1.
King Me
2. After All These Years I've Seen
3. Stay Strong
4. The Picture
& The Party
5. Talking Truth, Saying Nothing
6. There Is A Song For
Every Situation
7. Stuck Between Two Coasts
8. Cheapskate
9. Time To
Relocate
10. You Can't Live With Me
11. Billy Arrives In Seattle After Being
In LA
12. Fourth Of July At The Pier
13. Annie In My Arms
14. Mary Wore
White At Night
15. In Between The Reality And The Dream
16. June (Life Imitates
Art)
17. The Miraculous
18. Mess
19. Looking For A Past That Never Was
20.
Suzy Free
KING ME You know I've had it with the shortcuts
It always seems they get the best of me
Boston's a lonely place for you and
me
I guess I was naïve thinking
There was a shortcut to eternity
I
think I have the right
To feel like a decent human being
But everyone
keeps telling me You're never gonna be rich
You're never gonna go gold
You're never gonna beat the clock
You'll never attain your goals
You're
heart is made of glass
We all see you've gotten so low
And at the end
of your life
You'll see you really don't know
You're heart is chasing
passion
That you're body will never, ever know
And at the end of your
life Next week or in your Ebenezer rocking chair
You'll wonder why you
ever thought
Life was a romantic affair
When I feel it's a lonely place
to be
Is being the Queen as lonely as it seems?
I'm not gonna stop
Until they King Me You know I've had it with the chess game
I've had
it with feeling like a pawn again
Someone's always got better strategy
Bishops and knights get the best of common men
I see you piling up your pawns
Boston's a tough place for me to be
I see them mowing your lawns
You're
sitting just where I would like to be
But I have a decent plan
If you
can, you can take the better hand
And I'll knock over the chess board
Whoever decided that the playing field
Had to be checkered black and white?
Call me idle, call me a gangster, call me a charlatan
Tell me my ideas
are paper and pawn thin
But I'm the kind of guy
Who keeps popping up again
At the golf course
And your son's wedding, to your chagrin
And I think
I have the right
To feel like a decent human being You're never gonna
be rich, you never gonna be poor
And if you ever get ill, you'll never find
the cure
You're never gonna stop, you're never gonna go
You're never gonna
fly, you're never gonna grow
Your heart is made of glass, you're gathering
the snow
Your mind is finding reasons that you're body will never, ever know
I've been down before I'm a great person
And it is my understanding
That you have no idea what will become of me
So why should I listen to you?
And all the things you think I'll never do? I'm never gonna lay down,
I'm never gonna give up
I'm never gonna sit back, I'm never gonna act too
tough
I'm always gonna write, I'm always gonna fight
I'm always gonna
rage against the dying of the light
And in the moments when I see the flickering,
fading spark
I'm never, never, never, never, never, ever
Gonna do what
I don't think is right I'm twisting in the wind again AFTER ALL THESE
YEARS I'VE SEEN So now I'm drifting into half-life
Tripping over tables
in the corner of the café
And you see, it's just delivery, it's all about
me
I'm down with the MC So now I'm tripping into midlife
Slippin'
on the carpet and the promises of champagne
And you see, it's not what you
be, the blame is on me
Because I'm down with the MC I'm reelin' in the
years, I'm betting on tomorrow
Don't care about being rich, as long as I have
Mojo
The critics sharpen their wit, they're gatherin' in Soho
My heart
is thumpin' louder
My face is whiter than the New York snow
But it's
miraculous to me
After all these years I've seen STAY STRONG
Jack works at the Pike Place market
He's awkward about who he's supposed to
be
He's not the kind who talks loud
And acts proud
In familiar company
Why does Jane always scold him?
