​

Waves

So many years so many hardships

So many laughs so many tears

So many things to remember

Cause they had 50 years

The kids have got their own kids

And their own kids they are grown

She told him not to worry

She said he’d be fine when she was gone

He walks down to the ocean

Bends to touch the water

Kneels to pray

He writes her name in the sand

Waves wash it away

There are sea gulls circling shrimp boats

That turn inside the bay

There’s an emptiness inside

That never goes away

He walks down to the ocean

Bends to touch the water kneels to pray

He writes her name in the sand

Waves wash it away

​

Truale

Drive an hour from Dalhart

It’s one long straight line

There’s a ranch house out of nowhere

There’s a crossroad and there’s a sign

She was born in that ranch house

Her daddy slapped her alive

The doctor still in town

Too drunk to drive

Singing truale, truale, truale true

There were horses

Horses, horses to ride

Dapples and grays

Wide-open skies

Pintos and bays

Running full stride

The wind in her face

It was like she could fly

Singing truale, truale, truale true

There was oil, oil, oil

To be found 

Everywhere you put a boot

There was oil in the ground

Oil in the ground

Oil in the mud

Pump long enough

It gets in the blood

Singing truale, truale, truale true

She turned 15 took a roughneck, with a hand-done tattoo
They run off in his hotrod 442
And driving all night, drinking all day
Ended up down in Dallas in a family way

