B i o g r a p h y (by James M. Manheim)
Born Cynthia Shih in San Jose, CA, 1978; daughter of Taiwanese immigrant parents; took stage name Vienna Teng in recognition of the role of the city of Vienna, Austria, in classical music history. California-born singer-songwriter-pianist Vienna Teng has drawn numerous comparisons from journalists attempting to characterize her style---comparisons not only to other female singer-songwriters like Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos, but also to classical composer Fréderic Chopin. Teng studied classical piano from age five until she finished high school. After her graduation from Stanford University, she caught the public's attention with her graceful, intricately accompanied original songs. She has released two albums on the Seattle-based Virt label and has appeared on CNN, The Late Show with David Letterman, and National Public Radio's Weekend Edition. Teng was born in 1978 in San Jose, California. Vienna Teng is her stage name, taken at age 12 to honor the Austrian city that was home to classical composers Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms; her birth name was Cynthia Shih. Teng's parents, natives of Taiwan, came to California to work in the San Francisco Bay Area's technology industry. She got some early exposure to the art of the singer-songwriter when her parents started listening to records by Carole King, James Taylor, and Simon & Garfunkel in order to improve their English skills. "It was sophisticated stuff--'You read your Emily Dickinson and I, my Robert Frost,'--that's not simple English," Teng recalled to Joel Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle. "It was a tradition that was taken with the poetry of words and with the idea that lyrics should say something." Piano lessons also helped push Teng in the direction of a musical career. Many Chinese-American parents in California require piano studies of their children, but Teng asked for them on her own after trying out pianos at the houses of family friends. Her parents "didn't force it on me at all, and they never scolded me into practicing," she told Marian Liu of the San Jose Mercury News. Teng was a talented pianist, and for a while she dreamed of a concert career. She also began writing popular songs at age 10, and two songs she wrote while a student at Saratoga High School later showed up on her debut album, Waking Hour. After graduating from high school and enrolling at Stanford, however, she decided on a pre-med program. That decision brought Teng to a crisis point. "I realized that I was not meant to be a doctor," she told Liu. "I thought I had the personality. I really love affecting people in a deep and personal way. But I realized music was another way to achieve the same effect." Teng began performing in her Stanford dorm, which had a piano, and friends encouraged her to get serious about music, distributing mp3 copies of her songs around campus. She switched her major, not to music, but to computer science, "a good way to save money for the music," she told Liu. An audio engineering student named Eric Miller recorded some of her songs for a class project, and Teng developed the nucleus of what became her first CD, Waking Hour. After graduating from Stanford in 2000, Teng got a job as a software engineer at computer giant Cisco Systems and started taking classical voice lessons, "which amounted to paying $40 a week to be told that I was doing it all wrong," she said in an interview posted on her website. She started performing at parties and coffee houses around the Bay Area. The early version of Waking Hour that she offered for sale found a thousand enthusiastic buyers over the course of a year, and she began to focus on developing her musical career. Miller helped Teng develop a website, and she began putting files on free mp3 distribution websites. She moved into an apartment in San Francisco's up-and-coming Mission District. Her songs, mostly romantic or narrative pieces drawn from her life at Stanford, resonated with young audiences. Asian Americans, too, flocked to her shows. "I didn't want to be billed as an Asian-American artist, but it is undeniable," Teng conceded to Jon Bream of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Asian Americans do come out to my shows in numbers that the promoters say they've never seen before." She added a Taiwanese folk song called "The Green Island Serenade" to her shows, and included it as a hidden track at the end of her second album, Warm Strangers. Entrepreneur Michael Tarlowe, a former financial analyst bitten by the music bug, heard one of Teng's recordings on the Web. "I was floored," he told Selvin. He flew to see her perform in Mountain View, California, signed Teng to his new Seattle-based Virt Records label, and released Waking Hour in late 2002. Teng quit her Cisco Systems job, taking a 50 percent pay cut, and embarked on a schedule of nationwide touring. She expected to put in years in the trenches, but success came quickly. David Letterman heard National Public Radio's Weekend Edition profile of Teng, and invited her to appear on his show in January of 2003. Waking Hour skyrocketed to the top ten in sales at online retailer Amazon. One of her songs, "The Tower," written about a Stanford roommate who nurtured other students but cracked under the weight of her own unmet needs, was used on the NBC television series Ed. With her second album, Warm Strangers, Teng made a bid for mainstream success. She worked with producer David Henry, who had formerly worked with alternative groups REM and the Cowboy Junkies, creating a sound that backed Teng's lilting voice and piano with a variety of lush sounds ranging from guitars to orchestral strings or a string quartet. Teng and Henry collaborated on a radio-friendly anthem called "Hope on Fire." But mostly, Warm Strangers featured Teng's distinctive originals, this time with a storytelling emphasis. "Passages" was a haunting song written from the perspective of a woman who has died in an automobile crash, while in "The Atheist Christmas Carol" Teng made an unusual contribution to the seasonal repertoire. Warm Strangers landed Teng on the CBS television Early Show and the Wayne Brady Show, and it peaked at number two on Amazon's sales chart. Most important, it brought Teng to the attention of larger live audiences, who began to focus on her low-key but virtuoso music-making. She opened shows for Joan Baez, Patty Griffin, and the Indigo Girls, and in January of 2005 she performed at the 4,500-seat Ann Arbor Folk Festival in Michigan. Teng has continued to absorb new musical influences. "I try to keep my ears open to all kinds [of music]," she said in an interview quoted on her website. "I think Eminem is amazing. I can get high off of [classical composers] Josquin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Miles Davis hurts my brain in a good way." Another new influence was the sonically ambitious rock music of Radiohead. As Teng worked on her third album in 2005, expectations ran high for the young performer who had managed to find a place for her years of piano lessons in the music of today.
