LYRICS

Kin

Summer Idiots

Once we thought we made it
We were the summer idiots
Fond of sleeping in the sun
Took our shot at freedom
Whatever the odds we’d beat ‘em
Till we lost all what we won
Here’s the question honey:
Was it for love or money?

Marvellous roadside hammocks
Funeral homes out of Walmarts
Senoritas chewing gum
Must’ve missed the gold rush
It’s like those cloud shapes told us
There’s always something to become
And now the time’s upon us…
We must be honest

I don’t want to be a fake
I am all of my mistakes
I don’t care how long it takes
Just don’t want to be a fake

Used to ride in limos
Now I roll burritos
In a food truck by the sea
Date a Spanish princess
We like to get drunk and dress up
Like a normal family
Why is it so scary,
To be ordinary?

Rise Again

I don’t think he ever will forget
The smell of her shoulder
The tiny circles she drew on his back
Her ghost of mother
She stood there, just stood there
She did stay with him
Just a friend

For a moment pride picked up his head
Then he surrendered
Swallowed hard and meant just what he said
He said, “you’re my sister
And you will see…
We will rise again”

May that light inside you shine right back on you
Till the deepest wounds, like kids’ balloons
Up and float away

I don’t think he ever will forget
That night in the theatre
And all that she was ready to accept
He said, “you’re my sister
And you will see…
We will rise again”

Caddy

Caddy run away
Don’t you take nothing from this place
It’s gone to waste

The boys are down the barn
Gone to taste the liquor and
Gaze upon the stars

From the red dirt of Lynchburg
To the Chesapeake Bay
We are one blood rushing
We gotta find a way … to separate

Daddy drinks the war
There’s jobs up at the shipyard
in sunny Baltimore

Jason don’t think twice
You’re never gonna get ‘em
To see your sacrifice

Jesus, guide my mind
Alter my perception
So I don’t cross the line

I’m a family man
I need a lot of loving
She gives me what she can

Jessie's Reel

Woe is me, have you seen my family?
Folded up and packed away, along with their TV dinner trays
I got something left to say, but I could play this game all day
I got something strange to say
We dance in the dirt of loneliness

Dance, dance, dance with me
Spin me round crazy free
Dance, dance, dance with me
Dance in the dirt of loneliness
Dance, dance, dance with me
Spin you round crazy free
Dance, dance, dance with me
Dance in the dirt of loneliness

I can still remember when our mother counted down from ten
Ten to one and we were gone, blown like leaves across the lawn
My father was an angry man, the poorest man I ever known
Took our little precious stones and threw them back into the sea

Little sister dance with me, I got you now and you got me
Over there beyond repair, we’ll break that lost and lonely stare
Over there behind the glass, a pigeon followed me inside
She lifted up, shot on past and tore into the spotless sky

Everlasting Coal

Got a crisis of significance, they come and go like London rain
Got somebody dying on me six thousand miles away
And tragically it’s forcing me to prematurely act my age

I got a marijuana cocktail in my hands and thinking life’s so long
Got a Yamaha guitar, a microwave and country western songs
And though it might be comfortable, it might not be where I belong

I got Claudia, with her jigsaw puzzles and her smiling strain
She’s thinking of the mountains ‘cause their blood is running through her veins
Thinking that a child might make some genius out of what might be insane

The junkies and the bankers, satellites and distant souls
Up on Notting Hill the DJs do the ground control
And I could’ve been one of ‘em, without a loving hand to hold

So I leave it to the debutants, working for a better world
It’s enough for me to see this little boy with his little girl
She’s his blue lagoon and he’ll keep diving for her pretty little pearls

Because despite the modern remedies, there aint no cure for getting old
And winter in the mountains is frightening and dark and cold
If she’ll be my oven, I will be her everlasting coal
Yeah if she’ll be my oven, I will be her everlasting coal

Love Lines

Old Brown Eyes, you taught me, you wrote the book
I presold my alibi, I’m off the hook
All I took is what I need

That sweet meow, she takes a bow
No regrets, just love lines that intersect

She’s spreading that love around
That love took me underground
But baby I’m back in town

