1. |
Dear Stranger
04:20
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My dear stranger, I am writing you today
To tell you how the rain walked down the street
A house above a pond, and a hook lifting away a space of ground
My dear stranger, writing words i think i know
in a hand that i cannot decipher
filling page on page and chapter after chapter
Nutmeg and chocolate, the warmth of your hand
The emcee played Liszt with no music
The cold and the dark, the rough and the hard,
The sound and the ensuing silence.
My dear stranger, do you carry the whole day?
All of this impermanence and presence?
The vast and spinning world is so much easier to hold inside your eyes
The world is wide and full of wonder
The light forgets to leave your eyes
You speak in corners, hallways, doorways
And I make maps
My dear stranger, do you let it slice you up
Or brace you like a fall in icy water?
Do you bear it on your back, or do you sweet talk your way up onto its own?
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2. |
Tinnitus Blues
03:34
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3. |
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Bill Phillips told me it came right in
Like a summer storm and so blew right out again
Bill said it stripped the grass right off the ground
And they talked while the sun went down and the moon lit up the empty road
Bill said he knows the girl who made it good
to mix sweet things and savory things in food
She’s always on the lookout for another good idea
But she only knows the future, and the past plays it cool but somehow always gets there first
The Medicis, in 1621
Commissioned twenty-four paintings by Paul Rubens
They first hung in the Luxembourg and now they’re at the Louvre;
paint strokes and storm clouds are always in motion
always in motion
I’m moving to California
After so many years in Georgia for a job
Always in motion
Bill Phillips told me the lake and sky
made a good team the time that he came by
We walked through Oakland’s Chinatown and then he went away
“ It's a long, slow, dreary kind of rain, but I like the reminder than I'm back in Atlanta”
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4. |
Take U Apart (Again)
05:01
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They left you alone at the back of the room with the chairs (still) set up
Later at home, when you’re finally alone, you open your hands, let it drop
A memory finds you, something lets go
A subtle change in the weather
And all that you’ve gathered comes into your head
And takes you apart again
It’s always the same, you know it like your name and just like that, you can’t really hear it
First comes the flood, then the mud and the drought and the wind over the creek bed
You’re full and you’re empty, you roar and you gasp
You twist like a snake in your bed
The water and wind reach their fingers right in you
And take you apart again
Found and forgotten, lost and then caught and then slowly roll away
Plain as a fountain, judged and found wanting and there at the end of the day
Full of your figure, empty of self
Light sliding out of the frame
Freezes your features, robs you of wealth
And takes you apart again
But oh, how you glow
Oh, how you glow
Silver and sepia, linen and light
Heat from a building that burns through the night
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5. |
By & By
04:15
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6. |
Arrivals
02:23
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There’s a train arriving on platform #2
Whether you’re on it when it leaves is up to you.
Some trains you ride cause they’re fast, some cause they’re slow
Some trains you ride cause you want to find out where they go
When you forget where you are’s when you feel most alive
Whenever you get off the train’s when you arrive.
The stops where you stop, the connections you make
The things you let in and the the things you forsake
Draw out a map of survival
And every train’s full of arrivals
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7. |
Rare Sun
05:30
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The flowers in my skin turn towards you
They follow you with their hands and their eyes open wide
None of this, none of this will live on without you
None of this will survive when you’re gone
The river of my skin shines beneath you
It throws what you give it as far and as fast as it can
All of us reach out to hold you
All of us, all of us
And you fall down on me
And I rise to meet you
Rare sun
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8. |
Exits
03:11
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High street, 66th, Coliseum, 98th, Davis, Marina, Washington, Stockton, Hesperian, A Street Downtown, Winton, 92, Tennyson, Industrial, Whipple Road, Alvarado, 84, Mowry, Stevenson, Auto Mall, 262, Dixon, 237, Great Mall, Montague, Brokaw, 101, 1st St., Coleman, the Alameda, Bascom, Stevens Creek, 280, Hamilton, Camden, 85, Lark, Hwy 9, Blossom Hill, Bear Creek, Scotts Valley Road
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9. |
Calling Your Heart
02:36
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I’m a lighthouse at the edge of the ocean
And i’m calling your heart back home
Through serpents and storms and bells and alarms
I’m calling your heart back home
Calling you home, calling you home
Though over the wide world you may roam
I will hold up my lantern and light up the foam
I’m calling your heart back home
I stand on the edge of a jetty
Over hidden and hull-cracking stones
And I shine out to guard your way safe to the harbor
Calling your heart back home
Calling you home, calling you home
Though over the wide world you may roam
I will hold up my lantern and light up the foam
I’m calling your heart back home
Your heart calls you over the ocean
Through wonders and ways yet unknown
And you might never trace your way back to the place where
I’m calling your heart back home
Calling you home, calling you home
Though over the wide world you may roam
I will hold up my lantern and light up the foam
I’m calling your heart back home
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10. |
Heart/Face
03:28
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My heart knows so much more than i do
And it tries to tell me, but i never hear
It tells me what is good and true and all the things that i should do
While I stand with my fingers in my ears
My heart is like a lighthouse beacon
That fragile, that revolving, and that bright
Shouting out for all to hear the shape of what they’re coming near
Heart like a lantern, face like the night.
I used to be a shadeless window
But as the day has gone, i’ve drawn the blinds
I used to be an empty room that echoed with the crash and boom
Of every street parade i saw pass by
My heart knows so much more than I do
And when i ask it won’t respond at all
But as i do the things i do it pesters me with cryptic clues
Face like a window, heart like a wall
Go push back the coming winter,
Go undo what’s just been done
Go pour your rage out on the carpet now the hardwood floor is gone (ya jerk)
A door that’s always closed’s a prison
A door that’s always open lets out heat
But doors enforce the choice you’ve made on what to light and what to shade
Face like a streetlight, heart like the street
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11. |
Like A River
04:48
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Before you go, turn out the lights
There’s nothing to see anymore
Let in the night to roll like a dog on the floor
And silence to curl up in the corners
And emptiness to sweeten the air
And everything I’m missing to fill up this space
Like a river
Like a rain storm
Pulling your clothes in its teeth
Like a ripple
Like a riptide
Like the world taking hold of me.
When you go, take me along
Slip me like in your pocket like a book
You can read in me what makes you strong
And other things you tend to overlook
Take circumstance to sweeten your coffee
And happenstance to bring you your shoes
And stones and dogs and traffic lights to call out your name
Like a fog horn
Like a wind storm
Running its hands through your hair
Like a record
Like a railroad
Like the world rolling over me.
And beauty to weigh down your pockets
And plentitude to fill up your hands
And love for all this everything to glow through your skin
Like the sunlight
Like a bonfire
That carries our prayers out of reach
Like a candle
Like a crown
Like the world shining out of me
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12. |
I Don't Know
02:09
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The sun upon the ocean piles up columns of air that drive the clouds before them across the sky
The clouds pick up water and put it down again
To water, we're a coach to travel by
And I don't know any more.
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