Silver Jews Album

No I don't really want to die
I only want to die in your eyes
I'm still here below the chandelier
Where they always used to read us our rights

I want to wander through the night
As a figure in the distance even to my own eye
Have you ever rented a room?
Have you even ever rented a room?

An anchor lets you see the river move
Now that your evil dreams came true
There on your face
A row of teeth will come to replace

I know you laughed
When I left
But you really only hurt yourself
You see your curtains move in the wind
You can bet I'm betting against you again

Cause I'm a man who has a wife who has a mother
Who married one but she loved another

You're a tower without the bells
You're a negative wishing well

Should have checked the stable door
For the name of the sire and dame
You were always at the dog track
With your brother and all his friends

Chalk lines around my body
Like the shore line of a lake
Your laughter made me nervous
It made your body shake too hard
Now there's a lot of things that I'm gonna miss
Like thunder down country and the way water drips
When you're running for the door in the rain

Read the metro section
Read the metro section
Read the metro section
See my name

No I didn't really want to die
I only wanted to die in your eyes

Grant me one last wish
Life should mean a lot less than this
Grant me one last wish
Life should mean a lot less than this

Guard my bed
While the rain turns the ditches to mirrors
Buy a vase of carnations from central Ohio
Where the looking-machine can't hear us

Deep in the night
We dream of positions
There's a line for the phone in the hall

And in the cold places where Spanish is spoken
Most wars end in default

You never know when your pet will go
Pet politics
Pet politics
Pet politics
Pet politics

Still wearin' last night's mascara
Now that her pet was gone for sure
She was shiverin' so hard
It looked like there were two of her

I could see through the sleeve on her blouse
The plans of her architect lover
The tattoo of a boarded-up house
An ink door that belonged to another

When the rain hits you
It hits you slow
Stitch after stitch
Stitch after stitch
Stitch after stitch
Stitch after stitch

Adam was not the first man
Though the bible tells us so
There was one created before him
Whose name we do not know

He also lived in the garden
But he had no mouth or eyes
One day Adam came to kill him
And he died beneath these skies

I find it so amazing how
I go where I'm led
I go where I'm led
I go where I'm led
I go where I'm led

I suspect we could be Losing now
Please guard my bed
Please guard my bed
Please guard my bed
Please guard my bed

Baby let's get dressed up
I got two pairs of shoes
Darling you look so beautiful
When your hair's all hung in jewels

And sometimes I find it really hard to choose
Between a pair of black and a pair of brown shoes

When I'm high on batwings
Up by the silvery moon
I think of a certain sad-eyed king
Trapped in his golden room
And I dream of a cold river on the way
To come and sweep that king into this black and brown bay

Well the water looks like jewelry
When it's coming out the spout
And nothing could make me feel better
Than a wet kiss on the mouth

Fake ID's and honey bees
The jagged skyline of car keys
I never knew a bird could fly so low

Rub out the catlight
Rub out the village
Red and white exit light
That's exodus damage
Why don't people think of who they use?
Why don't you try and come and get me:
Black and brown blues

It's raining triple sec in Tchula
And the radio plays "Crazy Train"
There's a quadroon ball in the beehive
Hanging out in the rain
And when there's trouble I dont like running
But I'm afraid I got more in common
With who I was than who I am becoming

When I go downtown
I always wear a corduroy suit
Cause it's made of a hundred gutters
That the rain can run right through
But a lonely man can't make a move
If he can't even bring himself to choose
Between a pair of black and a pair of brown shoes

Miss Mary Jane measures rain in a cracked cup on the sill
In Embry's last photograph he disappears over a hill
Darrell Dotson waits in the grass for a fight
the stars don't shine upon us
we're in the way of their light

The new girl in Tahoe has swallowed Sinatra's cum
A Russian primadonna dances slow on valium
After the game the benchwarmer can't get a ride
in space there is no center
we're always off to the side

John Parker III steps over a bird on a Wall St. window ledge
Little Wilkie finds a dead cat rotting deep inside the hedge
Mahalia Roach dies on a Greyhound coach in July
in a horror movie when the car won't start
you give it one last try

Guinnevere orders one more beer in the smokey pick-up bar
A burnt out tramp by the exit ramp waits for one more car
The Latin teacher always smelled like piss
the census figures come out wrong
there's an extra in our midst

I passed out on the fourteenth floor
the CPR was so erotic
a blizzard blew in through the door
and little glowing cum buckets in her ankles

O Dallas you shine with an evil light
O Dallas you shine with an evil light
How'd you turn a billion steers
into buildings made of mirrors,
and why am I drawn to you tonight?