Level Up In the 99 Landsailor Close to Home The Hymn of Acxiom Oh Mama No Copenhagen (Let Me Go) Flyweight Love The Breaking Light Never Look Away Goodnight New York
Waking Hour
The tower The one who survives by making the lives Of others worthwhile She's coming apart Right before my eyes The one who depends on the services she renders To those who come knocking She's seeing too clearly what she can't be What understanding defies She says I need not to need Or else a love with intuition Someone who reaches out to my weakness and won't let go I need not to need I've always been the tower But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow She turns out the light anticipating night falling Tenderly around her And watches the dusk The words won't come She carries the act so convincingly the fact is Sometimes she believes it That she can be happy the way things are Be happy with the things she's done Reach out But hold back Where is safety Reach out And hold back Where is the one who can change me Where is the one The one The one Reach out But hold back Where is safety Reach out And hold back Where is the one who can save me Where is the one The one The one Momentum Why am I walking barefoot Upon this road with no one around I close my eyes to this decision The night's like coffee to my tongue Like waking up without a sound I map the words out Maybe you will say them Would you help me rise up Touch my face and watch me try to breathe again Would you let me do this Burn down the final wall Overcome me baby Overcome me baby Overcome me baby Overcome me yeah All I'm asking is to be alive for once Always I am mistaken I look for love I find a stone Of all the seasons winter befriends me I come to you in friendship And hold my breath against the snow What are you thinking as I gaze into you Forgive me the confusion Forgive me as I realize my thoughts betrayed You are the answer Cry and smile the same Gravity Hey love Is that the name you're meant to have For me to call Look love They've given up believing They've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall But don't you believe them Don't you drink their poison too These are the scars that words have carved On me Hey love That's the name we've long held back From the core of truth So don't turn away now I am turning in revolution These are the scars that silence carved On me This is the same place No not the same place This is the same place, love No not the same place we've been before Hey love I am a constant satellite Of your blazing sun My love I obey your law of gravity This is the fate you've carved on me Daughter Well it's you and it's me Me with a drink in my hand The ice is tinkling like a wind chime And late afternoon settles over the land And you're talking about things Interesting just slightly And things that matter too much To say any way but lightly Did you know you're so beautiful On the edge of summer That years from now I'll cry to remember How very close you were Knowing this will I reach for you Knowing this will I reach for you The way you want me to Well it's time to be wise Wise in the ways of the heart To come out from under the covers This voluntary state of apart From the faces, oasis In this Sahara of sorrow These graces that hold me It's from you that I borrow Between We are not together here Though we lie entwined To make room for the other presence We both draw back in our minds I have a prophecy Threatening to spill into words This growing certainty Of over There once was a time I was sure of the bond When my hands and my tongue and my thoughts were enough We are the same but our lives move along And the third one between replaces what once was love Freedom is being alone I fear liberation But something more alive than silence Swallows conversation No pleasing drama In subtle averted eyes The swelling fermata As the chord dies There's no denying we feel the third one We do I'm tired of hiding and so are you Say uncle Everyone agrees it came too soon It was only meant to be an intersection You kept fear of death in back pocket of your jeans In the palm of your hand, affection It came like a sudden gust of wind Leaving them, bewildered, to ask how I recall last time we met you said we'd meet again The irony is only bitter now These days everyone cries "say uncle" They want to touch your spirit lest it die For this your sons and widow gather with us at the table To form a healing circle for our new demise These days everyone cries "say uncle" I retrieve the memories quickly as I can Add them to the portrait we all draw in our minds Your body gone, we shall keep the man I close my eyes and hope they do not fade These remnants of a voice and of a smile Images of landscape cloaked in forest green Like your life unfolding mile by mile A fierce embrace, a word of thanks A cheerful whistle and hours in a van Somehow these pieces must bring back the man you were Though the ocean claims your ashes on the sand These days everyone cries "say uncle" They want to touch your spirit lest it die For this your sons and widow gather with us at the table To form a healing circle for our new demise These days everyone cries "say uncle" I retrieve the memories quickly as I can Add them to the portrait we all draw in our minds Your body gone, we shall keep the man
Drought Summer move forward and stitch me the fabric of fall Wrap life in the brilliance of death to humble us all How sweet is the day I'm craving a darkness As I sit tucked away with my back to the wall And the taste of dried-up hopes in my mouth And the landscape of merry and desperate drought How much longer dear angels Let winter light come And spread your white sheets over my empty house Summer move forward and leave your heat anchored in dust Forgotten him, cheated him, painted illusions of lust Now language escape, fugitive of forgiveness Leaving as trace only circles of rust And the taste of dried-up hopes in my mouth And the landscape of merry and desperate drought How much longer dear angels Come break me with ice Let the water of calm trickle over my doubts Come let me drown Angels no fire no salt on the plow Carry me down Bury me down And the taste of dried-up hopes in my mouth And the landscape of merry and desperate drought Once I knew myself And with knowing came love I would know love again if I had faith enough Too far is next spring and her jubilant shout So angels, inside Is the only way out Enough to go by I'm at your back door With the earth of a hundred nations in my skin You won't recognize me For the light in my eyes is strange It was years ago, god knows When you strained to tell me your whole truth That you were not mine to save That you could not change Would it be enough to go by If we could sail on the wind in the dark Cut those chains in the middle of the night That had you pulled apart Would it be enough to go by If there's moonlight pulling the tide Would it be enough to live on If my love could keep you alive I've built a lot of castles Built a lot of blazing speed-of-light machines But it doesn't matter, you know They all crumble in the winds of change So I turned back to breathing I learned a few good reasons to cry And I finally called home Praying you weren't out of range Carry the weight I'll carry the weight of you, I swear Carry the weight I'll carry the weight of you So will you let me come in The mosquitoes have found me And they're crowding 'round my blood At least offer me a drink Or a breaking of the ice I'm wanting your anger I only want to see if I can shake you out of sleep And bring you out under this flooded sky At any price So carry the weight Carry the weight of me in your heart Carry the weight Carry the weight of me Unwritten letter #1 Nightfall we're brushing past your town Destination not you my one The driver doesn't know way down How deep these bright-eyed feelings run I've no intention of confessing today I need to make distance awhile But miles don't make your image fade They don't erase this secret smile Everything reminds me Wet gray gold-lit street Shop displays near-lovers meet I feel the grasp of your hand still This your face now in the glass Breathing whisper what is this Bent so close we nearly kiss Although we never will Strange that there's no hurtful need Used to be my only sign On my mind would make me bleed Why is it that I'm feeling fine Why is it this warmth within No candlelight that causes burn Memories of you begin Well welcome friends Glad you've returned Everything reminds me Music surging bedroom dance Crazy spinning sultry glance I inhale your presence still These your arms of daring grace Encircle me what pact is made Desire is your masquerade Want me you never will You gave me truth I chose illusion Now we are used to this confusion But I know Yes I know this story has to end Never groped for a connection Never hoped for more affection For I know I know I