There's A Little Bit Of "Evel" In All Of Us

Amongst the rough-housing miners of Montana
In the trailer-park that he calls home
There's a little boy shoplifting gonna grow up to be
The last gladiator of New Rome

It's a certain kinda man can be robbin' a bank
And think, 'Man, I'm gonna go straight
By jumping my 300cc Honda
Over two mountain lions and a box of rattlesnakes'

It's a big, on'ry world and ain't nobody gonna help
So what's a poor boy to do?
Call up Caesar's Palace from a rented motel room
And tell them that you're gonna jump the roof

So it's Caesar's Palace 1967
It's the fountain, December 31st
There's 90,000 people and a motorcycle ramp
And we're all fearing the worst

He was a man made of more steel
Than any motorbike he ever rode
There's a little bit of Evel in all of us
We just ain't got the guts to let it show

The Angels tried to kill him at the L.A Coliseum
And Snake River Canyon nearly did
He's a got a cane full of wild turkey that he walks with
Just in case Death wants a drink

It was cars, booze and women he must have spent 10 million
He even bought two planes
So when he looked out the window of the one he was in
He could still see his name

He was a man made of more steel
Than any motorbike he ever rode
There's a little bit of Evel in all of us
We just ain't got the guts to let it show

They say it was his hometown that made him
That he had frontier blood in his veins
But the world is not a frontier town anymore
And the wild cannot run amongst the tame

When he caught up with Saltman in that parking lot
And got his buddy to hold him down
So he could break both his arms with a baseball bat
They call that justice in a frontier town

He was a man made of more steel
Than any motorbike he ever rode
He must have had a thousand girls
While Linda looked on from home
He told Robbie and Kelly
That's just a daredevil's life on the road
There's a little bit of Evel in all of us
And I'm doing my best not to let it show

I called him up a few years before he died
Hired by a magazine, working on a feature
We're on the phone, he throws it down, says, "Goddam it, Crystal,
You know better than to walk 'round naked while I'm trying to eat pizza!"

So ride this life like an old motorbike
You'll be gone any one of these days
Blessed are the meek, they say, what they mean is
Damned are the brave

He was a man made of more steel
Than any motorbike he ever rode
There's a little bit of Evel in all of us
We just ain't got the guts to let it show

Lost

Summer in a small town, kids out of school
They're driving through the streets with nothing to do
But there's a kid who looks a little bit older and he'll get served
The nights are light and the air is warm
With emotions running high and feelings running strong
And you never love anybody quite like your first

It weren't like Tommy didn't like other kids
He had tons of friends and all the girls that he'd kissed
Were talking about going steady
There's a hundred lives he could have lived in that town
And most of them, honestly, probably would have worked out
But there's a restlessness in Tommy that meant he weren't ready

So he'd jump the fence to the park at night
He'd lay in the grass and stare up at the sky
Thinking nothing's worth nothing and life's too short
He's getting drunk and pushing girls too far
He's pulling their strings and breaking their hearts
And he don't even care 'til he gets caught

Until one summer night he really did fall in love
But they were kids, you know, so it all just got lost
And the summer kept going but something inside of him changed
So he packed himself a little bag and counted his cash
Tied his shoelaces up and swore he'd never come back
He put a Willy Vlautin novel in his pocket and he caught a train

You gotta climb that mountain, gotta jump that canyon
Gotta put on your cape and climb into that cannon
Cos sometimes the life you're living just ain't enough
There are fears to overcome and challenges to meet
People to become and big dreams to dream
And you can't find your own way if you ain't got lost

The road is like a best friend that pulls you aside
For a set-you-straight talk when you get a little wild
But the words that it's chosen, cut you to the bone
Love comes easier but trouble does, too
And opportunity don''t knock it comes right up to you
Reminds you that you come a long way but there's still places to go

Tommy's out on the road and he's having his fun
He sleeps when he has to, sometimes rough
But he's always sleeping with somebody when it's raining
And all them poor girls start planning their lives
Around his pillow talk and his breakfast lies
But when the road starts calling there ain't no way he's staying

You gotta climb that mountain, gotta jump that canyon
Gotta put on your cape and climb into that cannon
Cos sometimes the life you're living just ain't enough
There are fears to overcome and challenges to meet
People to become and big dreams to dream
And you can't find your own way if you ain't got lost

Tommy's skin's all scarred from a thousand fights
He's old but there's still road in his eyes
That shines for a mile whenever he bares his teeth
Everyone can fix you in this day and age
Whatever your problem whatever your pain
But if you ain't broken then you ain't free

If you ain't broken, you ain't free.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

I'm so sad to hear that you're leaving
This town won't be the same when you're gone
Don't feel bad when you turn out the lights
'Cos when the band's plane crashes it's the legend that lives on

Shine on you crazy diamond
Like the stars at 2am
Shine on you crazy bastard
And I'll see you again

Come end of the evening I'm-a finish my drink
And hope the streetlights of this old town guide me home
But right now ladies and gentleman I'm gonna mark the occasion
With my best ever guitar solo

I know that sounded a lot like Eddie Van Halen
Slash, Jimi Hendrix even Stevie Ray Vaughan
But I'm just a guy playing guitar in a bar in Haarlem
For the last time at the open mic at Cafe Briljant

Shine on you crazy diamond...

