Friday, November 13, 2015

index



*Untitled (Little Bird) (unrecorded)
Angel from Montgomery (Bonnie Raitt & John Prine cover)
Between the Bars (Elliott Smith cover)
Big River (Johnny Cash cover)
*Bird on the Wire (Leonard Cohen cover)
Chelsea Hotel (Leonard Cohen)
Don’t Let Go (En Vogue cover)
Down by the River (Neil Young cover)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (cover - Christmas)
Hangman (cover - traditional)
Hoochie Coochie Man (Muddy Waters cover)
A Hundred Years from Today (Jack Teagarden cover)
In the Bleak Midwinter (cover - Christmas)
In My Life (Beatles cover)
In My Time of Dying (Led Zeppelin cover)
License to Kill (Bob Dylan cover)
Lonesome Town (Ricky Nelson cover)
River (Joni Mitchell cover)
Sunday Morning, Coming Down (Johnny Cash cover)
They’ll Never Take Her Love from Me (Hank Williams cover)
To Ramona (Bob Dylan cover)
We Three Kings (cover - Christmas)

That Little Place

I knew a place when I was young that I liked
That place got burnt down not so long ago
I never knew a name
But it always looked the same
I guess that place will always be my home

I saw the picture of it in the paper
It brought a cold hard shudder to my bones
I knew the boy that died
He was coldly burnt alive
I guess that place will always be his home
That little place I knew so long ago

But I hate what it did to me
I'm lost inside the pockets of its overcoat
I never tried to come back there and see
All the ash, the debris and the smoke

I moved away the day that I had left school
I didn't stick around to make my mark
I even changed my name
Told my family to do the same
To run from that place I used to know

I left for the city with my sister and mother
My father stayed there working for some magazine
And though our house still stands
On some cursed and uneven land
I guess it's somewhere in the in-between

*They ran a story of me in the paper
About a ghost who wouldn't come back home
I got it through the post
Lit the fire and let it roast
I never want to feel like I'm getting old
That little place I knew so long ago

It’s never in some crazy place where you lose your face
It’s in the peaks and cracks of the unnoticed shade
So when you kick your feet
Down some forgotten street
It’s where it all floods back but it’s too late to take

My father wrote the story down in his letters
A spark had chased the wind down
To the town below
No there’s nothing left for me
Since I went and got myself free
I guess that place will always be my home
That little place I knew so long ago


1985

Searching for reasons against truth
Withholding blossom against the bloom
I seek the golden somewhere for me
Who told the prophets where to find
Their dying orders hung dry on the line
I seek that symbol, but it don’t seek me

The slow won’t beat the fast
There’s no going back
The heart only beats intact
1985
1985 is feeling black

I saw the measure pour to fill the cup
And what had spilled out, someone called it love
We want the measure, not the flood
So let the day break and the night stand still
Let the quaker try to have his fill
No crying wolf now, not for me

Time it moves right along
Just another selfish song
Though the years have come and gone
1985
1985
1985 is painted black

Some things are in your head
Like the coming tale of death
I shouldn’t get upset
Or listen to a word they said

That 1985 is feeling black 

The Song the Kids Sing

Beyond this place, beyond the cafés and stores
Lies the death of me
Where the adults don't see
The boards start to creek
Down this lonesome street
At the end of school, we start the new rule
And the teachers leave
We don't see the chapel, we don't see the city
We gave away my dreams

Carry me far beyond this town
Before I'm laid out in the ground
For all of you to see
Let me see that all of this is stone
And I shouldn't feel alone
And I shouldn't have to be
The song the kids sing

The kids shoot the wall
Speaking in that loose drawl
Just in front of me
I want to rant and sing
But what good would it bring to the factory
I want to turn this around
But I'm wedged in the crack with the hollow seed
Who planted this madness
Who planted this sadness all around me

I'm not from this town, I'm from another old town
Far to the east
It's close to my brother, it's close to my father
It's inside of me

♫ soundcloud


The Dark Won't Get Darker

So take off your coat, and let in all the light
We can go for a walk, do anything you like
You could tell me all your problems
Set your stall, lay a marker
I’d tell you the rich stay rich
But the dark won’t get darker

You’ll be sorry if you never know
It’s what keeps us all complete
If you need a friend, or you’re feeling low
Then baby stick with me
Times pass and fall, down the darkened road

I saw you walking with a note
I saw you lay it on down
You could of told me your mind
So I could turn it around
You should tell me all your problems
Set your stall, lay a marker
I’d tell you the rich stay rich

But the dark won’t get darker

Hideaway

previously titled "Lulu's Song"

I spent many days on the back of this haze
With a mind to tell you you were wrong
It’s not that I was right, but the will of the fight
Drew you in when you thought I had gone

Hideaway, it’s your soul to display
And keep the words in your head
Keep from me all you wanted to be
Only you will have to regret

Everyone speaks of you with your foot on the pew
So I can see that you are what you are
But you came from inside with some tears round your eyes
Not for me just because you felt down

Hideaway, it’s your soul to display
And keep your ear to the ground
Keep from me all you wanted to be
It’s you who’s wearing the crown

It’s a long beating road to get back to the start
Still you can’t change what’s already done
So go lie awake at night and remember the trite
Senseless words behind the harm that you’ve done


Only you will have to regret



from Bobby's Instagram - April 15, 2015

Something Blue, Something Borrowed

It’s pretty hard to believe that when you get told something different
Now your life gets cold or something blue, something borrowed
If there’s church bells, you don’t want church bells
But they’re left out just like seashells
Now you’re feeling cold
You’re something blue, something borrowed

