Listen Up

by Noel Gallagher

'Listen up, what's the time?' said today
I'm going to speak my mind
Take me up to the top of the world
I want to see my crime

Day by day there's a man in a suit
Who's going to make you pay
For the thoughts that you think
And the words they won't let you say

One fine day
Going to leave you all behind
It wouldn't be so bad
If I had more time

Sailing down a river alone
I've been trying to find my way back home
But I don't believe in magic
Life is automatic
But I don't mind being on my own

Some Enchanted Evening

by Oscar Hammerstein II

Some enchanted evening you may see a stranger
You may see a stranger across a crowded room
And somehow you know, you'll know even then
That somewhere you'll see her, again and again

Some enchanted evening someone may be laughing
You may hear her laughing across a crowded room
And night after night, as strange as it seems
The sound of her laughter will sing in your dreams

Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons
Wise me never try

Some enchanted evening when you find your true love
When you feel her call you across a crowded room
Then fly to her side and make her your own
Or all through your life you may dream all alone

Once you have found her never let her go

Let's Fall in Love

by Ted Koehler

We might have been meant for each other
To be or not to be
Let our hearts discover

I have a feeling
It's a feeling I'm concealing
I don't know why
It's just a mental, incidental
Sentimental alibi

But I adore you
So strong for you
Why go on stalling?
I'm falling
Love is calling
Why be shy?

Let's fall in love
Why shouldn't we fall in love?
Our hearts are made of it
Let's take a chance
Why be afraid of it?

Let's close our eyes
And make our own paradise
Little we know of it
Still we can try
To make a go of it

Let's fall in love
Why shouldn't we fall in love?
Now is the time for it
While we are young
Let's fall in love

Something More Than Free

by Jason Isbell

When I get home from work
I'll call up all my friends
And we'll go bust up something beautiful
We'll have to build again

When I get home from work
I'll wrestle off my clothes
And leave 'em right inside the front door
'Cause nobody's home to know

You see a hammer finds a nail
And a freight train needs the rails
And I'm doing what I'm on this earth to do

And I don't think on why I'm here where it hurts
I'm just lucky to have the work
Sunday morning I'm too tired to go to church
But I thank God for the work

When I get my reward
My work will all be done
And I will sit back in my chair
Beside the Father and the Son

No more holes to fill
And no more rocks to break
And no more loading boxes on the trucks
For someone else's sake

'Cause a hammer needs a nail
And the poor man's up for sale
Guess I'm doing what I'm on this earth to do

And I don't think on why I'm here where it hurts
I'm just lucky to have the work
And every night I dream I'm drowning in the dirt
But I thank God for the work

And the day will come when I'll find a reason
And somebody proud to love a man like me
My back is numb, my hands are freezing
What I'm working for is something more than free

Reluctance

by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept
The end of a season?

See the Sky About to Rain

by Neil Young

See the sky about to rain
Broken clouds and rain
Locomotive, pull the train
Whistle blowing through my brain

Signals curling on an open plain
Rolling down the track again
See the sky about to rain

Some are bound for happiness
Some are bound to glory
Some are bound to live with less
Who can tell your story?

I was down in Dixie Land
Played a silver fiddle
Played it loud and then the man
Broke it down the middle
See the sky about to rain

The Dry Salvages (Pt. III)

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

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.
And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.
You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
When the train starts, and the passengers are settled
To fruit, periodicals and business letters
(And those who saw them off have left the platform)
Their faces relax from grief into relief,
To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)
'Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death"—that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward.
                              O voyagers, O seamen,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination.'
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
                                   Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.

[Pt. IV here]

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.

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

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.

Something's Gotta Give

by Johnny Mercer

When an irresistible force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live
Something's gotta give, something's gotta give
Something's gotta give

When an irrepressible smile such as yours
Warms an old implacable heart such as mine
Don't say no, because I insist
Somewhere, somehow
Someone's gotta be kissed

So, en garde!
Who knows what the fates might have in store
From their vast mysterious sky?
I'll try hard
Ignoring those lips that I adore
But how long can anyone try?

Fight, fight, fight it with all of your might
Chances are some heavenly star-spangled night
We'll find out just as sure as we live
Something's gotta give, something's gotta give
Something's gonna give

Little Gidding (Pt. I)

by T.S. Eliot

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

              If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

              If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

[Pt. II here]

from Perelandra

by C.S. Lewis

from Chapter Four

[Editor's Note: I find this illustration by C.S. Lewis of God's providence and human response to be particularly insightful.

As a matter of context, for better understanding the passage, this is from the second book in Lewis' 'Space Trilogy'. Ransom has been sent from Earth to Venus (called Perelandra) for an unknown purpose. When he arrives he finds a world analogous to Eden before the Fall, complete with Adam and Eve personae (here called the King and the Lady; Maledil is their name for God). Lady is an especially curious person, eager to learn from Ransom. This passage proceeds from a discussion where Ransom refused to explain the meaning of death.]

'You could never understand, Lady,' [Ransom] replied. 'But in our world not all events are pleasing or welcome. There may be such a thing that you would cut off both your arms and your legs to prevent it happening—and yet it happens: with us.'

'But how can one wish any of those waves not to reach us which Maledil is rolling towards us?'

Against his better judgment Ransom found himself goaded into argument.

'But even you,' he said, 'when you first saw me, I know now you were expecting and hoping that I was the King. When you found I was not, your face changed. Was that event not unwelcome? Did you not wish it to be otherwise?'

