When It Rains
When it rains I paint your front door red
Warm has the idea of home in my head
And I'm clumsy with my brush,
Paint spills on glass
When it rains I paint your front door red
Bright as the idea of a child in my head
And I'm clumsy with my heart
Dreams spill on glass
And sometimes I wanna shake you and say
Tell me how it ends
Is there a breaking point, yeah
Up around the bend
Look at me spinning my silly little hands
Look at my heart march in this one woman band
Be my oscillating pair but not my rule of thumb
Be here beside me when all, is said and done
When it rains I buy a silver dress
And I don't know if it's for sorrow or happiness
Cause I'm clumsy with my choices
I don't choose at all
When it rains I buy a silver dress
Wanna call you up tonight and say
"Be my best friend, yeah be my best friend baby"
All My Doors
I've be waiting for you
To tell me something I already knew
And I've been waiting for some indication
That the hardest part is through
And I've been walking these hills in the afternoon
Watching the snow line slowly recede
Thinking if there's nothing that's mine to keep
Then there is nothing I will ever need
And all my doors are open wide
And
I am staring at my life
Hearing sweet laughter of someone
I haven't seen for
a long long time
And if there's nothing I expect
Then what the hell
do I stand to lose
If given a choice between this and something easy
I know what I'd
choose
'Cause I've already chosen
These are things she dreams of one warm breeze
wafting up the avenue
Meanwhile they talk of sleet and snow in every bar
on every radio
Any
Given Day
On any given day, snow changes to rain
changes back to snow again
Freezing on the roads forcing us to choose a new way
home,
And here we go
On any given day, ten years from now
She will decide
If she was wrong or right to leave behind
One whole life on that winter night
And, call me crazy call me mad
Just being alive is the best thing I've ever had
In the end you know all we really have
Is the ticking of these little hands
And if we're lucky maybe a love that lasts
On any given day, you'll find her slouched
In the back of a matinee
Immersed in someone elses' private pain
Waiting for that familiar light on a stranger's face
On any given day, misplaced keys could make you
seconds late
To the intersection where that truck has run the
red light
Allowing you to stay here for another night
Paul
Revere
The thunder of hooves on cobblestone
Mid April and the air is warm
He rides for the world that he knows
May there be a fresh horse waiting
in every town where he goes
I'm also riding in the night
Centuries between us, another kind of fight
In my blood the red coats coming
How free are we in this land of plenty?
And I, heard it on the news this morning
Today's the day that Paul rode
From Boston to Concord
To tell the minutemen of the invasion
I'm gonna ride all the way
From your house to mine and
Tell my minutemen to become hours, to become days
To let this linger on
It's this pursuit of happiness
That seems to constantly pursue us
Rushing towards the jingle of coins
Secure in jobs we can't enjoy and I
I heard it on the news this morning
Obedient to these pale screens
So bent on having we can't be
Offered life and liberty
I look around me, what does this mean?
Occam's
Razor
You tell me when the moon's this full
Sometimes the moths are fooled
And they try to fly to it
I say, "The simple answer isn't always true
Occam's razor can be cruel"
And I tell you what I'm gonna do,
soon as I get my wings
I'm gonna fly
You tell me it's the darkest time of winter here
But we're closer to the sun than we've been in years
And I could chew on these impossibilities
Or I could shake this fear
Then I could fly
These days we're living on the meanest edge
And if we fly too far, the air it thins
But I'll be a girl of faith, not of science
Until the day I die
Then I'm gonna fly
From
The Start
I'm still haunted by that long drive across
the sad prairie
With the rain, smearing colors on the road
And the smell of the cattle cars
Steaming by me on the highway
Reminding me of the circus smells that day
How sharp my memories
How still my heart
The further I go, the more I fall apart
How bright these eyes in the bottom of my cup
How can I miss so many things,
I never had from the start
I dream I'm in a play that I've never read before
And in an hour it's being performed
And I have to wear this pink dress
And even when I'm sad I sing and dance
And I never know what line is coming next
The birds they clatter recklessly at windows
And the cars they just rattle on
But I hear lake water bumping up
against an old stone wall
And the voices of children playing on the docks
Miles
Don't they look happy through the glass?
As their, shiny cars rush past
Loaded for the holidays
Looking like their marriages might last
Almost as far as you can
Get from me before dark
Touch down outside some warm harbor
Doesn't the wind feel hot?
How fetching this stranger, how lovely the sea
And she will say, " I have never felt this way"
And you're miles and miles from here
Funny, how we can't until we
Until we must
Is this sheer madness I am driven too
Or, is this a higher kind of love?
The money runs low and also
Also does my hope
I give it to you and then you
You give it away
True
North
She went to see him and they flew paper airplanes
The mad wind tore at their paper wings
And they flew like swallows
They fell like kamikazees
They crashed, but they did not burn
And everthing had changed but nothing seemed different
She did not know how close to stand
She said can't you see we're moving in all directions?
Can't you feel the pull?
But you're still the one by which I chart my course
Your still my, still my true north
My sister was seven and I'd already turned eleven
We saved cereal box coupons and sent away for kites
And we took 'em to the back fields and we reeled 'em
free
The mad wind took hers instantly and put it in
a tree
And everything had changed but nothing seemed
different
And we did not know that he would have to leave
We said can't you see we're moving in all directions
Can't you feel the pull?
They were still the ones by which we'd chart our
course
Still our, still our true north
My mother and father, they drove up together
To the district court on the twenty-fourth of May
After raising three daughters
After thirty years as best friends
They smiled as they read irreconcilable differences
Everything had changed, but nothing seemed different
So they took each other out to dinner
He said can't you see we're moving in new directions
Can't you feel the pull?
