SHINE
I can see it in your eyes
What I know in my heart is true
That our love it has faded
Like the summer run through
So we'll walk down the shoreline
One last time together
Feel the wind blow our wanderin' hearts Like a feather
But who knows what's waiting
In the wings of time
Dry your eyes
We gotta go where we can shine
Don't be hiding in sorrow
Or clinging to the past
With your beauty so precious
And the season so fast
No matter how cold the horizon appear
Or how far the first night
When I held you near
You gotta rise from these ashes
Like a bird of flame
Step out of the shadow
We've gotta go where we can shine
For all that we struggle
For all we pretend
It don't come down to nothing
Except love in the end
And ours is a road
That is strewn with goodbyes
But as it unfolds
As it all unwinds
Remember your soul is the one thing
You just can't compromise
Take my hand
We're gonna go where we can shine
We're gonna go where we can shine
We're gonna go where we can shine
(and look, and look)
Through the windows of midnight
Moonfoam and silver
A CENTURY ENDS
Cast your eyes into the distance
Try to focus on it all
Find a spirit of resistance
Instead of pride before the fall
Forge some opposition
From disparate strands
It ain't the prettiest position
As a century ends
Unstable situation
Faces made of wax
Streams of melting glass
Sheets of butchered facts
The roar of the machine
Hooded hearts and jewelled hands
And anger spilling out like gasoline
As a century ends
Everything I seen, everything that I heard It ain't even the tip of the iceberg
Fire down memory lane
So pass me my rose tinted glasses again
Through a fog of contradiction
Out to the lake of tears
See society admiring it's own reflection
Chase a light that shines and disappears
Careful what you say, 'cos reality offends Just sit back and let your soul decay
As a century ends
And it's easy to get weary
As you fight to get it done
Gainst a popular theory
That it's over 'fore it's even begun
Strain the limit of compassion
Tend a wound that never mends
And honesty still out of fashion
As a century ends
DEBAUCHERY
Drunken ferry boat woman
Swayin' on your sea
If I turn on the gasfire
By the rain rattled window
Won't you sail over to me
The hail storms tumbles
The rail line rumbles
You move in the porch with me
On an overcast day
The pale winter city
An afternoon's debauchery
Your blouse your skirt
I'll undo them so gentle
With beautiful care
I'm a lonely man
With five bottles of wine
I'd like you to share
The hail storm tumbles
Rain line rumbles
You move through the doors with me
On an overcast day
The pale winter city
An afternoon's debauchery
Orange street light
Afternoon becomes night
You drink your wine from a mug
There's cats at the backdoor
The snow is two inches
You roll down your tights on the rug
The hail storm tumbles
The rail line rumbles
You lie on the floor with me
Come closer my love
I'm badly in need
Of an afternoon's debauchery
LET THE TRUTH STING
The hour is out of joint
Black sun has risen
And the river of words
Is flowing on through
The cages of tradition
They’re handing out emptiness
We'll take it, cos it’s given
Free with this plastic innocence
And these standards of living
Questions, lighted questions
Burnin holes into my head
Hanging like shadows o’er the sun
Staring out like the eyes of the dead
And sometimes my soul flickers
As the wind of change blows cold
Over the mire of repetition
Down the corridors of rigmarole
What I say, what I think
What I put down in ink
I'm only tryin to find a way to understand And I mean no harm
I'm just searching for calm
In the storm of mankind
Do you find it there
In the sea of faces
That drowns you every day
Or in the silence and rubble and empty spaces Where children and rottweilers play
Is it buried in the praise
Given so cheap
With a meaningless movement of the jaws In the looking glass
That flatters you
Or in the rattle of hollow applause
Blind circle, moon and sun
Body willing, mind undone
One pain ending while another begins
Lies, ruin, disease
Into wounds like these
Let the truth sting
From the hub to the limit
Through the urban hollows
Out into the poles of the extreme
To echo through the numbness
Of these godless minutes
In the shadow of delusion’s regime
But here watching the night
As it opens like a flower
And the day starts to rust
Feeling time pound
Like a silent hammer
On this empire of dust
And I'm thinking about the bullet
And the TV screen, the dollar, and the clenched fist
And if we're searching for peace
How come we still believe
In hatred as the catalyst
Through the borderline
In front and behind
Down the road of thorns
Between the barbwire and the soul
Bitters and chains
Is all that remains
Where the wheel has rolled
I feel it from the pit of my stomach
Into the ditch of my mind
Inside the chambers of my heart
As I stare half blind
At these walls of cardboard
At this space that I've rented
At your beauty that is crumbling
Though you try so hard to prevent it
On and on
Body willing, mind undone
One pain ending while another begins
Lies, ruin, disease
Into wounds like these
Let the truth sting
Let the truth sting
Let the truth sting
GATHERING DUST
I got no reason
But that I must
Maybe I feel
Like I've been gatherin' dust
I must leave this harbour for the sea
I'm too young to settle down and make a home
But I don't know where I'm wanting to be I just know I have to be there alone
Stole my time, all my time
Stole my time for you
Pale winter sun
Is beatin’ the ground
Why'm I throwin away
The best thing that I've found
My young hearts in tatters and I'm sure
That it will be a long time healing
It's so hard to see what I'm doing this for
When loneliness is all that I'm feeling
Stole my time, all my time
Spend my time, for you
Now the wind it is blowing
Blowing leaves from the trees
I've got no use knowing
That with time it'll ease
I don't know where I'm going
Hope I get there soon
Cos my soul is hollow
As the sorrowful moon
Na na na na...
