THE SOUND OF A TREE FALLING
They say Te Amo in the moonlight
And my heart is breaking from behind a tree.
Deep in the forest is there a sound
When my heart is breaking from behind a tree?
I am your lover but you don't see me
When my heart is breaking from behind a tree.
The sound of a tree falling
The sound of a heart breaking.
NOBODY'S DOING THE JOB
Nobody's doing the job they want to be doing
Don't you see that's the whole problem?
The waiter wants to be an actor
And the dentist wants to be a violinist
The lawyer wants to be just about anything but a lawyer
But still make a fortune and live off the interest
The baby wants to be a big girl
And the teacher wants to be a performer
The dancer used to be the thing she always wanted to be
But now she's the maitre d'
The businessman wants to be a musician
And the housewife wants to be a magician
The doctor doesn't want to be a physician
But the restaurateur now he's found a cure
For the nine to five blues
But the messenger he doesn't want to bring the news
The bus driver wants to win the lottery
And the thief has to be what he's gotta be
And nobody wants to be a bum
The piano player wants to beat the drum
Mostly everybody thinks they'd like to be a star
Except celebrities in magazines you read
That say how difficult it is to be the thing they are
And that something else is really what they need.
THE SNAKE
If you move into my life and take over my soul
Charm all my friends and play the rescuer role
Let me quit my job to go on your dole
And make your approval my ultimate goal,
I will begin to shrink back into the corner of my own skin
Until I'm so small and pink that no one would see me
even if they got in -
Your enormous index finger would be probing to find me
As I darted between the walls of my own personality
Which would be changing as I left most of it behind me
Disappearing into a new reality...
And when you tried to trot me out to show me to your friends
They'd say "What girlfriend? We don't see any girlfriend."
As you open the door of your Mercedes Benz
Now you got the oyster you don't need the pearl when
You can have my beautiful smile
That wonderfully elegant style
All my show business connections
Both of my cats affections
The clothes you bought me are yours
That Timex watch endures
My good relationship with your mom
My ability to remain calm,
But here I'd be like a dead person looking down
On the cemetery where they placed a stone
With a name on it like Jane Smith or John Brown
That I no longer recognized as my own
Hold me tight and I'll just shed my skin, slither away,
no matter what's happenin'.
NEW YORK CITY PAKISTAN
I'm gonna work a couple a years here
then I'm gonna go home
where they treat women with respect
and don't make 'em go out of the house and work
That's how the home gets wrecked."
If you want to meet a man from Pakistan
you might try riding in a New York City taxi cab
and if you are so inclined as to ask the man about his country
I think that you will find it is a very different place
from New York.
I got in the cab and the man started to tell me about his
family
and he said "Miss are you interested in my country?"
And I said "Yes."
So there we were and I found out about his country.
"Well" he said "l come from a place that is so much more
relaxed than here" and he told me that I would not believe
the difference
and I said to him "How would you explain it to me?"
And he said "l'm gonna work a couple a years here
and then I'm gonna go home
where they treat women with respect
and don't make 'em go out of the house and work."
YOUR TURN
I don't know what to do next
I don't know what to do next
That's how I know it's your turn.
I don't know where the hell I been
I don't know how to tell what I've seen
That's how I know it's your turn.
Your turn came when my ride ended.
I came to a halt and they showed me to the door.
All the way around that roller coaster I pretended
that I wasn't even scared. I put the pedal to the floor
But a roller coaster; hasn't got a pedal on the floor.
It's just not a vehicle that you can drive.
You can close your eyes or you can stand up and roar
You can tell it like it is or you can sell a bunch of jive
when it's your turn.
And you won't know what to do next
Though you'll be standing out from all the rest
That's how you'll know it's your turn.
PIECE
(Inspired by Judy)
I was kind of hoping you'd ask me to dance
But you were groping for change in your pants.
We grew apart too soon after all was
said done in advance
If what you're saying is what I suspect
And all you're slayings is just stuff you decked
I'll turn you in if that's what you want or
If you want I'll protect you
Bad boys and girls hang the night in the street
That's all I hear curled up underneath my sheet
As I dream those thoughts about you
How 'my gonna get to sleep?
I'm not so wild anymore like I was
I'm differently wild now and that's because
Those same things don't work anymore
But I still want the same buzz
FRANCIS
(Song of gratitude to St. Francis of Assisi)
My patron saint's a man who went
from town to town and paid no rent
The things he owned besides his soul
were shoes a gown and a begging bowl.
What struck me first when I was young
was how he never got bit or stung
though bears and snakes he did befriend
real bears and snakes not just pretend.
I knew this wasn't easy stuff
because I tried it myself enough
but bears and snakes they ran from me
though dogs and cats came willingly.
Deep within the wooded calm
he sang a song a simple psalm
"Make me an instrument of thy peace
Let love be sown and hatred cease".
Now me I live beyond my means
in the city of lost and broken dreams
with too many pairs of shoes
that take me round and round the blues.
And the price of things is never low
or else it isn't worth the go
and taking time turns out to give
the time it takes to really live.
You may not know who you are
until you get hit by a star
like I did and lived to say
it happened on my saint's feast day.
So I'm still here where I belong
and many years have come and gone
since that dance, since that kiss, Francis.