But you're still the one by which I chart my course
Still my, still my true north
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Let Me Just
Always the practical one
You had to remind me, even as we spoke those words
That one day, I'd be bothered by everything you'd say
I, I just stood there so naive
With the fiercest will
The fiercest will to believe
If that day ever came, I'd remember feeling this way
Maybe all things in time diminish
Let me just turn and find a best friend at the finish
Let me just
They say the industry is cruel
Even if they find you, make of you a fool
One day, you'll be tired of living this way
But I, I just stand here so naive
With the fiercest will
The fiercest will to believe
And tonight beside the music highway I will sleep
While the cars rush by me I will dream
Maybe all things in time diminish
Let me just do what I love 'till the finish
Let me just
We ask of the days too much
Expect of each other nothing but, revelation
One day, none of that will matter any way
Maybe all things in time diminish
Let me just have this sense of wonder at the finish
Let me just
Golden
Mean
We held our places at the table
Like a star my family
I put my crayons in the center
And I drew the Golden Mean
Perfect in our proportions
Like a creature of the sea
Like the Pantheon in Italy
Fibonacci would have been pleased, with my family
We marked our places on the doorway
In thin pencil as we grew
We were a golden ratio
And we never even knew
We could never be divided
Like a starfish limb from limb
And even if we lost an arm
We'd grow it back again, in my family
Now you're standing here and you're telling me
Telling me it's all lost
Now you're standing here and you're telling me
Telling me you're already gone
We hold our places at the table
Like a star my family
I put my compass in the center and I say
Are we still golden or just mean?
Take an apple for example
Can't always tell from the outside
But if you split it down the center you're bound to
see
These perfect lines, of my family
Cause we can never be divided
Like a starfish limb from limb
And as we spin our circles wider we're always
Coming home again, in my family
Heart
Song
Yeah they say the heart is just a couple inches wide
Divided by muscle into right and left sides
Just a hollow organ placed between the lungs
Only eight to ten ounces in a woman
Just an ordinary Autumn pain
It's just that the darkness, earlier came
It's just that the snow fell crashing down
It's just that I won't be seeing you around
Explain to me this weight
Explain to me this heaviness
Yeah the logging trucks come rolling in
With their piles of Redwoods like so many dead kings
And all along the midway, scraps of Redwood skin
The end will always escape reason
Explain to me this weight
Explain to me this heaviness
Song
To Ophelia
With rosemary for rememberance
Senseless with pansies for your thoughts
With fennel for your flattery
And columbine for unchastity
And daisies and violets and rue for your repentance
Down to the river's edge she wanders
Among the gilded cobras and the willows
Meanders through tunnels of bamboo
Leaving barefoot tracks along the sand
Into reflection's pool she dips her hand
Ophelia jump not into the water
The river is deep and you'll go down
Ophelia chase not the white bird of silence
The rot is in Denmark not in your heart
Forget the cues and the adornments
Forget the princes and your wish for acceptance
Out her there are no props no stage lights
Out her Ophelia you direct your own life
Floating like a lily pad in white
She has walked onto the wrong stage
This is not her life this is his tragedy
Pull the curtains down and stumble to the exit
She deserves a lead role not just a small part
And the fool's laugh echoes through the stone yard
Perhaps
Perhaps I have not drawn the line clearly enough
So let me trace my borders again
Meaning at the end of the evening this is where I
stand
Waving to you from the other side of the glass
Perhaps I have not given you fair warning
I'm just an instrument of song
You play one string the other's hum along
Meaning at the end of the evening
I'm just an awkward girl from a small town
Weary of saling our cargo around
And I'm sorry if I lead you to believe
That I had come all this way to live
forever in your city
And I'm sorry it's such a thin thin line
Between flattery and panic in my life
Perhaps I have been flirting with a vision of
these parallel lives
Every choice I come to seems miles wide
Meaning at the end of the evening I must
abandon my part
For this long drive home through the winter dark
And I'm sorry if I lead you to believe
That I had come all this way to live
forever in your city
And I'm sorry if I lead you to believe that I
had more to say to you than it may seem
And I'm sorry it's such a thin thin line
Between flattery and panic in my life
The
Promises of Children
Children on the swings was it Autumn was it Spring?
When we promised each other everything?
A porch facing west after years of correspondence
A testimony to divine plan?
Now the vans and the planes the buses and the trains
Converge in my mind one common goodbye
I come bearing maps yeah room to room with my atlas
Do you have any idea why I leave so fast?
It's cause at night I dream of boats that I cannot
seem to steer
And acres of flowers under glass
It's cause at night I dream of words that won't
spill off in the bath
Do the promises of children ever last?
I walk the midnight aisles ceremoniously tired
Married to this empty cart this mile
Neither moving east nor absolutely west
We excuse our little dreams as dual honesties
But still at night I dream of boats ...
Yet
To Be
I know my finest work is yet to come
And I can see my goldest hour is yet to be sung
I can believe my greatest love is never undone
And I can feel the brightest shining of the warmest
sun
Can you hear the children laughing as they run?
And whole walls tumbling into separate stones again
Can you see one light burning at the edge of the lane?
Can you walk into this like the sweetest rain?
Cause I can see, beyond these hills
Drink in this winter air until I'm filled
And with the bones of this dead city I can rebuild
But if my finest fleet, should never reach the sea
And if my darkest hour still awaits me
If this brief glimmer is all that's meant to be
Then let me walk bravely into open fields
And let me see beyond these hills
Drink in this winter air until I'm filled
And with the bones of this dead city let me rebuild
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