am your friend Only your friend Eric's song Strange how you know inside me I measure the time and I stand amazed Strange how I know inside you My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze And of course I forgive I've seen how you live Like a phoenix you rise from the ashes You pick up the pieces And the ghosts in the attic They never quite leave And of course I forgive You've seen how I live I've got darkness and fears to appease My voices and analogies Ambitions like ribbons Worn bright on my sleeve Strange how we know each other Strange how I fit into you There's a distance erased with the greatest of ease Strange how you fit into me A gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs And with each passing day The stories we say Draw us tighter into our addiction Confirm our conviction That some kind of miracle Passed on our heads And how I am sure Like never before Of my reasons for defying reason Embracing the seasons We dance through the colors Both followed and led Strange how we fit each other Strange how certain the journey Time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see Strange how this journey's hurting In ways we accept as part of fate's decree So we just hold on fast Acknowledge the past As lessons exquisitely crafted Painstakingly drafted To carve us as instruments That play the music of life For we don't realize Our faith in the prize Unless it's been somehow elusive How swiftly we choose it The sacred simplicity Of you at my side Soon love soon There'll be a fire burning in the temple of our peace There'll be a soaring voice for our silent pleas We will hold our broken circle and begin to pray We will find a black and white in the gray And we will be as one god And we will be as one people We will find illumination in unnatural light You will travel a thousand miles without leaving my sight We will find we never knew hatred ran so deep Such a wide, wide chasm of faith to leap But we will be as one god And we will be as one people There will be an evolution of the human soul We will know that be a part is to be truly whole We will know the pattern of centuries rise and fall We will know that the fate of one is the fate of all And we will be as one god And we will be as one people Lullabye for a stormy night Little child, be not afraid Though rain pounds harshly against the glass Like an unwanted stranger, there is no danger I am here tonight Little child, be not afraid Though thunder explodes and lightning flash Illuminates your tear-stained face I am here tonight And someday you'll know That nature is so The same rain that draws you near me Falls on rivers and land On forests and sand Makes the beautiful world that you'll see In the morning Little child, be not afraid Though storm clouds mask your beloved moon And its candlelight beams, still keep pleasant dreams I am here tonight Little child, be not afraid Though wind makes creatures of our trees And their branches to hands, they're not real, understand And I am here tonight For you know, once even I was a Little child, and I was afraid But a gentle someone always came To dry all my tears, trade sweet sleep for fears And to give a kiss goodnight Well now I am grown And these years have shown That rain's a part of how life goes But it's dark and it's late So I'll hold you and wait 'Til your frightened eyes do close And I hope that you'll know... Everything's fine in the morning The rain'll be gone in the morning But I'll still be here in the morning Decade and one Once when I was thirty-one I woke in the dead of night And heard the vastness of the snowfall outside Slipped downstairs in my bare feet Soon forgotten freezing And pour a milk glass full To wait out the tide Been a decade and one Been a decade and one my friends A decade and one Since I As the white went down I thought of the child upstairs I thought of the god upstairs That I couldn't believe I thought of the chosen man Asleep on his side of the bed How green becomes wood In a family tree Been a decade and one Been a decade and one so soon A decade and one Since I stood So proud And so unsure Ebony glowing by the window there As always Fingers kissed the keys oh so tenderly Cool ivory returned in kind I thought of anger and adulation And the taste of dreams realized And the waste dreams realized leave behind A decade and one A decade and one I said out loud A decade and one And I am here And I am here still standing
Warm Strangers
Feather moon Feather moon Scarlet sky Living clouds My blinded eye Waters black Wood in snow Dead of night How bright you glow Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Seven sins God of stone All is true Down to the bone Feather moon Scarlet sky I love you endlessly Not knowing why Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Breathe in breathe out Exhale and inhale Harbor We're here where the daylight begins The fog on the streetlight slowly thins Water on water's the way The safety of shoreline fading away Sail your sea Meet your storm All I want is to be your harbor The light in me Will guide you home All I want is to be your harbor Fear is the brightest of signs The shape of the boundary you leave behind So sing all your questions to sleep The answers are out there in the drowning deep You've got a journey to make There's your horizon to chase So go far beyond where we stand No matter the distance I'm holding your hand Hope on fire Gotta fight gotta strike 'Cause there's no turning away From what you don't want to know Gotta see gotta be If they're all going astray Don't let them take you in tow You're a one-man shift in the weather You're the woman who just won't sell Climbing up and ringing the bell Ooh you're gonna make your mark this time Ooh you're gonna set your hope on fire Gotta leave gotta bleed You've gotta stop lying still 'Cause this is no kind of life You don't need guarantees You just want something to build Before you turn to the knife When the streets are aflood like a fever It's a holiday of the new We're coming closer now to the truth Gotta move gotta choose You've got a difference to make Don't watch it happen again Gotta change rearrange Something's bending to break It's just a matter of when Shine In this desert land I know some rain must fall See where we began We've come so far On this harbor shore We hear the ocean call In our minds at war We have so far to go Shine with all the untold Hold the light given unto you Find the love to unfold In this broken world we choose In unending storms We search for space to breathe How our hearts are worn We've come so far In this desert How we blossom and we cease Tell your story now We have so much to know Mission street Mission street is a striking dark-eyed stranger Who speaks a language I don't know but long to learn Its cadences fall endlessly beyond the windowpane As I sit as though awaiting some return And my hands are cold tonight I'm sleepless in this dark Forgetting what it was I came to find And it seems that I've been wrong More than I've been right More than I've been right Mission street calls out to me by name Then hurries on before I've hardly turned my head Promises of answers muttered underneath her breath Like an offering of contraband misread And my hands are cold tonight On the strings of this guitar Looking for the chords of what I've left behind And it seems that I've been wrong More than I've been right More than I've been right Mission street is alive at every hour Like I've never been and feared I may not ever be A light so steady on the mountains in the distance A solitude so deep it might awaken me Well my hands are cold tonight But the sky is bright with stars And I'm tearing through the veil that keeps me blind And it seems the more I'm wrong The more that I am right The more that I am right My medea Inside the labyrinth walls There lies a tiny child who sleeps alone And as the daylight falls The wind becomes so wild across the stone For I have made her prison be Her every step away from me And this child I would destroy If you tried to set her free So come to me my love I'll tap into your strength and drain it dry Can never have enough For you I'd burn the length and breadth of sky For it's my thoughts that bind me here It's this love that I most fear And this child I would destroy For I hold her pain most dear No haven for this heart No shelter for this child in mazes lost Heaven keep us apart A curse for every mile of ocean crossed For I must die for what I've done A twist of fate a desert sun For I see what I destroy Sweet reflection knife into me For I see what I destroy I can see what I've begun Shasta (carrie's song) So far so good You're coming to the bend at the end of the road You put a hand to the belly that's foreign more With every day like an oversize load And you're thinking about clouds the color of fire And the scent of an orange peel The way mt. Shasta