Greatest Hits Volume I

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But i would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry, i'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling down the avenue
There's nothing that i wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rollin' sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that i wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love

Late at night
When it's dark and cold
I reach out
For someone to hold
When i'm blue
When i'm lonely
She comes through
She's the only one who can
My baby grand
Is all i need

In my time
I've wandered everywhere
Around this world
She would always be there
Any day
Any hour
All it takes
Is the power in my hands
This baby grand's
Been good to me

I've had friends
But they have slipped away
I've had fame
But it doesn't stay
I've made fortunes
Spent them fast enough
As for woman
They don't last with just one man
But baby grand
Will stand by me

They say that no one's gonna play this on the radio
They said the melancholy blues were dead and gone
But only songs like these
Played in minor keys
Keep those memories holding on

I've come far
From the life i've strayed in
I've got scars
From those dives i've played in
Now i'm home
And i'm weary
In my bones
Every dreary one night stand
But baby grand
Came home with me

Ever since this gig began
My baby grand's
Been good to me

Well i'm on the downeaster "alexa"
And i'm cruising through block island sound
I have chartered a course to the vineyard
But tonight i am nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in gardner's bay
Like all the locals here i've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave i worked my fingers to the bone

So i could own my downeaster "alexa"
And i go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where god only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But i've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my downeaster "alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife i am trolling atlantis
And i still have my hands on the wheel

Now i drive my downeaster "alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me i can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still i feel i said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time i've held a rose
It seems i only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon i suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So i will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all i've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So i would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

Viktor was born in the spring of '44
And never saw his father anymore
A child of sacrifice, a child of war
Another son who never had a father after leningrad

Went off to school and learned to serve the state
Followed the rules and drank his vodka straight
The only way to live was drown the hate
A russian life was very sad
And such was life in leningrad

I was born in '49
A cold war kid in mccarthy time
Stop 'em at the 38th parallel
Blast those yellow reds to hell
And cold war kids were hard to kill
Under their desk in an air raid drill
Haven't they heard we won the war
What do they keep on fighting for?

Viktor was sent to some red army town
Served out his time, became a circus clown
The greatest happiness he'd ever found
Was making russian children glad
And children lived in leningrad

But children lived in levittown
And hid in the shelters underground
Until the soviets turned their ships around
And tore the cuban missiles down
And in that bright october sun
We knew our childhood days were done
And i watched my friends go off to war
What do they keep on fighting for?

And so my child and i came to this place
To meet him eye to eye and face to face
He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced
We never knew what friends we had
Until we came to leningrad

'49 harry truman, doris day, red china, johnnie ray
South pacific, walter winchell, joe dimaggio

'50 joe mccarthy, richard nixon, studebaker, television
North korea, south korea, marilyn monroe

'51 rosenbergs, h-bomb, sugar ray, panmunjom
Brando, "the king and i" and "the catcher in the rye"

'52 eisenhower, vaccine, england's got a new queen
Marciano, liberace, santayana goodbye

Chorus
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

'53 joseph stalin, malenkov, nasser and prokofiev
Rockefeller, campanella, communist bloc

'54 roy cohn, juan peron, toscanini, dacron
Dien bien phu falls, "rock around the clock"

'55 einstein, james dean, brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy crockett, peter pan, elvis presley, disneyland

'56 bardot, budapest, alabama, krushchev
Princess grace, "peyton place", trouble in the suez

Chorus

'57 little rock, pasternak, mickey mantle, kerouac
Sputnik, chou en-lai, "bridge on the river kwai"

'58 lebanon, charles de gaulle, california baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

'59 buddy holly, "ben hur", space monkey, mafia
Hula hoops, castro, edsel is a no-go

'60 u-2, syngman rhee, payola and kennedy
Chubby checker, "psycho", belgians in the congo

Chorus

'61 hemingway, eichmann, "stranger in a strange land"
Dylan, berlin, bay of pigs invasion

'62 "lawrence of arabia", british beatlemania
Ole miss, john glenn, liston beats patterson

'63 pope paul, malcolm x, british politician sex
Jfk, blown away, what else do i have to say

Chorus

'64 - '89 birth control, ho chi minh, richard nixon back again
Moonshot, woodstock, watergate, punk rock
Begin, reagan, palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in iran, russians in afghanistan

