![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sarah Slean
"Playing Cards with Judas"
Listen
All our friends have good intentions,
But they're a thousand years too late
A few buildings and commandments
Won't save you from your fate.
I have no missionary zeal, I say,
No armies fighting sin
But I'll keep playing, I'll keep playing
Until I win
"Bonnie's Song"
Listen
I am reminded of Bonnie
When the day breaks into dark.
I think there's nothing more beautiful
Than a face that has come so far.
Hey that's the way to go
We need to know pain to grow
But you're right it's a long way home
You're the light of eve broken
You're the bravest girl in the whole wide world
Light of eve
Broken and bold
"My Invitation"
Listen
You are what they call the human season
You are all the alphabet in one
You are every colour of confusion
You are all the silence I've become
Love me for
Stupid reasons
I like those most
Wide-eyed but
Worth believing
God knows
Damn the angry voice that keeps us quiet
The editor whose work is never done
Keeping pretty words between my teeth and
Sweet confessions underneath my tongue
Drowsy contemplation
Do I let you in
This is my invitation
But how do I begin?
She has such an awful lot of soldiers
Quite a lovely army all her own
Night and day they stand before the fortress
Very safe but very all alone
"Before Your Time"
Listen
Who wants a genius anyway
Who worries if he's had enough sleep?
I'd take the bad new any day
If it meant that you were mine to keep
Sweet is the certified nervous wreck
Who now and then likes to appear
To lecture the night and the empty space
And sleep in the cradle of my ear
A few pills a day keeps the anger away
"The people can go" he says
"The furniture stays"
Trying to find a warm place to hide
Maybe born before your time
How unfair to our human eyes
How I wish you were alright
'Cause I worry . . .
Hello to the ghost of '88
My favorite Canadian mess
Remembered the sound of the galaxy
And came here expecting no less
How many nights did you
Lock up inside of that
Terrible lonely streak
And those beautiful eyes
Trying to find a warm place to hide
Maybe born before your time
How unfair to our human eyes
How I wish you were alright
'Cause I worry
About you
"Habit"
"Twin Moon"
Listen
Oh, I fear
Somehow you'll find the need
To spit out my name
Like a watermelon seed
And, oh, sometimes
I think 'what am I doing?
This business of bleeding'
A dime for showing
My heart
Oh, twin moon
You are my twin moon
Take me up-sky
So I can kiss you
Drink your starlight
"Awake Soon"
Listen
"High"
Listen
Always wondered why your eyes closed
Don't you want to see me closing mine?
Heaven, help me, I'll devour him
See me drawing out his spine
Hey, boy, come sleep
I will turn the ocean into sky
How do you keep
When the love is making you high?
Out of sight, out of mind
High........
"Eliot"
See Night Bugs
"Blue Parade"
Listen
I hear them coming
The blue parade
They're throwing snowflakes and
Singing my name
In deep blue voices
I hear them say,
There's good love out there
Just you wait...
Hold on, I'm coming
Don't let anybody in
Hold on, I'm ready
Lock your doors and wait for me
"Narcolepsy Weed"
"I Want to be Brave (Madeleine)"
Listen
No more,
will I count the dead
Bending gathering words
I should have said
When the night falls
It scrapes its knees
We watch the houses on fire
And she says to me
I want to be brave, I want to be brave
But I dont think Ill love again
The dark is so deep
I've lost my way
In this madness, madness, madness
"Eliot"
Listen
Armies and ice and dirty green
Newspapers, shovels sand on the breeze
I think of Eliot when I smell the street and it's sometimes wise
Just to shut your eyes.
Oo the city in the winter the sewage the steam
You fill buildings with people and they rip at the seams
Somebody's suffering infected my dreams and
Don't they know? it's it's it's it's just my old soul
How sure how right?
Can anyone be on sight?
I said I had Hope
I lied. I lied.
"Weight"
Listen
You said I don't really know the reason
It's just not the same
What a vacant breath and when,
When you say my name
And do you know the weight I'm under
When everything revolves around you you you you
Soon the shoulder falls
"Duncan"
Listen
Oh you fool you fool!
Don't give in to fate
If this is all we've got to fight for
Rage my darling, rage!
Duncan good for you!
Sad but on your way
Well the army never turned his crank
But love sure made him brave
A sweeter infatuation
Oh you'd be hard pressed to find
He loved so deeply and madly
He nearly lost his mind
This is holy war!
