LATELY

Lately, I don't think of you at all
Or wonder what you're up to,
Or how you're getting on
I never think of calling you,
Or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night,
or whose arms you wake in

I'm living alone, living alone
I don't need you anymore
Living alone, living alone
I don't need you anymore

Lately, I don't get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And I don't think about your face or anything you said
And I don't think twice when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame

I'm living alone, living alone
I don't need you, anymore
Living alone, living alone
I don't need you anymore

I never walk alone and think of all the empty words
Or wonder when the day will break, or when the tides will turn
And I don't break down when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame

I'm living alone, living alone
I don't need you anymore
Living alone living alone
I don't need you anymore

Lately I don't think of you at all
Lately
Oh, lately

CAN'T SAY NO

Captivate, cultivate, relegate and chalk it up to the basic needs
Dissipate, isolate, these days you can't run or believe all that you read
And all the kids with the download brainwaves
Holding up signs saying "guns kill, gods saves"
And all in the form of the faceless news cast
Commercials that say live well but die fast

Even if you wanted to, even if you could, oh-oh
You can't say no
Even if you wanted to, even if you could, oh-oh
You can't say no

Calculate, consecrate, elevate and give it up to reality
Distillate, venerate, these days you can feel or conceive all that you see
And all the kids with the soundbyte same chains
Choking up lines playing who's-who mind games
All in the spell of the speechless redress
Commercials that say take more but give less

Even if you wanted to, even if you could, oh-oh
You can't say no
Even if you wanted to, even if you could, oh-oh
You can't say no

Consonant keepers of baited breath wandering
Desolate dreamers with heads caught up in the sway
Obstinate leaders of organized ignorance
Making up rules for the mute and the waylaid
But all the kids that are raised in the free-fall
And from the silence of a pacified strip mall
They pay the wage with the dollars of gravity
On the bedside phone my conscience calls to me

Even if you wanted to, even if you could, oh-oh
You can't say no
Even if you wanted to, even if you could, oh-oh
You can't say no

THE CAPTIVE MIND

Shame to shame when you fell apart
But you woke me up in a dream and came to say,
Please don't forget, just lay in wait
Pain the pain when you played the part
And you took it all up and you turned your back away
Tried to forget, and relocate

Read the words of The Captive Mind
And you tried to leave the past behind
But webs spun slightly, they catch those likely
To come back again, come back again

Well same the same that you've always been
When you took it all up what it took to do you in
And fall under and run away
Blame the blame on a broken heart
When you pack it all up and you make a start again
But call me up on my birthday

Read the words of The Captive Mind
And you tried to leave the past behind
But webs spun slightly, they catch those likely
To come back again, come back again

Born in a boat
Your drifting soul
The walls you build
The push and pull
Come back again
Come back again

Well you love the love but you couldn't stay
So you gave it all up for the Mandelay Bay
The plastic beach and passing plates
Shame the shame when you fell apart
But you woke me up when the dreamer came to say,
"Please don't forget, just lay and wait"

Read the words of The Captive Mind
And you tried to leave the past behind
But webs spun slightly, they catch those likely
To come back again, please come back again

YOU CAN COME TO ME

Your self-effacing charms are shot
Wake up now to what you are
and what you're not
You can run, run, run
But you can't escape

Taste is sharp like mustard seed
Finding out that what you want is not what you need
You can talk, talk, talk
But the words aren't clear

When your straightedge line curves
And obscures all that you see
When your sure-shot sight blurs
You can come to me

It's too late now, your fun's been had
Your shining, blinding myriad burned-out
And fell down, down down
To the ground

Live like flower, light like stone
You call them friends but now you find
You're on your own
And they're gone, gone, gone
With the morning light

When the black-cloud sky rains
On your ragged company
When your thoughts slip from their chains
You can come to me

SHED YOUR LOVE

Drank the dark wine of the New York night
With shattered mind across the borderline
Spent the night in someone else’s arms
Shed your love, shed your love
Shed your love, shed your love

On a subway train before the dawn
The ride was short but my thoughts were long
Couldn’t figure what got in to me
Shed your love, shed your love
Shed your love, shed your love

Headed out to leave it all behind
Escape it all to see what I could find
Told you on the phone across the sea
Shed your love, shed your love
Shed your love, shed your love

Fell off of the plane in Amsterdam
Shopped the streets to find out who I am
Came on back to near reality
Shed your love, shed your love
Shed your love, shed your love

Home again to find that you were gone
On a subway train before the dawn
Said you couldn’t stay and wait for me
Shed your love, shed your love
Shed your love, shed your love

