Hilltops of Blowing Heather (Youngtree)
We made our bed down in the shade, where rest was closer to find
And a brook babbled on, as we dosed in our small nook
Dreams took us both, and we may have dreamed together
Of hilltops of blowing heather
That's what I dreamed, that's what I saw
That's what I dreamed, here's what I saw
I saw you there at the top of that hill
With your skirt blowing in the wind
And, oh, how you stood so perfectly still
With three pillars of light on your pale white skin
And in that dream I tried to run to you, I ran with all my might
But scarce could I lift my legs to move
But you could always take flight
If only you had wanted to
But always you chose to stay upon the earth,
The top of a hill satisfied you
I begged you to fly, I said “This is your rebirth”
But you could only laugh, watching flowers on the move
I beseeched you to soar, for I knew I could not reach you
Even on the ground, I was made to stay beneath you
And I awoke to find three pillars of light
And your pale white skin between
With the brook still babbling on,
and you off in a dream
Did we dream together?
Of hilltops of blowing heather?
That's what I dreamed, that's what I saw
That's what I dreamed; tell me, is that what you saw?
Dirt Party (Youngtree, Kirby)
Ever since the day she got fired
Kelly has been living on a string
She sold ‘most everything she had acquired
She’s come to see that stuff don’t mean a thing
She sold her house, she sold her El Camino
And she gave that cash right to the Sally Ann
She said “Sure I’m broke, but it don’t bother me, no
‘cause it won’t mean shit when I’m in the sand.”
She says:
You might as well be a blade of grass,
a bump on a log, a splinter in the ass.
You’re better off trying to make some friends
‘cause we’re headed for that dirt party.
Charlie was in love with his body
And he checked the mirror about fifty times a day
He’d give himself a wink and he’d say, “Lordy! Please, God, don’t ever take these looks away!”
But he was up against the laws of time and physics
And he couldn’t fight the migration of his hair
So he bought himself a Jaguar and a Rolex
But it’s too bad, Charlie, ‘cause no one cared.
We can try our best not to be forgotten
We might get ahead, but we’ll never win
Because in the end, we all wind up rotten
Just like a bunch of turnips in a compost bin
We’ll be pushing daisies at that dirt party!
Musical Chairs (Youngtree, Wakeham)
There are children in a schoolhouse playing a game
Get five chairs and six little dears, move to the music
They dance in a circle; so anxious, so hopeful each one
But when the music stops, another child is gone
It's Musical Chairs, Musical Chairs
Get up and dance, there's no need for fear.
Our seats will be taken, so a fuss don't be makin'
We're all playing Musical Chairs
She took her family on the highway, the Graceland tape was playin’
The windshield shattered, glass fell like rain
She gave up her seat so her loved ones could remain
Now they are still dancing but she’s out of the game
Of Musical Chairs, Musical Chairs
Get up and dance, there's no need for fear.
Our seats will be taken, so a fuss don't be makin'
We're all playing Musical Chairs
Get up and dance. Let’s throw up our hands and cry
‘cause a chance like this one, it don’t come by
too often, Let’s soften our minds for defeat
And feel the glory in moving our feet
I heard you died in the morning, drinking your coffee
Your wife in the bedroom, there was no way to stop it
Your chair got taken but I won't complain
For you always understood and you so loved the game...
You gave a flawless performance and when curtain call came
You bowed out gracefully and danced off the stage
It was Musical Chairs, Musical Chairs
Get up and dance, there's no need for fear.
Our seats will be taken, so a fuss don't be makin'
We're all playing Musical Chairs
Something Divine (Youngtree)
Did you see that pure white milkweed blow
beyond the stubborn pine?
Did you see the grass wear a coat of snow?
Isn’t it divine?
Honey, we chose something divine.
Did you hear the geese cry out, my love,
earlier this morn?
Did you see the heron fly so low
and land upon our porch?
Honey, we chose something divine.
Did you feel the wind of a housefly’s wings,
like a tiny storm?
The winter’s long but she’s safe in here,
we’ll help her to keep warm.
...
Can you smell the cedar burn, my love,
in our iron stove?
We have waited long, now it’s our turn
to rest in peace and love.
Honey, we chose something divine.
She Found Me (Youngtree)
She’s the expression of an apple core
Softest skin but at the source
She hardened to protect her own life force
Her seeds are poison, but still I gorge
When I’m done I’ll ask for more
If I die I’ll only thank the lord
She came from the ground,
From the ground like me
Like a pollen on the breeze she found ...
She found me, She found me
Like a wolf hunting her nightly meat
She found me, She found me
And I lay myself down upon her feet
(She found me, She found me)
I never get to taste her flesh
But I take what I can get
She cast a spell and I was in her net
She’s like a fable or a holy mess
Snow White’s bane or Eve’s, I guess
The Tree of Knowledge and I failed the test
She came from the ground,
From the ground, like me
like a pollen on the breeze she found ...
She found me, She found me
Like a wolf hunting her nightly meat
She found me, She found me
And I lay myself down upon her feet
(She took me, She took me)
She took me in her mouth, she carried me far away
(She found me, She found me)
She’s the expression of an apple core,
Lay her in the grass and, lo!
She’ll see another hundred thousand born
Like a wolf hunting her nightly meat
she found me, she found me
And I lay myself down upon her feet
(She took me, She took me)
She took me in her mouth and she carried me far away
(She laid me, She laid me)
She laid me down and made a game for herself to play
I woke like a newborn, on my own.
Why Didn't You? (Youngtree)
Did your mother tell you you had to die, Dear Child?
Or was her pain so great that she kept it hidden?
