Dar Williams Album

You gotta admit Life magazine made 1968 look great
My father said it sucked, everybody died
All the troops you couldn't save, no one knew how to be brave
He said sometimes you were afraid to turn your radio on
It was enough to make you quit that peacenik scene

Well I heard about leaders, yeah I hear they're no longer around
'cause peace was abandoned, and bravery hanged in his town
And they passed down a sentence
For building on the beauty of some dream

All my heroes are dead, I got them in my head
Saying never again, never a war, no more fighting
So I'll stay true to them, and they'll come home again
I'll carry the light, follow the dream, I'll remember

The '68 convention was a-singing that the times they are a-changing
But I guess they a-changed back
Oh I miss those peaceful folk, love and humor when they spoke
Hey Phil Ochs you still sound great, should've stuck around to hear it
LyricsThey say the compact disc makes songs come true

But Phil, I never expected that I'd miss you like a friend
'cause I never expected that we would be marching again
And the soldiers of peace would tumble from this life as in a war

All my heroes are dead, and all the books I read
Said "This is greed, this is wrong, fight your war at home"
So I'll stay true to them, and they'll come home again
I'll carry the light, follow the dream, I'll remember

So back to the present passion, romance, love, or simply put a lack thereof
Shall we just go on?
I don't take it personally, it's our post-modern history
You know since Nixon was impeached it's just been hard to commit
So we cast our allegiance left and right

But I always believed that our souls would come through
So I never expected that you'd take her home with you
And I never detected, how hardened and not sorry you could be
Don't you know?

All our heroes are dead, we got ourselves instead
And oh my friend, all your lies, they won't do you
You gotta stay true to them, and they'll come home again
I miss them too, I miss them too, you know I miss them
More than I love you

I was pounding the streets for a friend who could find
Some hope out've hope torn apart.
I would point to my chest say Here it is, it looks real tough.
Won't be broken again, but still it's my heart
With full-listening ears and best intention.
They so want to know and with no comprehension.
This town, such a weary place.
Love-lorn, sleepy falling race saying
Oh not that song again.
Oh no they played our song again, well
Something should be for everyone.

So out've the sun drops this man, holds my hands,
Has me over for tea and wears flowers in his hair
A friend for my heart, not like friends who say
Do alone, be alone, do it, do it, do it again.
I won't take him there.
He asked for my days without demanding.
He gave me his laughter and his understanding.
To those who loved and loved again.
LyricsWho planted flowers and trampled them, saying,
Oh not that song again.
Oh God they played our song again, well,
His song belongs to everyone.

I could spend all my days with that man, see what grows.
And all of his smiles, as if that's what it's all about.
But I guess it's hard to keep such joy in your dreams.
Or maybe it was just me. Anyway, his smiles just ran out.
He frowns and he says it's not my business.
He stares at his hands with no forgiveness.
He wonders what can mirrors say.
He looks and then he walks away, saying,
Oh not myself again.
Oh, no, not that song again, well
This world was made for everyone.
You gave me that.

It's the start of a new life day
Oh yeah, right, like I haven't heard that one before
You know everything I tried to quit I only wanted some more
So I let the weeds grow up
Called them flowers of the common man

But in my head, in my head
I can hear the gentle voices say:
Stop smoking
Take a deep breath and stop smoking
Then you can take more deep breaths
Stop smoking
Spend a few more days with your family and friends
And if you want to keep hitting that high note
Stop smoking

And I won't do it for another soul
No, it's gotta be me
I wanna say when and where there's a mountain to climb
And thank you very much I want to waste my own time
LyricsAfter this way and her way
And they left me in the darkest alleys

But it's time, I guess it's time
'cause the voice is getting stronger still:
Stop smoking
Time to reach for higher realms
Stop smoking
Time to boycott Jesse Helms
Stop smoking
And then you can check "no" when they ask if you smoke
And all that stuff feels great
So stop smoking

Well there's a door I ran away from
For every door I tried
Now I've got my guilty conscience and I've got my guilty pride
But now you tell me that the world needs my hot blood
My wildest dreams
And all that my mending bones and unschooled heart have to give

So, big surprise, I just stopped smoking
Yeah, la di dah, now don't remind me
I think I'm going insane
But I got the guts to leave the cult of beautiful pain
Where I danced with seven veils of mysterious pollution

And it's hard, I think it's hard
Trying to find a life that I can live
Janis Joplin
Great spirit, lost the wheels, stop running
The center could not feel, start to feel it
I know life can make and break an acid queen
Us great spirits gotta watch it
Stop smoking

