| Disc 1 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
1. |
| 3:24 | 
|
||
|
If this were the last snowfall
No more halos on evergreen If this were the last glimpse of winter What would these eyes see? If this were the last slow curling Of your fingers in my palm If this were the last I felt you breathing How would I carry on? This is not the last snowfall Not our last embrace But if I were that kind of grateful What would I try to say? |
||||||
| 2. |
| 4:13 |
|
|||
|
All of a sudden the conversation turns
And everyone concerned is looking down Guilty party is right here in the room But no one can assume the high ground Oh it almost caught up with you Caught up with you then Oh you should've thought of this my friend If you knew it was wrong why did you do it You don't know, you didn't mean to, it slipped your mind And it feels so good to feed a habit You're just making the most of your borrowed time Waiting for the white light Heading home you swear that you'll be good Do everything you should, and know the facts But in the morning you're back to petty needs Tragedy recedes to photographs Oh it hasn't caught up with you Caught up with you yet No it hasn't taught you when to quit If you knew it was wrong why did you do it You don't know, you didn't mean to, it slipped your mind, It is OK because everybody does it This whole party is rolling on borrowed time Waiting for the white light Shine down Wipe it all out again, Show me how It doesn't matter in the end If you knew it was wrong why did you do it You don't know, you didn't mean to, it slipped your mind It is OK because everybody does it No laws are broken if we're all committing the same crime But I know it's wrong, why do I do it I don't know, I don't mean for it to slip my mind It just takes so much to break a habit Even when I'm aware we are out of time Am I waiting for a white light |
||||||
| 3. |
| 4:44 |
|
|||
|
In the fall,
We circle through the leaves And talk about the little ones. And we smile, but never say too much. The moment always vanishing. One by one the neighbors' lights come on. Our October day is almost gone. I know the border lines we drew between us Keep the weapons down, Keep the wounded safe, I know our antebellum innocence Was never meant to see the light of our armistice day. In the spring, We climbed the rolling hills And talked about our budding plans. And we smiled, Our faces like a mirror Showing us our secret sides. But then the fights The sharp words splintering the night, How I couldn't be what you'd need But oh how I could make you bleed I know the border lines we drew between us Keep the weapons down, Keep the wounded safe I know our antebellum innocence Was never meant to see the light of our armistice. But how much would I give to have it back again? How much did we lose To live this way? You'll go home, I'll stay here Seasons keep on marching I'll stay here, you'll go home With only strangers watching |
||||||
| 4. |
| 4:32 |
|
|||
|
Sun sets in an ocean of brown farmland haze
Power lines draped across roads you could drive on for days Well it's all too perfect Time to look back at us now Endless and empty like Kansas Our cities of clouds Flat on the table like Kansas I lay down in sheets suddenly worn threadbare Every wall I lean on transforms to sliding doors and thin air Well I hope yours is kinder Let go of this when you find her Bury this hard Down underneath your white canvas Our houses of cards Flat on the table like Kansas It's not regret Just an unexpected accounting of debts Only now called No it's not regret Just remembrance is all Of how close we had come The war almost won But I sent up our flag and moved on You and I Lost to the winter like Kansas And all my goodbyes Flat on the table like Kansas |
||||||
| 5. |
| 3:33 |
|
|||
|
In another life
You and I worked West Virginia coal mines Side by side Collecting the black dust like sin The day the main shaft caved in I caught your eye As the lantern light guttered out And the after damp swallowed us slowly I gripped your hand And caught a glance Of the next time 'round In another life You and I were Red Guards in training Side by side We marched on Tienanmen Turned our own parents in For hoarding rice And in the Great Leap forward We crawled on our bellies and died A blood orange sky Gave a cry Of next time 'round In another life I was married at thirteen You were killed at twenty-one On a minor battlefield I was buried beside my second stillborn child My last thought it seemed A fever dream Now we sink into a summer afternoon Central Park in June Marveling at the bounty our days contain And we feel it like the shiver Of a passing train That other life Deep underground You and I Side by side We are the next time 'round |
||||||
| 6. |
| 3:33 |
|
|||
|
Oh girl you think you got time
You're gonna get 'round to it way down the line But one step, two step, you fall behind So you better have a good plan Oh girl you think you got time You're gonna get 'round to it way down the line But I'm telling you no matter what you have in mind You're still gonna need a man Take it from your grandmother I've been 'round No one's gonna take care of you In that world you've got yourself into All the good boys, oh baby they're in grad school Oh girl your story's all wrong Your dream'll be a nightmare before too long Turning thirty and still trying to sing your songs Come on who do you think you are Oh girl it's too heavy a load Your mama and your baba they are worried souls How you gonna raise a family when you're on the road With some tattooed boy with a guitar Take it from your grandmother I've been 'round This music career isn't real life It won't see you through to when you're sixty-five When the tide turns you won't survive You'll sit on the banks and cry Oh girl you've never know war When they come in the night and knock on the door You can go from the high life to dirty poor And lose everything you knew But the one thing they can't take away from you Is your mind and the education you've been through O you find a man who understands that too Make sure that he stays true Gives respect where its due Make sure he knows what he's got in you Because a woman isn't just for cooking meals Scrubbing floors, making babies A woman's got ambitions same as he does Maybe more When the sirens wailed and the bombs fell We ran from the schoolyard into hell And what we could've been time will never tell 'cause we never had your chances The advantages that you've been handed Take it from your grandmother I've been 'round |