She is cold to him
She looks the other
way
He watches her as she walks away
With another guy
And he says,
"Someday"
Alexandra she is easy
She makes new friends with no problem
at all
When she's at work she's playing
When she's playing she's flying
until she falls
People cut her off when she talks
It's like scratching
her name in the sand
The best poets steal
The limp get academic
And
the raw ones up and start themselves a band
All the cools boys on the avenue
They present their tale a different way
It's all about presentation
But
if all the truths in the world were a farce
And the portraits of success that
you stare at
As you walk through the park
Were illusions
I'd say,
"Stay Strong" THE PICTURE & THE PARTY I saw a picture of you last
Tuesday
It was on my friend's dresser
I tried not to notice, but my blood
raced
And I remembered how I'd felt I said I'd be rich and vanquish
And color all the day
And you'd come running to my door
Like you did before
God pulled you the other way I'd have a party at my house
The who's-who
Flip the toggle-switch
The gross-nouveax
The nouveax-riche
And you
would come
But you're a louse It would never work
You would have known
you wanted me back then
I'm no different now
It would never work
And
the fact that I'm even pondering it
Makes me feel like a jerk TALKING
TRUTH, SAYING NOTHING Old heaven ogles oligarchies and omens of Onan
Other-worldly wanderers wrecked the wall with a wave of a wand
Fortified,
fickle fire-breathers fall face-forward with each folly
Educated, erudite
eraser-headed elders eat elk as evidence of the ersatz
The burlesque, bombastic,
buoyed baller swings the baseball bat
Xenophane goes "X" then "O" then gets
the X-rated, to be exact
The pungent, pubescent pontiff gets plutonium then
punishes the pack
The gore in Georgia gets caught in the gargantuan gap
Virulent, vivacious, and vitriolic vandals have vendettas to tap
The holy
and the hellish haunt handily and do the hand-slap
The indignant, indifferent,
and insatiable do the inverted skit-skat
Jovial, jolly, and jocular: that's
how we judge jingoistic Jack
It was kinky and Kinko-d when the kid photo-copied
the Kit-Kat
Carl gets hot by the cakes at the clambakes when he castrates
chicken
The oracular over-man overtly occupies the omnipresent age-gap
Quizzically, the queer quotient goes quirkily to the left quadrant of the map
Rotting racists routinely rock harder to the metal rhythms than to the beats of
rap
Ulysses was unkempt and uncovered by the underachieving uncle trap
The youthful yeoman yearns for the unusually yellow yard
Zed rolls the Zig-Zags,
does the Zen spirituals, and zips off to Zimbabwe THERE IS A SONG FOR EVERY
SITUATION There you go, taxing the wishbone again
I want to spill,
like the almanac of poor Benjamin
The Keebler Sessions were a romantic idea
for the ego
I pull a line from a song or I trash the liner notes The Bedhead
Sessions are wrapping up
We do the dance, nowhere to go but up
Visions
and revisions of romantic stuff
Is this all there is? Doing this dance is
enough? There is a song for every situation
There is a song for every
situation Words can't cover it, Seneca's suggestion
To crush authority,
to complete the circle of circumspection
To release the fury, to find some
crisis questions
That allow the brain to supply the tongue with a definition
For a small piece of the American Dream
Or Barcelona or Lollipops or French
cream
Another side of this bus is all you can see
Taxing the wishbone,
again, to be happy There is a song for every situation
There is a song
for every situation STUCK BETWEEN TWO COASTS I want to live like
the poor are living
Like the folks out in the ash heap,
Like in Good
Will Hunting
Like working class folks,
Like the blue collar living,
Maybe scratching at the middle class I want to live like they live near the factories
I've got to hide from what I am
I've got to find a place to fly my flag
Where I come from it's too laid back
I want to sail my ship into the black
Each place has a different pace
Each has a different set of values
I
want to live at the point of connection between all communities
I want to
inhabit the valley of ashes between you and me
There are thousand of miles
between you and me CHEAPSKATE I don't like your patronage
Does
that make me a cheapskate?
If you don't have the money to cover the bill
Are you a cheapskate?
If you didn't earn the money to bring to the bash
Are you a cheapskate?
If you never feel like going outside
And your bedroom
is a comfortable place to hide
Are you a cheapskate?
We all want to do
what's right
Even the cheapskates TIME TO RELOCATE What do
I have that can't be relocated?
