Category: Lyrics

Tim Barry, This November – Manchester

Fell this morning, fucked up this whole damn day
In fact the sun is high and shining, but I’m too drained to leave
I’ll wait for night to sink, close the blinds and lock both the doors
Oh god I’m terrified, I’m terrified to be found here, shaking and withdrawn
I need a break, I keep scratching but won’t cut deep enough to bleed
I’ll figure it out alone, Don’t know what’s gotten into me

But it’ll be alright, it’ll be alright,
It’s okay, goddamn sometimes silence is all I need
To be and feel complete
It’s okay, if you never hurt you never feel a thing
And I don’t say all I mean.

Fuck tomorrow and fuck all of yesterday
I’m too old to be chasing burdens by the riverside at night
A watershed waste deep with friends turning cheeks
As I’m chasing trains that never end
I cut but I don’t feel, don’t know what’s gotten…

It’s okay, goddamn sometimes silence is all I need
To be and feel complete
It’s okay, if you never hurt you never feel a thing
And I don’t say all I mean

But I’m not scared, no I ain’t angry
I just need time, just need to escape
We all try, tired and broken
But it’ll be alright

Stay away from the chili verde
Unless you want to get blown away
Treat the spider with a little respect
You take the heat – it’s gonna bite back

Blast off at Cape Canaveral
Toilet seat is your launching pad
Blast off at Cape Canaveral
4, 3, 2, 1, Blast off!

Capsaicinoids are a thing to avoid
Unless you wanna burn in that ‘roid
We’ll be laughing and rolling on the floor
When we hear you screaming through that door

Blast off at Cape Canaveral
All systems go!
Blast off at Cape Canaveral
4, 3, 2, 1, Blast off!

Shhhh, shh shh you can hear him! You can hear…
No, no, listen! You can hear him

Jalepeno, Habenero
Burning all yo’ hair down there-o
Picinu, Vindaloo
They’re gonna getcha
They’re gonna getcha too!

You know those red things in the Kung Pao?
Don’t say I didn’t warn you now
Take the time to pick them out
Or the spider gets grouchy
And it’s time to countdown!

Blast off at Cape Canaveral
Ohh ohhh ohhh
Blast off at Cape Canaveral
WOOOOO HOOOO!
Blast off at Cape Canaveral
Houston, we have a problem
Blast off at Cape Canaveral
Now 4, 3, 2, 1, Blast off!

-The Descendents, Blast Off, Cool To Be You

I was maybe fourteen years old, driving back from Warped Tour in Somerset, Wisconsin, stopping in Winnipeg for two days to buy novelty swords and to experience the glory of the Osbourne Village. There was some sort of festival of culture happening and Osbourne Street was closed down from Confusion Corner to the river. We went to Music Trader which was one of the first record stores I’d been in besides A&B Sound and Records On Wheels so it was always interesting to me. I walked in, my brother trailed me, and a second later declared that he saw Greg MacPherson leave the record store. I didn’t see his face. We had listened to his music on our long drive to Somerset so I knew who he was. Since this encounter, Greg MacPherson has been a musical phantom to me. A dark dressed man, dark hair, shadowed face and mysterious movements.

Greg MacPherson sings like no one else.

I’ve seen him play music twice in the past nine months and each time I’ve experienced music unlike I have ever before. And I saw his face. It wasn’t covered with the darkness of imagination anymore, but strong and sharp like that of a thirty year old doing something they love. He seems like you could sit down with him on a used couch watching a static-humming hockey game on CBC with the bunny ears and talk about old hockey greats from the nineties, softly analyzing culture during the commercial breaks and conversing about musicians and poetry during the intermissions. His songs are told with the care of your grandfather while you sit under a felt blanket in front of a wood fire. His guitar parts have the ability to simultaneously fuze rock, folk and prairie country into styles and strums and ideas you couldn’t imagine would come from such a light faced, dark haired, shadowless man. Because I’ve seen his face.

At least three times in his set, after a day of shedding tears on roller coasters for eight hours, my brain didn’t realize that it was no longer traveling at several hundred kilometres per hour, and with the highs and the lows of a carefully planned set, my eyes moistened. The power of a voice that requires a microphone only when whispering while a band is playing is enough to make me weak, and did so often. Unlike any musical act I’ve ever seen, sitting in a rickety chair, clutching my own bent legs.

His writing is everything I want mine to be, and if I ever write a single line as strong yet comfortable as his, I will be content with my amateur career.

The face of fourteen year old imagination was permanently filled with that of Greg MacPherson, brilliant lyricist, smooth and strong guitar strummer and Canada’s greatest songwriter. And I will not be the same.

‘There’s whole towns made of stainless-steel
And people that are made of gold
Some of us are living just to stay alive
And some of us never get old’
–Greg MacPherson, Kingston

Thanks be given.

I live in a thankless land. A place that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving is like a dried out piece of bread. No one likes it unless it is covered in gravy. That is this place. Flowing with a river of gravy.

I am thankful for knowledge. For what little I have and the infinite amount I am able to get.

I am thankful for friends. For how few I’ve got and the infinite amount I am unable to get.

I am thankful to MakMak.ca for being open today so I can get some Pad Thai.

I am thankful for books, because I can’t read my own writing.

I’m thankful for music, because I can’t sing.

