CADMIUM

Is there a light in your eyes tonight
Baby everyone I know is sleepwalking
Faxsmilies synching us up synching us up sinking us down
And once your lungs fill it'll feel nice as you drown
So you try to keep moving but the throughway is strewn with wrecks
And everybody gawking

Is there desire in your eyes tonight
Baby everyone I know is just grazing
Swaying over shopping carts bathing in cadmium glow
Waiting on an impulse some signal to go
But our pollsters have us holding as they tighten up their phrasing

If I can't move will you move me
If I can't move will you move me
If we can't move will we move one another
Or just sleep with each other baby

Is there a fire in your eyes tonight
Like before we began juggling coasts
Back when our cackled incantations kept our house free of golems and ghosts
Well lately baby lately I've been seeing through my limbs

Will you move me with one of our hymns
Will you wake me with the words we would sing
Will you tell me how my voice could ring
Will you tell me about the boy who wanted everything
Will you help me revive him

THE OWL or ANOTHER GREAT AMERICAN ZOMBIE

Well it's been a volatile week or two
Kissing other girls and thinking of you
Sinking in too many beds like a stone
Drinking with strangers up all night
Legs dangling off couches found out by the light
And it's dark by the time I get home

Well it's been a volatile week or two
Kissing other girls and tasting you
Wasting my youth on old friends and grapevines
Pacing platforms switching trains
Midnight to Richmond take me away
From a mission that's no longer mine

Well it's been a volatile week or two
Kissing other girls and dreaming of you
Scheming a fool's fantasy in the sky
Beaming with pride kneeling at your gate
Singing take me inside it can't be too late
You could bring me back to light

So tired of fumbling with fishes that I can't "sea"
Be with me
Girl I know you and I know you know me
So why are you closing the door
When the night is young and on the prowl
Well it's left me stung singing to the owl

(It's gone and turned me into another great American zombie
So hungry
So hungry for you)

IT'S YOUR CITY

Went to camp this year there was this girl oh I could stop there
She was beautiful oh I should stop there
And when our days sailing the bays of Massachusetts were through I swore that I'd stay true
And when my baby asks why I haven't called I know I still do

So where you been girls

One day in class two big kids asked if I had a lady
In reply I told them tales of the sea, you and me, racing for the cup
Now when the last one tells me I always made her cry
Gets me to thinking to way back then when I made you up

Girls it ain't right

Jessie you're to blame for all this all of this
For all my true loves keep joining you in Boston baby
What you're doing ain't fair
We never have a chance
Soon's there's romance in the air
You spirit them away leaving me with a shell and she with a receding tide
Dreaming all day of shores far far away and leaving this one out to dry

Jessie you're to blame for all this all of this
For all my real loves keep running north to Boston
Must be filling up the streets there
How can it be you never seem to come across one
Another in some square or on the T or I don't know it's your city
And somehow you've managed
To build it filled with so much more fun than being here with me
Well Jessie the damage is done

Don't follow me girls

SIOUX FALLS {mp3}

Roads run away to reflected glare
No use the map pocked with coffee stains
Crumpled in my lap all that still remains
Of the course which yesterday seemed to funnel the very air
Straight through Sioux Falls in the caves and you've seen the buffalo
Sioux Falls in the days you knew your words you knew where to go

Crease of the page new rip in the script
Jars us awake from dreaming now to sew or not to sew
And I can hear your silence screaming who are we to know
In this day and age navigation's been outstripped by these roads

Will any find the riversides of Sioux Falls and you've seen the harvest
Open skies solid walls and no need for east or west
Saloons of Sioux Falls and you've seen the cavalry
Drinking with Boone Davy and Paul singing songs of liberty

Me and my Rolls Royce we took the long way home
So many perfect names ringing of distant shores and beginner's luck
But they all looked the same: tired thrift stores, too many trucks
All drowning out your voice over the pay phone

What are you saying
What is it you're saying
I can't tell what you're saying

Put down the phone and let's get married
Babe just look at us falling prey
To a country's worth of window shopping
And what are we looking for
I'll pick you up no sense in stopping
We'll push on against the sun up to the shore
Onto the ferry
Then away we'll sail away

