The Missing Years

Everything is cool
Everything's okay
Why just before last christmas
My baby went away

Across the sea to an island
While the bridges brightly burn
So far away from my land
The valley of the unconcerned

I was walking down the road, man
Just looking at my shoes
When god sent me an angel
Just to chase away my blues

I saw a hundred thousand blackbirds
Just flying thru the sky
And they seemed to form a teardrop
From a black haired angel's eye

That tear fell all around me
And it washed my sins away
Now everything is cool
Everything's okay

Everything is cool
Everything's okay
Why just before last christmas
My baby went away

And i find it real surprising
For myself to hear me say
That everything is cool
Everything's okay
Everything is cool
Everything's okay

Why just before last christmas
My baby went away.

You make me unlonely
I feel like the only
Person in the world
That ever had a girl like you

You make me feel wealthy
I almost look healthy
With you on my arm
Yeah together we could charm
This whole wide world

Once i was lonely
Nobody but me
My heart in a prison
Love set me free
God woke up
He heard my plea
He sent you to me
He sent you to me

You made me feel stronger
You made me love longer
Than anyone
Anyone in the whole wide world.

A young man from a small town
With a very large imagination
Lay alone in his room with his radio on
Looking for another station
When the static from the mouthpiece
Gave way to the sound below
James dean went out to hollywood
And put his picture in a picture show.
James dean went out to hollywood
And put his picture in a picture show.

Chorus:
And it's oh daddy get off of your knees
Mamma why'd you have to go
Your darling jim is out a limb
I put my picture in a picture show
Whoa ho! put my picture in a picture show

Hamburgers cheeseburgers
Wilbur and orville wright
John garfield in the afternoon
Montgomery clift at night
When the static hit the mouthpiece
Gave way to the sound below
James dean went out to hollywood
And put his picture in a picture show.

Repeat chorus:

A mocca man in a wigwam sitting on a reservation.
With a big black hole in the belly of his soul
Waiting on an explanation
While the white man sits on his fat can
And takes pictures of the navajo
Every time he clicks his kodak pics
He steals a little bit of soul.
Every time he clicks his kodak pics
He steals a little bit of soul.

Repeat chorus:

Yie hi! put my picture in a picture show
Here we go!
A young man from a small town
With a very large imagination...

I wish you love and happiness
I guess i wish you all the best
I wish you don't do like i do
And ever fall in love with someone like you
Cause if you fell just like i did
You'd probably walk around the block like a little kid.
But kids don't know they can only guess
How hard it is to wish you happiness

I guess that love is like a christmas card
You decorate a tree you throw it in the yard
It decays and dies and the snowmen melt
Well i once knew love i knew how love felt
Yeah i knew love love knew me
And when i walked love walked with me
And i got no hate and i got no pride
Well i got so much love that i cannot hide

Say you drive a chevy say you drive a ford
You say you drive around the town till you just get bored
Then you change your mind for something else to do
And your heart gets bored with your mind and it changes you
Well it's a doggone shame and it's an awful mess
I wish you love i wish you happiness
I wish you love i wish you happiness
I guess i wish you all the best

I seen my old lady's boyfriend
He don't look nothing like me
'cept for a bit of confusion
Same kind she laid on me

You don't know what you're getting into
She's gonna tear you apart
You're going places i've been to
Take a look at my heart
Take a look at my heart

You're pro'bly sending her flowers
And talking to her on the phone
You're gonna get it together
And find yourself all alone

Do you think you can be her lover
And not become her fool
Do you think that you are the exception to the rule

You're gonna hate all her girlfriends
And everything that they say
You ask me how do i know this
They come around every day.

Up in the morning
Work like a dog
Is better than sitting
Like a bump on a log
Mind all your manners
Be quiet as a mouse
Some day you'll own a home
That's as big as a house

I know a fella
He eats like a horse
Knocks his old balls
Round the old golf course
You oughta see his wife
She's a cute little dish
She smokes like a chimney
And drinks like a fish

There's a big old goofy man
Dancing with a big old goofy girl
Ooh baby
It's a big old goofy world

Now elvis had a woman
With a head like a rock
I wished i had a woman
That made my knees knock
She'd sing like an angel
And eat like a bird
And if i wrote a song
She'd know ever single word

Kiss a little baby
Give the world a smile
If you take an inch
Give 'em back a mile
Cause if you lie like a rug
And you don't give a damn
You're never gonna be
As happy as a clam

So i'm sitting in a hotel
Trying to write a song
My head is just as empty
As the day is long
Why it's clear as a bell
I should have gone to school
I'd be wise as an owl
Stead of stubborn as a mule.

(spoken)
Jesus.... the missing years

It was raining. it was cold
West bethlehem was no place for a twelve year old
So he packed his bags and he headed out
To find out what the world's about
He went to france. he went to spain
He found love. he found pain.
He found stores so he started to shop
But he had no money so he got in trouble with a cop
Kids in trouble with the cops
From israel didn't have no home
So he cut his hair and moved to rome
It was there he met his irish bride
And they rented a flat on the lower east side of rome...
Italy that is
Music publishers, book binders, bible belters, money changers,
Spoon benders and lots of pretty italian chicks.

Chorus:
Charley bought some popcorn
Billy bought a car
Someone almost bought the farm
But they didn't go that far
Things shut down at midnight
At least around here they do
Cause we all reside down the block
Inside at ....23 skidoo.

Wine was flowing so were beers
So jesus found his missing years
So he went to a dance and said "this don't move me"
He hiked up his pants and he went to a movie
On his thirteenth birthday he saw "rebel without a cause"
He went straight on home and invented santa claus
Who gave him a gift and he responded in kind
He gave the gift of love and went out of his mind
You see him and the wife wasn't getting along
So he took out his guitar and he wrote a song
Called "the dove of love fell off the perch"
But he couldn't get divorced in the catholic church
At least not back then anyhow
Jesus was a good guy he didn't need this shit
So he took a pill with a bag of peanuts and
A coca-cola and he swallowed it.
He discovered the beatles
And he recorded with the stones
Once he even opened up a three-way package
In southern california for old george jones

Repeat chorus:

The years went by like sweet little days
With babies crying pork chops and beaujolais
When he woke up he was seventeen
The world was angry. the world was mean.
Why the man down the street and the kid on the stoop
All agreed that life stank. all the world smelled like poop
Baby poop that is ..the worst kind
So he grew his hair long and thew away his comb
And headed back to jerusalem to find mom, dad and home
But when he got there the cupboard was bare
Except for an old black man with a fishing rod
He said "whatcha gonna be when you grow up?"
Jesus said "god"
Oh my god, what have i gotten myself into?
I'm a human corkscrew and all my wine is blood
They're gonna kill me mama. they don't like me bud.
So jesus went to heaven and he went there awful quick
All them people killed him and he wasn't even sick
So come and gather around me my contemporary peers
And i'll tell you all the story of
Jesus...the missing years

Repeat chorus:

We all reside down the block
Inside at ....23 skidoo.