We must fight and fight again
And go a thousand times for the sake of love
But never once in vain
"St. Francis"
Listen
Flying through tunnels
At the mouth of New York
Sometimes, I belong here
But it's funny how leaving
Turns the emptiness up
The hole you never heard before
Oh, I laugh in my hands
A kiss from that man
Like a melody
My pride still standing
Looking tall
But looking back
I wasn't brave at all
I wasn't brave at all
Was I?
I'd make beatiful sounds
I'd lay you down like a lover would
On the phone, I started to say
But then I stopped
I used to be brave
I used to be brave
"Drastic Measures"
Listen
I should go to drastic measures
Steal enormous works of art
Write a piece for eighteen violins
It's no march
But it's a start
Rub their eyes and wake, distracted
Frantically they fill their days
Please say I will never be like that
Safe
Politely dazed
Politely crazy
Don't you want my love?
It's a cloud, it's a broken boat
But it might make you laugh a bit
Easier
I'm like trees in the midnight parks
Oozing danger, igniting sparks
We've been left by the viaducts
With the last flame of the universe
"Book Smart, Street Stupid"
Listen
I was born by an old streetlight
Where the men lean out of their windows at night
And I was a lead in the orphan choir
And I sang with all my might
Until I grew up too high
Then, oh, all the notes I used to play
On the double bass and the B-list ballet
With only the night bugs to lead me home
With their sad luck serenade
The rain was never ending
The sadness in my heart
Would light
And glow in the dark?
This will never change
Time just wears a prettier face
I'm book smart
Street stupid
So, don't look for me in confession booth
I'm with my paints, and my pens, and my dry vermouth
Trying to uncover some small truth
With these cards close to my chest
"Dark Room"
Listen
"Sweet Ones"
Listen - Official Music Video
They're counting on a guilty conscience to save you
But I'm bankin' on the deep blue eyes and the face too
They always said, always said, always said you were easy, oh
If I could have just one piece of that I'd be
Sold
Come over to the sweet ones baby,
and I'll tell you where to go.
I can't see them when they're walking sideways
I don't know, I don't know.
Come over to my house I'll tend to you solo
So fabulous and well dressed up like a talk show
They always said, always said, always said you were easy
If I could have just one piece of that I'd be sold...
Oh so sad we, love you madly
Want to take you home
Oh so sad we, love you madly
want to take you home.
"Me, I'm A Thief"
Listen
Me, I'm a thief
I'm a falling star
I'm a photograph taken
From where you are
"My Invitation"
See Blue Parade above.
"Bank Accounts"
Listen
I have a future
I have substantial bank accounts
Make lotsa money
And hope it don't run out
I am a beauty
It just takes me four, five hours a day
Is this the game I'm supposed to know
How to play?
I had a dream that I
Was carvin' up the inside track
What a disease when I
Put my faith in
Welcome to Eden
Hope that you'll have some time to shop
While makin' investments
Sleepin' your way to the top
Business is business
Especially this water into wine
Is this the game I'm suppose to play
Every time?
All or not at all!
"Pilgrim"
Listen - Live
Pilgrim
Where's your head at?
Are you paying the birds to sing?
But it won't work
On the true path
Where the wretched are growing wings
Pilgrim!
Whatcha lookin' at me for?
My disaster has come and gone
It left me
By the road side
With my shadow and one more song
"Lucky Me"
Listen - Official Music Video
Faith can't fill the dance hall
'Cause her powers have declined
But at the beauty pageant
She will always take the prize
Light light Easter white
Roll her in the dirt
When it comes time for kneeling
She'll say "You go first!"
"Mary"
Listen
I've all the courage
I'll ever need
I wax poetic on my enemies
The century is raging
But so are we
No matter what I know I've got a
Symphony called
Mary
Go ahead and have your little baby
Mary
Toughest of the tough but still a lady
"California"
Listen
I went to California
I met a lovely man
He rubs a wedding finger
Without a wedding band
O he knows better anyhow
His kisses are just all in his eyes
O I know better I know better
Still I wish I was by your side
"Day One"
Listen
Be still my lion heart!
A revolution ready to pounce
All passioneers
Up and out of the house!
"Out in the Park"
Listen - Live
Don't you know what time it is?
It's the new time
All disciples gathering by the boats
But your revolution is chasing its tail
You love to take the wind out of my sail
But not this time
In between commercial breaks
It's a new war
Men with books have run away to the coast
And the ladies quit callin' them back
And starting plotting the counter attacks
You foolish animals!
She's out in the park conducting the birds
Trying to remember which bicycle's hers
Filling her pockets with handfuls of dirt
It's amazing
Out in the park
Out in the park fight the war!
What are your hearts and your wheelbarrows for?
