Psalm 130

Though great our sins and sore our woes
His grace much more aboundeth;
His helping love no limit knows,
Our utmost need it soundeth.
Our Shepherd good and true is He,
Who will at last His Israel free
From all their sins and sorrows.

-Martin Luther

Cold

The world awaits in barren splendor
For someone to stir the embers

-Bill Mallonnee, "Extreme North of the Compass"

Eschaton

It's gonna be the future soon: I won't always be this way. When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away. -Jonathan Coulton, "The Future Soon"

Love and Science

There's one last thing
I'll tell you if I can
It is not love
That makes a non-stick frying pan
But a top secret trademark conglomerated most likely carcinogenic polyurethane compound spread in a microthin layer over a negatively charged alloy of aluminum, iron, lead, titanium, magnesium, iron, wine, beryllium, geranium, mesopotamian, and some other elements too
And since you're gone
I wish I'd stuck to you

-Josh Ritter, "Science Song" (listen here)

Flowers

Flowers growing out of your desert
Flowers out of parched ground
Flowers coming right up through the cracks
Of the pavement in this old town
Flowering's not a science
It's more like a fine art
Flowers coming right up through the cracks
Of our beat-down,
Burdened,
Broken,
Bruised,
Bloody,
Bastardized,
Besotted,
Bespotted,
Bamboozled,
Little hearts

-Bill Mallonee

Love Like the Movies

So you want to be in love like the movies
But in the movies they're not in love at all
And with a twinkle in their eyes
They're just saying their lines
So we can't be in love like the movies

Now in the movies they make it look so perfect
And in the background they're always playing the right song
And in the ending there's always a resolution
But real life is more than just two hours long

So you want to be in love like the movies
But in the movies they're not in love at all
And with a twinkle in their eyes
They're just saying their lines
So we can't be in love like the movies

Well you can freeze frame any moment from a movie
Or run the whole damn thing backwards from reel to reel
But I don't see one single solitary light technician
Or one single camera in this moonlit field

I don't want to be in love like the movies
Cause in the movies they're not in love at all
With a twinkle in their eyes
They're just saying their lines
So we can't be in love like the movies

-The Avett Brothers

If I Get Murdered in the City

I discovered The Avett Brothers a couple days ago. I like the simplicity of their music...kind of folk-hillbilly-rock. This is an especially nice lyric:

If I get murdered in the city
Don't go revenging in my name
One person dead from such is plenty
No need to go get locked away



The video is nothing fancy - just a couple of guys playing the guitar and singing. But I've watched it four or five times anyway. I love all the close-ups, and the smiles on "I sure did get in lots of trouble" are great.

Simile

I think we all want truth
But truth, it is just like cream
It will rise straight to the top
But not unless you stop stirring it up

-Jonny Rogers, "Jerusalem"

Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight

Something familiar,
Something peculiar,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Something appealing,
Something appalling,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Nothing with kings, nothing with crowns;
Bring on the lovers, liars and clowns!

Old situations,
New complications,
Nothing portentous or polite;
Tragedy tomorrow,
Comedy tonight!

Something convulsive,
Something repulsive,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Something aesthetic,
Something frenetic,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Nothing with gods, nothing with fate;
Weighty affairs will just have to wait!

Nothing that's formal,
Nothing that's normal,
No recitations to recite;
Open up the curtain:
Comedy Tonight!

Something erratic,
Something dramatic,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Frenzy and frolic,
Strictly symbolic,
Something for everyone:
A comedy tonight!

Something familiar,
Something peculiar,
Something for everybody:
Comedy tonight!

Something that's gaudy,
Something that's bawdy--
Something for everybawdy!
Comedy tonight!

Nothing that's grim.
Nothing that's Greek.
She plays Medea later this week.

Stunning surprises!
Cunning disguises!
Hundreds of actors out of sight!
Pantaloons and tunics!
Courtesans and eunuchs!
Funerals and chases!
Baritones and basses!
Panderers!
Philanderers!
Cupidity!
Timidity!
Mistakes!
Fakes!
Rhymes!
Crimes!
Tumblers!
Grumblers!
Bumblers!
Fumblers!

