1. It Was Raining

Well hello there sordid inmates
You've got fences round your necks
And you took all the hordes of adoring girls' applause for it
And to follow, Old Man Sorrow is gonna make you watch it all again

Up on high in a pogo zone
And there's blistering heat from a moulten stone... oh, oh
Yeah and he wants to go, oh yeah he wants to go home

When the memory's dead and the man lives on
And the greenest of grass is not enough to live on... oh, oh
And he only knows 'go the whole way or don't go at all'

It's the middle of winter and things are getting harder to look at
I scrape a hole in the ice and the snow and I look out
And I feel as well as could be dead
I light a cigarette
She walks to the door and she turns once more
and says, "It's your way - it's not mine - don't forget."

And the snow falls on the traveller's head
He puts his weary wings to flight
He staggers like Atlas asked to dance -
There are no truths in here tonight
And what a scene in the morning light
The bridge is burnt and he's standing on the wrong side

And there's no home
And there's no home
And there's no home
And there's no way he can go home
And those that hold the lie of choice say
Maudlin's all that's in his voice
And ask a pound of flesh returned
And stab him when his back is turned
And they asked him what he came here for
He said there wasn't a single bridge out there at all

It was raining when you came here
Take it with you when you leave
And you can take your rain and your melancholia with you
Save it for the next one
When you're ready... I am



2. All Laid On

Blood on my pick-ups, the barman's a stick up
They take the money and we just get to play
Well that's okay, so long as you know it's just a swap
The world doesn't like you, but they'd like to see you off
And I got to go now, hoped I was mistaken
But I'm stone-laden, waiting all day long

It doesn't make you worthier, it doesn't make you rich
And people praise you thick and thin just like a fickle bitch
And that's a ditch if you listen to it
You think yourself amazing all the time you're falling in
And while you're waiting, head and hearts a-blazing
I'm still waiting, praying, all day long

Think of a caption, inscription on your grave
You say it's for cartoons and I say that's the same
It's a nasty joke and if you don't laugh you choke
They'll throw you in the deep end and if you don't swim a stroke
Then do what I do, keep the dream floating
With hoping, groping, smoking all day long



3. The Lady and the Lizard

I need to just be alone all day
You didn't like my song of the sea -
Well that's okay
It's got nothing to do with you
But it sure as hell was at the time
It wasn't what you wanted to hear
You'd already decided
On me saying 'I love you'

I haven't got my mind up to date
I scream back through years of desolation
Public parks and coffee shops
Where the young punks spent their force
The young lover's love took it's course
We're playing lizards on the rock

Through the cigarette haze
In the hole in the wall
Where nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody at all
Risked going down to get up any higher
Well I listened to Mahler, looked over my shoulder...

I spent a lot of time with dead-shit people
So I could learn to read and write
I still move within those circles
And maybe I'm still partly the lizard -
And there's a crack above the ladder of my heart
You still look at me and smile



4. Don't Send Me Away

I'm never gonna leave you - fa la la lay
Unless you take pity on me send me away
My swimming has taken me too far la la lay
I'm sure as hell gonna drown - please send me away

To the dirty midnight drunk walk
Fucking know-it-all pub talk
Slum-chums in the doldrums
On a good day they feel nothing
And this is where I came from
And this is where I'm going
Yeah, this is where I came from
Don't send me away

It's better not to see you - fa la la lay
For if we carry on my body will break
But what's the point of leaving - fa la la lay
My heart will bleed of sorrow - send me away



5. Lying in State

Every thing that I've done
Has been judged on if the woman was won
Yeah, all that I do more or less
Is for some women's sake

Make them laugh, make them cry
Try my best, waste my time
Yeah, all that I do more or less
Is for some women's sake

Thoughts of a maniac,
Saturday is lying in state

Well your cigarette's burned down
And your eyes avoid mine
Well, you're sitting, praying, hoping, waiting
Putting on your pained today face

You don't talk, and what's worse
You take your car keys out of your purse
Well did you see too much
Or did you shoot the horse
And then close the gate?

Thoughtless minds that taverns find
Saturday is lying in state



6. Phil Too?

How could I tell you had more than usual to say?
The day you left I sang, "Et tu Brute?"
And your old friend was telling me today
That you were singing exactly the same
And you were sick of yourself, and everyone else

You looked as thin as white as snow, your eyes as clear as ice
You looked at me, I looked at you. You did what you had to

"Say ah, say ah," the doctor said, "Say ah."
You have to kick the town
The pubs that bleed you at night - oh your town's fully furnished
A fly trap with traffic lights

And you were stuck to bars and bass guitars
And rooms and girls, (dishwater blondes)
And faces - they don't wanna know you
They just want a shoulder to get pissed on
And it happened again -
The heart inquires why I didn't know then what I know now

How could I tell you just needed a push to stay?
The day you left I sang "Et tu Brute?"



7. For the Love of Ash Grey

You took me down to Alexandria
Showed me where the library stood
All this rampant kind of ignorance
Is happening everywhere that you look
Oh God...

And in between drinking
Impairing your hearing,
Being so bloody uninspiring, singing
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
All the way home
You've not known much at all

For the love of ash grey
You barter far too much away
For the love of ash grey
You lie within a single state

I have a book and you yourself have written in it
And if you want I'll let you take a look at it
Know all there is to know, or just remain a shadow of it

You took me down to Alexandria
Showed me where the library stood
I held a book, a match, a tin of kerosene
I didn't feel very good
Oh God...



8. The Ballad of Harry Noryb

This is hell playing madman on the stage
But a different kind of idiot wrote this play
And it isn't even relevant today
And my being splits, one half walks out and sits
In the audience and grins

All the time getting drunk as he orates
And he's swallowed in a sea of sated eyes
He has a most peculiar way to say goodbye
And he hates, he lies, he's dreaming alibis
As homeward he glides

And there's love in those loins that dance on the floor
And happiness drips from the tap on the bar
Reminds me of a place in God knows where
Where too many changes occurred by far

And maybe for him and me both it's fake
These surrogate brothers won't drink too late
And it reminds me of how the immigrant runs
My Romans, my countrymen didn't show up

He's a sailor, he's been betrayed
From over the sea that never was...
He's more than just an immigrant that's been betrayed
From over the sea that never was...
He's more than just an immigrant
He's a sailor in an airplane...