Headstrong
[ music: natalie merchant/words: natalie merchant ]
To your common sense firm arguments
I wont listen to your voice of reason trying to change my mind.
I mind my feelings and not your words.
Didnt you notice Im so headstrong even when I know Im wrong?
Take this to your heart and into your head now:
Before you waste your time, call a truce and call a draw.
Whats the use in mapping your views out in orderly form
When it does nothing but confuse and anger me more?
I mind my feelings and not your words.
Didnt you notice Im so headstrong.
Youre talking to a deaf stone wall.
Take this to your heart and into your head now:
The old wives tale is true, Ill repeat it.
All is fair in love and war, thats how the famous saying goes.
Open up your eyes, see me for what I am:
Cast in iron, I wont break and I wont bend.
Take this to your heart and into your head now:
The old wives tale is true, Ill repeat it.
All is fair in love and war, thats how the famous saying goes.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Big Parade
[ music: jerome augustyniak/words: natalie merchant ]
Detroit to d.c. night train, capitol, parts east.
Lone young man takes a seat.
And by the rhythm of the rails, reading all his mothers mail from a city boy in a jungle town postmarked saigon.
Hell go live his mothers dream, join the slowest parade hell ever see.
Her weight of sorrows carried long and carried far.
Take these, tommy, to the wall.
Metro line to the mall site with a tour of japanese.
Hes wandering and lost until a vet in worn fatigues takes him down to where they belong.
Near a soldier, an ex-marine with a tattooed dagger and eagle trembling, he bites his lip beside a widow breaking down.
She takes her purple heart, makes a fist, strikes the wall.
All come to live a dream, to join the slowest parade theyll ever see.
Their weight of sorrows carried long and carried far, taken to the wall.
Its 40 paces to the year that he was slain.
His hands slipping down the wall for its slick with rain.
How would life have ever been the same if this wall had carved in it one less name?
But for christs sake, hes been dead over 20 years.
He leaves the letters asking, who caused my mothers tears, was it washington or the viet cong?
Slow deliberate steps are involved.
He takes them away from the black granite wall toward the other monuments so white and clean.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Dust Bowl
[ music: robert buck/words: natalie merchant ]
I should know to leave them home.
They follow me through the store with these toys I cant afford.
Kids, take them back, you know better than that.
Dolls that talk, astronauts, t.v. games, airplanes, they dont understand and how can I explain?
I try and try but I cant save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
Ive tried and tried but I cant save.
My youngest girl has bad fever, sure.
All night with alcohol to cool and rub her down.
Ruby, Im tired, try and get some sleep.
Im adding doctors fees to remedies with the cost of three days work lost.
I try and try but I cant save.
Pennies, nickels, dollars slip away.
Ive tried and tried but I cant save.
The hole in my pocketbook is growing.
Theres a new wind blowing they say, its gonna be a cold, cold one.
So brace yourselves my darlings, it wont bring anything much our way but more dust bowl days.
I played a card in this weeks game.
Took the first and the last letters in three of their names.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Painted Desert
[ jerome augustyniak/natalie merchant ]
The painted desert can wait till summer.
Weve played this game of just imagine long enough.
Wait till summer?
When Im sure the rains have ended, the blooms have gone,
Everyone killed by the morning frost.
Is a cactus blooming there in every roadside stand
Where the big deal is cowboy gear won in japan?
The painted desert can wait till summer.
Weve played this game of just imagine long enough.
Wait till summer?
When Im sure the rains have ended and the blooms have gone,
Everyone killed by the morning frost.
Is a cactus blooming there upon the northern rim
Or in the ruins of the hopi mesa dens?
You met a new friend in the canyon, or so you wrote.
On a blanket in the cooling sand you and your friend agreed that
The stars were so many there they seemed to overlap.
The painted desert can wait till summer.
Weve played this game of just imagine long enough.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Jezebel
[ merchant ]
[ cello: larry corbett/violin: bruce dukov/viola: pamela goldsmith/violin: ralph morrison (quartet arranged and conducted by paul buckmaster) ]
To think of my task is chilling.
To know I was carefully building the mask I was wearing for two years, swearing Id tear it off.
Ive sat in the dark explaining to myself that Im straining too hard for feelings I ought to find easily.
Called myself jezebel.
I dont believe.
Before I say that the vows we made weigh like a stone in my heart.
Family is family, dont let this tear us apart.
You lie there, an innocent baby.
