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1. Handcuffed To A Fence
In Mississippi
©1998 Jim White
I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi.
My girlfriend blows a boozy good-bye kiss.
I see flying squirrels and nightmares of stigmata.
Then awakening to find my Trans-Am gone.
Still, I'm feeling pretty good about the future.
Yeah, everything is peaches but the cream.
I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi,
where things is always better than they seem.
Things is always better than they seem.
I see the guitar that my cousin played in prison,
floating with the tv in the swimming pool.
I'm calling for the owner of the motel,
then noticing the bloodstain on the door.
I'm reaching for the shoes under the bushes,
just in time to hear the sirens sing.
I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi,
where things is always better than they seem.
Things is always better than they seem.
You know freedom's just a stupid superstition,
'cause life's a highway that you travel blind.
It's true that having fun's a terminal addiction.
What good is happiness, when it's just a state of mind?
For in the prison of perpetual emotion,
we're all shackled to the millstone of our dreams.
Me, I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi,
where things is always better than they seem.
Things are always better than they seem.
2. Wound That Never Heals
©1996 Jim White
Long about an hour before sunrise
she drags his body down to the edge of the swollen river
wrapped in a red velvet curtain
stolen from the movie theater where she works.
Quiet as a whisper, under the stanchions of a washed-out bridge
she cuts him loose...and watches as the flood waters spin him
around once, then carry him away. Then she removes the golden
ring upon her finger...and she throws it in.
And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you...
Baby why don't you cry?
Three days later in a bar in southern Mississippi she meets a man
by the name of Charles Lee.
She introduces herself to him as "Lee Charles".
"What a coincidence." he says...and one week later they are married.
He wakes up one night six months down the line
to find her staring at him in the oddest way.
When he says, "Honey, what's wrong?"
she says, "Oh nothing dear...except that tears are a stupid trick of
God."
And by the time they find his body six weeks later...
Well hell, she's a thousand miles away.
And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you...
Baby why don't you cry?
She runs from devils. She runs from angels. She runs from the
ghost of her father and five different uncles. Blinded by their memory,
seared by their pain, she'd like to kill 'em all...then kill 'em all again.
She don't think much about what she's done or the funny feelings that
she feels. No, she don’t. To her it's just a condition she picked up
as a
child... a little thing she calls, "the wound that never heals",
she calls it,
"the wound that never heals"
And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you...
Baby why don't you cry?
3. Corvair
©1998 Jim White
Sunlight in the weeds...I wish that I was blind...to the ghosts
dancing in the breeze…blowing through my mind.
Got a Corvair in my yard. It hasn't run in fifteen years.
It's a home for the birds now. It's no longer a car.
Last night I dreamed that I was swimming in a sea.
Like always, with everything I went in too deep.
Got a Corvair in my yard. It hasn’t run in fifteen years.
It’s a home for the birds now. It’s no longer…a car.
Got a simple friend out west, and in the blink of an eye,
I'd swap him straight, his life for mine...and never wonder "Why?".
CHORUS
4. Wrong Kind of Love
©1998 Jim White
Nothing's prettier than a pretty girl digging a heart shaped hole in the ground.
Hear that sound?
That's the fortress 'round your heart crumbling down.
Feeling like...like you kinda...like the feeling...feel like falling...
head over heels...into the hole...that she's digging...and you're thinking
you should go...'cause you know...
that she wants the wrong kind of love,
wants the kind of love you can’t give her.
She wants the wrong kind of love,
but you don't hold that against her,
'cause if that's the kind of love she wants,
then that's just the kind of love you'll have to give her.
Come beg, borrow, steal, or fight, 'cause you never felt nothing so real or
right as this wrong...wrong kind of love.
Like a tombstone in a snowstorm, she's so cool, pale and gloomy.
