1. |
Plains
04:15
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In the open country…
hear the wind moan -
there’s nothing really better,
than this good country air.
There’s apples on the branches…
it’s Eden everywhere.
Cobra’s in the sunshine,
bells ring in the dark.
The church stains the frontier -
a symbol which God’s forgot.
So fire kiss me deadly,
caress these edges to ash heaps.
Give me, O Lord, just one sign
if there is anyone up there
they’ll now know our pain.
No longer ignored now,
come down into the Plains…
and feel the open country.
I'm in the open country
where the angels crawl,
crawl across the plains
toward the fall -
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2. |
Open Country
02:32
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Exhumed the scandalous cadaver
this Black Dahlia,
with her perfume and her powder.
Well what does it matter?
Now that it’s over?
We’re all fishing in Chernobyl
for a four-leafed clover.
I says modern imagination,
our frontiers eliminated
and so we’re all pioneers now
for an unknown destination.
I’d move to the country,
find me a little home
but it’s all gone the way of Jesus Christ -
that is to say it’s all
gone, gone, gone away.
Turned into a Shop ‘N Save,
turned to metal and mirrors
and satellite receivers.
Now there’s forty-five hundred channels
of shit on my T.V
but none with a view into my
open country.
So goodbye blue Madonna
you’ve turned from grey to green
and I’m sick to death with helplessness
and I’ve got to get away
into the open country,
open country.
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3. |
A Light (Begins)
02:31
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There is a light
under Clem’s Creek
and in the dark of night
you can see it shine.
Shine like subtle sun
between svelte glass
bright as dawning day
or distant star.
I saw her reach into Clem’s Creek
in search of what I cannot speak
but when she grasped the light
she was swept clean from me
now she's buried just beneath
Clem’s Creek.
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4. |
Under Clem's Creek
02:26
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there was a careless light which reached
speculations of night crawl from the creek
from the creek, from the creek
let’s move to open country
find us a little home
where it’s all gone like Jesus Christ
that is to say it’s all
gone, gone, gone
under Clem’s Creek
under Clem's Creek
under Clem's Creek
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5. |
Sawdust Casanova
03:01
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6. |
Vernal Equinox
01:10
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if you look closer,
really closer,
you may start to see
what’s always been
this vernal equinox
reaching from my hand
to yours
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7. |
Roses in the Rain
04:22
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Darling it’s raining on the roses,
all of our troubles wash away.
Now the smallest touch can take
what I thought was fate, now washes away.
Hey... now it's all gone black,
roses in the rain
I thought we'd make it back,
just not like that
so why do you think I’m blue?
after all that we’ve been through -
Darling please don’t follow
the wilting of bloodless hollows
under the creek I spotted
a severed lily white cloth
hemmed from the finest garment
gosh, is it on a body?
washed in the same water as
our roses in the rain
Oh dear, our love left in the nighttime,
with its tender loving hands
it dissipates our light like greying moon
oh no... oh no...
now all we know will fall below
now all we know will fall below
now all we know will fall below
now all we know will fall below
like roses in the rain
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8. |
||||
as I sit with sparrows and sawdust
I watch spiders build webbed homes
and the wind comes like rapture
a deadly message blows
there’s no oranges in the canyon
there’s no love in her arms
‘cause I know that she goes often
to a place all her own
and in barrooms and her bedroom
the same comedy plays
on television channels
and between parted legs
we touch but only for warmth
we talk just to rid our heads
of the places we inhabit
when there’s another in our bed
so I ask why do you wander?
but you’re already gone
on chariots with the huntsmen
she carries with her a bag of yarn
so go on into the nursery
with yer schemes and metal cores
I don’t need yer dirty medicine
I don’t need you anymore…
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9. |
||||
Tell me again,
how it used to when
blues skies and apple pie
where the constants
in this life of mine -
Tell me again babe,
where did it go?
Slept through a winter
and woke still in snow -
It used to seem you’d always be
some better part of me but now
I only see the rain fall down
and drowning in the pool
a reflection of someone I knew
no it cannot be…
the better part of me
no it ain’t gone yet you’ll see
it’s just hangin’ on -
like a sparkle in a rolling stream
it’s there before it slips between
the constant state of forward motion -
you can’t hold a memory,
you can’t live forever ya see,
but ya gotta hold on to the
better of me
cause it ain’t gone yet you see
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10. |
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11. |
Moto Fever
02:12
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Like some ill Adonis
in Adidas and black leather
I’m rolling through Arabia
with Lawrence’s red letter
My lips are sealed,
my hands are tied,
my eyes two marble spheres
I’ve got pharmaceutical chemicals
hidden in the wheels
I got moto fever
and just like the sons of old
I know what your future holds
Big T.V’s and magazines,
and misanthropic policies
Nixon, Regan, JFK
they all know my name
I’m like the Platters
Great Pretender -
I’m the postman
and the letter sender
I got moto fever
Sideways saddled,
sixstring, switchblade,
laced in nitrate,
bad blood & wine stains.
