1. |
Next World
09:31
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I suppose you could empty a language into this beginning,
Goddess-double-helix of next world never-ending,
Wrecking all our wonders; salvaging our syndicated woes,
The fabric of our being into the flesh of time softly grows,
As the legal tender of our soul devours its human host,
Debt collectors and money lenders begin to garnish the ghost,
Systematic city breeding only that it may nurse,
The inheritance tax of this capitalistic curse.
Next world could be a dream,
Next world could be a scheme,
Next world could be the most,
Beautiful thing we’ve ever seen.
This is not an empty metaphor when the world gets stuck in your head,
Not like the empty-eyed-advertising that haunts the living-dead,
But these words they lack the acid-verbs that would turn them to their deeds,
The same way these petty little nothings turn to urgent-endless-needs,
This is the religion we make for ourselves when we leave our matter to fate,
You don’t even notice the trap anymore when your addicted to the bait,
The living reconcile the past and create the future stuck in between then and there,
Now has no stop; no clock face or number just a pulse that could lead anywhere.
Next world could be a dream,
Next world could be a scheme,
Next world could be the most,
Beautiful thing we’ve ever see.
You can approach your day with a slavish mentality and be assured it will always be the same,
You can approach your day with a rebel’s attitude and be assured it will some day change,
But they trick you into thinking that it’s not all that bad just because it could be worse,
I mean look at those poor people right over there meanwhile his hand is trolling thru your purse,
Just because they say it; that don’t mean you have to mean it; this world didn’t come with rules,
It doesn’t take a really wise man to realize this world is ran by very clever fools,
We can’t agree on what a better world is and there are no easy answers; even the questions are a bitch,
But I think we can all agree it’s not a never-ending quest for better ways to serve the rich.
Next world could be a dream,
Next world could be a scheme,
Next world could be the most,
Beautiful thing we’ve ever see.
Where do we begin to start,
Where do we begin to start,
Where’s the revolution?
Aug. 11
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2. |
Where's the Revolution?
06:18
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Where’s the revolution,
What makes these dreamers come true,
Where’s the revolution,
What gives these thinkers what to do,
It’s been coming for its trial of years,
The light of justice to these shadow-tears,
We don’t need bullets but we might need blood,
A rainbow arched across this first born’s flood.
Where’s the revolution,
Where is the river’s healing drink,
Where’s the revolution,
Where’s the rebel thoughts and what they think,
Where’s the revolution?
Where’s the revolution?
Where’s the revolution,
What makes the meal worth the hunger,
Where’s the revolution,
What makes the young-blood burn younger,
This darkness that only patronizes the night,
Is a product of much more than the absence of light,
Stuck inside the weather's guts is the thunder of this rain,
Medicine-bliss will be the measure of this pain.
Where’s the revolution,
Where is the river’s healing drink,
Where’s the revolution,
Where’s the rebel thoughts and what they think,
Where’s the revolution?
Where’s the revolution?
Where’s the revolution,
The fight will deliver the foe,
Where’s the revolution,
Just a player in the system's show,
Where’s the revolution?
Where’s the revolution?
It’s been around the corner since I was a child,
In the sixties; the seventies it almost went wild,
Then they gave in just enough to keep us pacified,
Now we stare into the TV till we’er zombified,
Some kind of fucking nightmare this American dream,
Eternal mornings of that idiot alarm-clock scream,
But there’s no time to make a difference because you’ve gotta make a living,
They make you think you're taking when you're the one that's giving,
“One day they’er gonna rise from their habitual feast,
And find themselves staring down the throat of the beast”*
Not enough information to inform just enough to dupe,
The news much more like gossip on a feedback-loop,
No new ideas allowed just institutional thinking,
But so many ways to waste your life there’s no time for blinking,
Thru the opiate of our beliefs that's the way we are controlled,
And by the falseness of our beliefs that’s the way we are de-souled.
Where’s the revolution?
Sept. 11
* Bruce Cockburn
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3. |
Nobody Knows
05:00
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While we mortgage our souls to the mercy of the streets,
The lien-holder throws out more food than he eats,
You never know how close you are to that close call,
Until you don’t really have a thing and then lose it all.
What goes on after hours,
In those big city towers,
Well somebody knows; yeah somebody knows,
What goes on behind the doors,
Of the Wall Street whores,
Well somebody knows; yeah somebody knows,
Who pays the dues,
Of the big-bank-blues,
Well somebody does; yeah somebody does,
Who takes the fuck,
Of the big-bang buck,
Well somebody does; yeah somebody does.