Her affection for affliction's just sleight of hand---a stolen picture taken
from some loving fool, who just like you, mutely surrendered...and this snapshot
of the future is a map of your undoing...'cause you know that you should go
but you don't go...though
she wants the wrong kind of love,
wants the kind of love you can’t can give her.
She wants the wrong kind of love,
but you don't hold that against her,
'cause if that's the kind of love she wants,
then that's just the kind of love you'll have to get her.
Come beg, borrow, steal, or fight 'cause you never felt nothing so real or
right as this wrong…wrong kind of love.
Your love's a tale told by idiots, signifying nothing more than
a wise hunger for destruction, for in the temple of your loving,
scrawled upon the wall just there behind the portrait of yourself
there lies a prayer written in your hand, it says, "Girl, come and destroy
me." And you know...why you don't go.
'Cause you want the wrong kind of love,
want the kind of love no one can give you.
You want the wrong kind of love,
and she's just the girl to give it to you.
And if you beg to object, well I will beg you to reconsider
'cause this little twist in the story is just the seed of your salvation...
'cause this wrong...wrong kind of love...wrong kind of love...
is your kind of love.
5. 10 Miles To Go On
A 9 Mile Road
©1998 Jim White
They tell me miracles abound now more than ever, but
I don't care. They say it's better to be blessed than it is to be clever, but
I don't care. 'Cause I got 10 miles to go on a 9 mile road, and it's a rocky
rough road, but I don't care.
For life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer, you keep your head held
high, a'walking and a'talking ‘til the power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you...you....
You don't get nothing for free, 'less of course you steal it,
at least that's what the people say. The sad irony of Love is how so seldom
you feel it, yet it's all you dream about, night and day.
From the splinter in the hand, to the thorn in the heart, to
the shotgun to the head, you got no choice but to learn to glean solace from
pain or you'll end up cynical or dead.
Me, I got 10 miles to go on a 9 mile road and it's a rocky rough road, but
I don't care.
For life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer, you keep your head held
high, a'walking and a'talking and a'talking and a'walking, 'til the power of
Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you...THERE!!!
Sometimes you throw yourself into the sea of faith, and
the sharks of doubt come and they devour you. Other times you throw yourself
into the sea of faith only to find the treasure lost in the shipwreck inside
of you! There ain't no guarantees, none of that nonsense like on tv, just gotta
roll the dice, and take your lumps. You're gonna get yourself knocked down,
so better learn to stand back up, for those who dwell on disaster let sorrow
be their master.
Me, I got 10 miles to go on a 9 mile road and it's a rocky rough road, but
I don't care.
'Cause life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer, you keep your head held
high, a'walking and a'talking 'til the power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
The power of Love deliver you there.
My buddy Phillip works as a gas station attendant. Strangers call his name
to him a thousand times a day. They don't know him, they're just asking "Phillip"
for a "fill-up". Funny how fate plays tricks on us...that way---through
the power of Love....
6. Christmas Day
©1999 Jim White
Where in the world did you come from my dear? Did some mysterious voice tell
you I'd still be here? I bought this ticket to Mobile, but I been stranded
all day...p.a. said the bus broke down ten miles away from the station. So
seldom a door...so seldom a key...so seldom a lock like the love between you
and me. But seldom comes happiness without the pain of the devil in the details
since I saw the smile on your face as I was crying in a Greyhound station on
Christmas Day...in 1998.
The burden of love is the fuel of bad grammar. You stutter and stammer--what
a bitch to convey the crux of the matter, when the words you must utter are
hopelessly tangled in the memories and scars you show no one. So seldom a door...so
seldom a key...so seldom a hit like the hurt you put on me. But seldom comes
happiness without the pain of the devil in the details since I saw the smile
on your face as I was crying in a Greyhound station on Christmas Day...in 1998.
I remember quite clearly, a bad Muzak version of James Taylor's big hit, called
"Fire and Rain" was playing as you crouched down and tearfully kissed
me, and I thought, "Damn, what good fiction I will mold from this terrible
pain." So seldom a door...so seldom a key...so seldom a gift like the
gift you gave me. But seldom comes happiness without the pain of the devil
in the details since I saw the smile on your face as I was crying in a Greyhound
station on Christmas Day...in 1998.