'Oh,' said the Lady. She turned aside with her head bowed and her hands clasped in an intensity of thought.

[....]

'What you have made me see,' answered the Lady, 'is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before—that the very moment of the finding is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished—if it were possible to wish—you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.'

Ransom interrputed. 'That is hardly the same thing as finding a stranger when you wanted your husband.'

'Oh, that is how I came to understand the whole thing. You and the King differ more than two kinds of fruit. The joy of finding him again and the joy of all the new knowledge I have had from you are more unlike than two tastes; and when the difference is as great as that, and each of the two things so great, then the first picture does stay in the mind quite a long time—many beats of the heart—after the other good has come. And this, O Piebald, is the glory and wonder you have made me see; that it is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good. Out of my own heart I do it. One can conceive a heart which did not: which clung to the good it had first thought of and turned the good which was given it into no good.'

[....]

'And have you no fear,' said Ransom, 'that it will ever be hard to turn your heart from the thing you wanted to the thing Maledil sends?'

'I see,' said the Lady presently. 'The wave you plunge into may be very swift and great. You may need all your force to swim into it. You mean, He might send me a good like that?'

'Yes—or like a wave so swift and great that all your force was too little.'

'It often happens that way in swimming,' said the Lady. 'Is not that part of the delight?'

'But are you happy without the King? Do you not want the King?'

'Want him?' she said. 'How could there be anything I did not want?'

There was something in her replies that began to repel Ransom.

'You can't want him very much if you are happy without him,' he said: and was immediately surprised at the sulkiness of his own voice.

'Why?' asked the Lady.

Airplanes

by Bobby Ray

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky
Are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now

I could use a dream or a genie or a wish
To go back to a place much simpler than this
'Cause after all the partying, the smashing, and crashing
And all the glitz and the glam and the fashion
And all the pandemonium and all the madness
There comes a time when you fade to the blackness
And when you're staring at that phone in your lap
And hoping, but the people never call you back

But that's just how the story unfolds
You get another hand soon after you fold
And when your plans unravel in the sand
What would you wish for if you had one chance?
So airplanes, airplanes, sorry I'm late
I'm on my way, so don't close that gate
If I don't make that, then I switch my flight
And I'll be right back at it by the end of the night

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky
Are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now

Be Thou My Vision

Traditional Irish poem
Trans. by Eleanor Hull

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art–
Thou my best thought by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my battle shield, sword for my fight;
Be thou my dignity, thou my delight,
Thou my soul's shelter, thou my high tower:
Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:
Thou mine inheritance now and always;
Thou my soul's shelter, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heav'n's Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Back on the Chain Gang

by Chrissie Hynde

I found a picture of you
What hijacked my world that night
To a place in the past we've been cast out of
Now we're back in the fight

We're back on the train
Back on the chain gang

A circumstance beyond our control
The phone, the TV, and the news of the world
Got in the house like a pigeon from hell
Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies

Put us back on the train
Back on the chain gang

The powers that be
That force us to live like we do
Bring me to my knees
When I see what they've done to you

But I'll die as I stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart
They'll fall to ruin one day
For making us part

I found a picture of you
Those were the happiest days of my life
Like a break in the battle was your past
In the wretched life of a lonely heart

Now we're back on the train
Back on the chain gang

My Jesus, I Love Thee

by William R. Featherstone

My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine;
For thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I love thee because thou hast first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree.
I love thee for wearing the thorns on my brow;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I'll love thee in life, I will love thee in death;
And praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;
And say, when the deathdew lies cold on my brow:
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I'll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;
I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow:
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

What's Going Ahn

by Alex Chilton

I liked her face and oh, those eyes
She left today, oh goodbye
And looking at you, I'm drained outright
And isolated in the light

And I resigned everyone
Ever since I was young
I'm starting to understand
What's going on and how it's planned

I like love, but I don't know
All these girls, they come and go
Always nothing left to say

From This One Place

by Sara Groves

I was about to give up, and that's no lie
Cardinal landed outside my window
Threw his head back
Sang a song so beautiful it made me cry
Took me back to a childhood tree
Full of birds and dreams

From this one place I can't see very far
In this one moment I'm square in the dark
These are the things I will trust in my heart
You can see something else

I don't know what's making me so afraid
Tiny cloud over my head
Heavy and grey with a hint of dread
And I don't like to feel this way
Take me back to a window seat
With clouds beneath my feet

There Is a Reason

by Randall Goodgame

Late at night I wonder why, sometimes I wonder why
Sometimes I'm so tired I don't even try
Seems everything around me fails
But I hold onto the promise
That there is a reason

Late at night the darkness makes it hard to see
The history of the saints who've gone in front of me
Through famine, plague, and disbelief
His hand was still upon them
'Cause there is a reason

He makes all things good
There's a time to live, a time to die
A time for wondering, to wonder why
'Cause there is a reason
There is a reason

I believe that God who sent His only Son
To walk upon this world and give His life for us
With blood and tears on a long dark night
And know that he believed
There is a reason

The lonely nights, the broken hearts
The widow's mite in the rich man's hand
And the continent whose blood becomes a traitor
A child afraid to close his eyes
The prayers that seem unanswered
There is a reason

He makes all things good
There's a time to live, a time to die
A time for wondering, to wonder why
'Cause there is a reason
There is a reason