Lyrics

SLAUGHTER OF AN ANCIENT TRIBE  

Of the seven wonders
Pyramids built against the sun
Time forgot its people
And the wonder they’d become
Vine and leafy jungle
Virgin sand and virgin sea
Eyes to the heavens
Where they’d chart their destiny

Enslave them betray them
Rob they harm them
Shoot them pollute them
The slaughter of an ancient tribe
Disguised

Brown feathered warriors
Share a kinship with the land
Across a raging ocean
Lived the “civilized” of man
Setting sails and sights
Beyond the blue horizon line
Scurvy’d sailing soldiers
Only conquest on their mind

Broken spokes on a medicine wheel
Just like America, America
The slaughter of an ancient tribe

From Spain came ships of a foreign land

 

VICIOUS LOVE

Dressed in your finery
Ten years older than me
Pluck the stars from out my eyes
Make this love materialize
My heart broke a million times
But I let you slide for all your crimes
You walked all over me
It wasn’t love, as love should be

I saw you down the way
And it was you who made the play
Shaggy haired and dressed to maim
That’s how my first lover came
I often wondered why
A love like you could pass on by
Now I greatly realize
It’s all part of the compromise

 

SWIFT MOVES

You won’t forgive but still forget
All the time we have spent
So again I get the shaft
Beer? What beer? I’ll take a draught
Put aside my sour jokes
Fun at her I will not poke
Justice wins out in the end
Shy and small and much too thin

Lyrics come to save my life
Byrne and Townsend shiny nights
Torn apart piece by piece
Torn and drained, reject; release

From under my unknowing nose
Passion mounts then grows and grows
So I sit cigarette in hand
As he works a master plan
How suave you strut, say hello
Shaking lies as you go
So now you’re feeling fine
At whose expense? Of course it’s mine

“Time heals all” I seem to mutter
Pull my life out of the gutter

 

LEAVE ME ALONE

Just living day to day
Cracking up in the usual way
Who knows the things I’ve tried
Who knows the tears I’ve cried?

Stupid girl, moron yes
Never find your happiness
Go along, looking fast
Hoping that your life might last

 

STARRY NIGHT

I saw him in a roller rink
Didn’t give me time to act or think
Complications, petrified and bold
His eyes they slant exotic ways
When he works and when the boy’s at play
Complications, petrified and bold

He’s my starry night
Gonna make everything alright
Love it more and more each day
With every day in every way

It’s hanging in a gallery
A master’s work of art and poetry
It’s living in a life its own

It’s a starry night
Gonna make everything alright
Love it more and more and more each day
With every day in every way

 

THE WOLF

Star spangled wolf comes, says that
This land was made for all
So hard to grasp the logic
Foaming from its rabid call
You say this democracy
Believes in our equality
You lie!

The wolf and the lamb
The wolf and the lamb
We are the lamb

The country runs right through us
And it doesn’t even blink an eye
Living off the poor man’s labour
Sucking all our spirit dry
We say this democracy
Is laced with their hypocrisy
It’s true!

Your claw of justice
It knows no boundary line
Tell me, oh wolf of slaughter
How many peasants died?
With this one democracy’s
Atrocious foreign policy

 

THE PROMISE

Well I gave my word
I gave my promise
To be there, forever honest
Loyal till the very end
But sometimes the rules, they bend
I’ll admit that I betrayed
Ran away when I should’ve stayed
Stumbled home
And tried to blame it all on you
When all the time I knew

That it’s two, two, broke in two the promise

Back before we ever started
I was sad and broken-hearted
So you came to be my friend
But here I am alone again
Days I brave turn into night
Sit alone in the morning light
Of the sun
I think of all things I’ve done
My heart strings undone

And it’s two, two, broke in two the promise

A greater love you thought you’d never found
But when you needed me I was not around

 

HIGH SCHOOL

Catholic high school’s just a game
Driving kids like me insane
Walk around in short gray skirts
Looking cute, I’m looking worst

Dance, romance
Everyone’s so happy
Looking cute and looking fine
Looking for the best

Didn’t learn a god damn thing
Didn’t buy that fuckin ring
Won’t dance, won’t make romance
Wish I could
But I can’t

 

MISOGYNY

A woman is a precious thing
Far beyond her wedding ring
But you have kept her under thumb
Creating the llght head and dumb

You don’t love her
You abuse her
You confuse her
You just use

A woman’s mind’s a priceless gift
Stronger than man’s strength to lift
A woman’s beauty is her mind
But all you see’s the sexual kind

Blatant is misogyny
Scattered in our history
But if on you the gods have smiled
I’d like to see you bear a child

 

BRAIN SPARKS

It starts out just an idea
Sparks in brains so young
So some may sit and ponder
Or stare at us in fits of wonder

You don’t hear the words I’m saying
Or the music that we’re playing
Laugh at me, laugh at us
They always laugh at genius

It starts out slowly, sure
The silly boys and girl
With no oppression, no more hate
That kind of thing is out of date

The helpless hear the words I’m saying
And the music that we’re playing
Laugh at me, laugh at us
They always laugh at genius

 

ATTITUDES

So you think it starts
The day you’re born
Or you think it starts
From being torn

It’s just your attitude
Not filled with gratitude
It’s only attitude

He said you’d better change
Your frame of thought
Look at all the trouble
You have brought

Said it’s my attitude
Not filled with gratitude
It’s only attitude

It’s just my attitude
It’s only attitude
Everything I say is wrong
Everything I do is wrong
Just my attitude

