What Sweeter Music

by Robert Harrick

What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!

Dark and dull night, fly hence away
And give the honor to this day
That sees December turned to May
That sees December turned to May

Why does the chilling winter's morn
Smile like a field beset with corn?
Or smell like a meadow newly-shorn
Thus, on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quickening birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth
To heaven and the under-earth

We see him come, and know him ours
Who with his sunshine and his showers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers

The darling of the world is come
And fit it is we find a room
To welcome him: the nobler part
Of all the house here is the heart

Which we will give him and bequeath
This holly and this ivy wreath
To do him honour, who's our King
And Lord of all this revelling

What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?

Ma greun war an kellyn

Traditional

'Ma greun war an kelynn
Mar wynn 'vel an leth,
Ha Maria 'dhineythis Jesu
Ha'n maylyas yn kweth.

Ha Maria 'dhineythis Jesu
Agan Selwyas dhe vos,
Ha'n kelynn yw an kynsa
A'n gwydh oll y'n koes,
Kelynn, kelynn!
Ha'n kelynn yw an kynsa
A'n gwydh oll y'n koes,

'Ma greun war an kelynn
Mar wyrdh 'vel an pras,
Ha Maria 'dhineythis Jesu
Rag ri dhynn Y ras.

'Ma greun war an kelynn
Mar dhu 'vel an pyg,
Ha Jesu a veu krowsys,
Agan Selwyas mar hweg.

'Ma greun war an kelynn
Mar rudh 'vel an goes,
Ha Jesu a dhasserghis
Hag a reyn yn pub oes.

Christmas Trees

by Robert Frost

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I'd hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, 'There aren't enough to be worth while.'
'I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.'

'You could look.
But don't expect I'm going to let you have them.'
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded 'Yes' to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer's moderation, 'That would do.'
I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, 'A thousand.'

'A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?'

He felt some need of softening that to me:
'A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.'

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.
I can't help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

Corde Natus

by Aurelius Prudentius

Corde natus ex parentis
Ante mundi exordium
A et O cognominatus,
ipse fons et clausula
Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt,
quaeque post futura sunt.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Ipse iussit et creata,
dixit ipse et facta sunt,
Terra, caelum, fossa ponti,
trina rerum machina,
Quaeque in his vigent sub alto
solis et lunae globo.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Corporis formam caduci,
membra morti obnoxia
Induit, ne gens periret
primoplasti ex germine,
Merserat quem lex profundo
noxialis tartaro.
Saeculorum saeculis.

O beatus ortus ille,
virgo cum puerpera
Edidit nostram salutem,
feta Sancto Spiritu,
Et puer redemptor orbis
os sacratum protulit.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Psallat altitudo caeli,
psallite omnes angeli,
Quidquid est virtutis usquam
psallat in laudem Dei,
Nulla linguarum silescat,
vox et omnis consonet.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Ecce, quem vates vetustis
concinebant saeculis,
Quem prophetarum fideles
paginae spoponderant,
Emicat promissus olim;
cuncta conlaudent eum.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Macte iudex mortuorum,
macte rex viventium,
Dexter in Parentis arce
qui cluis virtutibus,
Omnium venturus inde
iustus ultor criminum.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Te senes et te iuventus,
parvulorum te chorus,
Turba matrum, virginumque,
simplices puellulae,
Voce concordes pudicis
perstrepant concentibus.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Tibi, Christe, sit cum Patre
hagioque Pneumate
Hymnus, decus, laus perennis,
gratiarum actio,
Honor, virtus, victoria,
regnum aeternaliter.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Teen Age Riot

by Thurston Moore

Everybody's talking about the stormy weather
What's a man to do but work out whether it's true?
Looking for a man with a focus and a temper
Who can open up a map and see between one and two

Time to get it
Before you let it get to you
Here he comes now
Stick to your guns and let him through

Everybody's coming from the winter vacation
Taking in the sun in a exaltation to you
You come running in on platform shoes
With Marshall stacks to at least just give us a clue

Ah, here it comes
I know it's someone I knew

Teen age riot in a public station
Going to fight and tear it up in a hypernation for you

Now I see it
I think I'll leave it out of the way
Now I come near you
And it's not clear why you fade away

Looking for a ride to your secret location
Where the kids are setting up a free-speed nation for you
Got a foghorn and a drum and a hammer that's rocking
And a cord and a pedal and a lock, that'll do me for now

It better work out
I hope it works out my way

'Cause it's getting kind of quiet in my city head
It takes a teen age riot to get me out of bed right now

You better look it
We're going to shake it up to him
He acts the hero
We paint a zero on his hand

We know it's down
We know it's bound too loose
Everybody's sound is around it
Everybody wants to be proud to choose

So who's to take the blame for the stormy weather?
You're never going to stop all the teen age leather and booze

It's time to go round
A one man showdown, teach us how to fail
We're off the streets now
And back on the road on the riot trail

Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen

Traditional

Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen
Kreazale Jaonaren othoitzen,
Nuiz et'aingürü bat lehiatü
Beitzen zelütik jaitxi
Mintzatzera haren.

Aingüria sartzen, diolarik:
«Agur, graziaz zira betherik,
Jaona da zurekin, benedikatü
Zira eta haitatü
Emazten gañetik».

Maria ordian dülüratü,
Eta bere beithan gogaratü
Zeren zian uste gabe ebtzüten
Hura agur erraiten.
Hanbat zen lotsatü.

«Etzitela, ez, lotsa, Maria;
Jinkoatan bathü'zü grazia:
Zük düzü sabelian ernatüren,
Eta haor bat sorthüren
Jesüs datiana».

Harek, dülüratürik, harzara:
«Bena nula izan daite hola,
Eztüdanaz gizunik ezagützen,
Ez eta ezagütüren
Batere seküla?».

