100 Songs Page 11

Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men

  Wasn’t any difference to me

  Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade

  House on fire, debts unpaid

  Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid

  Have you seen dignity?

  Drinkin’ man listens to the voice he hears

  In a crowded room full of covered-up mirrors

  Lookin’ into the lost forgotten years

  For dignity

  Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues

  Said he’d give me information if his name wasn’t used

  He wanted money up front, said he was abused

  By dignity

  Footprints runnin’ ’cross the silver sand

  Steps goin’ down into tattoo land

  I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light

  In the bordertowns of despair

  Got no place to fade, got no coat

  I’m on the rollin’ river in a jerkin’ boat

  Tryin’ to read a note somebody wrote

  About dignity

  Sick man lookin’ for the doctor’s cure

  Lookin’ at his hands for the lines that were

  And into every masterpiece of literature

  For dignity

  Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind

  Combin’ his hair back, his future looks thin

  Bites the bullet and he looks within

  For dignity

  Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed

  Dignity never been photographed

  I went into the red, went into the black

  Into the valley of dry bone dreams

  So many roads, so much at stake

  So many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake

  Sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take

  To find dignity

  SERIES OF DREAMS

  I was thinking of a series of dreams

  Where nothing comes up to the top

  Everything stays down where it’s wounded

  And comes to a permanent stop

  Wasn’t thinking of anything specific

  Like in a dream, when someone wakes up and screams

  Nothing too very scientific

  Just thinking of a series of dreams

  Thinking of a series of dreams

  Where the time and the tempo fly

  And there’s no exit in any direction

  ’Cept the one that you can’t see with your eyes

  Wasn’t making any great connection

  Wasn’t falling for any intricate scheme

  Nothing that would pass inspection

  Just thinking of a series of dreams

  Dreams where the umbrella is folded

  Into the path you are hurled

  And the cards are no good that you’re holding

  Unless they’re from another world

  In one, numbers were burning

  In another, I witnessed a crime

  In one, I was running, and in another

  All I seemed to be doing was climb

  Wasn’t looking for any special assistance

  Not going to any great extremes

  I’d already gone the distance

  Just thinking of a series of dreams

  BORN IN TIME

  In the lonely night

  In the blinking stardust of a pale blue light

  You’re comin’ thru to me in black and white

  When we were made of dreams

  You’re blowing down the shaky street

  You’re hearing my heart beat

  In the record-breaking heat

  Where we were born in time

  Not one more night, not one more kiss

  Not this time baby, no more of this

  Takes too much skill, takes too much will

  It’s revealing

  You came, you saw, just like the law

  You married young, just like your ma

  You tried and tried, you made me slide

  You left me reelin’ with this feelin’

  On the rising curve

  Where the ways of nature will test every nerve

  You won’t get anything you don’t deserve

  Where we were born in time

  You pressed me once, you pressed me twice

  You hang the flame, you’ll pay the price

  Oh babe, that fire

  Is still smokin’

