Song #16: The River

When one allows the Tabla, a delay pedal, and an unbroken lyrical stream of consciousness to collide the result is... The River. I believe that this song symbolizes a new step on this journey- it was a rare occurrence during the writing of these vocals that I referred to the schizophrenic whispers of perceived popular opinion... I basically did not even consider what might "sound good" on this track, I just wrote. It was a playful and honest experience... It really does feels like a sacred event to write something entirely for oneself but to share it with others... thanks for eavesdropping :)




Song Title: The River
Song Length: 3:30
Contributions: The Screaming Room
Lyrics:

He said go when the captain said stay,
Now he's standing outside in the pouring rain,
But the Rain ain’t nothing but a river that strays,
And no river gonna wash him away.

And it better be I,
God damn it better be I...

Back to the paint can,

They scream like knives on canvas,
Carve Starry Nights like god then Gogh,
Keep Ear to the ground keep down,
Keep low like hopes in average homes.

And hope stands close to the well where the wishers go to wish in their Sunday clothes,
Little ones get grabbed by hope get tossed down the well when they get too close.

Oh hope you sexy harlot,
Please let our people go,
Tie the head of hope to my horse and the war-cry sounds like “OM”.

The incense is undressing itself, exposing its core revealed only by fire.
I dreamt a dream and it smelled of sandalwood.
It's ghost dancing like a strand of silk caught in a
Breeze, breeze,
We moved our feet, feet,
Like tin soldiers marching through a restless stream, stream.
I cant breathe, breathe,
No I cant breath, breathe,
There's something sitting on my chest that I cant see, see.

There's always angels at the bottom if you're willing to drown,
There's nothings new under the sun except all that above ground.
So I’m inventing the wheel from an old wheel that I found,

Voila

Gotta be, gotta-be, caught in the auto-dream,
I gotta a key to the cottage economy,
Calling me, Calling me, demanding all of me,
Slipping the dream beneath welcome-mat-ology,

Go, go,
and take your stones, stones,
I'm tired of feeling claustrophobic while at home alone,
They said roam, roam.
Within this zone, zone.
So I throw words into the night- follow the tone, tone.

Now I’ve got methods beyond magic that I use to deceive.
I've got a rabbit in my hat here and an ace up my sleeve,
I try make myself disappear each Saturday eve,
But it takes more than homemade vino to get my ego to leave.

So I breathe.

Stand to the sound of screams,
This rooms only got one key,
This wombs got a spot for me.
Bare floor begging for bare feet.
Now let a man sing off key,
Misspell every word he speaks,
Let laughter collide with grief,
Let reality collide with dreams.
Let me go mad, Mad,
Let me go mad, mad,
Let me explore each inch of suffering and laugh, laugh,
Let me go ja dra
Let me go spa bla
Let me just speak in my own language like gla ga gla.

So many pages of poems.
So many words pushed into existence by life-scented hands,
Calloused from hard work with delicate mediums.
Words that will not halt the passage of time or lunge steel rods deeply into the grinding gears of perennial change...
We write... and the restless train of progress screams through the night,
pushing up and down the same familiar tracks like an industrial age Sisyphus who speaks to a nodding shard of me...
but that shard of me is locked in a closet and whispers only in Greek.
I used to know Greek but have forgotten it entirely so as not to slip and understand,
to accidently stumble upon what I already know.
What I do know is that these words provide me with solace and insight but that is not why I write them,

I write them because it is as close as I will ever come to walking naked through time square.