Songs From The West Coast

There's some things i don't have now
Some things i don't talk about
These things are between myself and i
In my thick skull the joker hides

There's consequences i'm scared to taste
Cold hard truths i can't face
These days are different than the past
Reflections change in the looking glass

And everywhere i look there's something to learn
A sliver of truth from every bridge we burn
A hatful of quarters and a naked song
Don't answer the question of where we belong

How come birds
Don't fall from the sky when they die?
How come birds
Always look for a quiet place to hide
These words
Can't explain what i feel inside?
Like birds i need a quiet place to hide

These independent moves i make
This confidence i try to fake
You can hear the beating of my heart
But not a feather falling in the dark

And everything i hear never makes any sense
Another old prophet perched on the fence
A cupful of pencils and a self help guru
Don't answer the question of what i am to you

We bet on our lives and we bet on the horses
In that upstairs apartment
On orlando and 4th
And the rent was due and the rent man was knocking
Like a chinese proverb
We were always searching

Nightlife's a no-win but nobody noticed
How we killed off the bottles
Looking good on the surface
The dog days barked and the house cat got old
We were bonnie and clyde
In the emperor's new clothes

And the tears never came
They just stayed in our eyes
We refused to admit that we wore this disguise
Every inch of us growing
Like pinocchio's nose
As we walked around in the emperor's new clothes

We flew by our wits and by the seat of our pants
In the state of illusion
In the nation of chance
And the repo was hauling the wreck we'd been driving
As the dashboard madonna
Smiled back at us kindly

We cheated the system never batting an eyelid
Seeing only the good
Through the holes in our shoes
And our halos were rusty but we wore them proudly
We were two little gods
In the emperor's new clothes

It's a case i guess of paradise lost
Ten years back on the hands of the clock
In that little house on mansfield
On your old block
Sometimes the magic of the past is all we've got

Just you and me at a crossroads then
Ain't it funny how we were old friends
Accidentally thrown together
Did we intend
To be the romantic novel you never want to end

And it's the contact of the eye that meets across a crowded room
And how i kind of wound up the lyrics to your tune
You said, 'funny but it feels like i've known you all my life
And how it might feel to kiss you on the mouth tonight'

In between the star of david and the california moon
The santa ana winds blew warm into your room
We were crazy, wild and running
Blind to the change to come
In that little house on mansfield
We'd wake at the break of dawn
In an indian summer gone

In the candlelight i can recall
Your naked shadow looking ten feet tall
Like a wild pony dancing
Along the wall
Off balance i found love the only place to fall

Oh, it's carnival night
And they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels
Painting little devils on the roof

Oh the furnace wind
Is a flickering of wings about your face
In a cloud of incense
Yea, it smells like heaven in this place

I can't eat, can't sleep
Still i hunger for you when you look at me
That face, those eyes
All the sinful pleasures deep inside

Tell me how, you know now, the ways and means of getting in
Underneath my skin,
Oh you were always my original sin
And tell me why, i shudder inside, every time we begin
This dangerous game
Oh you were always my original sin

A dream will fly
The moment that you open up your eyes
A dream is just a riddle
Ghosts from every corner of your life

Up in the balcony
All the romeo's are bleeding for your hand
Blowing theater kisses
Reciting lines they don't understand

I'll take a rainy day
To make a champagne shower
Poach some horn and tusk
To build an ivory tower

Been to philadelphia
The day it was closed
I walked to new orleans
Down a louisiana road

The skeletons they hung from the bushes and the trees
But not a skull among 'em said boo to me
In a time of wine and cheap cigars
I'm on top of the world
Top of the world ma

Look ma no hands
Look ma ain't life grand
I'm a super power, i'm a handy man
Didn't i turn out, didn't i turn out to be
Everything you wanted ma
Ain't you proud of me

It takes a silver tongue
To have the midas touch
Not your alchemist
Making gold from rust

Been down in roswell
When the martians came
I sailed to mandeville
Across lake pontchartrain

Oh, i'm a dark diamond
I've turned hard and cold
Once was a jewel with fire in my soul
There's two sides of a mirror
One i couldn't break through
Stayed trapped on the inside, wound up losing you

Tell me how does it work
How do you make things fit
Spent all my life trying to get it right
I've put it together and it falls apart
I thought to myself i might understand
But when the wall's built
And the heart hardens
You get a dark diamond
Dark diamond

Oh, i'm a dark diamond
But you're something else
You read me more than i read myself
The one star i could count on
Only comet i could trust
You burnt through my life to the true meaning of love