Isn't It a Pity

by George Harrison

Isn't it a pity
Isn't it a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity

Some things take so long
But how do I explain
When not too many people
Can see we're all the same
And because of all their tears
Your eyes can't hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them
Now, isn't it a pity

Country Comfort

by Bernie Taupin

Soon the pines will be falling everywhere
Village children fight each other for a share
And the 6:09 goes roaring past the creek
Deacon Lee prepares his sermon for next week

I saw grandma yesterday down at the store
She's really going fine for eighty-four
She asked me if sometime I'd fix her barn
Poor old girl, she needs a hand to run the farm

And it's good old country comfort in my bones
Just the sweetest sound my ears have ever known
Just an old-fashioned feeling, fully grown
Country comfort's in a truck that's going home

Down at the well they've got a new machine
The foreman says it cuts manpower by fifteen
But that ain't natural, well so old Clay would say
You see he's a horse-drawn man until his dying day

Now the old fat goose is flying 'cross the sticks
The hedgehog's done in clay between the bricks
And the rocking chair's creaking on the porch
Across the valley moves the herdsman with his torch

Time Stand Still

by Neil Peart

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath before I start off again
Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause, no matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim who learns to transcend
Learns to live as if each step was the end

Time stand still
I'm not looking back, but I want to look around me now
Time stand still
See more of the people and the places that surround me now

Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away

I turn my face to the sun
Close my eyes, let my defences down
All those wounds that I can't get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause, if I could slow it all down
Like some captain whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide comes around

Time stand still
I'm not looking back, but I want to look around me now
Time stand still
See more of the people and the places that surround me now

Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Make each impression a little bit stronger
Freeze this motion a little bit longer
The innocence slips away

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Experience slips away

Heart of Gold

by Neil Young

I want to live, I want to give
I've been a miner for a heart of gold
It's these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

I've been to Hollywood, I've been to Redwood
I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold
I've been in my mind, it's such a fine line
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

Old Man

by Neil Young

Old man, look at my life
I'm a lot like you were
Old man, look at my life
I'm a lot like you were

Old man, look at my life
Twenty-four and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two

Love lost, such a cost
Give me things that don't get lost
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you

Old man, take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
The whole day through
One look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true

Lullabies, look in your eyes
Run around the same old town
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I'm all alone at last
Rolling home to you

Old man, take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
The whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true

Old man, look at my life
I'm a lot like you were
Old man, look at my life
I'm a lot like you were

Any Road

by George Harrison

I've been traveling on a boat and a plane
In a car on a bike
With a bus and a train
Traveling there and traveling here
Everywhere in every gear

But we pay the price
With a spin of the wheel
With a roll of the dice
You pay your fare
And if you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there

I've been traveling through the dirt and the grime
From the past to the future
Through the space and the time
Traveling deep beneath the wave
In watery grottoes and mountainous caves

But we've got to fight
With the thoughts in the head
With the dark and the light
No use to stop and stare
If you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there

You may not know where you came from
May not know who you are
May not have even wondered how you got this far

I've been traveling on a wing and a prayer
By the skin of my teeth
By the breadth of a hair
Traveling where the four winds blow
With the sun on my face, in the ice and the snow

But it's a game
Sometimes you're cool
Sometimes you're lame
It's somewhere
And if you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there

Table for Two

by Derek Webb

Danny and I spent another late night over pancakes
We talked about soccer and how every man's just the same
And made speculation on the 'who's and the 'when's of our futures
And how everyone's lonely, but still we just couldn't complain

And how we just hate being alone
Could I have missed my only chance?
And now I'm just wasting my time
Looking around

But you know I know better, I'm not gonna worry 'bout nothing
'Cause if the birds and the flowers survive, then I'll make it okay
Given a chance and a rock, see which one breaks a window
And see which one keeps me up all night and into the day

Because I'm so scared of being alone
That I forgot what house I live in
But it's not my job to wait by the phone
For her to call

Well this day's been crazy, but everything's happened on schedule
From the rain and the cold to the drink that I spilled on my shirt
'Cause You knew how You'd save me before I fell dead in the garden
And You knew this day long before You made me out of dirt

And You know the plan You have for me
And You can't plan the ends and not plan the means
And so I suppose I just need some peace
To get me to sleep

Who Am I

by Kyle Hollingsworth

Through my senses I'm reliving
Childhood memories from my past
But in an instant it is over
Fading quickly from my mind

In the photo with piano
I see a man whose time has gone
I knew him only for a moment
But in his spirit I live on

What I was I am
It all comes 'round again
And who he used to be
Is still a part of me

An early morning, cold December
A family gathered all around
Taken back what I was given
Open grave site, frozen ground

I see my hands, they are my father's
Time has worn my fingers thin
Humor, laughter, ever after
My heart still remembers him

All the moments seldom last
And memories they fade so fast
I turn away, and life has passed

Who am I?