I hope there's ghosts in betsy
To haunt the Lokaal, over on the Koningstraat
But for now let's board up these windows, put posters up
How else we gonna know who's playing the Patronaat

If anybody wants to join in on piano
Go ahead and help yourselves
We're gonna rip up these floorboards and tear down these walls
Gonna drink every bottle from off of these shelves

Shine on you crazy diamond...

Here's to new beginnings, here's to all you've achieved
Here's to you personally Rob Alphenaar
The dust'll hit this bar-top like the dirt onto a coffin
So let's spill some liquor off it just like blood
Spills from a broken heart

Shine on you crazy diamond...

There's A Train Coming Down The Line...

There's a train coming down the line
Her wheels are hot and her whistles wide

Her carriages are made of light
If you're riding better hold on tight

With the power of a hurricane
And stations no man can explain

The tracks she rides are made of dreams
She can go anywhere it seems

My bags are packed, I've dusted my hat
My heart is tacked securely to my sleeve
When that train comes I'm getting on
Never settle, always be gone,
It's time to leave

She rattles like a rattlesnake
She's never even used the brakes

She don't believe in slowing down
She wouldn't know how to anyhow

When her whistle blows it's like she's sayin'
"If you ain't on board get out the way"

And she blows it in all kinds of weather
I'm gonna ride that train forever

She'll hold your heart for years to come

Even when the tracks are gone

We Don't Have To Take Off Our Clothes

We don't have to take off our clothes to dip our toes in the sea
You don't need to go to the bottom of the ocean to know what's deep
I'd go on my own but I can't stand that company
So if you're ready for the road, honey, let's go you'll be all that I need

I don't wanna be in love
I just wanna fall in love

Have you ever driven off a horizon into a sunset before?
Where it's never really night but there ain't light enough to call it morn
It's magic for a few hundred miles but then we'd both get bored
So let's pull over to the side of the road and let the night take hold

I don't wanna be in love
I just wanna fall in love

There's an awful lot of kissing let the spit do it's mixing that's the fun
Just a couple of kids in the back seat with the seatbelts undone
Don't you rap on the windows now just let them young lovers be
The handbrake'll come off with their clothes and they'll be scramblin' for the keys

Cos they don't wanna be in love
They just wanna fall in love
None of us wanna be in love
We just wanna fall in love

We don't have to take off our clothes to dip our toes in the sea...

Poor Boy's Blues (Nothing Lasts Forever)

I wake up in the morning and I'm getting on the bus
Before the dawn has made it into day
I'm sweating out the night before, it's like 18 degrees
Outside it's about minus the same

Nine hours later and it's time for clocking-off
I'm out the door in less than a minute
I hit the bar with all my friends when I can afford to
My life's a dream, gotta be asleep to live it

They say nothing lasts forever
Nothing is sure
But they ain't ever worked a dead-end factory job before
When every time the pay goes up
My rent it goes up too
The blues that don't die with you are these poor boy's blues

I want to take the waitress home, she knows my friend, Marie.
Marie says that she's got a boyfriend
She says she likes the finer things and that's why she works two jobs
I ain't fine at all but I can pretend

She's stunning in the morning, naked as the dawn
I kiss her hair and leave her there to sleep
She never could have loved me, but she's never gonna know
I hope that I'm a secret she can keep

They say nothing lasts forever
Nothing is sure
But they ain't ever loved someone who don't love them before
When every time your heart swells
It bleeds a little, too
The blues that don't die with you are these poor boy's blues

I'm losing at whatever game we're playing
I could win if I could find a way to cheat
But I don't know the rules or which rules I should be breaking
And I'm pretty sure that every one of these rules is breaking me

I like coffee in the morning, any thing at night
I like spending time in other people's beds
You know when someone smiles at you right after they've cried?
That's how I feel when the sun comes up and I haven't even slept

They say nothing lasts forever
Nothing is sure
But they ain't ever been so tired they cannot sleep before
And even when your dreams do come
You know they won't come true
The blues that don't die with you are these poor boy's blues