The blue it speaks so full
It's like the beauty one can barely stand
Or too much things dropped in your hand
And there's a green like the peace
In your heart sometimes
Printed underneath the sheets of ashy snow
And there's a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright
Now the Caldor mobile tips a biomorphic sphere
Then it swings its dangling pieces
Round to other paintings here

Your behavior is so male
It's like you can't explain yourself to me
I think I'll ask Renoir to tea
For his flowers are as real as they are all the time
And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow
It's a pleasant time as far as people go, how far do they go?
Well his roses are perfect and his words have no wings
I know what he can give me and I like to know these things

LyricsI met her at the funeral
She said I don't know what he meant to me
I just know he affected me
An effect not unlike his art, I believe
The service starts and we are in the know
He had so much to say but more to show, and ain't that true of life?
So we weep for a person who lived at great cost
Yet we barely knew his powers till we sensed that we had lost

A friend and I in a museum room
She says, "Look at Mark Rothko's side
Did you know about his suicide?
Some folks were born with a foot in the grave, but not me, of course"
And she smiles as if to say we're in the know
Then she names a coffee place where we can go, uptown
Now the painting is desperate, but the crowds wash away
In a crowd of kind pedestrians who've seen enough today

Come lovers, come loners, remember yourselves
As lusty tempestuous fools
When to dream was to conjure an ocean
From your small secretarial pools

When you stood at the gulf of unknowing
When you saw the great tundra of time
And you cried for the winds to come blowing
And you called a monsoon
From the tides of the moon
'cause the roads were all dusty and dry

Come lame dancing lonely tonight
When what should appear in the distance
Blown hither and yon its Calamity John
And he's coming to sweep you away
Aye Aye Aye Ayy

He'll tear through the homefront
He'll lift you up laughing
LyricsHe'll blow every signpost away
As the weather report says high drama
With a five percent chance that he'll stay

Now the floor starts to rock and the roof floats
And your friends say he's bad for your health
And they've warned you about him on talk shows
So you told him to pack
Hit the road, don't come back
And he said "Hey, don't flatter yourself" . . . and you say:

I am closing my door to the storm
I am saving myself from its freedom
I've put the chain on, oh Calamity John
I don't want you to dance me away
Aye Aye Aye Ayy

So it's seven months later you've bolted your hair back
You're almost immune to the moon
And at parties you stay in the kitchen
Common sense with a big wooden spoon
All at once you can feel the storm coming
As you burst out into the old refrain
To the sound of America drumming

Call it pain, call it art
Call it open your heart
Let it go, let it fly, let it rain

He smiles and the clouds turn to black
With the wind through the flowers come blowing
The warning bell's on
What's your name? Oh, it's John
That's such an unusual name
Aye Aye Aye Ayy

It's a small town life and I like it
'cause the bad don't get in your way
There's an angry God gonna strike it
Yeah, that's what we pay him for, that's why we pray
Well I guess the angry God he was a-fishing
When Molly called me up with the news
Within the space of a week
Yeah, a pervert or a sex freak
Let the kids take a peek
That's more than a little cheek
No pun intended

Ai-yi-yipee-yipee-yi-yi-ay
Going east of Mississippi got a flinty kind of woman
And you don't act smart and you don't touch my children
If the young man wants to see the sun go down

Well there was no time fooling with the trifles
So there was no use in telling the men
They would just go running for their rifles
LyricsAnd then once you got him couldn't get him again
So Peg got a bolt of fishing tackle
And Marge got her gardening clips
And Sally LaBiche put her hound on a leash
And the timer on the quiche, she's kind of nouveau riche
But we like her

Ai-yi-yipee-yipee-yi-yi-ay
Going east of Mississippi got a flinty kind of woman
And you don't act fresh and you don't touch my children
If the young man wants to see the sun go down

It was the kids who spotted him a running
As we drove through the harbor fog
And that's when we got our engines gunning
'cause we knew he was headed for the cranberry bog
We got our hip-high rubber boots strapped on
And Molly got the big flashlights out
And by the "Welcome to New England" sign
Got him with the fishing line
In the dark smell of brine
Betty said "This one is mine."
She is ruthless

Ai-yi-yipee-yipee-yi-yi-ay
Going east of Mississippi got a flinty kind of woman
And you just say no and you don't touch my children
If the young man wants to see the sun go down

