Nothing is Enough
Hallmark
Condo
Jelly Mold of Doom
Shadow of Doubt
Constant Change
The Door
Exceptions
Shallow
Here
Going Down Slow
Blip Culture
Just 'Cause
White (With Black Shutters)
Saturdays
Faulty Towers

Nothing Is Enough

Sometimes is seems we're walking backwards
To the shaky ground on which we met
Back to talking about the weather

When you already know my climate
When your greatest assets become your biggest liabilities
Nothing is enough, when everything is too much

Passion proved hundreds of times by now
Still we're back to square one

From mountains back to molehills
From pearls back to grains of sand
How can you paint yourself as the tolerant one
When you can't even accept the way we are

How can you expect me to like you all the time
When sometimes I can't even stand myself

It's not hard to hear you, but I have to grit my teeth to listen
From closer than a whisper to further than a scream
In less time than it takes to forget a stranger's name
Love it or leave it, take it or leave it
To know it is to love it, didn't I used to know you

Talk is cheap so we spray words in the air
I shoot from the hip, but my aim is only fair

Hallmark

You died just getting on with your life
Wasn’t drugs, a car wreck, or a knife
Your pride could override all
So strong you just couldn’t fall
Simple self-neglect killed you
But I’m guilty of some too
Carrying that guilt from now on
Who would have guessed you’d be soon gone
Knew you’d forgive – time to burn
Calls not returned
A legacy of loose ends
Not resting easy my old friend

The buddy I left behind me
A living, breathing memory
Six hundred miles not as far away
As six feet of dirt between us today
Life for you was never dull
I know you’d hate this deadly lull
Heavy silence muffling a cry
Begging for another try
Rest in peace they all say
I can’t imagine you that way
But I’ll come to say let it be
Remembering the lesson you taught me
Because I’ve at long last
We’re all strong as iron, fragile as glass

It’s much too late to ever show how much I care
Once a solid friendship is now a strange feeling in the air
I never wanted to make this boast
But now I can say some of my best friends are ghosts
We thought we’d watch each other’s lives run on
Didn’t really miss you old friend ‘til you were dead and gone
Used to be one of those things I feared the most
But now I can say some of my best friends are ghosts

Condo

Build me a home up on a hill
Where I can lay my head down
Prices will rise, the market’s upscale
And all the cheap rents have left town
Call it a condo, but it’s just a box
And it’s built the cheapest way
You’ve got two choices, move somewhere else
Or mortgage your life away

Stacking up those little boxes
Vinyl siding to seal your thoughts in
Minimum standard, marketable boxes
Developer’s profits are everyone’s losses

Fake brick and chain link fence
Built with indifference
Triple locks and a three-foot pine
Not much humanity

With the money saved buying marginal land
Another zoning battle is won
Nearby landowners hate the projects
But the resentment’s just begun
You’ll learn the worst about your neighbors
And the state their lives are in
You’ll live in unspoken conflict
The walls are paper-thin

Prove that you’re someone, pay an inflated price
For the devalued American dream
Get a cheap carton to keep your life in
Home sweet home’s not what it seems

Jelly Mold Of Doom

With hair pulled out in frustration
And fingernails chewed off in worry
With the scabs off the wounds that festered
While you wouldn’t admit that they were there

With the bile from your heart
Blood from your eye
You filled the jelly mold of doom
I smiled blank when you brought it in the room

With razor bladed apples
Grown from seeds of discontent
With chips off shoulders and tips of tongues
Off the top of your head, from the pit of your stomach

With the stuff you got off your chest
When you spilled out your guts
You filled the jelly mold of doom
Under ominous waxed paper it sits out in my room

I guess I should it with the curried favor
We’re having for dinner again
Make sure you save some room
The fruits of your labor and humble pie for desert
Bitter sour grapes of wrath
A piece of your mind, a taste of your own medicine
Not a bowl of cherries, a different can of worms
A whole other kettle of fish
Put a lid on it, would you?

Shadow Of Doubt

Between my best intentions, and the most mistaken deeds
Between my greatest yearnings, and the smallest satisfaction
Between my mind’s vivid visions, and all the drabness I see
The shadow falls, he almost smothers me

Just when I think I can make myself clear
The shadow descends, he chokes me with fear
I want to sidestep him, but so far I can’t break free

There’s always the shadow
The shadow of doubt
Standing between me and all I want to be
The shadow of doubt

He leaves me to question my own sincerity
Looks over my shoulder to make decisions tough
His arms enfold us when I hold you close to me
I can’t say, “I love you” and have it mean enough

Use the courage of conviction
And make the shadow fade
Build the strength that comes through hope
And make that shadow fade