Lean on me man--I don't keep score
O
Out in the park
"Vertigo"
Listen
And I am full of love and consequence
Merciful, the sky of coal
The beauty of the cars' electric light
The speed with which their destinies glow
"When Another Midnight"
Listen
When another midnight come to rest
On the cheek of our sleeplessness
All crusaders will wake and dress
Pull their flags from their pillowcases
How to live a noble life
In this: the age of insanity
Where every prophet's faces is turnin' white
It's the look the look of "can it be?"
It's shock it's horror it's despair
It's Socrates weeping in a wheelchair
Teacher drooling unaware
Where are my students?
Where o where?!
Poet to poet nun to nun
I've met a distance that I have to run
No matter what madness must come undone
I'm throwing down a smoking gun!
All the commuters will hear our words
And hide in garages like frightened birds
But you can't stop the moaning of the Earth
And the Midnight crackling of my nerves!
"The Score"
The Score
This time the pleasure's all mine
I've got your number I know the score
And I'd be a hopeless romantic
For the fortune that I made in gold
"Your Wish is My Wish"
Listen
In my mindstorm I did carry you
Through the briars of disbelief
Through the woods of lethargy
Through a groaning dark so deep
I thought I died
In the fountain I did cool out feet
Under red and rainless skies
Singing ragged lullabies
Through the grief all advertised
In neon lights
Baby--your wish is my wish
Keep on running to the door
Running to the dawn
Keep on running to the door
"Wake Up"
Listen - Live
Wake up
Wake up
You don't want to sleep through this
Night has fallen and all the stars are coming out
O the sky's a lullaby
Like
That sweet little light of mine
Come out
Come out
It's not like we're strangers here
No more lying here waiting the sun's coming up
O that hole made of gold is
Like
That sweet little light of mine
"Somebody's Arms"
Listen
Old record playing on my own radio
And I know it's time to go
Get up and out of this black hole
I gotta get it right
I gotta quit these drugs
I gotta get inside
Somebody's arms
Tonight
Can't remember who I was before
Tonight
Oh my heart if halfway out the door
Tonight
Sweet city come on give me a handful of stars
I'm ready for the midnight show
I'm gonna light a fire
On the street I love
I'm gonna get inside
Somebody's arms
Tonight
"Hopeful Hearts"
Listen
So we take the path not taken
Down into the fields of war
Sword alone, the shield forsaken
This the right we're fighting for
Hopeful hearts are moving targets
I don't know how I survive
We go out like birthday candles
Then like suns we rise, we rise
Oh struggle is right
What's black is white
The moment you fall, you fly
Give us your dead
They live again in
Our hopeful hearts
Fiends and devils in the garden
Take their fill and leave me scarred
But I still have my secret weapon
This my brave and hopeful heart
"Get Home"
Listen
You can stay the night
You can look me in the eye
You can fake your way to the finish line
But don't you dare profess to love me
When you're lying to another
That's not love, that's just wishing
Wish and love are not the same thing
Get home, Get home
Take a look at her
You know, You know
That you love her
Mister Masquerade
You're getting good at this charade
Go on, fool yourself with talk of poetry
But don't you dare pretend you're sorry
To me, you're just a tourist
You've gotta stand next to the real ones
'Cause you know you'll never be one
Get home, Get home
Nothing more to say
You know, You know
That you'll never change
Oh you'll never change
And I don't play the game
With liars and cowards
Liars and cowards
With liars and cowards like you
"Euphoria"
Listen - Live
Take me, love me
Invade the portions of me that are dark
And warm and deep
Hero or zero
I'm glad that you are here so take your love
And take your leave
Now how will I fall asleep?
I'm on to ya
Euphoria
You built the maze
In my lover's face
I'm on to ya
Euphoria
This state of grace
I could have held him
But alas the dawn compelled him to walk
Into the street
His arms are swinging
And maybe he is singing with those lips
That now taste like me
How am I supposed to fall asleep?