«Ezpiritü saintiak huntia
Izanen düzü hori, Maria».
Zü zirateke, ber ordian, ama
Bai et'ere birjina,
Mündian bakhoitza.

Mariak arrapostü ordian:
«Hao naizü Jinkoren zerbütxian,
Zük errana nitan biz konplitü».
Jaona aragitü
Haren sabelian.

O Jinkoaren ama saintia,
Bekhatügilen ürgaitzarria,
Zük gitzatzü lagünt, bai Jinkoaren,
Baita berthütiaren
Bihotzez maithatzen.

Hope of a Lifetime

by Kenneth Pattengale

There's a light that's shining down
And a calm wind in the pine
For the fate of a fearsome travesty
Seems to have forgotten me

If it hasn't learned by now
Where I've hid so very long
I'll come safely out into the silence fell
In the wake of its passing on

A Spartan smile and westward stare
Hold a promise in the air
That's the way they used to find their own way home
By the stars, on their own

While I pray for promised land
To replace all I have made
Darkness steals the light I bear
In the hope of a lifetime phase

In the new-found reverie
Of quiet peace I've found
Freedom comes from being unafraid
Of the heartache that can plague a man

Ere zij God

Traditional

Ere zij God, ere zij God
In de hoge, in de hoge
Vrede op aarde, vrede op aarde
In de mensen een welbehagen
Amen, amen

Head On

by Jim Reid

As soon as I get my head around you
I come around catching sparks off you
I get an electric charge from you
A second-hand living just won't do

And the way I feel tonight
I could die, and I wouldn't mind
And there's something going on inside

Makes you want to feel
Makes you want to try
Makes you want to blow the stars from the sky
And I can't stand up
I can't cool down
I can't get my head off the ground

As soon as I get my head around you
I come around catching sparks off you
And all I ever got from you
Was all I ever took from you

The world could die in pain
And I wouldn't feel no shame
And there's nothing holding me to blame

Makes you want to feel
Makes you want to try
Makes you want to blow the stars from the sky
And I'm taking myself
To a dirty part of town
Where all my troubles can't be found

Like a Rolling Stone

by Bob Dylan

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, 'Beware doll, you're bound to fall'
You thought they were all kidding you

You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it

You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say, 'Do you want to make a deal?'

You never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They're all drinking, thinking that they got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts
But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

Wiser Time

by Chris Robinson

No time left now for shame
Horizon behind me, no more pain
Windswept stars blink and smile
Another song, another mile

You read the line every time
Ask me about crime in my mind
Ask me why another road song
Funny, but I bet you never left home

On a good day
I know it's not every day
We can part the sea

And on a bad day
I know it's not every day
Glory beyond our reach

Fourteen seconds until sunrise
Tired, but wiser for the time
Lightning 30 miles away
Three thousand more in two days

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

by Eric Bogle

Now when I was a young man I carried my pack
And lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's Green Basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said, 'Son
'It's time you stopped rambling, there's work to be done.'
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they marched me away to the war

And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'
As the ship pulled away from the quay
And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears
We sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I remember that terrible day
How our blood stained the sand and the water
And of how in that hell that they called Souvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he'd primed himself well
He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia

But the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'
When we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

And those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of death, blood, and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse-over-head
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dying

For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed
And shipped us back home to Australia
The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Souvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn, and to pity

But the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away

So now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving old dreams of past glories
And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, 'What are they marching for?'
And I ask myself the same question

But the band plays 'Waltzing Matilda'
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard
As they march by that billabong
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Dirty Rain

by Ryan Adams

Last time I was here it was raining
It ain't raining anymore
The streets were drowning, waters waning
All the ruins washed ashore
Now I'm just looking through the rubble
Trying to find out who we were
Last time I was here it was raining
It ain't raining anymore

Last time I was here you were waiting
You're not waiting anymore
The window's broke and the smoke's escaping
All the books scattered across the floor
And the church bells were ringing through the sirens
And your coat was full of bullet holes
Last time I was here you were waiting
You ain't waiting anymore

So may the wind blow
May the moonlight know your name
So let the needle move the record round
Till the walls cave in
And you and I were out there
Dancing in the dirty rain

Last time I was here it was raining
Like you ain't never ever seen it rain
And your eyes were filled with terror
And the smoke from the gasoline
As the stars exploded with gunfire
I saw you smiling just before
Last time I was here you were crying
You're not crying anymore

You Do Something to Me

by Paul Weller

You do something to me
Something deep inside
I'm hanging on the wire
For a love I'll never find

You do something wonderful
Then chase it all away
Mixing my emotions
That throws me back again

Hanging on the wire
I'm waiting for the change
I'm dancing through the fire
Just to catch a flame
And feel real again

You do something to me
Somewhere deep inside
Hoping to get close to
A peace I cannot find

Dancing through the fire
Just to catch a flame
Just to get close enough
To tell you that
You do something to me
Something deep inside

In Christ Alone

by Stuart Townend

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones he came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground his body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as he stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am his and he is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from his hand;
Till he returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

Halloween Parade

by Lou Reed

There's a downtown fairy singing out 'Proud Mary'
As she cruises Christopher Street
And some Southern queen is acting loud and mean
Where the docks and the Badlands meet

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's a Greta Garbo and an Alfred Hitchcock
And some black Jamaican stud
There's five Cinderellas and some leather drags
I almost fell into my mug

There's a Crawford, Davis, and a tacky Cary Grant
And some homeboys looking for trouble down here from the Bronx

But there ain't no Hairy and no Virgin Mary
You won't hear those voices again
And Johnny Rio and Rotten Rita
You'll never see those faces again

This Halloween is something to be sure
Especially to be here without you

There's the Born-Again Losers and the Lavender Boozers
And some crack team from Washington Heights
The boys from Avenue B, the girls from Avenue D
And Tinkerbell in tights