The Late Show

by Jackson Browne

Everyone I've ever known has wished me well
Anyway that's how it seems, it's hard to tell
Maybe people only ask you how you're doing
'Cause that's easier than letting on how little they could care
But when you know that you've got a real friend somewhere
Suddenly all the others are so much easier to bear

Now to see things clear it's hard enough, I know
While you're waiting for reality to show
Without dreaming of the perfect love
And holding it so far above
That if you stumbled onto someone real, you'd never know

You could be with somebody who is lonely too
[Sometimes it doesn't show]
He might be trying to get across to you
[Words can be so slow]
When your own emptiness is all that's getting through
There comes a point when you're not sure why you're still talking
I passed that point long ago

I'm so tired of all this circling
And all these glimpses of the end
'You know it's useless to pretend'
That's all the voices say
'You'll go right on circling
'Until you've found some kind of friend'

I saw you through the laughter and the noise
You were talking with the soldiers and the boys
While they scuffled through your weary smiles
I thought of all the empty miles
And the years that I've spent looking for your eyes

And now I'm sitting here wondering what to say
[That you might recognize]
Afraid that all these words might scare you away
[Break through the disguise]
No one ever talks about their feelings anyway
Without dressing them in dreams and laughter
I guess it's just too painful otherwise

It's like you're standing in the window of a house nobody lives in
And I'm sitting in a car across the way
Let's just say it's an early model Chevrolet
Let's just say it's a warm and windy day
You go and pack your sorrow, the trash man comes tomorrow
Leave it at the curb and we'll just roll away

Daylight

by Jason Isbell

She's got me tied in a knot
That's what I thought she'd do
Don't ask me what's on my mind
I'm fine, I'll push on through
Not much to see on this angry street
So I'll sleep the day away
Look past my barnacled mind and in time
I'll roll the stone away

While we still have the daylight
I might look these lessons in the eye
While we still have the daylight
I might become some brand-new kinda guy

Brass knuckles and birds on a wire retire
But no one gets free
I'd pay to tear these chains away
This steel sympathy
Cut bait and cold-black forty weight
No one can sing for me
They fall down with grease in their eyes and cry
How could this come to be?

Forever Young

by Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young

Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright, and be strong
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young

Crazy Parade

by Grace Potter

Summer's on the rise and I am flying
The good days have come around again
I'm up on top of a big black rock with some people I call friends
We're half a mile from heaven and back again

I'm never coming down from the mountain
Never will I forget about today
I'll always smile when I think about it
This life is a crazy parade

I don't have to dream, all I gotta do is look around
We have so little time before it all falls down
Valley deep, river wide, and the sky so high
Keep my head on up, keep my feet on the ground

No such thing as a better place
No such time as right now
There is no fame, and there is no disgrace
So come on, baby, let me show you how

Ripple

by Robert Hunter

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near, as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of man

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall, you fall alone
If you should stand, then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way, I would take you home

Days of Wonder

by Jakob Dylan

Cherry-picking through the stars and falling cannonballs
Waiting for the break of dawn to start its morning crawl
Polluted rays of filtered light, tropical and warm
Making shadows through the snow-white, resin-covered skulls
Happy birthday to the war

Standing by the wall, a rainbow made of stars
Under seven different shades of grey spreading out across the arc
Days of wonder spent out there killing time
Now this may not leave a mark on me, but I sure as hell was there

Caravanning on the moonlit, locust-covered trail
We came out like a stream of bats exploding from the well
Slipping through the whirlpools of trees and floating cars
Behind a winter-coated mule down record-breaking falls
Into oblivion's open jaws

Days of wonder spent by a rainbow made of stars
Under seven different shades of grey spreading out across the arc
Standing by the wall out there killing time
This may not leave a mark on me, but I sure as hell was there

Educated under God to walk a neutral line
Give me neither poverty nor riches in my time
Take my body and my mind, my heart is far behind
With one dozen poems in my ears ricocheting wild

Days of wonder

Letters from the Waste Land

by Jakob Dylan
(edited by Steven Mitchell)

Now coming down from out of this swan dive to your arms
I make no sounds when I move through your reservoir
But I wake up quick
And I wake up sick
As you abandon me into these fields of rank and file

Through this crowd I hear you breathing
And through these bars I watch them bring more in

Now I send back letters from the waste land home
Where I slow dance to this romance on my own
It may take two to tango, but boy, it's one to let go
It's just one to let go

Now boy, keep still, don't spread yourself around
Get back in line, eat your bread, and just work the plow
'Cause you're not through
They're not done with you
Did you think you were the only one that's been let down?

So sleep tight, little boys of the new damned
Another drop in the tidal wave of quicksand

Now I send back letters from the waste land home
Where I slow dance to this romance on my own
It may take two to tango, but boy, it's one to let go

Now another bad idea gets through
Down the assembly line to you
You're every bridge I should have burned
Every lesson I've unlearned
In this smoke-filled waiting room
With incarcerated lovesick fools
I will wait for you to cut me loose
Till then I...

Send back letters from the waste land home
Where I slow dance to this romance on my own
Now I send back letters from the waste land home
From where I slow dance to this romance on my own

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T. S. Eliot

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
Questa fiamma staria sensa piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and, 'Do I dare?'
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter
I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.'

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
'That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.'

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.