UNION SUNRISE (J Neo Marvin)
We’ve had it with slaving just to survive and wondering what we’re working for. We’ve had to say, “that’s the way it is”. Not anymore. We’ve had no choice but to smile and be nice and turn the other cheek for more, our fates defined by one man’s whims. Not anymore. I woke up feeling great today. I used to sleep in fear. There’s power surging through us like I haven’t seen in years. Who’s gonna turn your pretty little screws? Who’s gonna mind the store? You’ve been taking us for granted lately. Not anymore. We’ve seen the man behind the curtain. He looks smaller than before. He used to cast an awesome shadow. Not anymore. This is the voice of your replaceable cogs. This is the voice of your tools. You might find things don’t run too smoothly if you choose to react like fools. We’ve come to change some rules. We’re going down to the bishop’s
house to nail our theses to the door. We used to be afraid of thunder. Not
anymore.
LOSING GROUND (Mark Zanandrea-Mick Freeman)
If the first shall be last and the last shall be first, do the ones in the middle
just get bored? Do they have to change their seat? Is their station incomplete?
Are they the ones that get ignored? Well, I had a talk with God and I found him
rather odd. He’s such a quiet guy. You would think in all this time, he’d come up with one good line, just to show you that he tried. If the devil wants your soul, and you owe it to him whole, just say his shoe’s untied. You’d be amazed how well it works as he’s
staring at the dirt, and you may never die.
BEST SELLERS (J Neo Marvin)
The mytho-poetic spin doctor has a prescription for your ills: myths of mighty
kings and warriors, and all the blood their glory spilled. Bring a drum
and rent a loincloth: multicultural cliff-note mish-mosh. Mystification
of the status quo; a spiritual whitewash for your ego. Forgive me if I
find your customs puzzling. I come from a planet where there are no sports.
Pardon my lack of enthusiasm if I refuse a bite of your hot dog. Oh God,
I’ve blown it again. I can’t seem to play this man game right. Take me to the motivational meeting. Suit me up and fire me up to sell. Ask me what I do for fun. Do I have any wholesome hobbies? Yeah, I’m building a scale model of Hell in my basement. Best sellers tumble off the shelves. Dime store gurus praise themselves. They want a chance to fix my life. I’ll
find my way just fine.
MARK TIME (J Neo Marvin)
Waiting for the phone to ring, I can hear the mockingbirds sing, “You’re out of it and you’re out of touch. Stop trying to make it all mean so much.” Rack my mind. Thoughts just grind. Soul to keep, no time to sleep. Toss and turn, emotions burn. Hunt them down, they can’t be found. The stale motions that bring them praise, I sit back appalled and amazed. Their diarrhea pays their rent. I suppose they’re quite content. Rack my mind. Thoughts just grind. Soul to keep, no time to sleep. Purge myself. Destroy my health. Books and bottles knocked off of the shelf. A little nonsense never hurt you, but shallowness is not a virtue. Dueling in the marketplace, marking time and taking up space. You can talk about nothing all night. I’ll shut my mouth till I can say it right. I get too candid for my own good. Sometimes I don’t equivocate like I should. I cast my mind to long gone days when there was more around to take my breath away. Rack my mind for words I can’t find. I don’t even care if they rhyme. I can’t plug gaps with bullshit lines. It just won’t work, no, not this time. I can’t mark time. I’ve
got no time.
DIET OF WORMS (Allison Moseley)
I’ve got my reasons for dishonesty. Every step ahead requires a methodology. I win these awesome wars though morally weak, because I understand the use of guile and deceit. Virginia, comfort me. I don’t want to lie, but everything eludes me even when I think it’s mine. Sleepwalking through the day, or sitting in my room, I’ve got my reasons why I eat a diet of worms. Do you crave the truth as you would desire air? Do you trust or disbelieve? Are you innocent? Dig for convictions but they’re
covered with guilt. If I could uncover them would you honor their worth?
THE HYPNOTIST (J Neo Marvin)
Can you explain yourself? Can you justify your hate? Itemize your prejudices,
clean them up and make them shine. Assemble the shards, glue them together.
