Corpus Callosum

Lyrics:

16-Line Love Song

I don't want to hurt you
I don't want to hurt you
But it's so hard sometimes
All I can really do is try
So go ahead and call me a bastard tonight
Tonight, tonight, tonight…

And I know you don't hate me
Even though you say you do
No matter how well you guard yourself
A theif can still slip through
Tonight, tonight, tonight…

81 (The Bus Driver Song)

Deep in the heart of Texas
Where the stars are big and bright
Is where I crashed my car
And I should have lost my life
I shook the hand of my maker
I shook the hand of Christ
Shook it with my left hand
And I signed the Devil's contract with my right

Well, I might not look like much to you
But in my youth I could show you a thing or two
And if I find that blonde girl
And if I get my way
I'll be riding that new Cadillac
From Austin to L. A.

So if you see the Devil
And he's come to collect
Tell him he will never find me
For I'm climbing Jacob's Ladder out of Texas to the West
Tell him he will never find me
For I'm climbing Jacob's Ladder out of Texas to the West
Tell him he is chasing shadows
For I'm climbing Jacob's Ladder out of Texas to the West

My dad says I'm just like the dogs
When I get out in that sun
Roll around in that mud
Come home all covered in blood
God knows just what I've done

So you forget this story I've told you
I'll forget to say my prayers
And if you see God in Heaven
Tell him General Lee is weeping, no one cares
And if you see God in Heaven
Tell him General Lee is weeping, no one cares
And if you see God in Heaven
Tell him General Lee is weeping, no one cares
And if you see God in Heaven
Tell him I'm coming with a vengence
Tell him I don't need his acceptance
Tell him General Lee is weeping, no one cares
No one cares…

Alice:

Well there goes a girl
I've learned to love to hate
An outline of a ghost
With a similar name
And softly I'll speak it
One lost, lonely syllable
I've heard her echo
Through these halls
But lately it's been
A sunken shadow in her place

Well she's ate herself
It's what's kept her whole
Her lungs have collapsed
And her heart breathes cold
With a split chest
Full of missing beats
A little more like me
She sings

While my eyes bleed dry
I have no soul

And we children keep our faith
In open hands
Sleeping together
As stars roll past
And in the dusk
We have found we've lost
For in the cold of night
Some were robbed
And hollow, now
I've learned I'm sad

But for those who escaped the rain
With tears in their eyes
To her they came
As if that life
Was a secret to be told
To ones who have never
Loved at all

Well fuck them, they will learn to hate
They will learn to hate

The Ballad of the Things You Don't Know

There are a lot of things you don't know
If you come with me, I will show you some

There's a fish that lives at the bottom of the ocean
And it never breeds and it never dies
And it has no fins and it has no eyes
It's a lot to believe, but I won't tell you lies

And there are more things in Heaven and Earth
Than in your philosophy
I'll show you some if you come with me

God's not dead, He's sleeping under ground
You can hear him in the mine shafts
And He's talking in his sleep
And He's thinking out loud
And the words He says I cannot repeat now
But you can be sure they've reached my ear somehow

And while we're on this topic
Excuse me while I wax philosphic

There's more than what you see and hear
You have to be a razor to cut through the veneer
I only ask that you come with me
My only price is your company

Don't tell your parents, don't tell your friends
Don't mention my name, don't make any plans
Meet me here, don't bother to pack
We leave tonight, just the shirts on our back

The Cabin

All and all, here's all I know
Her heart stopped beating years ago
But below the ground her hair did grow

It pushed aside the coffin door
It pushed up through the earthen floor
When I got home, a forest had grown
Where was the girl that I'd left so many years before

So if you are the travelling kind
Don't take a love you might leave behind
Take my advice, stay at home
It's better to have never loved
Than to be loved and be left alone

So I built a cabin there
In the forest of her hair

And when some years had come and gone
There came to my humble home
A storm, and a young woman
Who found my cabin nice and warm

She stayed with me a night, no less
I enjoyed her company, I must confess
It lifted the veil of loneliness
That had hung over me

But in the morning, when I rose
I found the trees of the forest had grown
They blocked up the windows, they barred up the doors
They grew up through the cracks in the floors
And across my cabin they spread
And over the wrists and the ankles and the neck
Of the young woman in the bed
And she twisted and writhed like a rag in the wind
The forest her final resting place
My cabin, her coffin

So if you are the travelling kind
Don't take a love you might leave behind
Take my advice, stay at home
It's better to have never loved
Than to be loved and be left alone

