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Once in a while
In a big blue moon
There comes a night like this
Like some surrealist
Invented this 4th of July
Night ride home
Hula girls
And caterpillar tractors in the sand
The ukulele man
The fireworks
This 4th of July
Night ride home
I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones till Friday
Far from the overkill
Far from the overload
Back at the bar
The band tears down
But out here in the headlight beams
The silver powerlines
Gleam
On this 4th of July
Night ride home
Round the curve
And a big dark horse
Red taillights on his hide
Is keeping right alongside
Rev for stride
4th of July
Night ride home
I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones till Friday
Far from the undertow
Far from the overload
Once in awhile
In a big blue moon
There comes a night like this
Like some surrealist
Invented this 4th of July
Night ride home
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Magdalene is trembling
Like a washing on a line
Trembling and gleaming
Never before was a man so kind
Never so redeeming
Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Ecstasy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)
I am up a sycamore
Looking through the leaves
A sinner of some position
Who in the world can this heart healer be
This magical physician
Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Misery
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)
Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
Oh, climb down, climb down he says to me
From the middle of unrest
They think is light is squandered
But he sees a stray in the wilderness
And I see how far I've wandered
Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)
Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
Oh, all around the marketplace
The buzzing of the flies
The buzzing and the stinging
Divinely barren
And wickedly wise
The killer nails are ringing
Enter the multitudes
In Exxon blue
In radiation rose
Tragedy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free?
(Who're you gonna get)
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Cherokee Louise is hiding in this tunnel
In the Broadway bridge
We're crawling on our knees
We've got flashlights and batteries
We've got cold cuts from the fridge
Last year about this time
We used to climb up in the branches
Just to sway there in some breeze
Now the cops on the street
They want Cherokee Louise
People like to talk
Tongues are waggin' over fences
Waggin' over phones
All their doors are locked
God she can't even come to our house
But I know where she'll go
To the place where you can stand
And press your hands like it was bubblebath
In dust piled high as me
Down under the street
My friend
Poor Cherokee Louise
Ever since we turned 13
It's like a minefield
Walking to the door
Going out you get the 3rd degree
And comin' in you get the 3rd world war
Tuesday after school
We put our pennies on the rails
And when the train went by
We were jumpin' round like fools
Goin' "Look no heads or tails"
Goin' "Look my lucky prize"
She runs home to her foster dad
He opens up a zipper
And he yanks her to her knees
Oh please be here-please
My friend
Poor Cherokee Louise
Cherokee Louise is hiding in this tunnel
In the Broadway bridge
We're crawling on our knees
We've got Archie and Silver Screen
I know where she is
The place where you can stand
And press your hand like it was bubblebath
In dust piled high as me
Down under the street
My friend
Poor Cherokee Louise
Oh Cherokee Louise
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Because Elvis gave 'em cars
You think I'm cheap
And you're hard done by
Look-you live here like a star
Rent free suite
Big blue pool that you sun by
Trips to tropic shores
Clothes from fancy stores
You want too much
You want too badly
You want everything for nothing
Going to the church
You chant
For my downfall
Chanting for my house
My friends
You want it all
The pillows on my bed
The visions in my head
You want too much
You want too badly
You want everything for nothing
In the land of litigation
The courts are like game shows
Take what's behind the curtain
The jury cries
I'm not going to be the jackpot
At the end of your perjured rainbow
Not if local justice has even one good eye
Oh it's not like I was blind
I saw
But I took no action
As you began to climb
Green clawed
Dissatisfaction
It wasn't hard to guess
That the end would be a mess
You want too much
You want too badly
You want everything for nothing
In the land of mass frustration
The judges are sleeping
Counting wooly little lawyers
And grinding their teeth
Outside my sleepless window
The Hollywood sirens are shrieking
While down some searchlit alley runs
Some lost belief
Oh I'm tangled in your lies
Your scam
Your spider web
Spit spun between the trees
Doors slam
You want my head
You'd eat your young alive
For a jaguar in the drive
You lie too much
You lie too badly
You want everything for nothing
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(Based on a poem by W.B. Yeats)
Turning and turning
Within the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart
The center cannot hold
And a blood dimmed tide
Is loosed upon the world
Nothing is sacred
The ceremony sinks
Innocence is drowned
In anarchy
The best lack conviction
Given some time to think
And the worst are full of passion
Without mercy
Surely some revelation is at hand
Surely it's the second coming
And the wrath has finally taken form
For what is this rough beast
Its hour come at last
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
Hoping and hoping
As if by my weak faith
The spirit of this world
Would heal and rise
Vast are the shadows
That straddle and strafe
And struggle in the darkness
Troubling my eyes
Shaped like a lion
It has the head of a man
With a gaze as blank
And pitiless as the sun
And it's moving its slow thighs
Across the desert sands
Through dark indignant
Reeling falcons
Surely some revelation is at hand
Surely it's the second coming
And the wrath has finally taken form
For what is this rough beast
Its hour come at last
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
Raging and raging
It rises from the deep
Opening its eyes
After twenty centuries
Vexed to a nightmare
Out of a stony sleep
By a rocking cradle
By the Sea of Galilee
Surely some revelation is at hand
Surely it's the second coming
And the wrath has finally taken form
For what is this rough beast
Its hour come at last
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born
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Back in 1957
We had to dance a foot apart
And they hawk-eyed us from the sidelines
Holding their rulers without a heart
And so with just a touch of our fingers
I could make our circuitry explode