This celebration somehow gets me down
Especially when I see you're not around

There's no Peter Pedantic saying things romantic
In Latin, Greek, or Spic
There's no three bananas or Brandy Alexander
Dishing all their tricks

It's a different feeling that I have today
Especially when I know you've gone away

There's a girl from Soho with a t-shirt saying, 'I Blow'
She's with the 'Jive Five Two Plus Three'
And the girls for pay dates are giving cut rates
Or else doing it for free

The past keeps knock, knock, knocking on my door
And I don't want to hear it anymore

No consolations, please, for feeling funky
I got to get my head above my knees
But it makes me mad, and mad makes me sad
And then I start to freeze

In the back of my mind I was afraid it might be true
In the back of my mind I was afraid that they meant you

The Halloween parade
At the Halloween parade
At the Halloween parade
See you next year at the Halloween parade

The Dry Salvages (Pt. II)

[Pt. I here]
by T.S. Eliot

Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,
The silent withering of autumn flowers
Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;
Where is there an end to the drifting wreckage,
The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable
Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?

There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.

There is the final addition, the failing
Pride or resentment at failing powers,
The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,
In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,
The silent listening to the undeniable
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation.

Where is the end of them, the fishermen sailing
Into the wind's tail, where the fog cowers?
We cannot think of a time that is oceanless
Or of an ocean not littered with wastage
Or of a future that is not liable
Like the past, to have no destination.

We have to think of them as forever bailing,
Setting and hauling, while the North East lowers
Over shallow banks unchanging and erosionless
Or drawing their money, drying sails at dockage;
Not as making a trip that will be unpayable
For a haul that will not bear examination.

There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,
No end to the withering of withered flowers,
To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,
To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,
The bone's prayer to Death its God. Only the hardly, barely prayable
Prayer of the one Annunciation.

It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness. I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations—not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable:
The backward look behind the assurance
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.
Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better
In the agony of others, nearly experienced,
Involving ourselves, than in our own.
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,
But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.

[Pt. III here]

Key/Hole

by Lee Ranaldo

I'm thinking about the first line that I wrote you
Way back when
You always said I was the last
In your long line of friends
But peeking through a keyhole
There's only so much to take in
Things get so uneven
Like they do in the end

Deny me any indication
Define me any way you can
That's when I call you over

See a little a darkness
Mixed in with the light
I know your kisses herald
A night of sweet delights

Let's make the best of a bad situation
Try to define love any way we can
That's when I call you over

You're bright like a shadow
And dark like a sunny day
You shuffled all the pages
Until the words decayed
I'm a traveler in the hard, hard rain
And you, my dear, are quite insane

I'm in the middle of the river
Scattered ropes and jewels forever

I'm back out on the town now
Back out on your street
I feel a little strange about it
But you know what I need
So take this as a last line
Take this as the end
Scattered fruit and chatter
And youthful malcontents

Let's take our eyes out
And then complete the conversation
Devise a way out of our grandest plans
That's when I call you over

A Late Walk

by Robert Frost

When I go up through the mowing field,
    The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
    Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
    The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
    Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
    But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
    Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
    By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
    To carry again to you.

Elephant

by Jason Isbell

She said, 'Andy, you're better than your past'
Winked at me and drained her glass
Cross-legged on a barstool like nobody sits anymore
She said, 'Andy, you're taking me home'
But I knew she planned to sleep alone
I'd carry her to bed, sweep up the hair from her floor

If I'd f—ked her before she got sick
I'd never hear the end of it
She don't have the spirit for that now
We just drink our drinks and laugh out loud
And bitch about the weekend crowd
And try to ignore the elephant somehow

She said, 'Andy, you crack me up'
Seagram's in a coffee cup
Sharecropper eyes, and her hair almost all gone
When she was drunk, she made cancer jokes
Made up her own doctors' notes
Surrounded by her family, I saw that she was dying alone

I'd sing her classic country songs
And she'd get high and sing along
She don't have much voice to sing with now
We burn these joints in effigy
And cry about what we used to be
And try to ignore the elephant somehow

I've buried her a thousand times
Given up my place in line
But I don't give a damn about that now
There's one thing that's real clear to me
No one dies with dignity
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow

My Town

by Michael Stanley

This old town's been home long as I remember
This town's going to be here long after I'm gone
East side, West side, give up, or surrender
Been down, but I still rock on

And this town is my town
Alright?
Love or hate it, it don't matter
'Cause I'm going to stand and fight
This town is my town
She's got her ups and downs
But love or hate it, it don't matter
'Cause this is my town

This old town is where I learned about loving
this old town is where I learned to hate
This town has done its share of shoving
This town taught me that it's never too late

Try to Remember

by Tom Jones

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow
Try to remember, and if you remember, then follow

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow
Try to remember, and if you remember, then follow

Deep in December it's nice to remember
Although you know the snow will follow
Deep in December it's nice to remember
Without the hurt the heart is hollow
Deep in December it's nice to remember
The fire of September that made us mellow
Deep in December our hearts should remember and follow

Alone on the Rope

by Noel Gallagher

I won't let your smile
Get lost in the fall
I won't let your dreams
Run away in the dark

Still recall the way you were
And that look in your eyes

I can't hear the sound
A thought ringing in my ears
I still feel the pain
I carried with me for years

Still recall the way you were
And that look in your eyes

You could leave when the walls are falling down
I can tell by the look in your eyes
You're alone on the rope
And if you can't find no hope
Don't look down

Savannah Rain

by James Wilson

And I'm lost somewhere
Out in the midnight air
Driving around wondering if I'll make it through
This lonesome night
I'm still praying for daylight
And wishing to hell that I could just come home to you

My radio's on
And every single song
Tells the same old lonesome story of you and me
And it's ringing in my head
Those words that you said
I guess some things, they were never meant to be

Just smell the sweet, soft, Southern smell of magnolias
And hear the wind is calling out your name
I'm just another broken heart lost in Georgia
Falling like the sweet Savannah rain

It's hard to be a man
And it's hard to give a damn
And I guess that there ain't much else left to say
'Cause what's done can't be undone
And there ain't nowhere to run
But it hurts too goddamn much to stay

The memories still remain
Chasing headlights in the rain
And these shifting gears won't ease my troubled mind
And there ain't nothing left to do
But howl at the moon
And keep driving 'till I see that morning sunrise

Little Gidding (Pt. II)

[Pt. I here]
by T.S. Eliot

Ash on an old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house—
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
      This is the death of air.