Well we didn't have to drag him and a-jail him
'cause you don't have to take it so far
When your roots go back to Old Salem
And you've got a local chapter of the DAR
Now I don't go tooting on my lobsters
'cause your pride doesn't go with your plaid
But it's a victory won and it couldn't be done
By the hippy-dippy flaky-shaky fun-in-the-sun
Braless wonders

Ai-yi-yipee-yipee-yi-yi-ay
Going east of Mississippi got a flinty kind of woman
And you know your place and you don't touch my children
If the young man wants to see the sun go down
If the young man wants to see the sun go down

Oh I fell in love like they do in the magazines
On a football field. . . it was a long daydream
All my high school spent in faithful disbelief
I know that he looks dumb but he's smart underneath

They say I'm a bright kid, and I have a future
With the Puritan blessing of work to be done
But to see him cradling that beer is all that I'm seeing

But then come college days
And now I'm driving home
With my list of books to read
And that self-important tone
And my parents. . .I read them like the news
I know where they went wrong
And they're not friends I would choose

And there's a sunset over the mountains
I shout my scorn to the splendorous sky
For how does this light compare to all the world's suffering
Lyrics
But now it's a working day
I've lain my (G)gloves to rest
And now I'm hanging over the sink with a pregnancy test
You can relax babe, results are negative
Oh but how I thought of kids and who they'd be
About where we'd live

And I saw them climbing up Breakneck Ridge
They found the neighbor's woods for to make them their own
And I'll see them dancing across the lawns of my homeland

We found the town in Sixteen-Forty-One
For to farm and to pray and Metro North to run
We took the fields, the marsh and the moon and the sun
We got to work before the day was done
Oh ay-yay, ay-ay-yay

And I'll see them dancing across the lawns of my homeland
I am an American
From the 4th grade turkey pageant to the protest march I stand
Oh I am an American
I know there's blood on the pavement and we turn the fields to sand

Hey I know where I come from
But I have a question
Shall We the People never come home
For after all that we've been
Are the dreams to come after?

My dad's a miracle and so's my mom
They fly over the blue
They finish their dinner and then they take one another's hand
And off they go to find a broader point of view
For it's a give and take beyond the ordinary
What with all the cats and kid's that they've loved
And they will not be alone

My friends give me purple flowers and orange tea
On goosedown spilling quilts and turquoise chairs
We greet each other in a wild profusion of words
And wave farewell amidst the wonderment of air
And in the laughing times we know that we are lucky
And in the quiet times we know that we are blessed
And we will not be alone
Well, the light that stopped the night felt like forgiveness to you
As the garbage trucks came bustling through their rounds
You stared at the pictures on your wall and all the postcards from your friends
As you heard the birds and old familiar sounds
An that's when you knew this world can't be saved, only discovered
And you knew things could be different than before
And you will not be alone anymore

When I want to go somewhere, I don't ask forgiveness
I just go where I like, and he knows that.
I walk alone into any party, I'm alone tonight
In that high-heeled ego old hat.
Oh blue night, laughter at the bell toll.
People move like streaks of charcoal.
Someone found a prince in the punchbowl.
But high times fizzle out in a change of heart,
And we know things fall apart.
The morning's off to a bad start.
It's raining. Have you had nights like this?
I run miles to his place, wake him up to look at his place.
I feel astray, and I love it when it gets that way.

The child is so young, they say that child is truly free
And with a mind of perpetual invention.
So why is it now I'm a grown-up, all grown up
And yet now I fly through the ceilings of convention?
Oh new friend, borne out of a mind-cloud.
Make believe and yet I laugh aloud.
I've cried when you have stood ground.
But sometimes playtimes are a ghost I've faced,
In that room that I've erased.
The air is empty and druglaced.
I am completely gone. Are you still with me, then?
With my head so big and awfully,
Take my hand and lead me softly,
And then you stay, and I love it when it gets that way.

And when I was crazy maybe I wanted, I wanted, I wanted to be steady as an iceberg,
And with nowhere fast a-going.
Now, now I can handle the danger zone with hailstones all a-flying,
And the crazy winds a-blowing.
These days I haven't been smoking my lungs brown,
Have that itch to turn my life around,
Maybe move on to a new town.
Cause good friends lifted me out of an early tomb.,
Pulled my life out from its doom,
Like sun into a big room
And where my roots have grown.
I really can't let go
Through the woods and through the fields climb
Up the mountain into nighttime, and
Through the day, and I love it when it gets that way.