Rufus Wainwright Album

Men reading fashion magazines
Oh what a world
It seems we live in
Straight man
Oh what a world
We live in

Why am I always on a plane or a fast train
Oh what a world my parents gave me
Always
Travelin' but not in love

Still I think I'm doin' fine
Wouldn't it be a lovely headline
Life is
Beautiful on a New York Times

Men reading fashion magazines
Oh what a world
It seems we live in
Straight man
Oh what a world
We live in

Why am I always on a plane or a fast train
Oh what a world my parents gave me
Always
Travelin' but not in love

Still I think I'm doin' fine
Wouldn't it be a lovely headline
Life is
Beautiful on a New York Times

Oh what a world
We live in

Why am I always on a plane or a fast train
Oh what a world my parents gave me
Always
Travelin' but not in love

Still I think I'm doin' fine
Wouldn't it be a lovely headline
Life is
Beautiful

I don't know what it is
but you got to do it
I don't know where to go
But you got to be there
I don't know where to fall
But I know that its comfortable where
I don't know where it is

Putting all of my time
In learning to care
And a bucket of rhymes
I threw up somewhere
Want a locket of who
Made me lose my perfunctory view
Of all that is around
And of all that I do

So I knock on the door
Take a step that is new
Never been here before
Is there anyone else here too
In love with beauty
Playing all of the games
Who thinks three's company
Is there anyone else who wears slightly mysterious brusies
I don't know what it is

Take a lookin around
At friendly faces
All declaring a war on far off places
Is there anyone else who is through with complaining about what's
Done unto us

So I knock on the door
And I am on the train
Going god knows where to
To get me over
To get me over

Give me heaven or hell
Calais or Dover

I was hoping the train
Was my big number
Stopping in Santa Fe and the arches of Topeka
Though I'm chugging along, put away by the crossing hand
We'll be heading for Portland, or Limburgh or Lower Manhattan
Find myself running around

I don't know what it is so get me over
I don't know what it is so get me over
I don't know what it is so get me over
To get me over
You gotta do it.
You gotta be there.

Thought that maybe we'd fall in love over the phone
Thought that maybe I'd really love being alone
Everybody but Heaven knows how I was wrong

Oh Lord, what have I done to myself?
What have I done to myself?

In this vicious world
Such a vicious world
There isn't anything you can do
In this vicious world

Soaking on the ice, makin' eyes all by myself
Didn't realize you were so top of the shelf
Just you want and see when you turn, turn 23

Oh Lord, what have I done to myself?
What have I done to myself?

In this vicious world
Such a vicious world
There isn't anything you can do
In this vicious world
Such a vicious world
There isn't anything you can do
In this vicious world
There isn't anything you can do
In this vicious world

Thanks to Jacques d'Amboise for
submitting the lyrics

Stop me falling down, stop me making movies of myself
Put that old dog down, stop me making movies of myself
Bring the carriage ‘round, get me to the garden of sleep
Make that high gate speak, Perrier out of a paper bag
Looking like a hag
And start giving me something
A love that is longer than a day
Start making my heart sing something that it doesn't want to say
I'm handing it over, I'm saying that you're the only one
Don't run for the border, turn that corner
Already you've run in movies of myself
Darling don't you ever let me go
Wrap your loving arms around me
While the cold winds blow
Tell me what I really want to know
‘Cause I'm looking for a reason, a person, a painting
A Saturday Evening Post Edition by Jesus
An old piece of bacon never eaten by Elvis
So I'll say start giving me something
A love that is longer than a day
Start making my heart say something it doesn't want to say
I'm handing it over, I'm singing that you're the only one
Don't run for the border, turn that corner
In movies of myself
Oh I've seen it all before in movies of myself

Pretty things, so what if I like pretty things
Pretty lies, so what if I like pretty lies
From where you are, to where I am now
I need these pretty things, around the planets of our phase
Everything's a sign of my astrology
From where you are, to where I am now
Is its own galaxy
Be a star and fall down somewhere next to me
And make it past your color TV
This time will pass and with it will me
And all these pretty things
Don't say you don't notice them