We'll sail to Sioux Falls yeah
We'll sail to Sioux Falls yeah
We'll sail to Sioux Falls yeah
We'll sail to Sioux Falls

(Crumpled in my lap all that still remains
Of the course which yesterday seemed to funnel the very air)

NEW YEAR'S EVE {mp3}

We met on a rooftop swimming up for oxygen
It overlooked the Sunset but we faced the other way
It was cold but her voice was shot and downstairs they were packing it in
So we toughed it out placing bets on jets as they rose above the bay

And I was gonna bring her apples
When she was in need
After I'd sucked the cyanide from the seeds
I was gonna bring her apples

There were complaints and the police came
But we left no shred of proof
And as we leapt from roof to roof she said she'd be my alibi
And when I said I'd do the same she just smiled
And said she wasn't the type to get caught
But when I kissed her forehead it was hot
And she was shivering against the night sky

And now I'm gonna bring her apples
When she's in need
After I suck the cyanide from the seeds
I'm gonna bring her apples

I'm not trying to change you

We met on a rooftop swimming up for oxygen
It overlooked the Sunset but we faced the other way
It was cold but your voice was shot and downstairs they were packing it in
So we toughed it out placing bets on jets as they rose above the bay

I'll have extra air for you
Any time you start to drown
I'll keep you warm when the sunrise isn't reaching through your door
I'll give you a number to count up to when the plane is touching down
I'll bring you apples when your throat is sore

DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY CALL ME THE COUNT?

I've got a camera film to finish come on let's fake a photo shoot just like last time
Six years ago on another coast but nobody's gotta know
And I'll forgive you for reaching back into old bags of tricks if you'll look the other way too

I've got your picture I just looked at it. You haven't changed one bit.
Standing alone ankle-deep and aglow in Connecticut snow
Captain Cheesecake to the end, fork raised to defend the innocent

I've got the feeling you get when you're in a new place
And you stir an old memory with every new face
And I haven't slept though you're four hours late
I'm still sitting just this side of the security gate
Watching them come and go and come and go as they come and they go

Shot up into the night
Headed back home
Back where it's white after a storm

And now they're saying your flight has come in
I shake awake try to scrape the years from my skin
All I've been meaning to say it's all wearing thin it's all wearing thin
It's all wearing thin yeah but maybe something could come through
If I were to sing this to you
Yeah I could sing this to you
Yeah well I bet I never do

Still it's the thought that counts

CLOSING HYMN

The drone off the interstate is breezing through your door
His keys are in his hand and you should have fucking known
Yeah, sure, you understand, sometimes you need some time alone
You've heard that one before

Well it was him, girl, not you

Your feet are in their sockets, your eyes are on the floor
You're pillowtalking with your fears and waiting for the sun
You've been here how many years and what are you doing and what have you done
You picture your walk to work and you know that the first time you pass someone
He'll flash his eyes away from yours the moment that they meet
He'll crinkle himself half a smile, the conquistador, the elite
He'll leave you dumb, humming some clumsy elegy, yeah
I've heard that one before

But look it'll be him, girl, not you

Don't you dare think that you're small
Don't you dare think that you're small
Don't you dare think that you're small
Don't you dare think that you're small

Forget the news
The radio
And the blurred screen
You cut through them all
You're all the way over here inside of me
Pushing out at every wall

Don't you dare think that you're small

Theirs was a jealous God, young, virile, the lion's roar
A fearsome warrior fuckyouupper flattered by our prayers
He fed his vultures their supper, flashed up a flood, disciplined his heirs
Yeah that was then, now ours would rather keep off of the stairs
An empty-nested housewife at the end of the day
Wearied from a life tidying the clutters others made
Crashed out on a couch with her dinner on a tray
Unimpressed, unimpressed, unimpressed by what we've got to say
Casting away with a mighty hand at a reality, as it brays, spaking
Give it a rest, give it a rest
We've heard that one before

Yeah it's Him, girl, not you
Yeah it's Him, girl, not you
You know it's Him