Factory

BE THE ONE

Maybe this time will be better,
maybe this time things will flow.
Did your friends say go and get her?
Well your friends what do they know?
Maybe I won’t have to leave the country,
maybe I won’t have to leave at all,
if you think that you might want me
maybe you’d be worth my fall.
Not like the one I met when I was only fifteen,
the one I met when we were both just drifting,
the one I dreamed of all through high school,
he dressed like a cowboy,
he talked like a damn fool.
The one I brought home to my mother,
the one I kissed and then I kissed his brother,
the one who tried to love me tenderly.
Could you be the one for me?
Baby, let’s not get too desperate.
Baby, let’s not wait too long.
I know we haven’t even kissed yet,
but how could this be wrong?
It can’t be wrong,
not like the one I tried too hard to hold on to,
the one I left although I didn’t want to,
the one who had a wife and baby,
how I loved that man,
my god he drove me crazy,
the one who carried all my school books,
who relied too much on his good looks,
the one who tried to be all he could be.
There was a guitar player and a drummer,
a boy who ruined my whole summer,
one who drank and ran around with every single girl in town,
there was one whose shell I never cracked thru,
and one I wish I could still go back to,
one who’s just a faded memory.
Could you be the one for me?

 

 

FIGHTING

Well haven’t we had enough of this lately, the fighting?
Haven’t we had enough of this lately, the misery?
The wars break out like they’re interplanetary
& we scream & shout, & we carry on like children.
Couldn’t we let them blur a little , the boundaries?
Couldn’t we knock it off just a little, the poisoning?
Cause you’re in my head,
the voice of my only lover the words we said,
with other senses craving.
I walk outside and brave the cold of winter but I’m all right,
cause I’m warm & wrapped in the coat you wrapped & gave me.
Haven’t we had enough of this lately, the fighting?

 

 

NEW BOY

Got myself a new boy mama,
sweetest in the world,
and he treats me lovely and he gives me things.
Sometimes he makes me breakfast, cereal and tea,
and we read the morning paper and the sun shines down.
This world it still turns the same,
summer sun and winter rain
And I wish you you could meet him mama,
see your little girl, well she’s walking like a lady
with her head held high.
This world it still feels the same,
sometimes fun and sometimes pain and here we’re going round again.
The next time that I see you mama,
well it won’t be in this world,
but I believe you’re resting and you’re happy now.

 

 

CHURCH IN CHICAGO

It was a church in Chicago,
there was rain coming down.
Did it splash on your shoes,
on your pretty white gown?
Was your family there waiting just to see what you’d do?
Were you taking his arm, this man that you hardly knew?
And was it too overwhelming,
such a family name did it make him seem special,
did it make you ashamed?
Or did it make you want something that you never had known,
like an imported car, or a family home?
Did he treat you nicely as he drove you away
or was it all downhill after your wedding day?
Caught up in dishes and laundry, your head in a fog,
were you losing the dream between the kids and the dog?
And then you drove across country maybe four or five times,
they were lateral moves, paying nickels and dimes,
and was it just too hectic, was it just too hard were you broke and alone,
had you traveled too far?
When you finally left him, you left him for good,
and you never looked back, no you did what you could,
but did you wind up lonely,
at night in your bed were you working too hard
just to keep ’em all fed? Be a planter.
Take a seed and guide it towards the sun.
Be a dancer, as you dance you’ll find you’re not the only one
to change your mind.
And now it’s 30 years later and you see your mistake,
cause you thought life was fair,
now you know that it ain’t,
and if you still feel cheated
well it’s only because you wanted more out of life
than there ever was.
But girl you still got something,
you know it’s the truth,
tho it’s not quite beauty,
it’s not quite youth,
and if you take it real easy,
alone in your yard it’ll come back to you,
you got the house and the car.
It was a church in Chicago there was rain coming down.
Did it wash you away, did it wash up the town?
And if you had to do over all those things that you did,
would you marry him still, would you have his two kids?
Or would you just keep driving further
until you finally got it all and then you’d get your fill,
or would you miss that family that you could have had?
Would you make up your mind, it really wasn’t that bad?

 

 

COMPOUND

I get lots of sunshine in my window & my door,
but you’re telling me it’s too much
U can’t sleep here anymore
& the trucks all wake U up when they deliver right next door
& I say man I’m really sorry about the noise.
But you see I live here & I kind of like this place
altho’ I know it’s kind of small
but I don’t really need much space,
& it’s so close to where I work,
don’t have to rush don’t have to race,
& I dont really mind the noise.
Will we ever get it right this is my house,
my house I sleep here every night
& I don’t need you telling me that it’s not right
that I don’t really mind the noise.
I do my own dishes they don’t sit long in my sink
& I can take out my own garbage
long before it starts to stink,
& I sure don’t mean to tell you
what you should or should not think
but honey try not to mind the noise.
I get lots of sunshine in my window & my door
but you don’t like it here
I know this cause you’ve told me this before,
but I just can’t move cause I’m really really poor
& I dont really mind the noise.
I’m as happy as can be here in my house, my house,
it’s all I really need in a house
& some days I don’t even leave,
I just stay here & make noise.
We don’t ever have to fight here in my house, my house,
it shelters me alright
& you don’t see how I can sleep here thru the nite
but I’ve kind of gotten used to all the noise,
well I dont really mind the noise.

