1. |
Black Eyes Don't Cry
04:02
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She’s got broken wings and she don’t sing no more
If she could fly she’d fly on out the door
Her battered cheeks don’t rise to smile or speak
But there’s one trick left inside her tattered sleeve
West Texas girls, you boys beware, dust devils hiding in their windswept hair
A turned down bed and a turned down girl, woke up this morning to the .44 smell
She packs her things up and she’s packing heat
He told her he’d make it hurt if she tried to leave
For his secrets hid behind her bloody teeth
Are worth ten to fifteen if she ever up and sang
Like a bull on fire coming through the door, a .38 grip whips her to the floor
Her lips touch the sky to the hollow sound, oh dear mama would you look at me now
Still as prey she’s crouched and full of hope
But a five finger kiss to the lips is all he blows
Just game for the take well she could sit and wait
But now and again a mouse can catch a snake
Pull the hammer back and let the cold steel roar, gather up the weed and the money from the top drawer
Black eyes don’t cry, pour the gasoline round, spit on the body throw the cigarette down
West Texas girls you boys beware, dust devils hiding in their windswept hair
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2. |
Cottonwood Eyes
03:22
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Burning bright at midnight
Like monarchs dancing round
Heart-shaped leaves above
Teeter in the slightest of winds
Right there in between
Milky-brown and cloudy-green I’ve found
Some strange harmony
Where they flutter like the cottonwoods do
I ain't leaving tomorrow
Nor any other day
For motion’s been suspended
By them two orbs fluttering
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3. |
Only Glass Houses
03:52
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Just one way streets and they're all dead ends
Gonna quit this town while I ain't ahead
The sheriff's on the take and the preacher lays them in the reeds
I tried my best to prove who I am
But they all say I'm what my daddy is
And there's only glass houses far as the eye can see
Don't mean a damn thing to me
I hit the bottom hard when Dale got out
But he knocked one over and he's back in now
And I'm clean, well I'm not but I'm pretty sure I could be
I'll keep each sip out of my lips reach
Trust me babe I won't touch a thing
That Kentucky girl dressed in a bottle of devil's dreams
Don't mean a damn thing to me
The pot calls with tongue black as night
No thoughts to the beam stuck in his eye
They can throw their stones till their hands bleed
Don't mean a damn thing to me
So take my hand I've got a place to be
Where choices ain't thin as misery
And I'm drunk as hell on the possibilities
Nothing's forever but we'll get close
Can't give you it all but I'll give you the most
You've got more truth than anything I've ever seen
Nothing else means a damn thing to me
Don't mean a damn thing to me
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4. |
Forever Afters
04:20
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At nine o’clock sharp he turns out the lights
For the five thousandth time in a row
And drifts off to wherever he goes
While she lies in the dark, eyes pried apart
Scratching an itch in her heart
Old dreams fly cross the ceiling like ghosts
If he found the words he’d sing like a bird
Bind her soul back to his once again
But words don’t come easy to him
And if she found the time between routine and crying
For a young girl’s forsaken plan
She’d notice a pretty good man
Years broke asunder
White dresses dance overhead
Fairy tales don’t tell you nothing
It’s alright it ain’t bad, tragic or mean
It just ain’t what she thought it would be
In the space that they occupy, children they crawled and cried
Grew wings and walked out the door
And sent back Mother’s Day cards
Now somewhere out there living without a care
Babies exist on their own
And the silence it bleeds from the walls
Years broke asunder
White dresses dance overhead
Fairy tales don’t tell you nothing
It’s alright it ain’t bad, tragic or mean
It just ain’t what she thought it would be
Gold rings and lace, castles and forever afters
Replaced by the world
And the way that it so quickly turns
But sometimes from the ashes errant I love you’s
Escape from their old distant eyes
And it just keeps the embers alive
And it burns, and it burns, and it burns
It’s alright it ain’t bad, tragic or mean
It just ain’t what she thought it would be
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5. |
Adios Gallinas
06:03
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Well whose to blame but myself?
I took you all under my wing
Pretty Rhode Island Reds to provide us with fodder
So fresh, so good, and so close to home
One day I rose with the sun
I went out to feed the hens and I did find one dead
And there I saw her friends eating up her remains
Looked like the work of diablos
Adios Ranchero
Compañeras picking on your carcass when you went down
Mis gallinas primeras
And I don’t blame them crafty coons, I only blame myself
That day I patched up the pen
I placed rocks around the base so as to fortify
But later that night we heard loud squawking
And much to our horror another coon had got in
Jamie threw on her robe
We ran out to find one there dying and suffering
So I sent Jamie in to fetch a kitchen blade
For me to put Huevo to rest
Adios Huevo.