All we ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(we were so young)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold
We really thought we had a purpose
We were so anxious to achieve
We had hope
The world held promise
For a slave to liberty
Freely I slaved away for something better
And I was bought and sold
And all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(we were so sure)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold
I feel your leg under the table
Leaning into mine
I feel renewed
I feel disabled
By these bonfires in my spine
I don't know who the arsonist was
Which incendiary soul
But all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(you were so warm)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold
I am not some stone commission
Like a statue in a park
I am flesh and blood and vision
I am howling in the dark
Long blue shadows of the jackals
Are falling on a pay phone by the road
Oh all they ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(I was so low)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold
Is this just vulgar electricity
Is this the edifying fire
(it was so pure)
Does your smile's covert complicity
Debase as it admires
(just a flu with a temperature)
Are you just checking out your mojo
(oohoo)
Or am I just fighting off growing old
(just a high fever)
All I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(it was so pure)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold
I know we never will be perfect
Never entirely clear
(when the moon shines)
We get hurt and we just panic
And we strike out
Out of fear
(you were only being kind)
I fear the sentence of this solitude
200 years on hold
(for my loving crime)
Oh and all we ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(when the moon shines)
Oh come in
Come in from the cold
When I thought life had some purpose
Then I thought I had some choice
(I was running blind)
And I made some value judgments
In a self-important voice
(I was outa line)
But then absurdity came over me
And I longed to lose control
(into no mind)
Oh all I ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold
Come in
Come in from the cold
(you were so kind)
Please come in
(so kind)
Come in from the cold
Come in come in
Come in from the cold, etc.
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(Music by Larry Klein, words by Joni Mitchell)
Must I forgive you
Each time
And say you don't know what your're doing
There are no victimless crimes
I know of
Out here in these graffiti ruins
My love
Oh I am not old
I'm told
But I am not young
Oh and nothing can be done
Don't start
My heart
Is a smoking gun
Oh and nothing can be done
I heard you leaving
Late last night
I heard you screaming down the mountain
Like you were running red lights
(Red lights)
You had some trash-can-rock-band pounding
Oh I am not old
I'm told
But I am not young
Oh and nothing can be done
Don't start
My heart
Is a smoking gun
Oh and nothing can be done
Must I surrender
With grace
The things I loved when I was younger
(Sweet embrace)
Must I remember your face
So well
What do I do here with this hunger
Oh I am not old
I'm told
But I am not young
Oh and nothing can be done
Don't start
My heart
Is a smoking gun
Oh and nothing can be done
Nothing can be done
Nothing can be done
Oh nothing can be done
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I want to paint a picture
Botticelli style
Instead of Venus on a clam
I'd paint this flower child
"You are the air my flowers breathe"
He calls, and the ladies turn around
On the first day of Spring
I'm looking at the only joy around
He's the only joy around
The only joy I found
The only joy in town
The Spanish steps are crowded
Bunch of bodies brooding there
Dead pan side-walk vendors
Hustling vacant stares
Making all the more exceptional
This fool in a flower crown
On the first day of Spring
I'm looking at the only joy in town
He's the only joy around
The only joy I found
The only joy in town
The Botticelli black boy
With the fuchias in his hair
Is breathing in women like oxygen
On the Spanish stairs
In my youth I would have followed him
All through this terra-cotta town
On the first day of Spring
We'd dance and sing
And be the only joy around
We'd be the only joy around
The only joy in town
He's the only joy I've found
All day
At night these streets are empty
Where does everybody go
Where are the brash and tender rooms
In Roman candle glow
Where are Fellini's circus'
La Dolce Vita clowns
On the first day of Spring
I'm looking
At the only joy in town
He's the only joy around
The only joy I found
The only joy in town
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Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Rollin' past the rink
Past the record shack
Pink fins in the falling rain
Rollin'
To the blue lights past the water mains
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Weekends we'd get
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Rock 'n roll in the dashboard
Romance in the back of
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Ray's dad teaches math
Zero
I'm a dunce
I'm a decimal in his class
Last night's kisses won't erase
Zero
I just can't keep the numbers in their place
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Last night we had
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Rock 'n roll in the dashboard
Romance in the back of
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
When it comes to mathematics
I got static in the attic
"No sir, nothin's clear!"
I'll be blackboard blind on Monday
Dreamin' of blue runways
On the edge of here
A little atmosphere
Blue lights out on airport road
Motown, in a field in a farmer's grove
Big planes comin' overhead
Lowdown
You can see the bolts
You can see the tire treads
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Weekends we'd get
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Oh, little darlin'
Rock 'n roll in the dashboard
Romance in the back of
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
Ray's Dad's Cadillac
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Tomorrow is Sunday
Now there's only one day left to go
Till you walk by
Below my window
The weekends drive me mad
Holidays are oh too sad
'Cause you don't go
Below my window
No one knows I'm here
One day I just disappeared
And I took these two grey rooms up here
With a view
When you walk by
Below my window
You look so youthful
Time has been untruthful
Heaven knows I loved you
30 years ago
Hot days your shirt's undone
Rainy days you run
Oh and then you fade so fast
Below my window
No one knows I'm here
One day I just disappeared
And I took these two grey rooms up here
With a view
Only when you walk by
Below my window
When you walk by
Below my window
Below my window
Hey hey
Below my window
Below my window
Below my window
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