Neko Case Album

I love writing songs that are already written/
Running from cyclones/you must think you've been bitten
Lovely as you are you can't provide a home
If you tried to pick me up I would die in your arms
I use my voice activated dialing to call you up/are you free?
Free as the wind you reply
Lets go get a Starbucks cappuccino and read about Obama in french
I dreamt of drapes and both of us swinging and a blond lady on a swing on a manor
I use my voice activated dialing to call you up/are you free?
Free as the wind you reply

I hear the tiniest sparks in the tenderest sound.
Diving music, drowning the sound.
waltzing with the hairs upon my arms.
And your fire flood alarm, and you tremble, and you stumble, and you scrape up your palms.
I can't stay here to hold your hand.
I've been away for so long.
I've lost my taste for home, and thats a dirty fallow feeling. To be the dangling ceiling.
From the roof came crashing down.
Peeling in the heat. Vanish in the rain. The next time you say forever, I'll punch you in your face.
Just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean I didn't mean it. You never know when I'll show you the never. You never know when I'll show you the never.

So the saying says
An elephant never forgets
Standing in the concrete cave
Swaying side and sing
They walked over the ocean
And their dreams they dreamed awake
Until the lights grew dim
Until the cop cars came
Everybody tells me this is crazy, yes I know

But I'm a man man man man man man man eater
But still you're surprised prised prised when I eat ya

You know they call them killer whales
But you seem suprised
When it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank
Where you can't turn around
It took half your leg and both your lungs
And I craved I ate hearts of sharks, I know you know it

I'm a man man man man, man man man eater
But still you're surprised prised prised when I eat ya X2

It will end again in moonlit song
It will end again in moonlit song

He takes his dinner in the bed
Love sickened and infirmed
The orderly found him there
Filleted on the marble stairs
Hat still in hand,
His smoking remains blown out by a kiss from Nurse Someday Soon
Someday soon
Someday soon

Some, some, some

His eyes are closed
He mouths her name
The rosary her lips and tongue
She is the centrifuge that throws the spires from the sun
The Sistine Chapel painted with a Gatling gun

Someday soon
Someday soon
Someday soon

Someday soon
Someday soon

Polar nettles set on end
Move like starlings up a cliff
Antennae of her foggy touch
The force field 'round her frosty hips
Whose shape recalls the wicked spade
That buried him but on his lips
The last rites of Nurse Someday Soon

I didn't know what a brute I was
I dipped my cigarette and rode the bus
Vengeance built me hastily
And I drag the clanging notion I was nobody, nobody
Nobody

All I had was my invention
And my love it fitted on you
Oh, look what thoughts can do
What thoughts can do
If you're not by now dead and buried
You're most certifiably married
Oh, married

I'm sure you're sleeping sound
With a mistress of the hours
The hours that grind your life to dust

Oh, easy loves
You keep lap pets
Denied them you are powerless
Whatever keeps you sleeping through the night

I'm not the man you thought I was
My love has never lived indoors
I had to drag it home by force
Hired hounds at both my wrists
Damp and bruised by stranger's kisses on my lips
But you're the one that I still miss
You're the one that I still miss
And the truth is that it comes as no surprise

I'm not the man you think I am
I'm not the man you think I am

When she's on her best behavior
Don't be tempted by her favors

Never turn your back on Mother Earth

Towns are hurled from A to B
By arms that looked so smooth to me

Never turn your back on Mother Earth
Never turn your back on Mother Earth

Three days and two nights away from my friends
Amen to anything that brings a quick return
To my friends, to my friends

Never turn your back on Mother Earth

Well, I'll admit I was unfaithful
But from now on I'll be more faithful

Never turn your back on Mother
Never turn your back on Mother
Never turn your back on Mother Earth

Baby, why'm I worried now,
did someone make a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done?
Can't give up actin' tough,
it's all that I'm made of.
Can't scrape together quite enough
to ride the bus to the outskirts
of the fact that I need love.

There were times that I tried,
one for every glass of water
that I spilled next to the bed,
wretching pennies in a boiling well
in a dream that it once becomes
a foundry of mute and heavy bells.
They shake me deaf and dumb
say, "Someone made a fool of me
'fore I could show 'em how it's done."

It was so clear to me
that it was almost invisible.
I lie across the path waiting,
just for a chance to be a spiderweb
trapped in your lashes.
For that, I would trade you my empire for ashes.
But I choke it back, how much I need love...

In an open field at dusk
To footfalls I awoke
Marching ants across my temples, oh

Their feet had no intention
They followed some magnetic drum
Prisoners of their destination

From the slats of the factory come
Where once they did make rails
Old Death's peculiar songs
He didn't know I was listening

So he crowed out nice and long
To the spiders and the lumber and the dust
Of his conquests and his hunger, and his lust

I heard his feet rejoice
I heard him tap his cane
As if he had his own review
Onstage at the Athenaeum

I caught his words in my open mouth
I gagged and choked and spit them out
I heard him turn as he did hear
My tiny heartbeat in his ear
I was already running
Oh I heard him coming

Shrapnel spitting from his wheels
His scything arms rake for my heels
I dove and rolled and hid my face
And I said these magic words

"My dove is home, her breast is warm, my dove is home."

