Original Song Lyrics
BORN AGAIN (aka The Morrill’s Corner Song)
Early in the morning, you start the car.
It’s dark, your breathing shows, the cold is hard.
You scrape off the ice, you brush off the snow,
And you check your pockets before you go.
Miracle of miracles and then,
Everyday you ride again.
Down the same old street you ride every day,
The cold has turned the blacktop chalky grey.
Same lights, same signs, same tracks, same lines, per usual,
But today, so mundane they’re beautiful.
Miracle of miracles and then,
Everyday you drive again,
Everyday you dream again.
Yes, you know it’s true,
The sun comes up in you,
Everyday shining through,
Your new life comes in view,
Just the way you want it to,
And you cannot deny
It’s almost made you cry,
It’s true, this sense of new.
So, baby, when I say I’ll change, I’ll change,
Though I might be the hardest case in Maine.
Same flaws, faux pas, taking all the same spills,
But, baby, when I say I’ll change, I will.
Because miracle of miracles and then,
Everyday you try again,
Everyday you rise again,
Everyday you’re born again.
Stuart W. Tisdale, Jr.
WHEN HE THINKS OF HER AND SHE THINKS OF HIM
When he thinks of her
And she thinks of him
They feel so high up off the earth
They live above the rim.
When he thinks of her
And she thinks of him
They feel so high up off the earth
They live above the rim.
Like stones across water
They’re spirits skim,
When he thinks of her
And she thinks of him.
When he looks at her
And she looks at him
They want to climb on each other
Just like a jungle gym.
When he looks at her
And she looks at him
They want to climb on each other
Just like a jungle gym.
Their eyes are vessels
Poured to the brim
When he thinks of her
And she thinks of him.
In-love’s an aberrant state,
Unusual as desert rain.
Lucky us, we’d never survive,
The passionate all gone insane.
All gone insane,
All gone insane.
When she misses him,
And he misses her
They want the sun to rise
And set a little faster.
When she misses him,
And he misses her
They want the sun to rise
And set a little faster.
Like fractions
Of an integer,
She misses him,
And he misses her.
When he thinks of her
And she thinks of him
They feel so high up off the earth
They live above the rim . . . .
Stuart W. Tisdale, Jr.
PAY ATTENTION
Weather’s gettin’ freaky,
Storms are more severe,
Icecap is melting,
As if the end is near;
And bad things wash up,
Look how we’re soiling the ocean.
There’s a point of no return,
I’m starting to pay attention.
The nation is divided,
Wealth and not so much.
A few make a killing
The rest of us can’t touch.
Good jobs, they won’t go begging,
One often hardly pays a living.
They might be selling a bridge in Brooklyn,
I’m starting to pay attention.
Maybe I should just roll over,
Fix me up a fine escape.
And when I’m done dreaming of four-leaf clover,
The world will be in better shape,
The world will be in better shape.
Mapped by algorithms,
What I think I need,
I can hear the echo
Feeding back what I believe.
I always learn something
From a mutual conversation.
I always hear when I listen,
I’m starting to pay attention.
The times, they are uncertain,
And from out of the fog
Come the delusions
Of the ideologue.
I don’t think I ever had one,
And I hope I never get one,
But lots of people do.
I’m starting to pay attention.
Maybe I should just roll over,
Leave the thinking to Santa’s elves.
In the land of the self-cleaning oven
Problems should take care of themselves,
Problems should take care of themselves.
We got a lot of problems,
Bad ones getting worse.
America’s a blessing,
America’s a curse.
But either way we’re in deep,
Somebody’s got to get it done,
We’re all so used to being lied to,
I’m starting to pay attention.
I’m turning off my Survivor,
I’m starting to pay attention.
I’m turning down the Game of the Week,
I”m starting to pay attention.
Pay attention.
Pay attention.
HOLLYWOOD
His street name, it was Hollywood.
Most days he didn’t do so good.
He roamed the streets a homeless man
Since the noise in his head began.
For schizophrenia ran his life
Down the edge of a rusted knife.
His second home, a county jail,
He was not quite too big to fail.
One day a stranger says to him,
“Woody, man, you are looking thin,
I’ll bet you’d like a Happy Meal.
I’ll buy you one, but here’s the deal.
“See the man in that rusted van?
Put this package into his hand,
And since nothing in life is free
You bring his money here to me.”
Hollywood, Hollywood,
Never did a deal seem so good.
Hollywood, Hollywood,
Nor a man pay more than he should.
Woody, he did not understand,
He came back with an empty hand.
The stranger rapped him on the temple,
“Woody, man, you’re dumb and simple.
“Get back there and get me my bread.”
But the man in van was a fed.
Crack cocaine brings a lot of pain,
And Woody left the street in chain.
Hollywood, Hollywood,
Never did a deal seem so good.
Hollywood, Hollywood,
Nor a man pay more than he should.
Federal court is a place of fear;
The Guidelines gave him twenty years.
All his rights of appeal were tried.
On Good Friday, “Appeal denied.”
“As you do to the least of mine,”
Would that were the sentence guideline,
But on the day that Jesus died
Another lamb was crucified.
Hollywood, Hollywood,
Never did a deal seem so good.