 

 

SEWING MACHINE

Well my grandma she’s a hard woman,
she’s pure Southern Baptist to the bone.
And she’s had a life of hard living,
she’s had to fight for everything she owns.
She used to be a CPA,
doing other people’s taxes out by hand.
She don’t listen to a word I say,
she just goes ahead and does the things she’s planned.
You must understand,
I did not ask for this sewing machine,
my grandma sent it to me.
I know she wasn’t trying to be mean.
She just thought that I ought to learn to sew,
and I didn’t have the heart to tell her no.
And my grandma was a backwoods lady
till my grandpa came and took her far away.
She gave him love and two fine babies,
she stayed with him until his dying day.
My grandpa worked the Oklahoma oil fields.
When I think of him I think about his clothes,
and how they carried strong the smell of oil fields.
But my grandma never wrinkled up her nose,
she just washed his clothes.
I did not ask for this fluffy yellow dress.
My grandma made it for me,
she thought that it would suit me well,
I guess.
And tho I don’t hardly wear it much at all,
well I thanked her for it nicely when she called.
Sometimes I think I’m hearing things,
talking to this woman on the phone.
With a voice that sounds so much like my mother’s,
asking me, telling me to come on home,
don’t be alone.
I did not ask for this undying love.
My grandma gives it to me,
and I could never give her back enough.
And tho she thinks that she’s rarely on my mind,
the truth is that she’s with me all the time.

 

 

FACTORY

And the night is cool as I’m driving on the Interstate.
Just another song like it’s just another drive.
27 hours cause you’re living in another state,
but the tank is full & the coffee keeps me wired.
How can I be real if I’m working in a factory?
How can I be me or be anything at all?
So you burned it down, now that job is history.
But I know it was against the law.
And even if I find my way back to you,
I know I’ll never learn to burn like you do.
You got a mind like a hurricane,
you got a dream like a train
you got a heart like a mountain,
I’m tumbling down, tumbling down again.
I had a dream that we had a happy home
on a piece of land with a plan to raise a child.
If we had a girl, could we call her Sylvia
& love her, and raise her sweet & wild?
But even if we wind up trying that way
we won’t I know we’ll never really have that baby.
Not with your mind like a hurricane
you got a dream like a train
you got a heart like a mountain,
I’m tumbling down, tumbling down again.

 

 

ANOTHER HIT

Have another hit dear,
if it helps you to think clearer.
Take another deep breath,
you’ve got something on your mind.
Tell me if I walk with you
through this house of darkness
and listen to your secrets,
what we’re going to find.
I know you’re feeling restless baby,
there’s something that you’re not quite crazy about,
you tell me you’ve been seeing lately in me.
What is it exactly you see?
You’ve taken lots of interest in other people’s business,
you find it hard to let go of the career that passed you by.
Now that things are lonely,
your clearest thought is only you’ve got to get away
from the girl that bled you dry.
Not every fire’s a good burner.
Not every situation turns out exactly like exactly what you need.
What is it exactly?
Tell me.
When crying only makes you wetter,
and nothing helps you to think better,
are you wishing that you never met her, or me?
Who is it exactly you need?

 

 

RUN ME OVER AND LET ME BLEED TO DEATH

I guess I could have come on a little softer,
but that’s not really the Texas way.
I guess I thought it’d last a little longer than three cold nights
and half a day.
And I should have seen it, falling for a blues man.
Women, smoke and whiskey on your breath.
I should have known you’d break my heart then,
run me over and let me bleed to death.
And I’ll cry a little harder than I have to.
Cause crying’s always good for sympathy.
Guess I’ll pour myself a strong one, and see what’s on TV.
I should have married me a trucker,
hauling all those loads both day and night.
But no, I had to go and fall for another goddamned life-blood sucker.
Something in my head must not be right.
And I’ll cry a little harder than I have to,
cause crying’s always worked real good for me.
Guess I’ll write myself a lonesome-sounding country tune,
and maybe modulate the key.
I see you’re ready to put your shirt on.
Darling let me make this last request.
Instead of how you left me standing,
yearning like a fool,
run me over and let me bleed to death.

 

 

MOTHER ME

You gave me your strength,
you gave me your will,
you gave me your eyes to see.
You gave me your flesh,
you gave me your blood you gave me my family.
You gave me the dream to fly on my own
with nothing surrounding me.
You gave me the lie, the safety of home
and a cold fear that grounded me.
How many dreams have died by your hand
for not understanding me?
How many tears were cried, all undammed,
in your struggles to handle me?
Mother, me.
I’ve been your girl now,
how many years and years have gone by?
How could we waste them all,
how could I know we’d have no time?
Deep in my life,
the path that I chose despite all you planned for me,
still even now the emptiness grows and anger takes hold of me.
How could you sit, and how could you judge,
deciding what’s best for me?
How could you think you’d help me
because you kept all your pain hidden from me?
Mother, me.
What a hard lesson learned,
how many tears and tears have I cried?
But you never heard me then.
Can you hear me, hear me now,
crying out, mother me.

 

 

GHOST OF JOHN DENVER

The first time I heard those Country Roads,
it must have been about ’79, I remember the time.
I was laying down quiet on my grandma’s feather bed.
I was barely awake, it was an 8 track tape.
And it sounded so sweet,
it made me completely fall in love with him,
I was in love with John Denver, can we all sing along.
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
I was in love with John Denver can we all sing along
Next thing you know,
well I’m turning 17 and I’m learning to play,
getting better each day.
Me and my brother and our old dog in between,
we’d go down to the creek, there’d be no need to speak.
We’d sing Rocky Mountain High, out of tune, to the sky.
And the sun beat down and I felt like John Denver,
can we all sing along.
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
I felt like John Denver, can we all sing along
I don’t remember much about the day he died,
I had long since moved on, other loves, other songs.
But sometimes when I’m in my bed and it’s really really quiet,
and I’m barely awake I hear that 8 track tape,
and it’s playing all of his songs, so the music lives on.
And it may sound strange,
but the ghost of John Denver wants you all to sing along.
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
Yodelay hee, lo lo lo lo
Yeah the ghost of John Denver wants you all to sing along