Thread thief! :P

One of my favorite songs by ani, at least it is for today... from "Out of Range"

Buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the world,
that's what it takes
All that steel and stone
is no match for the air, my friend
what doesn't bend breaks
what doesn't bend breaks

we are made to bleed
and scab and heal and bleed again
and turn every scar into a joke
we are made to fight
and fuck and talk and fight again
and sit around and laugh until we choke
sit around and laugh until we choke

I don't know who you were expecting
probably some bitch who does not budge
with eyes the size of snow
I may get pissed off sometimes
but you seem like the type to hold a grudge
and in the end, I just let go...

I'm saying Joanna Newsom's "Inflammatory Writ":

Oh, where is your inflammatory writ?
Your text that would incite a light,
"Be lit"?
Our music deserving devotion unswerving -
cry "Do I deserve her?" with unflagging fervor.
(Well, no you do not, if you cannot get over it)

And what's it mean when suddenly we're spent?
Ambition came and reared its head, and went.
Even mollusks have weddings, though solemn and leaden
but you dirge for the dead, take no jam on your bread
- just a supper of salt and a waltz through your empty bed.

And all at once it came to me,
and i wrote and hunched 'till four-thirty
But that vestal light, it burns out with the night
in spite of all the time that we spent on it:
one bedraggled ghost of a sonnet!
While outside, the wild boars root
without bending a bough underfoot-
O it breaks my heart; I don't know how they do't.

And as for my inflammatory writ?
Well, I wrote it and I was not inflamed one bit.
Advice from the master derailed that disaster;
he said "Hand that pen over to ME, poetaster!"
While across the great plains, keening lovely & awful,
ululate the last Great American Novels -
An unlawful lot, left to stutter and freeze, floodlit.
(But at least they didn't run, to their undying credit.)

Anything by Fugazi. A random example:

Reclaimation
These are our demands: We want control of our bodies.
Decisions will now be ours. You carry out your noble actions,
we will carry our noble scars. Reclaimation.
No one here is asking, no one here is asking,
but there is a question of trust. You will do what looks good to you on paper,
we will do what we must. Return, return, return.
Carry my body.

Soul Coughing, "Screenwriter's Blues"

Exits to freeways
wisted like knots on
the fingers
jewels cleaving
skin between
breasts.

Your Cadillac breathes
four hundred horses
over blue lines
you are going
to Reseda
to make love
to a model
from Ohio
whose real name
you don't
know

you spin
like the cadillac was
overturning down a
cliff on television
and the radio is on
and the radioman is speaking
and the radioman says
women were a curse
so men built Paramount
studios
and men built Columbia
studios
and men built
Los Angeles

it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles

And the radioman says
it is a beautiful night out there!
And the radioman says
Rock and Roll lives!
And the radioman says
it is a beautiful night out there
in Los Angeles
you live
in Los Angeles
and you are going to
Reseda; we are all
in some way or
another going to
Reseda someday
to die
and the radioman
laughs because
the radioman fucks
a model too




Gone savage
for teenagers with
automatic weapons and
boundless love
gone savage for
teenagers who are
aesthetically pleasing
in other words
fly
Los Angeles beckons
the teenagers
to come to her
on buses;
Los Angeles loves
love

it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles

I am going to
Los Angeles
to built a screenplay about
lovers who
murder each
other
I am going to
Los Angeles
to see my own
name on a
screen, five feet
long and luminous
as the radioman says
it is 5 am
and the sun has charred
the other side of
the world and come
back to us
and painted the smoke
over our heads
an imperial violet
it is 5 am
and you are listening
to Los Angeles.

You are listening.
You are listening.
You are listening.
You are listening.

This is probably my favorite of the many beautiful song lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim:

I remember

I remember sky
It was blue as ink
Or at least I think
I remember sky.

I remember snow
Soft as feathers
Sharp as thumb tacks
Coming down like lint
And it made you squint
When the wind would blow.

And ice like vinyl
On the streets
Cold as silver
White as sheets
Rain like strings
And changing things
Like leaves.