Ring, ring the silent and cherished bell
That flows out of the sky
I’ll forget the memory of your kiss
I thought I was your ending
Not some temporary guy
And I’m something blue, something borrowed
Something replaced

It’s pretty hard to believe that
You can keep something intact for so long until
You’re something blue, something borrowed
Then the rumours flow and the rumours flow
From the open sky to the undergrowth
Like swallows
You’re something blue, something borrowed

So open up the ventricle and close the bloody vestibule
Open up the mind and close the heart
You won’t answer my questions
And I won’t repeat your answer
And I’m something blue, something borrowed
Something replaced

Fill me with sorrow, until tomorrow

I’m something blue, your something borrowed

Kill Someone

lyric sheet used by Bobby at McCabe's in LA - June 15, 2014



There’s a man out there talking speaking in tongues
Losing his hair, bleeding gums
Saying things about my sister, things about their son
If he don’t stop soon, I’m gonna kill someone

He’s got eyes of black and a hide of green
Throwing out lines like a submachine
Don’t know why or what he really means
Because he hasn’t been there and he hasn’t ever seen

He says he was a soldier, he told me that he served
But he never left the barracks only a reserve
Now he making off with another racist word
I think he lost the war, but won the purge

Take him down some, take him down some
Take him down some, take him down some

Now he’s fighting for justice and praying to God
While he misspells his name and keeps his fingers crossed
Everybody knows God’s been dead since 1914
You can’t bridge the gap for the underneath

He has four babies with four different girls
He has four houses, he has four worlds
But he has no money
Though he’s wearing someone’s pearls
And he’ll take from your pockets and fumble their curls

In his son I can’t see his father’s eyes
Because the boy is an angel, the boy doesn’t lie
Though he’s still one of his lowly four
His eyes may run, but his blood won’t pour

He was bred from the devil, bred just to take
Where they screw up their own in the belly of a lake
Who the hell takes a baby to a dead man’s wake
When the dead man’s a racist
The dead man’s a snake

I’m gonna wake up in the morning and get myself a gun
Not to fire at anybody just to keep him on the run
And then drive in the screw and rust it in the sun

Like he did to me, like he does to everyone

Treat Me Like a Stranger

You say you can tell the different parts of me
One a falling bird, another a lonely child
If it’s gonna be you, my judge and my saviour
Bury me in rock, just like I told you

If I had a candle, I’d light it at your end
But you won’t light me up, not even a part of me
So let the colours run, my lover, my friend
Bury me in sand, right up till the end

But maybe for tonight, treat me like a stranger
Like I was never here, in the wake of the danger
One more time around, treat me like a stranger
Then you won’t recognize me

Turn me over babe, turn me loose and under
Then you can drift away, leave me to the lonely tide
But I’m glad it was you, my friend and my lover
Give me to the waves, send me down under

At least you told the truth
Somewhere so low beneath
Hanging from the noose, the parts of me
Swinging underneath, somewhere so high above
Tied to the tree, the parts of me


I'm Not Going Out Tonight

lyric sheet used by Bobby at McCabe's in LA - June 15, 2014



There is a place where she smiles a lot
In the darkened corner of a parking lot
Before men walked upon the moon
When you played the swinging doors
Of a lonely saloon
She waits for me there

There is a place where she still goes
In the wintery night where her story flows
Before we all sold our souls for money
And the jokes we told were still considered funny
She waits for me there
In the cold hours of the morning
With the wind in her hair

I’m not going out tonight
Until the songs we know are all played inside
And the old cars empty rust
And the CD players start to gather dust
Somewhere only she knows
In the cheap thrills of the morning
With the cold spill of my woes

There is a place where we are together
Where the mountain thyme grows
Around the heather
Before the drive-thru cinema died
And a truthful word replaced with one big lie
She waits for me there

There is a place where I last saw her
With a hushed out tone and a borrowed fur
Just as the maps were changed
I took a wrong turn looking for her golden plain
She waits for me there
In the cold hours of the morning
With the wind in her hair

There is a place, and it’s not to be seen
Where the air is young and the water’s clean
Where the juggernaut cut the sailor’s scar
But on the moons above riding a shooting star
She waits for me there

Cold Hearted Lover of Mine

I never found out what, she never gave me anything
Was I just here to pass the time
Cold hearted lover of mine
I want her to turn and see
This lonely shadow walking with you
By shape of poor design, cold hearted lover of mine

She has nothing left to show, nothing left to give me
These chains are old, and her arms too weak
Her lips too dry to kiss me
Wanting to hang my line, cold hearted lover of mine

Though summer’s heat is long
Her road is long and cold
There is no sentence to fit her crime
And no time to let the wisdom age
These falling beams of light
They colour my sleepless eyes
But she falls beneath that line
Cold hearted lover of mine

She don’t think she’s wrong, she just thinks it easy
Somebody let her know that I shouldn’t be the one
To feel as though I’m empty
Don’t drag me down to the water’s edge
To see it dry beneath me

With no money left to pay her fine
Cold hearted lover of mine
I guess she’ll drink my blood like wine
Cold hearted lover of mine

Ode to Thinking

Break the branch upon the willow No bird will want to sing today Cut loose the boats down in the boat house We’ve never seen such strange old days Tell the lost that no one’s looking Tell the found that no one cares You can never find the answers We’ve never seen such strange old days No one’s coming for the helpless So come and quickly help yourself Go and sell yourself to Jesus God insists upon that sale People are whistling to the sirens They call their hands to a defeat I saw a headless person crying We’ve never seen such strange old days So long to thinking, the crowd will travel well We’ve unchained a monster And it left me feeling unwell So long to knowing, the past is buried still Under a hard place in an empty wishing well