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I always underline the names of the people and places
but nothing stays the same, not anymore.
Would you believe I chose to do this day after day,
to stay among these pages, never wanted any more?
But here in the quiet of this library, I can't seem to get the words out.
What you mean to me is stacking up, and breaking down
Lucky for me all these people trying to sing about love have got it all wrong.
Music is loud and imposing but love has been silent all along,
Don't they see?
Here in the quiet of this library, I don't need to get the words out.
What you mean to me is stacking up in the absence of sound.
In all of the quiet rooms across the world there are lovers,
and they don't need your songs.
They have all the quiet things,
the peaceful wings that will take them to the ones that they long to love.
Here in the quiet of this library, I don't need to say any words.
What you mean to me is so far beyond all the music you've heard.
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2. |
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The man that you loved, well he passed away in June
and he didn't leave a letter.
How could he leave you here on the ground
while he's above it or below it?
On the day I take him under you say, "you look familiar,"
but I know you're only grieving and you haven't seen me before,
and you never will again, and you don't really want to.
You are a beautiful woman
but I know you only see me as a reaper.
My hands, they are covered with
the soil around your lover, and it never washes clean,
but I always do it with love.
Love is an undertaking.
I am not like other men, like the bankers and the doctors
and the priests and the sinners and the husbands and the fathers.
My work is to write the final chapter, to strum the final note,
to plant the final flower, to lay the final stroke, but never to begin.
Isn't it obvious that I am full of love
like the singer knows to say, but I never allow it?
My hands, they are covered with
the soil around your lover, and it never washes clean,
but I always do it with love.
Love is an undertaking.
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3. |
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God, he gave us invisible things,
like the wind, like love, like music
so we wouldn't always know the breeze from a miracle,
so we'd have to look to see him hiding.
And I pray for the soul of the artist,
that he see how the wind blows off course.
And I pray for the singer and her singing,
it is a humble wish for a preacher man like me.
Would you worship the body that you live in,
or the green inside your pocket?
Would you worship the beauty that you hear
or would you pray before the idol you have sculpted?
And I pray for the soul of the artist,
that he see how the wind blows off course.
And I pray for the singer and her singing,
it is a humble wish for a preacher man like me.
How they fail to see how shallow is the music,
how they make an idol of their melodies.
How they fail to see that everything worth making
has been brought about before our broken feet.
And I pray for the soul of the artist,
that he see how the wind blows off course.
And I pray for the singer and her singing,
it is a humble wish for a preacher man like me.
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4. |
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Go put your glad rags on,
or I don't want to hear you play your song.
Go put your high heels on,
or I don't want to hear you play your song.
Don't call me shallow,
don't call me sentimental.
Don't you say I'm not the kind of woman that you wanted me to be.
Go paint your lips so red,
don't you say you only want what's in your head.
Go pinch your cheeks so rouge,
let them blossom like a tune.
Don't call me shallow,
don't call me sentimental.
Don't you say I'm not the kind of woman that you wanted me to be.
Don't you say that I'm not the kind of woman that you wanted me to be.
Don't you paint me up like painted isn't all you see.
Don't you make me small and singular, a no good woman.
I chose beauty, you chose beauty, eyes and ears want beauty.
Shame me for what I wear,
shame me for living in this dressed up world we share.
Shame me for buying in and selling out,
shame me to the ground.
Don't call me shallow,
don't call me sentimental.
Don't you say I'm not the kind of woman that you wanted me to be.
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5. |
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When I was a boy I learned that I was a flatlander.
When you had your sculptures and melodies,
I had a line that I drew on a paper.
This is my elegance, this is my beauty.
This is my making sense, this is how I speak truly.
I don't have lyrics and I don't have clay,
but I have a calling I bow to each day, don't you?
Can you believe that I am an artist, just like you?
To you it is color and gesture, but for me it's number,
But it's all just a seashell.
This is my elegance, this is my beauty.
This is my making sense, this is how I speak truly.
I don't have rhythm and I don't have paint,
but I have a lifetime to watch as the waves crash down.
It's all about all of the different ways of speaking, I thought you would know
that in the end we're all of us trying to lift ourselves
off of this paper.
This is my elegance, this is my beauty.
This is my making sense, this is how I speak truly.
None of us knows if we'll ever be heard,
but we all have lives that we'll turn into words someday.
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