The night is raining on my weary head
Taking me back
See the sun spread its wings of gold
As the dawn unfurls
Hear the song that the moon sings
To the darkened world
Feel the fire lighting
In the bitter cold
It’s like the light that shines
Through the windows of your soul
WISDOM
Time no good
Wisdom no good
Patience no good
To me any more
Now night has fallen on the stair
Some things you do you can never repair
Seems I'm always pretending
Things aren't there when they are
And the leaves are nearly off the trees
The traffic thick past yellow windows
And I'm lost inside the frozen headlights
Thinking of you
And the trees are looking like bones
And the afternoon’s filled with storm and rain
I'm staring out of this metal train
Thinking of you
And the trees are looking like bones
The afternoon filled with rain and storm
And I'm tangled up in memory’s thorns
No way through
Trees like bones, yellow windows
Memories thorns, oh and you
LEAD ME UPSTAIRS
I care little for my body she said
I couldn't care less about my soul
And as she led me upstairs in whispers
My whole summer turned cold
I'll lead you upstairs
I'll lead you upstairs
If you've got no worries
Then I've got no cares
I'll lead you upstairs
I told her people had been talking
About how dark she was inside
She said said my hopes are buried in the soil
Deep in the earth outside
And with one twist of the world
She brought me to her side
She asked me for the truth one time
And I all I did was lied
LIVING ROOM
My good friends speak
Like they did last year
Last nights just a blur
Through a head full of beer
My good friends speak
Like they did last year
And last year's just a blur
Through a head of full beer
Where's your wisdom
Put that broken bottle down
Let the wind in your sails
Take you out of this town so sad
I think I'm dying
And if life's just a living room
Then I'm in the hall and I'm glad
If life's just a living room
I'm in the hall and I'm glad
Oh I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad
Now the dawn it has broke
Still the night don't clear
Memories falling in the mornin' rain
I'm up too close, to see it clear
And last year's just a blur
Through a head of full beer
BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS
Wishing that something would happen
A change in this place,
'cos I'm tearing off the fancy wrapping
Find an empty package
Take for a while
Your trumpet from your lip
Loosen your hold, loosen your grip
On your old ways
That have fallen out of step
In a changing time
Hoist a new flag
Hoist a new flag
Angry sun burn down
Judging us all
Guilty of neglect and disrespect
And thinking small
And death by boredom
And death by greed
If we can’t stop taking
More than we need
But across the fractured landscape
I find the same things
Tired ideas
Birds without wings
Birds without wings
Birds without wings
And these are just thoughts
On lack-lustre times
I've no interest
In excuses you can find
Like you've had a hard day
Now you've too tired to care
Now you're too tired to care
You've had a hard day
Well across the fractured landscape
I see the same things
Tired ideas broken values
Many with the notion
That to share is to lose
A hollow people bound by a lack
Of imagination and too much looking back
Without the courage
To give a new thing a chance
Grounded by this ignorance
(and the cat comes)
We're just,
Birds without wings
Birds without wings
Birds without wings
IT'S ALL OVER
In the bitter violet night
The stars wear sour grins
In the vastness of the black sky
I'm cradled in your arms
Unbridled by alarm
'cos I know the end is night
It's all over bar the shoutin'
One things for sure
Its all over now
Its all over now
Confusion wanders in
Strides the evening like a king
Chaos and turmoil prevail
Bedlam reigns, hope all is drowned
Ah but strangely we settle down
Resigned to the sinking ship on which we sail
Our love's just smithereens
Too much beer in my head
Another night is getting late
And I don't know where to go
There's just this long white road
And I can't think straight
No I can't think straight