I wandered out into an ancient dream
That virgin body belonged to me
Now I have seen the wilderness

I don’t know how I made it out
No regrets, just love lines that intersect

She’s spreading that love around
That love took me underground
I’m too vain but not too proud
Baby I’m back in town

One More Crazy Idea

One more smoke, one more beer
One more crazy idea
I could go another year on
One more crazy idea
Stick around, shoot me down
Just don’t disappear
I could get us out of here on
One more crazy idea

Some would say I’m half a man
I don’t think I am
Just your average aging hippie
House husband
It would bring your mom to tears
Another new career
I could get us out of here on
One more crazy idea

No use worrying your mind up
Pretty soon I’ll take the wheel
Got a feeling that my time’s up
If we can make a baby, we can make a deal

We got your mind for business
We got your PhD
Now we’ve got a basement full of
My shrink wrapped CDs
I don’t need your money dear
Just a steady ear
I could get us out of here on
One more crazy idea

Sand Dollar Darling

Say, don’t you remember me?
I was someone’s diamond
Given to the deepest sea
Off Nantucket Island
Mama would’ve buried me
In Granddad’s hilltop garden
You could’ve come to visit me
For to seek my pardon

Oh…how could it be?
Nobody remembers me
On Nantucket Island

I loved you, and you loved me
Such a simple bargain
Till the valley took no seed
How a heart can harden
Maybe it was vanity
For this I’ll beg your pardon
But I was never gonna be
Some sand dollar darling

Say, don’t you remember me?
I was someone’s diamond
Given to the deepest sea
Off Nantucket Island
The current couldn’t carry me
To Granddaddy’s garden
But I think you’ll remember me
Before I hit the bottom

Little White Lies

You can’t stand on a cloud
You can’t slide down a rainbow
Son, your way too young to be so cynical

I wrote my own rules
I fell in the barrel
But thanks to you I still believe in miracles

We specialize in little white lies
And clumsiest expressions of love
Sometimes the blind must lead the blind
It’s some success, it’s a little more mess
But who’s a safer pair of hands?
It might work out but there’s no doubt:
It won’t work out the way we planned

I’ll teach you a tune
Let you light the candle
Tuck away the truth that you can’t handle

You can’t stand on a cloud
You can’t slide down a rainbow
But maybe you can meet me in the middle…
My little miracle

Trembling Rose

I ain’t ever had a woman who could kill my pain
Go ahead mama you can eat my brain
You ate everything else in this Goddamn house
Broken mirror of a mind can’t figure out…

Why you let me
You, my trembling rose
I can’t hold you steady
I can’t let you go

I ain’t ever had a woman who could fill my hole
Little girl fell in and lost her soul
Got a sewer down here that keeps collecting
Got a bone dry socket that needs connecting

You think you can change me
You my trembling rose
I can’t hold you steady
I can’t let you go

I ain’t ever had a woman who could kill my pain
I go stand naked in the pouring rain
Baby’s inside all warm and nested
The boy won’t bend but the man is tempted

I’ll come when I’m ready
To you, my trembling rose
I can’t hold you steady
I can’t let you go

Love Me Wild

Preacher says that love is calm devotion
But that don’t mean much in this part of town
Hugs and kisses can’t hold back the ocean
I’m steppin’ out to have a look around

You should’ve loved me
You should’ve loved me
You should’ve loved me wilder, woman
You should’ve loved me wild…
And I would’ve stayed

Oh what a shame! How fine are your dimensions!
They made you tall and sweet like sugar cane
You can whip me mad with cold rejection
But I’m too old and wild a dog to tame

You and your emotional conditions
I can’t abide these old fashioned ways
Why can’t we ever try a new position?
Why don’t you call me when you come of age

Townes Not Dead

Slept last night in Van Zandt’s bed
Thought I’d dream up a song if I dried out my head
Along came a woman with fresh towels and she said
Go to sleep baby, Townes’s not dead

The lost son of Texas rode into my dream
He was a tall walking wild young living machine
His engines burned a ghostly green
And he called himself Dylan, Dylan the Free
And he said to me…

