Great American White Trash Novel

Stabilize
protest singers and protest songs
muckrake earthquake sing alongs
all anyone really wants
is a song to call their own

monkey catch monkey throws
hot knife soft kiss overdose
you say beauty fades and i say
beauty grows all around

its ok, its all right everything is starting to stabilize, stabilize
we deserve more than this i believe
all the things i've learned not to miss come back in time, back in time

mean words you didn't mean
start scratch film movie screen
cherry bomb the bad parts
cause the bad parts are long gone

change makes and breaks apart
moves ahead and back apart
wake up one day to find
you've become everything you've hated

its ok, its all right everything is starting to stabilize, stabilize
we deserve more than this i believe
all the things i've learned not to miss come back in time, back in time

Bellyful
kristen built a tiger in her belly like a baby let it out every night to sing
she said all of her wisdom passion and glory didn't amount to anything

these days mothers and sons fight frequently over different things
when really its all the same thing, that's what i've been trying to get you
to get you to get you to understand how do you hold onto holding on?
saying how do you hold onto holding on

days turned into nights turned into days turned into nights
and it was all you could do to make it go away
(i said) kristen built a tiger in her belly like a baby
let it out every night to sing she said all of her wisdom passion and glory
didn't amount to anything

how do you hold onto holding on?
saying how do you hold onto holding on

me and bill
me and bill drunk stillframe talking about workld war two
and how sometimes airplanes crash down to ground to sleep like people do
fall asleep like people do

me and bill always talking history lived and reviewed
and how sometimes the road crews out east change every time the politicians do
every time the politicians do

he said don't look back all things being equal there's not much i'd change
just be sure to remind me we'll send each other signals saying everything is fine everything is fine

me and bill early morning talking our way untill two pills for the pain
that eats out through pills to fall asleep like babies do to
go to sleep like babies do

he said don't look back all things being equal there's not much i'd change
just be sure to remind me we'll send each other signals saying everything is fine everything is fine

Year of Funerals
by the time you read this you'll be 1500 sea level
riding on a road that the world wore down
your face is framed in window that the rain is washing away
and all the tears and laughter will be

buried buried under the weight of history
carried out on the undertow

its been a year of funerals no one blames you for anything
all the same you put space between us and the volcanoes
today is the first day of the rest of your life
o from where i'm standing this view looks fine

buried under the weight of history
carried out on the undertow

by the time you read this you'll be 1500 sea level
riding in a car

Great American White Trash Novel to be completed.

Here There Be Tigers to be completed.

Fisherking
swallowed whole and spat you out before you'd had a chance to blink
just when you'd built a song to change the way people think

i said, hey why now such a sudden surprise
after what they've done with the sixties
where they wrapped up janice, jimi and joni sold them
back to the hippies

everybody loves you and then everybody left
in the end there was only ever you and me ever really you and me
and the music

i cried when i saw you as hollow as all the bones inside a bird
you looked like you might explode if someone said the word

and i said hey why now such a sudden surprise
after what they've done with the sixties
where they wrapped up janice, jimi and joni sold them
back to the hippies everybody loves you
and then everybody left
in the end there was only ever you and me ever really you and me
and the music

Bullpen
the chimney smoking cause you need a drink worse than ever
sick to death of all the twelve step songs
the mighty bull tied up in the bullpen
meant to stay through the whole night long

there's mile and mile of road between us
if space had weight we'd be buried under stars
sweet talking like in a street car named desire
buried in the back of your parent's car

all the fake camera tourists have left
with the margarita girls and dirty dudy kravitz tries to buy you a drink
saying what you've done don't matter none
if you've never stopped and tried to think

Dancing Like Pierre
talking and talking in circles again
we've talked about this before
and in the way that your mouth shapes the words
i could hear them a hundred times more

turn off the tv and shut off the phone
pretend we're not broken that we're alone
and all of the parts, the parts that weren't good
were all of the parts that we misunderstood

Everybody
everybody's always leaving everybody's always coming back
everybody goes on at length about how much this place lacks
everyone hate's paying cover everybody drinks the same beer
everybody goes on at length about getting out of here

look at you there wearing your hairshirt
mucking around in other people's dirt
i wish for once you'd look at yourself and
then you would see that you're like everybody else

everyone plays the fat fish wearing the small pond
everybody talks about themselves at length on and on and on
everyone hate's paying cover everybody drinks the same beer
everybody goes on at length about getting out of here

look at you there wearing your hairshirt
mucking around in other people's dirt
i which for once you'd look at yourself and
then you would see that you're like everybody else


Memphis/TN
elvis died on the can
elvis died a lonely man
let's all take a moment to remember elvis presley
from memphis tennesse

you said go i said stay
you said you'd just been in the way
these moving changes that come quickly
from memphis tennessee

open sky open ground
no one for miles around
except you and me in
memphis tennessee
o memphis