A stranger's tune

A memory; elusive, yet still floating past me

Past time and past space, past selves, now strangers

The strangers that follow me won’t go if I follow them too

It's poison, poured into the songs that get stuck inside my head

A stranger's tune —hauntingly sad —a minor kind of sad —Townes Van Zandt waiting around to die kind of sad

Rest, lover

You screamed while you tried to rest, as he tried to hold back what led 

You travelled somewhere deep, left not a trace of sanity 

“This isn’t something we could’ve changed,”  he said 

“For things just go even if you latch on so, you better rest now;

rest in a bed where you'll feel something other than regret"

 

Next to you an old  lover, next to you a friend

“Weakness,” he says, “isn’t leading you on,”

“the panic,” he says, “doesn’t have to be feeding on you at all”

You say it’s good to see him and that he’s been on your mind

That the time is going faster, the longer you live your life

A quick sorry for the hassle and and a thank for the kiss

It’s boring the both you  —this  is all there is

 

Though you feel like you stand between his life and your dreams 

You ask if there’s someone, and if so what she means to him

“What it means,” he says, “is that  all of these times we go on living,

so you take your love, you chin up, feel handless, but face on” 

 

As you try and let go, it must feel heavy on your shoulders

You must feel like there’s something huge hovering over you

But he  says that  there's absolutely nothing  that you need,

absolutely nothing that you have to be, 

so you better rest now lover, rest

Don’t take the doubt back to bed

From the river to the sea

Early one morning as the sun began to rise,

smoke came running down the hill,

children screaming loud

 

"Tell us now, tell us now

what part of us they’re burning

Our houses already torn to the ground

Tell us now, tell us now

what part of us they’re struggling with

Free we are, so they say

while flushing our ashes down the drain

the concept goes; nobody’s free until we all are"

 

Early one afternoon as the wind came flooding in,

chances big and small, 

made youth wake up again

 

"Tell us now, tell us now

what part of us they want to fit

Our future already, for us decided

Tell us now, tell us now

what part of us needs alteration 

To match the standard of good behaviour

Well, norm-ally we would think twice baby

Cause it ain’t alright the way it is"

 

Later one evening as the clouds began to merge,

golden rain came pouring down,

grown ups use fancy words

 

"Tell us now, tell us now

what part of us they’re buying

Our souls already sold to the money industry

Tell us now, tell us now

what part of the world they’re censoring

melodies of a moaning mass and the sound of the market 

crashing into, crashing on our couches"

 

Late that night the old olive tree firmly stood placed,

while outside the innocent

got bombed away

 

"Shall I tell you now, tell you now

What happens if the lies won’t hold

The corrupt, the brainwashed, all the broken hearts

Should tell you all, tell you all you need to know

Even if the truth won’t be told

Keep watching wide-eyed, over those innocent souls

No one would believe, but we will remember"

That each morning, afternoon, evening  

The sun, the wind, the clouds, the trees 

The children, youth, the masses, and we 

Sung, from the river to the sea"