1. |
We Were Right
04:16
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We meant to live inside a song
That would go on and on and on
Not in a couch in your rec room
And so we left you in a run
The way a bullet leaves a gun
The way a bullet leaves a wound
And we did everything you feared
Danced to dark on rotting piers
And we forgot all about you
We were crazy
We were cruel
We did everything
You warned us not to do
But the dirty truth is that
We were right
To do everything that we did to you
And in our taxis full of teeth
Life was beautiful and brief
And so we let our juices spray
We gave our skin away
To make a playground place
Where we would let anybody play
But there were reasons to your rules
We were stupider than fools
When we laughed right in your face
We were crazy
We were cruel
We did everything
You warned us not to do
But the dirty truth is that
We were right
To do everything that we did
‘Cause all you wouldn’t say out loud
Had to come rock and rolling from our mouths
Rocked the cradle and the crowd
Until it rocked us
Inside out
But the dirty truth is that
we were right
to do everything that we did to you
we had to
do everything
everything
everything
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2. |
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A silver baby spoon sawn in half
A crystal stopper from a vial of dried up perfume
A father waving in a photograph
All staring at me in this jumbled room
Zero out
The count
Start it over now
Remains remain
But rearrange
In me somehow
And in these boxes
A broken Big Wheel and a silk bow tie
A page of homework red with teacher’s marks
I’ll cut the oceans from each map I find
And spill a sea of pills out of a jar
Burnt diaries
A bent car key
Fill a pictureless picture frame
Discarded things
Recombining
Until they tell their name
Their names
And if my fingers snag your jacket sleeve
Or catch the corners of your untucked shirt
A piece of you will end up interweaved
Within the boxes of a family’s hurt
Zero out
The count
Start it over now
Remains remain
But rearrange
In me somehow
And in these boxes
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3. |
Monster
03:28
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What cries
For an
Embrace
And then
Pulls away
What stays
When it should go
What leaves
When it needs a home
What seeks a crowd
Then yearns to be alone
Just go on
I'll only slow you down
And the monster's coming now
What thoughts intrude
When a body's moving under you
So you can't wait
‘Til love you make
Is through
Who is
That which
Bent on the wheel
Feeling what
I cannot feel
What sleeps
When it should wake
What gives
When it so needs to take
What waits until it's strong
Before it breaks
Just go on
I'll only slow you down
And the monster's coming now
What runs
Wanting to be caught
What needs to know
But will not talk
What knows to love
But doesn't know
To stop
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4. |
The Man in the Game
04:04
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You’re not really in this room
You’re through the glass
And in the streets
Where he’s handing you a gun
And raising his
For a shooting spree
Now you are always not alone
He’ll teach you anything you need to know
And you need to know
And he’ll wait when you’re at home
He is in your pocket
Quietly
With what you need
And quietly
You know he knows
You are not this skinny kid
You’re tall and big
And crazy bold
He reminds when you forget
He’s so patient ‘til you
Know it cold
And you know
And you are always not alone
He’ll teach you anything you need to know
And you need to know
And he’ll wait when you’re at home
He is in your pocket
Quietly
With what you need
And quietly
You know he knows
Please break the glass
Take me inside with you
Please break the glass
Take me inside with you
And tell me what I need
Please tell me what I need
Please tell me what I need
I need
I know you know
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5. |
Roving
03:53
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So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be still as bright
For the sword wears out the sheath
As the soul wears out the breast
And the heart must pause to breathe
And love itself must rest
For the night was made for loving
And the day returned to soon
Still we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon
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6. |
What Rats Are We
05:04
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They’ll never forgive us
For what they did to us
Don’t even try
Put that pork-pie hat on
You are Marlon Brando’s female guise
You’re so wrong you are right
You belong inside this night
We walk the sharp of knives
We die and stay alive
We sail their ships at sea
Beneath the sailors’ feet
We watch what tries to hide
We’re hiding in plain sight
We talk what will not speak
What rats are we
We know every variation
Of humiliation
And insults you
Can’t help but believe
People know to walk away
But some know how to stay
And how to feed
We know how to feed
What rats are we
I can watch their buildings
Fall and rise
If your black tarpaper eyes