I’m looking out my window,
I can see all the good and the bad,
And I’m trying to be thankful,
For all the past fortunes I’ve had,
I’m standing at the window,
Trying to stay off the ledge,
‘Cause when you’re drawn to the window,
You’re also drawn to the edge.

If there’s a hole in your soul,
Think about it as though,
It’s nothing more than a window,
And you can look deep within,
Then start to begin,
To repair what damage there is.

I’m staring into the window,
I can see my pain in its pane,
I’m trapped inside the window,
Encased in its frame,
I’m trying to open the window,
Pushing against the glass,
Is it a passage to the future,
or a portal to the past?

If there’s a hole in your soul?…

-SNFU, A Hole In Your Soul, In The Meantime and In Between Time

So here I stand, Alone by the side of the road,
And I’m reaching for you, Someone to hold,
something to cling to. I close my eyes, I shove my
hands in my pockets and smile, And the darkness
drifts away, I’m at peace, if only once in a
while.

You don’t understand. There’s nothing to say. When
everything seems lost, You can bet we’ll somehow
find a way.

Well, I’m feeling hurt, And I fought back
some tears of my own, But there’s something to be
said for the ones Who face the darkness alone.
You’re too cool to care; Too self-righteous to see
and believe. It’s a bond we’ll never break; A
chance for one more change of heart.

You don’t understand. There’s nothing to say. When
everything seems lost, You can bet we’ll somehow
find a way. Did your ever think about the ones on
top? Do you have the strength to shout it ready or
not? So I never thought I’d be the one
complaining, But I can’t believe it’s been inside
me all this time. So here I stand!

-Good Riddance, Stand

Big Skies
I just got back again from where I’ve been
It seems like things have changed
It’s not that anything here got better or disappeared
Something just feels strained

Maybe it’s me; you know I’ve lived on nothing
Had a long run on my own
This time last year I thought that I was losing
I guess maybe I was

I missed the dirt and the backwards time
The sound of metal and the big skies
The feeling of knowing and not where you’re going

I just pulled back into town from a long time gone
Nothing here feels at all the same to me
Not the smell of the river or the burning fields
Or the ghost of something old, down all the streets

Maybe I’m just wearing out from all the work I’ve done
Or maybe its just time I settled down
Maybe I finally lost whatever it was that made me run
And maybe there’s a life here in this town

Visitor
The way you’re looking at me…
You never know who you’ll turn out to be until you get there
All along some part of me might have been wrong but I never noticed

Greg MacPherson – Mr. Invitation

Once again we are found staring into the void, screaming what is to become of this life?
Hope engages fear within our restless minds as we struggle to reconnect and redefine
Guarding in our hearts these tests of time
Untangling ourselves from this crooked world with no assurance,
No fall back if we’re left to die.
We will not die alone, clutching to riches as we sink,
As the storm swallows all the brass and gold
So keep your white washed black heart
We would have the truth taken from the broken ground
Though we may lack the strength with compassion we will carry ourselves
Carry each other through this hell

I won’t sleep in your million dollar home,
No I won’t bed down in your million dollar home.
‘Cause I can sleep below a bridge ten times that much,
With no credit card, no bill, no job, no loan.

-Tim Barry, Will Travel

(Dedicated to Dan and Hopson)

Read it all, or read the bold.

Though I walk alone I am never on my own
How can I not confuse family with friends
Even though that is exactly what somebody told me
This was more than a chapter but the heart of the whole damn book
I had my best friend by my side when I learned my father died
I’ve seen strangers become friends and then turn into brothers
I just a few short weeks away from home
It is crazy when they tell me that this is just screams to a beat
When I know it’s what shot you into my veins
Glue that binds, a weapon that defines us
and I would be so lost without them
I’ve seen strangers become friends and then turn into brothers
in just a few short weeks on the road
Bonds so much stronger than the time they took to form
and will last me the rest of my days
It is crazy when they tell me that this is just screams to a beat
When i know its what shot you into my veins
Glue that binds, a weapon that defines us
and I would be so lost without you
Though I walk alone I am never on my own
‘Cause the places we’ve been become the times we have shared
and they crash like waves and mark these days
and I don’t go anywhere without them

I took the whole damn ride
with my best friends by my side
the days turned into nights
and we held on with all our might
‘Cause nothing stays no way, no how
there’s no forever
the only thing that lasts forever
is right fucking now.

–Bane, As the World Turns

It’s a long and a dusty road, a hot and a heavy load
and the folks that I met ain’t always kind.
Some are bad, some are good, some have done the best they could,
and some have tried to ease my troubled mind.

And I cant help but can’t help but wonder where I’m bound,
Where I’m bound, can’t help but wonder where I’m bound.

I been wandering through this land, just doing the best I can,
Trying to find what I was meant to do.
And the people that I see look as worried as can be,
And it looks like they are wandering too

Well I had a little girl one time she had lips like cherry wine,
And she loved me ’til my head went plumb insane
But I was too blind to see, she was drifting away from me,
And my good gal went off on a morning train.

If you see me passing by and you sit and you wonder why
And you wish that you were ramblin’ too,
Nail your shoes to the kitchen floor, lace them up and bar the door,
And thank your stars for the roof that’s over you.

And I cant help but can’t help but wonder where I’m bound,
Where I’m bound, can’t help but wonder where I’m bound.

– Johnny Cash, Ain’t No Grave