1. The Immigrant
2. Great Fire of Thessaloniki
3. Smokey Joe Wood
4. Lawrence of Tremadog
5. Bere Ferrers
6. Jeannette Rankin
7. Fatima
8. Silvertown
9. The Winter Palace
10. Love Field
11. The First (And Last) Queen of Hawaii
12. History Repeats
I have a friend in Southern California
We knew each other back home in Georgia
Says if I ever come down to Hollywood
He can get me an honest job that pays good
So I go to the soundstage
End up 10 feet from Charlie Chaplin
He starts talking and looks less like a person
And more like a ventriloquist dummy
Isn’t it funny?
Isn’t it funny?
They’re pretending to be immigrants
I don’t have to pretend
They’re the ones in the spotlight
I’m the one plugging it in
I’m gaffing
They’re laughing
I’m biting my tongue
They’re having fun faking love
But this one scene is taking so many takes
They made her eat eight plates of beans
She might lose her lunch
I’ve got a hunch I’ve got a gnawing suspicion
No one here has experienced malnutrition
I feel mostly bitter but I feel a little glad that there are people in this world who haven’t hurt the way that I have
I’m in a theater
10 rows from Charlie Chaplin
He looks more alive with black and white skin
He says so much more when he’s completely silent
That’s the spell of the silver screen
People can’t sit still in their seats
They giggle uncontrollably
And wriggle till they’re free
That’s the spell of the silver screen
People can’t sit still in their seats
They giggle uncontrollably
And wriggle till they’re free
Shed straightjackets like Houdini
It’s not magic
I know how it’s done
I know how the light enters the lens and the aperture blinks 24 times a second
It’s not magic
I know how all the effects are achieved
But you pull smiles from the trenches like a rabbit from hat
And you could have fooled me
It’s not magic
I know all the tricks
But I see old men smiling like kids and just for a moment I believe it exists
Just for a moment I believe it exists
Just for a moment I believe it exists
I believe it exists
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Like the murder of Franz Ferdinand
This spark got quickly out of hand
A radiant disease spreading through the streets of Greece
I brought you into this world and I can take you out
They shout as the flames inflate and bounce from house to house
Gluttony, pure gluttony, a blazing beast engorged on dreams
Eating everything it sees and leaving only suffering
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Ashes to ashes
Petroleum and matches
Green canvas patches stitched on your sleeve
Ashes to ashes
Irrational rations
Flash fractured factions smeared with viscous kitchen grease
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Tell me what do you get when you mix
A pile of straw and a strong-willed wind
With a spoonful of healthy ambivalence
Ten thousand homes burnt to a crisp
Even the water supply was burned to the ground
There’s irony here, in the midst of a drought
There’s firony here, but no peace to be found
Poor portmanteaus can’t lift charred mouths
But fill those portmanteaus with clothes
Mementos of your lives and homes
Say goodbye to all that you know
Start over with the ones you love most
It’s all Greek to me
This kind of tragedy
It’s all Greek to me
This kind of tragedy
It’s all Greek to me
This kind of tragedy
It’s all Greek to me
This kind of tragedy
It’s all Greek to me
This kind of tragedy
It makes me sad to read
But not as sad as I would be if I had lived in Greece in 1917 during the
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Great Fire of Thessaloniki
Leather glove folded up
Launching phantom fastballs from the back of mass
Your cork core heart wrapped in yarn
Unwound with the sound of each cracking bat
From the mound of a mining town
From coal to diamond
From Ouray to Boston
You throw so hard your comet arm nearly flies off your body
A shooting star, a meteor, a great big ball of fire
And the umpire shouts
Out!
One of the girls
Bloomers and pearls
Barnstorming yards from Modesto to Blue Hill
Till you make your way to a greater stage
It’s 1908 and the world is yours to take
You throw so hard your comet arm nearly flies off your body
A shooting star, a meteor, a great big ball of fire
And the umpire shouts
Out!
