Category: Lyrics

Lodi, CCR

Just about a year ago
I set out on the road
Seeking my fame and fortune
Looking for a pot of gold
Things got bad things got worse
I guess you will know the tune
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

Rode in on the Greyhound
I’ll be walking out if I go
I was just passing through
Must be seven seven months or more
Ran out of time and money
Looks like they took my friends
Oh Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again

The man from the magazine
Said I was on my way
Somewhere I lost connections
Ran out of songs to play
I came into town, a one night stand
Looks like my plans fell through
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

If I only had a dollar
For every song I’ve sung
And every time I had to play
While people sat there drunk
You know, I’d catch the next train
Back to where I live
Oh Lord, I’m stuck in a Lodi again
Oh Lord, I’m stuck in a Lodi again

The Guiding Light, Bane

summer came and you left it all behind
Red Sox games and Red Line trains
told yourself that nothing stays all dizzy and bright
traded it all to watch the world glide by
through that back bench-seat window
how could you not go?
everywhere you went your friends were waiting there
held onto nothing so that nothing could break in the end
envied everyone who was not you
and never forgave the rules that were older than time
that made time
and gravity did what gravity does
so you just kept on running
remembering Led Zeppelin songs with you feet on her dash
but her words they chase you still
“those highway lines will never love you back”

After all these years of running round
All this flying high and falling down
I got to get back to the way I was
Gonna turn it round darling just because
And everybody’s talking bout the shape I’m in
They say, “Boy you ain’t a poet just a drunk with a pen.”
Over and Over; Again and Again
Lord they don’t know about the places I’ve been

It gets hard out here, I know it don’t look it
I used to have a heart but the highway took it
The game was right but the deal was crooked
Lord I’ll make it perfectly clear, it gets hard out here

Ah I guess there must be something I’m missing
My momma told me I should’ve gone into easy listening
Joined up with the band because I thought it was cool
Ah I probably shoulda just gone back to school
Ah pretty darling it’ll be okay
You know one of these days I’m gonna take you away
She said, “Oh sweet daddy, you’re probably right
You know we might get lucky but it won’t be tonight.”

It gets hard out here, I know it don’t look it
I used to have a heart but the highway took it
The game was right but the deal was crooked
Lord I’ll make it perfectly clear,
It gets hard out here I know it don’t seem it
I said I would try but I never did mean it
Nobody’s listening so we might as well scream it
Ah god we’re all out of beer, it gets hard out here.

– Hayes Carll, Hard Out Here, KMAG  YOYO

My mother suggested that this should become my new theme song. Watching London run with rifles in his jaws and knocking criminals into bodies of water as a kid really had an impact on me, I guess.
That’s hobo style.

There’s a voice that keeps on calling me
Down the road is where I’ll always be

Every stop I make, I’ll make a new friend
Can’t stay for long, just turn around and I’m gone again

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want settle down
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on

Down this road, that never seems to end
Where new adventure, lies just around the bend

So if you want to join me for a while
Just grab your hat, come travel light
That’s hobo style

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want settle down
Until tomorrow, the whole world is my home

So if you want to join me for a while
Just grab your hat, come travel light
That’s hobo style

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want settle down
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want settle down
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on

There’s a world, that’s waiting to unfold
A brand new tale, no one has ever told,

We’ve journey’d far but, you know it won’t be long
We’re almost there and we’ve paid our fare with the hobo song

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want settle down
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on

So if you want to join me for a while
Just grab your hat, come travel light
That’s hobo style

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll find what I call home
Until tomorrow, you know I’m free to roam

They you gotta shoot so low,
That way you’ll never be let down,
But I’m already here with a little crowd gathered ’round.
They say you gotta get a good night sleep.
Yeah, you gotta fall down deep,
But I’m wide awake and my hands are shaking.

You’re friends help you hang the mirror on the wall
Says who’s the most honest of them all,
Who’s in a trap, and who’s just following their heart.

And part of me thinks that it’s all about timing,
You get off here or you wait in line.
Paying bills for your baby,
And sleeping on a living room floor.

