Elbow - Ribcage
We blew the doors, didn't we?
Pissed in their champagne
And did a real thing, didn't we?
Gave ourselves a name
And peeled away the shame
I wanted to explode
To pull my ribs apart
And let the sun inside
Red stain blossoms
And all you have is kisses
And when the sunshine
Throwin' me a lifeline
Finds its way into my room
All I need is you
We called that love
All you have is kisses
And all I need is you
*******
Bright Eyes - Waste of Paint
I have a friend, he is mostly made of pain.
And he wakes up, drives to work,
and then straight back home again.
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper.
I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover.
And I tried to tell him he had a sense
of color and composition so magnificent.
And he said
"Thank you, please
but your flattery
is truly not
becoming me.
Your eyes are poor.
You're blind.
You see,
no beauty could have come from me.
I'm a waste
of breath,
of space,
of time."
I knew a woman, she was dignified and true.
And her love for her man was one of her many virtues.
Until one day, she found out that he had lied
and she decided the rest of her life from that point on would be a lie.
But she was grateful for everything that had happened.
And she was anxious for all that would come next.
But then she wept.
What did you expect?
In that big, old house
with the cars she kept.
"And such is life," she often said.
With one day leading
to the next,
you get a little closer to your death,
which was fine with her.
She never got upset
and with all the days she may have left,
she would never clean
another mess
or fold his shirts
or look her best.
She was free
to waste
away
alone.
Last night, my brother he got drunk and drove.
And this cop he pulled him off to the side of the road.
And he said, "Officer! Officer! You got the wrong man.
No, no, I'm a student of medicine, a son of a banker, you don't understand!"
The cop said, "No one got hurt, you should be thankful.
And your carelessness, it is something awful.
And no, I can't just let you go.
And though your father's name is known,
your decisions now are yours alone.
You are nothing but a stepping stone
on a path
to debt,
to loss,
to shame."
The last few months I have been living with this couple.
Yeah, you know, the kind who buy everything in doubles.
They fit together, like a puzzle.
And I love their love and I am thankful
that someone actually receives the prize that was promised
by all those fairy tales that drugged us.
And they still do me.
I'm sick, lonely,
no laurel tree,
just green envy.
Will my number come up eventually?
Like Love's some kind of lottery,
where you scratch and see
what's underneath.
It's "Sorry",
just one cherry,
or "Play Again."
Get lucky.
So I've been hanging out down by the train's depot.
No, I don't ride.
I just sit and watch the people there.
And they remind me of wind up cars in motion.
The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.
And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense.
All your life's one track,
can't they see it's pointless?
But just then, my knees
give under me.
My head feels weak
and suddenly
it's clear to see
it's not them but me,
who has lost my self-identity.
As I hide behind
these books I read,
while scribbling
my poetry,
like art could save a wretch like me,
with some ideal ideology
that no one could hope to achieve.
And I am never real;
it is just a sketch in me.
And everything I made is trite
and cheap
and a waste
of paint,
of tape,
of time.
So now I park my car down by the cathedral,
where the floodlights point up at the steeples.
Choir practice was filling up with people.
I hear the sound escaping as an echo.
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle.
When the voices blend they sound like angels.
I hope there’s some room still in the middle.
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them.
The range is too high,
way up in heaven.
So I hold my tongue,
forget the song,
tie my shoe
start walking off.
And try to just keep moving on,
with my broken heart
and my absent God
and I have no faith
but it's all I want,
to be loved.
And believe,
in my soul.
In my soul.
In my soul.
In my soul.
*******
Ingrid Michaelson - Lady in Spain
I am the lady in Spain
I'll sing a haunting refrain
I am the lady from Mars
And I can unscrew the stars
I can be
Anything I see
I can be
Anything that I, anything that I see
And I am in love with a boy
Manufacture to destroy
I shall unravel my love
I can unthread woolen gloves
I can do anything I want to
I can do anything I want anything my heart tells me to do
Tells me to do
Tells me to do
Dododo-dodododo-dododododo
I can do-ooo-ooo
Anything I want to
I can be-ee-eeee
Anything that I see
I can do-oooo-ooooooo anything I want to
I can be anything that I see
Anything that I see
*******
Supertramp - The Logical Song
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily
oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible
logical, oh responsible, practical
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world's asleep
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am
I said now watch what you say they'll be calling you a radical
a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're
acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable
Oh Take it take it yeah
But at night, when all the world's asleep
the questions run so deep
for such a simple man
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am
Who I am
Who knows who's so logical
