the fat lady sings

LYRICS

Alien

With my faded map thirty years old
And the landscape's changed and I am moving too slow
And people notice my quaint dress
I ran the last five miles breathless

And the sky looks like oil and the warm rain hurts
As I stumble along past the haunted dirt
Of the broken pavements of this couldn't-care town
No orders came down with me when I was beamed down here

Chorus
I am alien
I was built for another world
I am alien

I'm the kind of creature dogs never bite
Women don't run to men never fight
A translucent hitcher with nothing to say
I was born yesterday I was born just yesterday

Chorus+
I carry messages in language
I do not understand
I am alien

Come hold this alien's hand

With my worn-out name in another man's shoes
And these alien streets I wander through
Grattan hausmann la guardia wren
Proud departures garbled ends
Just stone to clean just stone to mend

Chorus+

Are you alien as well?

Drunkard Logic

And the girls go out
And it's a date
And the boys stay in
Now it's too late
Still I fall in love
Six times a night
In vain on sight

And this bottle
Laughs back in my face
See how easily I lose my place
And the way I look tonight's a crime
Where does the time go?
Where has the time gone?

Chorus
But if I held you in my arms again
This time I'd never let you go
And I would feel the universe for you
And I would let you know

We don't leave ourselves in many things
Just in letters leases writs and rings
And when the last one's sold or lost or gone
We don't belong here

Chorus

And the stupid bells
That hang around London town
They cannot pick me up
They cannot dust me down
Things would always have turned out about this way
Where there's an up there'll always be a down you say
Where there's an up there'll always be a down

Show of Myself

Sowing marbles into marshmallows
Sewing sequins onto rags
Cutting out my finest moments
Cutting anything that drags
Putting on my coat and tails
Putting on my party hat
Follow anything that moves baby moves
Just you try and follow that

And I learned to trust my body
And I learned to change my mind
Until this man of straw had nothing left to hide

Chorus
I'm making a show of myself

Accidents that never happened
Loves that never could have been
Falling from a rock onto a soft place
Fall somewhere in between
And how could I be a hero
On my knees and four hours sleep?
You put a cat among the vultures
You set a child to catch a thief

And the call of the canvas
Becomes a curtain call
I lost my touch the day I learned to take a fall

Chorus

I dance blind around the house
I wish you were still here
For me to stumble over
For me to be in fear of
To show me

And everything I am
And everything I do
Is trying to paint a miracle
Bold lyrical and new
Just to show you

And I'm tired of playing trick or treat
And I'm tired of love that goes for a song
And I'm tired of letting circus animals loose
But I'm not tired enough to stop

Chorus

Boil

What I am bequeath is above reproach
And beneath despair
Half my copybook used up and not enough to talk about
When I'm not there

Chorus
Strip the paint
Drain the oil
Let me boil

I get so angry I just can't lose
Then I get too tired to be tired of you as well
And I don't have the strength to say no to you
So save yourself

Chorus

I do my best
I do nothing at all

Horse water wind

Take a man of impressionable age
Lock him in his own ribcage
What do you get?
To have is human to hold devine
I'm never strong enough
I just do what I am let

But I want to be a wave breaking
On the shores of undiscovered land

And I have had enough of making plans
And taking stands

Horse

Take me back take me through
Take me to where you will think I will understand you
Horse water wind
Do exactly what I tell you to you will be hurt
But I will know it's true
Horse water wind

And I have had enough of just demands
And holding hands

Horse water wind

Come carry me
Horse water wind

Stealing a plane

I met you in a paper
I loved what I saw
You waited in the paper
I needed more

I waited so long baby
Thought my life through
To steal a plane baby
And fly it to you

Chorus
Stealing a plane

I kept the time baby
And I kept my faith
But we weren't flying baby and
I could not wait

I waited so long baby
Now I won't wait no longer
I'm going to steal a plane tonight
We're going to fly

Chorus

The world is wrong
The world can't hurt me with its lies
I know I'm strong enough to fly

I woke this morning baby
And looked at the stone
And I looked right through baby
To when we'd be alone

Stealing a plane baby
Flying too high
Stealing a plane baby
Fly into your blue sky

But

I am sincerely yours no more
I quit
I know life is long but life is
Too short for this
Cold rain fell on the iron bridge
Of this rusty new town
The friendly place I came to face
Stepping down

I'm sorry but
I'm leaving but

I am sincerely yours no more
I quit
I know life is long
But...