||||||
| 7. |
| 4:06 |
|
|||
|
Oh no not now
Please not now I just settled into the glass half empty Made myself at home And so why now Please not now I just stopped believing in happy endings Harbors of my own But you had to come along didn't you Break down the doors, throw open windows Oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me So what do I do with this? This stray Italian greyhound These inconvenient fireworks This ice-cream-covered screaming hyperactive thought God I just want to lay down These colors make my eyes hurt This feeling calls for everything that I am Not I'm not that kind I'm so good at shooting down any notion This tired world could change It's all been bought Or at least that was my line No use in spending all that emotion When there's someone else to blame But you had to come along didn't you Rev up the crowd, rewrite the rule book Where do I go when every 'n' turns into 'maybe' So what do I do with this? This sudden burst of sunlight And me with my umbrella Cross-indexing every weatherman's report I was ready for the down slide But not for spring to well up This feeling calls for everything I can't afford To know Is possible now What do I do With a love that won;t sit still Won't do what it's told What do I do With a love that won't sit still |
||||||
| 8. |
| 3:13 |
|
|||
|
Oh my god
What have I done Chasing some mirage in my Mojave sun Don't say every chance is lost, Please don't say anything at all In sand and thorns I'm walking forth Bare and blinking as the day that I was born Bells in spires of China white Ring for an Augustine tonight Oh now, I'm breaking down Oh let me be Let me be your Augustine Lead me now I understand Faith is both the prison and the open hand Bells on low on high Will you ring for Augustine tonight Oh now I'm breaking down, Every illusion in between All the lies that I have seen Oh let me be your Augustine |
||||||
| 9. |
| 5:24 |
|
|||
|
Father says head down
We don't want them finding you Mother says practice now All the words you know Oh Arizona's burning They say the fence turned round Now the razor wire keeps us out Mother says with luck We'll sleep under a roof tonight Father says in the truck We'll be crushed in tight Oh Chicago don't forget me As the miles between us grow Keep the maple tree carved with the name of my love The hills we would sled race down Lake Michigan stay endless and painted in sky Goodbye Mother says years ago The whole world was ours to rule Father says let it go Those days are gone for good All the signs read no gringo But somehow we'll find our way Maybe waiting at dawn by the factory doors Sunburnt and bent in the fields Please don't turn us in We'll be silent as the grave As time No gringo No Gringo aqua Words as levies against the flood Hoy cerrado There's too many to feed Room for only our own kind, our own blood No gringo, no gringo aqua You have stayed in this land for too long Tan amargo But there's no time to grieve You just pack up your things and move on |
||||||
| 10. |
| 4:37 |
|
|||
|
While you were building your empires
I was still sleeping I was still sleeping While you were setting your woods afire I was still dreaming I was still dreaming Now I will unsettle the ground beneath you Send my waters ashore Creep into your bed Find you in every corner While you argue it over I am not waiting I am not waiting While you retreat to your comforts I am not fading I am not fading I've done this many times before you Old Shanghai New Orleans Amsterdam and Mumbai Strange new creatures To scavenge your pores Oh I've done this many times before you Ashen sky Lightning storms Deltas to desert plains Wartime on every border I've done this many times before you Watched the pattern take form Children your time is done If you say it's done together |
||||||
| 11. |
| 4:12 |
|
|||
|
It came from nowhere
On the 38 Geary A girl with a backpack of shrapnel and wire Through spiderweb windows Of blood stained glass A pagoda's shadow and a cruel sunny sky Oh the flash then the silence Shouldn't there be screaming praying crying Oh anything at all Tell me where are the sirens Fire's getting closer but I've got to stay calm It's just the radio darling, Just the radio and your runaway imagination Just the radio darling We can turn away to another station Outside they're handing out Fate to the wounded Little tags in black red yellow, and green It's now my twenty-fifth hour With a scalpel in hand If I stop moving I will sleep on my feet And the rumors are seething Gunfire at freeway exits, bridges mid-barricades I can feel the fog creeping God where is the morphine, the sweet lidocaine It's just the radio Sing me a love song dear What good has the news ever done me Come on it'll never happen here, oh no We are not some third world country This is not some third world country I'm sorry Mama I held on for as long as I could I'm sorry Papa There was nothing more I could do It's just the radio |
||||||
| 12. |
| 5:07 |
|
|||
|
He was there the night the wall came down.
He lost her in the endless crowd, In the shadow of St. Stephen's cross. He sent cries aloft for his fellow man, His fingers slipping from her hand, The rain clouds prowling overhead. She was there the night the wall came down. She faded into that newborn crowd Like a warning of what could be lost. Through the perforated night she ran, Her fingers slipping from his hand, And she breathed in freedom Before daylight tread. They were there the night the wall was drowned In the surging of that tidal crowd: An old world made new On the same holy ground. She found him standing, looking lost In the shadow of St. Stephen's cross, And he closed his eyes and heard no sound But her breathing warm against his mouth. |
||||||
|