There are flood and drought
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
      This is the death of earth.

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
      This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning
     Near the ending of interminable night
     At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
     Had passed below the horizon of his homing
     While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
     Between three districts whence the smoke arose
     I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
     Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
     And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
     The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
     I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
     Both one and many; in the brown baked features
     The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.
     So I assumed a double part, and cried
     And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?'
Although we were not. I was still the same,
     Knowing myself yet being someone other—
     And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed
To compel the recognition they preceded.
     And so, compliant to the common wind,
     Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,
In concord at this intersection time
     Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
     We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,
     Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
     I may not comprehend, may not remember.'
And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse
     My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
     These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
     By others, as I pray you to forgive
     Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
     For last year's words belong to last year's language
     And next year's words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
     To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
     Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
     In streets I never thought I should revisit
     When I left my body on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
     To purify the dialect of the tribe
     And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
     To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
     First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
     But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
     As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
     At human folly, and the laceration
     Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
     Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
     Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
     Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
     Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
     Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
     Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.'
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
     He left me, with a kind of valediction,
     And faded on the blowing of the horn.

[Pt. III here]

One Rainy Wish

by Jimi Hendrix

Golden rose, the color of the dream I had
Not too long ago
Misty blue and lilac too
Never to grow old

There you were under the tree of song
Sleeping so peacefully
In your hand a flower played
Waiting there for me

I have never laid eyes on you
Not like before this timeless day
But you woke and you smiled my name
And you stole my heart away

Sleeping Where I Fall

by Thurston Moore

Sleeping where I fall
Creeping and I crawl
Peeping in your stall
Sleeping and I fall

I never know what to do
Everybody knows it's because of you
Every time I remember, I stop and pray
I never know what to say

Charmless Man

by Damon Albarn

I met him in a crowded room
Where people go to drink away their gloom
He sat me down, and so began
The story of a charmless man

Educated the expensive way
He knows his Claret from his Beaujolais
I think he'd like to have been Ronnie Kray
But then nature didn't make him that way

He thinks his educated airs
Those family shares
Will protect him
That we'll respect him
He moves in circles of friends
Who just pretend
That they like him
He does the same to them
And when you put it all together
There's the model of a charmless man

He knows the swingers and their cabaret
Says he can get in anywhere for free
I began to go a little cross-eyed
And from this charmless man I just had to hide

He talks at speed he gets nosebleeds
He doesn't see
His days are tumbling
Down upon him
And yet he tries so hard to please
He's just so keen
For you to listen
But no-one's listening
And when you put it all together
There's the model of a charmless man

Gold Soundz

by Stephen Malkmus

Go back to those gold soundz
And keep my anthem to yourself
Because it's nothing I don't like
Is it a crisis or a boring change?
When it's central, so essential
It has a nice ring when you laugh
At the lowlife opinions
And they're coming to the chorus now

I keep my address to yourself
'Cause we need secrets
We need secrets back right now

Because I never want to make you feel
That you're social, never ignored soul
Believe in what you want to do
And do you think that it's a major flaw
When they rise up in the falling rain?
And if you stay around with your knuckles ground down
The trial's over, the weapon's found

Keep my address to myself
Because it's secret
'Cause it's secret back right now

So drunk in the August sun
And you're the kind of girl I like
Because you're empty and I'm empty
And you can never quarantine the past
Did you remember in December
That I won't need you when I'm gone?
And if I go there, I won't stay there
Because I'm sitting here too long

I've been sitting here too long
And I've been wasted
Advocating that word for the last word
Last words come up, all you've got to waste

Coloured Rain

by Steve Winwood

Yesterday I was a young boy
Searching for my way
Not knowing what I wanted
Living life from day to day

'Til you came along
There was nothing but an empty space and a pain
Feels like coloured rain
Tastes like coloured rain
Bring on coloured rain

I can see a sail of changing
Filling with surprise
United with a feeling
Bringing love into my eyes

The Dry Salvages (Pt. I)

by T.S. Eliot

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.
His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,
In the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,
In the smell of grapes on the autumn table,
And the evening circle in the winter gaslight.

The river is within us, the sea is all about us;
The sea is the land's edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
Its hints of earlier and other creation:
The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale's backbone;
The pools where it offers to our curiosity
The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.
It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,
The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar
And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices,
Many gods and many voices.
                                                             The salt is on the briar rose,
The fog is in the fir trees.
                                                             The sea howl
And the sea yelp, are different voices
Often together heard: the whine in the rigging,
The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,
The distant rote in the granite teeth,
And the wailing warning from the approaching headland
Are all sea voices, and the heaving groaner
Rounded homewards, and the seagull:
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time of chronometers, older
Than time counted by anxious worried women
Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending;
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,
Clangs
The bell.

[Pt. II here]

You Go to My Head

by Haven Gillespie

You go to my head
And you linger like a haunting refrain
And I find you spinning 'round in my brain
Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne

You go to my head
Like a sip of sparkling burgundy brew
And I find the very mention of you
Like the kicker in a julep or two

The thrill of the thought
That you might give a thought
To my plea casts a spell over me
Still I say to myself
'Get a hold of yourself
'Can't you see that it can never be?'