Checkin’ in the mirror
for the FBI
praise the Lord
I saw the light
go out of yer eyes
for forty days the sun ain’t rised
Now I’m shaking like a rattlesnake tied
to the wheels of my ride (uh uh)
I got moto fever
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12. |
Achey, Possibly Breaky
02:32
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Praise the lord I saw the light!
Praise the lord I saw the light!
Do you got that feelin’
crawlin’ up yer spine?
As lonesome as a whisper
of her bygone lullaby.
Do you stumble? Or crumble?
When you think of it now?
How that holy love has
gone up through the clouds.
Are you achey? Possibly breaky?
All the pieces of yer past
fall around like broken glass
Do you wonder if I wonder how you are?
Well I really wanna wonder
but I’ve wandered much too far
from you
Is her reflection
fading from yer view?
is it over the Plains,
with a heart turnin’ blue
is it in the window
of a derelict lot?
You see that same face
which you seem to have forgot
Are you achey? Possibly breaky?
All the pieces of yer past
fall around like broken glass
Do you wonder if I wonder how you are?
Well I really wanna wonder
but I’ve wandered much too far
from you
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13. |
Horizontal Cross
02:14
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Listen up Johnny,
I think it’s coming down
That old train howling
like thunder from the clouds
You better move quick
if you want to get a view,
of that old body layin’
like Jesus come unscrewed
The rope paints red into the skin
As I feel my soul succumb to sin
Lord have mercy on a man like me,
I can hardly help it, I’m a bad bad seed
The murder moan comes rumbling home
through the valley of forgotten bones
A hesitation whispers in her ear,
there’s no time to save her it’s nearly near
It's a horizontal -
horizontal cross
horizontal
it's a horizontal cross
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14. |
Snow White
02:47
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Laced like a line, sweeter than wine
burnin’ like diesel - snow white
I’m tellin’ fairy tales
but when it comes to payin’
nobody fronts the bill
that narcotic sequence, them lines of code,
writing gibberish,turning me cold as snow
frigid blue and gone
then you wake up wondering
ahh whats going on?
In laymen’s terms it’s called disease,
disfiguration of apathy.
Cut by the silver of yer blade
forged from deceptive ice it melts away
turns the day into the night
the night into the day
you lock the doors, and close the shutters
but find it’s here to stay
snow white
I'm tellin’ fairy tales
but when it comes to payin’
nobody fronts the bill
Now every glaring ivory edge
fills my eyes with pointlessness
the only color now is white
pure and evil, this permanent fixture
just give me a number cause I really need to reach ya
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15. |
O Babe
03:29
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16. |
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I mailed you this letter I hope it arrives
in Spain before the end of the night…
I’m sure it’s real warm and the beaches adorned
with bodies all immaculately born - well,
It’s very cold here on Clark and East Hastings,
with the puppets strungout and the nameless all singing
“It’s December now, and its very quiet…”
Do you remember when I mailed you that flower?
I wonder how it fared from Montreal through Seattle…
I digress, I suppose it’s best if I rest but I
can’t seem to find my pillow I confess,
so I’ll stay up writing till Christmas passes
and the singing in my heart quietly crashes
like one last wave on the beaches of Spain.
I see that you’ve got yourself a new tattoo,
funny enough I’ve been wanting one too
Remember when we talked about what we would do
if one of us ever broke through, although
even if we didn’t I knew all I needed was you,
why is it so quiet now?
It was never this quiet when I was with you…
Huh, so it seems that's the last of the ink,
just when I was starting to think it'd be better
if you know…
when it’s time to go
I’ll go to you, if you want me to
when it’s time to go
I’ll go to you, if you want me to
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17. |
Last Flight to London
04:37
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The table is set and I’m on my own again,
how many good-byes until we say hello again?
As I crumble with wine by the bedside,
I’m starless and shining with eyes wide.
The last flight to London departs with you,
I’m left to the bottle, alone and so blue.