Cupid as King

I've had my fill of lust
These teeth, they sing for blood
So come and sleep by my side
We'll see dust to dust in time

And that girl from your school
Is singing that she's in love with you
But to speak the truth
She's just a little confused
There's a girl who's out in the rain
And she is pissed because she is straight
She's looking for a fight
She's got water in her eyes
The young one she keeps
A shank beneath her tongue
She can't wait to use it
And it's giving her a lisp
Oh, the studied girl
Well, she went to buy a pistol
Just to prove that love
Is still a smoking gun
She pulled back my ribs
And she crawled right in

But feeling a girl breathe
It isn't worth the noise
But what is it like to hold a boy?

But I should be one to speak
That you should never trust a face
There were words that I chose to keep
And it is my word that you have to take
And that night I walked home from home
I sold my ring for a soul
So shy from love my little one
Or it will tear us limb from limb

When faith is gone, there is no knife
To bleed away the stone
If you think that your eyes are bright
Come in to my home
But leave behind those guns and your flags
And all those words that you've known
You have less to fear of the shards of a broken heart
Than from the beating of your own

I've had my fill of lust
These teeth, they sing for blood
And cupid will rise to king in Hell
With love to be a burial ground
With love to be
With love to be
With love to be
With love to be
A burial ground

Death

Death dances slow, my dear
A step can take a day
A step can take a year
Spinning 'round and 'round
An atom of sin is repaid in a pound

Well, a rich man may sell his soul to cheat it
And a poor man may beg
For just a little more time to stay
And a king would send his armies to defeat it
But they're all just kindling wood
For the very last day

Well, a young man may scoff
It seems that death is so far off
Everything has got to go
Death dances very slow

Death dances slow, my dear
A step can take a day
A step can take a year

And one day it'll descend on you
Like locusts on wheat
And blacken all your crops, my dear
Separate your bones and meat

Well, the Devil has to be invited
He has to be let in
And God needs a leap of faith
But Death's dance needs no cue to begin

Death Message

by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

When I am dead, the world will carry on
I beg of you, my friends, be tender-hearted
Be generous about me when I'm gone
It's easy to speak ill of the departed

The little space we have should be untainted
We've nowhere to live but in your thoughts
We're, none of us, as bad as we are painted
Leave vengeance and prejudice to the courts

The dead should teach the living what to do
You pardon me and I will pardon you

They'll cut me down and take me to the lab
The flesh will fall apart beneath the knife
A steaming heap of awful on a slab
That's all that will be left of someone's life

My deeds were once the terrors of the town
You lived in fear and trembling of me
Now someone from the morgue will sluice me down
First the bucket, then the sewer, then the sea

If that is how the end is going to be
I'll pardon you if you will pardon me

(A voice is calling to you from the tomb)
(A cry of agony, a cry of rage)
(A muffled voice inside a padded room)
(A wounded animal inside a cage)

(The empty heavens will not hear my prayers)
(For where is God within a prison cell?)
(So if my misery goes anywhere)
(It will be sucked into the vaults of Hell)

(You must be pulled apart, you must be put in chains)
(You must be flung into a stinking hole)
(Before you see the little that remains)
(Before you see the damage to your soul)

Let Heaven smash your fucking faces
And thrash you and let the blood run free
And break you in a thousand places
I pray to God you pardon me

Descartes' Daughter

Descarte's Daughter is now resting
At the bottom of the sea
Just a soul that's in control
Of the gears of a machine
Just the hand of man stepping in
Where the hand of God should have been
So they threw Descarte's Daughter
Down into the water

And now she lies below the waves
If logic is the difference between animals and man
As she was going overboard, well, she was heard to say
I think, therefore I am

Descarte's Daughter was the apple
Of the mind of her father
And the product of the hands
Of a genius clockwork maker
Well, she ain't no procreation
She's just automation
Just the winding of a spring that brings forth
Life's imitation

One wonders, is there a Heaven for machines
One wonders, has she finally gone to pieces
Resting at the bottom with rust that never sleeps
And the ticking of a tock in a breast that never ceases

Devil's Beard Blues

Gunsmoke is rising
There ain't no smoke like it I know
Gunsmoke is rising
There ain't no smoke like it I know
Black as the Devil's beard
Cold as the snow

My grave is complete
I dug it with my own bare hands
My grave is complete
I dug it with my own bare hands
Wide as it can be
Deep as I stand

