Category Archives: acoustic

World of Lies

Written in the summer of 1983… I was looking for something to shore up the romantic end of my song portfolio, which, after the punk years, was looking a little threadbare.

But what came out was this song that laces cynicism with romanticism (me, I think the two go hand in hand — unlike love and cynicism, say) but manages, I like to think, to still suggest an honest, soul deep yearning. Or not.

It may seem strange, 22 years after its writing, that I’ve never gotten a proper, produced recording of this song onto tape or disk — but I have often included it in live sets. I keep thinking I’ll look up in the middle of performing it in some coffee house or dive and lock eyes with my next soul-mate, I guess.

This version gets the chords and words right but I’m still looking to the future to capture the song’s true essence. You should pardon the expression.

THE WORLD OF LIES

Meet me in the world of lies
let’s be hypnotized…

You know that love is just a foolish game
it always fades away
I know that you won’t stay
but at least you’re hear today

Meet me in the world of lies
let’s be hypnotized
Something in me goes wrong
every time a dream dies

I know that I’ll always be alone
and I know life’s just to die
I know a wise man gives up the world
but maybe I’m not that wise

Meet me in the world of lies
let’s be hypnotized
Don’t let this dream die
meet me in the world of lies

Summer 1983

Somerset’s Mom

Time for Another Flood

Leave a reply

XXXXX

For a long time now, I’ve had a couple of extended works in mind. One of them I’ve mentioned before: the Codename Baby opera. (I just made that name up, just now. Whaddya think? No, I didn’t think so, either. Still airballin’.) That work, of course, as envisioned, will cannibalize a bunch of my songs featuring the Baby character, drawing a tragic arc through those existing sets of lyrics. (I mean, it’s opera, right? You ever hear of a happy opera? Right.)

Anyhow, while I didn’t have it specifically in mind when I wrote this grim jeremiad, another project bouncing from the back burner to the warming tray and back again has been a novel or other work built around a powerful mega-preacher. I’ve toyed with it as the story of a crisis of faith, a murder mystery, a love story, an end-of-times thriller, a Faustian spinoff… I try to be flexible.

After I wrote this song, I realized it fit the fuzzy extended concept of that project, which eventually became known as the Flood project.

Approach it within whatever context your own mind cares to wrap around it — including that of a plain ol’ mad-as-hell rant against mankind, which, of course, at core, it is. (I get paid by the comma. You knew that, right?)

Time for Another Flood

People think heaven is behind the sky
People thinking crazy things and not thinking why
They think the answer’s going to fall from above
I think the answer is another flood

It’s time, time for another flood
It’s time, baby, time for another flood

People live in wickedness and dwell in greed
They’ll murder their brother to get more than they need
They even rape the Mother and swim in her blood
I call on the Father for another flood

It’s time, time for another flood
It’s time, baby, time for another flood

All of this truth has all been a lie
Our immortal souls have already died
The time for salvation has come and gone
and all that’s coming now is another flood

It’s time, time for another flood
It’s time, baby, time for another flood

Someone Said Something

Leave a reply

I'll keep it on the VCR and watch it over and over again...

So you’re sitting in your favorite dimly lit cockail lounge in a strip mall not far from where you live and the local Eyewitness News comes on: coroner’s men hauling a couple of bodies out the front door of a tiny bungalow.

Someone says, “Hey, Joe, ain’t that your house?” And you look again, this time noticing the distinctive, worn-at-the heels cowboy boots sticking out from under a sheet. Your best friend’s boots.

And you look at the other body and you don’t need anyone to tell you your wife not only slipped back into her old habits but was slipping around when she did it.

Damn junkies, you mutter to yourself and then order a round for the bar.

produced version [soundclick]

Someone Said Something

Someone said something
or I’d have never known
Someone said something
and I never went home

They found you In the arms of another man
the needle still in your vein
You finally transcended
Now you’re cheating on a higher plane

Someone said something . . .

What are a few bad habits
between old friends?
You were a junky and a trollop
but I loved you to the end

Someone said something . .

Policemen and photographers
and a local station’s mini-cam
I’ll keep it on the VCR
and watch it over and over again

Someone said something
or I’d have never known
Someone said something
and I never went home

[Updated: I’m just listening to Neil Young’s “Words” and realize his use of “someone” and “something” in that song must have been a just-under-the-surface influence on the title phrase of this song. Interesting. I remember trying to figure out that song when I’d only been playing a year or two and being completely flummoxed by the odd time changes in the song. Listening, now, I’m thinking I still might be.]