Packed in a box and moved away
Friends,
family, and loved ones
We'll stay in touch if it's worth it, ultimately
Can I live with you? I need things to do
If I move faster, I soon will matter
We'll watch a softball game at the park,
I'm OK with them shutting the lights
off after dark Want to escape the many memories
From the hometown that
bore me It's so easy-going on the West coast
The rock club scene is so
laid back
Hangin' round with all the music folks
We'll get coffee and
hit the video store Red walls of a rock n' roll club
Climax at the Long
Beach hotel
Watching paint dry in the housing developments of the suburbs
Drives the porno queens into the big city to dwell Want to escape the many
memories
From the hometown that bore me 'Cause with everything in your
life that has value
The value must be stripped away
Attach a new kind
of meaning
And package it in a brand new way Want to escape the many memories
From the hometown that bore me I'm booking my flight
I'm making my travel
plans
Make you feel so well
Oh, well YOU CAN'T LIVE WITH ME
You are something I can never be,
You've been blessed with a certain pedigree
We weren't cut from the same cloth,
We aren't of the same mold
You write
the checks
I'll drink the old gold
But if you want to do what's right
And make it easier on both of us
Don't come out to Seattle Look deep
within yourself
Look at the hand that you've been dealt
You've got the
degree and the bonne idée
That the stress is less in the land of the Northwest
You're not like us, you never will be
What a beautiful city, everyone's so
polite
You'll never be anybody else
And you got to accept that it will
follow you
Don't come out to Seattle You're trying to get away from your
family
But I know they won't think much of me
You should head back to
where you belong
You're not like us, you never will be
And these folks
don't need your patronage
Camping with me, making your plea
Good times
came and went
And I appreciate your sentiment
But don't come out to Seattle
You'll never be who you ultimately need to be
Hangin' around with Seattlites
like me BILLY ARRIVES IN SEATTLE AFTER BEING IN LA Damn the Blockbuster
marquee The town is full
Of plastic facades
The coffee shop has
Replaced the liquor store Queen Angeles fell
Under Californian rule
Do you think it's too late
To buy cheaper fuel? This town changed You
say I'm sentimental,
Well, I just got back home from LA
Does it make
sense to celebrate
The old Queen Anne way? For some reason I'm feeling
Nostalgic for the pharmacy
The drag has turned into
A long string
of boutiques This town changed I used to know what I wanted to be
But
you were always there for me
In your arms in the apartment
Is the only
place I can call home I get a feeling, so deep,
When I look in your eyes
We're sad at what we become
When our hometown dies This town changed You
are the only thing left
That resembles a home, I guess
I don't want them
to ever change you
You were always there for me, it's true It sucks to
know I can't afford a house
On the street where I grew up
Construction
crews start
To rip the buildings apart Let's kiss on the stairs in a blissful
repose
And who cares if the world ever knows
Our souls will live on together,
always a bond
After this town gets overhauled, our love will live on This
town changed THE FOURTH OF JULY ON THE PIER The fourth of July fireworks
light up the trees
The cool wind blows but it's now 80 degrees
Down by
the pier all the sailors head out to the Sound
I meet Annie, the mystic -
she likes to get down We hear the ferry boat's sharp whistle
We hear them
partying at the Owl n' Thistle Let's hop a ferry and watch the fireworks blow!
She's just arrived from her walk through Discovery Park
She's come to meet
her lover and do what lovers do after dark
She goes to the ballgame; she eats
down in old Chinatown
She watches music in Pioneer Square where rock rhythms
pound She knows the boys from the burbs
Whistle at the hoochies on the
curbs Oh, and we watch the scene, the pier lights are shinin'
We should
love each other tonight, everything feels right
There's no other lookout on
earth I'd ever want to be
Tomorrow I might have to go, so please hold on to
me The grunge boys, they to smoke in the park in their clubs
With mesh
hats and cigarettes and pale skins, eating subs
I'm tired of this place though
I love it so much, faults and all
These boys will chase the girls till they
go to the UW in the fall They might meet heat in the bedroom, lights down low
Or maybe in the back of the Blazer, you never know
Babysitters head down to
the Seattle Center to smoke dope
They all have stories to tell, got to keep
it from the folks You see the fireworks blow, you feel the blast!
You're
rollin' down the counterbalance so fast You can't stop this car from 'trolling,
This train from rolling through the past ANNIE IN MY ARMS AT THE PIER
Oh, Annie
I have you in my arms
And the water lights shine
As we
walk by the pier
And your father thinks
It's too late for you to be out
here
But Queen Anne is near
And there's no other voice on earth I'd want
to hear Oh, the angels from school
Don't fly around here anymore
Their
halos don't shine like these fireworks do
Now that it's July
And you
have a tear in your heathen eye
You look for the angel to come down I-5
Or maybe pull into the pier
Down from the north
To take you for a ride
The angels are all going back to heaven
They smiled on us when we were
young
When we thought the pier, the Seattle Center,
And the Pioneer Square
scene was fun
Well, the angels aren't in any seedy drags
Or in the soulless
plastic spread that thrives
No, the angels left us when we got old
But
left us with a hand to hold On the July nights sometimes it stays cold
Sometimes the city feels cleaner now, truth be told