"Goodnight Trouble"
Listen
I watched late night planes
Leave cool white trails
And my trouble took flight
Goodnight trouble
Goodnight
I kissed my friend
And he took my hand
My trouble took flight
Goodnight trouble
"Notes from the Underground"
Listen
Notes from the underground
We're the mice who must write our lives down
In the night I hear you calling out to say
"It's alright love, you're in good hands"
Tears on a borrowed bed
Between walls that are painted
Somebody else's red
If you hear me cry I'm calling out to say
"It's alright love, you're in good hands"
Still out on the roof
Howling at the moon
Exile
Another exile in the kingdom
Still out on the roof
All I need is you
Exile
We are exiles
We two
Love with the love they hide
Dream with the dream they cast aside
The truth will form and fall apart again
It's alright love, you're in good hands
They don't trust the likes of you and I
They kick our verses aside
But we know the road is wide, that's why
I'm still out on the roof
Howling out the moon
Exile
Another exile in the kingdom
Still out on the roof
I'm a dreamer too
Exile
We are exiles
We two
"Sound of Water"
Listen
Just to hear the sound of water
Just to put the fire on ice
I'm lying down in the shower
Oh mercy loosen the vice
Sometimes the sword is so heavy
My pain has a ravenous mouth
In the pits of my own making
Sometimes I don't think Ill ever get out
Oh, the world stoking the comas
Madmen making the news
Bent over like a beggar
I was saying "it's no use"
This ain't a world for intelligent women
Unless you like swimming your own dark sea
These are times for urgent rhymes
But where the poetry?
When the light
The light is hard to find!
And you're walking blind
You only need to change your mind
Your mind
Wide awake and hope-infected
I became a glittering queen
Every light in my direction
Was a bright, magnificent green
Adorned with invisible riches
I saw my stitches glowing so bright
No, the burden was not heavy
For the master it was light!
"No Place at All"
No place at all to call my own
Still wandering the world
And friends of mine all moving on
In comfortable cars, getting married
In someone else's neighborhood
I hear a telephone
Who lives in those well lighted homes?
Their windows aglow in evening
Look at me crying in my sleep
No one else to rescue me
No place at all
The sun goes down beyond the trees
The sound or trace of wind
The world is calm and beautiful
But it's breaking my heart completely
Look at me crying in my sleep
No one else to rescue me
It's plain to see
Could it be that I am following this revelry
To nowhere and to nobody
To no place at all
Till no place at all
"Please Be Good to Me"
Listen
I carried my heart unbuttoned
Across the lonely stage
Where all the fools and actors
Circle like birds of prey
But careful with the rose, she knows
Every word of every scene
O Please be good to me
I let the liar have me
The forger and the cheat
Love is the legal tender
They try to steal from me
But tell me how to lose, what you
Want to give away for free?
O Please be good to me
When love's light is shining elsewhere
The cold is hard to shake
But when it's shining on you
The winter melts away
I don't want to know how so
I just want to feel the heat
O Please be good to me
"Willow"
Willow tree by the sea
Where the guards lie
How I love to look at you
With all my aching lie
Winter comes winter kills
Let it go by
There'll be better days
Willow
Don't cry
Willow star shine afar in a dark sky
You're the one I'm wishing on
With all my weary mind
Tell the trees if you please
That it is alright
Lover comes
Lover goes
Let him go by
There'll be better days
Willow
Don't cry
"So Many Miles"
Listen
These feet have walked so many miles
And on so many continents
Still this heart is beating wild
As yet of no great consequence
But oh,
When the rhythm is right
I catch a wind and fly
Far beyond these Paris nights
Into another consciousness
The fortuneteller isn't right
It's scary but it's glorious
And oh,
I know this time
I'll catch a wind and fly
So many miles
"Shadowland"
Listen
I have been to the shadowland
I heard the empty call
The hatred anorexia
Misery and alcohol
By their hearths I warmed myself
To escape from the winter years
until I saw in the window myself
crying fire coloured tears
Love the only alchemy
Love the killer of despair
Love the patient samurai
Love the armour angles wear
Love
They turned away the prophet
Because she was young and full of longing
Instead they turned to the magistrate
Who was busying yawning
And they tried the sell me holy books
And I can see their eyes are wild
I caught them boring shame and fear
Into the perfect vessel of a child
But, love is the only alchemy
Love the killer of despair
Love the true nobility
Love the armour angles wear
Love
Love will make your eyes clear
The order of the universe
The only reason we are here
"Looking for Someone"
Listen
I've been looking for someone
But, I don't know his name
Oh, the faces before me
Well they all look the same
But, there's got to be one face
And one pair of eyes
That will light me on fire
When their looking in mine
I am looking for someone
I am looking for someone
For many good years now
I've been walking alone
But I know when I find him
It will feel like home
When the wedding is over
I will be able to say
I am so glad that I waited for this day
Oh, I am looking for someone
Oh, I am looking for someone
Oh, I am looking for someone
Who's looking for me.
