Wishing Chair

[ music: robert buck/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Come as we go far away
From the noise of the street
Walk a path so narrow
To a place where we feel at ease

Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
There's a stillness here
Thankful found

Child's pose angelic
A stone lamb at her feet
Part the matted overgrowth
To read the carven elegy

Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
There's a stillness here
Thankful found

Born in new albion
Of rice family elite
Wed to myron bilowe
Thrice with sons
Blessed was she
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
God's acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

Here soon to rise up
Amelia tender and sweet
Her last words spoke
All is well
All is peace

Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
God's acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

[ music: natalie merchant/lyric: natalie merchant ]



The legs of maddox kitchen tables
My whole life twisted on a lathe
In a foreman's torrent
My first english was
"faster boy if you want your pay"
Barking commands
Loud and simple
We could all obey

Then i was forever pulling silvers
Rubbed the sawdust always
Deeper in my eye
Varnish vapor that could linger
On my skin
It held tight
The whine of spinning blades
Still echoes to bother my sleep at night

See that ox
Stamped dead center
On the letter head of the company mail
Four decades a spitting image
Of the animal i portrayed
At maddox table a yoke was carved
For my neck

Sun through the window oil spattered
And in mason jars
Tricked plenty seeds thrive
The standing joke
Around the shop was
With my green thumb
Anything'd grow
My part was to laugh
Show and ornery jig had
Cut it at the knuckle bone

See that ox
Trade mark burned
Into every stick of furniture
From horn to tail
Four decades a spitting image
Of the animal i portrayed
At maddox table a yoke was carved
For my neck

Was tailor made

O my dolly was a weak
Not a burdened girl
Treat her to a piece of vaudville
A wintergarden moving picture show
Bemus point on july sundays
By trolley we'd go

To your benefit we's strike or bargain
With the waving fist a union man
Not just for
Smokes spirits candy and cologne
But for
Automobile keys
Cash in the bank
And the deed
On a place called home

[ music: robert buck & dennis drew/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Dance to the sun
A kiss to the earth
Embrace a stone

Come the small black book
Come the brandy cask
One strange disease
The well worded paper
Signed by the drunken
Hands of thieves

And suddenly
They were told to leave

As the snake uncoiled on a road
The length was eighty miles
Wagons' weary horses
Lead the feverish exiles
Barefoot in the early snow
On a ridge
Where they beheld their home
Coarse and barren
Not the haven
Promised by the father

Jaksa chula harjo
Jaksa chula harjo
Jaksa chula harjo **

The red sticks first and
The dancing ghosts were
Pierced with arms of fire
And the weeping widows
Left could not avenge
So the western star manifest its will
Drove them clear into the pacific o

Gone the way of flesh
Turned pale and died
By your god's decree

For he hated me

** cherokee name for andrew jackson
The 7th president of the u.s.a.

[ music: john lombardo/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Why are some men born
With minds that earn degrees
The loving cups
Gilded plaques
Grace their study walls
Hide the cracks
While their genius is turned
To works of tyranny then
Off to market to market
Go selling these

With words so fiery and persuasive
They steal cunningly
Riches no one can exceed

And why are some men born
With a fate of poverty
One firm bed
For a swollen back
Year by year
The bodies wracked while
Their obedience is had
With gradual defeat
By the pace by the pace
And the urgency

Through a muddled thought
They phrase it
God knows we're deceived
Barter for
What they need

And where they go
Disdain and jeering
For fools to call
The noble peasantry

O how it puzzles me

I pressed flat the accordion pleats
That had gathered in his cotton sleeves
While he thumbed
Yes thumbed i wouldn't say caressed

The final piece
A mountain's crest
Soon to reply assuredly

O for man aged ninety years
No words to waste on sermons
He'd be pleased to answer
Short and sincere

Girl there's a nonsense
In all these heaven measures
It's a heathen creed
So your grandma says
But better to live by...
Drink it all in before it's dry

He ended there with a rattle
Cough cough
I took away the long gone cold coffee cup
As a trail of camel ashes fell
On the floor

[ music: natalie merchant/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Wide open falsehood
The clan destine truths
Rival till the end
In a series of duels
Pardon the drapery language i choose

Waltz in vienna has taught me to use
Every tall room a fiction
Leather bound treasure books
Up to the ceiling
Gold spine upon spine