Singing truale, truale, truale true

She came back when she turned 30

Just her and the girls

Never said why she left him

But she wore cultured pearls

Says to her father 

No questions no lies

Drove a t-bird with the top down

A cold beer between her thighs

Singing truale, truale, truale true

There were horses

Horses, horses to ride

Dapples and grays

Wide-open skies

Pintos and bays

Running full stride

The wind in her face

It was like she could fly

​

 Baseball

There are soldiers in the way of harm

A girl holds a baby in a blanket in her arms

A man with a flag leaves for work

A woman pulls a thread from the hem of her skirt

Another saturday comes and goes

Another south wind comes and blows

Another baseball field another pop fly

Another bunch of boys another blue sky

Boys laugh

Boys play

There’s a kid at bat there’s a kid on first

There’s a mother in the stands dying of thirst

There’s a father brings a coke there’s a swing there’s a miss

There’s a father brings a coke there’s a father gets a kiss

Another saturday comes and goes

Another south wind comes and blows

Another baseball field another pop fly

Another bunch of boys another blue sky

Boys laugh

Boys play

There are soldiers in the way of harm

​

Thursday

It’s warm for november

It looks like rain

She drives the interstate

Stays in the slow lane

Two babies in the back

Huggies in the front

No place to sit cause its full of baby junk

She grew up in dallas

Had a baby real young

What’s his name left

When she had another one

She said 

I got these babies

They got all these names

I hurt inside

Then it starts to rain

It’s a thursday morning

She feels so alone

There’s a hole inside

It’s like a country song

But it feels a lot sadder than what the radio plays

So she pulls off at waco for some coke and some fries

Idles in the drive through

The babies start to cry

She starts to cry

When she hears daddy gone

The girl in the window

Says mam is something wrong

It’s a thursday morning she feels all alone

Got a hole inside its like a country song

But it feels a lot sadder than what the radio plays 

It’s a parking lot in waco

Where she sees things clear

Got a backseat full of babies

Got a frosty full of tears

Then the babies quit crying

The rain lets up

She’s up the on ramp

Behind a long haul truck

Its warm for november it looks like rain

She drives

Monday’s child is fair of face

Tuesday’s child is full of grace

Wednesday’s child is full of woe

Thursday’s child has far to go

​

Change

There was a dry goods store

A flower shop

A barber with no nose

One alcoholic cop

A beauty parlor

Where they sat in chrome chairs

And it smelled like they burned

Some poor lady’s hair

There were toys in the window

Of the five and dime

Little girls stared

Little boys whined

At the toys in the window of the five and dime

Things change

They change a lot

Things change

They blow cold they blow hot

And if looking back is all you got

It don’t matter any way

Those same little girls 

Went to work in those stores

Those same little boys went away to wars

When they came home

All the jobs had gone away

back to the places where they fought so far away

Things change

They change a lot

Things change

They blow cold they blow hot

And if looking back is all you got

It don’t matter any way

There was a dry goods store

A flower shop

A barber with no nose

One drunk cop

A beauty parlor

Where they’d sit in chrome chairs

They’d hide beneath the dryers

Just sit there and stare

​

Pony

When love was a mexican pony

That you and i would ride

From the desert in the dark

Cross the river to the other side

Border guards waved us through

Andale ninos they cried

When love was a mexican pony

That you and i would ride 

Then love was a porcelain angel

In a church in mexico

Dressed in silk

With painted tears

We worshipped

What we did not know

Love was a porcelain angel

It was the moment we kissed

It was incense

It was grace

It was the sound of the serpent’s hiss

Love was a mexican pony

You and i would ride

From the desert in the dark

Cross the river to the other side

Then love was a sunday morning

When our white flags flew in smoke

Just before the call to mass

Above the cigarettes and jokes

Love was a sunday morning

When you and i would pray

And press our hands together

The way we did when you went away

Border guards waved us  through

Andale niños they cried

When love was a mexican pony

You and i would ride    

​

Kitchen

Fighting door to door

At Jerusalem’s gate

Millionaires play baseball

Oprah talks about fate

A galleon full of treasure

Is found off panama

A new season of sopranos

Soft women at the spa

Sitting in the kitchen and you don’t give a damn

Whoa

Girls in cotton dresses

Windblown to the hip

Girls in cotton dresses

Their phones close to their lips

A white thoroughbred is born in kentucky

Bombs fall in kashmir

Waiting for the war

In your underwear drinking beer

It’s easy to love

It’s easy

Kind of

Skinny boys with rifles

Flying off to war

Skinny boys with rifles

Fighting door to door   

​

Iron

It’s iron he hangs and he loves his work

Drives hours each day

He’s never been hurt

Got a back of steel

Burns on the sleeves of his shirt

He drinks too much

When stuff gets heavy

He can’t think straight

His mind gets hazy

So he stops at a sports bar

Everybody knows he’s a flirt

Now he’s driving to work

His head is split open

From last night’s drinking

Last night’s smoking

He never got home

Now there will be hell to pay

She’ll be yelling

He’ll be screaming

The kid’s will be crying

It’s like a house full of demons

He says to himself

why do people live this way

So she says to uann

he’s the father of my babies

I know you think i’m wrong

I know you think i’m crazy

For sticking around

When he’s drunk all over town

But you don’t see

He can be so sweet

He only gets mean when he gets in his drink

He’s good to the kids it’s just

Sometimes he gets down

So the iron drops bad

Nothing seems to fit

He gets busted on his welds

Wants to just quit

Wants to curl up tight on the cold white ground

Cry

But he works full shift

Picks up a six

Its almost Christmas

Roads are getting slick

She is going to be at the door

It is going to be a hell of a fight

So he’s an hour out of Lincoln

No shoulder on the road

And it is dark snowing

He ought to go slow

But he pushes the ford

It planes it slides like a sled

Tires hit the edge and he spins like a top

The truck slides low in the ditch till it stops

It hurts where he banged his head

He sits in the cab and he can’t read the gauges

And the wipers whip

Like wind over pages

It’s loud

Static on the radio

It gets too light to see

He just stared

Gets too light to see

And then he got scared

Then the light was gone

Its just wipers

Wind turned snow

So she says to Luann

He’s the father of my babies

I know you think I’m wrong

I know you think I’m crazy

For sticking around

When he’s drunk all over town

But you don’t see he can be so sweet

He only gets mean

When he gets in his drink

He’s good to the kids

It’s just sometimes he gets down.”

So he pulls back on

Drives real slow

Throws the last of the six

Out the window

In the snow

Something changed he saw light

He should have seen dark

And that’s the last time he drank

Still a hell of a fight

But she knew he wasn’t lying

When he told her bout the light

She knew he wasn’t lying about the light

It is iron he hangs

He loves his work

Drives hours each day

He’s never been hurt

Got a back of steel

Got burns on the sleeves of his shirt

​

Prelude

​

Steel

Sitting on the train to machu picchu

The passenger car explodes

Not enough time to say good-bye

Not enough time to know

What’s gone wrong?

God have mercy

I believe my heart has failed

Smoke rises through a hole in the roof

The dead say fare thee well

I swear doctor

Don’t you have anything

Like morphine for this pain

I swear Jesus take me now

Cause I am about to go insane

Looking back at the world as one who is leaving

In a dream come right out of hell

Smoke rises through a hole in the roof

The dead say fare thee well

No one is just an observer

The same bell tolls 

For the served and the server

For the strong the weak

The weary and the brave

Everybody ride 

Come judgment day

Cause trains explode

Steel flies

The sisters ring the catholic bells

Smoke rises through a hole in the roof

The dead say fare thee well

Sitting on the train to machu picchu

The passenger car explodes

​

Angels

Angels flutter around her heart

Love can heal they softly call

When trouble comes to the ones she loves

Her angels come

They ease all suffering

Heal all pain

Her angels come like healing rain

Love and angels conquer all

Like rain her healing angels fall

Love and angels conquer all

Her healing angels softly call

Amen

Call a truce

Call a war

Everyone is a bastard

Everyone is a whore

Everyone is a saint

Everyone is redeemed

Everyone is at the mercy of another one’s dream

Late at night when dreams are king

I get nervous about what dark brings

I call her name she holds me tight

She whispers everything’s all right

Call a truce

Call a war

Everyone is a bastard

Everyone is a whore

Everyone is a saint

Everyone is redeemed

Everyone is at the mercy of another one’s dream 

​

m e r c y

rondo in c major

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