At Your Funeral
This song will become the anthem of your underground. You're two floors down getting high in the back
room. If I flooded out your house, do you think you'd make it out, or would you burn up before the water filled your lungs?
And at your funeral I will sing the requiem. I'd offer you my hand but it would hurt too much to watch you die. And you can
bet when we mourn the death of you that night that they'll lay me on the dinner table and I will be the pig with the apple
in my mouth, the food that celebrates your end.
See You
My gut is burning. Won't you find me some water? Hey, just forget it can you bring me gasoline and collect a couple
forks and hold them three feet apart and wait for lighting to strike to burn me up? Cause I don't think that I've got the
stomach to stomach calling you today. My head is swirling. It's been carried off in the sky and where it lands is where it
lands. So I guess that I will get another head and then get on with my life and leave you somewhere beneath the waves of time.
And I'll wear glass shoes and plastic wrap. No, I'll just wear my insides. You want to know who I really am? Yeah so do I.
Right now I am turning off the lights cause I don't think that I have got the stomach to stomach calling you today.
Cars & Calories
Her life was magazines and faithful TV screens selling an empty dream of cars and calories and everything
in between the sun and Saturn's ring, but the price tag can't be seen and it took bites out of her insides till she was just
a hollow shell. She grew up in east LA watching celebrities living out all her dreams. The plastic canopy of U.S. royalty
drew her gaze towards the sky and away from her own mind. And at her home her mother cried cause daddy had something on the
side and they didn't look up when she sighed. And when August came around, the bathing suits were on the ground replaced by
a cotton cloak. To see her own reflection was like squinting in the sun. And when all tomorrow brings is a set of broken wings
it takes bites out of your insides till you are just a hollow shell.
Certain Tragedy
And now I finally see that the further we go we've only treading ground that we already know. I could write
you a song, send you a note, or empty out your trash and buy a bucket full of diamonds but even the most beautiful of all
roses must someday crumble to dust and fade away. It's a certain tragedy. So it's on into the lonely nights and all the rest
of it. The empty space between me and the sunken walls and feeling someone's hand around my neck choking away the life that
I have left. And I can finally see that the further I go I'm only treading ground that I don't want to know. I'll probably
hang upside down from wooden rafters in my home and look at old photos of you. I miss the warmth of the summer when we we're
on our own, but now it's winter and my bones are cold.
Jukebox Breakdown
If you've got a quarter, you can stick it in my neck and I'll sing whatever song you want for whatever
mood you're in. Isn't that what you expect? I can sing you to sleep. And all you want from me is a broken heart and a mouth
full of blood. Well I'll carry this casket if it's what I have to do. So bring on the dark sky and let it cover me entirely.
And I'l run down to the river and grab five buckets of water. Wait right where you are and I will serve you at your table.
I hope you like my restaurant and the lighting is right. The jukebox is in the corner. My mouth is the speaker. It plays your
favorite songs and you know where the coin slot is.
Freakish
As I'm talking my words slip to the floor and they crawl through your legs and slide under the back door rendering
me freakish and dazed. Well here I am. I don't know how to say this. The only thing I know is awkward silence. Your eyelids
close when you're around me to shut me out. So I'll go walking in the streets until my heels bleed and I'll sing out my song
in case the birds wish to sing along. And I'll dig a tunnel to the center of the universe. I'll make my way across the frozen
sea, beyond the blank horizon, where I can forget "you and me" and get a decent night's sleep.
As Your Ghost Takes Flight
The last time that I saw you, August of '99, I should have had my hammer and a few rusty spikes
to nail you on a wall and use bottles to catch your blood and display you for the neighbors so they know your time had come.
And I'd drink your blood and feel it dripping down my throat as it heads for my heart. And as your body sags and the stench
rises in vain, the people on the street are collecting in dismay. Before their eyes your head lifts towards the sky and that's
the last thing they'll remember of you. You've become a ghost. You're floating somewhere in between the waking world and a
landscape of dreams. Well it's nothing but dying. You've got a grenade stuck in your teeth and you're pulling at the pin.
You're an illusion, just a shadow flickering underneath the sun.
Nightingale
And I will flail under these lights that seep down from the bitter sky tonight and I will kick and beat my
wrists together and feel an ocean breathing waves, feel them licking at my face. Ceilings don't exist and there are no floors
beneath me. If I were king of this night, would you become my queen? And I hope, Your Majesty, that you like your position.
I'll do everything I can to keep you by my side and I'll stare off through the darkness to find us a kingdom. Just kiss me
before I go. I'll have to walk a thousand miles just to find the ground deserving of your feet. You could throw me down and
walk on me and I'd just look on through my love and through the haze. The nightingales are singing now. They're calling out
our marriage to our subjects on their knees. Their jewelry is thrown into the air. They sigh at the release as their shackles
hit the ground. The trumpets call out now. We're home at last.
All I'm Losing Is Me
The moon hangs like the blade of an axe tonight, and it's poised to drop sometime soon enough on this
dump truck where I lie mixed up with the morning's trash. There's a piece of glass sticking in my back and tar covering my
mouth. But it's o.k. cause I'm still breathing and my hands are free of the heap. And I think that I see that big blade falling,
and the pressure is getting to me and the waste in which I sit is just lurking beside me. And I can't tell if it's me or the
meat that's rotting. I'm gonna have to give up sometime soon. And I think that I see that big blade coming to slice open a
great canyon through the earth so you can watch me disappear.
This Is Not An Exit
Tonight will be the night that we begin to ease the plugs out of the dam. And we will stand knee deep
in the flow, the undertow will grab our heels and won't let go. And while we hold, our legs quivering, the water rises now
to our teeth when we just let go and sail belly up to the clouds, the rocks scraping our backs. To breathe in the air will
be the only thing that we have and all the wasted nights and empty moments in our lives are flushed away as we sway with the
rhythm of the waves bobbing us up. Crests fall to troughs as we feel our gills open up. And if the hook sets in the bottom
of our lungs, we'll rip it out and lick the blood off with our tongues. Despair can ravage you if you turn your head around
to look down the path that's led you here, cause what can you change? You're a vessel now floating down the waterways. You
can take your rudder and aim your ship, just don't bother with the things left in your wake. Just sail belly up to the clouds,
the rocks scraping your back. To breathe in the air will be the only thing that you have and your love will be warm nights
with pockets of moonlight spotlighting you as you drift, the actor in this play. You walk across the stage, take a bow, hear
the applause, and as the curtain falls, just know you did it all the best that you knew how and you can hear them cheering
now. So let a smile out and show your teeth cause you know you lived it well.
Firefly
I said I'd walk you home after our third round of pouring whiskey down the barrel of our guts and I grabbed hold
of your hand. We're up and we're out and we're yelling through the streets and I'm out of my fucking mind and I know you're
next to me but I must confess what's in my head. Keep pumping now, legs to beat the ground and our hearts to beat the band.
The sky's on fire again. Run down this alleyway. Lightning bolts again and we become fireflies just flashing at the air. Rattle
garbage cans. Prepare to be ravaged by our lust burning mad, the fire that we've become. And I know you're under me but I
must confess what's in my head: To me you are the light from a light bulb that breaks sometimes and the tender warmth inside
is released into my life and it smothers me in flames that lick and scorch my face. As the smoke reaches the sky, know I'll
burn for you tonight.