Thank you for this bitter knowledge
Guardian angels who left me stranded
It was worth it, feeling abandoned
Makes one hardened but what has happened to love
You got me writing lyrics on postcards
Then in the evening looking at the stars
But the brightest of the planets is Mars
Then what has happened to love
So I will opt for the big white limo
Vanity fairgrounds and rebel angels
You can't be trusted with feathers so hollow
Your heaven's inventions, steel eyed vampires of love
You see over me, I'll never know
What you have shown to other eyes
Go or go ahead and surprise me
Say you've lead the way to a mirage
Go or go ahead and just try me
Nowhere's now here smelling of junipers
Fell of the hay bales, I'm over the rainbows
But of Medusa kiss me and crucify
This unholy notion of the mythic power of love
Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying
Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
Forget about the ones that are crying
Go or go ahead

My phone's on vibrate for you
Electroclash is karioke too
I try to dance Britney Spears
I guess I'm getting on in years

My phone's on vibrate for you
God knows what all these new drugs do
I guess to have no more fears
But still I always end up in tears

My phone's on vibrate for you
But still I never ever feel from you
Pinocchio's now a boy
Who wants to turn back into a toy

So call me
Call me in the morning
Call me in the night
So call me
Call me anytime you like

My phone's on vibrate for you
For you

Thanks to Jacques d'Amboise for
submitting the lyrics

You've got my lost brother's soul
My dear mother's eyes
A brown horse's mane
And my uncle's name
You walked me down 14th Street
For the doctor to meet after thoughts of the grave
In the home of the brave and of the weak

But why'd you have to break all my heart
Couldn't you have saved a little bit of it?
Why'd you have to break all my heart?
Couldn't you have saved a minor part?

I could have clipped and saved and planted in the garden
Damn you guess I'll have to get a new one

I'd love to sit and watch you drink
With the reins to the world, gripping a smoke
Vaguely missing link
Don't ever change you hungry little bashful hound
I got the sheep, poor little Bo Peep
Has lost and filed for grounds.

But why'd you have to break all my heart
I could have ripped apart and thrown into the river
Wonder if there's hearts that will deliver

Don't ever change, don't ever worry
Because I'm coming back home tomorrow
To 14th Street where I won't hurry
And where I'll learn how to save, not just borrow
And they'll be rainbows and we will finally know

You walk alone in the valley of life
In the shadow of love under the trees of happiness

You walk alone like a baby unborn
Like a father unknown
Like a pocket penniless

I'm happy that you really care
But do you really know
How scary
This is for you and is for me?
Oh do you you really know?
Do you really know? oh..

Natasha
All I can do
Is write a song for you
Natasha
Oh Natasha

For you I sit alone on the cozy ground floor
On a bench by the garden
Waiting also
Waiting for love and thinking of all of the
Catty remarks I also swallow

And as I've often asked before
Does anybody know
How scary
This is for you and is for me?
Does anybody know?
Anybody know? oh...

Natasha
All I can do
Is write a song for you
Natasha
Oh Natasha
All I can do
Is write a song for you
Natasha

If a person should ever like a person
Then a person should like you
Being that I'm only just a person
What would you do?
If a person should ever like a person
Then a person should like me
Being that you're only just a person
It must be
Still I find it hard to get an answer
From the harvester of hearts
Always find it hard to get an answer
From the harvester of hearts
If a person should ever like a person
How funny that would be
If a person should ever like me
Not that I have that much to offer
God knows I have so much to gain
From the harvester of hearts
From the harvester of pain
If a person should ever like a person
Then a person should be free
Free to like whomever that they want to
Even though it ain't me
Not that I have much to offer
God knows I have so much to gain
From the harvester of hearts
From the harvester of pain

Thanks to Jacques d'Amboise for
submitting the lyrics

When I am older than these small goddamned hills
And there's no reason for my mind to be still

Oh, how I'll feel like a beautiful child
Such a beautiful child again

When I have finally found my room filled with toys
Be banging on my crib excited by noise