explodes into windshield view And your hands steady on the wheel So far so good Coffee motel coffee diner coffee go on Styrofoam is drying like the tears that once did flow Starting 10 o'clock and ending at dawn And you can't go back but you're going back And you don't know what you'll say You've got half-formed sentences Explanations for a life half-broken away And they just may They'll take you in their arms and then take out their knives So you drive on thinking So far so good But you can't go on much longer like this you know You're all alone in this world no that's not true The nice christian lady told you so She was handing out pamphlets by the clinic door Saying "Jesus knows what you've been through Take the savior into your heart my child There's love waiting for the both of you" Well you don't believe but you have to believe It's still crumpled there in your back seat Were you the hero or the worst kind of coward back there Putting pavement back under your feet Couldn't stand the heat Couldn't stand the thought of ghosts with a negative age Turn the page Ok So far so good You try to sing along to the radio But it's not your language not your song It's from some other time ago And you're thinking about how someone died that day The you that was so carefully planned But then again maybe this life is like a sleeping mountain Waking up to shape the land Calm calm let it come let it come back to you Calm calm breathe on out you know you know what to do
Homecoming (walter's song) It's desert ice outside but this diner has thawed my ears Hot coffee in a clean white mug and a smile when the Waitress hears That I was born in North Carolina Not an hour from her home town And we used to play the same pizza parlor pinball And there's a glance in time suspended as I wonder how it is We've been swept up just by circumstance to where the Coyote lives Where my days are strips of highway And she's wiping tables down Holding on and still waiting for that windfall But I've come home Even though I've never had so far to go I've come home I pay the check and leave the change from a crumpled ten-dollar bill Head across the street where vacancy is burning in neon still Well the night eats up my body heat And there's no sign of another And I find myself slipping down into that black But things are good I've got a lot of followers of my faith I've got a whole congregation living in my head these days And I'm preaching from the pulpit To cries of 'amen brother' Closing my eyes to feel the warmth come back And I've come home Even though I swear I've never been so alone I've come home I just want to be living as I'm dying Just like everybody here Just want to know my little flicker of time is Worthwhile And I don't know where I'm driving to But I know I'm getting old And there's a blessing in every moment every mile Thin white terry bars of soap and a couple little plastic cups Old gideons bible in the nightstand drawer saying "go on open up" Well I'll kneel down on the carpet here Though I never was sure of god Think tonight I'll give him the benefit of the doubt I switch off the lights and imagine that waitress Outlined in the bed Her hair falling all around me I smile and shake my head Well we all write our own endings And we all have our own scars But tonight I think I see what it's all about Because I've come home I've come home Anna rose Anna rose sleep well tonight The stars are dancing on the carpet of the sky Time to close your wondering eyes Where I see the sleepiness creeping Anna rose it makes my heart smile To know you give love so freely Anna rose it makes it worthwhile Your love makes me see things so clearly How it grows heaven knows Anna rose sleep well tonight Anna rose it's time to dream I see that your imagination knows no bounds There it flows like some magical stream And carries you on its journey Anna rose it makes my heart smile To know you give love so freely Anna rose it makes it worthwhile Your love makes me see things so clearly How it grows heaven knows Anna rose dream well tonight Passage I died in a car crash two days ago Was unrecognizable When they pulled me from the gears No one's fault, no one's bottle No one's teenage pride or throttle Our innocence is all the worse for fears The other walked away alive Arms wrapped now around his wife My lover sits, the silent eye In a hurricane of warmth and word My mother trembles with the sobs Whose absence seems absurd My sister shouts to let her see Through the cloud of crowd surrounding me My colleagues call for silence in my name I died in a car crash three months ago They burned me until I glowed And crumbled to a fine gray sand Now I am nothing, everywhere Several breaths of strangers' air And all thoughts ever written in my hand They plant my tree out in the yard It grows but takes the winter hard My lover holds a knife to wrist Says tomorrow comes, hold on a while My mother tosses in the sheets And dreams me holding my own child My sister plays our homemade tapes Laughs as tears run down her face My office door now wears a different name I died in a car crash four years ago My tree drinks melted snow Just eight feet tall a pale and fragile thing Bee stings beaches bright vacations Sunburnt high-school graduations A sparrow healing from a broken wing This year a glimpse of second chances Tiny apples on my tree's branches My lover hears the open wind And crawls blinking into the sun My mother leafs through photographs And thinks "yes she was a lovely one" My sister can't decide her truth Asks aloud what I might do In a conference hall my brief efforts engraved I died in a car crash A lifetime ago it seems A decade or two or three They've come out with a new design Bars and bags front and behind My fate now an impossibility Safely packaged hurtling down The highway hardly make a sound My lover very much alive Arms wrapped now around his wife The atheist christmas carol It's the season of grace coming out of the void Where a man is saved by a voice in the distance It's the season of possible miracle cures Where hope is currency and death is not the last unknown Where time begins to fade And age is welcome home It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise And holding fast with sharp realization It's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention You are safe here you know now Don't forget Don't forget I love I love I love you It's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart Of feeling the full weight of our burdens It's the season of bowing our heads in the wind And knowing we are not alone in fear Not alone in the dark
Dreaming Through the Noise
Blue Caravan Blue blue caravan Winding down to the valley of lights My true love is a man Who would hold me for ten thousand nights In the wild wild wailing of wind He's a house 'neath a soft yellow moon So blue blue caravan Won't you carry me down to him soon Blue blue caravan Won't you drive away all of these tears For my true love is a man That I haven't seen in years He said "go where you have to For I belong to you until my dying day." So like a fool, blue caravan I believed him and I walked away Oh my blue blue caravan The highway is my great wall For my true love is a man Who never existed at all Oh he was a beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold But now, my blue blue caravan I can feel my heart growing old Oh my blue blue caravan I can feel my heart growing old Whatever You Want He's a company man Your right hand Thirteen years and counting No detectable ambition A model of efficiency Far as you can see He knows every loophole The art of fine print Massages the numbers 'til they fit And every time you ask him For another vanishing act He half-smiles as if to say Whatever you want Whatever you want Whatever you want Is fine by me Whatever you want Whatever you want Whatever you want Is fine by me Never a real moment together but she understands You're an important man Another late night Don't know if you're coming home or when she's alone again But she goes on curating your domestic museum She disappears in her loyalty She is a dress wearing a face in the doorway Opening her arms out to you Whatever you want Whatever you want Whatever you want Is fine by me Oh whatever you want Whatever you want Whatever you want Is fine by me No one would dare to question you, oh no No one would dare to stand up In the night she leaves the papers in a tidy pile Evidence for her reasons And in the night he takes the main accounts And pulls the files detailing every treason I am the last one you'd ever suspect Of setting the fire, of setting the fire But as you switch on your TV tomorrow morning You'll hear me saying quietly Whatever you want Whatever you want Whatever you want Is fine by me Whatever you want Whatever you want Whatever you want Is fine by me Oh whatever you say Oh whatever you say I'll do what you ask