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
1 bedroom 1 bath Hardwood floors with view of trees 1 bedroom 1 bath Parking space for extra fee My little flock of boxes and I surrounded by a painted-white unknown Soon as this wall in my heart comes down, I'm gonna make it feel like home
1 bedroom 1 bath A/C was fine 'til yesterday 1 bedroom 1 bath: 89 degrees today My upstairs neighbors are making sounds that I never want to hear. I hope they're just moving furniture around And really liking their ideas
1 bedroom 1 bath Hardwood floors with view of trees 1 bedroom 1 bath Parking space for extra fee My little flock of boxes and I surrounded by a painted-white unknown Soon as this wall in my heart comes down, I'm gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel like home (repeatedly)
City fast asleep Clouds up on the hill So quiet So still Dreams of rain in sheets, Dreams of ice and wings So delicate These things.
Love, love, love is a word so small Let it fill up up, up 'Til I can't see at all I want to be blind Only my hands to guide me Bring all of you inside me
City fast asleep Lights hum in the gray, Like her breathing will someday Strangest beauty cries One and one By and by Now three of us here lie
Love, love, love for one so small Come fill me up, up, up 'Til I can't see at all I want to be blind Only my heart to guide me Gather all the world inside me
It's so beautiful here, she says, This moment now And this moment, now And I never thought I would find her here: Flannel and satin My four walls transformed But she's looking at me Straight to center No room at all for any other thought And I know I don't want this Oh I swear I don't want this There's a reason not to want this But I forgot
In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder Hair falling forward, mouth all askew Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: Passengers missing We're looking for you And she dreams through the noise, Her weight against me Face pressed into the corduroy grooves Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing But I'm afraid to move
And the words: they're everything and nothing I want to search for her in the offhand remarks Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar? Who are you, echoing street signs? Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover Dark curtains drawn by the passage of time? Oh words like rain, how sweet the sound
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
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
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
It's the quiet night that breaks me I cannot stand the sight of this familiar place It's the quiet night that breaks me Like a dozen papercuts that only I can trace All my books are lying useless now All my maps will only show me how to lose my way
Oh call my name You know my name And in that sound Everything will change Tell me it won't always be this hard I am nothing without you But I don't know who you are
It's the crowded room that breaks me Everybody looks so luminous, and strangely young It's the crowded room that's never heard No one here can say a word of my native tongue I can't be among them anymore I fold myself away before it burns me numb
Oh call my name You know my name And in your love Everything will change Tell me it won't always be this hard I am nothing without you But I don't know who you are
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Sometimes when I look at you, I don’t know why you’d wait. School girl in a little world Who learns everything late. I’ve always had all the answers Now I don’t have a clue
Some nights when the clouds are thick, And the wind starts to blow. I stare out my window Wondering where I will go. I turn the light out Under the covers all I think of is you. Just you.
Say the word And I just might listen. Say the word, And you might get your way. Loving you should be easier But say the word, And I might have to stay.
Meanwhile there’s so many things That I don’t understand. I don’t know why I tremble When you reach for my hand. I didn’t know how to love Until you swept me away.
Say the word And I just might listen. Say the word, And you might get your way. Loving you should be easier But say the word, And I might have to stay.
I wanna love. I wanna ride. I want to be the girl There by your side. Just tell me when, Just tell me how. Tell me I’m ready now. Today.
Say… Say the word And I just might listen. Say the word, And you might get your way. Loving you should be easier But say the word, And I might have to stay.
Strange how you know inside me I measure the time and I stand amazed Strange how I know inside you My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze
And of course I forgive I've seen how you live Like a phoenix you rise from the ashes You pick up the pieces And the ghosts in the attic They never quite leave And of course I forgive You've seen how I live I've got darkness and fears to appease My voices and analogies Ambitions like ribbons Worn bright on my sleeve
Strange how we know each other
Strange how I fit into you There's a distance erased with the greatest of ease Strange how you fit into me A gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs
And with each passing day The stories we say Draw us tighter into our addiction Confirm our conviction That some kind of miracle Passed on our heads And how I am sure Like never before Of my reasons for defying reason Embracing the seasons We dance through the colors Both followed and led
Strange how we fit each other
Strange how certain the journey Time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see Strange how this journey's hurting In ways we accept as part of fate's decree
So we just hold on fast Acknowledge the past As lessons exquisitely crafted Painstakingly drafted To carve us as instruments That play the music of life For we don't realize Our faith in the prize Unless it's been somehow elusive How swiftly we choose it The sacred simplicity Of you at my side
