Crack It Open |
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2.
TAXI
I talked to the taxi driver
He said he came from Pakistan
Flew right in to New York City
And he never got out again
Worked 7 days, 24 hours
30 days a month he said
Never closed his eyes in dreaming
Always kept his family fed
Oh little darlin, hey little pal of mine
Oh little darlin, hey little pal of mine
I have walked these streets of mayhem
I have climbed these towers of steel
I got lost in New York City
Trying to find my way by feel
Oh little darlin...
I fell under it
I got next to it
I'll get over it
But i still can't find my way
If you see that taxi driver
Won't you ask him please for me
How he does he navigate this city
Rovin round on a concrete sea?
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3.
CRACK
IT OPEN
Crack it open
Throw it against the wall
And let it fall
And let the juice come running down
Crack it open
Open the window wide
And let the rain flow in
A tide across the floor
It's a nut it's a seed
With the milk that you need
At the core
It's a flower it's a weed
It keeps growing
You don't have to feed it anymore
Crack it open
Throw it against the sky
No wonder why
And if the lightening strikes a tree
Crack it open
Split it right to the ground
Chop it down
It grows again
I've got a ways to go
Fore I forget the taste of snow on my tongue
I found a place to live
Where i can forgive
What you did to me when I was young
Crack it open
Let it go
Let it fall
Let it flow
Through the wall
Crack it open
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4.
FRIDA
She looks out of the frame
With her mustache and her monkeys
And her eyes seem to say
I don't care if you like me
Nearly killed by a bus
When she was just 18
She learned how to draw
And she drew herself in
To the love embrace of the universe
La vida abierta - life opened
The red and the yellow, the gold and the green
To the love embrace of the earth
There she is on the wall
With a man on her forehead
In a picture she called
Diego on my mind
She enlisted him into
The life she invented
And they merged and then parted
And came back again
To the love embrace…
I never met Frida Kahlo
Except in Museo del Barrio
One sunny May
Cross the garden from
Where all the brides
Have their pictures taken
I never met Frida Kahlo
She could have been evil or holy
All I know are these pictures she's given
To me and to you
And to the love embrace…
There were two accidents
So grave in her lifetime
One was that bus
One was Diego
In the arms of so many
In the lust, the pain, the vengeance
She burned herself up
And her ashes went back again
To the love embrace….
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5.
ROSA
Green glass on the beach/color of your eyes
Oh Rosa /how did you get to where you are now?
So many roads/so many roads to ride
And if you do not drive/how will you know them?
Take the hours we spent in jealousy
Hook them up to horses/and we'll ride them
All the way to Maine and back
We might cry tears /but this time we won't hide them
We learn the hard way/still can't get it straight
It keeps curving around in circles/no one draws them
The tide is coming in/there is nowhere left to walk
The wind is picking up/out on the ocean
Your garden is green/color of your eyes
Oh Rosa we can still/walk there together
Didn't you say - I know
You told me we are bound/for better weather
Better weather/better weather
Didn't you say/didn't you tell me
We are bound for better weather
Your garden is green
Color of your eyes
Rosa we can still walk there together
Cause we've been all the way
To hell and back
But I know we are bound for better weather
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6.
BIG
BLACK BEAR
There is a black bear in my brain
I thought that he was through with me
But he comes crashing in
And smashing everything
I carefully placed all around my cabin
BIG BLACK BEAR
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
I'M NOT SCARED
JUST PARALYZED
YOUR RATTY COAT IN MY FACE
MAN YOU STINK AND I CAN'T THINK
I tried to teach him how to dance
I put a little skirt on him
A yellow rope around his big bear waist
But all he wants to do is paw my garbage
BIG BLACK BEAR
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
I'M NOT SCARED
JUST PARALYZED
DON'T FEED THE BEARS THAT SIGN SAID
BUT THAT SIGN IS SELDOM READ
I feed him lots of chocolate candy
Because it seems to calm him down
But I would have to bake
The most enormous cake
To get that bear to hibernate
BIG BLACK BEAR
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?
I'M NOT SCARED
JUST SLIGHTLY PARALYZED
SO HUG ME NOW
YOU KNOW HOW
AND I'VE BEEN SO
VERY LONELY
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7.
WHEN
TEARS COME DOWN
When tears come down
What do you know?
You know just where
You should not go
What blinds your eyes
And tears your skin
And still you go back there again
When love is lost
Where does it go?
It drifts away
To that far shore
Love gives you all
Then takes it back
When faith is broke and trust is cracked
When tears come down
What do you learn?
You learn to fear
Where you got burned
When tears come down
What do you have?
You have your story
You have your path
Where you have climbed
So don't look down
You see the sky
You feel the ground
When tears come down…
When tears come down
What do you know
You know just where you should not
where you should not
where you should not go
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8.
HERE
WE GO
First get a car
For one hundred fifty dollars
A 1968 powder blue Eldorado
Put your guitars
And your two amplifiers
In the back so it rides really low
Then try to avoid
The state trooper and his blue light
When he comes up behind
On the way to the show
You are high/you are low/here we go
Now you're up north
For a week in a ski lodge
In July it's one hundred degrees
In that place
Five sets a night
When you know all of eight songs
Will lead you to make up some songs
Right away
Try to avoid falling in love
With anybody in the band
You are high….