me I'll do what you ask me Whatever you say Oh whatever you say But do you know who's listening Oh whatever you say Oh whatever you say You know it's over Love Turns 40 She's holding a secret that she'll never tell She's holding a secret that she'll never tell 'Cause the myth is not supposed to retire We'd rather it lit itself on fire Or overdosed in a 4-star hotel She's holding a truth that she'll never reveal She's holding a truth that she'll never reveal 'Cause truth this time is an ugly child And mother and daughter may reconcile But their faces will never heal "Don't go," she says, but he's sleeping She says it to herself "Don't go" She sees herself rising Packing a suitcase with all of her shoes But something keeps you faithful When all else in you turns and runs Love turns forty The morning comes She's holding a secret that she'll never tell She's holding a secret that she'll never tell Because we were once cinema gods in the night And now all we've got is lunch-hour light Where nothing photographs well "Don't go," she says But he's sleeping she says it to the dark "Don't go." She sees herself rising Dressing in silence for nothing to lose But something keeps you faithful When all else in you turns and runs Love turns forty The morning comes I Don't Feel So Well I don't feel so well I thought that you should know I thought that you should know That I don't feel so well I thought that you should know Before you fall I don't call them back I thought that you should know I thought that you should know That I don't call them back I thought that you should know Before you fall I saw it begin to dawn on us both And somehow it wasn't surprising And so you're preparing to swear every oath But all the while, I'm realizing I can't love you there I thought that you should know I thought that you should know That I can't love you there I thought that you should know Before you fall I saw it begin to dawn on us both And somehow it wasn't surprising And so you're preparing to swear every oath But all the while, I'm realizing I can't love you there I thought that you should know I thought that you should know That I can't love you there I thought that you should know Before you fall City Hall M and my baby on a February holiday 'Cause we got the news Yeah we got the news Five hundred miles But we're gonna make it all the way We got nothing to lose We got nothing to lose Been ten years waiting But it's better late Than the never we've been told before We can't wait one minute more Oh me and my baby driving down To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall Oh me and my baby stand in line You never seen a sight so fine As the love that's gonna shine at city hall Me and my baby been through a lot of good and bad Learned to kiss the sky Made our mamas cry Seen a lot of friends, after giving it all they had Lay down and die Lay down and die Ten years into it Here's our window at the Vegas drive-thru chapel Ain't too much for 'em all to handle Oh me and my baby driving down To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall Oh me and my baby stand in line You never seen a sight so fine As the love that's gonna shine at city hall Outside they're handing out donuts and pizza pies For the folks in pairs in their folding chairs My baby's looking so damn pretty with those anxious eyes Rain-speckled hair and my ring to wear Ten years waiting for this moment of fate When we say the words and sign our names If they take it away again someday This beautiful thing won't change So oh me and my baby driving down To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall Oh me and my baby stand in line You never seen a sight so fine As the love that's gonna shine Oh me and my baby driving down To a hilly seaside town in the rainfall Oh me and my baby stand in line You never seen a sight so fine As the love that's gonna shine at city hall Nothing Without You It's the quiet night that breaks me I cannot stand the sight of this familiar place It's the quiet night that breaks me Like a dozen paper cuts that only I can trace All my books are lying useless now All my maps will only show me how to lose my way Oh call my name, you know my name And in that sound, everything will change Tell me it won't always be this hard I am nothing without you But I don't know who you are It's the crowded room that breaks me Everybody looks so luminous, and strangely young It's the crowded room that's never heard No one here can say a word of my native tongue I can't be among them anymore I fold myself away before it burns me numb Oh call my name, you know my name And in your love, everything will change Tell me it won't always be this hard I am nothing without you But I don't know who you are I am nothing without you But I don't know who you are Transcontinental, 1:30 a.m. Wait Don't let this line go slack Don't go alone into the cold Wait Don't give up on this yet I know that there's more you haven't told Wait, wait, wait Wait my love Just one more thought Wait, wait Wait my love I haven't got time in my life To watch you drift out to sea So please Wait Don't let this line go slack I want to bring you back to where I know you Oh wait Don't give up on this yet I just want you to let you let me hold you Oh wait, wait, wait wait my love Just one more thought Wait, wait Wait my love I haven't got time in my life To watch you drift away But I've all kinds of time All kinds of time If you'll stay I know we're transcontinental 1:30 a.m. And there's not even a wire Just a whispering in air I know we're transcontinental 1:30 a.m. but I'm here 1br/1ba One bedroom one bath Hardwood floors with view of trees One bedroom one bath Parking space for extra fee My little flock of boxes And I surrounded by a painted-white unknown Soon as this wall in my heart comes down I'm gonna make it feel like home One bedroom one bath A/C was fine 'til yesterday One bedroom one bath Eighty-nine degrees today My upstairs neighbours are making sounds That I never want to hear I hope they're just moving furniture around And really liking their ideas One bedroom one bath Hardwood floors with view of trees One bedroom one bath Parking space for extra fee My little flock of boxes And I surrounded by a painted-white unknown Soon as this wall in my heart comes down I'm gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel like home Gonna make it feel Gonna make it feel Gonna make it feel Gonna make it feel like home... Now Three City fast asleep Clouds up on the hill So quiet So still Dreams of rain in sheets Dreams of ice and wings So delicate These things Love, love, love is a word so small Let it fill up up, up 'Til I can't see at all I want to be blind Only my hands to guide me Bring all of you inside me City fast asleep Lights hum in the gray Like her breathing will someday Strangest beauty cries One and one By and by Now three of us here lie Love, love, love for one so small Come fill me up, up, up 'Til I can't see at all I want to be blind Only my heart to guide me Gather all the world inside me Pontchartrain Sunday Dark water draining north, The heat swells and bursts like plague Sunday Ever-so-faint slow tambourine Glides onward toward the grave Who drew the line Who drew the line Between you and me Who drew the line That everyone sees Darling Lake Pontchartrain is haunted: Bones without names, Photographs framed in reeds Darling What blood our veins are holding. The overpass frozen, Fires ablaze at sea Who drew the line Who drew the line That cuts to the skin, buries me in Tell me, who drew the line Darling don't close your eyes Lie as darkness hardens Lie of our reunion O lie if God is sleeping O I believe you now Darling Lake Pontchartrain will cradle me, And all you left behind Listen Ever-so-faint slow tambourine Is marching back through time Recessional It's so beautiful here, she says This moment now And this moment, now And I never thought I would find her here Flannel and satin My four walls transformed But she's looking at me Straight to center No room at all for any other thought And I know I don't want this Oh I swear I don't want this There's a reason not to want this But I forgot In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder Hair falling forward, mouth all askew Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead Passengers missing We're looking for you And she dreams through the noise Her weight against me Face pressed into the corduroy grooves Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing But I'm afraid to move And the words: they're everything and nothing I want to search for her in the offhand remarks Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar Who are you, echoing street signs Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover Dark curtains drawn by the passage of time Oh words like rain, how sweet the sound Well anyway, she says, I'll see you around...