Parasol
Listen
Long-necked, shipwrecked, terrified swan
Lies in her mind left a burner on
We crowd into the grand salon
We're watching the mansion burn
And I'm not quite down with the way they roll
They throw knives from their eyes at my parasol
And I'm only human after all
Go easy on me
It's not like a country lane
A day on the beach in Spain
I'm courting the madness I cannot explain
Oh Virginia
We didn't know you had it in ya
Oh Sweet Virginia
And I coughed this up in a sooty perfume
Out of my mouth like a feather plume
And now here's one more crazy tune
Adversity rings my bell
The wound came loose with a terrible stench
Pain left a stain on my piano bench
And I chased it with a monkey wrench
Cursing my broken French
And no can't play that in this serious hall
Only apes, wearing capes, get the curtain call
Your invitation to the ball
Must be lost in the mail
And I don't quite feel like working this crowd
The rest has requested I dumb it down
They'll run your circus right out of town
If you won't abide, but it's suicide
Lonely Side of the Moon
Listen
I put this battle in a box
With my military thoughts
And the days where I was almost at my end
Seems to me quite clear now
Now that you are here how
Easily I could begin again
I'm still bloody from last year's war
With liars and lovers untrue
And hey you with your stars out
I have no angry words for you
You didn't have my heart yet
But you stopped before we started
So now you tell me what you want me to do
I can start believing
I can watch you sleeping
But I can't hold my breath 'til she comes back for you
I'm still bloody from last year's war
But no longer drowning in the flood
And hey you with your stars out
You've kissed again don't you see you've already won
You're still bloody from last year's war
Your bandages your bullet holes like mine
And I'm here with my stars out
You say you're scared well so am I
Modern Man I & II
Listen
This is modern man
Leaning out a window
Lonely for the music of
A ferris wheel or birthday party
Time will take his hand
Lead him to the gate and
When he turns around, he knows
He can't go back
He can't have Eden, no
The road is overgrown
At the end of words
At the end of mathematics
Mystery absurd
At once both fascinates and terrifies and
Oh, but nevermind
He's working on the numbers
Take apart the door, he longs
To quantify the miracle
But oh
There are those things that he will never know
Though he can feel them
Pearl of blue and white
Dangling like an orchid
From the unseen fishing rod
Of some amazing architect
Or not
Is this the truth we knew, and then forgot?
Maybe the lies are all that we've got
But aren't they beautiful?
Compatriots
I saw my compatriots walking that nightfall
Soccer games blaring from every cafe
It's amazing how life can go somehow unnoticed
Somehow so loud it rattles your brain
My eyes digesting the infinite parcels
Beauty and ugliness, matter and light
Oh saint, oh sinner
Oh ancient beginner
Oh trembling river of life
Forgive me sir, I know not the magic words
Is it the fever first and then the fire?
The neighbor above me is slamming his windows
Insults bounce off me like peppercorn rain
I'll answer him later, return the favor
When I have perfected Parisian disdain
The city is bristling, biting its fingers
Bellies are full of the same butterflies
Countdown the seconds in 25 languages
Oh the millions of eyes
Forgive me sir, I know not the magic words
Is it the fever first and then the fire?
The Rose
Listen - Official Music Video
Will the birds be singing
When my life is done
And all the seasons of me have come and gone
Plant me in the garden where the willow grows
And from my sorrow, a rose
How high the moon
How deep the ocean
I never knew
'Til now
As the curtain closes there'll be no surprise,
When the anthem's playing we know to rise
Every living creature was born to close their eyes
But love the great magician, never dies....
For the years of sadness I will not mourn
For in the deepest darkness courage is born
Hear Me Out
I used to know the way inside
How to mend the broken look in your eye
But now the look is out of reach
I can only see the trust you don't have in me
Hear me out, I'm not your enemy
If there's doubt, there doesn't need to be
I'm around, I'm always gonna be
So, before you go, hear me out
Think that you're the only one
There's something in your heart blocking out the sun
Everytime the fire went out I would always go to you
Now I don't know how
I used to know the way inside
The "Disarm" Suite
Listen
LAND
Life
Listen
The Day We Saved The World
Listen
Set It Free
Listen - Official Music Video
Everybody's On TV
Amen
Listen
I Am A Light
Listen
New Pair of Eyes
Listen
Girls Hating Girls
Listen - Live
Society Song
Listen - Official Music Video
SEA
Cosmic Ballet
Listen - Live
Everything by the Gallon
Listen
The Devil & The Dove
Listen - Official Music Video
Napoleon
Listen
Attention Archers
Listen
You're Not Alone
Listen
The One True Love
Listen - Live
The Right Words
Listen
My Eyes & Your Eyes
Listen
I Know
Listen
Angel
Listen
Me and Jerome
Listen
Universe
Listen
Pie Jesu
Cover: The Show Must Go On (by Queen)
Listen - Live