No royal curse, no Trojan horse,
And a happy ending, of course!
Goodness and badness,
Man in his madness--
This time it all turns out all right!
Tragedy tomorrow,
Comedy tonight!

-Stephen Sondheim, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Me and Jiggs

Me and Jiggs staring at the ceiling
The stars above the radar range
Song from a station wagon laying foundations
On the shadows of overpassing planes
I'm feeling good, at seven o'clock
We're gonna drive across the county line
And find Saturday night like an orphan child
That the good days left behind

And I'm not sure we can make it stay
Sun's going down and it's another day

Me and my friends sitting in the park
Drinking beer underneath the trees
Lying on your back as the sun goes down,
You know it's perfect cause you've gotta leave
On a Saturday night in a town like this
I forget all my songs about trains
A bar with a jukebox and you on my arm
Heaven and earth are pretty much the same

And I'm not sure we can make it stay
Sun's going down and its the end of the day

Later on sitting on the porch
Talking like the night could last all night
Like we are all half crazy
And all at least half alright
Sitting on the porch singing Townes Van Zandt
Play guitar to burn off the hours
Till we climb the fences at the edge of town
And paint our names on the water towers

And I'm not sure we can make them stay
Sun's going down at the end of the day

-Josh Ritter

Awakening

Here we are now with the falling sky and the rain,
We're awakening
Here we are now with the desperate youth in pain,
We're awakening
Maybe it's called ambition, but you've been talking in your sleep
About a dream
We're awakening

-Switchfoot

Moonbeams

Moonlight be a friend tonight
We're all wrecked up on these dreams
Holding on a bit too tight
I've got splinters from these moonbeams
If it seems we're falling down
If it seems we're falling through
Darlin' you know that is nothing
Darlin' you know that is nothing new

-Bill Mallonee, "You Know That (is Nothing New)"

Sometimes by Step

Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hot
There was so much work left to do
But so much you'd already done

Sometimes I think of Abraham
How one star he saw had been lit for me
He was a stranger in this land
And I am that, no less than he
And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond your reach

Oh God, you are my God
And I will ever praise you
I will seek you in the morning
And I will learn to walk in your ways
And step by step you'll lead me
And I will follow you all of my days

-Rich Mullins and Beaker

Goodnight Moon #6

The moon belongs to everyone,
The best things in life are free.
The stars belong to everyone,
They gleam there for you and me.

-Buddy De Sylia and Lew Brown

Goodnight Moon #5

Honorable Moon, I look to you,
Honorable Moon, as lovers do.

-Ira Gershwin

Goodnight Moon #4

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silvery shoon.

-Walter De La Mare

Goodnight Moon #3

Your silvery beams
Will bring love dreams,
We'll be cuddling soon,
By the light of the silvery moon.

-Edward Madden

Goodnight Moon #2

Night and Day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.

-Cole Porter

Goodnight Moon #1

There's a long, long trail awinding into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing and a white moon beams.

-Stoddard King

When the Ship Comes In

Oh the time will come up when the wind will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathing
Like a stillness in the wind 'fore the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in
Oh the seas will split and the ship will hit
And the sand on the shoreline will be shaking
And the tide will sound and the waves will pound
And the morning will be breaking

Oh the fishes will laugh as they swim out of the path
And the seagulls, they'll be smiling
And the rocks on the sand will proudly stand
The hour that the ship comes in
And the words that are used for to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they're spoken
For the chains of the sea will have busted in the night
And be buried on the bottom of the ocean

Oh a song will lift as the mains'l shifts
And the boat drifts onto the shoreline
And the sun will respect every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in
And the sands will roll out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touching
And the ship's wise men will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watching

Oh the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes
And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreaming
But they'll pinch themselves and squeal and they'll know that it's for real
The hour that the ship comes in
And they'll raise their hands saying we'll meet all your demands
But we'll shout from the bow, your days are numbered
And like Pharaoh's tribe they'll be drowned in the tide
And like Goliath they'll be conquered

-Bob Dylan