Keep lifting me
And Miles Davis plays slow
While your fingers slide below
And ride me free
We’re so wrong we are right
We belong inside this night
We walk the sharp of knives
We die and stay alive
We sail their ships at seas
Beneath the sailors’ feet
We watch what tries to hide
We’re hiding in plain sight
We talk what will not speak
What rats are we
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7. |
What I Won’t Do
03:15
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Who are these skeletons
Fever-screaming down my street
And clawing at my TV glass
Like they’re trying
To get at me
And find a way
Find a way
To make me believe
Their creeping sarcomas
Have something to do with me
Find a way
Find a way
To make the whole world
That’s watching see
What I won’t do
I won’t do
They say we’re here
And we’re human too
And we’ll make you human too
Whether or not you want to
And if I
Promise to cry
At the service
When you die
Would you mind
That much if I
Didn’t try
To save your life
No they’ll find a way
Find a way
To make me believe
These creeping sarcomas
Have something to do with me
Find a way
Find a way
To make the whole world
That’s watching see
What I won’t do
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8. |
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Pushing his wheelchair with his feet
Over the glow of painted parking lines
Mercedes and Porsches pull into eat
Shouting Russian in a line
Like in the House of Meetings
You met in your prime
It’s all
Go-wherever-you-want-now-to-go
And you go there
And constantly
And never slow
For something you wanted
That now you don’t know
Though you’ll remember
Any second now
And all of this freedom
Is all beside the point
When the limbs in your mind
Bend on broken joints
Sometimes Russian Christ
Leans out to anoint you
But only gives you coins
Purple gold invades the night
And you finally walk
Your wheelchair home
And lie down in the LA heat
Until you learn to sleep
With the tundra in your bones
And your dreams
Go wherever they want now to go
And it’s always to the bed
Where she lay waiting for
Something you wanted
That now you don’t know
But you’ll remember
Any second now
Because all of that freedom
Was all beside the point
When the limbs in your body
Had broken joints
She was Russian Christ leaned out
To anoint you
When you were
Already gone
Gone
You were gone
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9. |
Rosewood Casket
05:24
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Jonny killed his sweetheart
When he was but fourteen
Stabbed her to the heart
Crows picked the bones so clean
That now on yonder mountain
So whitely do they gleam
That Jonny hath grown old
‘fore manhood he hath seen
and its cold out there
on the mountain where she lies
there’s no salt on the sill
no black ribbon on the hive
Why’s it easier
To love her when she’s gone
And he’ll never see her smile
Never touch her skin a while
Never walk that crooked mile
To walk him free
Something circles in the sky
Looking down with devil eyes
Black wings flutter by
With black hair in the beak
Jonny had four boys
And I guess a wife between
Sweet and mild
Against the wild
And she doesn’t mean a thing
But boys will play
At killing they
Will shoot with sticks and things
Sees his fingers in their hands
He sees them murdering
And it’s cold out there
In the shadow of his eyes
Where they wonder what they done
Can they apologize
Why’s it easier
To love him when they’re gone
And he’ll never see them smile
Never touch ‘em when they cry
Never walk that crooked mile
To walk them free
Something circles in the sky
Looking down with devil eyes
Black wings flutter by
With black hair in the beak
And years dissipate
Like a dream that hits the day
Like a dream that cannot
Come awake
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10. |
Coal Tattoo
04:30
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Travelling down that coal town road
Listen to my rubber tires whine
Goodbye to buckeye and white sycamore
I’m leaving you behind
Oh I’ve been a coal man all my life
Laying down track in the hole
Got a back like an ironwood
Bent by the wind
Blood veins blue as the coal
Somebody said that’s a strange tattoo
You have on the side of your head
I said that’s the mark of the number 9 coal
A little more and I’d be dead
Oh but I love the rumble
And I love the dark
I love the cool of the slate
It’s just going down that new road
Looking for a job
This travelling and looking I hate
Someday when I die and go
To heaven land of my dreams
I won’t have to worry on
Losing my job
To bad times and big machines
Well I got no job and I got no pay
Just got a worried soul
And this blue tattoo
On the side of my head
Left by the number 9 coal
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Dudley Saunders Los Angeles, California
Dudley Saunders won the 2009 Outmusic Award for "Outstanding Album" for THE EMERGENCY LANE. In 2011, he was the Western Regional winner of the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest for songs now featured on his 4th release, MONSTERS.
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