Victimless criminals are protected by the law,
The system's serpent that feeds among us all,
A sentient shadow-world that uses meaning as a weapon,
Skin the bone till the ruins are beyond the reckon.
What goes on after hours,
In those big city towers,
Well somebody knows; yeah somebody knows,
What goes on behind the walls,
In those capital halls,
Well somebody knows; yeah somebody knows,
What goes on in the courts,
Of those endless torts,
Well somebody knows; yeah somebody knows,
Do you have to be a bitch,
To be super-rich,
Well somebody knows; yeah somebody knows.
The six o'clock news smells just like prison food,
It's just a shrink probing the inmates' mood,
Of the storm that is building no math could figure this rain,
Hope is not an option for those waiting for it to sanctify their pain.
What goes on in the head,
Of the walking-dead,
Well nobody knows, yeah nobody knows,
What goes on in the heart,
Of the torn apart,
Well nobody knows; yeah nobody knows.
Who fills the gut,
Of the glamour-glut,
Well everybody knows; yeah everybody knows,
Who pays the price,
Of the lost paradise,
Well you know we do; yeah you know we do.
Oct. 11
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4. |
The First Millionaire
06:03
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Well they lined up for miles to see the proof that crime does pay,
All full of that dreamy-headed sleepy-vision of someday,
He was handing out free shoes for every one to shine,
He said keep them if you want but if you’d like you can pretend they’er still mine.
And the first millionaire; “oh man he’s just a regular guy”,
“Did you see him I swear he looked me right in the eye”,
“I heard when he was fifteen he dropped out of school”,
“Yeah but I can tell you he sure as hell ain't no fool”.
About ten minutes later he invented the first tax shelter,
Then the economics of his emotions left his cash-flow to welter,
He just borrowed a little more money when needed to pay his bills,
He said you can't expect to make oil without making a few oil-spills.
And the first millionaire you know he gave a lot to charity,
He maintained the underclass with his offering of parity,
He set up a trust-fund but there was no one he could trust,
The alimony of his first love was the dowery of his first lust.
Even a lost man could see where these directions were headed,
Numbers don't lie but accounts do and that's why the papers were shredded,
Then you begin to wonder just at whose expense this expense account,
And it’s not so much the apathy as it is the amount.
The first millionaire yeah he loved his god and country,
Turned it into the land of milk and money,
And that wing of the hospital still bears his name,
And the money in this myth is what buys his fame.
July 11
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5. |
Sheepskin
03:33
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Why; is the perfect question that even a child knows to ask,
Just because; is the only answer when the task master is held to task,
We all imagine a different better world which is why we have this one,
So they feed you the dream that’s always doing always doing; never done.
Innocence and apathy and hackneyed sin,
Dyed in the wool politics of sheepskin,
Trained to think the world was just made this way,
You’ve got to fight to live another day.
When you settle for the traffic of the traffic-laws all you get is a right on red,
When you spend your whole life just trying to make a living you end up better-off dead,
And while bankers and billionaires are singing their bail-out-blues,
Another man that can’t pay his bills doesn’t even make the news.
Innocence and apathy and hackneyed sin,
Dyed in the wool politics of sheepskin,
Trained to think the world was just made this way,
You’ve got to fight to live another day.
It’s damn near all right to amount to next to nothing these days,
We can waste our lives by the book with no wonder in the ways,
If the dream is left to the sleeper’s discretion we all had better wake up,
They’er really good at moving with the movement don’t let them bend the break up.
Innocence and apathy and hackneyed sin,
Dyed in the wool politics of sheepskin,
Trained to think the world was just made this way,
You’ve got to fight to live another day.
All you need is a question to question authority,
You don’t have to have all the answers,
Sugar-bomb the beautiful,
Before our souls get any number,
I guess next world will be just like this world,
I don’t think we’re smart enough to get any dumber.
Nov. 11
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6. |
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Madness is the only method left in these old beliefs,
Promises of next world chain you to these Earthly griefs,
The thing under your bed is now sleeping with your wife,
The devil takes your living and gives you the afterlife.
You say faith will turn you into a believer,
But faith is nothing more than a great deceiver,
Truth is; I don’t believe what I don’t know,
And I don’t know just because you say so.
Well if no one can know what the truth is,
What good is the truth at all,
In absence of proof and absent it is,
The truth is nothing more than the law,
But the truth could be we are all right here,
Trying to figure out what the truth could be,
But it doesn't matter if the light is off or on,
If you're blind; well then you just will not see.