Hollywood, Hollywood,
Nor a man pay more than he should.
Stuart W. Tisdale, Jr.
RECORDLAND
Growing up, we all bought records
At a place down off Congress Square.
From obscure to Chubby Checker,
Ruthie had the titles all there.
Stax, Atlantic, London, Blue Note,
The labels with all the hip bands.
There was no better place to go
Than the trove down at Recordland.
I was living, trying my hand,
In Recordland, learning in Recordland.
Where you could always land a travelin’ band,
In Recordland, living in Recordland.
How many times stop in the store
Just because we were walking by,
Slip in on the checkerboard floor
With no means or money to buy.
Lift an album out of a bin
And turn it over in your hand.
Just might be the way you begin
Your next hour stuck in Recordland.
I was living, studying bands,
In Recordland, learning in Recordland.
Where you might be taken, not by the hand,
But by the hand-hand, in Recordland-land.
Now you buy songs with a keystroke
Down from the Cloud in a dry rain.
Nothing to peel or press or poke,
Like you broke the cellophane.
Time to time I saved some money
And when I reached that magic sum,
I would run like Pooh to honey
To buy a new record album.
Might be the Beatles or the Stones
Or some group whose jacket I liked.
There were so many good unknowns
It almost always worked out right.
I was living, learning my hand,
In Recordland, digging in Recordland.
Where the Do-Dah Man just might play his hand,
In Recordland, trucking in Recordland.
And even funky railroads seemed quite grand,
In Recordland, dreaming in Recordland.
And you’d bounce back, like a rubber band man,
In Recordland, living in Rec . . . Rec. . . Rec . . . Recordland.
Stuart Tisdale
FINEST KIND
I can settle for a small town,
The quiet life won’t let me down.
I can settle for a back street
Far from where the in crowds meet.
I can settle for paying rent
To read my books and pitch my tent.
I can be blase where I stay,
Since I don’t live there anyway.
I live in my mind,
That’s how I’m designed.
I live in my mind,
And I aim to find
One of humankind
Who will meet my mind,
And together bind
In the finest kind.
I can settle for some old clothes,
Holes in my socks, nobody knows.
I can settle for a pair of shoes,
Save me the pain of having to choose.
I’m good with my old Harris tweed,
The only coat I’ll ever need.
I could care less what I wear,
With no designs on anywhere.
I live in my mind,
That’s how I’m designed.
I live in my mind,
And I aim to find
One of human kind
Who will meed my mind,
And together bind,
In the finest kind.
I’m all in, it’s all or nothing
In the way I want to be loved.
There’s no splitting the baby,
In the way I want to be loved.
It’s just the way, the way it is,
The way I want to be loved;
And you may lay the same on me.
I can settle for a used car,
You know it gets me just as far.
And I’m good with my old device,
In lieu of the latest merchandise.
I’ll go easy on restaurants,
One good pan cooks all I want.
I don’t live for consumer goods,
I’m in a different neighborhood.
I live in my mind,
That’s how I’m designed.
I live in my mind,
And I aim to find
One of humankind
Who will meet my mind,
And together bind,
In the finest kind.
And forever bind,
In the finest kind.
Stuart Tisdale
ONE-HIT-WONDER DREAM
If we could get the band together just one week
Rent a house in the country and bring all the gear.
We could probably get a rate at the ‘Loaf off peak,
Play a lot of music, drink a lot of beer.
Think of all the songs we could write,
Think of all the covers we could learn
We’ll come away playing so tight.
We’ll be a kick-ass band when we return.
We’ll be a kick-ass band when we return,
Next we’ll find a way to play our own stuff at gigs.
Mix them in with the covers that consitute the show.
Get the dancers primed with the hits every party digs.
Then work in one of ours just to see how it flows,
And if it carries on with the beat,
If it feels like it belongs,
The proof will be in the feet
And we’ll know if we have ourselves a song,
Yeah, we just might have ourselves a hit song.
Ooo, so beautiful, you’re in a one-hit-wonder dream.
Ooo, so beautiful. Caution, objects are farther than they seem.
Next we’ll find a way to land ourselves a tour bus,
Take a couple/three weeks off and play on a tour.
Our lives and wives will be here at home behind us
As we live a little dream, rockers to the core.
On the road we’ll find our stride,
We’ll be a band on the run.
We’ll rock out on the Great Divide,
California, here we come.
We’ll be so good when we get done.
Ooo, so beautiful, you’re in a one-hit-wonder dream.
Ooo, so beautiful. Caution, objects are farther than they seem.
We’ll keep doing our thing till the final sound check
Maybe play out on an old folks’ Caribbean cruise.
Old hippies and hard-hats, soul brothers and rednecks,
Rocking the waters to a generation’s muse.
And one night late in the set,
We’ll all go down with the ship,
And even as the rockers get wet,
We’ll have our guitars on our hips,
Yeah, we’ll keep playing as she tips,
“Sugar pie honey-bunch” on our lips,
“G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloria!” on our lips.
Ooo, so beautiful. You’re in a one-hit-wonder dream.
Ooo, so beautiful. Caution, objects are farther than they seem.
Let your dreams be so . . . .