Thursday, May 30, 2013
Genesis live in 1973. Whoa!
Setlist:
1. "Watcher of the Skies"
2. "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight"
3. "I Know What I Like"
4. "The Musical Box"
5. "Supper's Ready"
Two "official" videos from the upcoming Sigur Ros album, "Kveikur"
Okay, the excitement over the imminent release of the new Sigur Ros album is high. I finally got around to pre-ordering my copy this morning. I'm frankly surprised I haven't posted the two "official" music videos on this blog yet. Then again there's all sorts of cool Sigur Ros stuff floating around the Internet right now and I didn't want this particular blog to turn into a shrine to the band (hmmm...perhaps I should start one of those...good idea). Oh, well. Here they are.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
I must have given her that Grateful Dead t-shirt...
I must have given her that Grateful Dead t-shirt
Too tight now for my thickening chest
It hung like a sheet from her bony shoulders
Draped to cover her tiny breasts
The sickening smell of cheap menthol cigarettes
Would have pushed me far away yesterday
I was thinking I might have to get used to it
She wouldn't kick that for the world
I must have had a thing for pixies
Or bruised fairy tale princesses
With glass slippers smashed into a thousand shards
I stepped on every last one to pretend
I was the saving prince, the forgiving hero
She never asked for
She never needed
She never wanted
She'd leave that guy waiting on the phone
Tiny, fragile dreamer
Dancing at the ward ball
I'd seen her a few times before
Acting like a whore with a joint in her sock
She made me sick
A strange sickness that drew me to her
A saccharine smile hid the selfish harlot's heart
It didn't fool me for a minute but I didn't care
No worse than anybody else in that packed house
I'm the one who asked her to dance
With her barbie doll's head on my shoulder
And our eyes closed tight
The slow rhythm gave us permission to take our time
I knew what I was doing when I requested the song
I knew what Springsteen meant when he sang
"Heart and soul...heart and soul...heart and soul...heart and soul..."
Only to find out in the end
She had neither
But it was easy to pretend with the other lost people dreaming with us
She don't have that damn shirt no more
And I don't have to know that for a fact
To know it's the damned truth
She don't have nothing from me
Not even them memories
I hoped to get into her
Stinking damn teeth
Skinny fucking trash
Alien face, big teeth
You thought I didn't have a heart, either
Or a soul but you were wrong
It wasn't for you to take along
To whatever hell you went to
When you left me on some universal corner
Standing by the phone
You dead wench
I won't listen to that song anymore
Get out of my mind
No one else hears you
And most of the time I don't listen anyway
I never cared about you
You didn't give me a chance to
Too tight now for my thickening chest
It hung like a sheet from her bony shoulders
Draped to cover her tiny breasts
The sickening smell of cheap menthol cigarettes
Would have pushed me far away yesterday
I was thinking I might have to get used to it
She wouldn't kick that for the world
I must have had a thing for pixies
Or bruised fairy tale princesses
With glass slippers smashed into a thousand shards
I stepped on every last one to pretend
I was the saving prince, the forgiving hero
She never asked for
She never needed
She never wanted
She'd leave that guy waiting on the phone
Tiny, fragile dreamer
Dancing at the ward ball
I'd seen her a few times before
Acting like a whore with a joint in her sock
She made me sick
A strange sickness that drew me to her
A saccharine smile hid the selfish harlot's heart
It didn't fool me for a minute but I didn't care
No worse than anybody else in that packed house
I'm the one who asked her to dance
With her barbie doll's head on my shoulder
And our eyes closed tight
The slow rhythm gave us permission to take our time
I knew what I was doing when I requested the song
I knew what Springsteen meant when he sang
"Heart and soul...heart and soul...heart and soul...heart and soul..."
Only to find out in the end
She had neither
But it was easy to pretend with the other lost people dreaming with us
She don't have that damn shirt no more
And I don't have to know that for a fact
To know it's the damned truth
She don't have nothing from me
Not even them memories
I hoped to get into her
Stinking damn teeth
Skinny fucking trash
Alien face, big teeth
You thought I didn't have a heart, either
Or a soul but you were wrong
It wasn't for you to take along
To whatever hell you went to
When you left me on some universal corner
Standing by the phone
You dead wench
I won't listen to that song anymore
Get out of my mind
No one else hears you
And most of the time I don't listen anyway
I never cared about you
You didn't give me a chance to
Saturday, May 4, 2013
What I Sold to a Little Old Lady
I put all my bibles in a big box,
Stacked two-high, two long rows,
That was heavy to lift when the lids were closed.
All the books of theology
Endless volumes of philosophy
Filled five more boxes in the trunk of my car
It seemed that one box was lighter than the others
But I didn't think it was worth the time
To weigh them.
I carried them for 30 miles
Until I found the apartment
Of the old lady who bought them from me on the Buy 'n' Sell
She'd only had five dollars when she made the call
Said her home was lonely, her mind was lonesome
I spent more than five dollars buying gas for the trip
Heaving them out of the trunk with a grunt
I asked her if she wanted me to unpack them, put them on her shelf
"Oh, dear! I don't want to put you out!"