Take me out to the ball game
Take me out to the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and cracker-jacks
Watch out old chap for that patch of wet grass
But you slip and you fall and you stay down
Your hand’s in crippling pain
It only takes one strike in this unforgiving life called the old ball game
Gasps fly from the stands like they’re foul balls
Things will never be the same
You’ve hit the holy trinity, three strikes in one
At the old ball game
You can accept your fate but your stats will still tank
Cause you’re out, you’re out of the game
You peaked at 22
I’m turning 22 soon
I don’t know what to do
Help me
You peaked at 22
I’m turning 22 soon
You’re no babe ruth
But you’re still you
So sit out a season and get sold to Cleveland
Rise like a Phoenix and hit like a demon
You may not make it into the hall of fame
But I guarantee we’ll remember your name
We’ll remember your name
We’ll remember your name
We’ll remember your name
It’s not like it was but it’s not nothing either
It’s hard to be a senator when you used to be a caesar
You’ll never be great but you can be good again
You’ll never be great but you can be good again
You’ll never be great again but you can be good
Smokey Joe Wood, against all likelihood
You burnt your flame out but the embers still sprout smoke
Make the most of this joke
Make the most of this joke
Make the most of this sick, sick joke
Make the most of this sick, sick joke
Make the most of this sick, sick joke
Make the most of this sick, sick joke
Make the most of this sick, sick joke
Make the most of this sick joke
The best fighters make the worst soldiers
I’m older than I was last year
I’m older than I was when I said “I’m older than I was last year”
The worst soldiers make the best foes
I’ve shed more blood than you know
I’ve reaped more than I’ve sown
No messages, no instructions
No superiors, no meals, no liquor, no repercussions
More wars than not I’m sure are fought on dishonest grounds
On dishonest grounds
More wars than not I’m sure are fought on dishonest grounds
On dishonest grounds
The smallest armies have the highest hopes
The loosely trained have the tightest hold
Some of us lust for blood
Some for gold
Some for going home
The hottest deserts have the coldest nights
How can I see if what I did was right
When every step I take is erased
By wayward breezes
Delinquent winds afflicted with helix seizures
Spiral to infinity
Like the staircases in the library of Alexandria
Spires brighter than the sun
Oh Alexandria
Oh Alexandria
The sand blows in our eyes and there’s frightening things on the horizon
The sand blows in our eyes and there’s frightening things on the horizon
The sand blows in our eyes and there’s frightening things
More wars than not I’m sure are fought on dishonest grounds
On dishonest grounds
More wars than not I’m sure are fought on dishonest grounds
On dishonest grounds
More wars than not I’m sure are fought on dishonest grounds
On dishonest grounds
I know where the lines are drawn, I know where the mines are laid
But I cannot say
I cannot say
Captain please
We’ve had nothing to eat since 6 this morning
The boys won’t admit it
But their stomachs are rumbling fiercer than an Albatross engine
Bone thin with fish skeleton ribs
Singing submerged hymns to Poseidon
Hiding train track tridents
I survey the brittle troops
One paws through a pocket sized bible
Another stares at his shoes
The former is holy but the latter is too
I make a note get him a new pair soon
A third boy scribbles nervously in a notebook making sure no one looks
No one does
We’re all gripping our guns
We’re all stuck in our own heads
All we see are blurry trees
And all we dream of is our beds
The weddings that we’ll miss
And the funerals we wish we did
Innumerable grievances
Shove them in the deepest trench pit of your stomach
This is the first of many hundred
You are one in a million
Shed your civilian skin
I was sick of home now I’m homesick
I was chomping at the bit now I just wanna sit on a Grovetown porch
Gorging myself on homemade biscuits and local gossip
But I am trapped in a cage filled with whitebait
When I was their age I would have swam far away
Afraid of the nets that lie in wait
Afraid of ending up on a plate garnished with parsley and sage
Look before you jump, before you leap
Before you cross the street
When weaving steel tracks cleave these the foreign grasslands
Hit like a heart attack
No chance to react
Slammed shut in a bear trap
The lightning and the thunderclap
Like the staccato snap of a dance troupe’s taps
Or the snares drums in a marching band
Ever so slightly offbeat
Too slight to perceive or adjust your feet
You are only a human being
You are only a human being
Shorter than the time between the pitch and the hit
When the gas is poured and the match is lit
In the time it takes to catch a bullet in your teeth
Shorter than the reign of King Louis the 19th
Shorter than the time between the pitch and the hit
When the gas is poured and the match is lit
In the time it takes to catch a bullet in your teeth
Shorter than the reign of King Louis the 19th
I do not believe in fate
I am he of little faith
By the time the train made it to Exeter’s gates
They were 12 men short and two hours late
Give me something to blame
Give me something to hate
Give my pain a form and shape and let me swing away
Give me someone to blame
Give me someone to hate
Give my pain a face and name and let me swing away
This is a song for Jeannette Rankin
This first US congresswoman
She jumped a train without a clue where it would end
And my story starts on the day she left the station
Remote farmyards, street corners, church potluck suppers
Unventilated one-room schoolhouses in on the summit of summer
They were few yet devout, they came out armed and ready
Not with guns or swords but with impassioned support
Hands as calloused as their stances
Home spun dresses peppered with prairie dust
Mud studded and sweaty
She spoke to them and she listened
But she listened more than she spoke
She had one mouth and two ears she used to hear their fears and hopes
This one’s for you Jeannette Rankin
This first US congresswoman
This one’s for you Jeannette Rankin
This first US congresswoman
We do the same work
We till the same fields
We built the kitchens in which we cook their meals
We bale the same hay
We dig the same holes
What do we have to show?
