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Today I'm proud of this delirious heart. Today it's serious and I'm coming out for you. It's just a step from the stair to the street, I wonder what you want to do. I shook a coin out of my mouth to amuse you. Oh, and I love to hear you say, "That's a drag." You led me up the ladder's of Little Italy, crowned me prince and vice president of the staggers and jags. Oh! Don't you feel like dancing? Don't you remember, love, how to make it move? Here I go paying down a debt in the daylight. I was born to lose if ever I was born. And it's winter on your modest little mountain, but I'm new in town and every window's warm. Uh-uh, nobody's gonna stop me from stealing. This city's rich and I can follow fortune's lead. I found a pulse and it feels like the right one to me. Oh! Don't you feel like stealing? Don't you remember, love, how to keep it cool? Autobiographies and autographs are easy. I like to wonder when you're gonna ask for mine. I came without a single dream to remember, unfinished and awry. It just gets easier to ache all over. It won't be long before I said too much. I'm in the right place. I know because I'm shaking, just like before. I'm in the right place, I'm near enough to touch.
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2. |
Fraternity Theme
04:41
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Still I feel compelled to conspire. I still swoon, my tongue dried of its libraries. Teach me to curse and I'll climb no higher. Gears gone wrong, sprung machinery. Sudden treachery, scripts and ornaments. The rosy cheeks of our secrecy. Ooh, I've seen it, I've said its name. I bit my lip as I fell from the cruel service of faith. Now I'll answer every ache tenderly in the broad bright light of day. Will I be required to repeat every way I've withered in between what never was and what never will be? I deserve death's release. I deserve to demand and defeat. Who needs a plan, with friends like these?
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3. |
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The rain came in the night. The old gang washed up too. A little candle light, and all that's old is new. Across the table we crow and coo. Oh, if only half of it were true. Things are gonna be a whole lot better when I'm a thousand miles away from you. I'm a bastard born, but a school sweetheart. Full of feather-headed dumbling love. I'm wearing that ring and keeping a dove. Why does it take so long to get a little be lost? To get a little bit of lead on the double cross? I should have learned to fight. I'm tempted all the time. By rot that's wrapped in white and tastes too far refined to court a common crime. Oh, is that some kind of mercy on your mind? Mercy, mercy, mercy, I would rather go blind.
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4. |
At Our Empire's End
04:56
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My enemy is here and I lie down at his side. I am smitten, I am ruined and revived. It's cool, dead calm, a slack tide. The meat shakes on the bone, the meat shakes in the wind, shakes in the grip of its blind and boozy kin. Am I still too young to think that I could win? Yeah, oh yeah, I only want revenge. Real bad, so bad. I want you to be there with me in the cold water at our empire's end. It's not a family, for all that it would claim. That handsome crest, the king, the cock, the lion's mane. Our love is a burden and beneath it I remain. What do I need to know? Which shabby little thread leads to the laughter of the exiles and the dead? Return me to temptations I have fled.
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Just in a certain light - that's right, this light. Can't get it off my mind. It's nineteen ninety nine and you're alive. You're still alive. You and your mother and father are still alive. They could've made a saint from just your shade. We couldn't change their mind. Somebody brings a gift, the bone's a fact, the meat's a myth. But most of us lied most of our lives. What do you want to hide? Oh, what glory would you deny? A feeling with no name, sunrise, slow train. All I can do is guess. Somebody's holding out, one more deep doubt. We didn't learn from the best, but you and your mother and father learned even less. Hurts like a worn out tooth. Black eye, dad's suit. Hurts when I'm looking good. What if it wasn't real? Mouths close, bones heal. Our little fire needs wood. What if we've don all we could? Oh, what glory remains misunderstood?
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6. |
In Town With a Capital T
02:01
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You once named a city, so maybe you be there, standing in a doorway, braiding your brown hair. Call my name and it can't get better. You're fine as a diamond sewn on a sweater. What kind of folks just wave a flag? Anthems are for cops and t-boning d-bags. We'll be the platinum pompadours digging our heels down a bonemother's floor. I don't know how you'll sleep when I'm in town with a capital T. It might be love, fanatical, fearsome. Or just plain genius, crafty and queersome. Is it weird to wonder who looks at me like I look at you? Rusty wheels, roll me to heaven. Tilt that piano and peel me a lemon. I might never say it, but maybe you'll know it. What's worse than a horn that wilts when you blow it? Where you gonna be when it gets dark? Rowing out to where the water's deep. Where you gonna be when it gets dark? Nearer, my god, to thee.