I took the first few books from the first few boxes
Running my finger down the spine of an old favorite
I felt a pang of regret
One by one I handed them to her and she placed them on a wooden bookcase next to a television set
Out of order, no sense of alphabetization, she didn't care
It was stupid of me that I did
Two rows across and two rows down
I gave her the last of the bibles
She marveled, "That's a lot of bibles, young man".
"Yes, it is", I agreed and she turned away
I was so glad she didn't ask why I was getting rid of them
What she must have thought
As if it mattered what some crazy old lady with just a five dollar bill thought
Five dollars to buy a few thousand dollars worth of dusty thought and rusted belief
Forty years of crossword puzzles, the easy ones quickly done, the expert ones left unfinished
So many not even begun
As if it mattered that she could never understand how dumbed down I'd become
Falling beneath life's hard demands
Taking the punches, getting back up again
I could never have told her, whether I wanted to or not,
That those books had picked me up and then let me down
Too many times to count
Those books had given me treasure to take it away
They'd taken my heart, swept up the floors
Opened the doors for Legion
They left me with nothing but answers to questions
When questions were easy to answer
And they teased with the only answer that mattered, refused to give that one up
Through pages and pages I waded and waited
For some kind of hope to go on
Something to show for once and for all that the wading would soon meet the shore
I expected too much of ink and wood
To convey what I needed to know
Binders and leaves could never contain the spoken Word
I tried to give her the five dollar bill back
She could have it all for free, it meant nothing to me
The trip had been a nice one, her manners were sweet
She wouldn't take it, though twice I insisted
But she sternly insisted to me
"There's too many bibles in this here lot, you have to take one back from me"
She was right. There were way too many bibles in that lot
I couldn't argue with that
And though my better instinct begged me to flee I got down on my knee
I reached to the bottom shelf, a pain in my back
I picked out a ratty old paper bound NIV
I'd drawn shit all over it to prove that pages and ink can never contain
The living...the breathing...the mystery...the words spoken
Even more importantly
The silence
I took that old tattered book and threw it
In the passenger seat of my car
I never thought about it all the way home
I rid myself of words and language
Driving through the dark night, squinting at the lights of oncoming cars
Dimly aware of the instinct to look away when they got too close...too bright
Turned my eyes to the right for the seconds until
Darkness returned, for the precious time
Before another car came up and over the hill
Up, up, over the hill
In my pocket a five dollar bill
And a quiet bible by my side
Stacked two-high, two long rows,
That was heavy to lift when the lids were closed.
All the books of theology
Endless volumes of philosophy
Filled five more boxes in the trunk of my car
It seemed that one box was lighter than the others
But I didn't think it was worth the time
To weigh them.
I carried them for 30 miles
Until I found the apartment
Of the old lady who bought them from me on the Buy 'n' Sell
She'd only had five dollars when she made the call
Said her home was lonely, her mind was lonesome
I spent more than five dollars buying gas for the trip
Heaving them out of the trunk with a grunt
I asked her if she wanted me to unpack them, put them on her shelf
"Oh, dear! I don't want to put you out!"
I took the first few books from the first few boxes
Running my finger down the spine of an old favorite
I felt a pang of regret
One by one I handed them to her and she placed them on a wooden bookcase next to a television set
Out of order, no sense of alphabetization, she didn't care
It was stupid of me that I did
Two rows across and two rows down
I gave her the last of the bibles
She marveled, "That's a lot of bibles, young man".
"Yes, it is", I agreed and she turned away
I was so glad she didn't ask why I was getting rid of them
What she must have thought
As if it mattered what some crazy old lady with just a five dollar bill thought
Five dollars to buy a few thousand dollars worth of dusty thought and rusted belief
Forty years of crossword puzzles, the easy ones quickly done, the expert ones left unfinished
So many not even begun
As if it mattered that she could never understand how dumbed down I'd become
Falling beneath life's hard demands
Taking the punches, getting back up again
I could never have told her, whether I wanted to or not,
That those books had picked me up and then let me down
Too many times to count
Those books had given me treasure to take it away
They'd taken my heart, swept up the floors
Opened the doors for Legion
They left me with nothing but answers to questions
When questions were easy to answer
And they teased with the only answer that mattered, refused to give that one up
Through pages and pages I waded and waited
For some kind of hope to go on
Something to show for once and for all that the wading would soon meet the shore
I expected too much of ink and wood
To convey what I needed to know
Binders and leaves could never contain the spoken Word
I tried to give her the five dollar bill back
She could have it all for free, it meant nothing to me
The trip had been a nice one, her manners were sweet
She wouldn't take it, though twice I insisted
But she sternly insisted to me
"There's too many bibles in this here lot, you have to take one back from me"
She was right. There were way too many bibles in that lot
I couldn't argue with that
And though my better instinct begged me to flee I got down on my knee
I reached to the bottom shelf, a pain in my back
I picked out a ratty old paper bound NIV
I'd drawn shit all over it to prove that pages and ink can never contain
The living...the breathing...the mystery...the words spoken
Even more importantly
The silence
I took that old tattered book and threw it
In the passenger seat of my car
I never thought about it all the way home
I rid myself of words and language
Driving through the dark night, squinting at the lights of oncoming cars
Dimly aware of the instinct to look away when they got too close...too bright
Turned my eyes to the right for the seconds until
Darkness returned, for the precious time
Before another car came up and over the hill
Up, up, over the hill
In my pocket a five dollar bill
And a quiet bible by my side
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