The Night-time's Closing In

The night-time's closing in
The streetlights are coming on again
The telephone's about to ring
And I know who's on the end
They say they got the house surrounded
It's time for me to come out
They wanna kick the front door down
So they can take me in

'Cos this afternoon at the bank
With my Magnum and a skiing mask
I told the cashier to fill these bags
And he did what I said
But that cashier moving frantically
With tears in his eyes so he could barely see
Reminded me of a younger me
Still trying to get ahead

So I said, "Son, let me let you in
On a little secret
I ain't gonna kill no one today
But right now I need you to fill these bags
I got a car outside throw them in the back
Throw yourself in the front
'cos I'm gonna need something to point my gun at when the cops show up at my place"

With the night-time closing in
The streetlights coming on again
I called the cops told 'em where I live
And headed on back home
Now armed police have cordoned off the street
They begged me to set the cashier kid free
So I let him go and raised my piece
And took position by the window

I Was a Young Man's Son

I was a young man’s Son
He’d just got out of jail and he was probably drunk
When he laid his eyes
On them green eyes staring back above a vodka, lime and ice

I am a cheater’s son
He was sleeping ‘round, my mother pregnant 6 months
When she needed him around
She tell him so and he’d yell at her and then he'd just stay out

I am a liar’s son
A childhood of promises he never came through on
Just to see my dad
It’s hard being a boy not knowing how to be a man

He didn’t know what he was doing back then
Outside the moment and he still can’t tell me yet
If he has an idea he just ups and runs with it
And I’m the Son of him

Stormed the White House

you lived out at Main St

in a one bed by yourself

Amnesty posters on the walls

and comic books on the shelf

you wouldn't listen

when your friends told you to move

when every night outside your house

you'd see that black saloon

we broke down and cried

when we got that call

we thought the doctor had lied

it wasn't possible

'cos you told us what they did

and exactly what they'd do

you're keeping their secrets now

and they're doing the same for you

but you wouldn't go quiet

the whole thing hit the news

they tried to make a press release

but everybody knew ;)

so we gathered up our picket boards

and we gathered up our signs

we all made our way to Washington

and stood outside

and the police refused to take our names

the army refused to shoot us down

and everybody in that crowd

stormed the White House

and we cheered your name

we cheered your name

the night

it all went up in flames

Train Wreck

I'd never met a woman
      could shoot a Magnum
            nowhere near as straight as you
And if you need me
      I'll be bleeding
            where the train passes through
With your Magnum, cleaned
      I'll be shooting
At them cans on the rails I filled
      With lighter fluid

You said the train job
      was the last straw,
            that we got what we deserved
The money we'd made
      was marked anyways
            and you was losing your nerve
You said that in the driver's eyes
      was something like a clearing
And when we'd washed that Magnum clean
      you said that I could keep it

There were wreathes made
      out of roses, laid
            for the man who shovels coal
And the daughter
      of the driver
            who was just 12 year's old
Left a postcard
      in her own writing
That read, "If there's a train up there
      Daddy'll be driving"

And now I'm tryin' to steal breath
      from a train wreck
            and the car's covered in ice
And I'm bleeding
      from my forehead
            and my chest is on fire
It's been two days now
      and I'm still bleeding
Wrapped the bullet holes with rags
      but they ain't healing

So I'm gonna drag this
      almost lifeless
            body to Canyon Ridge
Where there's a walkway
      by the railway
            where it runs across the bridge
You know where it is
      and you know I can't swim
But I'm going over the edge
      after I've thrown your Magnum in

The Blood of them Government Boys

In a camp you've never heard of
      in a land you've never been
Is a kid in charge of a rebel march
      no older than seventeen
They say that he's the deadliest kid
      these rebel troops have ever raised
He's killed twice as many of them Gov'ment boys
      as any rebel twice his age

He wears his scars like his medals and stars
      there's blood underneath his nails
He'll string a village up and then he'll hack machete cut
      blood panic bile torture entrails
Some say he chiselled his teeth to a point
      some say he scarred his own face
Even the jungle where he hides in the trees
      is afraid

I watched him trade children for horses
      I watched him swap five kids for just one stud
He had them hook a cart to the back of the horse
      and the cart was all covered in blood
Because the hospitals couldn't save one soul
      so they'd bring that cart around
And they'd load up them bodies up with their gunpowder brains
      and take them to a hole in the ground

And somewhere between the graves that they dig
      for the their own bloodied brothers been slain
And the stains on the Earth where the villages they've burned
      still smoke from the rapey remains
Is a hope that the terror-filled jungle
      can offer up some kind of shelter for change
And a hope that the blood of them Government boys
      doesn't stain

Scrap Paper in a Darkened Room

It's tragic how many voices just trail off, unheard.
How many sirens sing to empty bar rooms,
Poets scrawling on scrap paper in cold, darkened
      rooms that they'll later burn for heat and light.
How the soap-box has been destroyed,
      trampled by armies of deaf-eared, heads-down
            strangers on their way to somewhere sterile,
                  unchallenged and silent.
There are more ears in this civilization than mouths,
      more eyes than tongues,
And yet our art,
      our messages,
            our wisdom,
                  our freedom of thought,
                        our stories and songs are being taken
To the dirt,
      to the grave,
            to OUR graves,
                  to the worms,
Who earlessly wriggle through the dirt to feed on our bodies
As strangers earlessly writhe through the streets
      to feed on our souls.