You go to my head
With a smile that makes my temperature rise
Like a summer with a thousand Julys
You intoxicate my soul with your eyes

Though I'm certain that this heart of mine
Hasn't a ghost of a chance
In this crazy romance
You go to my head

La Marseillaise

by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé
L'étendard sanglant est levé
Entendez-vous dans nos campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils et vos compagnes !

Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
marchons, marchons
qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons.

Que veut cette horde d'esclaves,
De traîtres, de rois conjurés ?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés ?
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés ?
Français, pour nous, ah ! quel outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter !
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer
De rendre à l'antique esclavage !

Quoi ! des cohortes étrangères
Feraient la loi dans nos foyers !
Quoi ! ces phalanges mercenaires
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers !
Terrasseraient nos fiers guerriers !
Grand Dieu ! par des mains enchaînées
Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient
De vils despotes deviendraient
Les maîtres de nos destinées !

Tremblez, tyrans et vous perfides
L'opprobre de tous les partis,
Tremblez ! vos projets parricides
Vont enfin recevoir leurs prix !
Vont enfin recevoir leurs prix !
Tout est soldat pour vous combattre,
S'ils tombent, nos jeunes héros,
La terre en produit de nouveaux,
Contre vous tout prêts à se battre !

Français, en guerriers magnanimes,
Portez ou retenez vos coups !
Épargnez ces tristes victimes,
A regret s'armant contre nous.
A regret s'armant contre nous.
Mais ces despotes sanguinaires,
Mais ces complices de Bouillé,
Tous ces tigres qui, sans pitié,
Déchirent le sein de leur mère !

Amour sacré de la Patrie,
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs
Liberté, Liberté chérie,
Combats avec tes défenseurs !
Combats avec tes défenseurs !
Sous nos drapeaux que la victoire
Accoure à tes mâles accents,
Que tes ennemis expirants
Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire !

Nous entrerons dans la carrière
Quand nos aînés n'y seront plus,
Nous y trouverons leur poussière
Et la trace de leurs vertus
Et la trace de leurs vertus
Bien moins jaloux de leur survivre
Que de partager leur cercueil,
Nous aurons le sublime orgueil
De les venger ou de les suivre

As I Walked Out One Evening

by W.H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
     Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
     Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
     I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
     'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
     Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
     And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
     Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
     Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
     For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
     And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
     Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
     You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
     Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
     And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
     Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
     To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
     Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
     And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
     Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
     And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
     The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
     A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
     And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
     And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
     O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
     Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
     As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
     With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
     The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
     And the deep river ran on.

Red & White & Blue & Gold

by Aoife O'Donovan

Red and white and blue and gold
I want to wait for the water to touch my toes
On the beach the Fourth of July
I want to wait for the fire to burn my eyes

Come on, sit next to me
Bury my feet
Bury my feet in the sand
There's a hole
That is twelve miles deep
I dug it with my hands

Come on, lie next to me
I'll sing you to sleep
I'll sing you to sleep
There's a band on the boardwalk
You're tapping your feet
But I'm too drunk to dance

Black and blue all along my face
I want to follow you home
I want to see your place
Want to take you in my arms
And float down a river with you
I want to buy the farm

Come on, let's run away
Baby, let's go
Let's go
There's a southbound train
Pulling out at nine
Leave this jukebox joint behind

Come on, let's have one more
I don't want to go
I'm not ready to go
I'm scared of the way
That my heart gets sore
Wondering if you're mine

Come on, let's jump in
The water's cold
It's going to be cold
But the feeling I get
When you touch my skin
It makes me bold

Come on, let's kiss
In the July sun
'Neath the July sky
The feeling I get
When you pass me by

Red and white and blue and gold
I want to wait for the water to touch my toes
On the beach it's the Fourth of July
I want to wait for the fire to burn my eyes

How sad our state by nature is!

by Isaac Watts

How sad our state by nature is!
Our sin, how deep it stains!
And Satan binds our captive souls
Fast in his slavish chains.

But hark! a voice of sovereign grace
Sounds from the sacred Word;
'Ho, ye despairing sinners, come,
And trust upon the Lord!'

My soul obeys the Almighty's call,
And runs to this relief;
I would believe Thy promise, Lord;
O help my unbelief!

To the blest fountain of Thy blood,
Incarnate God, I fly;
Here let me wash my spotted soul
From sins of deepest dye.

Stretch out Thine arm, victorious King,
My reigning sins subdue,
Drive the old Dragon from his seat,
With all his hellish crew.

A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
Into Thy hands I fall;
Be Thou my strength and righteousness,
My Savior, and my all.

from Manhattan

by Woody Allen

Chapter one. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion.

Uh, no. Make that: He romanticized it all out of proportion. Better.

To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.

Uh... no. Let me start this over.

Chapter one. He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle-bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles.

Ah no, corny. Too corny for a man of my taste. Let me try and make it more profound.

Chapter one. He adored New York City. To him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams...

No, it's gonna be too preachy. I mean, you know, let's face it, I want to sell some books here.

Chapter one. He adored New York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage...

Too angry. I don't wanna be angry.

Chapter one. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.

I love this.

New York was his town and it always would be.

