The View from Here

There is a man on a downtown train
There is a woman on the iron bridge
There's a man lonely in the 2nd arrondissment
And a woman who dreams of what love is
There's a poet writing from Tel Aviv
And from the radio Tom Waits sings
Not alone I woke and girls that smoke
And the scent beneath hummingbirds wings
There is man in homage to his own kind
When happiness has formed a tear
A woman come laid down his gun
I don’t know so much but it’s the view from here

There's a man hauling water from a well
There's a woman showing children what it is to read
Abacus and clowns and abstract nouns
Empathy is this beautiful thing we breathe
Man observes Hanukka
Woman piles up her hair her dark eyes wild
Boy stands give mother to be his seat
On a boat on the Ganges a woman smiled
What’s important is your response to life
Sunset on the slums of old Tangier
A donkey carries home his wife
I don’t know so much but it’s the view from here

Woman transfers her smile to you
Man undoes a man with apology
Jazz plays and the orthodox prays
And a man with a goatee gets a God shot of coffee
The books she read and the cool things he said
And all the delicious things they don’t yet know
Dancers underscored by moonlight
Woman arches her back and lets it go
With a Bronx salute and a dirty Armani suit
Anybody want to share a beer
Children grown leaving home
I don’t know so much but it’s the view from here

There is a man photographing Bedouin
There's a woman baking olive bread
Feel the meaning in the Hadron Collider
As we touch each other's dreams in our bed
From the glorious smell of kisses
To the sophisticated streets of New York
The colour of my kind are pages deep
So many beauitful kinetic languages they talk
And the orchestra of the East and West
Take a bow without boundaries or fear
Take off your shoes and feel the world
I don’t know so much but it’s the view from here

The Opium Eaters

William Burroughs
Lenny Breau
Billie Holliday
Miss Monroe
Philip Hoffman
John Coltrane
Jimi Hendrix
Kurt Cobain

Dreams of the opium eater
They inspire you the hard way
Dreams of the opium eater

Lewis Carol
Basquiat
Peaches Geldof
Kerouac
William Blake
John Belushi
Edith Piaf
Bela Lugusi

Dreams of the opium eater
They inspire you with what they say
Dreams of the opium eater

Sigmund Freud
Edgar Allan Poe
Florence Nightingale
Jean Cocteau
Sir Conan Doyle
Heath Ledger
Charles Dickens
Chet Baker

Dreams of the opium eater
They inspire you the hard way
Dreams of the opium eater

Jules Verne
Dexter Gordon
Benjamin Franklin
Janice Joplin
Rousseau
Balzac
River Phoenix
Miles Davis
Charlie Mingus

Dreams of the opium eater
They inspire you with what they say
Dreams of the opium eater

Joseph McCarthy
Walter Scott
Jonny Cash
Vic Chesnutt
Queen Victoria
Picasso
Jim Morrison
Lou Reed
Nico

Dreams of the opium eater
They inspire you the hard way
Dreams of the opium eater

Shelley
Keats
Baudelaire
Aldous Huxley
Art pepper
Chopin
Schiller
Lenny Bruce
Berlioz
Ginsberg
Marcel Proust

Dreams of the opium eater
They inspire you with what they say
The dreams of the opium eater

Emoji for Today

I’ve seen our hatred and diamond mines
And the love between us roared and chimed
And I know somewhere there’s peace on Earth tonight
And I’ve seen the boys looking at the girls
And I’ve seen that look on men who destroy the world
And the words we must never forget I pray we might

Poets dropping wisdom on grimy urban beats
From the shallow words my generation speaks
And we had our go I say good luck to that
Israeli beauty with darkroom eyes
2000 years of war you stop and then reprise
And you shoot one of ours and we just shoot one back

The hallelujah of mankind once more is dimmed
From skateboard parks the new light in us begins
And old men praying in costumes for the dead
When darkness falls its youths light we need
To be adult is to be scared of being free
And children politics is the thing beneath your bed

Theres love and books with a Greek friend of mine
He who gave back the sight to those once blind
And he reminded me to sing because I can
But we’ll survive on mothers breast
She feeds the Gods of this Earth the best
One last cry for freedom from an old man

Life

I fought those men by the dirty harvest light
I don’t suppose the dead always tell it right
Now a hundred people gonna watch me fightin’ for life
There ain't no forgiveness left in Arkansas tonight

Last chance on humanity in a dead man's court
I’m as sorry as any man has been before
Oh firing squad could you bring me my lord
And they dragged me when I could walk no more

Mama came to say good-bye but she can't speak
When you close your eyes at night you can hear ‘em weep
Eighteen years on death row come put me to sleep
Fifteen dollar last meal that I can’t eat

At the end of my life this is what I know
If I’m tortured to death promise make it slow
And to the dead oh I’ll see you when I go
And to their families I hope you enjoy the show

