Copyright © 1996 Jack Hardy Music
It was a bird, a petulant bird that pecked upon the window
First so slowly, slowly then with urgent crescendo
As if it could it finally could say what it had to say-o
Its cry so muffled by the glass the structure in the way-o
chorus:
Mo ghrá sa'n Bás is deacair a rá
'S riamh an lá d'ag gabháil-o (siud sa chré-o)
She had lain for many days, no years of indecision
Drifting in and out of sleep, no words describe the prison
With passion all reduced to pain in swollen joints and vision
She once independent now dependent on good wishing
I walked so slow so not to scare this cold bird at the window
Trying the while to ascertain its variegated colors
As if the seasons there had left confusion in the willows
Of leaves and flowers blown apart and covered on the pillow
She had said o'er and o'er that they could take her home now
As if she was some other place with strangers all unknown-o
Was it home to Clay Street to her childhood she would go now
Closer than I would have come this bird had come much closer
This bird was finally dismayed to find its own reflection
Stood so starkly motionless then flew in all directions
By the lines of modern thought the ancient body was consigned-o
The ashes to be placed somewhere where stained glass cast its light-o
Was it there it finally flew, this bird that was at the window?
It looked so free in passing as if the passing opened in-o
'Twas days and days and days before I could finally hear the cry-o
As if this passing the only way that I could say goodbye-o
Black eyed susans by the road In all those places time forgot Run and run from what we know Sometimes easy, sometimes not Youth is but a flowered field Daisies and forget-me-nots All of this a letter sealed Reminding us what we forgot Old enough to touch a heart Young enough to not reply To stand upon the kitchen stool And kiss your mother goodbye Open to the morning sun Reveal the beauty 'neath the cloud Only nature having fun All for crying out loud The wind upon the clouds on high The wind upon the brittle chaff Birds on the electric wire To see who will be last to laugh All these colors on display They all go so well with you All so well in god's bouquet All except for black and blue
Met him on the Killorglin road
Thinking mine was a heavy load
Said to stop and rest awhile
Long enough to find your smile
Said I don't know this and I don't know that
But I know what's under Willie Goggin's hat
chorus:
And if it ain't broke don't fix it
But how many of us ain't broke
And how many of us ain't died
A thousand broken hearted lives?
And how many of us, amen
Ain't got a broken heart to mend?
And I may be a tinker and I may be a fool
But I'll fix anything as good as new
I can fix anything but the golden rule
For gold can only fill a tooth
Long as I've got the price of a pint
My hands are rough but I can sleep at night
I learned years ago and years since then
There's no such thing as a common man
Don't work for pay, get paid for work
And on the day I forgot these words
I lost the play and I played a part
And I lost the gift of a golden heart
There are those that always buy things new
And those that always must make do
Here's to Mary-Margaret and Maureen
And all the folks from Cahirciveen
Who'd give you the shirt off their back
And gave me Willie Goggin's hat
Over the Pulaski Skyway
Down through the tunnel of love
A school bus in day glow colors
Filled with bygone hippie stuff
Don't laugh, your daughter might be inside
The officer laughs anyway
Don't ask, don't tell, it is just as well
You're heading for the Halloween parade
Here between the police barricades
They won't stop the Halloween parade
They won't paint the line green, the mayor isn't here
There won't be any cuts in aid
There won't be no military fanfare
But it has the blessings of several popes
Jesus carrying his own damn cross
Or carrying just enough rope
chorus:
Here on the Avenue of the Americas
Larger than life, behind makeup and mask
Everything America is afraid of
Is lost in a ritualized hell
All so the children won't ask
All so we won't have to tell
It's the yearly meeting of the never-minds
The artists and actors and clowns
On this night and this night only
It is the only show in town
We're all of your worst nightmares
We're all of your wildest dreams
The pagans and gays the specter of aids
In a riot of color and screams
It's the morning after the night before
Hanging with the leftover leaves
Deflated balloons and streamers
In the thin arms of the dying trees
There is an awkward silence
As awkward couples come and go
Looking sadly at this boulevard
Wondering if and when they'll know
The twentieth century was a train Sleek and fast and so streamlined Steel and diesel power unchained Cigars and oysters and black shoes shined The twentieth century is already gone Come to think of it the millennium is too All those years and the buck stops here Except I fear it's not worth as much this year Thomas Jefferson was a man Didn't have to grow up to be president For no woman had to vote Nor any man of African descent Two thousand years of the golden rule We still keep illegal aliens out of school Someone's gotta wash dishes and clean toilets too Someone's gotta play football and someone's gotta sing the blues This little experiment of ours Is pretty damn new and shaky so far We have the freedom to hang out in bars To buy shiny new guns or shiny new cars There's no trains left to make run on time But that's not gonna keep them from trying How we gonna keep 'em down on Broadway Let's try religion, sports and a lottery a day This car screaming down the road Rebel flag and talk show overload Passes a school bus on the right Racing that train to a wreck tonight 2001 candles to blow Twenty centuries down and one to grow Except for ten days taken away by Pope Gregory I lost ten days in college, they didn't name a calendar after me And this is the America Columbus discovered Yeah the Vikings could have discovered this one too The Indians fought the Braves in the World Series Let's get serious and open another brew