Te mate con un cuchillo romo
Mis gallinas primeras
And I don’t blame them crafty coons, I only blame myself
The third of the brood lay still
Jamie stood naked with robe in her hands
And me with a pellet gun to kill that mapache
But I could not cause the damage was already done
We only had them a week
But now I understand a little bit more of
What Roy Bedichek said about de-natured chickens
And having your own
Adios Consuelo
Feathers orange like the sun when it goes down
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6. |
Pride Going Down
03:41
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Well I didn’t make a sound and my pride going down
Tasted like rot gut jug wine
Brewed a sarcastic bile confectioned briar on the inside
Well I just can’t hold it in and you know it’s gonna sting
When the words crawl off my chin
Now it’ll take two days for me to make everything alright
Ain’t that a pity ‘cause you sure look pretty tonight
Damn it’s gonna burn when I eat my cold words
Gotta learn to cook them longer next time
Should’ve know better but I think I’m so clever when my lips are open wide
I roll a cigarette, think, and pour another drink
It don’t make it better but that’s just fine
I'll have to write more than songs just to make everything alright
Ain’t that a pity ‘cause you sure look pretty tonight
I take the dog for a walk ‘cause she’s just gonna bark
And you don’t want to talk to me
She’s man's best friend ‘cause she can’t hold a grudge as long as a woman can
I'll sweep the floor, wash the sheets so you think I pull my weight
But you know I’m just pandering
It’ll take more than chores just to make everything alright
Ain’t that a pity 'cause you sure look pretty tonight
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7. |
Sweet Reverie
03:16
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I swear these books have eyes
They cut me up like rotten pine
I don’t pick them up
And they stare me down till I close mine
This garden is brown as ghost town
And her wrinkled leaves are empty streets
Her withered frown it cusses me
But I curl and sleep
Ain’t it a shame the way
I know it is what needs to give
Ain’t done a damn thing
And I bet tomorrow I’ll do it again
My friends all give me hell
Say I’ve turned pillow soft and well
It’s true I guess but Rose
She needs a chest to rest on all day long
A girl in there with long blonde hair
And all she needs is words to please
But I sewed my lips up
With a string of lazy dreams
Ain’t it a shame the way
That time she takes more than she gives
Ain’t done a damn thing
And I bet tomorrow I’ll do it again
My strings are sick they cough and spit
And I’m melting at the finger tips
Drunken lies ain’t worth a dime
But tell me yours and I’ll vomit mine
Count the ways on clouds adrift
They form a maze to navigate
Too many things to see and breathe
You cut me and I swear I’ll bleed dreams
Sweet reverie
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8. |
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All the time I was riding lines
The only two things on my mind
Were them two eyes back in Texas
And all the time I never took a dime
From a stranger nor any friend of mine
Till you bought my bus ticket home
Now I’m here moving stones
Well there ain’t an inch of dirt
Till I hit the rock
But I've got a feeling I ain’t gonna stop
Till I move 'em all
I got less than an inch of skin
On my chest before you hit the ribs
What the hell are you digging for?
Babe how you move them stones
We made ourselves plans to move to the Blackland
Deep soil and a river song
Instead we moved west girl, but still there’s palmettos
On the bed of the brush choked arroyo
They’re growing right from the stone
And I think if I keep digging in
I could maybe get to the heart of it
Like Robinson Jeffers did
Well I know a trailer ain't a Hawk Tower
But these eleven acres are ours
And from them a garden will grow
As soon as I move these stones
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9. |
Dead Badger
03:56
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Somebody shot that badger in
Mustelidae lack respect for the fence line
Marmots and ground squirrels beware
A ton of steel moving at 60 miles an hour
Stretched out like scars on the abscess of sense
A scalpel that helped to sever belonging
Wires pulled taut in a discordant line
Being the trespass they wish to prevent
We found him dead on the side of the road
His holes won't be dug so the cow’s legs won’t break
After all that’s what matters in this place
Straying from balance he fell on his face
Weighed down by excess and gadgets and baggage
Name, tame, subdue all with holy mandate
But with dreams native to the place left behind
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10. |
Rome's Burning
04:27
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Hey did you know ‘fore this cotton took the ground
The tall grass swayed an ocean’s endless sound
Chief Placido he rode astride the Rangers raining down
Upon Comanche tribes and cut ‘em down
But you won’t see his kind here running round
They knew this place but wouldn’t know it now
Heroes are useless, after we have used them for our purpose