Care beyond what words can say
And make the shadow fade
With power in your mind
Keep the shadow behind you

Constant Change

Just lie back and think a while
‘Bout the changes in your life
So how the fuck can you stand there and tell me
How you’ll be ten years from now

The things that were important then
They just don’t matter now
The dreams you held so tightly
Now you just don’t care about
Don’t live the way you used to
‘Cause your life’s been rearranged
Don’t act the way you used to
“Cause your mind’s just not the same

Constant change

Ya thought you were so positive
But you’re second-guessing now
You never can tell just the way it’s gonna be
Just what fate the future holds

The things that were important then
They just don’t matter now
The dreams you held so tightly
Now you just don’t care about
Don’t live the way you used to
‘Cause your life’s been rearranged
Don’t act the way you used to
“Cause your mind’s just not the same

Constant change

The Door

There’s a room inside each of us
That’s under lock and key
We’ve got to store some things in there
We don’t want anybody to see
A shroud of cobwebs, a blanket of dust
Shed our prejudice and fears
Never think too much about that place
Until someone comes too near

Suppose somebody figures out
The way to get to that room and then
Breaks down the door
I wonder what might happen
If I lose my inhibitions and just
Break down the door

Can’t let them see all the selfishness
Sealed off from intimacy
Got to hide the pride, the greed
The indifference, the vanity
Brace that door against the world
Then pretend to care so much
Real love, trust and respect can wait outside
The room remains untouched

Suppose somebody figures out
The way to get to that room and then
Breaks down the door
I wonder what might happen
If I lose my inhibitions and just
Break down the door

Exceptions

One fell swoop, two to tango
Three little words, four on the floor

Counting up the rules
While exceptions mount
There’s more sides to most stories
Than any of us can count

Five-finger discount, six-gun sound
Seven ways to Sunday, eight daydreams a week

Counting up the rules
While exceptions mount
There’s more sides to most stories
Than any of us can count

One fine day, two little too late
Three on a match, four-way clover
Five gold plate rings, sixth sense sticks
Seven eleven heaven, eight-cylinder headache

Shallow

Some distant music bends my ear
Away from what you wanted me to hear
I’m floating for a second, words hang in the air
I nod knowingly to cover up

Got a right to be upset
When I haven’t even paid you basic respect
But sometimes I try to get into your head
Only to find no one home

Bathed in your breath, jimmied open by your prying eye
Everything empties out, can’t you tell I’m floundering
Don’t listen too close, you’ll hear me rattling around in my shell
Can’t you tell I’m floundering, I’m just like you

I talk to myself, but I catch it
Before anyone can see my lips move
I doubt myself, I fake a swagger
No one ever sees me faltering

Do I seem too humble for you
Do I stumble too much for you
Don’t bore me with anything deep
I’m just as shallow as you

If you could eavesdrop on my inner voices
And hear the hollow laughter as I trip over my choices
Maybe the ridicule would seem familiar
Maybe you’re just like me

You’ve had a weak heart, you’ve sensed blank fear
Forgot who you were, worried how you’d appear
How about cutting me some slack next time
‘Cause I’m just like you

Here

Here for the sensation
Here for the frustration
Here for the duration
We’re history

Here for the solution
Here for the confusion
Here for disillusion
We’re history

Here to make a start
Here to call it art
Here to fall apart
We’re history

Here to make a mark
Here just for a lark
Left here in the dark
We’re history

Going Down Slow

Sucked into the flow
Sinking down low
Going down slow

No future shocks, rocket shot stocks
Heavy rotations and layman’s translations
Numbing repetition, channel switching is sedition
Quicken my pulse with some other something else

Buying mass appeal
Almost feels real
Pretty good deal

When I start using words like always and never
When normal is an excuse not to bother to change
Ignoring the stuff oozing out between the lines
That’s when I know that I’m going down slow

Imitations turned real, such a good deal
Swimming in fakes, crocodile tear lakes
Culture chews its tail, coughs up another furball fad
Nostalgia slaves jump in freshly dug up graves

No danger in a while
Trade substance for style
Missing by a mile

Practiced deceptions and artists conceptions
Easy to look at ‘til it gets in your eye
So warm to the touch, resembles flesh so much
Easy to hear, just don’t listen too close

Blip Culture

Save me from deep thought, gimme a show
Hold the insight, just an opinion to go
Don’t confuse me with details or bore me with facts
Skip over the hard parts, gotta learn to relax

Life as a series of 15 second spots
A miracle baby and another space shot
Blip – it’s so shocking and so sad

No purchase necessary, no salesman will call
Your complete family tree on a plaque for your wall
Remote channel changer inlaid with mother of pearl
I gave you ten minutes, now give me the world

