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The Animal Years
(2006 - V2 Records)
Girl in the War
Peter said to Paul you know all those words we wrote
Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go
But now talking to God is Laurel begging Hardy for a gun
I got a girl in the war man I wonder what it is we done
Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder
Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire
But I got a girl in the war Paul the only thing I know to do
Is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through
Because the keys to the Kingdom got lost inside the Kingdom
And the angels fly around in there but we canıt see them
I got a girl in the war Paul I know that they can here me yell
If they canıt find a way to help her they can go to Hell
If they canıt find a way to help her they can go to Hell
Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder
Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire
But I got a girl in the war Paul her eyes are like champagne
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
Wolves
I still remember that time when we were dancing
We were dancing to a song that Iıd heard
Your face was simple and your hands were naked
I was singing without knowing the words
But I started listening to the wolves in the timber
Wolves in the timber at night
I heard their songs when I looked in the mirror
In the howls and the moons round my eyes
So long, so high
Then winter came and there was little left between us
Skin and bones of love wonıt make a meal
I felt my eyes drifting over your shoulder
There were wolves at the edge of the field
But I still remember that time when we were dancing
We were dancing to a song that Iıd heard
Your face was simple and your hands were naked
I was singing without knowing the words
So long, so high
Then one day I just woke up
And the wolves were all there
Wolves in the piano
Wolves underneath the stairs
Wolves inside the hinges
Circling round my door
At night inside the bedsprings
Clicking cross the floor
I donıt know how they found me
Iıll never know quite how
I still canıt believe they heard me
That I was howling out that loud
So long, so high
At times in the frozen nights I go roaming
In the bed she used to share with me
I wake in the fields with the cold and the lonesome
The moonıs the only face that I see
But I still remember that time when we were dancing
We were dancing to a song that Iıd heard
Your face was simple and your hands were naked
I was singing without knowing the words
So long so high
Monster Ballads
Radio waves are coming miles and miles
Bringing only empty boats
Whatever feeling they had when they sailed
Somehow slipped out between the notes
Out on the desert now and feeling lost
The bonnet wears a wire albatross
Monster ballads and the stations of the cross
Sighing just a little bit
Sighing just a little bit
And I was thinking bout what Katy done
Thinking bout what Katy did
The fairest daughter of the Pharaohıs son
Dressed in gold neath pyramids
Out on the desert now and feeling lost
The bonnet wears a wire albatross
Monster ballads and the stations of the cross
Sighing just a little bit
Sighing just a little bit
Ones and zeroes bleeding mesa noise
And when youıre empty thereıs so much space for them
You turn it off but then a still small voice
Comes in blazing from some vast horizon
And I was thinking bout my river days
I was thinking bout me and Jim
Passing Cairo on a getaway
With every steamboat like a hymn
Out on the desert now Iım feeling lost
The bonnet wears a wire albatross
Monster ballads and the stations of the cross
Sighing just a little bit
Smiling just a little bit
Lillian, Egypt
I remember back in Illinois I found her
The lily of the valley the lily of the West was a rose
The daughter of the biggest big town banker
He kept her like a princess I stole her like the Fort Knox gold
She used to pour Four Roses like it was going down the chimney
Like the bottle was on fire or the boiler was about to blow
She was up on the table when we hit Missouri
Dancing with a movie man he was holding her a little too close
La didi da da da da da da da!
He made her the star of the silent movies
But all she did was mouth the words all she did was mouth the words, ³Oh no!²
And he cast me as the villain as the sheriffıs worst enemy
I practiced falling off of buildings and out windows
La didi da da da da da da da!
The last time I saw she was tied to the train tracks
I was back there with the extras riding on a tiger roan
The villain on the left with the studio mustache
Winking at Lillian blowing kisses from the second row
La didi da da da da da da da!
Idaho
All that love all those mistakes
What else can a poor man make?
So I gave up a life of crime
I gave it to a friend of mine
Something else was on my mind
The only ghost Iım haunted by
I hear her howling down below
Idaho oh Idaho
Wolves oh wolves oh canıt you see?
Ainıt no wolf can sing like me
And if it could then I suppose
He belongs in Idaho
Packs of dogs and cigarettes
For those who ainıt done packing yet
My clothes are packed and I want to go
Idaho oh Idaho
Out at sea for seven years
I got your letter in Tangier
Thought that Iıd been on a boat
Til that single word you wrote
That single word it landlocked me
Turned the masts to cedar trees
And the winds to gravel roads
Idaho oh Idaho
In the Dark
We started looking for you
In the darker caves
We had a lot of love
We thought would light the way
We saw the wrecks of buildings
And ships that sank in starlight
We saw the ghosts of angels
That spoke of falls from tremendous heights
Donıt you leave us in the dark
We saw your old flames
And some were burning yet
It made us smile to see
Just how well tended each was kept
But other fires were burning too
And I saw the battlefields
The dying Light Brigade
Stretched out upon the wheel
Donıt you leave us in the dark
Every heart is much the same
We tell ourselves down here
The same chambers fed by veins
The same maze of love and fear
We thought you were a saint
But the halo was an eye
Itıs hard to see how there could be
So much dark inside the light
Donıt you leave us in the dark
One More Mouth
Honey how you gonna make it on your own?
Honey how you gonna make it on your own?
When you wake up in the night
And see the stars just city lights
And you canıt find home?
