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

Face on TV

Baby, we did it
We made it over the State Line
In this jet black convertible
With the white stripes down the side
We got beers in the footwell
We got drugs in the trunk
We got a suitcase full of someone else's money
And we're crazy in love

When I was growing up everybody said
"If you don't end up in porn or prison, you'll probably wind up dead"
I wonder what them folks are thinking now that they see
That this kid's got his name in the paper
And his face on TV

Back at the motel
We're knocking back shots
You're waving that handgun around
Loaded with your shirt off
And I don't know why I did it
But I turned on the TV
And there's a high-school photo and your real name
Right next to a picture of me

When I was growing up everybody said
"If you don't end up in porn or prison, you'll probably wind up dead"
I wonder what them folks are thinking now that they see
That this kid's got his name in the paper
And his face on TV

So now we're on the run
And life's a little tough
Sometimes we rob diners for tip jars
But we're still crazy in love
We swapped the car out at a truck-stop
Raided a few of the trucks
I still get a thrill when we're working
And somebody recognizes us

Distinctly Average

You want me to write you a song
From a title that you just thought up...

You'll probably find I ain't up to the challenge
'Special' ain't something I can easily manage
Like a cold first date or a loveless marriage
This song's gonna be distinctly average

All my songs have got a little bit of a sadness
This one's got a rhythm to it like we should be dancing'
I could bore the cottontails off of all the rabbits
But the rabbits won't give time of day 'cos they say they don't have it
Peppers and potatoes make an omelette kinda Spanish
Your pepper'll get pickled if you stick it in a bad fridge
When I'm done writing this song I think I'm gonna scrap it
'Cos it's distinctly average

Average, mundane,
Normal, plain,
Boring, banal,
Nothing at all...

The words are kinda workin' and they're wrapped up in a package
Of a boho hobo's guitar jangling
Stompin' my foot 'til the floorboards' damaged
I'll rip 'em and relay 'em with this hammer that I brandish
Finished laying floor I'm gonna make myself a sandwich
Cheese and ham and bread and pickle, little bit of radish
Ranch dip, chilli sauce man I'm gonna ram it
Down into my belly because good-god I'm ravished
This song's over now and I ain't braggin'
But it was distinctly average

Hard Work

They own the culture and the counter-culture
They feed you all your trends
They're the pistol shots at the start of every revolution
And they're still there when it ends

Your bid for freedom was predicted even orchestrated
By the same chains that got you bound
If prison guards want something to shoot at
They just plan a break-out

Hard work's only hard work when you're working
Working smart ain't working hard at all
They say life's sweet up there on top of the pile, but from down here
It just looks like a long way to fall

They say the poor are a burden on the working man
And point their fingers at those working the hardest
They drain the blood of the art scenes and music
Parading through the streets with the corpses of the artists

They told the princesses to stop kissing frogs
They dried the lake and closed the dog pound
Now these strays ain't got nowhere to go
Except dumpsters and the cold, cold ground

Hard work's only hard work when you're working
Working smart ain't working hard at all
They say life's sweet up there on top of the pile, but from down here
It just looks like a long way to fall

They bought all the rebels and the outlaws
And those that couldn't be bought, they shot
Martin Luther King was assassinated by the CIA
9/11 was an inside job

I don't know how to fix this mess
I'm just a wino whining for a bottle
I'm food for worms, I got one foot in the grave
And I'm looking for rent money to borrow

I'm a misfit and an outcast
I'm the piece of the puzzle you think you lost
Congratulating yourself cos you're almost done
But I was never even in the box

When the farmer left the gate open
I'm the horse that jumped the fence
He retired on the insurance pay
And I rode off into the sunset

But when your feeling lost or pointless
When that hollow blackness grows in your heart
Look for wild horses near the horizon at twilight
They're eating prison guards

Never Really Gone

Doctor says I ain't gonna make the morning
Preacher says I ain't gonna make the cut
Mama say I should've heeded her warnings
My pretty woman don't say nothing but

She sits there in the rocking chair in our house
Thinking what nobody else will say
She licks the tear as it hits the corner of her mouth
And a crying smile creeps across her face

The Sun is always let up by the moonlight
The Moon is always let up by the dawn
There ain't no way we're staying
No matter how you play it
So play like you ain't got long
And know that everything you keep in your heart is never really gone

Remember when we got drunk and threw bottles
At the cars in town as they drove past
And the next day we punctured our bike tyres
Trying to ride through that same broken glass

When I think back now on all them nights we lived through
And every one we said would be the last
The next night we'd be out there in that gutter again
Drunk before the hangover had passed

The Sun is always let up by the moonlight
The Moon is always let up by the dawn
There ain't no way we're staying
No matter how you play it
So play like you ain't got long
And know that everything you keep in your heart is never really gone

