Firewater




Track listing:

Click on a song title for lyrics.


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Nerves

No more simple tunes
No more easy poon
It takes so many millions to get laid

So many fools
It's time to lose the tools
I said "give 'em hell boys on the Nile"

Goddamn the circumstance
that brought me here
and goddamn you my friends

I'm wading through the herds
Choke on my dying words
Time at the mission thanking myself

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Wet Firecracker

I'm gonna miss your good humor
when you take it back to Wisconsin
Could you leave it here until the end of the year
or at least until November comes

Someone's crying in the laundry room
I think she threw up in her boyfriend's lap
I hear the sound of breaking glass
and it hits me with all the impact of a wet firecracker
I know damn well that I'm sitting on a wet firecracker

I thought you said you never wait for the fun to start
and you never stop when the party ends
So why'd you put the brakes on
You're gonna be late for your own wake
Take that train outta here

Dead to the world but I can't ignore
what's been hiding in the hallway trash
Everyone likes to claim innocence
until the pigs head out the back

I know damn well that I'll be sleeping on the bathroom floor
It's red and the fuse is spitting like a wet firecracker

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Drunk

You drink and drink
You never got a reason
But you put it on my tab
You put it on my tab
You take what you should've left
and leave what you shoulda grabbed

What drunk with any common sense at all
would mix his beer and gin like that
You must really want to get it back
May I suggest a draught to help you digest
the sugar in that Boone's Farm wine
or any other really cheap apple kind

What kind ofdrunk with any self-respect at all
would give up on his friends that way
would give in to the pressure's sway
I never asked you to swim
in that soupbowl of contempt
so full of wine and bar mop slop
spilling on the girls
like a bull in a china shop

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Slow Hands

Got down on the subway with my oldest friend Jean-Luc
Commemorated the occasion with his gin and my juice
"Luke, you got me thinking, you're drunk all the time"
"No," with a chuckle, "I'm not drunk I feel so fine"

Stuck there on the D train where it heads above ground
into a scene of blasted buildings
where the drunks go to fall down
Staring out the window asked about Secona Lee
"Luke, do me a favor, never mention that to me"

He's still staring out the window as I pat myself on the back feel a little
better 'cause I'll never end like that
But you know our only difference
He gets drunk while I chase fame
Just like Luke
in the evening, there's no one to say my name

Lay it down in full view

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Cannibal Cannibal

What a sight
That's funny I recall when I was dying just to see you
coming down that rocky road
In a tenement on borrowed time
Lost in the television late at night

It takes a lot of nerve just to get up in the morning
You got a lot yeah you got a lot of nerve
Go on up to Canada
See what your money buys you there
Put that shadow on the run

I had a good time
Something must have snapped
I'm at a total loss
It was just too long ago
Your face was a jewel
I used to drink it up every single chance that I ever got

It takes a lot of nerve to go to bed at night
You got a lot you got a lot of nerve
Go on down to California anyway
Shine a light on a banner day
and put that shadow on the run

All signs point to logicreason
but that may well be a frontfun
The guilt was overwhelming so I hid it on the run
Headhunters won't tell you
if those cannibals are slow
Something less demanding
Oh you never know
Cannibal cannibal

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Tarnished Angel

I thank God for relentless thirst
Corn liquor can't speak unless you drink it first
I toasted him before the set
Shouldn't fly a plane drunk on anisette
He counseled through the bourbon haze
Never use a cruelty when a joke will do in its place
I always drink before the race
It's a savage world not afraid to show a savage face

In a world of swarming flies
Not an angel or an athlete could live so high
To clip the pylon's edge
It's a rookie mistake, it'll be on the rookie's head
The crowd's a rapacious beast
You can feel its hunger before every feast
Thanks for advice my sodden friend
I'll look deep inside to see if I belong with the men

Not one of you
A tarnished angel

On the night I said goodbye
It was for effect
I dried my eyes

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Quicksand

Ever wonder why there's an end to it
Clockwise slipping down a clogged drain
In that period two dimensions out of three
tried to fit it like a broken chain
The mirror can't explain to the crowd
just how the con went down
Tonight's act is in a double-lined garbage bag
for your pleasure with a top hat and cane
in the quicksand it's on land and offshore

