He wore her around his neck like a good luck
charm
Took her to the races, let her pick the winners
Showered her with kisses – never losing once
Concentrate your mind on it
Concentrate your power
Mind and matter over it
You will know the ending
The ending will be shown
She grew up good at guessing
Professing to know the ending of a friend’s unlucky dog
At the corner of 5th and Main Street
Seized by a glimpse of liberty
He stepped off the curb and got run over by a bread truck
Concentrate your mind on it
Concentrate your power
Mind and matter over it
You will know the ending
The ending will be shown
She started seeing sadness
Blood and bits of bone
Anarchy and madness
And a sense of coming doom
Where are all the happy endings?
She only wants happy endings…
So concentrate your mind on it
Concentrate your power
Mind and matter over it
And you will know the ending
The ending will be shown
Daddy’s in the kitchen
He is talking to the air
Momma’s in the parlor
Ridding her hands of everything
Baby’s in the nursery
Crying so long the neighbors call
While you and I aren’t missed at all
We fly down Beacon Street
Your wheels so fast my legs so sore
To the five and dime, daddy’s money in your shoe
We finger the magazines
Paint our lips with crimson-candy cane
Slow Jimmy’s there tugging at his broom
Like a dog on a chain
Trouble - sometimes it can’t wait
It follows you – aches for the taste of you
No one at the counter
You cruise the aisles and stuff the pockets of your jeans
Jimmy’s eyes on you, he rocks, he heaves, he sways
The air is thick, sick with the smell of our cheap perfume
You say, “Hey Jimmy, are you minding the store
Like a good Momma’s boy?”
Trouble sometimes it can’t wait
It spoils you, leaves its scent on you
Hush, Hush is all he says – the breath of him
Crush, Crush the weight of him
The smell of him
Holding you down with all his might
Tugging at his collar, trying to free your body
underneath
He’s erasing you with every rock, heave and sway
The back door slams – Jimmy’s momma – “boy, leave that girl alone.”
He rises to his knees
You race out the door
She says to me, “girl, you best get home.”
Daddy’s in the kitchen curled up like a child
on the floor
Momma’s in the parlor asleep in front of T V screen
Baby’s in the nursery cradled in a far-off land of dreams
I walk through our bedroom door
You stare at the wall and you say, “turn off the light,” that’s all
Well he heard her cry though she was 3,000
miles away
And he felt a twinge and then another stitch
Like a glove was being sewn around his heart
And he knew right then and there he would find her
It wasn’t like a bolt of lightning - more like a thud
That stops then repeats again
You know that you’re alive, but not quite human
But something’s coming that is bound to break you as make you alright again
And he called her
Hope
Hope and Despair
Hope
Hope and Despair
He didn’t get in his car immediately and drive
in search of her
All he had to do was simply lift his chin
See, he had this habit of hunching over
Staring hard as nails at the ground whenever he walked
You wouldn’t think he would be so cheerful, but he was
‘Cause the sun arose and set on his one thought
It was a blind relief, a belief he’d see her
When she crossed his path, met his eye - stumbled over him
He would call out
Hope
Hope and Despair
Hope
Hope and Despair
With the sky a burst of blue and the world was
turning
The day came and his eyes wide open
He felt her hand in the glove around his heart
It squeezed so hard he froze there speechless
As he saw her wave a taxi, toss her hair – slowly disappear
As he called out
Hope
Hope and Despair
Hope
Hope and Despair
Keep your thoughts to yourself
I won’t tell nobody
You let glory tease you
A shot of whiskey drunk slow
Your sorrow lifted each glass denied
Ahh ahh
Like the bells you hear in the churchyard
Like the colors of a flower
The voices in your head
Say Ahh ahh
“Now don’t let me down.”
And the words they drip with the sweetness
Of only reason in the dark
Sometimes they crave you
Silence or shame you
When you were a kid the hills looked like
mountains
You’d reach the top then slide on down
But now the climb seems everlasting
Truth and Beauty (he says) are framing us all
around
Falling down
Snow on the ground
Many won’t see beyond their horizon
Many will fall into a line
But you won’t go there
No, you won’t go there (this time)
In the wake of a blue sky
You saw it like that
Knew you were safe now
A thought, bold as the blue sky
He gave you
A moment to keep
In a flash
Wide as the blue sky
You saw him like that
And forever, you believed him…
Messy blue ending
Little black dress
Tossed like a rag
At the foot of the bed
Send her a postcard
The moment you land
Earthly desire has left him again
Two in the morning
The sound of his breathing
Tied with a ribbon longer than life
Stronger than gold were they
She was the star he’d held so dear
But all the while he could feel his grip easing
Three in the morning
The sound of his breathing
Like the hum of an engine
He dreams of a rocket red
Piercing the black sky
A powder of sapphire gray
Is all he leaves behind
Soon there’s the shock
Two worlds collide
Impossible dreaming
Impossible life
A little more time in the atmosphere
And these matters become quite clear
Five in the morning
There’s nobody breathing
In this brave new world but you
He dreams of a rocket red
Piercing the black sky
Faster than time, he said
The color of daylight
A powder of sapphire gray
Is all he leaves behind
You’ve got birds singing in the trees only for
you
You’ve got girls throwing kisses aimed directly at you
Fortunes follow you like a puppy on a string
Good looks cling to you
Do wonders for you
Open many doors for you
Why you down Superman?