Call it a world view. Someone might follow you, and maybe if you’re lucky, they’ll bring their friends along too. Call it a party. Call it a calling. Tapping into that vacant gold mine. And if you were born on the other side, you’d be lifting your sword for the other side. Twelfth century fools with 21st century tools. This is the mosque, this is the temple. The enemy’s inside. It’s all so simple. Tortured, raped and killed for living on the wrong side of the hill. But I digress. Tell us all about your cause. Can you create a myth: some heroes and some villains? Treacheries, ancestral sins, buried in the distant past. A secret pledge, a secret handshake. Somebody’s got to pay. They made you live this way. Subhuman obstacles to a newer, brighter day. The time is now, and you know just how. You’re a leader of men with a sacred vow. And if you were born on the other side, you’d be lifting your sword for the other side. The more you lie, the higher you can fly. This is the church, this is the steeple. Open up that door, slaughter all the people. A nation moves as one, and time moves backwards when you’re
having fun. Are you proud of the history you are making, when you look
in the eyes of your victims? Oh, it must make you feel something.
FIVE LEGGED SPIDER (J Neo Marvin)
How can we know how far we’ll go? The future’s in our grasp till something manages to drag us back. Who owns our dreams? Who wrote this script? Staging mutinies on a leaky barge that’s set adrift. We’re broke. We’re tired. We try so hard to stay inspired. Strain to find new words. It’s harder when you know your voice is heard. Come on, let’s crawl, on and on, up the wall. Another leg done gone. But we can’t turn back and we won’t turn back. We won’t
get good answers till we ask better questions.
STUDPUPPET (J Neo Marvin)
No one has to apologize for putting a damper on your lies. Your credibility
is slipping faster than you can see. You’ve made it clear to everyone which side your brain is buttered on. Before you see reality, you’d pluck your eyes out gladly. I thought I liked you till your loyalties came out. I can’t believe the shit that pops out of your mouth, and that’s sad. It’s so sad. Kneel down before the boss. He really understands your loss, you say. Selfish immaturity is all that’s motivating us. We can’t seem to get behind the padlocks on your “open” mind. You’re a stuffed puppy on a string. You’d fall for anything. I never did expect that you would be much help, but I never predicted just how proud you’d be of yourself, and that’s too bad, oh it’s
just too bad.
MISADVENTURE (Maati Stojanovich-J Neo Marvin)
Laudanum and terror don’t mix all that well. One warm ticket to dreamland through a thick fog of Hell. I sharpen up my knives and laugh just to keep wide awake, and remember all the exits when I don’t know what’s at stake. Venus, Mars and Jupiter, shed your lovely light on her. A queen’s ransom she’d fulfill for extra-planetary swill. It’s creeping up behind. There’s something wrong that she cannot explain, but she knows it when she sees it. Now I’m hungry, tired and weak. I’d gladly turn the other cheek. Best not catch me rested and fed. I’d rather see you all were dead. Somebody sent me up to Cripple Creek, but said I could stay there for just one week. I danced all night and I slept in the sun. When it was over, I was finally ready to have fun. Sweated out the poison. Bought a brand new skin. But the jailer woke me up to the same old sin. It’s creeping up behind. I can’t spell it out for you in 25 words or less, ah, but trust me, yeah trust me. It’s looming up ahead. It’s creeping up behind. Confused, dissatisfied, all twisted up inside. Don’t
leave me alone here. Please leave me alone.
WINDBAGS (J Neo Marvin)
The man with the loudest voice surely must have the most to say, and all of
it means more, you know, if you hear it on the radio. He puts his finger
on the pulse and crushes it till it turns blue, and if they amputate the
hand, it must not have belonged on you. Drown me out. Speak your mind.
Stroke yourself till you go blind. Call the shots. Fire away. Do you win
if I don’t play? Grand Inquisitor takes a stand for the real people of this land. You can tell which ones are real because they’re the ones he never interrupts. In the free market of ideas, who’s that down there tearing up the field? It’s the man with the loudest voice, as if we ever had a choice. See those teeth that brightly shine: just another mouth in a long, long line. We’ve endured a lot from the likes of you. No doubt we’ll
endure this too.
BASICS 101 (Mark Zanandrea)
It didn’t seem like much at the time, but you could let it in or you could lay there and die. Are you too pure to breathe it in? Yeah well, who knows where that air has been, and it just might clash with your nihilist chic, your boot black soul and your love-hate beads. Summer’s done. It’s back to Basics 101. No more fun, it’s back to Basics 101. Now your loved ones hate you the most, and your enemies love the way that you choke. And you wouldn’t think to change a thing. You’re in a gilded cage with a broken wing. And it’s
so peaceful here with the lights all off, and the windows shut, and all hope
lost.
