Whisky & Wine

I've broken down in public
I've bared my soul to a crowd
I've sat all night in the dim bar light
Drinking til I pass out
I've been thrown in a cell for fighting
I've lost every girl that I've loved
And I stole one or two that I already knew
Would never be crazy enough

See there's this darkness in my mind
I bet there's one or two of you here that know the kind
But there's something 'bout whisky and wine
Makes everything alright
With this tobacco
There's something 'bout whisky & wine
That's kinda like pouring a light
Over the shadows
It lifts the shackles

When the sun comes up in the morning
And you're still howling for a moon
And the end of the world is the end of a bottle
That always comes too soon
I got this beast in my mind howling all the time
I've got to kill it just to shut it up
Most nights he'll sit here and write about what it must be like
To fall in love

So if there's anybody here that don't wanna go home
Rest assured that you're not alone
Let's all get drunk as fools
Howl at the moon like a pack of wolves
There's a party at mine
I have both whisky and wine

Catskill Mountain Nights

Before we left we had a party
A backyard barbecue
You were stood by the pool
Someone pushed you in
I think it was Ian
One of those Felice boys
I haven't seen them since
We went on tour
In that old Winnebago

Catskill Mountain nights

We climbed a cactus and dug a grave
I wore those boots
With the conchos
Them freezing desert nights
Scorpion fights
I backed the rookie
I haven't seen them since
We went on tour
In that old Winnebago

Catskill Mountain nights

Washing line, fishing line, moonshine on the shoreline
If you're lying I'll know, if I'm lying my mouth is open
Cheap thrills in the Catskills, pie was on the windowsill
Maybe it is still, here's to hoping

Catskill Mountain nights

Rock-a-bye Daddy

Rock-a-bye Daddy on the treetop
When the Sun comes his body will rot
When the bough breaks his body will fall
Down will come Daddy, slipknot and all

Mama's been tilling through tears like she ain't gonna stop
But Baby's been crying 'cos he don't like the taste of the broth
Ain't nothing here gonna grow
No matter what seed she sews
So Mama's just taken the dirt and put it straight in the pot

Rock-a-bye Daddy on the treetop
When the Wind blows his body will rock
When the bough breaks his body will fall
Down will come Daddy, slipknot and all

No one's been out to the farm now since 2006
There's stories 'bout killings & ghosts that you hear from the kids
Then some newlyweds looking for land
Drove up to the farm with a man from the bank
To see on who owns it and turn that dirt into profits

Well the first thing they saw as they drove up the road to the farm
Was what's left of Daddy still dangling out on that arm
And a little Baby lay
Next to a chair on its side in the hay
And Mama was tied by her neck to the beams of the barn

An Angel's Birth

There was an old sound castle
      Made of sand and gravel
            That we built like an outlaw band
About a hitch-hiker rebel
      Who should've won a medal
            For killing that creep and sinking that van
You played that machine
      And the way that it screamed
            Was a blade that was made of wood
That could cut through steel
      And make a hitch-hiker real
            And I still ain't ever played it that good

If I could find
      And share a piece of my mind
            With that old timer they call Death
I'd give him a list
      Of a thousand pieces of shit
            That should've gone first but haven't gone yet
I'd rip him 'bout his job
      Say he's been working too long
            Take that scythe from him, show him I could do it better
I'd ride a pale horse howling
      Like a mad dog dancing like a drunkard
            With a new blade and a dead man's vendetta

For all this hurt
      A man's death is an angel's birth
If there were words and I knew them
      I would use them but I'm sorry I don't
So I'll keep you in mind
      With music dark and feathers white
            And a song about an angel made of beard of bone

15 Months After the Event

I heard them cops put three bullets in your back as you were running away
I heard the blood trail dried and you went into hiding with the money in a suitcase
I heard another version about how they had you in the cop car bleeding and caught
But by the time they got back to the station house the cuffs were empty and you were gone

