Lyrics

In the Stone – from Pulling Shadows

 

It won’t be too long

You’ll see me vanish in the wind

A silent blue dome will wring sweet water from my skin

Where some Big Smoke cool pool runs down from the rim

And bone white sunlight is spilling time across the land

 

Redrock ringing through me

The silver hiss of a million suns

Slowly crumbling priests

Sandstone totems to nobody

Wind and water and heat

Carving fossils from ancient seas

Redrock ringing through me

 

Just before sundown on the big open

It ’s like a fire ablaze in stone

Spires and hoodoos in the long light

Pulling shadows from the sun

A cool breath and the sweep of memory

Pooling in my bones

I’m a shimmer in the path of time gone

 

Redrocks circling me

They sing like water, these sundried beings

Standing like druid chiefs

Distilling time from the silent heat

A dancing cliffman was here

With painted stories, ten thousand years

I’ve seen his wandering dreams down here

 

Under my feet

In the stone

Anasazi

Gone Abajo

Like the old seas

Where did they all go

Anasazi

In the stone

Spring Song – from Pulling Shadows

 

I saw a newborn owl on a riverbank

Breathing steam into the air

When the spring comes down to the water’s edge

The light’s like gold in the morning air

 

Been a deep dark freeze gone everywhere

Burning us deep under the skin

But not a word of the war has made it down here

The ancient wheel’s spinning round again

 

And there’s wild lovemaking everywhere

You can smell it on the breath of spring

And even though the world is crumbling

At the hands of man

We’re born again

 

I’m gonna lay you down in the riversand

And pour the sun into your skin

We’re gonna roll all over one another

And dig a lair we can get it on in

 

And we’re wild lovemaking everywhere

We’re crying out a song of spring

And even though the world is stumbling

It’s born again

When we love again

The Salamander – from Planet Solitaire

 

I’m the snake with the rubbery legs

And I like to use’em

Amphibious mumbley-peg

Out here perusing

Sal the Man is here

 

I’m standing on a leaf Looking down beneath me

Climbing over tree limbs

Going where my feet land

 

I walk like this…

The überdog of the underbrush

 

We’ve got the same spots, you and me

Breathe through the same skin

Easily

 

I’m looking for Sally the meandering newt

The flame of the nation

Down in the valley in her leopard skin suit

With her tail regenerating

Sal, your man is near

 

But you’re twenty trees away

And that’s like six or seven hours

Baby, meet me halfway

We’ll go strolling ‘neath the flowers

 

There’s something brewing in the underbrush

And we don’t rush…

 

We share the same spots, her and me

Eat from the same pot, don’t you see

We’re in the same spot, you and me

Under the same rock

Can we be

Ishi (for the last Yahi Indian) – from Planet Solitaire

 

Waganupa

Mountain of fire

Land of the Yahi

Waganupa

So long, Waganupa

 

Ishi was the only man

The last Yahi breathing

A silent ghost before the hunter’s hand

Floating out among the dead

 

A stone age man behind glass

In the halls of the civilized

Arrowheads and blessings cast

On anyone who met his eye

 

Their spirits spiraled up

When they died

And they rise

Through a hole in the sky

Now you go free

Untied

 

Waganupa

Mountain of fire

Blood of the Yahi

Waganupa

So long, Waganupa

The Great Historical Bum (Woody Guthrie) – from Planet Solitaire

 

I’m just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum

Highly educated from history I come

I built the Rock of Ages, it was in the Year of One

And that’s about the biggest thing that man has ever done

 

I was in the garden of Eden, it was in the year of two

Joined the apple-pickers union, I always paid my dues

I’m the one who signed the contract to raise the rising sun

And that’s about the biggest thing that man has ever done

 

I was straw boss on the pyramids, the Tower of Babel too

I opened up the ocean let the migrant children through

I fought a million battles and I never lost a one

And that’s about the biggest thing that man has ever done

 

I was in the revolution when we set this country free

It was me and a couple of Indians that dumped the Boston tea

I won the battle of Valley Forge and the battle of Bully Run

And that’s about the biggest thing that man has ever done

 

I’m just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum

Highly educated from history I come

I built the Rock of Ages, it was in the Year of One

And that’s about the biggest thing that man has ever done

Weather Rule (Andy Rinehart) – from Planet Solitaire

 

The weather man he got it wrong again

Forgot the empty measuring cup

This weather will have its day

As yet Old Jersey hasn’t found his cool

It never used to be this way in June

 

Plato’s hung his hat up out to dry

The climate absolute escapes the very plan

For morning brings a temporary snow

The kind you do not move

The kind you’ll never get to know

 

And the clouds gather

Over the grand lady

Like a seamless fog

Buillding and ready waiting

For the winter heat

A moment of reckoning

And the table’s set

Serving the knights

Of summer snow

Monet paints the afternoon again

For the seven hundredth time in 1999

Mistaking January for July

The green dons the brown

The grand lady spins around

 

She always had a temperate despair

So securely timed

The evening aubergine

But victorian the dress she has removed

And lays it down

To spite the patriarchal weather rule

 

And the clouds gather

And the dress removed

And the table set

 

And the clouds gather

Over the grand lady

Like a seamless fog

Buillding and ready waiting

For the winter heat

A moment of reckoning

And the table’s set

Serving the knights

Of summer snow

Blessed Sunday – from Planet Solitaire

 

Are you there, Mr. McKenzie? Will you wake?