Death's on my trail
It pursues me night and day
Death's on my trail
It pursues me night and day
If I meet him tomorrow
Wouldn't have a word to say

And I think
And I think
You should get to know me
And I think
And I think
You should get to know me well

Gunsmoke is rising
There ain't no smoke like it I know
Gunsmoke is rising
There ain't no smoke like it I know
Black as the Devil's beard
Cold as the snow

Follow Her Home

My lady of fate
She waits for the day
With that rose between her hands
She scouts me a place
For where I will be layed
Into the dust again

And with her cloak around my neck
And no faith above her
She will harvest my breath
And all that I have kept
Will dim in the color
Of a red rose at my chest

And I will follow her home
I will follow her home
I will follow her home
I will follow her home
Oh, oh, I will follow her

But of mistress of song
She pulls at our strings
And it's by her that we breathe
And oh, are we lost
In that melody she sings
With that rose between her teeth

As we polish our mirrors
Is there a faith above her?
Our hearts are her drums
And before us she shivers
In the shape of a lover
But we are still alone

But I will follow her home
I will follow her home
I will follow her home
I will follow her home
Oh, oh, I will follow her

But when that one warm touch
Finds it's way to my face
In the mask of a sin
Well, I'll know that it's love
We are glad that she came
For it's time to forgive

And she will teach us to breathe
With a breath so warm
It would make her a mother
Or away she will lead
With that rose as her torch
And no faith above her

And I will follow her home
I will follow her home
I will follow her home
I will follow her home
Oh, oh, I will follow her
Home

Good Morning

The night, she is old
She walks with a cane
She is tapping it down the side walk
In warning of the day

With careful, cold fingers
She is collecting her shroud
Layed by the milk
At the step of each house
Just the scraps of the gown
Of that orange-haired girl
Who is courting the Dusk
Half-way 'round the world

Behind blue-stained hills
The prisoner waits
He is rattling the sun
Like a ball on a chain
His coat is the sky
The stars are his food
But he's pursuing a woman
Who is pursuing her youth

Beds will be stirring
As I turn a key in it's lock
The gambler should have known
What was won must be lost
An auto-piano played
This song to the dark
And the clock, it did weep
While it pushed us apart

Love is a gear
That will turn on it's own
Dispensing the bottles
To the ones left alone
We will bury the bones
Of our hearts one more time
As we drink to the ghost
Of the end of the night

I Hate You

Here's the song I wrote you
I wrote it in the bathroom
With the fog on the mirror
I can see my ghost in the reflection
He's twice the man that I am
He's twice the man that I am

If I were an angel
I would need your face
But for now I'm puttin' you
In charge of my prayers
You can be the wire
That holds me up

Here's my song I hope it kills you
I hope they find you layin'
Face down with my song playin'

Oh, that wasn't what I meant
Let me start again
Let me start again...

Here's the song I wrote you
With your boyfriend laughin'
Through the mirror in the bathroom
I can see my skull through my skin
I can see my skull through my skin

You could be an angel
Here on earth you are an angel in reverse
An angel in reverse, in reverse

So good-bye
I'm lettin' you die
And your ghost looks like
An arab girl in white
I'll starve her on affection
Till she fades away and lives again
Whenever this song is played

Oh, that wasn't what I mean to say at all
These words are hateful
These words are hateful

I just wanted to say
Don't be afraid, don't be afraid
Don't be afraid, don't be afraid
Don't be afraid to fade away

Insecteopus Rex

And at the show
Where were you?
We played an empty stage
We played an empty stage
With just the bugs
No one around
They voted me king
They voted me king
They could not supply a queen
They could not supply a queen
I told them you'd be coming down

And do you recall
When Apollo's cart lost it's way
And set the earth ablaze
And consumed the dome of sky
And the constellations fled
And the night was black as your hair
And when we woke, the sun wasn't there

Well, secretly
I hope you fail
I hope you stay right here
…secretly
And at the show
Where were you?
We played a parking lot
We played a parking lot
With just the bugs
No one around
We hung you from the sky
And the world began to glow
We hung you from the sky
And the world began to glow
When they saw your light coming down

And do you recall
What he said when his son fell from above
He said, "boy when you shoot, shoot the one you love"

James L. Caffee

I once had a retarded daughter
She died, but I don't remember when
She took my name upon her headstone
Oh, I was a doctor then

Won't you hold my estate sale early, boys
Won't you sell off every seed I have sewn
I think I'll be losin' my mind shortly, boys
I can't remember a single thing I've owned