And how long did it take before the world, unbidden,
broke down her plan for keeping you safe
from the knowledge of your demise?
You were a toddler, still, when asphalt paved a road
for you to discover that some things, when they appear,
are final.
You saw life's blood drain out on to that road
And knew you, too, would meet that end.
So why didn't you get a decent job?
Why didn't you join that mob?
Why couldn't you find your place in the marketplace?
When you saw life's lost body laid upon that road
And the One who lives inside you spoke:
“You’d better understand, child.”
You said, “It’s understood.”
So why didn't you start a family?
Why didn't you prepare to retire?
Why didn't you spend your time becoming
someone they’d admire?
You saw life's end bend back to meet its start
You saw the two not so very, very far apart
And the space between belonged only to you
With one path left to walk, and no one understood
Ten Million Ways to Decay (Youngtree)
We’ve got one dead in a house fire, two hit by loose tires,
three died climbing electrical wire, four more retired after five days lost in the mire,
six crucified on Golgotha Hill, seven overdosed on pleasure pills,
eight still-born babies, snow buried nine in the alpine up on a great big mountain
And the numbers get so high that I can’t keep countin’
But the earth kept spinning okay ... There are ten million ways to decay
We’ve got ovicide, feticide, infanticide, fratricide, matricide and patricide is parricide;
there is regicide, deicide, cyanide, formaldehyde, drowned in tide, suicide, homicide, genocide,
we decide to imbibe herbicides, pesticides, and nematocides –
no matter the size, no matter the mass, you can get yourself drowned in mustard gas
or phosphor-ass, upon a mountain pass or in the grass,
there’s Paris Green, chlorine, fluorine, benzene, nicotine, and methyl-mercury
In the blood flowing to your brain ... There are ten million ways to decay
Well, you might freeze on the concrete or the state police might kick you off the streets,
send you east if you’re Native, you’ll be found on the ground in a new town
that you ain’t too familiar with but there’s a price to be indigenous and drunk,
so a disingenuous punk is gonna throw you in a trunk and he will
take you where the wheat blows and the snow and sleet blows
and it’s forty degrees below zero, time to meet your hero;
he’s your protector and your neighbour and your saviour acting on his best behaviour
out in the middle of the storm, letting murder be the norm;
in the darkness, here him say ... There are ten million ways to decay
The number of ways to die, they begin to amaze me, like ten to the power of something crazy!
We got despots like Pol Pot, Kristallnacht, forget not jumping off rooftops,
or white cops ringing out gunshots at black teenagers, because they all belong in the ground or in cages,
Got children working all day for shit wages,
it’s all old news, been written in the pages of the newspapers for ages and ages,
so what’s going to save us from the outrageous?
It’s a mess – take Dhaka, Bangladesh, making clothes for Joe Fresh and the building collapsed,
that’s eleven-hundred-thirty dead so we can wear eleven-dollar caps on our heads.
And with a cap on your head, you might find yourself dead in your bed in suburbia
for wearing a turban, you thought you deserve’d a life, but they served you a knife in the night,
and like that you are an unwilling martyr, and still there’s four thousand slaughtered indigenous daughters
the white man got out of the way ... There are ten million ways to decay
Now you might think I disrespect death when I talk like this, you get quite pissed ‘cause I was born with a deathwish; that’s why I’m always acting like this, climbing up a cliff and jumping in a ditch,
but I never heard the fly that got eaten by the fish complain when she ended up as food for the fish’s brain,
Now fish is brainfood for human beings, it’s all the same going up the chain,
life feeds on life and besides there is war, stress, storm, strife, crack pipes, hepatitis, men at night,
you might run a red light and expedite your end-of-life
And I know it’s taboo to say ... But there are ten million ways to decay
Cornfields (Youngtree)
When I was a boy in the backwoods of Ontario
My daddy had a tobacco farm and I would roam
Through the cornfields, where I spent my youth
Through the cornfields, where I learned the truth
My friends and I on our pedal bikes, those long dirt roads we'd ride
Every summer's day and by the lake we'd play until the day turned into night
And in the dark on our way home, we'd drop our bikes and lie
Upon the dirt, our backs to the earth, and watch the corn grow toward the sky
In the cornfields, where I spent my youth
In the cornfields, where I learned the truth
Then at the age of sixteen years, my country went to war
So I gave my name but the man, he said, "Boy you're too young to go on tour"
No friends left to find, a girl came by. Sally Greenwood brought me
To the cornfields, where she laid me down, and she placed her self upon me
Upon the dirt, my back to the earth, Sally held me in her thighs
As she pulled her dress up over her head, I watched the corn grow toward the sky
Two boys we raised and a living we made, planting corn and planting clover
And when we grew too old to work the land, the boys, they took over
Then at the age of eighty-three, Mrs. Sally Johnson died
And when my time is done beneath the sun, I'll be buried right by her side
In the cornfields, where I spent my youth
In the cornfields, where I learned the truth
In the cornfields, where I'll spend my death
In the cornfields, I have lived without regret
I have lived without regret.
Living in the Dark (Youngtree)
I’ve always been fond of living in the dark
I always have found peace in the gloom
When the world gets dark, I want to get dark, too
When the world is quiet, let me be quiet
When the world gets dark the city turns on its lights
And when the world is quiet, the city makes a lot of noise
Seems nobody here can just live in the dark’s bliss
So I guess I’ll have to leave and find my own piece of darkness
When gloom approaches, I won’t turn on a light
I have no reason to take over the night
My candle’s dying, I don’t need to see
When night it comes, I’ll let it take over me