"wheel of fortune", sally ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, aids, crack, bernie goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, china's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, i can't take it anymore

Chorus

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

Some people stay far away from the door
If there's a chance of it opening up
They hear a voice in the hall outside
And hope that it just passes by

Some people live with the fear of a touch
And the anger of having been a fool
They will not listen to anyone
So nobody tells them a lie

I know you're only protecting yourself
I know you're thinking of somebody else
Someone who hurt you
But i'm not above
Making up for the love
You've been denying you could ever feel
I'm not above doing anything
To restore your faith if i can
Some people see through the eyes of the old
Before they ever get a look at the young
I'm only willing to hear you cry
Because i am an innocent man
I am an innocent man
Oh yes i am

Some people say they will never believe
Another promise they hear in the dark
Because they only remember too well
They heard somebody tell them before

Some people sleep all alone every night
Instead of taking a lover to bed
Some people find that it's easier to hate
Than to wait anymore

I know you don't want to hear what i say
I know you're gonna keep turning away
But i've been there and if i can survive
I can keep you alive
I'm not above going through it again
I've not above being cool for a while
If you're cruel to me i'll understand

Some people run from a possible fight
Some people figure they can never win
And although this is a fight i can lose
The accused is an innocent man
I am an innocent man
Oh yes i am
An innocent man

You know you only hurt yourself out of spite
I guess you'd rather be a martyr tonight
That's your decision
But i'm not below
Anybody i know
If there's a chance of resurrecting a love
I'm not above going back to the start
To find out where the heartache began

Some people hope for a miracle cure
Some people just accept the world as it is
But i'm not willing to lay down and die
Because i am an innocent man

I am an innocent man
Oh yes i am
An innocent man

We walked on the beach beside that old hotel
They're tearing it down now
But it's just as well
I haven't shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me baby
I've got plans for you

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won't
Although we'll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You've given me the best of you
And now i need the rest of you

Did you know that before you came into my life
It was some kind of miracle that i survived
Some day we will both look back
And have to laugh
We lived through a lifetime
And the aftermath

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won't
Although we want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
I know we've got to move somehow
But i don't want to lose you know

Sometimes it's so easy
To let a day
Slip on by
Without even seeing each other at all
But this is the time you'll turn back and so will i
And those will be the days you can never recall

And so we embrace again
Behind the dunes
This beach is cold
On winter afternoons
But holding you close is like holding the summer sun
I'm warm from the memory of days to come

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
But we won't
Although we'll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You've given me the best of you
But now i need the rest of you

If it seems like i've been lost
In let's remember
If you think i'm feeling older
And missing my younger days
Oh, then you should have known
Me much better
Cause my past is something that never
Got in my way
Oh no

Still i would not be here now
If i never had the hunger
And i'm not ashamed to say
The wild boys were my friends
Oh
Cause i never felt the desire
'til their music set me on fire
And then i was saved, yeah
That's why i'm keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith

We wore matador boots
Only flagg brothers had them with the cuban heel
Iridescent socks with the same color shirt
And a tight pair of chinos
Oh
I put on my shark skin jacket
You know the kind with the velvet collar
And ditty-bop shades
Oh yeah
I took a fresh pack of luckys
And a mint called sen-sen
My old man's trojans
And his old spice after shave
Oh
Combed my hair in a pompadour
Like the rest of the romeos wore
A permanent wave
Yeah
We were keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith

You can get just so much
From a good thing
You can linger too long
In your dreams
Say goodbye to the
Oldies but goodies
Cause the good ole days weren't
Always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

Learned stickball as a formal education
Lost a lot of fights
But it taught me how to lose o.k.
Oh
I heard about sex
But not enough
I found you could dance
And still look tough anyway
Oh yes i did
I found out a man ain't just being macho
Ate an awful lot of late night drive-in food
Drank a lot of take-home pay
I thought i was the duke of earl
When i made it with a red-haired girl
In the chevrolet
Oh yeah
We were keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith

You know the good ole days weren't
Always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

Now i told you my reasons
For the whole revival
Now i'm going outside to have
An ice cold beer in the shade
Oh
I'm going to listen to my 45's
Ain't it wonderful to be alive
When the rock 'n' roll plays
Yeah
When the memory stays
Yeah
I'm keeping the faith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Keeping the faith
I'm keeping the faith
Yes i am