If everyone must find the truth for themselves,
Then it cannot be divined from the book on the shelf,
Truth is; I don’t believe what I don’t know,
And I don’t know just because you say so.
Some ridiculous religion some cultural-cult,
Is why this will never be what it is,
Pop a star up the charts; study sound-bite bibles,
Go to mock a monkey and a math wiz,
In this world every time we discover a new sky,
When we should fly we always prefer to fight,
So we sit around debating of our darkness,
When in fact everything is light.
But if you're just not comfortable believing in your-self,
You can always go and believe in something else,
Truth is; I don’t believe what I don’t know,
And I don’t know just because you say so.
July 11
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7. |
Songs About the Sunset
10:16
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I’ve got so much on my mind that belongs somewhere else,
Gets so hard to separate your selflessness from your self,
But if I care so much why do I wonder why I even care at all,
Can you inspire someone to flight that’s barely fit to crawl.
I’d rather write songs about the sunset,
But this world’s crucible needs a poet's fire,
I’d rather write songs about your eyes,
But all hark; the revolution to inspire.
All the people huddle and hungry in the shadows of machines,
Trying to figure out if this is the meaning; just what that means,
But we confuse the way it is for the way it has to be,
As if the system’s stomach was part of our own biology.
I’d rather write songs about the sunset,
But this world’s crucible needs a poet's fire,
I’d rather write songs about your eyes,
But all hark; the revolution to inspire.
I’d rather be the scribe that put the stars in the heavens of your dreams,
Instead of the whistle-blowing-herald singing of these blank-verse schemes,
I’d rather be the ghostwriter for god’s fool just to see you smile,
Instead of the gossip of the devil’s patsy throwing some more garbage on the pile.
But mankind's petty gods are all man-made,
His flesh the address to which his debts will be paid,
But now is the time to take his soul to the river,
And turn his death-media into the art of a liver.
One day I’ll write songs about the sunset,
One day I’ll sculpt the living beauty of your eyes,
But now I must chant hymns of warring-wonders,
For now I must sing the revolution to rise.
Nov. 11
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8. |
Next World War
04:34
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As we drive to the sharpest point of our being,
We must turn our vision to the clearest point of our seeing,
Our savaged senses in the crosshairs of a system,
That doesn’t know its enemy from its victim,
And the raging kingdom-come in every street-soldiers soul,
Is ready to default on this mortgage of control,
These answers need new questions; not new excuses,
All these used up lives could be put to better uses,
There‘s no time left for the doing if we waste it in the waiting,
This fetish for rebuilding corrupts our instincts for creating,
The cynical synergy of this movement’s great calling,
Will ground the ones who’ve been flying at the expense of the falling,
Sometimes it’s easier to suffer than to stand up and fight,
Easier to figure you're wrong than to realize you are right,
When the facts are filtered by the born-again truth,
And they command the burden of task and ignore the burden of proof.
Nobody wants their brother’s blood,
Nobody envies the river in flood,
But the ones who only put stock in the stock-exchange,
Force you to have to force a change,
Sweatshop-economics of the I.M.F.,
Or maybe you just wonder if god is deaf,
It wouldn’t even take all that much,
For the wage-slave-junkie to throw up his crutch.
This is just a dead man’s will it’s not a holy way,
A tyrant wants it all but it’s no crime to want a little more,
There comes a time when you stop picking your battles,
Stop banking with your soul and declare outright war.
Dec. 11
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9. |
The Age of Everything
07:30
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All you have to do is touch it; you won’t feel a thing,
Mass-media goddess; the be-all tell-all weather-beauty,
The ruthless means of the calculated ends of structured emptiness,
Some brain-dead bureaucrat following his dead-end-duty,
But the only light that’s on is the applause-light,
It's a rerun tragedy but the laugh-track is hilarious,
It came broken by mail but anyway the new model is faster,
Turn it into nothing with a nice ass; make it Viagra-vicarious.
And underneath it all I still feel like a blank that’s not been filled in,
I just want to move to a new neighborhood into a house nobody’s been killed in.
And just Facebook all my pretty little problems for the world to comment and archive,
I will end as the junk-flies of gut felt gossip on the next world hard drive.
