Kansas Album

I can fly I really can wave good-bye familiar land
Catch the wind make my climb breathin in born again feelin fine
I can fly above distress I can fly to heaven no less
Leave the earth forget the time light as air I don't care feelin fine
Don't say I'm crazy don't say I'm out of my head
I might be crazy but one thing's for certain one thing's for sure
I can fly above the sea I can fly hey look at me
Without a net leave it behind
Feelin good feelin free feelin so fine

My lofty purchase high above I'm losing sight of you
I'm climbing up just like a kite the calm before the storm
When all at once it dawned on me where I'm not supposed to be
Clouds are black the sky is red I'm where the angles fear to tread
I feel like I've lost my way

Down and down and down I go I've lost all sense of my direction
This flaming spitfire flight has come undone
Grounding stages of rejection I am not worthy to have even tried
Help me annihilate this foolish pride where Icarus died

I say the act of my contrition be sure to bless all before I die
Save my seat in the smoking section cut me loose and say good-bye
I wake up on the doctors table where life and death are up for grabs
I'm comin I'm comin you better shoot me
Kill the pain and count the scabs no no no get out of my black dream
Give me life give me life I'll make a vow
I'll resist temptation I promise here and now
You see it all started when I was younger they said I was good
But I thought they said great
I crown myself the king of liars I am what I have learned to hate

Why can't you see where we are going
Why can't you see where we have been
You tell me the pain is still growing you tell me tell me who'll win
I feel for you you know what I'm saying
But I've got to do what's right in my head

I've got to ride ride rocket ride
Carry me quick to the one's who've cried
I'm a saint I'm a sinner but you decide
In desperate times
Sled sled rocket sled
Carry me quick to the one's who've bled
I'm a saint I'm a sinner and these are desperate times

I would give my soul to carry your burden
I would give my soul cause I know you still grieve
Where will we go to hide from their blindness
Where will we go if we don't both believe
Bad blood rains down we've got to take cover
Cold blood rains down who can find any peace

The flower dies the camera never lies fire baptizes
The truth is light right or wrong is never black or white
We all wear disguises

If a picture could talk we would all look away
There'd be too many voices
Rain come on and wash away this hot city skin
Pictures and memories and hope once again

So many times I see you in my mind when I'm not trying to
I see a trellis gate and I run like a child who's late
Whose friends are waiting for him
Well I never stopped to realize what was passing me by
But love has a texture
Catch a glimpse a reflection
Of what would should or could have been
Pictures and memories and hope once again

I wonder if we know the future is now
I wonder if we know the future is here

Well it looks like it might rain but rain ain't what we need
Sunshine and a war machine I'm gettin ready for another stampede
Grease the gears with blood paint it black as night
Ride through the city like a Trojan horse
Convinced what you're doin's all right

Hold on 'till the river goes down the river goes to the sea
Hold on the rive's comin' down on me
The killin' field has come to main street
Scatter guns in the liquor store
Rifled sinkhole graves in concrete it's out of hand
At black fathom 4

Fallen leaves turn grey faces cold and worn
Memories of a better time swept away like a firestorm
Who can get it straight who can think it through
When every time the telephone rings
You think it's someone comin' after you

Your mamma's shootin' Gallery wages
Your daddy don't give a damn no more
Keep these animals breakin' cages violent times
At black fathom 4

Walk into my world where brave can get you dead
You get together and a fight breaks out
Someone didn't understand what you said
Walk into my world anger's in my soul
Quick money give me double trouble
Friends are doing hard times in the hole

Children crying sniper thunder case the alleys and the corridors
Don't look back it ain't no wonder it's open season
At black fathom 4

Buried deep under blood and skin
A whisper a tempest is raging from within
I hold my breath bitter proud
Afraid to scream fire in the middle of a crowd
I ponder incision envision the brain
I beckon the surgeon to a slice against the grain
now that I've waisted you
the white room is pure the doctors are brave
If there's a cure I want to be saved
Sanctuary

Under the knife sharp and shiny key
Repair redeem resurrection
Under the knife they'll cut you out of me
Maybe love's imitation is life under the knife

I have come to determine a reasonable doubt
Where heaven and hell draw their boundary lines about
Now that I've waisted you now that I've tasted you
The white room had frost on the cold window pane
Your love had been lost my love was in vain
Sanctuary

Cynical splices stitch and install
Solder the filaments I feel nothing at all
Second wind secrets let them rise let them fall
I'll walk through your firestorm but never never crawl
The gambler lives the blood stain dries
It's time to forgive I open my eyes
Sanctuary

I lost you a long time ago I tossed our love as far as I could throw
I can't help feelin tentative and blind
I only wish that you could read my mind
I need to pitch it all into the wind
I need to face a wall that's cavin' in
I need to fall fall again I do need you

Can friends be lovers can lovers still be friends
What about the story when there ain't no happy end
Look around look around and tell me
what am I s'posed to do
To say goodby'd be a big mistake after
all that we've been through

Some familiar face some familiar song
But those times have come and gone
Sometimes I feel like my memories are
only there to let me know
That bein' lonely is so damn slow
It's like a deep dark fever dream

I get surges I take a midnight drive
I'm goin' nowhere I don't care when I arrive
I got questions the kind that got no clues
I think I find the answer on the road that leads to you

Freak of nature fact or fright
Puts up with pain puts up with spite

Scarred up shoes have lost their sheen
It looks like better days they've seen

Chameleon man naive tycoon
Will eat the poor with silver spoon

He'll jest and jeer through looking glass
But nest right near the upper class

Who'll be the first one pointing at the simple man
Now I know I'm only lucky every freak of nature should know
How to run the whole freakin' show

Freak of nature'd rather be no less a man than you or me
He'd rather look the other way choose to fight another day

I take things for granted turn the tables 'round
What if I was down

To much goin' on runnin' out of time
And I don't understand it

Cold grey morning without sunlight ghostly mist on the horizon
Empty visions of a world gone mad paints a picture so revealing
Through my window dark tomorrow I can hear the sirens wailing
For the future we are holding on as the ship of fools is sailing

Such a long time such a long time
We are waiting for a peace that's lasting
Reaching upward sliding downward looks like just another
Cold grey morning

Hardly breathing hope is fading it's the end of the beginning
Children playing in the empty streets it's a cold grey morning

I went driving through my old hometown
It was Thursday the bright sun on the horizon
I was surprised to see no one had burned it down
It seemed so peaceful and warm

Floods of memories came back to me
All the things we got away with when we were younger
And I felt kind of like a refugee
Like a scattered pile of leaves in a storm

Peaceful memory like lights on a Christmas tree
Every hometown should be peaceful and warm
Every father mother sister brother friend of the family
Peaceful and warm

Somehow now and then didn't seem to blend
'Till a farmer plowing his field waved hello
Another working man doing the best he can
I hope he is peaceful and warm

Peaceful memory plows in the green field sea
Every hometown should be peaceful and warm
Every father mother sister brother friend of the family
Peaceful and warm

On the Kansas banks of the Muddy Mo'
I threw rocks in the river and dreamed of running away
In a wind of change only a father knows
In a world so hectic so cold
I guess my old hometown's kinda dead and gone
Miss the sign on I-29 and you blow right by
But it's a place I can go remember where I come from
It will help me keep me peaceful and warm

Peaceful memory the only thing that's free
Take them and try to be peaceful and warm
Every father mother sister brother friend of the family
Peaceful peaceful and warm