You act like you donıt need nobody else
And you dance like you donıt need nobody else
And all the other moths need light
To circle round while you just fly
Around yourself
Oh I stir my sugar with a spoon
And watch your white dress float around the room
I try to see what youıre about
But even my candles are down and out
Honey why you gotta hide your face from me?
Honey why you gotta hide your face from me?
Will I starve in this eclipse while you treat every hungry kiss
Like one more mouth to feed?
Good Man
These chords are old but we shake hands
Cause I believe that theyıre the good guys
We can use all the help we can
So many minor chords outside
I fell in love with your sound
Oh I love to sing along with you
We got tunes we kicked around
We got a bucket that the tunes go through
Babe we both had dry spells
Hard times in bad lands
Iım a good man for ya
Iım a good man
Last night there was a horse in the road
I was twisting in the hairpin
My hands held on my mind let go
And back to you my heart went skipping
I found the inside of the road
Thought about the first time that I met you
All those glances that we stole
Sometimes if you want them then youıve got to
Babe we both had dry spells
Hard times in bad lands
Iım a good man for ya
Iım a good man
They shot a Western south of here
They had him cornered in a canyon
And even his horse had disappeared
They said it got run down by a bad bad man
Youıre not a good shot but Iım worse
And thereıs so much where we ainıt been yet
So swing up on this little horse
The only thing weıll hit is sunset
Babe we both had dry spells
Hard times in bad lands
Iım a good man for ya
Iım a good man
Best for the Best
Once I knew a girl in the hard hard times
She made me a shirt out of fives and dimes
Now sheıs gone but when I wear it she crosses my mind
And if the best is for the best then the best is unkind
I realized that Illinois was more than I could stand
They say workingıs best cause poverty is hell on a man
Now I ride a lazy river through the Mississippi fan
And if the best is for the best then the best can be damned
I spent a few years on the Queen of Spain
She was a leaky little boat that went up in flames
When the boiler blew some people started naming names
But if the best is for the best I guess the best is to blame
I spent a few more as the Cairo Crown
A heavyweight wrestler in the Midwest towns
But I was lonesome for a girl who could pin me down
They say the best is for the best but thatıs not what Iıve found
Now I listen to my sweetheart and I listen to my thirst
I donıt spend time listening to other peopleıs words
Sometimes theyıre right most times the reverse
They say the best is for the best when the bestıs for the worse
Once I knew a girl in the hard hard times
She made me a shirt out of fives and dimes
Now sheıs gone but when I wear it she crosses my mind
And if the best is for the best then the best is unkind
Thin Blue Flame
I became a thin blue flame
Polished on a mountain range
And over hills and fields I flew
Wrapped up in a royal blue
I flew over Royal City last night
A bullfighter on the horns of a new moonıs light
Caesarıs ghost I saw the war-time tides
The prince of Denmarkıs father still and quiet
And the whole world was looking to get drowned
Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds
I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew
Only a full house gonna make it through
I became a thin blue wire
That held the world above the fire
And so it was I saw behind
Heavenıs just a thin blue line
If Godıs up there heıs in a cold dark room
The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons
He bent down and made the world in seven days
And ever since heıs been aıwalking away
Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes
Where neither seraphim or raindrops go
I see an old man wandering the halls alone
Only a full house gonna make a home
I became a thin blue stream
The smoke between asleep and dreams
And in that clear blue undertow
I saw Royal City far below
Borders soft with refugees
Streets aıswimming with amputees
Itıs a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart
Itıs getting harder and harder to tell them apart
Days are nights and the nights are long
Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs
And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign
Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine
Now the wolves are howling at our door
Singing bout vengeance like itıs the joy of the Lord
Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round
Theyıre guilty when killed and theyıre killed where theyıre found
If whatıs loosed on earth will be loosed up on high
Itıs a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die
Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please
The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees
Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage
Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage
Lead pellets peppering aluminum
Halcyon, laudanum and Opium
Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup
His winding sheet is busy winding up
In darkness he looks for the light that has died
But you need faith for the same reasons that itıs so hard to find
And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck
And like good tragedy thatıs what we expect
At night I make plans for a city laid down
Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground
Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script
Streets named for heroes that could almost exist
The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem
To float like the smoke from a lithium dream
Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares
The young women walking in the portals of prayer
And the future glass buildings and the past an address
And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless
And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right
The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night
The future descending like a bright chandelier
And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer
In Royal City I fell into a trance
Oh itıs hell to believe there ainıt a hell of a chance
I woke beneath a clear blue sky
The sun a shout the breeze a sigh
My old hometown and the streets I knew
Were wrapped up in a royal blue
I heard my friends laughing out across the fields
The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel
The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay
Cicadas electric in the heat of the day
A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land
And the lake was a diamond in the valleyıs hand
The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts
They were coming together they pulling apart
And angels everywhere were in my midst
In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed
I wondered what it was Iıd been looking for up above
Heaven is so big there ainıt no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer
Here at the Right Time
Under wide blue skies
Thereıs a place to lie
For me and Evelyn to hide tonight
Iıll try my best to make a go
But Iım not sure what I donıt know
Oh chariots, if youıre out there
Please swing low
Tell me I got here at the right time
If I did itıs probably the first time
No second guesses or secret signs
Tell me I got here at the right time
Youıre so red in the eyes
Either too low or too high
When I met you you
Were sick but you did not know why
I was a pretty poor cure
But my love for you was always sure
The bucket was broken
But the water was pure
Tell me I got here at the right time
If I did itıs probably the first time
No second guesses or secret signs
Tell me I got here at the right time
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