The byte made word; scripted agencies of our cyber-selves,
She is an encrypted device of which we can’t break the code,
Everywhere the anything at once; memories put tomorrow's now,
We will bail out the banks of our meaning to co-sponsor the ode,
A fairytale-princess-scapegoat's-blog; Fox news or pixellated-porn,
The attention span of eternity couldn’t follow this Warhol-of-fame,
It’s nothing you can’t live without but you need it to know it,
So much less than lifeless; not much more than a game.
Stranded in the age of everything,
Branded by the corporate-take-over-sting,
Chronic cancers and streaming revivals,
Sonic-censor game-show-survivals,
New-age-old-school-identity-thief,
Blue-ray spec and unbelievable-belief,
Ad hoc universal formats of scorched earth,
Ad rock implications of it girl's virgin birth.
Seeded whispers of the automated angels of commerce,
Babbling’s of god like gizmos that hold the future ransom,
And the beautiful price paid to the tyranny of the dollar,
A mean and bloody king but he’s photoshoped and handsome,
What's doing won’t be done until now happens fifteen minutes ago,
But the sound-bite of the hot-blonde will have us buying the whole-half-truth,
This touches us more deeply than when we touch ourselves,
A whole world spent in the pursuit of misspent youth.
Raptured in the age of everything,
Captured by the primetime offering,
Amused to the point of confusion,
Abused by the be-real illusion,
Tagged by the ad-bots public invasion,
Nagged by the multinational abrasion,
A great time to live and have it all,
A fate worse than taxes if we juke the fall.
Nov. 11
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10. |
Next World Girl
04:17
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Oh I can only fumble my lyric,
When it comes to a song of you,
The poet in the man undone by your beauty,
And the treasure of all you do,
I feel I have spent my whole life in your praise,
And still not broached your worth,
The atmosphere is perfumed by your presence,
You are the rock and the heat of my earth.
Next world girl.
My stranger's soul you took and made real,
I don’t know what I’d be sans your love,
My love you seem the only women to me,
The corpus of all time would not be enough,
I strain my throat for I want so to sing,
Some beautiful rhyme that captures you true,
But what matter the show my sweet,
My tongue can find better ways to please you.
Next world girl.
I couldn’t take anymore without breaking apart,
Looking to your never-ending-eyes,
In your arms I discover my own true self,
Escape the world and all its whys,
A summer bride for the winter of all discontents,
A lover in any storm or season,
Anytime I take your flesh to my soul,
I swear you out rhyme all wonders of reason.
Next world girl.
I don’t think a library could chronicle those lips,
That have brought a miracle with every kiss,
Those that have put such songs on my own,
And whispered some meaning to all of this,
I thank you above all of the few I could thank,
For loving my right and forgiving my wrong,
I owe you my life; love; sex and my joy,
You are the flower and very seed of my song.
Next world girl my blessing and breath,
My only reason for loving life and fearing death,
But I love you in this world I’ll love you in next world,
I’ll love you till all worlds stop and tender back,
The souls of their making to the eternal wonder,
That now offers itself to me,
As you.
Dec. 11
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11. |
Midnight Traffic
06:30
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A green light against the expanding canvas of night,
My mind blanks on divinities of wrong and right,
The surge of the engine pulling me to some-somewhere,
Just as soon as you get use to being here you're heading there,
And the pull of that dream,
And the push of this steam,
Makes me feel like the loaded,
Sum of this scheme.
Don’t be apart from me,
Be a part of me,
Midnight traffic,
Is just a whisper on my pillow.
Just the nothing of what it is craving what it could be,
The way my drop-dead thoughts try to force their opinion on me,
The way this world gets inside you like that drink you weren’t going to take,
The principle of this pleasure is to glorify this ache,
And the trial of this trash,
And the stink of that cash,
Makes me feel the stock market,
Of my soul is gonna crash.
Don’t be apart from me,
Be a part of me,
Midnight traffic,
Is just the noise that fuels my silence.
And the sing of that song,
And the right of this wrong,
Makes me feel like my life,
Has been dying to long.
And the rule of that rain,
And the drug of this pain,
Make me feel like,
A vital part of the strain.
And the drop of this pace,
And the wreck of that race,
Makes me feel like the times,
Well put in my place.
And the hell in this flame,
And the guts in that game,
Makes me feel like a victim,
In a world with no shame.
Midnight traffic,
Haunts the avenues of my head.
july 11
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12. |
Whoring After Gods
06:14
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She altered the atmosphere in passing to her deliverance,
The venom of envy pumped to the serpent's fangs,
She leans against the swords of this desperate authority,
Proclaims it's all mine it always was; I want it back.