All those people who have pieces Of you spread out 'cross the plains Left your heart in Oklahoma Left it lying out in the rain Left your arms in too many places With your eyes as big as fun Calling cards and other traces But you only leave your heart once Can I get it get it back? Can I give it once again? Said this cowboy to his shadow Which was made of wind and of rain When I touch you I feel distance Never know if yours or mine Have I left it has it left me Oh my darling Clementine The blistering heat and the hay down your shirt The barbed wire fences where the greenhorns get hurt At a campfire in Colorado Or a beach on some dark sea A smoke-filled room in El Dorado Singing nearer my god damn to thee Damp leather and faster horses And a south wind bringing rain Too many miles for changing courses Pushing on the point of pain Left your arms in too many places With your eyes as big as guns Calling cards and other traces But you only leave your heart once
There's not an ounce of softness left within this weathered heart The hand against the nap of fur disturbs that sleeping part No need for caution don't need remorse That close to crying Bristled and borne an altered force That close to crying Semi-automatic steel gray hollow eyes how they stare back Impassively mechanically annoyed in bluish black A twitching tail a nervous finger That close to crying What tension waiting to slash in anger That close to crying A click of light and then a flash of any action taken Illumined mystery clear and sharp and all of my own making A shattering crack a full report That close to crying Released and slack a slumping form That close to crying That close to crying is not close at all what line of fire was crossed No cerebral contemplation of carefully altered thought No Hail Mary no desperate toss That close to crying The wave awaited recedes in loss That close to crying
And if I ever pass this way again
And if I ever sit alone with you
And if I ever whisper all those thoughts
I did hold inside past our adieu
And if I ever walk that painted deck
And watch the birds that fly so free between
Across the rocks and waves that washed my hopes
As I whittled on a memory
chorus:
The sails aloft are filled
Filled with fickle winds
That blow across the faces of this land
There are no corners left
There are no stones unturned
That have not all conspired to my return
And if the water trickles down the glen
And if the moss turns green as light grows thin
And if that flower has the will to live
It will cast its fragrance on the wind
And if that fragrant flower so dear to me
So cross the waters to dispel belief
My hand at once upon the rail and ropes
Till I almost see that telling green
Only a stone's throw That close to knowing Over the stone wall That close to the town That place you can't go So hard to travel Picked up a small stone Could not put it down Take all of my money Take all of my clothing Take all of my labor I still do not know I still cannot feel it Or make it a real thing How one to another Could ever be so And I'm not a tailor And I'm not a gypsy Nor a professor With my name on my face A freedom fighter A left wing conspirer Who traveled the boxcars To this lonely place I'm just a tourist I take a memento Or maybe a relic Though only a stone Like East Europeans Posing for photos In front of the ovens A video show I wanted to feel it That final solution I want it to touch me To take me inside I want it to hold me I want it to scold me Make me part of the blame Why so many died But only foundations Are left of the stone wall Almost at closing With time running out I walked in the cold rain Clutching a cold stone The gate was still open For us to walk out
I wouldn't dream of ever following this trail
If I was seen it was a hollow self and frail
Under that sheening of her hair about the wind
And I am clean feeling the air upon my skin
Follow that gleaming to the hallow of this field
Cathedrals greening in the hallow of these trees
Offering me on the all hallow of my knees
And I am free on this the hallowest of eves
chorus:
This whistled lore
Is now a hum
This thistled floor
Now smooth and spun
This listening shore
Is now undone
This glistening chorus
Is now a drum
To feel the cold dirt in the clawing of my toes
Tear off my old shirt or the shawl that is my clothes
My step's most surely in the footfall of the host
In glowing turf there is a healing in the smoke
Perhaps you've seen them only then you've just believed
And when they're fleeing then you feel you've been deceived
But in that feeling something ancient's been retrieved
And in the meantime something new's being conceived
And now the glowing in the halo of the moon
Rising so slowly in the palest of the gloom
The heel and toe now moving closer through the foam
Pulling the flow of all the waves of ocean home
The oak the ash the thorny apple in the breeze
Pale glow of lichen phosphorescent silver green
No thorny crown no iron nails hung in the trees
Only these sounds sung on this hallowest of eves