O so pointless… is that the point of this?
We follow into a hollow grasping at chance,
as the distance seems more distant everyday,
how can that even be possible?
Last flight to London departs with you,
I’m left to the bottle alone and so blue.
I know it’s wicked, I know it’s wrong
to go and keep loving what I know now is gone.
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18. |
Greener Pastures
02:38
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When the water came and took her
I prayed it would take me too
But it never blessed me ever
It just left me holding a bouquet of
greener memories of when you loved me ‘
on greener pastures, on better terms
when there was laughter but you never heard
these words, I loved you, think I still do
think I’ll always remember greener pastures
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19. |
A Light (Ends)
02:21
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Better days will find you in the end
(you’ll see, you’ll see)
All yer tears will dry and you’ll be cleansed
(again, again)
For every light must come to an end
(an end, an end)
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20. |
Midnight on the Farm
13:39
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A goddess with her bag of yarn
milks the calf for all its got
says she’d rather have than to have not
Then she turns toward another man
she snaps just like a rubber band
and lands between the roses and the thorns
she once adorned, now betrays
She says it could be tried or it could be true
but how the hells one to get through
to a boy like you who’s got nothing to lose
I thought at first it was a joking thing,
a funny poem in the kitchen sink,
but then she shaved her legs and made for the door
It was midnight on the farm,
behind a red barn we danced.
Measured in barbed wire -
wrapped in electric light one night.
Tell me truly - don’t you lie,
just how small is a moment in one’s life?
Could it be forever? Maybe just for one night
could it live in black ink
like that Romeo and Juliet line
where art thou? where are we?
where’d ya go? into a memory?
are you still there
painting the barn red?
have you fallen down?
are you Heavensent? -
are you some Lorelei,
in your river of lies
still asking why -
Why did you go
to the water that ran below us?
you threw my roses away
what more is there to say?
you were swept under the rain
yet I still recall -
Midnight on the farm,
behind a red barn we danced
measured in barbed wire,
wrapped in electric light we loved
then there was some movement behind that barn
sudden movement, a shadow crawling alive
everybody went real quiet like this, “Ssssh...!”
it was as if life had ceased to exist
then it did
a cold light opened soft over the riverbank
and briefly I thought of you reaching in
cause there was a real beautiful light
laying somewhere beneath that current
and then ya did, I saw ya sink sink sink
sink down, sink down into the bottom now
it was midnight on the farm
as a moment reached for a yawn
and all stood still,
I heard the hills arrange in seven rows
a haiku of yellow and shivering shade
there was some God in the rafters
and the Plains reached for laughter
but all was swept forever after
that blackness had reached through and past her
and I felt the light! and I saw the light!
break through the night
and all was obsidian, and silent and simple
a moment opening! wider! wider!
nights great mouth engulfed you
entirely,
memory!
it was taking all of me
up up!
until there is nothing!
no sweet forever!
no precious bells!
no thick silver!
no conscious fever
no sin, no sinking feeling
no material seeking
I was headed to the midnight screening
with my head all undid
the fever coming up
I could feel it start
start to erupt
into a garden of light
you pick the blossoms of a black night
midnight was a creeping
through the grass a poem was seeping
it spelled
M-I-D-N-I-G-H-T
on the farm
M-I-D-N-I-G-H-T
on the farm
just you and me
Midnight on the farm,
behind a red barn we danced
come on now bring it up,
bring it up, get higher
how much longer?
not much now, I can feel it!
it starts just like that sound!
rising up! now you must listen very closely
to this next part it starts like this
the sound, the fury, the idle cross
water wash away our loss
now comes the final part
the last prayer of a godless heart
take it now!
it’s midnight on the farm
everybody's arm in arm
bells ring out beyond
the evening stars fall upon
the plains once burning hue
painted now a sterling blue
and all the awful poetry
turns to dance so simply
we gonna move to the country
find us a little home
where it’s all gone like Jesus Christ
that is to say it’s all
gone, gone, gone
but not gone quite yet -
come on baby slide it to the left
take a pedal from the rose
and place it on the bed
we’re moving from the grey and idle streets
to green of our open country
taken by a tongue into the morning light
six bells breaking the twilight
six bells ringing in the night
coming down, coming down, coming down
oh let’s move to the country!
find us a little home
where it’s all gone like Jesus Christ
but it’s not all gone -
open country !
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Daisy Garland Vancouver, British Columbia
East Van outlaw outfit Daisy Garland & The Thick Silver.
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