SLOW FIDELITY (Mick Freeman-Allison Moseley-Mark Zanandrea)
I lost my way.
APOCALYPSERVICE (J Neo Marvin)
She said the end of the world is coming. Turns around and there’s another sign manifesting. She said, “did you hear the one about the six-year-old who tried to gouge a girl’s eyes out with a scissors?” She said, “I despise our new protectors.” I said, “they mean well, but they’re essentially spineless.” We live in the eternal epic battle between mediocrity and evil. First time I was told, they spilled the beans; I was eleven years old. We’ve been fruitful and we’ve multiplied; now we don’t know how to stop this ride. Fire, flood, earthquake, famine, plague, rampant human idiocy, yeah…it could happen but I’m
not ready to run off and hide in the mountains just yet. Nostradamus does not
run my life.
NEVER BEEN YOUNG (Music: Mark Zanandrea-Words: J Neo Marvin)
Tell me something about your childhood: a life that was not my own. Father,
teacher, God and country, hailstones raining down upon me. I had me an
education in all the finest Southern values: the steady rhythm of back-breaking
work; the thrill of perpetual denial. And I don’t feel old ‘cause I’ve never been young. No bliss in my innocent past, just sentimental lies and violence. I was a simpleton in a corrupt and stupid world. Innocence was a handicap and I was aiming to lose that fast. And when the right time did come, I did not mess around, no. Cradle nostalgia buffs, longing for a life that never was, cling to their censored memories. There’s something faintly sick about it. And I don’t feel old ‘cause I’ve
never been young. This is the mighty furnace that forged me, all bent and
twisted, with a really shitty attitude. Hi-de-ho!
EDGE OF THE WORLD (Allison Moseley)
You told me I had to have fear, but didn’t mention why. Why give advice when you don’t know what’s true? We’re so far from anywhere else with so much to prove. Couldn’t go back even if we could turn around, there’s nothing left to go back to. Drive on into the dark. Will we all fall over the edge of the world? If I could walk away, search for something higher, with my soul intact and my head on fire, would we all fall over the edge of the world? I’ll
take you all over the edge of the world.
BLACK RUSSIAN (J Neo Marvin)
You and we, we go together like Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky.* We can talk
about our endless pain and the failure of our ideology. Spill your guts
all over
a canvas and from my exile I’ll fire off another tract. We walk a thin
line between faith and fate, but right now I’d rather not talk about that,
so pour me another black Russian and put off the serious part of the discussion.
It’s my downfall. It’s my poison. It’s my platform, my position. Think
twice before you follow; your chemistry may not be the same. (Down the
rabbit hole things get strange.) Pour me another black Russian till I’m
blurred and sharpened all the same. I don’t think I’m fundamentally evil,
but I can be blinded by frustration. I blame no one but myself for the
times I’ve fallen into stupid situations. In some anonymous east coast
bar, some anonymous band is playing. I knock back more toxic waste, trying
to blot out the question in my mind: is it really over this time? We had
it out on River Road. How ugly can two lovers get? The Sonoma County deputy
sheriffs were this close to locking us both away. Well, I’ve got a lot
to regret and I’ve got a lot to live down, but one day I want to go back
and make love to you in that same town. Pour me another Black Russian and
let’s
get real, real gone for a change.
*or "Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir" when performed in France.
LONG DARK NIGHT (J Neo Marvin)
Watch out where you park your Beemer going to the victory parade. The chickens
are coming home to roost on your hood now. You’ve got a long dark night to face. The big man’s getting all excited. He thinks he’s found the cure for our malaise. Stumbling down the middle of the road to nowhere, he’s got a long dark night to face. People are desperate and uncertain. Blind loyalty keeps them entertained. They can’t fool themselves for too long. They’ve got a long dark night to face. Why we gotta always talk like that? Don’t we ever run out of things to hate? Self-absorbed and bitter, how much longer? We’ve got a long dark night to face. We’re running out of time to waste. It’s going to blow up in our face. We’ve got a long dark night to face. Things get worse before they get better. We’d
better face this night together.
All songs © 1992-1996 Undulant Rhetoric (BMI)