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

The Hitch-hiker

I'm living in a town where it's easy to get killed
And if death don't get us soon the debt-collectors will,
I say we pack all our things up in this car throw our children in the back.
We don't need no place to go, no plans,
For as long as this car can
We'll go wherever your finger lands
On the map.

I'm sick of owing money to every friend I have,
I swear they only come around so they can claim it back.
I say we pack all our things up in this car and throw our guitars in the back.
We don't need no place to go, no plans,
For as long as this car can
We'll go wherever your finger lands
On the map.

"Hitch-hiker! Hitch-hiker! Get into the car,
We'll go wherever you like…"
"Hitch-hiker! Hitch-hiker! Who do you think you are?!
Put down that knife...
You ain't got no right...
That's my wife…
I'm gonna have to set you right!"...

I don't fancy no life on the road with the cops hot on our trail
And we ain't handing ourselves in 'cos we're too open-souled for jail,
I say we leave all our things here on this roadside and throw his body in the back.
Find ourselves a reservoir or a lake,
Car in neutral no hand-brake,
Then back unto the road we'll take
Except this time we'll have to hitch-hike.

Don't fall in love with someone with a heart on their sleeve

She worked 6 days a week on them manufacturing lines

She'd head straight to the bar when she clocked off at 5
Where she'd waitress them tables for liquor and tips
That she kept in a box that she hid under her mattress

He was from the big smoke, kept his head low and he worked too hard
His first wife left him with an alimony payment and a busted, beat-up heart
Now he's just trying to forge a life with that welding iron
When he fell in love with a girl on them manufacturing lines

But some folks find it hard to settle down

It's everything they can do not to pack up and leave

So to save yourself the tears, the heartache and a sore throat from screaming

Don't fall in love with someone with a heart on their sleeve

Every bird someday will leave its nest
Some head straight for the sky, the sea and the wilderness
Others fall straight to the ground and start gathering twigs
The waitress with the mattress money wants the wilderness

So she tells her beau at night she wants to go further than the light
He says he'd rather sober-up, settle down and do her right
He says there's a job at the auto body shop coming up that he's pretty much got
And when he gets it they can put down a payment on a residential lot

But some folks find it hard to settle down

It's everything they can do not to pack up and leave

So to save yourself the tears, the heartache and a sore throat from screaming

Don't fall in love with someone with a heart on their sleeve

So she told him one night out by the streetlight how a small town can feel deceiving

Like in a dream you can do just 'bout anything but when you wake-up you've only been sleeping

Then she looks him in the eyes under that flickering streetlight and says "Honey, I got to wake-up"

Well he sunk so low, he never made it back up

See, some folks find it hard to stick around
It's everything they can do not to pack up and leave
So to save yourself the tears, the bar fights and a liver full of liquor
Don't fall in love with someone with a heart on their sleeve

Before the Sun had Made the Morning

She'd wake up in the darkness
before the Sun had made the morning
She'd move the blankets softly
to keep her husband from stirring
And she'd slip on her coat

She'd be sure to put the hood up
'cos the morning rain was freezing
And she'd walk up to the main road
where the mist and her breathing
Would almost be the same

She'd stand there at the bus stop
drawing hearts in the condensation
Board the bus without expression
Ask to be dropped at the train station
She'd take a seat and stare at her shoes

When she'd get out at the station
She'd go the way she always goes
To the platform where the 6.04
Would take her to the coast
She'd watch the Sun rise through the train window

She'd stand out on the cliff edge
watch the white waves hit the rocks
Get up on her tip-toes
take her coat off
But the water looked so cold

Shed close her eyelids tight and see the face of her daughter
Hold her breath and think of being underwater
Start flailing her arms as if she's clinging to the surface
Floating back up to her life and it's absence of purpose

She'd put on her coat
And take herself home

Some Things Are Worth Dying Young For (The Ballad of Scarlet Fever)

Her hair's so red they call her Scarlet Fever
And, oh god, boys, if you'd had seen her
You'd have slapped my back and bought me beers all night
Her legs go on forever like a whiskey river
With an anklet made out of gypsy silver
That shimmers like her toenail-varnish in the dim bar light

She's got eyes like a wildcat that's starved for a month
She can hollow your legs with just one whip of her tongue
She can kill you where you stand, bury you there under the floor
She holds her room key up like a knife to the throat
Of the Moon with Its reason saying "Kid, don't go"
But some things in life are worth dying young for

Her skirt is leather and as short as her temper
She can't sit still, she got this lust for adventure
And everything she does she does it just for the thrill
She drives 'round drunk on them winding side roads
Smoking something heavy with her head out the window
Headlights off at night telling you to take the wheel

And you kinda hope she goes off the road
That she loses it there on the bend
'Cos in the flames of the wreckage like a fiery Heaven
With her's about as good as it gets

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.

Just In Case I Kill Myself In The Morning

Hey girl, I know you're getting married
Oh God, I know
I also know that you don't want to hear this
But even so
I want you to know what you have meant to me
For seven years I lived my life by yours
If happines is ever anything that anybody owns
I hope that if it is anyone's it's yours

When I think back now to all the hearts I've broken
If there was anyone that I'm proud of
Manipulating into love, or something like it
Mind-fucking the shit out of
It'd be you
You'd be the one
But as I sit here writing this song, what, like 10 years later
I wonder to myself, who really won?