  You were snow, you were rain

  You were striped, you were plain

  Oh babe, truer words

  Have not been spoken or broken

  In the hills of mystery

  In the foggy web of destiny

  You can have what’s left of me

  Where we were born in time

  STANDING IN THE DOORWAY

  I’m walking through the summer nights

  Jukebox playing low

  Yesterday everything was going too fast

  Today, it’s moving too slow

  I got no place left to turn

  I got nothing left to burn

  Don’t know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you

  It probably wouldn’t matter to you anyhow

  You left me standing in the doorway crying

  I got nothing to go back to now

  The light in this place is so bad

  Making me sick in the head

  All the laughter is just making me sad

  The stars have turned cherry red

  I’m strumming on my gay guitar

  Smoking a cheap cigar

  The ghost of our old love has not gone away

  Don’t look like it will anytime soon

  You left me standing in the doorway crying

  Under the midnight moon

  Maybe they’ll get me and maybe they won’t

  But not tonight and it won’t be here

  There are things I could say but I don’t

  I know the mercy of God must be near

  I’ve been riding the midnight train

  Got ice water in my veins

  I would be crazy if I took you back

  It would go up against every rule

  You left me standing in the doorway crying

  Suffering like a fool

  When the last rays of daylight go down

  Buddy, you’ll roll no more

  I can hear the church bells ringing in the yard

  I wonder who they’re ringing for

  I know I can’t win

  But my heart just won’t give in

  Last night I danced with a stranger

  But she just reminded me you were the one

  You left me standing in the doorway crying

  In the dark land of the sun

  I’ll eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m dry

  And live my life on the square

  And even if the flesh falls off of my face

  I know someone will be there to care

  It always means so much

  Even the softest touch

  I see nothing to be gained by any explanation

  There are no words that need to be said

  You left me standing in the doorway crying

  Blues wrapped around my head

  TRYIN’ TO GET TO HEAVEN

  The air is getting hotter

  There’s a rumbling in the skies

  I’ve been wading through the high muddy water

  With the heat rising in my eyes

  Every day your memory grows dimmer

  It doesn’t haunt me like it did before

  I’ve been walking through the middle of nowhere

  Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

  When I was in Missouri

  They would not let me be

  I had to leave there in a hurry

  I only saw what they let me see

  You broke a heart that loved you

  Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore

  I’ve
been walking that lonesome valley

  Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

  People on the platforms

  Waiting for the trains

  I can hear their hearts a-beatin’

  Like pendulums swinging on chains

  I tried to give you everything

  That your heart was longing for

  I’m just going down the road feeling bad

  Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

  I’m going down the river

  Down to New Orleans

  They tell me everything is gonna be all right

  But I don’t know what “all right” even means

  I was riding in a buggy with Miss Mary-Jane

  Miss Mary-Jane got a house in Baltimore

  I been all around the world, boys

  Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door

  Gonna sleep down in the parlor

  And relive my dreams

  I’ll close my eyes and I wonder

  If everything is as hollow as it seems

  When you think that you’ve lost everything

  You find out you can always lose a little more

  I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down

  Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door

  MAKE YOU FEEL MY LOVE

  When the rain is blowing in your face

  And the whole world is on your case

  I could offer you a warm embrace

  To make you feel my love

  When the evening shadows and the stars appear

  And there is no one there to dry your tears

  I could hold you for a million years

  To make you feel my love

  I know you haven’t made your mind up yet

  But I would never do you wrong

  I’ve known it from the moment that we met

  No doubt in my mind where you belong

  I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue

  I’d go crawling down the avenue

  There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do

  To make you feel my love

  The storms are raging on the rollin’ sea

  And on the highway of regret

  Put your hand in mine and come with me

  I’ll see that you don’t get wet

  I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

  Nothing that I wouldn’t do

  Go to the ends of the earth for you

  To make you feel my love

  HIGHLANDS

  Well my heart’s in the Highlands, gentle and fair

  Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air

  Bluebells blazing where the Aberdeen waters flow

  Well my heart’s in the Highlands

  I’m gonna go there when I feel good enough to go

  Windows were shakin’ all night in my dreams

  Everything was exactly the way that it seems

  Woke up this morning and I looked at the same old page

  Same ol’ rat race

  Life in the same ol’ cage

  I don’t want nothing from anyone, ain’t that much to take

  Wouldn’t know the difference between a real blonde and a fake

  Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery

  I wish someone would come

  And push back the clock for me

  Well my heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam

  That’s where I’ll be when I get called home

  The wind, it whispers to the buck-eyed trees in rhyme

  Well my heart’s in the Highlands

  I can only get there one step at a time

  I’m listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound

  Someone’s always yelling turn it down

  Feel like I’m drifting

  Drifting from scene to scene

  I’m wondering what in the devil could it all possibly mean?