I was already back at the safehouse when I saw your picture come up on the news
They had helicopters flying and search lights and dogs and guns out looking for you
Fifteen years of drinking beers and fighting in car parks outside of bars
Mustn't have done you that bad cos even if they had you for a little while now here you are

Ooh oh, my my
Look who it is
Curse my eyes
Ooh oh, look who it is
Sit down my man
I'll get us both a drink

Tina said she saw you like 3 weeks later, unwashed and high off your face
Throwing crisp new hundred dollar bills at strippers from an almost empty suitcase
And Lacey said you're set up just south of the border making connections and lying in wait
This other guy told me you were in police protection so I took my time setting that guy straight

Ooh oh, my my
Look who it is
Curse my eyes
Ooh oh, if I ever saw death
Sit down my man
I'll roll you a cigarette
Sit down my man
Tell me all about it

Mother's Medicine

Your mother's got her medicine, but she's still got her temper
      and neither mix well with vodka.
Her beatings are extra vicious if you remind her of your existence
      so you been quiet since you were a toddler.
She likes to remind you, even though it's not true,
      of how you drove your dad away;
How he could never love you, how no one could ever love you,
      how you're her worst mistake.

Every day and night, this world, its people, life
      taunts you with its happiness.
On the day that you turned twelve, the store would finally sell
      you your own box of matches.
The flames would singe your arms, new blisters on old scars
      and you didn't even screw your face.
The pain shot through your blood, still you'd do it again because
      it's like some sort of escape.

Next birthday rolls around, you packed a bag and headed out
      teary-eyed & teenage runaway.
You cut through the park, went down the thistle path
      to the shorelines of the boat lake.
You were born in late november, so the water when you got there
      was colder than an old grave
But the same way the matches left your mind distracted,
      the water numbed the pain.
You went in to your waist and thought about being famous,
      it was surely gonna come;
The teams of reporters filming across the waters,
      interviewing everyone.

The pondweed round your legs, the heaviness of your dress
      starts to pull you under.
With the water to your head you took your final breath
      and thought about your mother;
You wished she could have loved you.

Spring Streams

I was a boy that year that the circus came to town
      with my knees grazed up and my shirt-tail sticking out
No stone-eyed, pebble-minded rockslide could beat me down
      I was a Spring stream, running from a mountain

There was a lady on the steps of a red, wooden caravan
      with hair on her face and tattoos on her hands
I said I'd feed her snake, pick her heather, big her act
      if she'd take me from this love-forsaken land

She said, "You're like a Spring stream, running down from a mountain,
Like a good dream I don't want to wake up from"
And her heart beat through those words like a poem
When she said to me, "Come, run away with the circus"

I worked as hard as the horses and I slept under the hay
     or in the cages with the lions and the tigers on the nights when it rained
The mornings were the thunder to them lightnin' nighted circus days,
      all us storm-cloud-outcasts, the ghosts and the clowns and the strays

There was a dirty blond girl we came across one morning
      with lightning-bolt-blue eyes and desert skin
She'd outdone the Devil for that face and a lifetime of whoring
      and cashed in on the sins of God's settled gentlemen

She was like a Spring stream running down from a mountain
Like a good dream I didn't want to wake up from
And my heart beat harder than a hammer
When she said to me, "Lets run away from the circus!"

I said, "This is the best of the lives I've known,
and I won't ever call a mountain home"
She said, "There's prairies and there's deserts and there's meadows and there's plains
      You and me are rivers raging with the rain
And I can feel another storm coming in,
      So let's fly too close to the Sun, let it burn our skin!"
She said, "I'll peel your blisters and kiss your bleeding flesh!"
She screamed, "I'll peel your blisters and kiss your bleeding flesh!"
I laughed, "I'll kiss YOUR blisters and choke you half to death!"
We called it love
      and then we high-tailed it out of that tent!

We were like a Spring stream running down from a mountain
Like a good dream we didn't wanna wake up from
And our hearts beat through those fields in perfect rhythm
For a while