SAY YES, DO NOTHING

HIT THE TOP

When you’re feeling down and you need something to hold onto, I’ll be waiting for you at your table. Cause your friends won’t be around and you know you need some rocket fuel when you’ve got a mule kicking in your stable. Cause you’ll hit the top before you see the bottom, but you’ll hit the bottom before you see the top. Now you ain’t no philosopher but you wonder what it’s all for when you know you won’t break ground til you’re buried. You’re like the shark that never drowns because you’re always moving on, and everything you’ll ever have will be temporary.

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GRACE OF GOD

I’m standing in line for throwaway food for a throwaway man. He shows me his teeth or should I say, the want of them. His girl was burned in the floor above. He left her to die when push came to shove. We’re waiting for food that no one wanted yesterday. It’s all a waste so you might as well give it all away. They say, ‘God bless’, put a bag in your hand of bent canned goods and bread like sand. The man was wrong: You can get lunch for free if you’re willing to trade your pride and stand in the street. There but for the grace of God goes me. Every curb is a cliff by the abyss when I feel like this and I’m just a home away from homelessness, and I look into their eyes and see there but for the grace of God goes me. God!

 

BALLAD OF LEIGHTON BUZZARD

Three men sitting in a one man boat, splitting food so the boat can float. Staring off into nothingness, hoping they die before they hit that cliff. Second one says to the other, “Look out!” and knocks his head right over the bow. Tossed him in his shoes. Then there were two... and the moon rose over the ocean as the sun was sinking down. The stars could show them nothing as they floated far from home in a one man boat. First one shows the second a knot. See his surprise at how tight it got. Pulled it til he’s done.

 

BRAVE ENOUGH TO LAUGH

I should be shot for all the time I took from you but I just couldn’t make up my mind. Look what you’ve got - next time you won’t be the fool so I guess it wasn’t wasted time. Will you be brave enough to laugh when your ceiling’s going to crash and you see there’s nothing left? Ain’t it funny how no matter the things I’d do, you just wouldn’t change your mind? In the book that you’ll write will I be just a paragraph? When you look back on your life will you be brave enough to laugh? I concede I was hard to read, a perfect foil for your tragedy, but you can’t play the victim all your life.

 

PLAY FOR KEEPS

I’ll tuck you in, down in this hole. One little candle, one little girl. I took this guitar when I took up this fight. Let my song be heard one more time. I’m gonna song of hope while you’re drifting off to sleep and I’m gonna leave you Daddy’s guitar to play this song, and play it for keeps. On the streets of Ukraine, it’s getting hard to sing, to hear the music in your head over the siren’s scream. Rock and roll is a fight to keep your dreams alive when your whole damn band is out on the frontlines. Goodnight, my girl, I’m off to give’em a show - one they’ll never forget, and I hope you know I didn’t do it for glory, I did it for love and there’s no better reason in this whole damn world. Close your eyes and hold me tight. Give daddy kisses, and don’t you cry. I’ll play this old guitar into the night so you can hear me singing to you one more time. I’m gonna song of hope while you’re drifting off to sleep and I’m gonna leave you Daddy’s guitar to play this song, and play for keeps.

 

BORROWED TIME

She’s the kind you’d love. He’s not the kind you’d like, but his problem is he never runs from a fight. So the cops took him last month, and they stuck him with the knife. Until his judgment day, we’re on borrowed time. She sees him every Sunday just to walk the line, but every other day his little girl is mine. And while he’s locked away, we’re free to what we like. Until his judgment day we’re on borrowed time. I hear the ticking of a clock as I hold her through the night, haunted by the ghost of a man who hasn’t died. If we have done wrong, then we we pay the price. Until his judgment day we’re on borrowed time. 'Hey there, Mr. Judge, won’t you do what’s right? Won’t you take him away and make that little girl my wife? You know the things we do for love, living with our lies.' Until his judgment day we’re on borrowed time. Why when someone dies they say they’re in a better place? Have we been cast down, waiting to return to grace? Will we get out of hell when we die? Until His judgment day we’re on borrowed time.

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