  Insanity is smashing up against my soul

  You can say I was on anything but a roll

  If I had a conscience, well, I just might blow my top

  What would I do with it anyway

  Maybe take it to the pawn shop

  My heart’s in the Highlands at the break of dawn

  By the beautiful lake of the Black Swan

  Big white clouds like chariots that swing down low

  Well my heart’s in the Highlands

  Only place left to go

  I’m in Boston town, in some restaurant

  I got no idea what I want

  Well, maybe I do but I’m just really not sure

  Waitress comes over

  Nobody in the place but me and her

  It must be a holiday, there’s nobody around

  She studies me closely as I sit down

  She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs

  She says, “What’ll it be?”

  I say, “I don’t know, you got any soft boiled eggs?”

  She looks at me, says, “I’d bring you some

  But we’re out of ’m, you picked the wrong time to come”

  Then she says, “I know you’re an artist, draw a picture of me!”

  I say, “I would if I could, but

  I don’t do sketches from memory”

  “Well,” she says, “I’m right here in front of you, or haven’t you looked?”

  I say, “All right, I know, but I don’t have my drawing book!”

  She gives me a napkin, she says, “You can do it on that”

  I say, “Yes I could, but

  I don’t know where my pencil is at!”

  She pulls one out from behind her ear

  She says, “All right now, go ahead, draw me, I’m standing right here”

  I make a few lines and I show it for her to see

  Well she takes the napkin and throws it back

  And says, “That don’t look a thing like me!”

  I said, “Oh, kind Miss, it most certainly does”

  She says, “You must be jokin’.” I say, “I wish I was!”

  Then she says, “You don’t read women authors, do you?”

  Least that’s what I think I hear her say

  “Well,” I say, “how would you know and what would it matter anyway?”

  “Well,” she says, “you just don’t seem like you do!”

  I said, “You’re way wrong”

  She says, “Which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”

  She goes away for a minute

  And I slide up out of my chair

  I step outside back to the busy street but nobody’s going anywhere

  Well my heart’s in the Highlands with the horses and hounds

  Way up in the border country, far from the towns

  With the twang of the arrow and a snap of the bow

  My heart’s in the Highlands

  Can’t see any other way to go

  Every day is the same thing out the door

  Feel further away than ever before

  Some things in life, it gets too late to learn

  Well, I’m lost somewhere

  I must have made a few bad turns

  I see people in the park forgetting their troubles and woes

  They’re drinking and dancing, wearing bright-colored clothes

  All the young men with their young women looking so good

  Well, I’d trade places with any of them

  In a minute, if I could

  I’m crossing the street to get away from a mangy dog

  Talking to myself in a monologue

  I think what I need might be a full-length leather coat

  Somebody just asked me

  If I registered to vote

  The sun is beginning to shine on me

  But it’s not like the sun that used to be

  The party’s over and there’s less and less to say

  I got new eyes

  Everything looks far away

&nbs
p; Well, my heart’s in the Highlands at the break of day

  Over the hills and far away

  There’s a way to get there and I’ll figure it out somehow

  But I’m already there in my mind

  And that’s good enough for now

  THINGS HAVE CHANGED

  A worried man with a worried mind

  No one in front of me and nothing behind

  There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne

  Got white skin, blood in my eyes

  I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies

  I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train

  Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose

  Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose

  People are crazy and times are strange

  I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

  I used to care, but things have changed

  This place ain’t doing me any good

  I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood

  Just for a second there I thought I saw something move

  Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag

  Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag

  Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove

  Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too

  Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through

  People are crazy and times are strange

  I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

  I used to care, but things have changed

  I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road

  If the Bible is right, the world will explode

  I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can

  Some things are too hot to touch

  The human mind can only stand so much

  You can’t win with a losing hand

  Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet

  Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street

  People are crazy and times are strange

  I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

  I used to care, but things have changed

  I hurt easy, I just don’t show it

  You can hurt someone and not even know it

  The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity

  Gonna get low down, gonna fly high

  All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie

  I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me

  Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake

  I’m not that eager to make a mistake

  People are crazy and times are strange

  I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range

  I used to care, but things have changed