Inland Territory
The Last Snowfall If this were the last snowfall No more haloes on evergreens If this were my last glimpse of winter How would these eyes see If this were the last slow curling Of your fingers in my palm If this were the last I felt you breathing How would I carry on This is not the last snowfall Not our last embrace But if I were that kind of grateful What would I try to say White Light All of a sudden the conversation turns And everyone concerned is looking down Guilty party is right here in the room But no one can assume the high ground Oh it almost caught up with you Caught up with you then Oh you should've thought of this my friend If you knew it was wrong why did you do it You don't know, you didn't mean to, it slipped your mind And it feels so good to feed a habit You're just making the most of your borrowed time Waiting for the white light Heading home you swear that you'll be good Do everything you should, and know the facts But in the morning you're back to petty needs Tragedy recedes to photographs Oh it hasn't caught up with you Caught up with you yet No it hasn't taught you when to quit If you knew it was wrong why did you do it You don't know, you didn't mean to, it slipped your mind, It is OK because everybody does it This whole party is rolling on borrowed time Waiting for the white light Shine down Wipe it all out again, Show me how It doesn't matter in the end If you knew it was wrong why did you do it You don't know, you didn't mean to, it slipped your mind It is OK because everybody does it No laws are broken if we're all committing the same crime But I know it's wrong, why do I do it I don't know, I don't mean for it to slip my mind It just takes so much to break a habit Even when I'm aware we are out of time Am I waiting for a white light Antebellum In the fall We circle through the leaves And talk about the little ones And we smile, but never say too much The moment always vanishing One by one the neighbors' lights come on Our October day is almost gone I know the border lines we drew between us Keep the weapons down Keep the wounded safe I know our antebellum innocence Was never meant to see the light of our armistice day In the spring We climbed the rolling hills And talked about our budding plans. And we smiled, Our faces like a mirror Showing us our secret sides. But then the fights... The sharp words splintering the night, How I couldn't be what you'd need... But oh how I could make you bleed... I know the border lines we drew between us Keep the weapons down, Keep the wounded safe; I know our antebellum innocence Was never meant to see the light of our armistice. But how much would I give to have it back again? How much did we lose To live this way You'll go home...I'll stay here Seasons keep on marching I'll stay here...you'll go home With only strangers watching Kansas Sun sets in an ocean of brown farmland haze Power lines draped across roads you could drive on for days Well it's all too perfect Time to look back at us now Endless and empty like Kansas Our cities of clouds Flat on the table like Kansas I lay down in sheets suddenly worn threadbare Every wall I lean on transforms to sliding doors and thin air Well I hope yours is kinder Let go of this when you find her Bury this hard Down underneath your white canvas Our houses of cards Flat on the table like Kansas It's not regret Just an unexpected accounting of debts Only now called No it's not regret Just remembrance is all Of how close we had come The war almost won But I sent up our flag and moved on You and I Lost to the winter like Kansas And all my goodbyes Flat on the table like Kansas In Another Life In another life You and I worked West Virginia coal mines Side by side Collecting the black dust like sin The day the main shaft caved in I caught your eye As the lantern light guttered out And the afterdamp swallowed us slowly I gripped your hand And caught a glance Of the next time 'round In another life You and I were Red Guards in training Side by side We marched on Tiananmen Turned our own parents in For hoarding rice And in the Great Leap forward We crawled on our bellies and died A blood orange sky Gave a cry Of next time 'round In another life I was married at thirteen You were killed at twenty-one On a minor battlefield I was buried beside my second stillborn child My last thought it seemed A fever dream Now we sink into a summer afternoon Central Park in June Marveling at the bounty our days contain And we feel it like the shiver Of a passing train That other life Deep underground You and I Side by side We are the next time 'round Grandmother Song Oh girl you think you got time You're gonna get 'round to it way down the line But one step, two step, you fall behind So you better have a good plan Oh girl you think you got time You're gonna get 'round to it way down the line But I'm telling you no matter what you have in mind You're still gonna need a man Take it from your grandmother I've been 'round No one's gonna take care of you In that world you've got yourself into All the good boys, oh baby they're in grad school Oh girl your story's all wrong Your dream'll be a nightmare before too long Turning thirty and still trying to sing your songs Come on who do you think you are Oh girl it's too heavy a load Your mama and your baba they are worried souls How you gonna raise a family when you're on the road With some tattooed boy with a guitar Take it from your grandmother I've been 'round This music career isn't real life It won't see you through to when you're sixty-five When the tide turns you won't survive You'll sit on the banks and cry Oh girl you've never know war When they come in the night and knock on the door You can go from the high life to dirty poor And lose everything you knew But the one thing they can't take away from you Is your mind and the education you've been through O you find a man who understands that too Make sure that he stays true Gives respect where its due Make sure he knows what he's got in you Because a woman isn't just for cooking meals Scrubbing floors, making babies A woman's got ambitions same as he does Maybe more When the sirens wailed and the bombs fell We ran from the schoolyard into hell And what we could've been time will never tell 'cause we never had your chances The advantages that you've been handed Take it from your grandmother I've been 'round Stray Italian Greyhound Oh no not now Please not now I just settled into the glass half empty Made myself at home And so why now Please not now I just stopped believing in happy endings Harbors of my own But you had to come along didn't you Break down the doors, throw open windows Oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me So what do I do with this? This stray Italian greyhound These inconvenient fireworks This ice-cream-covered screaming hyperactive thought God I just want to lay down These colors make my eyes hurt This feeling calls for everything that I am not I'm not that kind I'm so good at shooting down any notion This tired world could change It's all been bought Or at least that was my line No use in spending all that emotion When there's someone else to blame But you had to come along didn't you Rev up the crowd, rewrite the rule book Where do I go when every 'no' turns into 'maybe' So what do I do with this This sudden burst of sunlight And me with my umbrella Cross-indexing every weatherman's report I was ready for the downslide But not for spring to well up This feeling calls for everything I can't afford To know Is possible now What do I do With a love that won't sit still Won't do what it's told What do I do With a love that won't sit still Augustine Oh my god What have I done Chasing some mirage in my Mojave sun Don't say every chance is lost, Please don't say anything at all In sand and thorns I'm walking forth Bare and blinking as the day that I was born Bells in spires of China white Ring for an Augustine tonight Oh now, I'm breaking down Oh let me be Let me be your Augustine Lead me now I understand Faith is both the prison and the open hand Bells on low on high Will you ring for Augustine tonight Oh now I'm breaking down, Every illusion in between All the lies that I have seen Oh let me be your Augustine No Gringo Father says head down We don't want them finding you Mother says practice now All the words you know Oh Arizona's burning They say the fence turned round Now the razor wire keeps us out Mother says with luck We'll sleep under a roof tonight Father says in the truck We'll be crushed in tight Oh Chicago don't forget me As the miles between us grow Keep the maple tree carved with the name of my love The hills we would sled race down Lake Michigan stay endless and painted in sky Goodbye Mother says years ago The whole world was ours to rule Father says let it go Those days are gone for good All the signs read no gringo But somehow we'll find our way Maybe waiting at dawn by the factory doors Sunburnt and bent in the fields Please don't turn us in We'll be silent as the grave As time No gringo No Gringo aqui Words as levies against the flood Hoy cerrado There's too many to feed Room for only our own kind, our own blood No gringo, no gringo aqui You have stayed in this land for too long Tan amargo But there's no time to grieve You just pack up your things and move on Watershed While you were building your empires I was still sleeping I was still sleeping While you were setting your woods afire I was still dreaming I was still dreaming Now I will unsettle the ground beneath you Send my waters ashore Creep into your bed Find you in every corner While you argue it over I am not waiting I am not waiting While you retreat to your comforts I am not fading I am not fading I've done this many times before you Old Shanghai New Orleans Amsterdam and Mumbai Strange new creatures To scavenge your pores Oh I've done this many times before you Ashen sky Lightning storms Deltas to desert plains Wartime on every border I've done this many times before you Watched the pattern take form Children your time is done If you say it's done together Radio It came from nowhere On the 38 Geary A girl with a backpack of shrapnel and wire Through spiderweb windows Of blood stained glass A pagoda's shadow and a cruel sunny sky Oh the flash then the silence Shouldn't there be screaming praying crying Oh anything at all Tell me where are the sirens Fire's getting closer but I've got to stay calm It's just the radio darling, Just the radio and your runaway imagination Just the radio darling We can turn away to another station Outside they're handing out Fate to the wounded Little tags in black red yellow, and green It's now my twenty-fifth hour With a scalpel in hand If I stop moving I will sleep on my feet And the rumors are seething Gunfire at freeway exits, bridges mid-barricades I can feel the fog creeping God where is the morphine, the sweet lidocaine It's just the radio Sing me a love song dear What good has the news ever done me Come on it'll never happen here, oh no We are not some third world country This is not some third world country I'm sorry Mama I held on for as long as I could I'm sorry Papa There was nothing more I could do It's just the radio St. Stephen's Cross He was there the night the wall came down. He lost her in the endless crowd, In the shadow of St. Stephen's cross. He sent cries aloft for his fellow man, His fingers slipping from her hand, The rain clouds prowling overhead. She was there the night the wall came down. She faded into that newborn crowd Like a warning of what could be lost. Through the perforated night she ran, Her fingers slipping from his hand, And she breathed in freedom Before daylight tread. They were there the night the wall was drowned In the surging of that tidal crowd: An old world made new On the same holy ground. She found him standing, looking lost In the shadow of St. Stephen's cross, And he closed his eyes and heard no sound But her breathing warm against his mouth.