Allies, they shift with the vagrant needs of greed’s incessant whims
Did you know before these condos took the sky
The unwanted here we barricaded tight
But as the Sioux upon the Black Hills came to know
When we find gold we’ll take it as our own
No treaty can protect you anyhow
I know this place but I don’t know this town
Rome’s burning, I’m fiddling
Full on bread and circus, queen’s cake and Ritalin
Cicero, is speechless
And the newspeak lexicon-victs are swindling
Babe I know that our own troops they took it all
But I’m tired of running, can we turn around
Honey no, you know that there’s no going back
Besides they’ll just put us in the camp
'Cause I won’t bow before that stolen crown
Just let that place return unto the ground
The youth brigades will listen in
While the redcoats take their quarter in the kitchen
On table scraps, we’ll dine with
All the ne'er do wells and scalawags and miscreants
Rome’s burning, I’m fiddling
Full on soma, fear, and color coated warnings
On our own flesh, we’ll feast with
All the caitiffs and turncoat rapscallions
Hey did you know ‘fore this cotton took the ground
The tall grass swayed an ocean’s endless sound
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11. |
Pill For That
04:03
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I got a headache so bad I went to a man, who’d spent eight years in school
A plaque on the wall said “don’t worry y’all, I know just what to do”
He had a sun baked tan from the Caribbean, paid for all expense
By the pushers in suits wearing ostrich boots, with tickets to the sportsball game
You’ve got anxiety? Don’t fret, just glue yourself to the T.V. set
Your kid’s are overweight? That’s okay, just don’t let them outside where the predators wait
You can’t get it up, your hair is falling out? Well that’s two more things for you to worry about
But you should know from the voice on the dreamscape coated ads
We got a pill for that
Well now my headache’s gone and I ain’t got no qualms with my catatonic cage
I feel safe in the walls of the marshal law they built up in my haze
But a rash on my skin, some internal pain, shortness of breath
Sent me back to the man for a few more meds to treat the first pill’s side effects
Now I’m on so many prescribed drugs that I can hardly stand
My wife took the kids away but hey, I got a pill for being depressed
So I went over to my doctor friend’s to see what new junk he had
He said an overdose has quit your pulse, we ain’t got a pill for that
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12. |
I'll Be Sitting Here
03:25
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It’s getting late as the pages splay this brusque brocade of truth
You fix your hair to go out there with the mongrel snorting brood
For a bitch’s brew of wasted youth and a pill box full of tears
Well you go do your fucking cocaine, I’ll be sitting here
Unleash my lips on urgent sips till I can’t stand to sit
Soon you’ll have left this house bereft for a forty dollar whiff
While line by line of a different kind I’ll write till nothing’s clear
Well you go do your fucking cocaine, I’ll be sitting here
I think we’ve reached the end again though you don’t seem to care
My love this living hell’s been swell, and now if I may dare
Just give me one last lay and a place to stay then leave me with my beer
Then you go do your fucking cocaine, I’ll be sitting here
We’ve said all there is to say so I’ll say farewell dear
Now you go do your fucking cocaine, I’ll be sitting here
Drunk as shit
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13. |
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Where do I go when I’m this close to Mexico
And need a red beer poured by the hands of a man so old
He served them high balls to Marilyn Monroe
And that yonder river hadn’t ceased to flow
A well-worn place with gritty grace, just a stone’s throw
Where you can howl, shout, and croon or simply sink into
Red leather booths that swaddle you in shadow
Before the blood stained the banks of the Rio Bravo
“Have fun, get drunk, no trouble”
Said the lady at the parking lot by the Juarez bridge
That old waiter would turn a napkin into an origami rose
But if they close Kentucky down we can’t go back again
All is safe just this side of Cristo Rey
And my mind it drifts back to the prohibition days
Beyond the heartache, and the turf war, and the scars
When you could piss into a trough right on the bar
But under siege and on its knees a city prays
But you go and snort another line and pretend it’s okay
And let them coyotes bring a few more slaves
It’s hard to find a soul that’s not to blame
“Have fun, get drunk, no trouble”
Said the lady at the parking lot by the Juarez bridge
I can feel the sting of a kamikaze swimming in my nose
If they close Kentucky down we can’t go back again
“Have fun, get drunk, no trouble”
Said the lady at the parking lot by the Juarez bridge
It’s just a quarter at the border to make that turnstile roll
But if they close Kentucky down we can’t go back again
Where do I go, where do I go, where do I go?
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Ryan McGillicuddy Austin, Texas
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