Lay My Burden Down

by Aoife O'Donovan

Going to lay my burden down
Lay my body in the ground
Cold clay against my skin
I don't care at all

Can't seem to find my piece of mind
So with the earth I'll lay entwined
Six feet underground
My feet are warm and dry

When I get to the other side
I'll put your picture way up high
But I'm not coming back to you
It's just too far
It's just too far

If I was cast out on the sea
Would you come and look for me
Or would you just let me sink
Beneath the waves so blue

What if I had learned to fly
I'd fly all night till day drew nigh
I'd perch down upon a branch
And scan the crowd for you

When I touch my feet on the land
I'll kiss your face and take your hands
But you know I'm not here to stay
It's just too far

Can't you hear me cry?
My bones are broke, my tongue is tied
The moon is swaying back and forth
Against the navy sky
It's all that I can see
My body's trembling on my knees
Have a little mercy on me
Run away and hide

When I sleep the angels sing
But I cannot hear a thing
Eyes closed
Dreaming of the better days gone by

When I wake the trumpets play
And I'm standing at the gates
Fall down in joy
I know my race has just been run

When I was young my mom would say
Life is hard, but that's okay
If you can make it through the day
It's not that far
No, it's not that far

from Ulysses

by James Joyce

What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden?

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.

With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his companion of various constellations?

Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in incipient lunation, approaching perigree: of the infinite lattiginous scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of Sirius (alpha in Canis Major) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant and in volume 900 times the dimension of our planet: of Arcturus: of the precession of equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula in which 100 of our solar systems could be contained: of moribund and of nascent new stars such as Nova in 1901: of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules: of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of alloted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity.

Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast?

Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa: of the incalculable trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe of human serum constallated with red and white bodies, themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached.

Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result?

Because some years previously in 1886 when occupied with the problem of the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such magnitude and of so many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power of 9, that, the result having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes of 1000 pages each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to be requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its printed integers of units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, the nucleus of the nebula of every digit of every series containing succinctly the potentiality of being raised to the utmost kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its powers.

Sad and Deep As You

by Dave Mason

Lips that are as warm could be
Lips that speak too soon
Lips that tell a story
Sad and deep as you

Smile that's warm as summer sun
Smile that gets you through
Smile that tells a story
Sad and deep you

Eyes that are the windows
Eyes that are the dew
Eyes that tell a story
Sad and deep as you

Tears that are unspoken words
Tears that are the truth
Tears that tell a story
Sad and deep as you

Shadow of the Sun

by Paul Weller

Do you still feel the same way about it?
Like you always said you would
Or has time rewritten everything?
Like you never dreamt it could

Remember when we wanted to fly forever
On a magic carpet ride
Forever seems a long time
Cutting us down in size
No matter how hard we try

I could see all I had done
Just chasing dreams across the fields
In the shadow of the sun
I plan to have it all while I'm still young
And chase the fields across my dreams
In the shadow of the sun

Once upon a time I might have told you
But now nothing seems that plain
However much we're changing
There are some things the same
And those same things still say

I could see all I had done
Just chasing dreams across the fields
In the shadow of the sun
I plan to have it all while I'm still young
And chase the fields across my dreams
In the shadow of the sun

Peace

by Langston Hughes

We passed their graves:
The dead men there,
Winners or losers,
Did not care.

In the dark
They could not see
Who had gained
The victory.

Isoldes Liebestod

by Richard Wagner
Trans. by Frederick Jameson

How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open —
can you see, my friends,
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
amidst the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing full and majestic
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips —
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
this melody
so wondrously
and gently
sounding from within him,
in bliss lamenting,
all-expressing,
gently reconciling,
piercing me,
soaring aloft,
its sweet echoes
resounding about me?
Are they gentle
aerial waves
ringing out clearly,
surging around me?
Are they billows
of blissful fragrance?
As they seethe
and roar about me,
shall I breathe,
shall I give ear?
Shall I drink of them,
plunge beneath them?
Breathe my life away
in sweet scents?
In the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes,
in the universal stream
of the world-breath —
to drown,
to founder —
unconscious —
utmost rapture!

It's Raining Today

by Scott Walker

It's raining today
And I'm just about to forget
The train window girl
That wonderful day we met
She smiles through the smoke
From my cigarette

It's raining today
But once there was summer and you
And dark little rooms
And sleep in late afternoons
Those moments descend
On my windowpane

I've hung around too long
Listening to the old landlady's hard-luck stories
You out of me, me out of you
We go like lovers
To replace the empty space
Repeat our dreams to someone new

It's raining today
And I watch the cellophane streets
No hang-ups for me
'Cause hang-ups need company
The street corner girl's
A cold trembling leaf
It's raining today
It's raining today

Shiny Happy People

by Michael Stipe

Shiny happy people laughing

Meet me in the crowd
People, people
Throw your love around
Love me, love me
Take it into town
Happy, happy

Put it in the ground
Where the flowers grow
Gold and silver shine

Shiny happy people holding hands
Shiny happy people holding hands
Shiny happy people laughing

Everyone around
Love them, love them
Put it in your hands
Take it, take it
There's no time to cry
Happy, happy

Put it in your heart
Where tomorrow shines
Gold and silver shine

Shiny happy people holding hands
Shiny happy people holding hands
Shiny happy people laughing

from Die Walküre

by Richard Wagner
Trans. by Frederick Jameson

Winter storms have waned in the moon of May,
with tender radiance sparkles the Spring;
on balmy breezes, light and lovely,
weaving wonders, on he floats;
o'er wood and meadow wafts his breathing,
widely open laughs his eye:
in blithesome song of birds resounds his voice,
sweetest frangrance breathes he forth:
from his ardent blood bloom out all joy-giving blossoms,
bud and shoot spring up by his might.
With gentle weapons' charm he forces the world;
winter and storm yield to his strong attack:
assailed by his hardy strokes now
the doors are shattered that, fast and
defiant, once held us parted from him.

Thou art the spring
that I have so longed for
in frosty winter's spell.
My heart greeted thee with blissfullest dread,
as they look at first on me lightened.
Strange has seemed all I e'er saw,
friendless all that was round me;
like far off things and unknown,
all that ever came near.
When thou camest all was made clear:
as my eyes on thee fell, mine wert thou only:
all I hid in my heart, all I am;
bright as the day dawned on my sight,
like echoing tones struck on my ear,
as in winter's frosty desert
my eyes first beheld the friend.