The thickest thick, the richest rich
The softest soft, the whitest white

Call a press conference and blow your brains out
The gun that sticks to the roof of your mouth
The same old story, like it’s never been told
Someone else’s bones shaking out in the cold

Just ‘Cause

Breathe down my neck, get it off your chest
Put your arm around a memory, or keep it at arms length
Hold your heart in your hand, or wear it on your sleeve
Put your shoulder to the wheel

Put your nose to the grindstone
Shoot yourself in the foot
And put it in your mouth

Give me a hand, lend me an ear
Gather some wool and pull it over my eyes
Smell a rat, taste defeat
Get a leg up, put your foot down, turn the other cheek

Play it by ear, then pay through the nose
Keep your eyes peeled, stick your neck out
Put your nose out of joint, then cut it off to spite your face

Do what Simon says and nobody gets hurt
I’d do what Simon says if I were you
Do what Simon says and no one’s the wiser
Do what Simon says and nobody gets hurt

Give me a hand, lend me an ear
Gather some wool and pull it over my eyes
Smell a rat, taste defeat
Get a leg up, put your foot down, turn the other cheek
And lose some face

White (With Black Shutters)

Why re-pave the roads, they’ll only drive faster
The next thing they’ll turn this place into a fast-food disaster
Corporate affluence furnishes living room museums
Storybook hamlets, tourists slow down to see ‘em

Aesthetic fascism sucks the color out of this town
If it’s not black and white, better make it gray or brown
It’s four acre zoning so if you can’t afford it yet
Then go live in places we’re trying to forget

We’ve got enough folks here, sure don’t need more
They might crowd our view, this quaintness is well paid for
Don’t need development, we need zero growth
Progress or exclusiveness – can’t have both

Why build rental housing, already too much space
For those without the means to widen the tax base
More luxury condos might be just fine
Maids and cooks and caretakers can live somewhere up the line

Won’t find vagrants sprawled in our gutters
We’ve corrected history, it’s all white with black shutters

Some very rednecks under starched white collars
If only other hearts and hands controlled all those dollars

Human resources valued fewer pockets lined
If the minds with the money were otherwise inclined

Saturdays

Got a reason to go on, even as we speak
Stretching out like a safety net, while I fall off the cliff of the week
Thirty six hundred of them, if you’re lucky, womb to tomb
Still, I’ve never seen a Saturday that ever came too soon

Saturday, I got up just in time to hit the sack
I’ve thrown away some hours that I wouldn’t want back
Waste not want not, will I ever see the light
Or is it haste makes waste, which one is right

Old enough now to see how time can fly
Lost too many days in the blink of a tired eye
Mention Monday morning and I’m overcome with gloom
Can’t remember a Saturday that ever came too soon

Drained out hours of effort in a week that wouldn’t stop
Splashed around like a foolish kid in a day filled to the top
I have known some moments to last a thousand years
Tried to think fast as a week blew past and dusted me with fear

Time expands, time contracts, it drags until it flies
Hours last minutes then last hours, no time to wonder why
If I could grab hold of the hands of time, if I could steer my fate
I’d fix it so Saturday would never come too late

Throw the clock out the window again, I know time will fly
Keep thinking my watch has stopped, Friday night’s on my mind
Somehow while the hours drag on, years go blurring past
‘Cause I’ve never known a Saturday to last

Faulty Towers

It doesn’t seem like love could ever lead to despair
But sometimes I think I’m coming to the limits of care
Do you think our minds are really that far apart
Something binds our hearts
Buried in frustration now I’m at the point where
I have to dig a little deeper, is there more feeling there
Digging up my insides every time that we fight
Hoping that I’m right

I’m just looking for what’s true – how about you
Can’t throw dirt on someone else – ‘til I dig into myself

A cynical stance is such an easy way out
Of making decisions, you can brush off the doubt
Dump your tougher choices on someone else’s head
No sweat or tears are shed
Leaning on your shovel spitting scorn on the ground
The task gets more tedious with you just standing around
I’ll just keep on digging though my patience wears thin
While you kick the dirt back in

I’m just digging for some truth – that I can’t pry loose
You say I’m mining a cliché – keep digging anyway

Who wants to do the work it takes to build compromise
It’s hard to scrape down through so many layers of lies
When you think you’ve reached a solid spot where you want to stand
It might sink in the sand
Lay up a foundation with all the days that have passed
Cementing it with trust, wondering if it will last
Construct a shaky tower that has just the right sway
To keep bending either way

Dig way down, build way up, is it sturdy enough
Built with time, sweat and tears, but will it last for years

We slapped up a tower on this compromised place
It wobbles and leans and puts stress on its base
You walk by and laugh while it bends in the breeze
Just some crazy monument we built out of need