So hold my hand as you sit in that rocking chair

When everybody leaves and it's just us

Tell me that you'll never love anyone again

And if you do you'll try not loving them as much

Tell me what you were thinking when you were crying through that smile

Tell me what nobody else will say

Then climb into this bed with me and hold me til the morning

It was always gonna go this way
It always goes this way

The Sun is always let up by the moonlight
The Moon is always let up by the dawn
There ain't no way we're staying
No matter how you play it
So play like you ain't got long
And know that everything you keep in your heart is never really gone

Back to the Night

I want to wake up
Without this fire
Not afraid of the light
Like some kinda vampire
Without all this blood
On my pillow case
There's still some in the sink
And a little on my face

So give me cool water
Straight from the tap
Give me cold bathroom tiles
Or a porcelain bath
And bring me hot coffee
Shelter me from the light
Give me safe passage
Back to the night

I've got more sense than money
But that ain't saying much
What I lack in a skill set
I make up for with luck
I've been down and out
I've tried to drink 'til I drown
I've been low as The Devil
I've been high as the clouds

I'm looking for something
At the end of each night
Like the end of a rainbow
That I'm never gonna find

This fire in my heart
Bleeds these tears on my face
So hold out your tongue
If you dare for a taste
These scars on my arms
Are just lines on a page
I ain't much of a story
But I'm never gonna change

All of My Old Friends

All of my old friends were early risers
They'd be sitting there at breakfast with their girls
When I'd come down hungover, my dressing-gown half-open
With make-up on and my hair still up in curls

I'd have pulled myself up hard off of the sofa
Sucking coffee straight out the machine
I'd be a mess, half-dressed but never the less, these girls that were sleeping with my best friends
Would all tell me sometimes they 'thought' of me

It's Ok if you don't believe me
Most of what I say up here ain't true
But don't say I didn't warn you
In the morning when she calls you
And says something about me reminds her of you

They said if I repeat it they'll deny it
So I promise I won't mention any names
Recounting tales of youthful misadventure when you're old
Either evokes a sense of pride or sense of shame

And shame has always held the door out for me
Whereas pride ran out on me when I was young
I pretended to be you without all your imperfections
And to perfection it's the closest thing I've come

It's Ok if you don't believe me
Most of what I say up here ain't true
But don't say I didn't warn you
In the morning when she calls you
And says something about me reminds her of you

One time I fell in love
But it didn't last too long
See, I got an honest gypsy's heart but a serpent's tongue
I hope you never set
But if you do I pray regret
Don't find you telling misadventure you were wrong

All of my old friends are late for breakfast
This is their alarm call ringing now
It's always morning somewhere to somebody and strong coffee
Can make broken hearts and heads and fists just pound

It's Ok if you don't believe me
Most of what I say up here ain't true
But don't say I didn't warn you
In the morning when she calls you
With a voice that starts to crack
As if she's holding something back
As if all truth's been held to ransom
When she says she finds me handsome
And says something about me reminds her of you

Amphetamine Fiend

I'm the hardest man to love

At the easiest of times

What we make love on in the morning

In the evening will start a fight

And I'll fight for the sake of fighting

I'll do it just to cause a scene

Whiskey for breakfast

And supper time's sweet amphetamines

Amphetamine fiend

Amphetamine fiend

I'm living the dream 

I'm the cat with the cream

Amphetamine fiend

I got a car to fill with petrol

With a mattress in the boot

The front seat's filled with rainwater

Since I kicked the windshield through

Playing for love don't pay half enough

To even look after me

So I find the girls grinding their teeth

See if they wanna grind with me

Amphetamine fiend

Amphetamine fiend

I'm living the dream 

I'm the cat with the cream

Amphetamine fiend

Some like sports

And some have kids

Some stay home

Others wish that they did

Not me

I'm an amphetamine fiend

Amphetamine fiend

Amphetamine fiend

I'm living the dream 

I'm the cat with the cream

Amphetamine fiend

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

Happiness

This land was just dust
Until them fat boys came and claimed it, built it all up
Made it shine like a crown
That won't fit anybody ten years from now
I've never loved anything less
These roads are like snakes in an eagle's nest
I ain't always winning my fight
But as long as I ain't laying concrete I'm alright

I put on my greens
They told me I was the bravest, strongest soldier they'd seen
But under this still, Western sky
I can't hear their praise over my screams in the moonlight
I've never loved anything less
So from now that's how I gauge my happiness
I still can't sleep at night
But as long as I ain't high on gunfire I'm alright

I'm skinny as a twig
Because I work hard all day and food is expensive
But them fat boys at the top
Don't know nothing of the happiness I got
I've never heard of anything worse
Than happiness bench-marked by the leaders of commerce
Sometimes I struggle to get by
But as long as I ain't buying what they're selling I'm alright