shoes

I’ve had a million friends

I’ve had a million friends
__________________________

I’ve had a million friends
Lived a lot of different kinds of lives
Said “oh how’s that one?” to a many different kinds of people
I have rode on the busway with my new friend and then
Found out that I see an old friend
I’ve talked on the phone to a lot of different people
I’ve said hello to lots of people and I didn’t know their names
I’ve written letters to friends and mailed them
In the clear light of day, the sun beating on the mailbox
I don’t care much for things like that, like friends
I care deeply and when being in love
The sheets upon my face coat over with regret.
Such a wondrous regret! You couldn’t even imagine
The ice-sheets on my face, the red flowers of numbers.
The red flower blooming out on the vine
By the stone house where I walk
Humming to myself
See the way the flowers burst out like birds
That’s the kind of thing I value

This Side of the Blue (Joanna Newsom)

This Side of the Blue

Svetlana sucks lemons across from me,
and I am progressing abominably.
And I do not know my own way to the sea
but the saltiest sea knows its own way to me.

The city that turns, turns protracted and slow
and I find myself toeing th'embarcadero
and I find myself knowing the things that I knew
which is all that you can know on this side of the blue

And Jaime has eyes black and shiny as boots
and they march at you, two-by-two (re - loo - re - loo);
when she looks at you, you know she's nowhere near through:
it's the hardest heart beating this side of the blue.

And the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers,
and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words!
While across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
in a steady, illiterate movement homewards.

And Gabriel stands beneath forest and moon.
See them rattle & boo, see them shake, see them loom.
See him fashion a cap from a page of Camus;
see him navigate deftly this side of the blue.

And the rest of our lives will the moments accrue
when the shape of their goneness will flare up anew.
then we do what we have to do (re - loo - re -loo),
which is all you can do on this side of the blue.


I got this here:
http://www.bentclouds.com/music/newsomlyrics.html

The Seeker (Dolly Parton)

I am a seeker
A poor sinful creature
There is no weaker than I am
I am a seeker
You are a teacher
You are a reacher
So reach down
Won't you reach out and lead me
Guide me and keep me
In the shelter of your care each day
'Cause I am a seeker
You are a keeper
You are the leader
Won't you show me the way
I am a vessel that's empty and useless
I am a bad seed that fell by the way
I am a loser that wants to be a winner
And you are my last hope
Don't turn me away

I am a seeker
A poor sinful creature
There is no weaker than I am
I am a seeker
You are a teacher
You are a reacher
So reach down
Won't you reach out and lead me
Guide me and keep me, Lord
In the shelter of your care each day
'Cause I am a seeker
You are a keeper
You are the leader
Won't you show me the way
Oh, I know you are a mountain
From which there flows a fountain
So let its water wash my sins away
'Cause I am a seeker
You are a keeper
You are the leader
Won't you show me the way




I got this here: http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/D/dollypartonlyrics/dollypartontheseekerlyrics.htm

The living room

The living room
________________

The living room did not exist
I wanted to go and lay on the carpet
In the middle of the afternoon
I knew the carpet was dark grey
And in the afternoon sun, I would take a nap
But the room did not exist
It was gone like everything else
In its place was a black bird
That flew and flew
Through the sunlit heavens
With bitter songs in its head
That sounded like two tin cups
Ringing round the world
Intergalactically the world does not seem so large
When things leave as they do
It is not so
What it was before
It is not so large
The black starry dome
Is a room you sit in and smoke hash
What is hash?
I don’t even like drugs
What I am trying to say is this:
A great red universe exists and I can’t get to it
Somewhere there is a home for me
And I can't ever find it
O Lord, please let me find it
I have been willing to fly anywhere
On a jet plane to get anywhere
On a spaceship I would board with
My suitcase and dog, her head ringing with yellow stars
And rung around a great heart
That keeps popping like a red balloon
Somewhere there is a room
Where I can sleep the whole day
And when I wake everything will be so snug
I am what I awake into
I am what needs to be wrung
From a soaking wet thing
Touch my lips and they are damp
With glistening joy
That was once like stars
But is now something like a forest

Black bird

Black bird
__________

I understand that which is my burden
But not that which is my fate
Little bird with black wing
Who goes flying thru your room
The red music that plays
Is from many centuries ago
So go, little haven
That we call time
Into what we cannot recall
The best thing of all it was
To not know anything
And still be breathing

Postmodernism

Any true believer in postmodernism has never been around an animal.

Hey Ya lyrics

You think you've got it
Oh, you think you've got it
But got it just don't get it
Til there's nothing at all

--Andre 3000

Emily D

Emily D

Dear love you tell me of Emily D
Who locked herself in the closet, oh did she lock
Her heart away, it was sailing
Across the great oceans with blue night, I knew her once
When I went to that house that she did the writing
And I saw the insanity that makes a man
I am insane
But only in my heart
My mind is lost forever in its inequity
It rations the deed and dead like the rest of us
Do we even know the lesson we are left to learn?
Are things not fully spaced, the heart it did fold
I felt myself lessening, my mind was locked
Upon one door in one house
I left my rat heart on the table
I took my bird mouth to the door
I let out a cat scream
It echoed through the halls
But they didn’t hear me, the house was full of fire
The smoke is blinding, but then it is the fire
That burns you, you have no mind
And you lessen within yourself.
And you don’t go awry as much as you leave.
And hide in another universe where things don’t burn
Did Emily D even have a shot?
She had one chance lost and locked in fate
I guess that is what we all have
One chance locked in fate
A fixed thing we can't ever move

The love which brings the right answer [to the question of how to respond to the other] is an exercise of justice and realism and really looking. The difficulty is to keep the attention fixed upon the real situation and to prevent it from returning surreptitiously to the self with consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy, and despair....It is a task to come to see the world as it is.

--Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (p.91)