FLYIN' THROUGH THE AGES Well, it seems my time it's been flyin' through the ages / turnin' all the pages of my old life's story / nights are gettin' colder, children gettin' older, I ain't smarter but I'm bolder—I still don't know what's good for me / I've been a fool, I've been a savior / I've shown people the light, and I've led them to danger / but nothin's been so right as makin' a new life with my wife and child by my side / Well, it seems this life it's been not much to speak of / writin' words and beats for some ol' forgotten melody / that's when I feel the realest, but songs, cyphers and big hits—they all fade in the distance when I dream 'bout you and me.

IF YOU'RE GONE, NOW If you're gone, now, then, honey I don't know what you've seen and who you've been in all those rock 'n' roll shows. If you're gone, now, then how you gonna know what you left behind 'cuz when you were mine I had nothing to show. Well, I've been runnin' around this town, singin' to folks and settlin' down but never once have you come around---You're missin' out on missin' out, you're missin' out on missin' out, you're missin' out on missin' out. And I say if you're gone, now, then honey I don't know what it's been like livin' uptight cuz you can't care for a soul.

WELCOME HOME We found you on the floor of your apartment with every waking hour on the phone and it took a downtown city block to remind you how to move---things get blurry when you're all alone. When we found out you fell in a deep depression, every chance we had you know we'd call. But you still spent your nights alone, cold on the floor---it's a wonder if we even helped at all. Welcome home, though we know just where you've been. Is the world half as crazy as the last time you walked in? Welcome home, have a seat with all your friends. Though it's been a long time coming, you're back in our hearts again. Now I know it's hard with noone to depend on, but letting go's a simple fact of life. You should face the hard facts so you can move on---that quiet swindler never was your wife. And we found out you spent some time in Austin with nerves as raw as steel cold bars of jail. But when you get past the bright lights and the roaring crowds, the things that matter most always prevail.

KINGS If you sat down or stood up for me, then I'd say thanks a lot. It's always good to hear it when the paupers call the shots. But if every song's been written, then the ones that are sung are lost. One album dropped, an afterthought, thanks a lot. Now I've been resuscitated from the dark depths of despair. It must feel catastrophic when you see a loved one there. But all I had to do was wash the worry from my hair. The pain is gone, the ghost is fought, thanks a lot. When your blood runs cold and you feel you have to win and there's noone to hold or to pick you up from what you're in---as certain as the sun comes up from the eastern plains, you shine your light, you get back up, and do it all again. Now people used to tell me that when you get old, you're dead. As if somehow all you learned and fought for steamed right out your head and there's no more admiration for the trials and strife you lead. The young have fought, the elders lost, thanks a lot. They'll find a medication for whatever haunts your mind and fill you with prescriptions 'til your third eye sight goes blind. But it's up to you to realize the time to draw the line. The bid's been tossed, your soul's been bought, thanks a lot.

DEARLY DEPARTED May your sorrows be overridden by the snow. May you leave a trail of happiness when it's time for you to go. May your cold and falling tears melt on wanderin' eyes to see so clear. May your sorrows be overridden by the snow. May your fears be washed out in the sand. May the ocean wash away and polish all your 'can't's. May the ground be nice and flat for the new to start again like that. May your fears be washed out in the sand. May your footsteps live forever in the ground. May they marvel at the path you took when you're no longer around. May your trek set like cement teach them all what life to you has meant. May your footsteps live forever in the ground. May your sun shine forever in her sky. May your words be the reason she holds her head up high. When she rides into the city, may the love you left make her feel so pretty. May your sun shine forever in her sky.

HIGH HORSE On those outback roads I admire when stoned kickin back by the police station tryin to find me a new revelation while I burn, burn, burn. But your backhand slap in that old Ford van nearly sealed the confirmation. I'm not gonna be just a phase, hon, so expect me to stick around. Oh, but lately things don't pay right dear and them rich folks they don't live around here, but let me make myself perfectly clear: I said hey now, I know I'm not stuck in Lowell but you're sitting there on your HIGH HORSE tryin to turn the party out and I said hey now, I won't fall from the sky like a dead bird 'cause I'll die before I go back to Medford while you turn my world around. Well it's been 15 years, five months and 15 days since we slept at the Greyhound station with the skateboard kids and the hipsters. Why'd we turn, turn, turn? But them subways signs and the TV lies sometimes all they can do is create fear. If you got enough space on your plate dear, oh, the good will come around. Oh, but times were tough so we filed our tears and your Mom didn't like me much dear, but, let me make myself perfectly clear... I'm all alone 3,000 miles from home and the west coast ain't much without you. The sunshine can't seem to break through dark clouds above my head. And we wore out gears on that Taurus, dear. Now I'm not on tour and it's just me. We'll see better days, just trust me. We're gonna make it through this somehow...

POST I'm alone, she said, that's why she slept on the floor and called out your name three or four times in the morning as I lay there weepin and thought about sleepin again as she reached for the door. Oh, loneliness can tear you apart at the seams and we were so in it, it seemed. It was the last thing that I ever wanted, but you can't reverse nothin after she signed at the desk. Oh, I remember it: it was a slow day, it was a Sunday and we were out and we parked our car, we fought them off and in the morning you were gone. So put on your blue shoes and we'll dance for two 'cause no one needs uplifting anymore than you. I just couldn't bear for us to be more than two and so it all went away with the storm. “I'm a bore, she said, that's why she cried in my arms and carved out that word in her arm. I fought it off, just like I wanted, but she kept on knockin', it seemed like the repo man's work. I'm a jerk, I said, and you can do better than me 'cause see, I made you feel ugly. And if that ain't a sign that we should part, but we still lay there naked as spectators gazed from above. Oh, yeah, there was love but it was too young to bring it forward and move it on. So we parted ways one of those weekend days and in the morning, you were gone. So put on your blue shoes and we'll dance for two 'cause no one needs uplifting any more than you and we'll sing with the choir and POST with the crew 'cause you were all I only could hold.