Ever wonder why people disappear
sucked under by the day's tight undertow
A thick accumulation of boredom and fear
on a raft made out of rotten sticks
caught on a sea of bad risks
Catch it soon
Is that the seventh wave
Don't dawdle over twice-tried failures
Have you ever seen how those wolves behave
Quicksand you're on land and you're offshore

Ever wonder why there's a house that sits
as empty as the day that someone finished building it
Birds on the highway
Rat on the porch
They're singing to the people who used to live next door
They don't answer that phone anymore
The quicksand is on land and offshore

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Ticket Tulane

Ticket Tulane on the bad side of town don't you go
Ticket Tulane on the bad side of town don't you go
That bedside limo will take you there
Got your invitation
Ticket Tulane on the bad side of town don't you go

He tried a little and got somewhere
You worked hard and got no place
A change of scenery walked up and grabbed you
when on the way out I found my hands on a familiar face

Ticket Tulane on the bad side of town don't you go
Ticket Tulane on the bad side of town don't you go
That fresh air turned you around I guess
You walked down to the station
Ticket Tulane on the bad side of town don't you go

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Swings

Now I know what it's like to be afraid of you
I'm a yoyo that swings between the old and the new
and I wonder what I said before I realized that you're nothing At least
you're nothing new

Now I know that I made a big mistake on you
and its undertow is threatening to drag medown too
and I wonder what I said before I told the truth
I know you
I've been waiting and I'm sick of waiting all the time

I knocked on your front door
They said you weren't staying there anymore
Ain't it amazing how quickly amazing things can die
You know that you bring me down
You know that you wear me out
You know that you ring me like a dinner bell going south
You know that you wring me dry

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Severance Pay

When I came to the Prince William Sound
The Glaciers were friends to me
Not one of them said I had to be home
or I couldn't have a drink
Sometime late in '63
Appetites finally grew near
How to get kicked off a pipeline crew
Get too drunk to feel fear

Winter was coming anyway seeming to last an age
Lived off of my severance pay from the old pipeline days
Did just fine out in the snow -- Jack was just a little help
You think six months of darkness easy, you just try it yourself

Woke up in time that early spring
To turn on the evening news
Could only sit dumb as Cronkite said
"Look what's gonna happen to you"
I was drunk when the shock wave hit
Said goodbye to Valdez
Nothing much there anyway
just the pipeline and me

Earth shook earth shook
Never meant nothing to me
Never meant anything

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The Lure of Beauty

Take a look at the script forget your cues ignore your lines
Fail that gut check stop the clock
Empty vessel macho man come on let me hold your hand
Don't try to talk don't try to walk or even breathe without me
You got it all wrong
It is the lure of beauty

I'll be there in a minute when I can spare some time
I got to get a hardon
It's something I invented and I think you might like it
The way you drift like a dreamboat
and you shake like a battleship
Life ain't ever dull
when the deepest of the green seas holds your lovely hull
You got it all wrong

The Lure of Beauty
helps you do what you want to do and say what you mean
It means you don't need a home
and you don't need your friends
Doesn't seem like such a good thing does it in the end

You're dreaming on the left side all right
Take a rocket to the right side's shibboleth
Being truly free ain't ever as easy as just being bereft
I studied your conception and your daddy didn't know
that your momma was obsessed with the ceiling fan
and the open window and the way that the wind blows
You got it all wrong

I'm taking a leap into the ozone's fade
I got drunk on electricity again
Did that hard water break your back
Did a pile of rock and roll do it
Did you dip into heaven with bells on your balls
The freaks of nature call you home
You got it all wrong
I'm the hammer you're the peach
You got it all wrong
It is the lure of beauty