Feels So Good To Be Home

Everybody's getting their hair did
Everybody's dressed up smart
We're drinking cold beer by the bottle
And I know that by tomorrow
I'll have a whole lotta love in my heart

'Cos the cold beer's going down easy
Catching up with friends of old
The dance-floor's filling up nicely
Man, it feels so good to be home

The sun is setting in the distance
But there's still cars coming up the drive
There's a whole lotta love
In a handshake and a hug
Man, it feels so good to be alive

When the cold beer's going down easy
Catching up with friends of old
The dance-floor's filling up nicely
Man, it feels so good to be home

Now, I ain't no soothsayer, I ain't no witch
I don't know what's coming 'cross the hill
Lotta places I been to in my short life
But a lotta things to get to still
And wherever I go, whatever I do
Whilst I'm riding on fortune's wheels
You can bet your bottom dollar
That I love you and I always will

So take my hand in the moonlight
Come on, sugar, shake them legs
There's a whole lotta different
Kinda love in this existence
But none get any sweeter than this

All Of My Heroes Died Nameless

All of my heroes died nameless in boxcars
Or loveless in back alleys looking for whores
Or freezing in heroin squats with near strangers
Or rented apartments they couldn't afford

All of my heroes died nameless in transit
In parking lots, stairwells and derelict bars
In rancid tents stinking of piss in a beer can
Or curled in the cold on a bed of damp card

All of my heroes died nameless mid-stanza
Penning the piece they would never perform
Dreaming and daring and drinking and dying
Out here on the whim of a frost or a storm

All of my heroes died nameless, the hoboes
The vagabonds, troubadours, outlaws and clowns
Laughing and spitting and screaming and dying
To live on forever but, more, to get out

All of my heroes died nameless so I don't
Try to be anyone I know by name
I just hope anonymity leads to my heroes
Then, posthumously, we are one and the same.

Them Girls (Think Of Something Cool To Say)

Them girls
All chrome and leather
All denim and smoke
Like me but better

Them girls
Bleeding music and art
I want them so bad
To break my heart

To lead me from the night
Through the break of day
All's I gotta do
Is think of something cool to say

Them girls
They get so wild
Like fireworks inside
Set off with a smile

Ferris wheels at night
Spinning 'round and 'round
Them big, bright lights
Fill the shadows on the ground

Lead me from the night
Through the break of day
All's I gotta do
Is think of something cool to say

One of these days the girl who works at the coffee shop on my street
That I see spinning through the night all circus-hearted
Will wake me up for coffee as I lay there in her bed
In her bijou bohemian apartment

Them girls
With make-up smudged
Drop their pizza on the ground
Just pick it up

They laugh it off
I wish I could know
The wildness of them girls
But I guess I'll just go home

I Like Playing In Bars

I like playing in bars, yes I do
I like singing songs about me to people like you
If heaven is a place on Earth
It's a dimly lit bar where beer is served
By an angel of a waitress in a low-cut shirt

I like singing for beer up here on stage
I get more free beer than I could buy if I even got paid
I love a hard-drinking crowd
'Cos the more that you drink then the better I sound
And what the hell else am I gonna do anyway?

'Cos being poor is something that you get used to
And travlin' with a hangover is something that you can live through
A ramblin' man's hardest lesson
Is knowing not everybody's gonna wanna listen
And sometimes it's hard holding out for the ones that do

They say all you need is three chords and the truth
Well, I added a minor and some things that I didn't really do
Even if you're front row
And you're trying really hard you still wouldn't know
The truth from the lies and why would you want to?

I like getting old and getting free

Even if neither one pays a whole lotta money

Money ain't what life's about

At least I hope not anyhow

'Cos if it is things really ain't working out for me

But being poor is something that you get used to
And travlin' with a hangover is something that you can live through
A ramblin' man's hardest lesson
Is knowing not everybody's gonna wanna listen
And sometimes it's hard holding out for the ones that do

They say that life on the road is good for the soul
My leather-skinned, dog-eared, weather-worn excuse for a soul
We're all trying to tempt The Devil
'Cos if he buys it everybody buys your record
And I don't need much but I do need something just to keep off the cold

I got a beautiful wife I'm trying to not drive away
And I got a little boy who needs feeding, turns out, everyday
So if you could reach down into your pocket
And pull me out a 5 or 10 if you got it
Recent studies suggest that helping the needy can keep heart disease at bay

I like playing in bars yes I do
I like singing songs about me to people like you
No matter how hard I try
I'm never getting more than just getting by
But there are worse things and I'll be happy til the day that I die

'Cos being poor is something that you get used to
And travlin' with a hangover is something that you can live through
Did I mention as well
That I got CD's and  a T-shirt to sell?
And, Lord, have I got a special price for you