THE UNRECOVERED ONE
Here I am I'm the unrecovered one
You can talk to me if you want to if you want to
you can shun me.
I stumble through the streets with my pride and my arrogance
I spit right in your face when you invite me to dance
I go months and years at a time terminally unique
With my pills and my bottle of wine
I am very very very very very very very very weak.
I can't get out of bed the hangover's got my head
So I forgot to take the garbage out and put the kid to bed
We're all wandering around in my house
like the night of the living dead
I'm someone that you can look at and be glad
you're not me instead.
Underneath your sobriety and your piety and your quiet
there's a human being there who's got a spirit and has to
learn how to fly it.
The controls are on the panel
and the manual's in the flotation device. But if it comes to
using that you've already crashed through thin ice.
I'm not saying I'm better than you I feel like you're saying
you're better than me
You say "Tough luck I sobered up and now I'm running the
company"
Your Higher Power he's like my God he'll take you out in a
flash you'll see
And do the same for all your loved ones and the ones like me
you pity.
THE BEARER OF BAD NEWS
I stand off to one side
counting the casualties
As you will see in the morning the newspapers lied
Difficult to say the truth in times like these.
You are over there at the center
The look on your face at the point of collision
Once you've left you can never re-enter
With your heart your soul and your vision.
The light that's shining in
Comes through a tear in the fabric
That used to be your skin
You need some heavyweight abracadabra
But it's too late for who's whose
Too soon for the long term blues
Lord let me stand in another man's shoes
Somebody who's not bringing this news.
Yesterday brought a market correction
We all sat around the house and pitched a bitch
You called your man in the Caribbean the Jamaican connection
It was a minor cut but we had to have it stitched
And our little devil was naughty
Again and again he swore hard
We got over the fact we're forty
All those little toys strewn around the backyard
I LIKE IT HERE
I like it here don't wanna move
Just wanna stay here in this same old groove
No need for growth now or any adventure
No need to be shown how to pay attention or start my engine.
I like it here I like it now
Not over there where I had to kowtow
And I had to be present for those things in the past
That were truly unpleasant and over with at last.
I like it here don't wanna change
Not looking towards next year or back home on the range
I'm gonna glue my backside to The living Room wall
And I ain't gonna backslide I'm just not gonna play ball.
Cause I like it here don't wanna change
Just wanna stay here why is that so strange?
And if you were inside me then you would come to see
Things the way I do and you'd like it here too.
SUFFERING IS THE NATURE OF SAMSARA
I woke up on a mountain I had walked around the world
My family would have been so proud
I never had that kind of courage when I was a girl
Of all the children it was me who always cried out loud.
I cried out loud when a boy in my class
poisoned my best friend.
He put her body in a box on the grass
I had so much to tell her but I never saw her again.
I'm trying to be true to what I believe in.
I grew up on the east coast of a place they call The West
I had a set of rules to go by
Followed them so faithfully I needed me a rest
So I took up with the guru but I didn't really know why.
Guru said "The pain you're in is nothing but a dream"
I told him "I'm unable to believe."
"Well, that's a start," he said and then he ran out of gasoline
But I still think he's got something up his sleeve.
He's trying to be true to what he believes in.
BLABBERMOUTH
Here comes the blabbermouth
everybody hold on to your secrets
You better not let 'em out or the blabbermouth's gonna tell.
Here comes the blabbermouth
everybody hold on to your secrets
If you let the blabbermouth see it you know she's gonna tell.
Don't be so judgmental
How would you like to be her?
Everybody calling you yentl
Always creating a stir
Actually I'm speaking about myself
I'm the person this song is about
And it's the loneliest feeling you ever felt
To have to be the blabbermouth
It's a crummy gig but someone's gotta do it
A thing goes underground and it festers like a sore
Years go by and no one refers to it
But everyone involved is rotting at the core
From thinking and trying to escape it
And figuring out some way to feel okay
You write a song that just doesn't say and tape it
dreaming it will be over with someday
But here comes the blabbermouth to send that thing around
the grapevine
Last I heard it was heading south with a whole new spin and
a different dateline.
I'm glad I wasn't home to take my angry licks
When you called me on the phone regarding my latest antics
But aren't you a little happy in the back of your mind
that you don't have to worry about a slip
when you're sitting with a friend drinkin' some wine?
Don't you see I did you a favor Button Lip?
THE LEAVING DREAM
Every time she thinks about leaving that night she has the
same dream
And it goes like this:
She's walking across the river
She's walking across the street
Looking down she starts to shiver
Looking down she has no feet.
The IRS is in hot pursuit
Disguised as grandmother
She tried too hard to hide all the loot
By giving it away to somebody or other
Who works in a skyscraper
Where there's a receptionist at the door
But she doesn't have the right piece of paper
And her pants aren't on anymore.
Suddenly she's sitting on the toilet
Right there in plain view of the man
As usual she had to go and spoil it
Just when everything was going according to plan.
Then the bus came by and she missed it
So it came by again and she missed it again
The third time it came by she kissed it
Which put her in the arms of her ex-boyfriend
Who was alive again, he was alive!
And she no longer grieving
But she throws off his embrace and runs from the scene.
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