Johnny Sunrise

"You're a star," he says, "you've bottled your grace
It's a laugh to watch you try to keep pace
With the steps we made together one night with beer
And you called me Johnny Sunrise."

Johnny Sunrise walks away from me
Takes his time and he takes me too seriously
Locks his thoughts away in a box he built
While I was gone
Johnny sunrise

Chorus
But remember the bite of those November nights when we rode out
To fight for the light of our lives to be turned out
Sweat and perfume and new bread as the moon faded
Stumbling home spilling out stories we wouldn't forget in a hurry
But then we weren't in a hurry

Our faces are mirrors lines and scars that we've earned
All the classes we missed all the lessons we learned
All the roads that we took that took us apart
Now you're sitting there saying, "Let's go back to the start."
And he says, "Lose that luggagge let it all go
Job you got job you lost what it cost al lthe things you now know
All the girls you once had and the man that you are
Let's climb off this world again
And climb into my car
Let's climb into my car
Drive away in my car."

Spilling out stories we wouldn't forget in a million years
But then we didn't have a million years

Johnny
Hurry up

This Guitar

This guitar won't kill your fascists
This guitar never killed anyone
This guitar is not as charming as a gun
This guitar is never sure
This guitar is scared of you
This guitar is looking for a son

Chorus
But you
You think the world's a book to read
And all you see are happy ends
I need my means I need my doubts
I need my friends
I need guitar

This guitar has had its dreams and
This guitar it sometimes bleeds and
This guitar it needs a simple mind
Once this guitar thought it knew everything
Everything a guitar could do but now
This guitar is learning all the time

But you
You would not understand sublime
Not if I carved it on your arm
In letters of quicklime this is not show
This lives this breathes

This guitar is all I use
To drain away those guitar blues
Then this guitar makes its excuse
And leaves

This guitar blows hot and cold
This guitar needs truth to be told
This guitar it wants to change your life
You say this guitar touches you
But you know you touch this guitar too
And you know this guitar will survive

I need you
You must realise that there are stars beneath the skies above
And that this this is not peace this is not love
This is my heart
This is guitar

Color Blind

Give us Saint Jude the things we need to crawl through our days
This search for new senses has blown all my old flames away
The things I used to feel just don't feel the way they used to
I've wasted all my tasting chasing headlong after you

Chorus
You turned me blind
You turned me colourblind
I have turned colourblind

A red rag another blue day a white rage a green light
The glue my soul used to pick up this world has care-dried
"Wake up," I shout at myself but I can't
"Feel it," they sing but I find that I don't

Chorus

I'm planning to lose myself make no excuses
To see if I notice I"m no longer here
Trying to shock myself love myself
Knock myself clear

Chorus

Providence

Where were you when my dreams came true
And my ship finally came in
I was flying head in the clouds
And you were back in Providence

I crawled out of my ark of doubt
Stepped up to claim my prize
A fingerprint in the mantelpiece paint
A letter of just three lines

I played hard I played hard to get
And hard to understand
And every night was a fight to the death
And every day was planned

Where were you when I finally knew
The truth that you'd always known
No matter how far you travel away
You always end up home

Where was this place where I finally fell to grace
And found you'd faded out

Now all the rain that's fallen on me
The sun that's worn me down
But I'm still walking in this same old pair of shoes
I'm walking on the same ground

Oh yes I know nobody chooses anybody
And no one means to lie
But when the weather changes you turn into strangers
Learning how to say goodbye

I'm writing from this town where I let you down once too often
But I'm thinking of that other lucky place

World Exploding Touch

I used to float six inches off the ground
I was too weightless to ever be hurt
And I never knew the truth about untrue
Until I saw you in his shirt

It's always small things that break you open
They're the only things sharp enough
The soft goodbye brush of your hand upon my face
Your world exploding touch

It's a secret
That I was never told
Love's a cruel firework
Love is to burn 'til you're cold

Chorus
Now I know how you feel when you feel too much
And I know what it means when you mean too much
And I know how you taste when you taste too much
I feel your world exploding touch

And yes I know nobody lives forever
And some day soon we'll all be gone
But I think I'll recognise your touch in disguise
When that day wanders along

So don't keep secrets
This life is too hot and too short
Love is outlaws
Love is to steal 'til you're caught

Chorus

And this bedroom door that hangs forlornly open
And the sheets upon the bed that I won't make
And the soft morning light that tells me
There's no point in fighting for you
One touch is all you're going to let me take
They say that you will never be a writer
Until you find something that you can believe in
Well i believe
I believe in you
You win

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