Come taste the snow outside

But the clock is all that he can see

And he counts every hour that passes by

 

Six long days each week he’s waited

For the day he puts on his best shoes on

Blessed Sunday

 

There’s a bed and a chair and a window

And a dream he lives inside

Twenty years of his own crooked sermon

Seventeen since he left them both behind

 

But when he falls asleep there’s a doorway

And the girl with her mother in her eye

Comes on Sundays

 

A bit of grace on the end of a phone line

A little truce amid the shadows in his mind

She said she’d come on the weekend

And still he walks the streets at night

 

To a light that falls from the window

Of the ward where his daughter was born

On a Sunday

Love Puddle – from Pulling Shadows

 

Nine of yours is six of mine

Together we got 69

Digging diamonds

Is all I wanna do

 

You spill sugar every time

Like summer rain into my mind

Your breath is all mixed up with mine

There’s nectar dripping from the vine

When I get near to you

 

We maybe had one word or two

When I got to misbehave with you

A little bite into the fruit

A slice of lime the taste of you

Running into me

 

God bless your shiny shoulder skin

The salty way we’re leaning in

The way the juice drips on your chin

Put on your little rubber boots

And splash all over me

 

Let me be your love puddle baby

Tuta tu

Let me be your love puddle

Let me have all of you

 

I’m aiming for your empathy

The soft spot behind your knee

I’ll teach your tongue to Portuguese

I‘ll hold you up inside of me

If you let me into you

 

I’ll be your Sunday school

Under a summer moon

Your right in tune

Warm cocoon

Your ICU

 

We’ll be a carnival

Happy animals

Nature’s little cannibals

Bringing in the night

 

If you’ll let me be your love puddle

Tuta tu

Let me be your love puddle baby

All of you

 

Come on add it up with me

Turn us over twice times three

Your 9 is my delivery, your mirror into me

See me see you get into me getting into you

 

Let me be your love puddle baby

Tuta tu

Let me be your love puddle

All of you

The Buffalo Song (Marc Berger) – from Pulling Shadows

 

Used to put a buffalo on your money way back when

But now you’ve chased him from creation

Hear tell we’ll not be seeing him again

And they say that’s just the price of progress

 

But I won’t stoop to ask for proof

I won’t ask which way they went

If you will keep my Buick on the highway

In America your mother can become the president

And you can make your fortune on the phone

 

I never seem to find the time for a little garden in the yard

I see my kids are fully grown

They never understood why Daddy had to work so hard

To get so very little done

 

But I won’t stoop to ask for proof

I won’t ask which way they went

If you will keep my Buick on the highway

In America your mother can become the president

And you can make your fortune on the phone

The Beast – from Pulling Shadows

 

Just take it from me boy

Cause I know every move you’ve ever made

Got my claw around your brain… stem

You always were a monkey’s ass

You selfish lazy bastard

Wanting someone else to pay your way

And that’s on a good day

 

I’m sorry to say boy

But every little flinch and every flaw

Will mean a vice around your jaw… bone

You chase your tail and bust your back

Now you’re late you sorry ass

There’s nothing more that I would want to say

To you or your breakdowns

 

I’m a serpent on the prowl

I’ll break you down

You best keep it together cause the beast’s in town

 

My ladies and mensches

I bring to you the man who’s all wrong

And his half written songs

But enough of him, let’s talk about the big bomb

The ruling class

The baddest ass to ever grace the page

There gonna put me on a stamp someday

 

I’m a serpent on the prowl

I’ll break you down

You best keep it together boy the beast’s in town

Like Water – from Pulling Shadows

 

A branch fell in the water

An hour ago

It’s barely moved

I’m trying to remember

I’m just passing through

 

Draw my dreams in the morning

From a swirling pool

With a prisoner’s longing

For an eagle’s view

 

My buddy rolled up his window

Breathed poison from a hose

Turned his mind to stone

Was your faith all broken

No memory of love

No place left to go

 

The man was so connected

But he thought he was alone

Always running the edges

Looking for a place he could belong

 

Til he ran like water

Right out of here

No more wizard of the wild

It’s a short ride brother

No more demons left to battle

No matter what we do

Your voice shimmers in the wind

 

It’s a long long river

And sometimes you spin down

Into the darkest waters

 

Sometimes I feel like I’m dreaming

Like I might sleep until the end

But I hear the echo of you leaving

And I wake up where I stand

 

Cause we run like water

Right out of here

No more living from the marrow

It’s a short ride brother

No more anguish here to battle

No matter what we do

Your bright shimmer

Time Peace and Honey – from Pulling Shadows

 

We’ve got time peace and honey

The rhythm of the rise

Has my life juices running

And opening your eyes

Feels so right

 

We dug our hole

And our bed came cold

Morning would cry

In the blame weary light

 

Put the reasons all behind

And I turned and raised my mind on my own

Now she says come take my hand

 

Now it’s not the dream we shared

And my life’s no longer there

But lately we’re as warm as the sun

 

I’m riding home on the wind

Rising on the love that you bring

 

We’ve got time peace and honey

The sweetest summer light

In your eyes it looks sunny

I read the wind tonight

And it’s right to fly

Blue Horizon – from Pulling Shadows

 

In her smile there was a pardon

Everyone had their special harbor

In her garden

Now the saint of Kingston’s departing

 

Not a simple thought she can follow

When she raises her head from the pillow

The little boy smiles

She says I wish your Grandma was all here

But I’m gone, dear

It’s come my time and I need to cross over

 

Roll on blue horizon

Carry me

Will you carry me

I’m taking my leave from the tree

The long wind is taking me

Away

 

Mama sang these stories as I’d fall into sleep

I’ll sing the same to you

Right now Daddy’s not much of a weaver

And I’ve pulled some threads right loose

But I’ll sing your lullaby

 

She sang and she planted 96 roses

One for every summer he rode in

The old cowboy has seen his last pass

The vermillion grasses

The end of the line for his saddle

The redtail and cattle

Hear the trucks as they rumble along

 

Roll on blue horizon

Carry me

Will you carry me

I’m taking my leave from the tree

The long wind is taking me

Away