So here we go, one by one, my whole family, here we go
All my sons, all my grandsons to date
We parade into the sunset, boys
Ol' Jimmy's leading the way

Be careful of those who go before you
They have disease that you cannot escape
When the world is fast and the mind is slow
Let it go, let it go, let it go with grace

You see, my mother, she lay on her death bed
And she could not remember my name
But you will not hold it against her
If I should do the same

So here we go, one by one, my whole family, here we go
All my sons, all my grandsons to date
We parade into the sunset, boys
Ol' Jimmy's leading the way

So here we go, one by one, my whole family, here we go
All my sons, all my grandsons to date
We parade into the sunset, boys
For Dr. James L. Caffee

Let the Moss Grow Over Me

I loop the thread around my eyes
I pull them tight
I string the beads that we call teeth
So I can eat
I stitch and knot my limbs back on
I step into my feet
I will sew my garden safe
Let the moss grow over me
Everything must have a place
There is place for everything

In my pocket is a knoblock key
Wrapped in a silver thread
It's layed out on the road to home
I'll follow where I'm led
The floorboards moan as I approach
To tell me where I'm at
If my tongue was a needle,
I would sew myself a map

In my pocket is a knoblock key
Wrapped in a silver thread
It's layed out on the road to home
I'll follow where I'm led
The floorboards moan as I approach
To tell me where I'm at
If my tongue was a needle
I would sew myself a map

I loop the thread around my eyes
I pull them tight
I string the beads that we call teeth
So I can eat
I stitch and knot my limbs back on
I step into my feet
From the cradle into the grave
Let the moss grow over me
Everything must have a place
There is place for everything

Oh, My Shadow

Forgive me if I never call
Would you hold it against me

Forgive me if I never call
Would you hold it against me if I took you apart

I am an X-ray
Beam of your heart

Oh, what a glorious day when I die
I know they'll be waiting to see
Angel wings sprout out of me

Oh, my little cherub
You float so close to the ground
To shed your snowy snakeskin down on me

Oh, my little black shadow
Is leaning awkwardly on the wall

Oh, my little black shadow
You aren't so little after all

Forgive me if I never call
Would you hold it against me

Oh, my lily-white milky moon
Has risen from it's grave

Oh, my little soft bed of coals
For you and me to come and lay

One-two-three, you and me
One-two-three, you and me

One Short Length of Cord

(Traditional/Burke)

Swing, hangman, swing your rope
Swing it for a while
I think I see my mother comin'
She's rode for many a mile

Have you come to see me hung
Or come to pay my fee?
"Yes, I've come to see you hung
And swing from the gallows tree"

Swing, hangman, swing your rope
Swing it for a while
I think I see my father comin'
She's rode for many a mile

Have you come to see me hung
Or come to pay my fee?
"Yes, I've come to see you hung
And swing from the gallows tree"

Swing, hangman, swing your rope
Swing it for a while
I think I see my baby comin'
She's rode for many a mile

Have you come to see me hung
Or come to pay my fee?
"Yes, I've come to see you hung
And swing from the gallows tree"

Swing, hangman, swing your rope
Swing it for a while
I think I see my mistress comin'
She's rode for many a mile

Have you come to see me hung
Or come to pay my fee?
"Yes, I've come to see you hung
And swing from the gallows tree"

Such a piece of work is man
So easy to undo
What I wouldn't give right now
To trade places with you

It took nails, one-two-three
To crucify the Lord
All you're gonna need for me
Is one short length of cord

Plastic Bead Rosaries

You give me your cigarettes
And you tell me to drive
And then you hit me until I give you one
I know, some people, they need their cigarettes
But you tell me to hit you back
And you smile when you're tasting blood

Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
Wash your hands clean
Put a rosary around your neck

And we will skate to the house where
Where you were born
Where your uncle he was sick
Where your mother said to you
That the disease it was spread
That the disease it was spread
That his disease it was spread
To punish the ungodly
His disease it was spread
How can we deny it, when
All of his friends are dead
All of his friends have died
How can we deny, deny
How can deny it
So you push away and you say
"Well, I have slept with a girl, Dax
I know, I know, I know, I know
I know I have it
And you should run while you can
I know you're tired of my face
I think you should get me drunk and drown me in your bathtub
And I wish you'd hit me harder"

Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
And try to go to school
Put a rosary around your neck
And fill up all your books
With pictures of your dream girl