But a place is not a home.
A place is not a home.
Cause some people have your heart, and the wind’s got your soul,
But a place is not a home.

– Northcote, Gather No Dust, Not A Home 

iTunes

Greg MacPherson, River.Lake, Disintegration Blues
(click to listen)

I don’t go where I used to be
There’s no room back there for me
No gentle set of hands to hold my face
And tell me I’m living.

I don’t go where I used to live
I’ve been there too many times
All my father’s dreams at home
No dreams of my own

I woke by the river to a cracking sound
And I sat by the river getting hungry and hungrier
I follow this river to a lake
I follow this river to a lake
I follow this river to a lake
Make no mistake

I met a woman on the path
Her eyes, they cracked like glass
Thick like January ice
She had no idea who I was
We danced under the trees
We danced close in summer clothes
To music in her heart
I had music in my head
She said there’s nothing in the shade that’s not there in the light
Alone in the morning is alone at night
No gentle set of hands to hold me up
And tell me I’m living.
And tell me I’m living.
And tell me I’m living.

Buy this album on iTunes or the link above.
(For Jeremy: I copied the lyrics as I heard them, hopefully they are at least close)

Well a teacher of mine once told me
That life was just a list of disappoints and defeats
And you could only do your best,
And I said “That’s a fucking cop-out, you’re just washed up and your tired, and when I get to your age, well, I won’t be such a coward”
But these day I sit at home, known to shout at my TV
And punk rock didn’t live up to what I hoped that it could be
And all the things that I believed with all my heart when I was young
Are just coasters for beers and clean surfaces for drugs
And I packed all my pamphlets with my bibles at the back of the shelf

Well it was bad enough the feeling, and the first time it hit
When you realised your parents had let the world all go to shit
And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died
Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside
But it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left
And got let down again by some poor excuse for protest
Yeah by idiot fucking hippies in 50 different factions
Who are locked inside some kind of 60’s battle re-enactment
And I hung-up my banner in disgust and I head for the door

Oh but once we were young, and we were crass enough to care
But I guess you live and learn, we won’t make that mistake again, no
Oh but surely just for one day, we could fight and we could win
And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible

Well we’ve been a good few hours drinking
So I’m going to say what everyone’s thinking
If we’re stuck on this ship and it’s sinking
Then we might as well have a parade
Cos if it’s still going to hurt in the morning
And a better plan’s yet to get forming
Then where’s the harm spending an evening
In manning the old barricades, so come on old friends to the streets
Let’s be 1905 but not 1917, let’s be heroes, let’s be martyrs, let’s be radical thinkers
Who never have to test drive the least of their dreams
Let’s divide up the world into the damned and safe
And then ride to the valleys like the old life brigade
And straighten our backs and we won’t be afraid
And they’ll celebrate our deaths with a national parade

So come on let’s be young, let’s be crass enough to care
Let’s refuse to live and learn, let’s make all our mistakes again, yes,
And then darling, just for one day, we can fight and we can win
And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible
Leave the mourning the to the morning
Yeah pain can be killed
With aspirin tablets and vitamin pills
But memories of hope, and glorious defeat
Are a little bit harder to beat

Frank Turner, Love Ire & Song

Running short on imagination, still we waste it all on words,
Spoken without the benefit of our minds.
The candle burns, the edges fray, our best intentions waste away
And everybody loves the things we’ve done and on and on and on.

Life appears weightless for everyone but me.
This world grows heavier every day.
Deterioration, growing old before my time.
Nobody cares, never mind.

We all prey on our vain condition and the hopelessness of it all.
These days there’s nothing we can trust.
The dreams we made, we’ve seen them fade, trampled by our sad parade,
Yet we’re so pleased with what we’ve done and on and on and I’m done.

Life appears weightless for everyone but me.
This world grows heavier every day.
Deterioration, growing old before my time.
Nobody cares…

The mind breaks down when it dies.
Our machines doubled in size
To orchestrate the grand collapse.
I see us all trapped in its path.

There was a time we were unbound,
As if we’d never hit the ground,
But just like rain we can’t keep from falling.

–Good Riddance, Yesterday’s Headlines, Symptoms of a Leveling Spirit