1. |
Introduction
00:43
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2. |
Lost Time
03:58
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So tired, the whole world pulls away.
My thoughts sink into the gray.
And it hurts a lot today.
I’m learning to live with the pain.
I’m not clever, just badly misunderstood.
I’d explain myself, if only I could.
And it hurts a lot today.
I’m learning to move beyond the pain.
This air, so tainted with unwashed dreams.
They fizz like soda as it seethes.
And it hurts a lot to breathe.
I’m scared of what’s inside me.
These eyes sing like open wounds.
They turn like dark sides of the moon.
And it hurts a lot to see.
Reality is a blade wielded blindly.
Never forget life’s literary.
We find meaning in the everyday.
Never forget it’s temporary.
We are lost time on its way home.
Found truth inside a dying lie.
Hands grasped by the fire inside.
And you smile as I melt away.
And we smile as we burn away.
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3. |
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I’m still waiting for you to come,
wherever you fell, wherever you run.
I’m on the south side of the moon
watching dust fly and desert suns bloom.
Maybe it’s alright,
comets weaving in the night,
we’ll lock smiling eyes again.
I tried a new face on for size
hiding from the memories orbiting inside.
I’m on the straight side of the pain
cleaning bullet wounds and lipstick stains.
Maybe it’s alright,
comets weaving in the night,
we’ll lock smiling eyes again.
Your absence is suffocating.
Emotions translating, reverberating
bring me back to you.
Of barking skies and hanging clouds,
of lonely nights in thronging crowds.
In sagging hopes and simple things,
in empty hands and open dreams.
Maybe it’s alright,
comets weaving in the night,
we’ll lock smiling eyes again.
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4. |
Quarantine Blues
06:13
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I’m flat on my face, I’ve got the quarantine blues.
I feel down and out, I’ve got the quarantine blues.
It’s Sarah's birthday, what else can I do?
Went to Oregon in a different state of mind.
But I was gone, now I got to pay my time.
Corona’s going to kill me even though I’m fine.
It’s my friend’s birthday, but I’m alone.
It’s Sarah’s birthday, all I do is groan.
If Corona doesn’t get me, the sorrow’s gonna take me home.
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5. |
Garibaldi
03:06
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Certifiably sad, three pills a day,
lurks on the edge of the beach by the quay –
looks a bit like a train wreck washed ashore.
Traces lines etched on his face
and half-written poems kept in his waist pocket,
crumpled eloquent.
The salty sea spray washes it all away.
Every gray soul’s a poet in Garibaldi.
She dips her cigarette in a big bowl of ash,
clacks sticky keys on a typewriter old and bashed.
She’s vaguely reptilian.
Looks like a hand-me-down dream dressed in smoke,
waits for the plot but the fingers choke,
a tale of happiness foretold where lovers age but never grow old
The salty sea spray washes it all away.
Every honest soul’s a writer in Garibaldi.
The universal groan tells you you’re alone.
Anonymous paths cross on the coast.
Children toss like stones of the shore.
Some kid sketches the girl he’s looking for
and finds her.
She’s embarrassed, doesn't know what to say –
the awkward lines give it away, it’s her.
But hers are not that big.
The salty sea spray washes it all away.
Every romantic’s an artist in Garibaldi.
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6. |
Drifting
03:47
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Can you stop the tide from crashing over me?
Tumbling in the surf, eternity swells relentlessly.
There is hardly time enough to simply be.
Can you subtract the distance between your heart and mine?
With futile persistence, I searched for yours to find.
With melodies uncovered, to its strings I reach.
We are drifting.
We’re becoming human.
With dogmatic purpose, I swim until I drink.
Buried by the waves, into your arms I sink.
Every palpitation, a desperate poetry.
Every palpitation in perfect unity.
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7. |
Chicago
02:48
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I live where sidewalks growing faces cut the wind,
flat as a pancake on the prairie.
Smells like people and greasy pizza.
They built a zoo on the cemetery.
Oh Chicago, the city with a view.
Your neighbor knows you by your number,
another cell in a noisy hive.
The walls hide unwanted people,
and no, we’re not fine.
Old Chicago, the city with a view.
My heart is racing.
Beat Kitchen’s bracing.
Laura Stevenson’s on cue.
Laura is on cue.
A naked girl’s in the conservatory.
Every day she poses in the pool.
I don’t know where her clothes went, or where she’s going.
I hope she takes me with her, too.
Oh Chicago, the city with a view.
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8. |
Lullaby
03:48
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You are a fleet-footed, lovely, wiry thing.
Soft enough to hold at night, a face half-lit in candle light,
a holy ghost.
You taste like smokes in Chinatown,
I like the way you sing when no one’s listening.
You are a restless whisper in my ear,
loud enough to understand, a shiver in a silky land,
a velvet stream.
With a smile hid behind a hand,
I watch you try not to swear again. Again.
This is the part, this is the part when I say I love you.
This is the part, this is the part when I say I love you.
You are a shadow dancing on the wall.
Spinning in the cool night air, surrendering without a care,
a restless pulse.
You move like rhymes in unread books,
I like the way you think.
I like the way you think – I like to think I’ve finally found you
This is the part, this is the part when I say I love you.
This is the part, this is the part when I say I love you.
You are a candid, stunning, sticky heat.
Roll like waves over me, I sink into your amber sea.
It’s deep as night.
