@ALBUM: Wishing Like A Mountain and Thinking Like the Sea Poi Dog Pondering @SONG: Bury Me Deep ---- -- ---- A lifetime of accomplishments of which the dirt knows none, only in death can one truly return Return the carrots, the apples and potatoes, The chickens, the cows, the fish and tomatoes. In one glorious swoop, let the deed be done and bury me deep so that I can be one... And all around my muscle and all around my bone, don't incinerate me or seal me from the dirt which bore me, the bed that which from the rain falls upon and the fruit comes from For the dirt is a blanket, no fiery tomb, No punishment, reward, or pearly white room And you who say that in death we will pay, The dead they can't hear a word that you say Your words are not kind, sober or giving, they only put fear in the hearts of the living So put away your tongues and roll up your sleeves, and pick up your shovel and bury me deep. @SONG: Watermelon Song ---------- ---- Wishing like a mountain and thinking like the sea How it is to feel absolutely free (The simplest things so hard to achieve) I want to be your watermelon, let me sing into your radio Let me be the yeast inside your bread, let me be the new thought inside your head Here in this room, where the cost of light and heat are such a distraction from the things we really need Love is everything and everything's a distraction @SONG: U Li La Lu - -- -- -- You should wear with pride the scars on your skin They're a map of the adventures and the places you've been "Praise God," he said lifting his drink. "And the devil too!" you said with a wink. Hey Woody Guthrie! Hey Marc Chagall! There's far too many of you to thank you all But I wanna talk about the gift that you gave I'm so happy about the gift that you gave! (A friend of mine once said.... "If you're ever around when someone dies, look up and wave, they'll get a big kick out of it.") If I should die in a car wreck, may I have Van Morrison on my tape deck. @SONG: Everybody's Trying ----------- ------ I know you're bitter, but why? Don't you know that two wrongs don't make a right? It's not that simple But everybody's trying to figure it out I feel so detached today, I don't konw It's not that simple, It's not that simple It's all that we can do to try and work it on out. @SONG: Big Beautiful Spoon --- --------- ----- Wrap around me and curl, you big beautiful spoon The thought of your touch and smell just makes me swoon When you lay me down, my heart is still as a pond Together like two spoons until dawn. Sometimes I live in the past, I know that it's true I'm romantic to melancholy, you know that's true too. The past is a shoe box of old songs and photographs, I dig in and wade through, I learn from my past. I'm helpless and doomed, sad and ashamed The mistakes that I've made, will I make them again? Feet are made for walking, and hands are made for love, And for the longing and the lonely, the moon and stars shine above. Well there's a time and a place, a river and a bridge, a kitchen and a hallway, a stove and a fridge. A clock on the wall, and there's a telephone call, songs to be sung, and work to be done. Well you rub two sticks together and sparks start a fire, and I'm longing and I'm lonely, and for you I desire. @SONG: The Ancient Egyptians --- ------- --------- (A Love Letter to Jonathan Richman) Well the Ancient Egyptians, and the other Africans The Mayans, the Incas, and all the Polynesians. All around the world, a long long time ago, People would walk, where ever they had to go. They didn't have car keys, and they didn't have roads -- They didn't have those ugly convenience stores, or Texacos In fact, all around the world, a long long time ago, people would walk, where ever they had to go. Well now it's the 1990's, and the gasoline does flow, but I still try and walk most of the places I have to go But sometimes my friends will stop and say, "Hey Frank! There's a bus or a cab over there... Why don't we go ahead and get in it?" But I say no, no, no, and didn't you know, you get to know things better when they go by slow. @SONG: Spending the Day in the Shirt that you Wore -------- --- --- -- --- ----- ---- --- ---- Oh the days of wine and roses and the rubbing of noses Bare feet, new sprouts, and garden hoses. Skipping stones, while skipping home... "Look at that tree, it's got a brand new leaf!" Candle light, candle light -- for no reason Eating fresh fruit when it's in season. Take an aimless drive behind a motor wheel Sticking fingers on paintings to see the way they feel! Spending the day in the shirt that you wore I can sense your presence from the day before... @SONG: Thanksgiving ------------ Somehow I find myself far out of line from the ones I had drawn Wasn't the best of paths, you could attest to that, but I'm keeping on. Would our paths cross if every great loss had turned out our gain? Would our paths cross if the pain it had cost us was paid in vain? There was no pot of gold, hardly a rainbow lighting my way But I will be true to the red, black and blues that colored those days. I owe my soul to each fork in the road, each misleading sign. 'Cause even in solitude, no bitter attitude can dissolve my sweetest find Thanksgiving for every wrong move that made it right. @SONG: Praise the Lord ------ --- ---- "Praise the lord," he said to me, and he seemed quite happy, he seemed quite happy, and I said, "yeah" Cause I was just down at the sea, and it occurred to me that I like to feel it knock me down, twist and throw and churn me around 'cause it's Mother Ocean, and I'm just one of her sons. And she can do just what she wants to me, and I know she does nothing purposely. I must respect, that goes unsaid, but it's all just a twist of fate. And I know about heaven's gate, because I've seen it but not up close, and I know it ain't no pearly white, and I know that I'll be nothing there, just food for fish and twisting worms, but that's just fine with me, 'cause when I'm being tossed by the sea, I can feel a force greater than misery, greater than my stupid job, greater than our stupid bomb, and a time comes to mind a time without complexity. So don't tell me about the land of Nod, where we are supposed to sit at the right hand of God, where the lion will lay down with the lamb, because you know damn well he'll eat him if he can. The lion doesn't want to be pacified by promises of an endless life 'cause he knows it's not that way -- he's not detached, he sees it everyday: the birth, the death, and the decay. And he accepts and says it's okay -- he would eat us for our elitist ways. @SONG: The Me That Was Your Son --- -- ---- --- ---- --- Mother, you have been dead now for six years And in the years since then, I have grown to know my father, and this makes me happy. Do you know that you two are so different? And I wish I remembered the two of you together, but all I have are photos of them, and they tell me a lot, but only in the way that a smell reminds you of a time long gone. This makes me sad, my friends don't know the you then, nor have they ever met the me that was your son. Mother, when I'm in my memory of you, I meet again the me that was your son, and he is a stranger, but so are you. But Mamma, one cannot live in the past. Everyday brings new decisions, new sadness and new joy. @SONG: Fruitless --------- I could walk away, I could let this fly go back home and start again -- Fruitless I have faith in how things seem to start again, that tale of your one big chance is a lie, told by consumed men. And I push, and I push to not give in I don't recall a place that I would call the end But things are different now I know and that was then. I could walk away, I've been pushing for so long, All dried up and sap sucked thin -- Fruitless And I push, and I push to not give in @SONG: Big Walk --- ---- Take a trip 'round this great big world There are many things that I've never seen, many places that I've never been but I'd like to. Global Village, under one sun, that means one for all and all for one. This great big world is for everyone. India, Africa, Canada, and Thailand too. Afghanistan, Australia, Tahiti and Russia, too. Suniva's way up in Canada, we wanna know "What's it like?" There is no nationalism, there is no sole religion Those are ideals of the past, they don't work here anymore. @SONG: Sugarbush Cushman --------- ------- Sugarbush Cushman lived by the Ruud pond Way up north in Barre Vermont Way up high where the maple trees grow, she says "I'm from Vermont and I loves the snow." In her floppy french cap, seated beneath the maple tree, drinking down the sap, not a care in the world cause it's all in her hands as she throws her head back. Married by the minister, her mother made the cake, and her husband played the drums in a big dance band, and they could take the six dollars they made everynight and keep them in hot food in her cast iron pan.