Aims
Level Up So come out You have been waiting long enough You're done with all the talk talk talk With nothing on the table It's time to come on out There will be no sign from above You'll only hear the knock knock knock Of your own heart as signal If you are afraid, come out If you are awake, come out Come out and level up Begin again Dynamite the dam on the flow Your body feels the tock tock tock Of time as it hammers I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Lord we are all cinders From a fire burning long ago But here it is the knock knock knock Of your own heart that matters If you are afraid, come forth If you are alone, come forth now Everybody here has loved and lost So level up and love again Call it any name you need Call it your 2.0, your rebirth, whatever So long as you can feel it all So long as all your doors are flung wide Call it your day number one in the rest of forever If you are afraid, give more If you are alive, give more now Everybody here has seams and scars So what, level up Let your faith die Bring your wonder Yes, you are only one No, it is not enough But if you lift your eyes I am your brother And this is all we need And this is where we start This is the day we greet This is the day, no other In the 99 Am I, am I Am I the one to praise Am I, am I Am I the one to praise Collide with faces veiled in paper Reading line by line the pain there But for the grace of code and capital We'd cry out side by side So why, oh why Why am I the one to praise So why, oh why Why am I the one to praise Calculate the ponzi pension to avoid Unintended consequences of a choice Now am I so confident I am the one Earning every pretty sum and deserving every toy I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Am I selling broken bonds or innovation Someone's yelling get a job out of a Lincoln But the human microphone will find a voice And a change is gonna come, said the signal to the Remind me in my western chamber What this plan's designed to save here I haven't come to say I'm sorry But I swear I'm on your side Oh I, oh I I am not the one who preys Oh I, oh I I am not the one who preys Betting on the best semesters you can buy Digging out of debt, sequestered, unemployed Underwater empty nesters in a slum Television for the bums, helicopter for the boys Marketplace of multi-culti competition Building out the fossil fracking operation Careful of a bird blacker than a swan 'Cause a change is gonna come, said the signal to the noise Were you never in the 99 You are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99 Were you never in the 99 You are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99 Am I, am I Am I the one to praise Am I, am I Am I the one to praise Collide with faces veiled in paper Reading line by line the pain there I haven't come to say I'm sorry But I swear I'm on your side We are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99 We are ever in the 99... Landsailor ( Featuring Glen Phillips ) Landsailor Landsailor, sail on time Rain or shine, I know you can Cloudraker Cloudraker, share your finds All your wonders at my demand Lightbringer Tamer of night Blossom of hours unleashed Make me a lawbender All equalized Saved from the chill and heat I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Your power flows through me transformed Here's where I was born Landsailor Deepwinter strawberry Endless summer, ever spring A vast preserve Aisle after aisle in reach Every commoner made a king Earthbreaker Noble and prized Feed me beyond my means Hello worldmaker Never denied Build all my wildest dreams But there's a storm outside your door And I'm a child no more Glen Phillips : Headless and faceless Tireless and seamless behind these walls This is my progress When you don't notice my lines at all I split the world open Delve ever deeper in my alchemic arts I crack the ciphers to free up your mind, your life, your heart I'm your landsailor In the bed that we've made May every nail be shown Great lifebringer The price that we pay Time that you made it known I want to be your bride in full Shield my eyes no more Oh I am altered now for good Shield these eyes no more Close To Home Lay your head where they hold Hide the demarcations of your soul And play your silent scream role Harmonize your own worth to what you're shown Normalized and nowhere close to home Claim the truth that gets lost In the miles of memory and open folds So change these rules and let's cross All the sacred boundaries we've overgrown Build a brave new foundry close to home I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Here's unbroken bone It's a psalm from the book of lies Language you don't recognize as part of your own Leave that alone Leave that alone This is the taste you were forever chasing There is no way to contain it when it comes to set you off Accept the shame on some shaky basis Admit that you were mistaken about it, about it after all But oh the ache, the fantasy forsaken The alien and adjacent you would give anything to take off This is the claim that you'll keep on making This is the point of the breaking Here it comes , here it comes to set you off We won't be sold Any song from your book of lies Language we don't recognize as part of our own Leave us alone Leave us alone Pay them all to sign on Diagnose some fault line most will know And raise your life a new dawn Tyrant of your cells now overthrown Never have you felt so close to home The Hymn Of Acxiom Somebody hears you You know that You know that Somebody hears you You know that inside Someone is learning the colors of all your moods to (say just the right thing and) Show that you're understood Here you're known Leave your life open You don't have You don't have Leave your life open You don't have to hide Someone is gathering every crumb you drop, these (mindless decisions and) Moments you long forgot Keep them all Let our formulas find your soul We'll divine your artesian source (in your mind) Marshal feed and force to (our machines will) Design you a perfect love Or (better still) a perfect lust O how glorious, glorious A brand new need is born I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Now we possess you You'll own that You'll own that Now we possess you You'll own that in time Now we will build you an endlessly upward world (reach in your pocket) Embrace you for all you're worth Is that wrong Isn't this what you want Amen Oh Mama No All day One long tethered motion Sweep, stir, sow This is her kingdom An inheritance that you can't deny Oh mama no, oh mama no Oh mama no I will Come down, child From your gates and connections Sleep, slur, slow This is where you come from The anchor that you can't leave behind Oh mama no, oh mama no Oh mama no I will So mama learns your tribal lingo Tolerates the time between calls Catalogues the years and makes a note of all your endless goings-on I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake When her sentences start to repeat And her voice in the night is reaching Oh mama please don't leave me And then one day In the boxes upon boxes Grieve, give, go Maybe you can learn how If you never feel the dark, never see the light Oh mama no, oh mama no Oh mama no I will Oh mama no, oh mama no Oh mama no I will Oh mama know, oh mama know Mama you know I will Copenhagen (let me go) Call out what we've become The news has turned to numb Locked in nearsight On the latest device Let the yet-to-be pick up the tab Say we can't escape Though there's plenty of space Barring holding on to what we used to have In your head, where we're headed You gotta let it on by, let me go And get it in your head, where we're headed You gotta let it all die, let me go We lay it out on the map Debate it all in caps Lock our eyes on Distant horizons Where we will shift to some informed accord In another town Settle up, settle down We insist on the option or we're out the door I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake So get it in your head, where we're headed You gotta let it on by, let me go And get it in your head, where we're headed You gotta let it