Bobby Long Songs: November 2015

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 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

♫ soundcl oud

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

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