DON'T PISS ON MY LEG (AND TELL ME IT'S RAINING) Since the day we first met, I loved you so much. I thought we'd run on like an old diesel truck. But the nagging and the tears have worn on my health. I'll focus on me, you go off with yourself. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. I've done all that I can, I'm tired of waiting. I'm fed up with your lies, I'm sick of complaining. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining! I've done all that I can, I struggled and tried. But the last star has dulled, I'm weak and I'm tired. I'm sure you'll hang out with your friends again while I'm watchin our baby asleep in the den... The dinner is cold, our kids are a mess. I'm sneezin and haven't heard one damn 'god bless'. If it weren't for the kids—I'm sorry to say­—I'd pack up and go back to my old ramblin ways... Now honey, tell me how you think we will be when you focus on you and you don't care for me. This one-way street has reached its dead end. I just don't have it in me to hear you lie again... I came home to find your shoes were all gone. You took off with the children, you split up our home. Now if I outlive you—even just for one day—I'd crawl to your tombstone and piss on your grave!

FALL DOWN Fall down winter and talk about the summer. Rise up May and walk about in June. But I'm not the one to make you feel good about the weather. I'm not the one to make you feel blue. Transferred all of your letters and your postcards. Packed up all of my days inside a plane. But I'm not the one who made you feel sad about the ending. I'm not the one who made you lose your cool. When you fall down, arms wide open, falling deeper to the ocean, will you rise back to the top where angels fear and demons walk? One more checkered day is over. Flip the page up, turn it over. Now you're resting deep asleep while saints and blue waves steal your dreams. Throw down all of your dreams and aspirations. Send them all off to float out in the sea. But I'm not the one who'll complain about that winter wasted. I'm not the one to make you taste that pain. Slow down time and speed up every heartbeat. Call that number at every working booth. But I'm not the one who made you fall down on your birthday. I am the one who let you see your truth...

REFAR Refar, I know you wanna see me but you know you're as blind as can be. But still you say it's gonna work out. Refar, what makes you think it could be when you're so different from me? But still you say, Just stay it'll work out. Well, I got time on my hands but no shoes on the ground and it'll just get worse if you keep hangin around. This drive-thru romance is givin me the chills 'cause you just work hard enough to pay your bills. But still you think it's gonna work out. Refar, why don't you listen to me? Just be strong, jump off and be free and you'll see it's bound to work out. Refar, why're you all up in me? I thought you said you should be happy. But still you stay and think it'll work out. Just something as pure and simple couldn't be all mine and this distorted kingdom isn't good for you now. It might seem off and just a little deranged, but you'll be reborn if you get on that plane. You'll see it's gonna work out. You say, Just stand by me, it'll grow in time”, but you can't force something if it just ain't right. The tales of wreckage out from when you've been ain't not too far off from the shape I'm in. Put the headset back. Listen and relax to the voices shouting: Refar!”...

ALASKA We were often left behind the times, often left aside. From blue meadows to the mountains to the ones who're still alive. We were simply all around ourselves fighting to survive. Though the many stranded people off and died. But I'll never let you go that road again and I'll never let you be my only friend. From the city left behind ourselves, slowly dimming lights, we eventually discovered other ways to see the light. From the others watching rapidly, staring through our eyes, they would try to keep us down to make them high... ...I will never let my mind subside to resting on your lies. Just to have you turn around and stab me more than once or twice. The attire that you hide behind will slowly wilt and die. Shed your skin, next of kin, I'll be waiting by the side. The charades and games and fits of rage that rip at your insides—that has worked when we were children, but won't pass this far in life. I'd like to think we meet at points and cross like X and Y, but we seem to mostly ride on parallel lines. How much longer can you hide behind? How long will you lie? You have blinded all the lost ones that look up to you admired. Not one of your friends showed up that night and I am not surprised. It must kill you inside to apologize.

BLUE QUARTERS I got some blue quarters sittin in my hand. I'd like to take you to the movies, dear, but they're all goin to the man. I'd free out all my money, spend it on you if I can. But I got blue, blue quarters. It seems in the past that we got by by savings or checks or tryin to try. But lately it feels like I'm fallin inside 'cause the wolves are at the door and they're startin to bite. We used to make it work from check to check, but as soon as we get one now we just give it on back. The prospect of livin stable is looking pretty bleak. Our ends are strangers now for they rarely meet. I got some blue quarters and I'm not sure what they're worth. I bunch them all together and buy some fuel to drive to work. And if I make it home tonight, I'll be tired and act like a jerk 'cause I got blue, blue quarters.

NEIGHBORS When the Earth was pretty awful I would see you casting stones onto children of disciples that had nowhere else to roam. But I saved you from the gallows. I took you in and gave you warmth but then you struck me and left me dying in the shadow of our home. How forsaken! I'm mistaken to have thought you'd grow a soul. Then we both lay in a cell, dear. Yours was prison—mine, the ground. Years have passed, dear. Stones have traveled, ice caps melted, wars were fought. Someone needed a drink of water: a lonely soldier hurt and lost. He met a maiden and they made babies and we traveled through their veins. Back together, sister/brother, to make peace with our old remains. How forsaken! I'm mistaken to have thought you'd grow a soul. You left your brother alone and dying at the moment he needed you most. Years have passed, dear. The Sun lay dying. It expanded to fill the void. She burned her planets, her last companions. Miss Red Giant called her children home. Now we sit here in a vacuum waiting for some dust and light to start again, dear, to create life and make things all right between you and I.