Amazing grace, how sweet the smile upon the face I never thought I'd see you
again...especially here in this Greyhound station...on Christmas Day...in 1998.
7. Bound To Forget
©1998 Jim White
Fools wind blowing up brown bible verses. Dust storm of memory. Truck stop
reverie. 3 AM in my home town, not a soul stirring around. Mr. Trucker Man,
don't slow down in this little town. 'Cause I'm traveling faster than the speed
of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget. In the blindness
of being, what I was born seeing I was just plain bound to forget. Yes, I was
just plain bound to forget. Now my tank run dry two hours out of Tucson by
three little crosses on the side of the highway. Still as a box full of busted
watches, I settle debts with the dead and keep right on...I keep on keeping
on. Pedal to the metal on the wide open highway. Criss-cross the high plains
of bright-eyed solitude, I tailgate a truck-load of tabula rasa...'til my mind
go clearer than the highway west of El Paso. Guess I'm traveling faster than
the speed of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget. In the
blindness of being what I was born seeing, I was just plain bound to forget.
Yes I was just plain bound to forget. Now, 24/7 in the end my friend, gotta
go at God's speed, no never relent, lest the soul-sucking, sneaky-deaky, belly-aching
past like a ssssnake in the grasssssssss ssssstrike and bury your assssssss.
So keep your eyes on the prize on the distant horizon. Be wary of the wind
and the bad moon rising. Knowing in your going, somehow, some way, that you'll
out-run your shadow…yes you will, one fine day. 'Cause you're traveling
faster than the speed of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget.
In the blindness of being what I was born seeing I was just plain bound to
forget, yes I was just plain bound to forget.
8. God Was Drunk When
He Made Me
©1998 Jim WhiteJesus and the fiery furnace. Devil and the deep blue sea.
Preacher say I'm gonna burn in hell for all eternity.
But when I have my judgement day and I lock eyes with my savior, well, this
is what I'm gonna tell him when he asks about my behavior...
I'm gonna say;
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
And that's why I'm so crazy.
Jesus and the fiery furnace. Devil and the deep blue sea.
God was drunk when he made me…but that's okay 'cause I forgive Him.
See if it was God who made forgiveness, then before that he musta made sin.
And who built the house of brotherly love, then let the Devil come dancing
in? If it was God that saved the miracle child from the peril of the fiery
flame, well then it musta been him that killed the two hundred others just
to glorify His name.
That's why I say;
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
God was drunk when he made me.
And that's why I spout heresy. Jesus and the fiery furnace, Devil and the deep
blue sea.
God was drunk when he made me but that's okay...'cause I forgive Him.
9. Ghost-town of My
Brain
©1997 Jim White
I like to go out walking in the ghost-town of my brain.
Kick the rusted scrap-iron of my memories and dreams.
Yeah, here's a busted compass...look, the needle's standing still.
Much as some folks hate to lose their way, me, I pray to God that I will.
I got a confession; I never ever had no appetite for pain.
So it's a mystery to me why I like walking in the ghost-town...ghost-town of
my brain.
I'm on a coal train headed south, guess we're bound for Birmingham.
Thick as thieves with a black girl twice as messed-up as I am.
The smile upon her face betrays the sorrow in her heart.
Like the testimony of a fun house mirror that some fool broke apart.
Girl listen here; you're just a leaf caught in God's secret hurricane.
And on this cold and dark wild midnight you are dancing in the ghost-town...ghost-town
of my brain.
Feel them magnets in the shadows? Hear the voice of stranger virtue?
Take no comforts with them specters 'cause you know that they can hurt you.
Sweet mother load of secrets, feed my wild and endless hunger.
Seek the misty trail beyond the veil where the world gets torn asunder.