1234
Attitude
Nothing more, attitude
When everything you say goes wrong
And everything you do goes wrong
Say it’s your attitude
My attitude

 

CORNER OF THE WORLD

In this corner of the world
There must be more
Than this corner of the world
A blur of life passes by
You run unsatisfied
From this corner of the world

No one reaches a resolve
From this corner of the world

In the broader streets you’ve found
There’s such a arrogance
It laughs your courage down
And you feel so weak, on a losing streak
It happens all the time
From this corner of the world

And no one reaches a resolve
From this corner of the world
Give me strength
Make me strong enough to carry on
From this corner of the world
The world

The demon fear he speaks so loud
Among the cowardice you’ve allowed

 

THE CRY

Into a darkened sky
Aimless bullets fly
Inebriation; celebration
And mother is so used
To father’s gun abuse
That she just talks above the shots

The sound of bullets, stray
Send squad cars on their way
Cause firearms cause much alarm
The siren wails fear
It fills the father’s ear
He turns to run, still holds the gun

A life without translation
What the blue can’t understand
Father’s not a killer
Just a celebrating man

Into his darkened skin
The bullets tear right in
Their aim is true
The men in blue
And mother runs outside
She kneels by father’s side
“Why?” she cries to their mistake
“Why?” becomes the cry

 

INDIAN INK TEARS

Baby had no money
Baby needed some
Baby calls me honey
When I go visit him

Baby left a baby
Not a cent to spare
Not a roof o’er our heads
Not a stitch to wear

And all my tears
My indian ink tears

Baby wrote a letter
I wrote him back in rhyme
Said I’d like you better
If you weren’t doing time

And all my tears
Are indian ink tears

Hope is hard to find
Things are hard to say
What you’ve left behind
And what you’ve thrown away

 

HARD SOMETIMES

I never thought it would come to this
When passion turns to nothingness
Suddenly the world turns gray
Suddenly you’ve lost your way
The crooked line you called your path
Leaves you in this aftermath
And while deception’s hardly new
There’s still one thing that’s always true

That it’s hard sometimes
When ideals die, the well runs dry
Hard sometimes

Hard enough to stumble through
Harder still when you’ve been fooled
Looking for the will to fight
Or a friendly alibi

Dreams only are dreams

Keep the faith, keep it warm
If you get burned, you’ll get burned some more
You’ve gotta look it in the eye
You’ve gotta feel life, you’ve gotta cry
Living in the dream debris
Broken pieces left around for me
To gather up or brush aside
Building up from the inside

 

BELIEVE

One truth one cause
That’s strong because
It lives in the soul
Of the common man

His hurt his pain
Our loss your gain
Will turn like the tables in that old cliché
What say

If faith could heal
Wouldn’t it be better to believe
In something real?

Something you can touch
It don’t take too much
I look around and what do I see
All these people just like me

I believe

 

JUST ANOTHER DAY

I could’ve sworn I just went to bed
A million stray thoughts running through my head
In the morning, an ache in my heart
Every morning, it’s so hard to start

Earn some money make my due
A million odd things a soul can do
Forfeit something in the trade
Now I can’t sleep in this bed that I’ve made

Just another day

Work my fingers to the bone
Drag this weary body home
Drown my sorrow drink it numb
A million strange questions, I’ll just play along

Is it me? Am I alone in my uselessness?
With no place to go
I’ll never know the things I’d see
Bathed blue by the TV
A gray stream of smoke beside me
But will I ever know the soul I feel?

 

SOLDIER

Rebel soldier fighting
Far away, no child’s play, yeah
A simple truth, he’s not fighting blind
Rebel soldier’s spirit
Pure as gold, his story’s told
It’s not in vain that he will die

But here the soldier, taught to fight
Don’t know his left from his right
Recruited soldier don’t you fight
For the Right

Yankee soldier waits to
Wage a war, but what’s it for?
There is no truth he’s out fight fighting blind
He cleans the barrel of his
Borrowed gun, he’s waiting for the one
The word they’ll twist his arm to die

Cause here the soldier, taught to fight
Don’t know his left from his right
Recruited soldier don’t you fight
For the Right

In the belly of the
Beast we feast, the meal’s a mock treat
Is this feast what you’re fighting for?
But look around and no one’s belly’s full
But the chosen few
And rich men never go to war

And still the soldier, taught to fight
Don’t know his left from his right
Recruited soldier don’t you fight
For the Right

Yankee soldier don’t you fight
Know your left, know your right
Recruited soldier don’t you fight
For the Right

 

IT’S A CLIMB

Friends for life, friends till death
The years have past and time it went
Somewhere where the hopes have homes
Our lives read like wild poems
We sit to cry in coffee cups
Our eyes meet and we ‘fess up
My voice is shot, your writing pales
And we’re locked in this urban jail

It’s a climb all the way

Home was always just like this
Where people die a little bit
Sirens wail down broken streets
The corners crowd where people meet
Shattered dreams and dirty walls
The sun comes up and duty calls
Some find hope where others fail
Locked within this urban jail

It’s a climb all the way

And you and I have nothing left
But we can’t give it up just yet
There’s another hill to climb
There’s a path to leave behind
And the sweet life we’ve never known
And the tears this life has shown
We’ll woo the starts to shine
For us the crush there’ll come a time
My weary friend
These times are hard
These times we live in

Friends for life, friends till death
The years have past and time it went
Somewhere where the hopes have homes
In a heart that still dreams on
No time to cry in our defeat
Cause we’re still standing on our feet
And if we hope we’ll never fail
For in this world

It’s a climb all the way