Prohibition Blues

The roadhouse is full
The whores have sore bones
Lost where you grew up
Crack houses are homes
Nationalism
Take a hit and light the fuse
Lonelier now and wasted
Prohibition blues

Tour of duty done
Now drunk ain’t enough
Bringing home prejudice and hate
What you seen don’t come off
Prohibition blues
Medicated in doorways not beds
Do you love your country now
Trading bullets for meds

The steel yards are hard
No work hungry man
The press gangs are out
New moonshiner hiring in town
And I don’t know so much
You’re life’s not always the cure
If the medicine don’t kill ya
The food will for sure

But it’s harder on her
Soul will relent
She don’t know him by name
Body for rent
The will of mankind
On your road you choose
Last place left to feel free
Oh the Prohibition blues

Woman Confession

I wish I grew up in a ghetto
I’m having my professors baby
I won a million bucks and never told a soul
Pretty girls look out to sea

And I wish I had lived a different life
Your name is tattooed on my ass
I go to church just to sing in the choir
And I sold a baby imagine that

I’m more racist than I chose to admit
Never had an orgasm and I’m 30 yrs old
Wish someone would jump out of a cake and love me
I’m scared most nights when I’m alone

I adore the smell of crayon
I’m a nurse will someone pay me for sex
I beat a man to death when I was 15
And I wish something really awful happens to my ex

I have a favorite of my 2 children
And I wish I had pursued my dream
I don’t like my friends and I lie for attention
I said I was pregnant so you’d marry me

And I will never forgive you
I really can’t move on and I try
I just can’t stop myself dancing
I’m at my happiest sometimes when I cry

And I wish I were beautiful
My insecurities they suffocate me
I seduced a young priest before his suicide
Pretty girls look out to sea

Don't Wait Up

Shot of Geisha coffee and say goodnight
Take my pen begin to write
And from a Paris hotel
I was looking for you
Told my Mama oh don’t wait up
The writer’s life is a bottomless cup
And I’m never goin’ home from the heroin view

Slept all day lovers come
Dragged me away from where realities from
And the typewriter in the 'corner's calling my name
I dream about night that’s how it goes
From the Berlin street hungry angel blows
And I sold my mind to be a creature of pain

The puff dancers come smile is on
The back room boys got a rhythm all night long
Been writing about equal rights and not feminism
From the top of the world I’m shouting down
From the bottom of the world I wear a crown
I told me brother I’d be living my life like Anais Nin

My blood is heavy it fills the air
Into a broken boulevard I disappear
And if you listen to the night you can hear a woman moan
Sycophantic villains flick out the light
I’m living the life of a character I used to write
And it’ll drive you crazy the years of writing alone

Shout out to the Devil oh here I come
No direction home once its begun
I’m living on the corner of a wasted avenue
Blood bubble whiskey and Martha’s sweetened gin
Slept in a church of my confessioning
I believe my heart is still holding on to you

Took a car pull the top down
Young woman beside me but there’s no sound
I told her beautiful body God’s the same thing as your soul
I’m feeling emotional oh let me weep
Apartment silent I cry myself to sleep
And I dreamt it again last night everything I wrote I stole

Hey little lover why don’t you wake up
Bagged my soul and I lost my love
Growling in the shadows like a hungry two-dollar whore
I sold my arm for pleasure and pain
Take that damned old rattler again
This junky’s a writer on a one-way ticket to the bathroom floor

Moderato Cantabile

Moderato cantabile
Tango lessons in the café
Priest cracks open Crème Brulee
Lights out in the brothel
My body aching from the love we made
And I don’t wanna go home

Cello lifts with the condor
Lips packed with love and murder
Where the spirit meets the bone what’s it to ya
Singing downtown hallelujah
Tension and release of music cries
And I don’t wanna go home

Moderato Cantabile
Pour Homme

Painters come deep and blue
They’re lookin at life more than you do
The writers need to confess
She rolls a cigarette beneath her dress
The poets quoting love and war
And I don’t wanna go home

Your lust so stained and smiling
You fuck so full and frightening
Like a velvet woman rainstorm
Some place you die but here you’re born
That Anton Corbijn film is on
I don’t wanna home

Pass That On

Everyone said you’ll grow up like your old man and be a junky
Everyone said you’ll sign it all away at the bottom of the page
Everyone said you’ll be down with the street drinkers that woman and the bonhomme
Vanity and self-pity the curse of the modern age
And nobody said you’ll make your life a statement
With a diamond crucifix and a bottle on your arm
And nobody said they wait at temple for you to be a pilgrim
What we do to children we do to tomorrow
Pass that on