We put the suffer in suffrage
I know it’s not fair
But I’m going down to Washington
Won’t you follow me there?
There’s no telling the plateaus you can climb to when the real housewives of rural Montana are behind you
There’s no telling the plateaus you can climb to when the real housewives of rural Montana are behind you
This is a song for Jeannette Rankin
I don’t care if you’re a man or woman
A venomous feminist or chauvinist pig
It took a lot of courage to do what Jeannette Rankin did
This is a song for Jeannette Rankin
I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican
A gelatinous pacifist or sadistic villain
It took a lot of courage to do what Jeannette Rankin did
Opposed an otherwise unanimous decision
She couldn’t have had a more unpopular opinion
Tasked to speak on behalf of half the population
Never wavered face to face with Woodrow Wilson’s declaration
She waited, patient, for her name to be called
Stood tall and resigned like a lightning rod on a golf course
As it’s starting to downpour
I wish to stand for my country but I cannot vote for war
No, I cannot vote for war
The war to end all war
What do you take me for?
It’s in the tribune again
I can’t stop thinking about it
I see her in my sleep
I dream about her floating in the Portuguese breeze
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
My heart is buoyant but my mind’s weighed down with doubt
I need to figure this thing out for myself
It’s not that I think that they’re lying but they’re just kids
Raised on stories of Saul’s road to Damascus
wearing Bram Stoker’s worst nightmares like handcuffs
White lies grow like magical beanstalks
And spread seeds like Columbus spread smallpox
I need to see it for myself
I am a man of science
I am a man of faith
How I contradict myself in a myriad of ways
I am a man of science
I am a man of faith
How I contradict myself in a myriad of ways
But show me just one person who’s got it all straight
And I’ll jump from Mount Torre and lay prostrate till Judgment Day
It’s not that I think that they’re lying but they’re just kids
Held hostage by their own imaginations
And perhaps prone to exaggerations
Stubborn as the rock formations that line the golden coast of Portugal
Are their intentions pure?
How can I know for sure until I see it for myself?
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it for myself
I’ve watched diseases grow in Petri dishes
Blind to the naked eye yet palpable and vicious
I believe there is more in existence than scientists could ever witness
I need to see it for myself
I’m leaving for Fatima on the 12th
I’m leaving behind everything else
I need to see it for myself
I need to see it
I am a man of science
I am a man of faith
How I contradict myself in so many a myriad of ways
Like the pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Pharaohs’ tombs and desert leeches
Refuge in the Nile river
Jars of hearts and lungs and livers
Turned to dirt by time and pressure
Sphinxes guard immortal treasure
Overkill by any measure
Who would want to live forever?
Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus
Please don’t fool us foolish people
The world is good, the world is evil
Will revelation have a sequel?
Second shift at the factory
Hot as all Hell
These high-grade explosives
Aren’t going to make themselves
Jules Verne at the Curzon
Made me think of you
I know you’re fighting the good fight
But do you really have to?
We’re strong, sensible and fit
We’re out to show our grit
Till the khaki soldier boys come marching home
I sit beside a window
Watching the mangy german shepherds playing in the snow
And deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down i know you’re not returning
I can feel the whole earth turning
I can smell something awful burning
They could see the fires from Guildford
They could see the fires from Maidstone
They could hear us up in Norfolk and along the Essex coast
They could see the fires from Guildford
They could see the fires from Maidstone
They could hear us up in Norfolk and along the Essex coast
Could you see the fires from Belgium?