Mr. Blue Sky

by Jeff Lynne

Sun is shining in the sky
There ain't a cloud in sight
It stopped raining
Everybody's in a play
And don't you know, it's a beautiful new day

Running down the avenue
See how the sun shines brightly
In the city
On the streets where once was pity
Mr. Blue Sky is living here today

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey you with the pretty face
Welcome to the human race
A celebration
Mr. Blue Sky's up there waiting
And today is the day we've waited for

Hey there Mr. Blue!
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around, see what you do
Everybody smiles at you

Mr. Blue you did it right
But soon comes Mr. Night
Creeping over
Now his hand is on your shoulder
Never mind I'll remember you this way

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

by Al Dubin

Shades of night are creeping
Willow trees are weeping
Old folks and babies are sleeping
Silver stars are gleaming
All alone I'm scheming
Scheming to get you out here, my dear

Come tiptoe through the window
By the window is where I'll be
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me

Tiptoe from your pillow
To the shadow of a willow tree
And tiptoe through the tulips with me

Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray
We'll keep the showers away

And if I kiss you in the garden
In the moonlight will you pardon me?
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me

April Skies

by Jim Reid

Hey honey, what you trying to say?
As I stand here, don't you walk away
And the world comes tumbling down

Hand in hand in a violent life
Making love on the edge of a knife
And the world comes tumbling down

And it's hard for me to say
And it's hard for me to stay
I'm going down to be by myself
I'm going back for the good of my health
And there's one thing I couldn't do
Sacrifice myself to you

Hey baby, I just can't see
Just what you mean to me
I take my aim, and I fake my words
I'm just your long time curse
And if you walk away, I can't take it

But that's the way that you are
And that's the things that you say
But now you've gone too far
With all the things you say
Get back to where you come from
I can't help it

Under the April skies
Under the April sun
Under the April skies

Sun grows cold, sky gets black
And you broke me up and now you won't come back
Shaking hand, life is dead
And a broken heart and a screaming head

Under the April skies

You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To

by Cole Porter

You'd be so nice to come home to
You'd be so nice by the fire
While the breeze on high
Sang a lullaby
You'd be all that I could desire

Under stars chilled by the winter
Under an August moon burning above
You'd be so nice
You'd be paradise
To come home to and love

Cleveland Rocks

by Ian Hunter

All this energy calling me
Back where it comes from
It's such a crude attitude
It's back where it belongs
All the little kids growing up on the skids
Are going, 'Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks'
Jumping Jean Jeanies, moody James Deanies
Going, 'Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks'

Mama knows but she don't care
She's got her worries too
Seven kids and a phony affair
And the rent is due
All the little chicks with the crimson lips go
'Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks'
She's living in sin with a safety pin
She's going, 'Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks'

I got some records from World War Two
I'll play them just like me granddad do
He was a rocker and I am too
Oh Cleveland rocks
Yeah Cleveland rocks
So find a place, grab a space
And yell and scream for more

Dreams

by Brandi Carlile

Dreams, I have dreams
When I'm awake, when I'm asleep
And you, you are in my dreams
You're underneath my skin, how am I so weak?

And now in my dreams
I can feel the weight, I can just come clean
I keep it to myself, I know what it means
I can't have you, but I have dreams

How long can you hold your breath?
Can you count to ten, can you let it pass?
Keep, can you keep it in?
Keep it behind lashes, can you make it last?

Mind, can you read my mind?
Has it come undone, am I showing signs?

Seven Stanzas at Easter

by John Updike

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That-pierced-died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

There Is a Fountain

by William Cowper

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he
Washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved, to sin no more.

E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme
And shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I'll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared,
Unworthy though I be,
For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!

'Tis strung and tuned for endless years
And formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father's ears
No other name but Thine.

You Never Need Nobody

by Zach Williams

You could break a heart in your sleep
The way you move makes a grown man weep
They all line up at your door
Saying, 'Please, please, I can't take no more'

You never need nobody
You've never been alone
And I try to get your affection
But all I ever do is wrong

You could calm a storm with your tone
The way you sing makes the mockingbird hum
The grass you walk on gives way
Saying, 'Please, please, come back this way'

Give me your hottest fever
Loudest scream in the crowd
All of these good times can't change
The way I feel 'bout you now

Now I know you got that smile
The way it shines can drive a man half-wild
I won't dance around this no more
I'm the only one you should smile for

Spring Is Here

by Lorenz Hart

Once there was a thing called Spring
When the world was writing
Verses like yours and mine
All the boys and girls would sing
As we sat at little tables and drank May wine
Now April, May, and June
Seem sadly out of tune
Life has stuck a pin in the balloon

Spring is here
Why doesn't my heart go dancing?
Spring is here
Why isn't the waltz entrancing?
No desire, no ambition leads me
Maybe it's because nobody needs me

Spring is here
Why doesn't the breeze delight me?
Stars appear
Why doesn't the night invite me?
Maybe it's because nobody loves me

Spring is here, I hear

P2 Vatican Blues

by George Harrison

Gazed at the ceiling from below
A splendid Michelangelo
Filled my heart with delight
Last Saturday night

Arrived believing from home
Climbed every step inside St. Peter's Dome
Claustrophobic and ex-Catholic
Last Saturday night

Now how come nobody really noticed
Puff of white smoke knocked me out?
The truth is hiding, lurking, banking
Things I do at night

It's quite suspicious to say the least
Even mentioned it to my local priest
One 'Our Father', three 'Hail Mary's
Each Saturday Night

I wish somebody would tell me
That it's only a show
I'll confess, own up, let's face it
In my concrete tuxedo

It's quite suspicious to say the least
While mentioning it to my priest
One 'Our Father', three 'Hail Mary's
Each Saturday night