Oh, how I'll feel like a beautiful child
Such a beautiful child again

And when there's nothing to gain
Or bring me pain or pin the blame
On you or myself

And when they finally fall
These wailing walls and burdened crosses
God's twilights and all

How I'll feel like a beautiful child
Such a beautiful child again

I don't want to make it rain
I just want to make it simple
I don't want to see the light
I just want to see the flashlight
I don't want to know the answers
To any of your questions
I don't want, no I really don't want
To be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen
I just want to be my Dad
With a slight sprinkling of my mother
And work at the family store
And take orders from the counter
I don't want to know the answers
To any of your questions
I don't want, no I really don't want
To be John Lithgow or Jane Curtain
But I'll settle for love
Yeah, I'll settle for love

Before I reached the gate
I realized I had packed my passport
Before security realized
I had one more bag left
I just want to know
If something's coming for to get me
Tell me, will you make me sad or happy
And will you settle for love
Will you settle for love

Woke up this morning at 11:11
Woke up this morning and it wasnt in heaven
Those are the reason 'bout
Where I was sleeping but I was alive
I was alive
Woke up this morning at 11:11
John was half-naked and Lulu was crying
Those are the babies
That'll (or that dont) let me go crazy
But I was alive
And till the end of this world,
We'll all load in a dump truck of human
11:11

What else can I do,
What else can I do
Woke up this morning and
Something was burning
Realized that everything really
Does happen in my lifetime
Thoughts were of characters
And afternoons lying with you
And you were alive
Ohh, the hours we are seperate
11:11 is the precious time we wasted
So pack up your bleeding heart
And put away your posies
I don't want to have a drink
Or play ring around the rosie with you
Oh no, no

Ohh, the hours we are seperate
11:11 is the precious time we wasted
So let the blind fight the blind and see,
As the fall take over summer
Bringing the lattice roses
And as winter brings the spring rain
And to the end of this world,
We'll all load in a dump truck of human
11:11

No matter how strong
I'm gonna take you down
With one little stone
I'm gonna break you down
And see what you're worth
What you're really worth to me

Dinner at eight was okay
Before the toast full of gleams
It was great until those old magazines
Got us started up again
Actually it was probably me again

Why is it so
That I've always been the one who must go
That I've always been the one told to flee
When it fact you were the one long ago
Actually in the drifting white snow
You left me

So put up your fists and I'll put up mine
No running away from the scene of the crime
God's chosen a place
Somewhere near the end of the world
Somewhere near the end of our lives

But 'til then no, Daddy, don't be surprised
If I wanna see the tears in your eyes
Then I know it had to be long ago
Actually in the drifting white snow
You loved me

No matter how strong
I'm gonna take you down
With one little stone
I'm gonna break you down
And see what you're worth
What you're really worth to me

Es muß sein

Wanna be a man of my word
Want to believe in God
No matter what I've heard

Es muß sein

I must go, go where I've never been
Even if it is where I have already seen

Es muß sein

I won't cry
No time for crying left
I am a man, although bereft
I am going to die
A noble death

Es muß sein

Springtime, shoe shine, sometime of mine
Brokered, then remembered
Sunshine, ordered and transacted
Brokered, then remembered
Skipping along the path of today
Velvet curtain rag couldn't ever wipe this pain away

Agnus dei
Agnus dei
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Agnus dei
Agnus dei
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona nobis pacem
Dona nobis pacem
pacem
Dona nobis pacem

Translation:
Lamb of God
You who take away the sins of the world
Lamb of God
You who take away the sins of the world

Give Us Peace
Give Us Peace
Peace
Give Us Peace.

The mind has so many pictures
Why can't I sleep with my eyes open
The mind has so many memories
Can you remember what it looks like when I cry

I'm Trying, trying to tell you
All that I can in a sweet and velvet tongue
But no words ever could sell you
Sell you on me after all that I have done

I'm only the one you love
Am I only the one you love?
The Lady Gloom and her hornets circling round
Is now before us, the screaming's done without moving
One little move and for sure you will be stung

I'm singing "Oh, Jerusalem oh, Jerusalem
See what he's picked up in the park"
Let's f**k this awful art party
Want you to make love to me and only to me in the dark

I'm only the one you love
Am I only the one you love?