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Miracle Mile

I was caught in a bad dream I was locked out on love
I got stuck in the slipstream 'til I lucked out for once
In the sky behind this club I saw her face high-rise
I didn't want to lose it on that miracle mile
but we played at CBGB on a 4th of July 3 a.m.
Soundman wanted to kill us then
He was strung out on Ex-Lax he was fucked in his lungs
He got shot out on Avenue A
while sucking on some slut's tongue
He would dress up like a whore
just to get lucky once in a while
I didn't want to lose it on that miracle mile
but we played at the Knitting Factory for fifteen people
thirty bucks someone broke into the goddamn truck
He had shit in his pants he had a needle in his arm
He just stole a couple sleeping bags
that he needed to stay warm
He couldn't even walk
We found him crawling in a garbage pile
I didn't want to lose it on that miracle mile
but we met with even greater misfortune
in the Armpit of the Americas four dumb hicks from hunger
We got ripped off by these assholes at a Fort Lee garage
They didn't weld that motherfucking leaf spring
Those sparks were a mirage
We hallucinated freely huddled shivering on the tile
I didn't want to lose it on that miracle mile
Six hundred dollars later we were still drinking bad coffee
Couldn't sleep stomachs were full of pizza grease
I called her up long-distance
There was freezing on the line
Did she trust me
Could she throw me with a strong breeze from behind
No and no again no fucking shit a crazy smile
I didn't want to lose it on that miracle mile
but the stage was set for tension so I cried and I spit
I drooled and wept and I hit the gas for Pittsburgh
I was caught in a bad dream I was out on the nod
I got stuck in the slipstream until I blacked out thank God

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Drag the River

Drag the river with a comb that you just bought
for a dollar at the drugstore on the font
If you catch a body falling star falling star
Is it anybody 'cause those has-beens don't fall far
Not like a comet shard not like a bullet shot at a passing car
Planned from the beginning from the very start
An arrow through the middle of the truest of hearts

That trick sent us into triple overtime and into sudden death
Certain inconsistencies saved us at the net
like that gentle retardation that I never will forget
I won't forget not like the time you let pass you by
like a comet in the night with its tail shining bright
a poker in the face of a dream pursuing sight

Salt sugar water and grease
run through the veins of the local police
Wide of the target and short of the mark
Like bears in the corner of a national park
they don't bark like dogs
or howl at the moon like a wolf in the fog
They never move too fast too far or too soon

The night you beat me up you said it wouldn't last
and you thought it would sink into the past
but it never could and it never will
I drag the river and I feel it still
A candy coating on the bitterest pill but I taste it

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Killing My Ass

Here comes a regular and I'm not much of a screamer
but I'll try to stumble through
I know you haven't been downtown
or I'd see a big smile on your face
any time any place I think like you think
Me and the new big thing are gonna kill everything in sight
We'll be the crushers of fun and the bringers of doom
Last anchor of news -- it's a chance to make everyone else lose

After the carnage has rotted away
I see that he's still clean a smooth running machine
but the bastard can't dance and I'm an animal
The tragedy is that the bastard and I share blood

Can't even say that the bad crazy sun made him do it
Didn't make him do anything
The sun's just a ball that sits in the sky
It's no excuse 'cause you make it inside
use it inside until you lose it inside

You're so sad and lonely
Such a sad-eyed phony
You remove yourself from harm
You're not really from the farm

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Caricature of a Joke

It's getting ready to pour
Streetlights flicker on again
Once more it's time to descend
into the end of another long day
A week 'til the fourth a month 'til this dump's dead end
But this heart is mine to lend not just anyone's to take away

Watery eyes I got all choked up
paper-thin walls keep it down
All the bad habits that you took on
are coming out more every round

All the cars are splashing by
in a hurry to get their drivers home
Have one of them take you along
the first good safe chance I get
Maybe Earth's core can pull on your empty head
and someone else can pretend
that your skin doesn't get in the way

Get your head up
The end is near
No one said this would be fun
One short drive
One long pull on the trigger of a loaded gun

There goes the water
Turn those headlights off
It's hot as hell and the extra wattage wears me down
like a wick eaten up by the flame
Drains overflow
The gutter's slow and choked
It came and stole my friend and left a caricature of a joke

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Don't Make Plans This Friday

Friday talked to the wife on the phone
Said I'm not allowed near the home
If I climb the fence like last time she'll call the dame law
Her whining is so annoying
when she can't be trusted with the children
I remember the lawyer with his grinning skull

My half of the settlement will be invested to return a mint
Go toward hiring an agent who will be paid not to pry
Once I'm armed with this new hauteur
I'll still be just the agent's tool
Sometimes you gotta sell out if you plan to buy

The settlement's all divided now
Got myself an apartment downtown
Tell you not to make plans
We'll go out this Friday night
Don't think about that recidivist wife
or that lawyer acting so contrite
I try to relax every Friday
Put it out of my mind

Friday night is sacred
It's not time to be wasted
With doom on call
Friday they can't use it

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