all die, let me go Gone, it's gone Gave in again, now let me go Gone, it's gone Gave in again, now let me go Or maybe this is a test Maybe this is a course correction Oh I said it, no no don't let it get out of control In your head, where we're headed You gotta let it on by, let me go And get it in your head, where we're headed You gotta let it all die, let me go... This hope, it begins to know We could return again, don't let me go I get it in my heart, I know we could restart We can begin again, don't let me go Gone, it's gone Return again, don't let me go Gone, it's gone Begin again, don't let me go In your head, where we're headed You gotta let it on by, let me go And get it in your head, where we're headed You gotta let it all die, let me go Flyweight love Ride on Glide down Hide out My flyweight love, flyweight love Took a train to the stubborn coast Off-season towns half shuttered Said hello to the rising breeze Made a note of the setting sun I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake We fell asleep in our three-day clothes One tilted head on the other Felt a hand like the hand of god Heard a voice like a seed of song Ride on Glide down Hide out My flyweight love, flyweight love Ride on Glide down Hide out My flyweight love, flyweight love Took a crowd down the avenue To send a senator home right Going viral on the handheld screen I'm the diode, you're the kerosene We're separate circles in a crowded hall Debating this debating that and then another And then the scent of you alighting on my shoulder Hey there, oh hi, hey there, oh hi, oh my Out loud, go on and sing it out loud Go on and sing it out loud We wanna be a flyweight love, flyweight love Out loud, go on and sing it out loud Go on and sing it out loud We wanna be a flyweight love, flyweight love And now The years surprise us How all our times apart Have become our vows Took a flight far across the globe Found a calling sweet as a lover Through the wilderness you find in me You are in love with all the world And in the evening I arise When the sun creeps on your covers Here I am Here you are Ride on Glide down Breathing a hello Hide out My flyweight love, flyweight love Out loud, go on and sing it out loud Go on and sing it out loud We wanna be a flyweight love, flyweight love Took a train to another coast Took our time and the time has flown Oh you never have belonged to me Or should I say not to me alone The Breaking Light ( Featuring Alex Wong ) Watch the shadow lines fade away Brother you will return Let your lion heart cleave the waves Brother you will return In the breaking light Leave the battlefield, leave her hand Brother you will return For we are a woven thread, find the strand Brother you will return In the breaking light In the breaking light So listen to the darkness Listen to the patterns Listen to the breathing sea Listen to the colors, carry them inside you They will bring you back to me In the breaking light I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Feel the ground beneath sweep and sway Brother we will return Feel the hollow dream slip away Brother we will return In the breaking light In the breaking light So listen to the darkness Listen to the patterns Listen to the breathing sea Listen to the colors, carry them inside you They will bring you back to me Listen to the sirens Listen to the heartbeat Listen to the turning tide Listen to the murmurs, carry them inside you 'Til we're on the other side In the breaking light In the breaking light Never Look Away Detect my sudden existence on your sonar You feel the echo Electrify the resistance in your broken heart And burn it up, oh oh We're gonna photosynthesize and drink up the sunrise So do they ever shut up because you said so Or do you overthink 'em all Somebody ought to corrupt you on the dance floor And take you home Show you all your daemons and desires and dark sides All of your colonies and continental divides I'm always on the run and I hate copy paste for god's sake Let me uncover the silver in your dark hair The weight of your bones I want to witness the beauty of your repair The shape you've grown For you are made of nebulas and novas and night sky You're made of memories you bury or live by So if you're out there in the cold I'll cover you in moonlight If you're a stranger to your soul I'll bring you to your birthright I want the storm inside you awoken now I want your warm bright eyes To never look away, look away Don't you ever look away, look away, look away Don't you ever look away, look away, look away Don't you ever look away, look away, look away Some nights we open up the flood And some nights we are lost And some nights we're choking on the words But some we light on fire So if you're out there in the cold I'll cover you in moonlight If you're a stranger to your soul I'll bring you to your birthright I want the storm inside you awoken now I want your warm bright eyes To come back to me And hold on to me You know that I won't lie I will never look away, look away Don't you ever look away, look away, look away Don't you ever look away, look away, look away Don't you ever look away, look away, look away... Goodnight New York Goodnight, New York, New York Goodnight, goodnight I'll see you all on the other side After I am a different man with different eyes Goodnight, you canyons of steel and light Twist and turn where your alleyways hide Swaying trains sheltering dreams and little white lies Goodnight, goodnight May you be always heartbreaking Take a little more than you give Yeah but when you give, oh my Goodnight, goodnight I walk away to remember who I am Somewhere in the woodland Somewhere in streams Little life shuffles into the day Folded wings into flattening veins and fluttering eyes Somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings In the mess of all I have thrown away Hungry now, I am gathering seeds to throw wide Goodnight, goodnight May you be always breathtaking Cold winter, sink your teeth in me June sun, beat me blind Goodnight, goodnight I'm on my way to remembering who I am And in your way you remain You will claim all this space In my way I'll remain Even as it takes my place In your life, at your side You were right I'll say goodnight but it's never goodbye Goodnight, goodnight Goodnight, goodnight Goodnight, goodnight May you always start breaking my heart again Good morning, lover Give me your hand Today begins and it's all that we have
Non Albums Tracks
Boy At The Piano Ten fingers. Ten dancers. An uncanny intuition of when and how to pirouette Eyes darting over the invisible page Which is riddled with a road map Of chords that guide without regret. Into the precarious land of improvisation, A one player band amid conversation. Two hands, a measurin' leisure time Two hands skimmin' over keys, "that's fine" Says the girl in the corner, the kid on the ledge. And the boy at the piano plays on... Well often, I've come to watch him play. And it seems to me so funny, he doesn't even know I'm there. Well the music, it takes him to another world. Sudden playful pauses, dramatic clauses, Melodies from empty air. Noontime master of improvisation, A one player band amid conversation... Two hands, a measurin' leisure time Two hands skimmin' over keys, "that's fine" Says the girl in the corner, the kid on the ledge. And the boy at the piano plays on...
*** Thanx a lot to Sarah For this one ***
Undone There's a moment made of frozen hopes Put under lights in an empty space In my little museum In my little museum And at closing time with the crowds dissolved I slip right past the velvet ropes Press my fingers to the case And I hold you in my arms This isn't where I should be I stand and stare when I should run Why am I only waiting For what can only come undone You were hidden in a highway curve Solid lines a silent shield Against metal twisted cold I am twisted Like sudden daylight there you were Took all I had just not to swerve And slow instead to yield But then your light was gone This isn't where I should be I stand and stare when I should run Why am I only waiting For what can only come undone