We've traded in our snap shots
We're going through the motions
Into the view, I'm leaving you
Down Conduit Avenue into the early morning
Into the early morning
The one I love
Are you only the one I love?

Is true love a trip to Chinatown
Or being held in one's opium gaze
Under the peach trees
There I'll sit and wait

Is true love a long walk through Bryant park
Or being held in the month of May
under the peach trees
There I will be, will be until you come and get me

Cause I'm so tired of waiting in restaurants
reading the critics and comics alone
With a waiter with a face made for currency
Like a coin in ancient Rome

And I really do wish you were here next to me
cause I'm going to see James Dean
There I will be
Under the peach trees with him

Little sister come and sit beside me, beside me
And we'll play a tune on this old piano forte
Just for a while, just for a while, just for a while
Til your hair becomes a powdered wig 
And I become a total bastard
Feet that hardly reach the pedal
Sold to a tremendous shadow

Ave ave history is on my side
So complain have no shame
And remember that your brother is a boy

Though it seems the stakes contain some ante-grate 
We all feel it still is based on good old intrigue
Just for a while, just for a while, just for a while
You may have to use your hips as fodder
Still putting your best foot forward
Madame didn't stack the cupboard ended up like mother hubbard
Ave, buddy (?), history is still a game
So complain have no shame and remember that round one has just been played

And you are poised for centuries to claim 
Follow examples from no longer a choice
The world be just a ball to pass or gaze upon

And one more thing
Before we go on again
Let's end this maze
Keep out the threat of a kid
Oh my little-little sister

There I was in uniform
Looking at the art teacher
I was just a girl then;
Never have I loved since then

He was not that much older than I was
He had taken our class to the Metropolitan Museum
He asked us what our favorite work of art was,
But never could I tell it was him
Oh, I wish I could tell him --
Oh, I wish I could have told him

I looked at the Rubens and Rembrandts
I liked the John Singer Sargents
He told me he liked Turner
Never have I turned since then
No, never have I turned to any other man

All this having been said,
I married an executive company head
All this having been done, a Turner - I own one
Here I am in this uniformish, pant-suit sort of thing,
Thinking of the art teacher
I was just a girl then;
Never have I loved since then
No, never have I loved any other man

The drummers and jugglers in Montreal
Don't even exist at all
So I'm tearing up these tarot cards and Venetians clowns
Antique shops and alcoholic homosexuals

You may ask why I want to torch my home town
Partly it's bitterness and hopping 'round and 'round again
On Ontario Street looking up
Maybe I'll catch him on his way to the show

You travel the world and find all the answers
Everything operates on the unattainables
And then you hear your mother laugh attached to the phone
Could have walked around the block 'cause all roads lead to home

Say, will you ever ever ever know,
Ever ever ever fly away?
Will you ever ever ever go,
Ever ever ever find a way?

I don't know what I'm doing
I don't know what I'm saying
I don't know why I'm watching all these white people dancing

I don't know where I'm going
But I do know that I'm walking
Where?
I don't know
Just away from this love affair

I can't say that I'm cruisin'
Not that I don't like cruisin'
Just that I'm bruisin from you

I can't say that I'm waltzin'
Not that I don't like waltzing
Would rather be waltzin' with you

So I guess that I'm going
I guess that I am walking
Where?
I don't know
Just away from this love affair

He will then be reborn
From 1970's porn
Wearing tubesocks with style
And such an innocent smile

Better pray for your sins
Better pray for your sins
'Cuz the gay messiah's coming

He will fall from the stars
Studio 54
And appear on the sand
Of Fire Island's shore

Better pray for your sins
Better pray for your sins
'Cuz the gay messiah's coming