After you break up with the bassplayer
Learn how to drink a quick glass of Jack
When it's time to go on and you think you might cry
Then have the time of your life playing music
Laughing so hard that you fall on the floor
Opening shows for the once nearly famous
Concerts and tv and agents galore
Try not to crash and burn on re-entry
When the band breaks up
You are high…
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9.
LUCKY
I got very lucky
When I found you
It was drab here in me-ville
I was playing around
On all the wrong teams
In every farm town
I was farmed out
Look at me now I got lucky
Yes, I got very lucky
When I found you
I had beans in my pocket
You came around
Beans jumped to the ground
Roots go down
Shoots go up
I climbed the bean stalk I got lucky
I got very lucky when I found you
I was yelling into the wind
With stones in my mouth
Compare/contrast
Here I am at last
Whispering into
Your ear
I got very lucky when I found you
Twenty dollar bill on the road lucky
Hog lucky, hawk lucky
Wheeling around in the sky lucky
Buck lucky
Yes I got very lucky when I found you
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10.
PRIDE
AND POISON
I wonder could you ever say it
Could you betray what
You never spoke
You left it years ago it's rusting
In the tall grass
Under the snow
And no one dares go near it
Ghosts and spirits
Still conspire
If you wrote it in a letter
You must have thrown it
In the fire
Don't leave me here
Alone in the dark
With no light to see where I am going
Don't leave me here
Now that I'm close
To knowing what I should have known
All along
I find you staring out the window
Drinking coffee, early light
Pride and poison in the water
That you swim through every night
And no one dares to go near you
They all fear you
And I know why
If you drew it in a picture
It would only blot out the sky
Don't leave me here...
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11.
WHATEVER
I HAD TO DO
I didn't build it all at once/started when I was small
Every now and then word would come/of an attack on the radio
I'd throw my dolls in a pile/or handfuls of mud and sand
Then I learned how to use grownup tools/bricks and mortar and
You see that turret there?/I remember the year it rose
It was hard at first/I didn't know how to build
Now I'm one of the pros
Whatever I had to do
I did it to survive
Now I survey my property
>From where I'm buried alive
I neglected to build a door
But I was working without a plan
So many others were lost in those wars
I hope you can understand
When I was a young girl
It was different than it is now
Minotaurs and unicorns roaming the earth
Nobody showed you how
I can't take as long tearing it down
As I did building it up
The walls are alive as I am now
My blood flows through the rock
Whatever I had to do/I did it to survive
However it looks to you/it looks different on my side
Whatever I had to do
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12.
DINOSAURS
Lying on a hill
On your own property
Looking at the sky
Here in our wilderness
Over by the swings
Making meatballs out of mud
You got Janie eating them
And told her there was no Santa Claus
Idyllic childhood/you dream of dinosaurs
Coming down the hill
Maybe they won't see you/if you're very still
Another nightmare/you dream of communists
Will you know what to say?
They might go away/if you stay very still
When you go to school
Always say "may I be excused?"
Never say "I want to go to the bathroom"
And at recess time those children
Who were mean to you
You just walk away
They're only stupid children
Idyllic childhood…
What was that little girl's last name?
What kind of a name is that?
You think she's your friend?
Believe me she would turn you in
If it ever came to that
And it could always come to that
Idyllic childhood….
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13.
SERIAL
LOVER
I met Jimmy in '56
He was married to someone else then
Got a little crazy, had a little fun
And I left home on a whim
Then nothing mattered but the drugs to him
He kept on turning into someone meaner
I took a twenty from the dresser drawer
And a bus right out of town
But I'm not gonna lose again/I'm not gonna let it go sour now
I'm not gonna lose again/You better find out who you are
Paulie was different or maybe the same
We hooked up for a year or more
He kept me laughing/He kept me sane
Until the joke wore out
I found out he was sleeping with everyone
He played it like a kind of a game yeah
I threw him out on January 1
Of 1958
But I'm not gonna lose again...
This is a story of serial love
It ain't no romance novel
There was Johnny and Tommy and Sean and Tim
There was Jake and Norbert and Slim
It could be for a week, a year or one night
It's always
the same but it's totally opposite
Don't laugh -- I still might get it right
I'll be in practice for sure
I'm not gonna lose again
And I won't let myself get bitter
I'm not gonna lose again
You can't call me a quitter
I'm not gonna lose again...
Here comes the man of the hour
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14.
HEAVY
HEARTED
When twilight turns your blues and greens to gray
In the waning of the day
And you feel you can't get started
It's hard for me to say
But I just cannot walk away
When I see you
So heavy hearted
Oh so heavy hearted
You ride your lands -- you sail your boat
You stay afloat
How do your oceans remain uncharted?
And here amongst the beauties of the night
It's barely light still I see you
So heavy hearted
Oh so heavy hearted
Is there nothing I can do
To lighten up your load?
Is there nothing I can give you
With all that you are owed?
The night grows older, cold and deep
no way across your secret sea
the waters have not parted
another day begins to dawn
and as the darkness is withdrawn
It's you so heavy hearted
oh so heavy hearted
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| Words
and music © 2004 Ina May Wool and Daniel A. Weiss, Voice of Binky Music |
Click here
for Moon Over 97th Street lyrics
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