I said these magic words and
Fell down, down, the anthill
For days

"My dove is home, her breast is warm, my dove is home."
"My dove is home, her breast is warm, my dove is home".

Magpie comes a calling
Drops a marble from the sky
Tin roof sounds alarming
"Wake up child"
"Let this be a warning,"
Says the magpie to the morning
Don't let this fading summer pass you by,
Don't let this fading summer pass you by.

Black hands held so high
The vulture wheels and dives
Something on the thermals yanked his chain
He smelled your boring apex
Rotting on the train tracks
He laughed under his breath
Because you thought that you could outrun sorrow
Take your own advice
This thundering and lightning gets you rain
You run an airtight mission
A Cousteau expedition
To find a diamond at the bottom of the drain
A diamond at the bottom of the drain

[And here I go]
Mocking bird sings
In the middle of the night
All his songs are stolen so he hides
He stole them out from whippoorwills
And screaming car alarms
He sings them for you special
He knows you're afraid of the dark

Come on sorrow
Take your own advice
Hide under the bed
Turn out the light
The stars this night in the sky are ringing out
You can almost hear them saying
"Close your eyes now, kid"
"Close your eyes now, kid"
"Morning's teeth are lit"
They are waiting, waiting
Oh, they are waiting

You could say it's my instinct
Yes I still have one
There's no time to second guess it

And yes, there are things that I'm still so afraid of...
But my courage is roaring like the sound of the sun
'Cause it's vain about its mane and will reveal them to no one
I'm an animal, you're an animal, too

Pick up that rock, drink from that lake
I do my best but I'm made of mistakes
And yes there are things that I'm still quite sure of
I love you this hour, this hour today
And heaven will smell like the airport (airport)
I may never get there to prove it
So let's not waste our time thinkin' how that ain't fair
I'm an animal, you're an animal, too
You're an animal, too

Where am I tonight? La, da, da
My hotel room won't remember me
And this dream will die, die by morning
And this dream won't remember me

Awakened by a droning voice
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
Is it a lady or is it a man
Humming helicopters through the blades of a fan

I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes

On my feet to chase it down
The lights were spokes and rungs away
I stumbled back and hit the floor
Long shadows crawl beneath the door
To a passage so poorly lit
There's moths flying away from it

Who am I tonight? La, da, da
My hotel room won't remember me
Darkness enter prison girls
Pushing mops and kicking pails
Now's my chance
I clasp my chest
And declare unto my audience
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes

Prison girls are not impressed
They're the ones that have to clean this mess
They've traded more for cigarettes
Than I've managed to express

Filing past miles long
The cheek is frozen to the floor
The prison girls have filled their beds
Their thoughts too dry above their heads

I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes

In the wintertime keep your feet warm
But keep your clothes on and don't forget me
Keep the memories
But keep your powder dry too

In the summer by the poolside
While the fireflies are all around you
I'll miss you when I'm lonely
I'll miss the alimony too

Don't forget me, don't forget me
Make it easy, only just for a little while
You know I'll think about you
Let me know you'll think about me too

And when we're older and full of cancer
It doesn't matter now, come on get happy
'Cause nothing lasts forever
But I will always love you

Don't forget me, please don't forget me
Make it easy, only just for a little while
You know I'll think about you
Let me know you'll think about me too

you were married in the mirrored hall when i was 16
you spoke the words, "i love girls in white leather jackets"
that was good enough for love, it was good enough for me

i listened in when you thought you were lost
caught in those fangs on a tornado sprawl

who knows what you know
i only heard what i wanted
you said i was your blue, blue baby
and you were right
you said i was your blue, blue baby
and you were right

wondered the halls of the nighttime
my body burned, my legs ached
but you never came to bed
you just left me there awake

you kept me wanting wanting wanting
like the wanting in the movies and the hymns
I want the pharaohs, but there's only men
I want the pharaohs, but there's only men

you said i was your new blue baby
and you were right
you said i was your new blue baby
and you were right

There's a smell here that stands my hairs on end
Dog hair in the heater, gas pumps and cedar
And jackknifes on the nine
and seabirds choked on fishing line

Clouds are a hush but the chainsaws mush on to Custer and Columbia
Salty tentacles drink in the sun but the red tide is over
The mollusks they have won

There's a smell here of gravel and cigarettes lit
When the match made them sweet
When the engine turned over and beat up our street
Oh, that was the day
To remember

I remember because of the fires that leapt
From the caves of the things that have not happened yet
When I think of it now they smell to me quite sinister

I want to go back and die at the drive in
Die before strangers can say
I hate the rain
I hate the rain

[No lyrics]