Everyone says you got the bars to be a poor man
Everyone says that they don’t like what you do and how you play
Everyone said you’ve not been schooled enough for wisdom
But where’s the wisdom in the things you dare to say
And everyone said you’ll sit in a car park like a vampire
Nobody said there’ll be fine words in your secret song
And nobody said in a small town you can’t see the distance
First love your brother then the world
Pass that on

And everyone’s telling each other lies about what they were doing
You complain when it's over but you live it like a long stretch of time
And everyone said your're a liar with ya needle and a typewriter
And I’ll do your job music critic if you can do mine
By a fire you know loves forever life's just a while
I ain’t here to make friends being young it don’t last long
And I painted the words that your hear on the maternity wall
Free man from himself
Pass that on

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker down by the bridge
You’re on fire little birdie
But you're gonna kill us all
You're gonna kill us all
With what you shootin’ with

Smoke is liftin’
Strung out low
And the band strikes without ya
Blown by the lady
Blown by the lady
When its your turn to blow

Here's the artist
In fifths on the floor
Here's the artist
In fifths on the floor
Oh little Birdie
Its your turn to blow

Kansas city junky to New York city jive
To the ghost of 52nd street
You lived more than any man
You lived more than any man while you were alive

But you’re magnificent
Come blow your horn
Give me inspiration now
You’ll be fillin’ Birdland
You’ll be fillin’ Birdland
Long after you’ve gone

Here's the artist
In fifths on the floor
Here's the artist
In fifths on the floor
Poor little Birdie
Its your turn to blow

Free your mind
Free your mouth
Free your body
Free your doubt

Free your mind
Free your mouth
Free your body
Free your doubt

That Thing We Do to Silence

In the last 60 years music has strained and roared, it has disowned us, empowered us, released us, defined us and it drives us all home. Music has given us a soundtrack to live in, the symphony for love, a score for both pregnancy and suicide and a soundscape for happiness and longing. It provokes prejudice, anarchy, freedom, justice, music can make your skin shiver, your tempo shift and your love organs come to life. It is no better to a rich mans ears than for that of the poor. Music is the choreographer of dance. Yet music evokes all of this without being touched or fully understood; it is airborne, it is ephemeral, it is dream theory and then it is gone.

But I am scared by the banality of modern music and its reason to be. They’ve stolen its honesty, rendered it superficial, a commodity worthless, a gameshow, empty gesture, a competition, an advertising tool. Money makes you God or irrelevant.

But what of music’s utter sublimity, it’s profound tragedy, its hedonistic glory, the treasures that come not immediately, but brew upon your soul with time and love. The music that forces you to pull over and cry unashamedly, to fill you with the full force of life, and in time music shall return you to a moment of intense accuracy. Our musical collective of this world is enormous, life affirming, varied, vibrant, grinding, intelligent, sad and wild. So filled with dreams and instinct that it burns with the self same energy that once lit mankind’s greatest journeys.

But if music is anything, then it is defiant. It is stitched into the lub-dub of every heart. Music is quite simply our greatest gift to the world. And I hear it alive and inventive in cafes, in clubs, on street corners on rooftops, online and offshore, deep inside your head, on your lips, in the harmony and disharmony of the lives and our loves. Our musical presence is emanating through the walls of motel rooms, on bad speakers, on the low end beats teenage cars, handed around on headphones. It lives on the curves of her rhythm, the gravel of her voice and on the bass of his words. Let it be invented in bedrooms, in prison yards, with attitude and reason, make it without time signatures, play off the notes, dream it, live it, bend it, break it, offend God, don’t apologize, turn it up, record the cries and the agonies of love. Bang buckets, spit bars, scream, sing, slam, damn your soul, condemn your body, let your music be free!

All children can sing, make new music, let it lift you, make you better, turn it up, shout back at thunder, move your body and soul. Lose the company. Find the rebel, lose the pretence and the genre. Be proud, not instructed, be creative. Its only music, learn how to hear it all over again. And throw the whole fucking world at this beautiful thing we do to the silence....

Blood Bubble of Love

Children singing from the madhouse tower
From the dystopian market to my finest hour
I saved this song for you for the last day of love

From your beauty to your kiss and your handmade clothes
And the birdcage hanging from that old ceiling rose
Here for you is my lonely blood-bubble of love

And your adjusted eyes when I made you cry
I did it I said it I don’t know why
I’m sorry with my junk of worthless words of love

Thirty years of calm from a passionate seas
Your push bike in the corner and your body on me
Another warn down crystal poet for what its worth

Your accordion your wisdom your temperature asleep
The dimples behind you and the soul that you keep
Been drunk a hundred thousand times bringing you to love

Kimchi on rice reading slaughterhouse 5
You smell like a woman not a lady you’ll find
You made life look what you did with love

Lavender tramp give the girl shoes
You don’t do as you’re told and your Mother hates you
And all I got is a song and a bucket of love