Our Time In Eden

[ merchant ]


[ cello: larry corbett/violin: bruce dukov/viola: pamela goldsmith/violin: ralph morrison (quartet arranged and conducted by paul buckmaster) ]

To think of my task is chilling.
To know i was carefully building the mask i was wearing for two years, swearing i'd tear it off.
I've sat in the dark explaining to myself that i'm straining too hard for feelings i ought to find easily.
Called myself jezebel.
I don't believe.

Before i say that the vows we made weigh like a stone in my heart.
Family is family, don't let this tear us apart.

You lie there, an innocent baby.
I feel like the thief who is raiding your home, entering and breaking and taking in every room.
I know your feelings are tender and that inside you the embers still glow.
But i'm a shadow, i'm only a bed of blackened coal.
Call myself jezebel for wanting to leave.

I'm not saying i'm replacing love for some other word to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
I'm just saying we've mistaken one for thousands of words.
And for that mistake, i've caused you such pain that i damn that word.
I've no more ways to hide that i'm a desolate and empty, hollow place inside.

I'm not saying i'm replacing love for some other word to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
I'm not saying love's a plaything.
No, it's a powerful word, inspired by strong desire to bind myself to you.
How i wish that we never had tried to be man and his wife, to weave our lives into a blindfold over both our eyes.

[ buck/drew/gustafson/augustyniak/merchant ]


[ violin: mary ramsey ]

That summer fields grew high with foxglove stalks and ivy.
Wild apple blossoms everywhere.
Emerald green like none i have seen apart from dreams that escape me.
There was no girl as warm as you.

How i've learned to please, to doubt myself in need,
You'll never, you'll never know.

The summer fields grow high.
We made garland crowns in hiding, pulled stems of flowers from my hair.
Blue in the stream like none i have seen apart from dreams that escape me.
There was no girl as bold as you.

How i've learned to please, to doubt myself in need,
You'll never, you'll never know.
You'll never know.

Violet serene like none i have set apart from dreams that escape me.
There was no girl as warm as you.

How i've learned to please, to doubt myself in need.
You'll never, you'll never know.
You'll never know.

That summer fields grow high.
We had wildflower fever.
We had to lay down where they grow.

How i've learned to hide, how i've locked inside, you'd be surprised if shown.
But you'll never, you'll never know.

[ buck/drew/gustafson/augustyniak/merchant ]



We are the roses in the garden, beauty with thorns among our leaves.
To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed.
What is the reason for having roses when your blood is shed carelessly?
It must be for something more than vanity.

Believe me, the truth is we're not honest, not the people that we dream.
We're not as close as we could be.
Willing to grow but rains are shallow.
Barren and wind-scattered seed on stone and dry land, we will be.
Waiting for the light arisen to flood inside the prison.
And in that time kind words alone will teach us, no bitterness will reach us.
Reason will be guided another way.

All in time, but the clock is another demon that devours our time in eden, in our paradise.
Will our eyes see well beneath us, flowers all divine?
Is there still time?
If we wake and discover in life a precious love, will that waking become more heavenly?

[ buck/merchant ]


[ harmonica: charles fleischer ]

Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines, down prairie roads.
Pass the lone church spire.
Pass the talking wire from where to who knows?
There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky from the wild western plains.
Where a man could drift, in legendary myth, by roaming over spaces.
The land was free and the price was right.

Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly.
Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man's family.
I see indians that crawl through this mural that recalls our history.

Who were the homestead wives?
Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know?
Do their works survive their yellow fever lives in the pages they wrote?
The land was free, yet it cost their lives.

In miner's lust for gold.
A family's house was bought and sold, piece by piece.
A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name, so painfully.
In letters mailed back home her eastern sisters they would moan
As they would read accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.

[ merchant ]



If you intend to live again,
Then open your eyes and don't pretend you're feeling there's nothing worth believing.

God, if you persist you'll die like this,
And wither in the midst of your first season,
Cut down with no reason.
How can you be so near and not see everything?

If you intend to live again,
Then take the outstreched hand of the one that needs you.
It's been so long, we've missed you.
Why do you intend to speed your end?
Lie in the dark and let your limbs grow weaker, sinking low then deeper.
How can you be so near and not see everything?

Feel what might be. see what i see.
Again and again and again and again say you don't.
You say you don't, but you will.
How can you be so near and not see?

[ merchant ]


[ alto sax: maceo parker/tenor sax: alfred "pee wee" ellis/trombone: fred wesley (together: the jb horns) ]

Times are far between, and few i bet, when we can look upon our lives without regret.
Of all the things i have done, you think i'm proud of everyone without exception?

'till you make your peace with yesterday, you'll never build a future.
I swear by what i say.
Whatever penance you do, decide what it's worth to you and then respect it.
However long it will take to weather your mistakes, why not accept it?

My hands, for now, are tied.
I'm a body frozen.
I'm a will that's paralyzed.
When will you ever set aside your pain and misery?
No matter how i beg, no matter how i wish or plead, you'll never be more than alive.
You'll never do more than survive until you expect it.
Do you want to build a world with our lives?
You better soon decide or you can forget it.

My hands, for now, are tied.
I'm a body frozen.
I'm a will that's paralyzed.
'till you drop that heavy baggage you're dragging behind, there won't be room for us to both go this ride.

[ merchant ]


[ viola: mary ramsey ]

"my, how you've grown."
I remember that phrase from my childhood days too.
"just wait and see."
I remember those words and how they chided me, when patient was the hardest thing to be.
Because we can't make up for the time that we've lost, i must let these memories provide.
No little girl can stop her world to wait for me.

I should have known.
At your age, in a string of days the year is gone.
But in that space of time, it takes so long.
Because we can't make up for the time that we've lost, i must let those memories provide.
No little girl can stop her world to wait for me.

Every time we say goodbye you're frozen in my mind as the child that you never will be, you never will be again.
I'll never be more to you than a stranger could be.

Every time we say goodbye you're frozen in my mind as a child that you never will be, will be again.