And the dives and decadent
have been driven out
We'll take the bus downtown to see what it's about
Past the rock clubs
Past the underground tour
I'll buy you some flowers
at the market
I know folks who work down there, you know
And we'll see
what it was
We ever thought this city had, anyways Maybe this town don't
got it
But you got it
I know you got it
And I got you
And these
moments are few You sure got it
So don't let the world take it from you
MARY WORE WHITE AT NIGHT You grew up on a tree-lined street
Like Central Park placed on a Seattle circle
You scribbled a plan when you
visited Long Island
You crafted your culture in pacific silence Mary wore
white on a Queen Anne night
You stood at the lookout point and cried all night
You snuck out from your father's window
It was cold and on down came the snow Mary
wore white on a Queen Anne night
She left again and you saw the light
Walking tall by the sycamore trees
Jewel box in the top of the key We'll
write our script and we'll chase our past
We'll walk with dancers in the moonlight
mash
We'll hit the bar; we'll hit the library
We'll drink brown bottles;
we'll embellish the story Seattle is a fertile breast of land, my friend
Been around the world and it brings me back again and again IN BETWEEN
THE REALITY AND THE DREAM Rode the bus past the gated house
Mind mulled
over the list of fancy touts
You think your day should be so much more
But what do you really have in store? At this point in the morning,
People
ponder what is gone forever
Some like their Indie Rock
Some read the
New York Times Ride the bus and hope
Some passion will be discovered
Wait till your ship comes in
Hit the day job, get the sinking feeling
You occupy the space between
The reality and the dream JUNE (LIFE IMITATES
ART) June will follow the moon
The twins are separated now
One
mind will be in summer
The other in winter
July will come and follow suit
We have no treasure or no loot
I can't eat in the same restaurants
I don't
get excited when I see that pretty girl
Memories don't seem so valuable
There seems to be nothing worth much in this world Some days I feel like a
king
When life imitates art One day I feel great
The next I feel like
crap
There's no logic to it
But some days, yes some days I feel like a
king
I feel so down and I don't know why
I've lived a safe life and I
rarely try To push the envelope
To push out from the dark
We have
a classic example of life imitating art Some days I feel like a king
When
life imitates art THE MIRACULOUS Obadiah was the one
Who thought
he could battle the sun
In a Moscow café we first met
I knew there was
something I couldn't regret
And he spoke in words I'd never heard
It felt
absurd But I knew it was miraculous I'd returned from the East
I'd left
plans of becoming a Roman Catholic priest
And in the fog beneath a crown of
rock
I wanted nothing but my worn-out frock
And I saw things the way I'd
always wanted to
And not a soul knew
But I knew it was miraculous
MESS The brilliant poet Dylan Thomas was a mess
But that's the
way it goes, I guess
A certain kind of beautiful girl
Across the bus,
with eyes of pearl
She never will be mine, at all
She's just a photo on
the wall
She's just a fleeting kind of dream
She's just an animal, it
seems
My fertile imagination has been raped
The trees sapped and the soil
scraped
Now it's a devastated wasteland
It once was such a verdurous place
It once comprehended grace
Now it sees only animals
Now it only remembers
images, not whole ideas
It is a shame that we mix our practical concerns
With our earthly desires LOOKING FOR A PAST THAT NEVER WAS We played
pool all night
We talked about the old times
We sat by the fire light
We almost cried, we almost hugged
Talking about a past that never was
The critics write and make some sense
Of the meaning of all the current events
They look for a time of innocence
Before the TV screen was filled with fuzz
But they write about a past that never was So, I sit here dreaming and lying
awake
Praying I've got a few more decades to live
But it's hard not to
feel I've been compromised
By the attrition of time, I feel the butterflies
From the loss of the youthful, warm-bath buzz
Thank God for the past that
never was Otherwise the present would seem hopeless
Thank God for the
future that can never be
Let's talk and talk about what was lost
What
transpired, what could never get across
And about all the times we lied, just
because
We thank God for the past that never was SUZY FREE
Suzy free said to me
There's only one thing she wants to be
That's a
celebrity, it's plain to see
The world is your oyster, eventually
She
carries that cross,
She sucks up to the boss,
She idolizes the ones
who seem to be free
They seems so wise,
They wink their eyes,
They
realize their potential inside the TV Suzy, don't fall for the snake-oil sale
Those celebrities may be beautiful,
But they have nothing over you and me
And our plot of land on this dead-end street
Do they have what we had at the
lake?
You've seen the golden sun on the California beach
Does it seem
out of your reach?
Do you like the sun? Do you tan easily?
Don't let
those celebs deceive you and me Suzy, you're never late for the party
But you're always rude to the hosts
You broke their coffee table, you interrupted
the toasts
It was a family heirloom in the den
You got way too drunk this
past weekend
And you can't remember your fast new friends
But please stop
to think, as your eyes start to blink,
While you wash your clothes in the
kitchen sink
About all the things you have that you love dearly
All the
things which are only available to you and me
On our plot of land on this
dead-end street
Suzy, please, don't believe
That celebrity will allow
you to be free | 