Gimme needles in the haystacks, Lord and riddles in the rain...'cause I like
to go out walking in the ghost-town...ghost-town of my brain.
10.
Hey! You Going My Way???
©1999 Jim White
Bus stop rain...busted power train...
got a broke down '69 LTD…
I hocked my tools…to buy my brain…
a funeral wreath…from the FTD.
Blank billboards on the highway of life.
Counterfeit bills in the neon lights.
This stick-shift driven saw-dust dream,
show-biz sho' ain't what it seems.
Little hipster dufus with the guitar in a coffin.
I been copping his licks about every so often.
Then I flip-flop, go the other way...
I rip off the dude where the colored girls say;
doo-doo-do-doo-doo-do-doo-doo-do-do-doooo-dooooo
See, I cut my teeth on the white lines of life's endless lonesome highways.
Taking stock in the horizon...
shouting at every fool that come my way---
"HEY!" I been shouting, "HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Are you
going my way?"
"HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Someone gimme a ride!"
but ain't no one going my way.
Now downtown they got the prison of shame.
See the castaways of the Hollywood game?
Tricked out whores with invisible pains.
Cardboard people, dancing in the rain...
to the same old tune, circling like a vulture
with the busted juke-box of the popular culture.
If it ain't got a beat, they won't put you on the street.
Heavy on the bass, light on the feet.
I meet the street poets in the bummed out bars.
I hum my single as I jingle down the "Walk Of Stars"
with the geeks and the freaks and the crooks and the hookers---
the burn-outs of life's pressure cookers.
Now, these are my people, my church without a steeple,
and though I never waste a tissue on an incidental issue,
still I sympathize, 'cause I realize when I see the sorrow in their eyes.
'Cause I cut my teeth on the white lines of life's endless lonesome highways.
Taking stock in the horizon...
shouting at every fool that come my way---
"HEY!" I been shouting, "HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Are you
going my way?"
"HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Someone gimme a ride!"
but ain't no one going my way.
Now in the field of my mind
I’m plowing the topsoil of my memory.
Digging up bones and skeletones---
rusty relics from my past.
Gotta put a new shine on the twists of time,
redefine this old cemetery...
Clear out the weeds, sow new seeds,
sure I'm scared, but still I'm gonna carry on.
'Cause never did a body find their way home
without showing first firm as a stone
the conviction, the strength the courage that it takes
to make a journey start.
For you got to be true, you got to be strong,
'specially when the long road home
leads smack through the smoking ruins of your broken heart.
And I know.
'Cause I cut my teeth on the white lines of life's endless lonesome highway…
Taking stock in the horizon...
shouting at every fool that come my way---
"HEY!" I been shouting, "HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Are you
going my way?"
"HEY! Can you gimme a ride? Someone gimme a ride!"
but ain't no one going my way.
11. Love That Never
Fails
©1998 Jim White
Devils’ tools not hammer, nor nails. Everyone loving feels unnamed fears.
Call them hummingbirds, 'cause the real words no one can say...hey-hey-hey...It's
not why I'm here, it's who I'm with. From baby's breath to the rattle of death...I
seek the love that never fails. I seek the love...the love that never fails.
Oh, beautiful world!
I won't go there. There ain't no room for dreamers in heaven. Silver linings
seldom appear---except in horrible storms. See, it's not why I'm here, it's
who I'm with.
From baby's breath to the Angel of Death I seek the love that never fails.
I seek the love...the love that never fails. Now hope's a tricky...a tricky
little snare. I'm stuck on the corner of "Confused & I Don't Know".
Been waiting for that long, long, long, long overdue ride home. See it's not
why I'm here, it's who I'm with. From baby's breath 'till the final kiss of
death. I seek the love that never fails. I seek the love…the love that
never fails. Jesus and the fiery furnace. Devil and the deep blue sea. God
was drunk when he made me, but that's okay, 'cause I forgive him.
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