I remember leaves
Green as spearmint
Crisp as paper.
I remember trees
Bare as coat racks
Spread like broken umbrellas.

And parks and bridges,
Ponds and zoos,
Ruddy faces,
Muddy shoes,
Light and noise and
Bees and boys
And days.

I remember days,
Or at least I try.
But as years go by
They're sort of haze,
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky.

Nearly anything from Dead Can Dance:

_In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed are Kings_
If it were within our power,
Beyond the reach of slavish pride.
To no longer harbour grievances,
Behind the mask’s opportunists facade.
We could welcome the responsibilty
Like a long lost friend,
And re-establish the kingdom of laughter
In the dolls house once again.
For time has imprisoned us
In the order of our years,
In the discipline of our ways
And in the passing of momentary stillness
We can view our chaos in motion
And the subsequent collisions of fools
Well versed in the subtle art of slavery.

presently, my favorite is "deacon blues" by steely dan.
here's why:

this is the day
of the expanding man
that shape is my shade
there where i used to stand
it seems like only yesterday
i gazed through the glass
at ramblers
wild gamblers
that’s all in the past

you call me a fool
you say it’s a crazy scheme
this one’s for real
i already bought the dream
so useless to ask me why
throw a kiss and say goodbye
i’ll make it this time
i’m ready to cross that fine line

chorus:
i’ll learn to work the saxophone
i’ll play just what i feel
drink scotch whisky all night long
and die behind the wheel
they got a name for the winners in the world
i want a name when i lose
they call alabama the crimson tide
call me deacon blues

my back to the wall
a victim of laughing chance
this is for me
the essence of true romance
sharing the things we know and love
with those of my kind
libations
sensations
that stagger the mind

i crawl like a viper
through these suburban streets
make love to these women
languid and bittersweet
i’ll rise when the sun goes down
cover every game in town
a world of my own
i’ll make it my home sweet home

chorus:
i’ll learn to work the saxophone
i’ll play just what i feel
drink scotch whisky all night long
and die behind the wheel
they got a name for the winners in the world
i want a name when i lose
they call alabama the crimson tide
call me deacon blues

this is the night
of the expanding the man
i take one last drag
as i approach the stand
i cried when i wrote this song
sue me if i play too long
this brother is free
i’ll be what i want to be

chorus:
i’ll learn to work the saxophone
i’ll play just what i feel
drink scotch whisky all night long
and die behind the wheel
they got a name for the winners in the world
i want a name when i lose
they call alabama the crimson tide
call me deacon blues

~e.

Peter Blegvad has written many brilliant songs. So many, I'm not sure which one to choose as an example for people who may never have heard of him.

Model of Kindness

'Tho she was no stranger
to back-breaking strain
none of us ever
heard her complain
or speak of another
with a trace of disdain
or derision.

A model of kindness
at her request
we keep her grave clean
& hope she's found rest
now her spirit is free
'cos her body at best was
a prison.

Weave a wreath
of willow & ivy
heigh-ho the carrion crow.

Dust of Milano
& 12 other towns
dust on her jewels
& her evening gowns
they gave her nothing
but suitable grounds for
the blues.

She'd never married
never been kissed -
nor did she wonder
what she had missed.
She never found love
all that hard to resist
or refuse.

Weave a wreath
of willow & ivy
heigh-ho the carrion crow.
Paradise is only a story.
Heigh-ho the carrion crow.

Now the intercom is
coughing in the weddingcake
hotel, guests are gathered
laughing, to bid a friend
a last farewell.

She moved among us
a creature apart
a physical phantom
with a knife in her heart
a lamb among lions
yoked to a cart
with the brake on.

She spoke of things
you could taste & could touch
nothing too abstract
& no double-dutch
she was limited, yes,
(there was only so much
she could take on).

Weave a wreath
of willow & ivy
heigh-ho the carrion crow.
Paradise is only a story.
Heigh-ho the carrion crow.

When she was aging
she walked with a cane
grown harder of hearing
gone blind & insane,
we won't see her like
in our lifetime again...