I'm pretty sure, that I ain't in your thoughts no more
It's been a while now since we've even spoke
But just in case I kill myself in the morning
I want you to know you'd make the note

Well I don't know quite how you'll get to read it
Hell, I don't know if anybody will
I'll keep it buried down now like a coward, clown and fool
Convince myself that none of it was real

So here, here comes the bride
All laced up in a white
A smile two miles long, her eye whites bright and her pupils glowing
Staring out at the rest of her life

Headin' North

I work under bridges
Tryin' to keep my head out of the rain
The cheapest tricks on Highway 6
No holds barred, no shame
I go and get loaded
At the end of every shift
Climbing the walls with these petty criminals
Planning for something big

Got family two states over
A kid that I'm s'pose to support
Got myself into some trouble
And since then I've just kept headin' North
Now in every train window
When it's dark I see his face
And I pray to the Lord I could stop headin' North
And hold my son in my embrace

But as it is all I'm holding
Is this black Colt .45
And the hope that it ain't got too late
To make it out of this bank alive
But the counter glass has risen
And I know the cops are already outside
So I hold the barrel up cold to my temple
And whisper good-bye to my child

Time to move South

I was as hammered as an old nail smoking outside of a bar
When a girl walks up to me with my name tattooed on her arm
She said, "There are people in this life, boy, that were born to do you harm
And I won't let you down".

She took me to where she was staying North of the 401.
She kicked off her boots, took off her shirt, laid down her gun,
Said, "Can I pour you out a whisky, boy? I was gonna pour me one",
Then she laid me down.

I was woken by the desk-clerk of the motel the next day
Telling me the girl was gone and she'd said I would pay.
Then the guy bust through the door before I'd had a chance to say,
"If you bust through that door I'll shoot you down".

I found me a run-down diner where I could eat something
That would calm my nerves, line my stomach, soak up last night's drink.
Had the redhead waitress bring me coffee, home-fries, steak and eggs
And, God, I wolfed it down

I've always liked to move around, I get tired if I stay still
And maybe it's the rate I'll get from dollar to real
Or maybe it's the desk-clerk that someone's gonna find killed
But I think it's time to move South

Watered-down Whisky

I was sitting in a bar. A strip joint, full of Eastern European imports. The beautiful kind that let you fall in love. They get real close, staring with those big, brown eyes, like you got something they want. And you do.

Well, when I had run out of what they wanted, that is, when I had gone broke, when I had finally lost their affection, I was alone.

I said, "Waitress, tonight I know hate.
You've been bringing me watered-down whisky all night did you think that I couldn't taste?
The whisky I been sippin' is what I could be tippin' to the girls that are strippin' on stage".
And in just one blink of her eyes, I lifted my whisky on ice
And I smashed that glass right in her face.

 I moved over to the bar.

I said, "Barman, tonight I know hate.
You been selling me watered-down whisky all night, did you think that I couldn't taste?
The whisky I been sippin' is what I could be tippin' to the girls that are strippin' on stage".
And in just one beat of his heart, I took the bottle from behind the bar
And I smashed that bottle hard right in his face.

Them Eastern Europeans hadn't even stopped dancing. The other patrons couldn't hear me over the music, and though they must have seen me in the reflections of those big, brown eyes, they were in love, and they had money, and that was all. So I went outside.

I said, "Bouncer, could you hail me a cab?
I'm an easy-going man and it's rowdy in there so I've decided to settle my tab.
There's a guy who's gettin' fisty with the waitress 'bout the whisky, my suspicion is he'll get out of hand".
And on the side of the road in the night, the bouncer held my door and said a pleasant good-bye
Just as the owner came out running to profanely tell the bouncer the facts.

Uh-oh.

I said, "Driver, how fast can you drive?
I got a situation unfolding and I'm scared for my life.
I got a fifty in my pocket with your name on, if you want it put your foot down and throw this thing into drive".
Well that car moved pretty damn fast, and once we'd made it to the overpass
I jumped out whilst it was still moving 'cause when I'd said that I had money I had lied.

Yeehaw!!

It's Christmas Eve

Nobody going home Christmas Eve will spare her a word
She's singing for money, she sings sweet as a bird
The songs that she sings are of loves lost and dreams that have drowned
I toss her a fistful of coins but I keep my head down

It's snowing on Christmas Eve but still the stars manage to shine
She's thinking she's lucky to be here as she stares at the sky
The tears on her face make her cheek cold as she wipes her eyes
She looks through our window where it's just you and me and red wine

You and me we finish our wine try'n set fire to our tree
We give out receipts with our presents to return in January
Then we lie on the floor, entwined in red wine and unspoken misery
It's Christmas Eve

She wanders along to a park bench where she brushes off the frost
Lays herself down in the darkness and takes her clothes off
She dreams of the children she'd borne but'd been unfit to raise
'Til her dreams freeze over like her body in her park-bench-grave

Just Another Bone

You've got a secret
Don't tell it, just keep it
It's just another bone in the skeleton
You keep locked in your closet

You made some promises
To someone you can't keep
A promise like a heart can be ripped apart
But neither mend easy

And some promises you just can't break
Some take an earthquake
But ain't no earthquake in this world can match a red-headed girl
For devestation and heart-break

But with the walls broken down makes for an easy escape
And with this packet of tobacco I will be on my way
I've got a loose-fitting belt with all the notches on display
I've found some eggs to round-up and some more hens to lay
I've got lyrics that need writing and a guitar to play
I've got some sunshine to find and my own hearts to break
I've got a suitcase, some dreams and a weather-beaten face
That keeps the whores givin' me discount and the pimps out of my way
I've got a bottle in my pocket I can finish, smash, replace
And I can drink until the morning from the morning everyday
I got a coat that smells like sleeping rough that I've had for a decade
And when I speak it reeks of week-old spit at the bottom of an ashtray
But I'll be okay...

No...

I'll be great.