The guile and the treason
The faith and allegiance

Wide open falsehood
The clan destine truths
Rival till the end
In a series of duels
Pardon the drapery language i choose

The author grew fat to imagine
His lead pen careening
Gave voice to the scheming
An aryan cabale to dethrone

The guile and the treason
The faith and allegiance
To the empire unknown

The baron and his mistress
Dine in fine banquet hall
As rebel insurgents plot in
The attic space crawl

Wide open falsehood
The clan destine truths
Rival till the end
In a series of duels
Pardon the drapery language i choose

His small hand did strive
To explain all the
Rants and raves of
A people enslaved

By the cant of the shrewdest
Capable men

The guile and the treason
The faith and allegiance
Now lie in my hand

The guile and the treason
The faith and allegiance
Now lie in my hand

[ music: robert buck/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Here is the store house of her majesty
Well guarded by sentry
But looks are free

Call this the rayless and benighted age
Witches by tallow candles shifted
Shifted their shapes
Here is the pestle and mortar
That ground the poison seed
A lute, a suit for jousting
And the poems of a balladeer
When all the latin books were copied off
In golden script
Well hoarded away in
A monastery crypt

Superstition
Superstition beyond belief

Over mountain, over dune and over sea
Crude map and compass lead the caravan
And lead the fleet
Here's the loot and plunder
They bore home
Ivory tusk inlaid with precious stone
Raw silk and spices by the barrel load
A soft skin drum with mallets
Of human bone

A world wide rampage
Rampage of greed

So here the tour concludes
The colonial wing
The rooms of the most refined
Museum property
An early pair of spectacles
A claw footed divan
Ornate clocks with birds that strut
On the half hours and quarter hours

Hear them chime

[ music: john lombardo & robert buck/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Power
Dizzy with it stumble
Detail
A chance for us to quarrel
Anger
My head is shaken violent

If i could calm or restrain you
For the sake of pity
Save the pistol
Save the cynics tongue
Save the cool white stare
And treat me to an honest face sometime

Amaze me now

Trust is
The greatest human error
Empty
Used me as a vessel
Ruthless
You're not known for subtlety

If i could calm or restrain you
For the sake of pity
Save the pistol
Save the cynic's tongue
Save the cool white stare
And treat me to an honest face sometime

Amaze me now

Artful
Well there's quite a skill to torture
Half smile
Was it all you could deliver
Token
So hard to be pleasant

If you could calm or restrain it
For the sake of pity
Save the pistol
Save the cynic's tongue
Save the cool white stare
And treat me to an honest face sometime

Amaze me now

[ music: dennis drew/lyric: natalie merchant ]



Jenny

Jenny you don't know the nights i hide
Below a second story room
To whistle you down
The man who's let to divvy up
Time is a miser
He's got a silver coin
Only lets it shine for hours
While you sleep it away

There's one rare and odd style of living
Part only known to the everybody jenny
A comical where's the end parade
Of the sort people here would think unusual

Jenny

Tonight upon the mock brine of a luna sea
Far off we sail on to back o' the moon

Jenny

Jenny you don't know the days i've tried
Telling backyard tales
So to maybe amuse
O your mood is never giddy
If you smile i'm delighted
But you'd rather pout
Such a lazy child
You dare fold your arms
Tisk and say that i lie

There's one rare and odd style of thinking
Part only known to the everybody jenny
The small step and giant leap takers
Got the head start in the race toward it

Jenny

Tonight upon the mock brine of a luna sea
Far off we sail on to the back o' the moon

That was a sigh
But not meant to envy you
When your age was mine
Some things were sworn true
Morning would come

And calendar pages had
New printed seasons on
Their opposite sides

Jenny

Jenny you don't know the nights i hide
Below a second story room
To whistle you down
O the man who's let to divvy up
Time is a miser
He's got a silver coin
Lets it shine for hours
While you sleep it away

There's one rare and odd style of living

Part only known to the everybody jenny
Out of tin ships jump the bubble head boys
To push their flags into powdered soils and cry
No second placers

No smart looking geese in bonnets
Dance with pigs in high button trousers
No milk pail for the farmer's daughter
No merry towns of sweet walled houses

Here i've found
Back o' the moon
Not here
I've found
Back o' the moon