, uzis on a street corner
You can't take a photograph of uzis on a street corner
The dj resigned today, they wouldn't let him have his say
A surface scratched where the needles play, uzis on a street corner

Where do we go from here?

Terror on the rue de st. denis, murder on the periphery
Someone else in someone else's pocket, christ knows i don't know how to stop it
Lay poppies at the cenotaph, the cynics can't afford to laugh,
I heard in on the telegraph there's uzis on a street corner

Where do we go from here?

The more i see the more i hear the more i find the fewer answers
I close my mind, i shut it out but you know its getting harder
To calm me down, to reason out, to come to terms with what it's all about
I'm uptight, can't sleep at night, i can't pretend everything's alright.
My ideals my sanity, they seem to be deserting me
But to stand up and fight i know we have six million reasons.

They're burning down the synagogues, uzis on a street corner
The heralds of the holocaust, uzis on a street corner
The silence never louder than now, how quickly we forgot our vows,
This resurrection we can't allow, the uzis on a street corner.

Where do we go from here, where do we go from here?

We buy fresh bagels from the corner store
Where swastikas are spat from aerosols
I sit in the bar sipping iced white russians
Trying to score but nobody's pushing
And everyone looks at everyone's faces
Searching for signs and praying for traces
Of a conscience in residence,
Are we sitting on a barbed wire fence, racing the clouds home
Racing the clouds home

We place our faith in human rights
In the paper wars that tie the redtape tight
I know that i would rather be out of this conspiracy

In the gulags and internment camps
Frozen faces in nameless ranks
I know that they would rather be
Standing here besides me chasing the clouds home

You can shut your eyes, you can hide away
It's gonna come back another day

Racing the clouds home, are we racing the clouds home?
Racing the clouds home

I was flicking through the channels on the tv
On a sunday in milwaukee in the rain
Trying to piece together conversations,
Trying to find out where to lay the blame

But when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend
For when it gets right down to it there's no one here that's left to blame,
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me
We're just sugar mice in the rain

I heard sinatra calling me down through the floorboards
Where you pay a quarter for a partnership in rhyme
To the jukebox crying in the corner
While the waitress is counting out the time

For when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend
For when it gets right down to it there's no one really left to blame,
Blame it on me, you can blame it on me
We're just sugar mice in the rain

I know what i feel, know what i want i know what i am
Daddy took a raincheck
Cos i know what i want, know what i feel i know what i need
Daddy took a raincheck, your daddy took a raincheck
Ain't no one in here that's left to blame but me
Blame it on me, blame it on me

Well the toughest thing that i ever did was talk to the kids on the phone
When i heard them asking questions i knew
That you were all alone, can't you understand that the
Government left me out of work, i just couldn't stand the
Looks on the faces saying what a jerk

So if you want my address it's number one
At the end of the bar
Where i sit with the broken angels clutching at straws and
Nursing the scars, blame it on me, blame it on me
Sugar mice in the rain, your daddy took a raincheck
Your daddy took a raincheck

Everything to decide
It's time i came up with some answers before i can carry on
It's time i made my mind up before we can go along

And i thought it was so simple
And i knew that it could be so fine
I know that the places that everything comes

Rose beds scattered across the lawn
Like the squares at waterloo
With the bayonets of thorns repelling
Small children in search of lost tennis balls
Seeing everything and giving their all

I used to be scared of heights
I used to get dizzy
I never felt safe with my feet on the ground
They said that up there the air would be clearer
They said more space and more room to breathe

Everything to the side
I knew that something would happen
It's better off than being alive
I knew the standards decline
I knew that we had to decide
All the places, that's all we'd ever seen
And the place that we thought about
And the road that you travel has never been seen

Rose beds scattered across the lawn
Like the squares of waterloo
With the bayonets of thorns repelling
Small children in search of lost tennis balls
Giving everything and giving it all

I used to think everything was coming up roses
But i couldn't see the weeds that entangled my feet
I couldn't see the trees
'cause my forest was burning
I couldn't see the bridges for the fire in my eyes
They sold me the view from the hill
Sold me the view from the hill