Once you taste the geometry of a church in a cul-de-sac
you're gonna wanna sit with the bad kids in the back

Cruising down Commerce
killing time in the blazing sun
Is it true your analyst was a placekicker for the Falcons?

We saw B.B. King on General Hospital
in the Oak Cliff dram house where we stayed
and when Clancy whipped her with his belt buckle
we cleaned her cuts and then we prayed

O Dallas you shine with an evil light
Don't you know that God stays up all night?
And how'd you turn a billion steers
into buildings made of mirrors,
and why am I drawn to you tonight?

Watching the makeup girls make out with the mannequins
"Hey boys, supper's on me, our record just went aluminum"

Poor as a mouse every morning
rich as a cat every night
Some kind of strange magic happens
when the city turns on her lights

Inside the golden days of missing you
with the people of Cleveland
who've suffered for so many years
The shattered glass cussed
and when it broke it spoke to us
It said "Hey"
It said "I know you... what's your name?"

I wish they didn't set mirrors behind the bar
cause I can't stand to look at my face
when I don't know where you are
Then the feeling fades away
but you sort of wish it would of stayed
inside... the golden days of missing you

What if life is just some hard equation
on a chalkboard in a science class for ghosts
You can live again
but you'll have to die twice in the end
in the end/ we'll meet again

Call me from Albemarle Station if you can
I hope you find your concentration beneath those ceiling fans
We used to dance in this split-level ranch
when moonlight flooded the room
Now you're gone and the shades are all drawn
in my air conditioned tomb

Bad roads, bad snow, bad bridges
could turn a once bad man religious
if thy kingdom ever comes
you better run, run run run

There must be a spanish word for this feeling
the rush I get when I am stealing
from the Dust Congress
whose dollars and dimes
say "in dust we trust"
oh yeah
the world is not ready for you

I passed an abandoned drive-in
with ivy growing over the screen
It was like I caught Hollywood sleeping-
sleep without the dreams

A magic shop in Colonial Watts
something gets pushed by the wind
The world's not ready
the world's not ready
the chimes of rabies are ringing again

Bad roads, bad snow, bad bridges
could turn a once bad man religious
if thy kingdom ever comes
you better run, run run run

There must be a pool out behind the church
cause he looked so cool in the back of a hearse
After a debutante of his trial
all the citizens began to dress in his style
oh yeah,

it's a beautiful, beautiful world

Of all of the people I knew,
I always looked up to you.
And after millions of years of cryin',
the sun still shines and shines.

Look a horse, of course,
gallops through the desert light.
I make such good time through sub-space when I
dream all day and write all night.

Robot walks into a bar.
Orders a drink, lays down a bill.
Bartender says "Hey we don't serve robots,"
and the robot says "no, but someday you will."

Prison's a good time for some.
Many people get caught with a gun
This trucker says it's good to be free,
says he knows lots of folks who agree.

Bumper stickers talk to him,
say let the stars get in your eyes.
Time, cum, sand and surf
these are the building building blocks of life

Boy wants a car from his dad.
Dad says "First you got to cut that hair."
Boy says "Hey dad, Jesus had long hair,"
and dad says "that's right son, Jesus walked everywhere."

When i was younger, I was a cobra.
In every case I wanted to be cool.
Now that i'm older, sub-space is colder,
just want to say something true.

Everybody wants perspective from a hill
But everybody's wants can't make it past a window sill
I can see you in your room at night
Pictures on your walls
Little forest scenes and high school Halloweens
But they don't come to you
They don't come to you at all

All houses dream in blueprints
Our houses dream so hard
Outside you can see my shoeprints
I've been dreaming in your yard

One of these days these days will end
Thru the kitchen window the light will bend
You'll be carving a pumpkin with a knife
when someone at the table says
"That's not what I call a life!"

The elephants are so ashamed of their size
Hosing 'em down I tell them "you got pretty eyes"
Out in the backyard I used to make like I was a cowboy
I'd set my dog before a hoop and say "now boy, now boy!"

When the governor's heart fails
The state bird falls from its branch
Icicles on hell's higher hills
Meanwhile back home at the ranch
I still get up early in the morning
And I never knew a better place

I believe the stars are the headlights of angels
Driving from heaven to save us
To save us
Look in the sky
They're driving from heaven into our eyes
And though final words are so hard to devise
I promise that I'll always remember your pretty eyes
Your pretty eyes