I like the way you rest your head
upon my shoulder as we drift to sleep,
as we drift to sleep.
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9. |
In the Hands of Love
03:48
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My heart dead as poetry,
my eyes screaming at sunsets.
You say you have great hope for
the lies that you read.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
Every war is an old story,
old men with something to prove.
Child sacrifice in a modern age.
History is a bloody page.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
You praise your society,
but every choice is the same.
You will never be truly free,
when freedom’s another’s chains.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
You want what you don’t need.
You hate what you don’t know.
You fear fictions you breathe.
You don’t know who you are.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
The truth is a weapon in the hands of love.
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10. |
If You Ever Knew Me
02:03
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If I was your neighbor, would you let me in?
Lend me a silver thimble, dish soap for my skin?
We could build a treehouse, or burn the whole damn yard.
It wouldn’t be too hard.
If I was your neighbor, would you let me in?
If you ever knew me, would you be my friend?
Sit out on a lawn chair, spot me at the gym?
I wouldn’t be so lonely, if you were there to hang,
if someone knew my name.
If you ever knew me, would you be my friend?
If you were my girlfriend, would you treat me right?
Buy me vegan chocolate, talk on swings at night?
Even if I'm a loser, would you stay around,
kiss me when I’m down?
If you were my girlfriend, well, that would be the day.
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11. |
Sometimes in My Dreams
02:53
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Sometimes I’m tired and feel so worn
like broken promises or letters torn.
I sit alone by myself and think of you.
When nights are long and thoughts are deep,
an endless well bubbling grief,
I try my best to escape in other dreams.
Sometimes I find you standing alone.
We start to dance, but you disappear in my arms.
The days are stale, the voice is dim,
after hours I just cave in.
But sometimes I find you in my dreams.
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12. |
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She’ll make a beautiful corpse –
her mother’s hair, her father’s smile.
All the drugs in her vein
will bless the Earth with her pain.
Every future foreclosed, but so it goes.
It’s the turbulent sound of an aching heart,
the turbulent sound of an aching heart.
Space always sounded like a good idea,
but there’s nothing out there except cold air,
another way to be alone,
to wish you were at home.
Man’s final achievement: to be out of place.
It’s the turbulent sound of an aching heart,
the turbulent sound of an aching heart.
A thousand children in the streets
wash their faces in the sun.
The broken past they left behind
becomes the future in due time.
It’s hard to be more than you know.
It’s the turbulent sound of an aching heart,
the turbulent sound of an aching heart.
I milk sleep from tired eyes
waiting for answers that don’t come.
Questions imposed yet on the mind
burn in the weakest times.
Suffering is a competitive sport.
It’s the turbulent sound of an aching heart,
the turbulent sound of an aching heart.
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13. |
Love/Hate You
02:21
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I was standing on the beach
waiting for the tide.
You were on my mind.
You’re never very fun.
I wonder why you hate me so,
and I wonder why I love you still.
I was drifting in a dream.
You wrote a purple cloud,
stopped to take a leak
and drenched me till I drowned.
We never see eye-to-eye,
but you’re as close to me as a knife in my spine.
What a strange world –
you want me to strip off your skin.
You were shaking like a leaf,
lonely as a stone,
rehearsing all the words before the telephone.
My ears aren’t big enough to hear what you said,
I know you didn’t really wish that I was dead.
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14. |
The Image of God
03:24
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New life, old creation,
old hopes need new revelation.
The image of God in all his children,
so badly bruised and mutilated.
In putrefaction, raging decadence,
wars and endless strife,
predictable suicide, I want to run and hide
from the violence:
from the deaths we choose to die.
Abundance amidst desolation,
old greed, new justification.
The image of God in all his children,
so badly bruised and mutilated.
Prodigious poverty, halfhearted democracy,
choose one of the same two sides.
Commodified fictions, corrupted convictions,
thinking we’re clever,
we swallow the same old lies.
Dirty souls yearn for redemption,
sleeping souls dream of resurrection.
The image of God in all his children,
so badly bruised and mutilated.
In mortal agony, losing integrity,
numb to love and life.
An embodied mystery stumbling through history,
just wishing, praying to make it right.
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15. |
Just Like Heaven
03:25
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16. |
Locks and Keys
04:12
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It’s easy being here alone and alive
with the sunset in your eyes.
A tidal wave of laughter
cuts across the coast.
You’re unbearably close.
A bolt’s on the door,
nails in the windows,
but there’s a light inside.
I am trying to find a way
into your heart.
It’s not easy.
I am trying to find a way
into your heart.
It’s not easy getting in.
The unrecorded hours, the spaces in between,
remind life what it means.
I could spend a year sitting on this rock
trying to open the lock.
The confusion that I feel when I’m with you
pries open my heart
I am trying to find a way
into your heart.
It’s not easy.
I am trying to find a way
into your heart.
It’s not easy getting in.
I see the light.
I see the light.
Burning me up inside you.
You look at me with questions,
but I’m a drowning man
in the palm of your hand.
It’s hard to explain,
but still I’ll try.
There’s so many reasons why…
I am trying to find a way
into your heart.
It’s not easy.
I am trying to find a way
into your heart.
Please let me in.
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Jonathan Ng Portland, Oregon
This music blog is meant to help me keep track of the songs that I am working on. It is also a way to share my music with friends and family. Of course, stragglers are welcome here, too. Thanks for visiting.
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