I feel like the thief who is raiding your home, entering and breaking and taking in every room.
I know your feelings are tender and that inside you the embers still glow.
But Im a shadow, Im only a bed of blackened coal.
Call myself jezebel for wanting to leave.
Im not saying Im replacing love for some other word to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
Im just saying weve mistaken one for thousands of words.
And for that mistake, Ive caused you such pain that I damn that word.
Ive no more ways to hide that Im a desolate and empty, hollow place inside.
Im not saying Im replacing love for some other word to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
Im not saying loves a plaything.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Gun Shy
[ natalie merchant ]
I always knew that you would take yourself far from home
As soon as, as far as you could go.
By the 1/4 inch cut of your hair and the army issue green,
For the past eight weeks I can tell where youve been.
For I knew, I could see, it was all cut and dried to me
There was soldiers blue blood streaming inside your veins.
There is a world outside of this room and when you meet it promise me
You wont meet it with your gun.
So now you are one of the brave few, its awful sad we need boys like you.
I hope the day never comes for
Heres your live round son. stock and barrel, safety, trigger, heres your gun.
Well I knew, I could see, it was all cut and dried to me
There was soldiers blue blood streaming inside your veins.
There is a world outside of this room and when you meet it promise me
You wont meet it with your gun taking aim.
For I dont mean to argue, theyve made a decent boy of you
And I dont mean to spoil your home coming,
But baby brother you should expect me to.
Stock and barrel, safety, trigger, heres your gun.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Hateful Hate
[ music: natalie merchant/words: natalie merchant ]
In the dark night a giant slumbered untouched for centuries
til awakened by a white mans cry: this is the eden I was to find.
There were lands to be charted and to be claimed for a crown,
When a hero was made by the length he could stay in this dangerous land of hateful hate.
Curiosity filled the heads of these, there was an upper room they had to see.
Curiosity killed the best of these for a heros hometown welcoming.
Still they moved on and on.
Who came building missions?
Unswerving men of the cloth who gave their lives in numbers untold so that black sheep entered the fold.
Captured like human livestock, destined for slavery.
Naked, walked to the shore where great ships moored for the hellbound journies.
Bought and sold with a hateful hate.
Curiosity filled the breasts of these with some strange ecstasy.
Curiosity killed the best of these by robbing their lives of dignity.
Still they moved on and on.
Calling men of adventure for a jungle bush safari.
Come conquer the, his claws and teeth.
See death in his eyes to know youre alive.
European homesteads grew up in the colonies with civilized plans for wild hinterlands, their guns and God willing.
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Peace Train
[ cat stevens ]
[ banned from later u.s. copies of in my tribe due to cat stevens agreement to the fatwah issued against salman rushdie ]
Now Ive been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun
Oh Ive been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, some day its going to come
Cos out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again
Now Ive been smiling lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun
Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train oh ah ee ah oh ah
Come on now peace train
Yes, peace train holy roller
Everyone jump on the peace train oh ah ee ah oh ah
Come on now peace train
Get your bags together, go bring your good friends too
Cos its getting nearer, it soon will be with you
Now come and join the living, its not so far from you
And its getting nearer, soon it will all be true
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Shining Light
Oooooh...
Something was pulling me
Without knowing what was leading me on
Your shining light, your shining light
In my darkest hour, the only way to bring the dawn
Was your shining light, your shining light
But youre unaware your shining light is even on
Like with a little glance when you take me by surprise
And I take a chance and I see it all through your eyes
Free me from my history, show me where to draw the line
By lighting up the mystery, and you dont even know that it shines
Im not worried now about flying too close to the sun
Your shining light, your shining light
When december skies are cold
Well, you know I will always run
To your shining light, your shining light
But youre unaware your shining light is even on
Like with a little glance when you take me by surprise
And I take a chance and I see it all through your eyes
Free me from my history, show me where to draw the line
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Back O The Moon
[ music: dennis drew/lyric: natalie merchant ]
Jenny
Jenny you dont know the nights I hide
Below a second story room
To whistle you down
The man whos let to divvy up
Time is a miser
Hes got a silver coin
Only lets it shine for hours
While you sleep it away
Theres one rare and odd style of living
Part only known to the everybody jenny
A comical wheres the end parade
Of the sort people here would think unusual
Jenny
Tonight upon the mock brine of a luna sea
Far off we sail on to back o the moon
Jenny
Jenny you dont know the days Ive tried
Telling backyard tales
[...] Read more
song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!