You gotta take what’s given to you
You gotta buy what you sell
No more waging war on windmills

He’d fashioned a device, purpose unclear
But to reconcile the lessons of his many careers
The sun dried wood made a sound so sincere
As it brushed and it shuffled to the shape of the gears
I said “Dylan, there’s a rhythm, there’s a song in there”
He said, “Keep it to yourself, that won’t get you anywhere…
Time is for learning but time don’t care
I seen lifetimes of loving get stuck on the slow train to nowhere”

Undercover Folk

Undercover Folk

It’s a frozen pizza pie
It’s a magic carpet ride
It’s a pie in the sky
It’s a Sarah Palin joke
It’s one more line of coke
It’s the undercover folk

Well you broke my heart, but I got a new start
Got a real good deal on a new set of wheels
Got a brand new girl, and she’s out of this world
We stay at home, smoke a lot of pot
Make love all day, use what we got
And I know it won’t last, but we’ll give it a shot

She’s working tonight, so stay home and write
All kinds of weird shit, as long as it rhymes
And rolls like wine in the belly of time
I’ll wake up tomorrow, my mouth’ll be dry
My contact lenses glued to my eyes
And I’ll do it again, when the spirit is high

I know that life sits on the edge of a knife
I don’t wall fall, but I don’t wanna sit tight
So I gotta stay light, float like a kite
There’s a time and a place to join the race
And someday soon I’ll take my shot at the moon
But while we’re still in school, everything’s cool

Mansions

I saw the cliff as I was going over
Something drove me like a drug
You said that I would probably grow to hate
The very thing that I once loved

Well, looks like you were right, my friend
Now we can break or we can bend
But I’ll keep flying into fire and nowhere
For he who’s loved can love again

Because I need to find a voice
Oh and sing with it
It’s not as though I have a choice
I’m gone… following my own music

There’s no address, it’s always getting farther
Off the grid and hard to find
But I’ll invite you for some self destruction
In the mansions of my mind

Out on the U-bahn late at night
Off to the parties of your lives
And I’m here flying into fire and nowhere
In a bath of blue stage light

Sweet little death wish
Chocolate bon bon
A mortal twist
I feel her pressing with her tongue
And I’m gone…following my own music

Everybody's Somebody's Beautiful

It’s just a lack of information
That keeps me wondering why you’re smiling all the time
I lost it in the calculation
You picked me up like some flea market find
Everybody’s somebody’s beautiful…

I like your jelly beans in recycled jars
Your rows of homemade shelves on finger-painted walls
They come with faces only mothers could love
Keep ’em believing they are snowflakes when they fall
Everybody’s somebody’s beautiful…

A hint of cataract and drug store perfume
Clouds that wisp away like smoke over the moon
You show up late and now you’re leaving too soon
There will never be another one like you
Everybody’s somebody’s beautiful

Met Jack Kerouac

Met Jack Kerouac sitting on a gunny sack in New Orleans
Waiting for a bunny gone crazy for the playing of a slot machine
New York gambler going wild, stakes her body’s edge
Get your tallywacker and hit her on the head
Mona Lisa never knew that she could get the highway blues

Met Miles Davis in pancake house in Amsterdam
Chewing on the Van Gogh, lost in his own private jam
Charlie Parker through the door, fresh bouquet of whores
Get to know a brother…take him out on tour
You’re never gonna wanna get away from all that jazz

Met Joe Fisher in a oyster bar in Baltimore
Panama hat, old spats, mustache hung to the floor
Handsome smuggler, two right arms
Got the devil’s charm
Nothing made him happy like running down the nuns
Kiss ya gonna miss ya you were always so much fun

The Horse You Came In On

That’s not the horse you came in on
It does not answer to its name
This old town had a curse upon you laid
Or you have done some kind of trade
Yeah you have done some kind of trade

That Rosie Biddle heard you talking at the bar
Laughing with the men who weigh the gold
Talking down the families of old
It’s only evolution they’re saying
It’s only evolution, babe