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7. |
Still a Fool
05:45
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I'm still a fool. You can see that a flattering minute goes a mile with me. Some things I know I'll never need, and some roads I've worn out and still can't say where they could lead. It's not a secret anymore anyway. It's not impossible, you just take me home the long way. I don't know what I want you to say. Say it's a good dream but we've got better things to do than dream today. Late summer light is just what it seems. Let me make you smile, take the weight when you lean over the lake, under a star. Some things I've known for so long, but not my heart.
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8. |
When I'm Gone
03:22
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You're gonna miss me by my walk, you're gonna miss me by my everyday talk. Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. You're gonna look and I won't be here, you're gonna wish that I was near. Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. When I'm gone, when I'm gone to come no more, oh you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. You're gonna miss that roasting bird and all the sad songs that you heard. You're gonna miss that modern dance, you'll miss the pinstripe in my pants. Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. When I'm gone, when I'm gone to dance no more, oh you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. You're gonna miss those drawn down days of red brick, whiskey and French pomade. You're gonna miss that one sweet kiss, you're gonna wonder what else you missed. When I'm gone, when I'm gone to kiss no more, oh you're gonna miss me when I'm gone.
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9. |
Raised Like a Glass
03:15
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Raised like a glass to the words of a drunk. Dedicated to the one I love. And so, by rite and by rote, brought up and broken over a stone. They call it magic, pulling flames out of matchsticks. Believers and blacklists, a proud, swaggering slapstick. Measured by their madness. Raised like a flag to a fallen king, halfway and hung out in the wind with our inheritance changing hands. Betting blind on the future's romance. Don't say you don't know. Don't say you don't know the fools you once claimed as your own. Authors of an endless code. The royalty of your regrets demanding a sacrifice, but there was no loyalty left.
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10. |
A Good Flying Outlaw
03:53
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Remember what you said. I said it feels good. It feels better to say every word than to be understood. I'm a good flying outlaw on a fast bicycle. I'm turned on and tired and warm and I don't want to die anymore. Don't forget being picked from the crowd. If you meant what you said, don't take it back now. Don't forget the easy days. What was your secret? What did you say? Don't go back. Don't believe it. Don't go away. Deep waters, so let me sink and see what survives. A dancer, a flight that tempts fate and husbands and wives. What's the worst thing that ever became of a kiss, besides ruin and teenagers twisting? I don't want to die anymore.
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11. |
Bare Body, Golden Tooth
04:35
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Is that enough? To have lived so long, and by degrees, turned from the mirror and a faith so stupid and strong. Hoping that no one sees me leave. Hoping that no one turns to say, "We can see you as clear and as constant as tides in the bay." My dreams have changed from sunset clouds to coarse grey waves. I kissed that man, but he's your friend now. I was the first to look away. I was the last to tell the truth. Though it was bare in my body and bold as a golden tooth. And the next time that I'm feeling lucky I won't refuse. I'll stand by you. You changed one word. You said, "Shine on, you crazy bastard." Maybe I will, until my last loves have come and gone. Neither mistaken nor mastered. Just as close to the truth that was bare in my body and bold as a golden tooth.
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12. |
Gone Home
04:49
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I know why I'm not sleeping. I'm thinking about you. I'm glad I said I'd miss you, 'cause I do. Gone home, down a long road. I liked it when you told me I was brave and I was soft and bizarre and young for all the years that I got. And I loved it when you wrapped your arms around me that night. Gone home, I hope you're alright. You been good all summer, I'll be good tonight. I don't know everything, but what I know, I know I like. I know you had to go home I just wish it wasn't such a long road. I'm still hoping that I see you on the corner as I ride. I wish I was cooking you dinner tonight, or holding your hand, laying side by side. Gone home, down a long road. I just sweep out the corners, wipe down the counter. Close up the cafe with the radio announcer. I know you got your own thing and I got mine. Please, please remember me from time to time.
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Galen Hartley Bordeaux, France
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