Cities built upon,
Broken Babylons,
Time's technology,
Man's biology.
Nursing the manic callings; divine stress; fundamental flaws,
The infrastructures slow rust to the rapacious rebuilding,
Run the numbers on the crash of this faith based placebo,
You crawl so low to this higher calling you hum the devil's alibi,
And if there be a road which no map can trace the soul of,
Then here we will take our exit and gut our pagans for the plunder,
These soft-stories they have no center they are ripe for retelling,
New gods they curry new bibles and new blood for their alters.
Greater heavens await the wings of these devouter angels,
So mine your stomach's growl down to its acid alphabet,
This is a first son’s illusion a serpent on the glass of your ambitions,
But this profane wrath won't weather the divine stasis of his mortal-coil,
And the fall that he mates of the sky will wreck his skill for flight,
The sidewalks of paradise will soak and suffer these crash-landings,
But the medicine powdered from your bones won't heal the holy,
So we will bait our graven image and go whoring after gods.
Cities burnt upon,
Paradise Babylons,
Man’s economies,
Gods and evil deeds.
Dec 11
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13. |
Deep Order
07:04
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The biggest mystery of all,
Is why we think the world is such a mystery,
Though I can’t imagine it any other way,
No I can’t not for the life of me,
They put forth gods and philosophies,
But the truth is much deeper than these toys,
The song and honeyed throat of the silence,
Shows up this text for its subtext of noise.
And we don’t know why we think it’s beautiful,
And we don’t even know what it is,
We just know we feel that it’s wonderful,
Singer of the soul in all of this.
Made one day to quit this being,
And merge back to the great and all,
To quit the petty-politic of dreaming,
Exit the audience to join the choir of the call,
This nameless everything; this reckoner of ages,
Brings all its children to its world of wordless wonder,
The unknowing ration of eternity’s school,
The blank of god and the bones of thunder.
And we don’t know why we think it’s beautiful,
And we don’t even know what it is,
We just know we feel that it’s wonderful,
Singer of the soul in all of this.
Folded somewhere deep inside this day,
Are the unassembled parts of a scattered eternity,
Where all the chaotic moments coalesce into deep order,
And what we really are is all we could never be,
Lifetimes spent in the vain pursuits of living,
Only to push us into next world feeling wasted,
Our plans left unused and laying on the map,
And the rain-water-wine the only vintage tasted.
But when our lives are given back over to this dark mother,
The peace beyond all senses will forgive all that was other.
And we know why we think it’s beautiful,
Because we know what it really is,
To come alive just to feel the wonderful,
There couldn’t be any more than this.
Nov. 11
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14. |
This World
06:50
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I suppose you have to blame the view on the architecture,
And the architect bears the burden of the build,
There’s no use trying to stare any sense into what you see,
Dystopian dogma is all your vision will yield,
Time plays by the time-clock; all your work just pointless labour,
You commute all hope of justice to some next world savior,
You sacrifice for the greater-good of the lesser-man,
It’s really just a scheme to make you believe it’s the plan.
We believe in everything but the truth,
The authority figure has got it figured out,
These nascent ruins just the billboards' prop,
Of product-placement we have no doubt.
A little too good to be true; just good enough to be believed,
The landscaped conspiracy of suburban lawns,
And to make you feel a job is so dear you’ll work for next to nothing,
Turn you not to servile slaves but happy little pawns,
They keep your memory stocked with the blood of bibles,
So you can always remember how to bleed,
And the shoppers-shelves stocked with divine-desires,
It becomes so easy to forget what to need.
Opinions that sound more like sound-bites sound,
A system that feels like it has run aground,
So geared to this engine can’t tell the lost from the found,
Our maps are still flatter than the world is round,
Meaningless dumb shows to TV the troops,
God-junkie’d-politic; no dumber than dupes,
Victims and killers and first born lobby groups,
Lawyers that make broken laws jump thru hoops.
We believe in everything but the truth,
The authority figure has got it figured out,
How to keep the bandwidth of freedom in check,
Conclusions that come with their own dogma of doubt.
This world is not a province of the United States of Amythica,
We still don’t see the big picture even on an eighty inch screen,
But it’s so much easier to fit in when you fit in,
Hard enough to figure just what to do without the figure of what it may mean,
Must a man of the people be an enemy of the state,
Willing to fight the fight and ready to eat the kill,
What is the price we pay to pay this price and who keeps the change,
We will not inherit the earth unless we contest the will.
Sept. 11
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Michael McGuire Nashville, Tennessee
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