You’re not the first cherry blossom to unfold
On a bitter winter’s day
The jaws of ambition may yet crush your pretty face
Leave another in your place
Leave another in your place

On a Tide

“So”, she said, “summer’s dead”
And left us standing at the edge
Of the pool
Looking cool
Trying to figure out the rules

I can’t wait for yonder peace
Never taste a love so sweet
On a tide of secret dreams and melodies

You got yours, and I got mine
It’s getting hard to find the time
For two guitars
And honky bars
Up there shining with the stars

Situation crash into a life again
Giant marbles roll through our front doors
Rich or
So close your eyes and roll the dice
Lady Luck is on your side
Good love, good God
Maybe even up the odds

I can’t wait for yonder peace
Never taste a love so sweet
On a tide of secret dreams and melodies

Strange Woman

Strange woman, you’re all I’ll ever need
Your planet lies far beneath the sea
When your green aqua eyes come aglow
It’s the only real beauty I know
And you don’t seem to think you will catch my disease
Never ease

Young women hang heavy on the vine
Whose mountains and moons to mark the time
Strange woman, you were young too
How come nobody taught you to loose
How could they have just turned you so loose on the world
Oh, little girl

Old women done down by all the pain
Cry vengeance or laugh inside the rain
Strange woman, we’ll grow old too
Quit dancing, buy comfortable shoes
I promise to get you a view of the sea
Oh, you and me, no TV

Strange woman, you’re all I’ll ever need
I’ll follow you back into the sea
You’ll hold me I won’t need to breathe
Some miracle made you believe
I was something special, and tragic, and cool
Oh, not a fool

Lucky Spark

Lucky spark, find my fuse tonight
I’m dynamite, I’ll find a light
Damn the dark, tear this room apart
Just feel alive, I’ll find a light
Feel the wind bend the windowpanes
Getting set for a hurricane

Stand in line, get your soul assigned
And come alive like Frankenstein
Purple heart get a brand new start
Get you in the fight, I’ll find a light
Getting packed, getting loose to ride
Got a date on the other side

I’d do anything to lose these ruby shoes
Hitch a line and slip on through
I’ll keep staring off my pier into the night
Till I finally find a light
Finally find a light

Pearl snap shirt and brand new boots
You come far, candy bar
Cadillac packed with china white,
pocket knives and baby bride
Had you known you’d’ve flown away
I’d’ve lost you another day

Purple Eyes

Get used to the pain, one way or another
Get used to the pain, one way or another
It’s a hard way in, it’s a hard way out
And that’s fine, but sometimes…
I wonder why

She wouldn’t blame the rain, there’s always tomorrow
She couldn’t fan the flame of blue burning sorrow
But when the last light’s out and there’s room for doubt
She just pines, making rhymes of all these lives

She can’t complain that her heart has been made
Of many things
She can’t complain that her purple eyes aren’t true blue
She can’t complain that her husband’s gone away
That her mortgage isn’t paid, that she can’t wash out the grey

She’s used to the pain, one way or another
Get used to the pain, one way or another
It’s a hard way in, it’s a hard way out
And that’s fine, but sometimes…
I wonder why

Buckets of Gin

Wil anybody love me?
Can’t you see me screaming from the other side?
Will anybody take me in? it’s raining buckets of gin
And I’m fit to be dried

Will anybody sing me a song, let me know if I’m wrong
For giving in to my pride?
Will anybody throw me a rope, a little sprinkle of hope
Of ever finding a bride?

Every time my heart breaks
It’s little Sadie knocking on my kitchen door
And every time she leaves me alone
I sit and stare at the phone
Count the tiles on the floor
I wonder if she lost her man
Found herself in the land
Of ever lonely and cold
Maybe we could find our way clear
To the other side

Wil anybody love me?
Can’t you see me screaming from the other side?
Will anybody take me in? it’s raining buckets of gin
And I’m fit to be dried
Wil anybody love me?
Can’t you see me screaming from the other side?
Will anybody take me in?
Will anybody take me in?
Will anybody take me in?
I’m not such a bad guy