They said that up there the air would be clearer
They said there'd be more space and more room to breathe
I used to be scared of heights
I used to get dizzy
They sold me the view from the hill

I'd be really pleased to meet you if only i could remember your name
But i got problems with my memory ever since i got a winner in the fame game
I'm a citizen of legoland travellin' incommunicado
And i don't give a damn for the fleet street afficionados

But i don't want to be the backpage interview
I don't want launderette anonymity
I want my handprints in the concrete on sunset boulevard
A dummy in tussauds you'll see. incommunicado

I'm a marquee veteran, a multi-media bonafide celebrity
I've got an allergy to perrier, daylight and responsibility
I'm a rootin-tootin cowboy, a peter pan with street credibility
Always making the point with the dawn patrol fraternity

Sometimes it seems like i've been here before
When i hear opportunity kicking in my door
Call it synchronicity call it d

On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweller's shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
She's staring at the brochures at the holidays
Chalking up a name in your hometown
Standing all your mates to another round
Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away
The warm wet circles

I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths a classroom's shabby butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts
And token proclamations, rolled from stolen lipsticks
Across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling
Jealous confidantes, she faithfully traces his name
With quick bitten fingers
Through the tears of condensation that'll cry through the night
As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence goodbye

In a warm wet circle
Like a mother's kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle
Like a bullethole in central park, a warm wet circle
And i'll always surrender to the warm wet circles

She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the fidra lighthouse
Giving it all away before it's too late
She'll let a lover's tongue move in a warm wet circle
Giving it all away and showing no shame
She'll take a mother's kiss on her first broken heart
A warm wet circle, she'll realise that she plays her part in a warm wet circle

We are led by the light at the end of the tunnel
We are guided by the fires of our burning dreams
We're inspired by our ideals and driven by conscience
To cross what the cynics perceive as naive


We the people want it straight for a change
We the people are getting tired of your games
We the people want the answers laid out on the lines
Better no more of your cheap propaganda
And stop talking tic-tac-toe

We the people fight your arms dealers wars
We the people want our futures secure
We the people want a peace staying all the way
So cut out your message
And take all your talking tic-tac-toe

Everyone needs a symbol of their own, the truth
If you don't know of the reason
Well how can you take a stance in this way
You need to be sure
You need to return to an open door
Taking a lesson from me
Taking a lesson from me
The children that play tic-tac-toe

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street garden
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuffed deep in the pocket
Little did i know that he had a heavy load

I found i was walking grierson's dockyards
Where the only thing working was the foreign film crews
Making an impressive documentary
For the news, for the news
To the satellite

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a sense of pride and identity
The waters left behind we shouldn't forget
Laid low in the books of history

I saw the starlings wheel round georgian spires
They're gathering on patrol in the skies
In the distance burns the flame of grangemouth
And the dream is lost
Everything
What it could inspire
When we take, you know there is no distance
How we're talked about in the secret affairs
Taking our ride into the distance
To be what it was or could have been
What i should have said

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
'till we take some more steps to unity
Take it back to me
Take away
(?)

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
Calling the (ministry?) for identity
What it meant to me, what it said
What we could have had

I saw a blue umbrella in princes street garden
Heading out west for the lothian road
An evening news stuck deep in the pocket
Little did i know that he'd fall
Carrying a heavy load

And all we're left with is the black, black oil
With a strong sense of national pride
Calling a name in the sake of unity
What it meant to me you'll never know
You'll never know

I see myself forced in servant exile
Turning around at another's command
All i want to see is identity
What i could have been
What i did
Could have been

Internal exile
Internal exile

A hand held over a candle in angst-fuelled bravado
A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm
Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu
And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far
This is the story so far

Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins
You scrawl out your poems across a beer-mat or two
And when you declare the point of grave creation
They turn round and ask you to tell them the story so far

This is the story so far

And you listen with a tear in your eye
To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
Is sl