Drank the dark wine of the New York night
With shattered mind across the borderline
Spent the night in someone else’s arms
Shed your love, shed your love
Shed your love, shed your love

KEEP YOUR EYES AHEAD

Keep your eyes on right
Keep your eyes on right ahead
Keep your rudders right
Keep your rudders right ahead

Don't go back to there and
You'll go back to there again
Don't go back to there and
You'll go back to there again

But you came on like you knew you would
Wearing high top shoes, walking home from school
And I just bout fell right off the balcony
When i heard you calling back to me again

Keep your eyes on right
kKep your eyes on right ahead
Get your head on right
Get your head on right again

Don't go back to there and
You'll go back to there again
Don't go back to there and
You'll go back to there ah gain

But you came on like you knew you would
Wearing high top shoes, walking home from school
And I just bout fell right off the balcony
When i heard you calling back to me again
Keep your eyes ahead

BACK TO THIS

We were giving up time
We were giving on back on all that's left to do
Sometimes you're left to do
sometimes there's nothing left to say

We were giving up time
We were giving up ties and everyone knew it too
Rope busted, disgusted
In all we knew or cared

But it always, comes back to this
Yes it always, comes back to this again

We were kicking around
We were broken up bound and everything fell to fear
Sometimes you can’t relate
Sometimes there's nothing left to say

We were giving up time
We were giving up ties and everyone knew it too
Tongue tied and divided
The words just can’t be found

It always, comes back to this
Yes it always

Six feet below, or well fed and free
How should I know, you’re so far from me
Could try for more, could settle up for less
I'm not keeping score, don't expect you to confess
One side is late, the other side too soon
I flip a coin, there's more sides than two
Trouble ahead, but there's just no going back
I pray for rain, while the water's rising fast

And it always
Oh it always, comes back to this

HALLELUJAH

And though we did not believe in God
The gray skies fell, we felt the pressure drop
And we were feeling down
Some eyes looking down at us
And those that made the call to judge
But when they spoke said naught at all
The words that came made not a sound
Our mouths said not a sound at all
But shut instead we wrote a book
And rearranged the signs and forms to
Look like something understood
Like something we had seen before
And waiting pensive sat and looked
Up to the stars and counting
All the suns and all the moons
How sad it was that we could not believe

And everyone moved with ease
And everyone moved with ease and they said
We all said Hallelujah
We all said Hallelujah
And everyone moved around with ease
And everyone moved with ease around and then
We all said Hallelujah
We don’t want answers anyway

Still we could not conceive the call
The midnight fell, we felt the measure fall
And we were feeling down
Some eyes were looking down at us
And waiting pensive sat and looked
Up to the stars and counting
All the suns and all the moons
How sad it was that we could not believe.

And everyone moved with ease
And everyone moved with ease and they said
We all said Hallelujah
We all said Hallelujah
And everyone moved around with ease
And everyone fell right to their knees and then
We all said Hallelujah
We don’t want answers anyway
We don’t want answers anyway

BROKEN AFTERNOON

Sometimes you feel like a shame or like a ruse
A half cooked idea or a trick to be used
And sometimes you feel so lowly halted and stark
Waving in the wind like a flag that's torn apart
But we all walk blindly when we stagger and we strut
And we're all dealt the hand with the cards of our luck
And we all bow down silent at the words when we’re struck
By the shameless light of the broken afternoon

I went walking in the night all alone
Darkness seeping slowly in my flesh and in my bone
And the solitary biting at the thoughts inside my head
And the words came slowly and the unborn dream said
That we all lose the path to the black and the blue
But we are come back slackly to the tried and the true
We'll all come together, no it's never too soon
We'll all see the light of the broken afternoon

In the scientific evening Jesus left too soon
Trading his last dollar for a dirty motel room
Cause he gave all his riches before he knew what he had
Money isn't evil and people aren't bad
No we all just descend down to the mud and the dirt
And we all go insane from the pain and the hurt
And all of us are swayed by the hungry pale moon
And we all wake up clear in the broken afternoon

I used to be young but i'm not old now
The shimmering passing of youth’s gaudy bow
The path to now or never is paved with ambition plain
As a sail in the wind or an empty garden space
That we all till and toil in the slowly rising dawn
And we're all fit to fail ‘til the future's finally won
Yeah we're all faintly waiting for the unripe to bloom
In the shuttering light of the broken afternoon

NO REGRETS

Well I laughed out loud when I saw your face
Saying please don’t leave me now
Well I cried out loud when I saw your face
Saying please don’t leave me now

And when that sun sets I’ll have no regrets
I’ll walk out that door and I won’t shed a tear