Here Comes the Sun

by George Harrison

Little darling
It's been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darling
It feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's all right

Little darling
The smiles returning to the faces
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been here

Sun, sun, sun
Here it comes
Sun, sun, sun
Here it comes

Little darling
I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been clear

Dire Wolf

by Robert Hunter

In the timbers of Fennario
the wolves are running 'round
The winter was so hard and cold
froze ten feet 'neath the ground

Don't murder me
I beg of you don't murder me
Please
don't murder me

I sat down to my supper
'Twas a bottle of red whiskey
I said my prayers and went to bed
That's the last they saw of me

Don't murder me
I beg of you don't murder me
Please
don't murder me

When I awoke, the Dire Wolf
Six hundred pounds of sin
Was grinnin at my window
All I said was "Come on in"

Don't murder me
I beg of you don't murder me
Please
don't murder me

The wolf came in, I got my cards
We sat down for a game
I cut my deck to the queen of spades
but the cards were all the same

Don't murder me
I beg of you don't murder me
Please
don't murder me

In the backwash of Fennario
The black and bloody mire
The Dire Wolf collects his due
while the boys sing round the fire

Don't murder me
I beg of you don't murder me
Please
don't murder me

Suicide Is Painless

by Mike Altman

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see...

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it, if I please

The game of life is hard to play 
I'm gonna lose it anyway 
The losing card I'll someday lay 
So this is all I have to say

The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger: watch it grin

A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
'Is it to be or not to be?'
And I replied, 'Oh, why ask me?'

'Cause suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it, if I please
And you can do the same thing, if you please

somewhere i have never travelled

by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Winter

by Norman Blake

The summer was out of sight
We couldn't sleep at night
Shadows were closing in
Back in the dark again

Basement we didn't own
Cut off the telephone
Ceiling was falling down
Winter was underground

There are worlds
We can find
A hidden place
Is in our minds

Place where the water falls
Nobody ever calls
Sky is forever clear
Road never made it here

Forests are deep and green
Like nothing we've ever seen
Heavens revolving sin
Seasons change everything

Do You Love Me?

by Sheldon Harnick

Golde, do you love me?
Do I what?
Do you love me?
Do I love you?
Well?

With our daughters getting married
And this trouble in the town
You're upset, you're worn-out
Go inside, go lie down
Maybe it's indigestion!

Golde, I'm asking you a question!
Do you love me?
You're a fool!
I know! But do you love me?
Do I love you?
Well?

For 25 years I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked your cow
After 25 years, why talk about love right now?

Golde, the first time I met you
Was on our wedding day
I was scared
I was shy
I was nervous
So was I

But my father and my mother
Said we'd learn to love each other
So now I'm asking, Golde

Do you love me?
I'm your wife!
I know! But do you love me?
Do I love him?
Well?

For 25 years I've lived with him
Fought with him, starved with him
25 years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

Then you love me!
I suppose I do
And I suppose I love you, too

It doesn't change a thing
But even so
After 25 years
It's nice to know

Ash Wednesday (Pt. V)

[Pt. IV here]
by T.S. Eliot

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

[Pt. VI here]

Snow

by Randy Newman

Snow fills the fields we used to know
And the little park where we would go
Sleeps far below in the snow

Gone, it's all over and you're gone
But the memory lives on
Although our dreams lie buried in the snow

Sometimes the wind blows through the trees
And I think I hear you calling me
But all I see is...

Snow everywhere I go
As the cold winter sun sinks low
I walk alone through the snow

You Do Something to Me

by Cole Porter

You do something to me
Something that simply mystifies me
Tell me, why should it be
You have the power to hypnotize me

Let me live 'neath your spell
Do do that voodoo that you do so well
For you do something to me
That nobody else could do

Spoils of the Dead

by Robert Frost

Two fairies it was
   On a still summer day
Came forth in the woods
   With the flowers to play.

The flowers they plucked
   They cast on the ground
For others, and those
   For still others they found.

Flower-guided it was
   That they came as they ran
On something that lay
   In the shape of a man.

The snow must have made
   The feathery bed
When this one fell
   On the sleep of the dead.

But the snow was gone
   A long time ago,
And the body he wore
   Nigh gone with the snow.

The fairies drew near
   And keenly espied
A ring on his hand
   And a chain at his side.

They knelt in the leaves
   And eerily played
With the glittering things,
   And were not afraid.

And when they went home
   To hide in their burrow,
They took them along
   To play with to-morrow.

When you came on death,
   Did you not come flower-guided
Like the elves in the wood?
   I remember that I did.

But I recognised death
   With sorrow and dread,
And I hated and hate
   The spoils of the dead.

Hoarfrost

by Lee Ranaldo

I put my foot deep in the tracks that you made
Walked behind you off into the wood
'We'll know where when we get there,' you said
And we both knew we would

High above like a spider
The colors turning brown
Freeways passing by us
I took your hand, and we knelt down

Wheels paddle, wheels paddle movement as we go
Trees passing, trees passing signs along the road
A view through the trees to a couple in the snow
A view through the trees to a couple standing in the snow

Suddenly the trees were flashing by us
Clouds reflecting fast across your eye
We turned into a frozen meadow
The wind the only sound
'We'll know where when we get there,' you said

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

Sunday Morning

by Lou Reed

Sunday morning brings the dawn in
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, Sunday morning
It's just the wasted years so close behind

Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all

Sunday morning, and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, Sunday morning
It's all the streets you crossed not so long ago

The Waste Land (Pt. V)

[Part IV here]
by T.S. Eliot

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mud-cracked houses
                                        If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the roof-tree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

                            I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

        Shantih     shantih     shantih

Epilogue from On Fairy-Stories

by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality.' There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be 'primarily' true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the 'turn' in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.

But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the 'happy ending.' The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.