No it will not be me
Rufus the baptist I be
No I won't be the one
Baptized in cum

What will happen instead
Someone will demand my head
And then I will kneel down
And give it to them looking down

Better pray for your sins
Better pray for your sins
'Cuz the gay messiah's coming

Never thought of Hades
Under the Mississippi
But still I've come to sing for him
So southern furies
Prepare to walk for my harp
I have strung, and I will leave with him
Relax the cogs of rhyme
Over the Memphis sky
Turn back the wheels of time
Under the Memphis skyline
always hated him for the way he looked
In the gaslight of the morning
Then came hallelujah sounding like Ophelia
for me in my room living
So kiss me, my darling stay with me till morning
Turn back and you will stay
Under the Memphis Skyline

Waiting for the present, for the present to pass
Waiting for a dream to last
You are not my lover, and you never will be
'Cause you've never done anything to hurt me

There's a fire in the priory
And it's ruining this cocktail party
Yesterday I heard they cloned a baby
Now can I finally sleep with me?

Diving through the rising, through the rising waves of night
Keeping a reflection of you in hindsight
But in turning back the brackish waters will not reflect you
After you have turned the color black of death or something like that

There's a fire in the priory
And it's ruining this cocktail party
Yesterday I heard the plague is coming
Once again, to find me

There's a fire in the priory
And an ogre in the oval office
Once again we all will be so broken
Now can I finally sleep again?

Maybe in you I'll believe
Maybe I'll believe in you
The future of my understanding of love
Many a time I've before
Before I've many a time
Knocked a stranger's door
Discretion hardly I'm known for
Probably has nothing to, nothing at all in the world to do with you
Just your lower lip on the floor

But baby I gotta get through
Crumb by crumb in this big black forest
Maybe in you I'll believe
Maybe I'll believe in you

Suddenly I'm not myself
Behind the facade is a lonely fountain, here
Suddenly you are the one
Who opens the gates to this unruly garden
Come and let this man go, you

'Cause baby I got to get through
Crumb by crumb in this big black forest
Maybe in you I'll believe
Maybe I'll believe in you

Suddenly you're not yourself
Behind the facade is a lonely angel, still
Suddenly I am the one who opens the gates to this now gloomy garden
Come and let this man go crumb by crumb in this big black forest
You I'll believe, crumb by crumb in this big black forest
You I'll believe, crumb by crumb in this big black forest...

An old whore's diet
Gets me going in the morning
Ain't nothing like it
Gets me going in the morning

To say I love you
Gets me going where I want to
Oh, gets me going
Oh, gets me going in the morning

(Repeats)

Hell, either here or Hell will do
Either here or Hell will employ you
Suicidal assistance
An old whore's diet

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, and said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,

Get me new faces, new faces, I'm tired of the old ones
Played aces, lost cases, my place is fine, let the bulls run
There's one--little Lord Bosie cut from the daisy chain
Plain to see little Lord Bosie and to suppose he's headed for Hades
I know the way--birds and the bees
No need to say, please
Because I'm in with the ladies

First must get Mustang
Just dust won't go bang!--with a Grand Am
Dang! I've a Mustang
Aw shucks! Now you're in with the old gang
Sunset Boulevard, Bosie, and Santa Monica

Let's get some silver screen, baby
Sunset always seems sweeter
After you've traveled far

Bosie, relax you're a winner, and I am a star
Who knows the way
Birds and the bees,
No need to say please
Because I'm in with the ladies

Please--now in with the ladies:

Now that you're in with the ladies nothin' that you can't do
My, how you're in with the ladies drinking from that one's shoe
Man, how your dan choco baby's bewitching the whole swarming crew
And how the macho brigade is now wishin' and wantin' some, too.

Get me new faces, new faces, I'm tired of the old ones.
There's one--little Lord Bosie cut from the daisy chain
Plain to see little Lord Bosie
Is ringing up rosies and pocketing posies.
??? he's not spoon-fed on wheaties
No longer Euphrates'--Tigris's baby
And oh how the rainbows
Are heading for Hades