Becky says you've got to concentrate
Becky says that you're a star
Becky says that you don't need friends
And it's okay to be a lesbian
But at night you call your sister
And she hasn't come home
And she is out with a boy
Who chose your twin over you

But everyone wants to hold your hand tight
They are tellin' you to say
Everything is gonna be…
Everything is gonna be…

Your step mother's mother speaks
One sunny Easter morning
From behind her black cigarettes
From behind two-hundred pounds
From between two electrical scars on her temples
That pills are what saved her
They are necessary for life
You need to keep taking your Luvox, honey
And that's the extent of her advice

Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
Put a rosary around your neck
I wish I had you back
To put a rosary around your neck

Santana Row

They cut down the orchard five years ago
And the sky since that time has been filled up with crowns
Just a murder of shadows with nowhere to fall
Sometimes they block out the sun
And you can't see at all

The coal mine caught fire in nineteen-twelve
And everywhere you go there's that damn sulfer smell
All our food tastes like ashes, our restraunts burned down
Sometimes I wish that that fire
Would just sweep through this town

I know where you keep your tresses
Your favorite dresses
All of your secrets you'd rather not tell
Your lies, your bedroom eyes
Oh, I know you too well

I want to feel the rain as it taps on your skylight
And the dark of your room at midnight
I want to run naked through the church sprinklers with you
When you were sixteen
Oh, I know where you go when you dream

We dance a broken marionette's waltz
As time beats upon it's drum
All we've done now cannot be undone
So don't say good-bye
Because I know where you go when you die

Well it smells like summer
But it looks like rain
It must be the goddamn crows again
The sun never shines down on Santana Row
It set for the last time a long time ago

St. James Infirmary

(traditional)

I went down to St. James Infirmary
Saw my baby there
She was all stretched out on a long white table
So soft, so cold, so fair

I went up to see the doctor
She's very low, he said
When I went back to see my baby
Good God, she was on that table, dead

Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She can search the wide world over
She will never find another man like me

I want six gamblers at my funeral
Six chorus girls to sing my songs
I want a jazz band to follow behind me
So we can raise hell as we roll along

Well this is the end of my story
Let's have another round of booze
And if anyone should ever ask you
Tell them I've got the St. James Infirmary blues

There's Nothing at 4th & King but a Train Station

You were born with your heart split in four
That's what you'll tell them
When they ask you
Why you frown

You just like the view from the floor
That's what you'll tell them
When they ask you
Why you're down

And we've all gone insane 'cause we're all gonna die
We all know, but we don't know why
And we've all gone insane 'cause we're all gonna die
We all know, but we don't know why

There's nothing but tombstones
Where the railroad tracks should be
It's such a tragedy
That good steel just rusts like that

And the mayor of our town's downtown
Playing chess alone out in the rain
To the whistle of the train
And at night he sleeps on the railroad track

And we've all gone insane 'cause we're all gonna die
We all know, but we don't know why
And we've all gone insane 'cause we're all gonna die
We all know, but we don't know why

Through your make-up
Your age begins to show
You're really much to young
For the things you do, you know

The hummingbirds make their home in my eyes
And your teeth pepper the floor
My heart makes food for the flies
And I nest in your chest of drawers

And we've all gone insane 'cause we're all gonna die
We all know, but we don't know why
And we've all gone insane 'cause we're all gonna die
We all know, but we don't know why

They're Applauding the Player Piano

They're applauding the player piano
The roll has run it's course
The conversation's swelling
Though the guests have all dispersed

They fell out through the windows
They left through the doors
They danced on the ceiling
Till they fell through the floors

The gears are out of place
But the roll still gently spins
The moon has hid it's face
So we'll have to burn the candle from both ends

Aren't we animals after all
Animals don't know right from wrong
So if my hands should get red tonight
Animals don't know wrong from right

I will show you, I will show you
Life is not a game
I'll make damn sure you know
I'll make damn sure you know
I'll make damn sure you remember my name

This Must Be a Dream

This must be a dream
Sing me a lullaby
Send me up to sleep
I will never die

A broken music box
That never stops it's song
Never wind it up
I'll go on and on

My bones span the sky
They hold it up like beams
I will never die
This must be a dream

And the night
And the moon
And the murder of shadows that flocks 'round your room
Are all at my command
They lie in wait to swallow the day
All at the wave of my hand

I can smell you long before you are here
And taste you after you disappear
I can smell the rain as it washes the street
This must be dream…