Could you see the fires from the battleground?
Could you hear us in the French trenches above the sound of machine guns?
Threshing discontentment like a farmer after harvest
Swarms of starving artists, grandmothers, and Marxists
Or a cloud of zealous locusts that leave the pastures ravaged
If the Czar will take his time, then we will take advantage
Heaping discontentment like an army gathering weapons
Hoards of hungry children act as ammunition
A young man with a vision boards a billowing locomotive
An idealistic look about him
Stacks of half-read books surround him
Bound for Petrograd
Where there’s good times to be had
Cause angry mobs of people congregate and curse the winter palace
A resolution remains to be seen
A revolution is brewing in the streets
Nicholas, are you brooding in your keep
Nicholas, are you squirming in your seat
You should be
I would be
Let the tsarina speak
Nicholas the bloody
Your people and your country know not what they need
They need the monarchy
Let your brother speak
Nicholas the second
You had more chances than most get
And you wrecked it
Here come the Bolsheviks
Grand duke Michael Alexandrovich, in a letter to his brother:
The unrest grows; even the monarchist principle is beginning to totter; and those who defend the idea that Russia cannot exist without a Tsar lose the ground under their feet, since the facts of disorganization and lawlessness are manifest. A situation like this cannot last long. I repeat once more – it is impossible to rule the country without paying attention to the voice of the people, without meeting their needs, without a willingness to admit that the people themselves understand their own needs.
You ruled over roughly 15% of the earth’s landmass
That must have been a difficult thing to do
But not as hard as it was for your daughters
Restrained and helpless as Yakov shot you
I don’t know what it feels like to have subjects, let alone ones that revolt
But I’d imagine it’s something like getting dumped by 100 and some odd million people at once
Up here my mind head is clear as the air
Down there the people look like scuttling insects
Indistinguishable from the tiny specs of dust on my windshield
Is this how it feels
Is this how it feels to be a god?
If I had to guess, it’s probably not
The fog is rolling in
The wind is whistling
The beads of sweat that collect on my palms are brightly glistening
And I finally understand why the cardinal sings
You would sing too if you had two wings
I’m not sure of anything
But the altitude eases my more morbid inklings
When I was a child a bee stung my leg
My brother poured apple cider vinegar on it
It still hurt like hell but it hurt a little less
He did the best he could with what he had to work with
It may be the adrenaline or lack of oxygen
The whole world collapses into scraps of little consequence
All that’s left is the ocean rolling out to infinity
I know it ends but it’s infinite to me
The closest thing to forever that I’ll ever see
The closest thing to forever that I’ll ever see
Unclear greetings
Eyes dry and stinging
Our clothes soak up more smoke every second
Each dancing tendril returns our investment
Someone should tell that moth it’s wasting its time
Do you wanna do that or should I?
Ink and paper
Salt and water vapor
I can taste the future
You can read the cave spurs
Tomorrow tastes like lizards and butterflies
The stalagmites spell words we’ll never recognize
And read like braille descriptions of the ocean floor
A vague afterlife no eyes have seen before
You played by the rules
And got royally screwed
You had a whole lot to lose
And I still do
You played by the rules
And got royally screwed
You had a whole lot to lose
And I still do
Goodbye
For now, forever
Paradise is better off but we’re still draped in black sackcloth
Where does the moth go when the flame burns out
How far can the wind blow the ashes till they drown
Where do we walk when molten rock flows over our old familiar routes
What’s left of the crown that they stole and melted down
Goodbye
For now, forever
Paradise is better off but we’re still draped in black sackcloth
Goodbye
For now, forever
Paradise is better off but we’re still draped in black sackcloth
Stand up see history repeat
Sit down see history repeat
Go out see history repeat
Stay home see history repeat
On the newspaper, radio, tv to galaxy screen
Give up, dig in and see history repeat
Ink on my fingertips
Shooting pain in my wrists
Carpal tunnels mining coal
Black lung tantrums human moles
Pickaxe and you shall receive
Get trapped and you shall bleed
Dry heave my words when they try to sink deep
Tapeworm cassettes form loops and never leave