Why you down Superman
Pleasure defines your features and time just
stops and waits
The trouble in the air decreases with each step you take
Surrounding you with sunshine startling you awake
You offer your seed repeatedly and every time it takes
So why you down Superman?
Why you down Superman?
Sympathy does not easily take the hand of
beauty
Strangers are afraid sometimes of easy going grace
Faithless we walk in circles and often we become dizzy
Tilt your head, ask the question
Bow down and don’t forget to listen
Am I human?
Simply human
So why you down Superman?
Don’t be down Superman
What I Can Do Low (I Can Do High)
While the rest of the world was running around
in circles
He dreamed in straight lines
Always a beginning – always an end
Because he was like a dead man on the ground
He hung his weight and put his whole pocket of trust in a wire
5/8ths of an inch thick
Heel to the inside
Body rigid and stiff
Taut, bounce, lurch, flex – hope
The world at his feet
The sky at his cheek
Oh, he’ll never see the world as round
But only the point between A and Z
Sky-walking across the astrodome
And over the dens of lions
Even across the Manhattan Skyline
He stopped the hearts of ordinary men
Never losing sense of why he was here
Oh, the only life is on the wire
Everything else is waiting
On many a clear, moonlit night
His wife wakes up in her bed, alone
She goes to the window and swears she can see him
Perched 3/4s of the way up the ladder
He stares and stares at his lonely backyard wire
Stretched between two old oak trees
And in his infinite wisdom
He waits
Canada grows restless
He’s up in arms about something
While Mary sips her coffee carefully
It could be the music on the radio
The stories or the neighbors
Oh Can, she says, just let it be
I wish they could mind their own business
But Can, that’s their business
He just tilts his head and frowns
He could find trouble in a tablecloth
Disaster in a teacup
(Broken or unbroken, it depends)
Sometimes if she’s lucky
She can tune him out completely
While still nodding in all the appropriate places
‘Cause when the sun descends
And his humming starts
And the stars come out
And the blinds go down
In a voice like Frank Sinatra he professes
You will always be my love
In a voice like Frank Sinatra
Zing - go the strings of her heart
Out in the shed
Talking to his tools
Then it’s off to Weedy’s Hardware
Looking for the latest in home repair
He measures each two by four with eagle eye precision
Then cases the aisles for what he might have missed
All the while he’s whistling a pretty little tune
(Checking his pitch)
To court her with
‘Cause when the sun descends
And his humming starts
And the stars come out
And the blinds go down
In a voice like Frank Sinatra he professes
You will always be my love
In a voice like Frank Sinatra
Zing - go the strings of her pretty little heart
Innocents in armor
Won’t be long now
Generals in hiding
Gamble lives away
Barefoot in the warm sand
Your first resistance
All day long you could hear them coming
Enemy in waiting
Who is the stronger?
Lowly lord of desert
Or the king of skies
Everyman is faceless
Their aim, unsteady
All day long they could hear you coming
How to prepare yourself
For the promise of leaving
Now to prepare yourself
All day long you can hear them
What good is a whisper?
Nobody hears it
A bellow from the body of a young boy fades
Indifferent air - so quiet
Listen closer
All day long you can hear them coming
Now to prepare yourself
For the promise of leaving
How to prepare yourself
All day long you can hear them coming
Tripping along
Taking in the earth and sky
Lazy clouds - a dirty afternoon
Oh let it pour
I don’t mind it anymore
Pleasure is King
So please don’t mind me asking
Show me only always this
Love me
Love me
Rolling like waves deep upon the ocean floor
Safe in your skin – I still feel the burning
All the day long
All the day long
Pleasure is king
So please be kind my darling
Tell me only always this
Love me
Go to sleep now
All songs by Grace Hearn and Michael Savage
© 2002 SavageHearn Music, BMI