Black water, dark tide; seems like the moon is out of place;

There's a surge out on the ocean; I can't see but I can taste.

Hear that siren in the night; Will you stand or will you flee?

Me, I'm riding with the waters; I think that it was meant to be.

Black water, dark tide...

Why so many dreams, filled with my silent screams;

Should I wake or look away?

What's that I hear, rushing quickly near,

Was there something left to say?

Black water, dark tide...

Turn your face from the mirror; seems like the moon is out of place;

Drive hard, to the ocean; sensing there's no time to waste;

Like a siren in the night; singing over sky and sea;

You will ride with the waters; you know that it was meant to be.

Black water, dark tide...

Feed the eternal flame, so little time remains;

What's that burning in your blood?

What's that you hear, rushing quickly near,

With the power of the flood?...

Black water, dark tide...

What's that I see, beyond eternity?

What's that singing in my blood?

What's that I hear, rushing quickly near,

With the power of the flood?...

Black water, dark tide...

©1997 Ozone Pete



Sinner's Flight
Top

I've brought whiskey for my comfort; I've brought (my) ghosts to hold my hand;

But I've brought no destination; There's no place left to make a stand...

I once was granted peace and protection; That only the angels bring,

But I chose to pursue the darkest dreams, Of my furthest imaginings...

I drive to escape from all regret; Guilt will ride with me all of the way.

A most unwelcome hitchhiker, Whose last known address was Midnight's Lost Highway...

Some men fill the world with laughter; bright as birdsong and the scent of summer hay;

I leave the world a heartache; Wrack and ruin along my way...

I've set fire to all my bridges, they burn fiercely as I speak.

Just like my promises, they crumble, Into waters dark and deep...

Now some men tremble in their panic, At the passing of each earthly day.

But me, I'm drivin', Like a hell-bent demon down Midnight's Lost Highway...

©1997 Ozone Pete



(Just) All and Everything
Top

In a starlit room; In the gathering twilight gloom;

I stand undone; Hope has faded, Love has flown.

But I'm still here; Nothing's left where there once were tears;

I'm standing numb; Hope is silent, Love is gone.

Some far-off day, In the spin of a world away,

I'll hear your voice, and again feel the sting.

'Til then I'll remain, at a distance from joy and pain;

For to me, You're just all and everything...

Was love my sin? You said it's what you were drowning in.

As time rolls on, perhaps I'll know what you mean.

'Til then I'll remain, at a distance from joy and pain;

For to me, You're just all and everything...

©1997 Ozone Pete



I'm Gonna Join the Circus
Top

Ain't nobody loves me,

Even if they say they do;

Hell, I don't love nobody neither,

'Least I'm sure that's true...

I lock the door and pull down the blinds,

When my old pals come around;

Turn off the TV and keep real quiet;

'Cause I owe everybody in this lousy stinkin' town...

I'm gonna join the circus...

Laugh and smoke while the elephants play;

Drink and gamble my time away.

Get hitched to my fav-o-rite hoochie-coochie girl,

If there's any justice in this lousy stinkin' world...

...I'm gonna join the circus...

I'll host a friendly little game after the show;

slip a finger up my sleeve, squirrel me an ace;

Rake up that money from the townies and the marks;

Put 'em all in their lousy stinkin' place...

'Like to pull something on somebody,

That maybe I could get away with;

Fool all of the people all of the time;

Give the finger to the judge while I'm pleadin' the fifth...

...I'm gonna join the circus...

©1998 Ozone Pete



Dead Already
Top

I got a real bad feelin', I smell evil up the road;

I been dicin' with the devil, and he's about to win my soul.

Got a hunk of cold blue steel, it feels so good against my skin;

So don't you get me started, 'cause my nerves are stretchin' thin.

You know death is a mystery, and livin's stranger everyday.

I got a head full of poison; so you best stay out of my way.

Gimme bennies and a bottle, that's all my empy heart can stand;

I can feel myself fadin', I'm just a shadow of a man.

Got a '69 Caddy; if it had wings, man it would fly;

Think I'll drive to purgatory, and kiss this mean old world goodbye.

Old yellow-eyed devil, stalks this land without regret;

If there's a hero out there somewhere, I ain't run across him yet.

©1997 Ozone Pete



A Long Time Ago
Top

Ragged mornings crawl by weary in the rain,

And bitter coffee sets his mem'ry ramblin' to the golden days;

Singing "Anchor's Aweigh" in strong refrain;

Young and supple, with the world at war, the friendly sun would shine,

Where the South Pacific's balmy tradewinds blow...

Now his heart has turned to diamond, and his hair's become the snow...

Should'a shipped out and hauled away a long time ago...

He looks into the bar, but no one's there to chat,

'Bout his thirty years in the cannery, "Gone in nothin' flat."

He finds he's wandered off again without his hat,

Out upon the jumbled seawall, accomp'nied by the cat;

Seagulls wheel and cry above the tidal flow...

He suspects they're saying something, that he already knows...

Should'a shipped out and hauled away a long time ago...

She floats into his mind on some neglected tune,

His wife, who left in '51 when the roses failed to bloom;

Sitting in his worn-out house beneath the moon,

The ghost of an innuendo, haunting his own living room;

Just a fire that's dying soft and slow...

And like the smoke torn from the chimneytop, there'll be nothing left to show...

Should'a shipped out and hauled away a long time ago...

©1998 Ozone Pete



Fictional Universe
Top

She's a hard-chargin' woman, with a hard-headed attitude;

I don't know who wrote her lines, but man, she nearly had me fooled;

Every time she's around, I get a tingle that's beyond perverse;

I get the feelin' that I'm slummin' in a fictional universe...

Do you love your neighbor? Can you trust your friends?

Who's gonna do the talkin' when the troubles begin?

Does the world revolve around a gypsy's curse?

Or are we just livin' in a fictional universe...

My senator says, "I'll get you everything that you need;"

"Just gimme your vote, your happiness is guaranteed!"

He's never held a hammer, or spent a single day in the dirt;

Still he's a workin'-man's hero in his fictional universe...

(Chorus) 3rd line: Is your future ridin' in that big black hearse?

Am I the captain of my fate, or have I been at the wheel too long?

I must be the one that's right, if everybody else is wrong;

Tho' my charts say that I'm steering on a straight and purposeful course;

I could be driftin' with the current in a fictional universe...

(chorus) 3rd line: Is reality printed on some kid's t-shirt?

©1997 Ozone Pete



Mexican Clouds
Top

In these days of melancholy;

In this winter of our discontent;

I lose the spark for living;

My spirit falters, cold and spent...

Wish I could be,

High fat and free,

Like a Mexican cloud...

So I search in darkened corners,

For a glimmer of the dream that led me on;

Lost in wistful contemplation,

Of tropic climates, soft and warm...

Dimly I see,

In front of me;

Just through the grey,

Where shadows crowd;

Wish I could be,

High, fat and free,

Like a Mexican cloud...

©1997 Ozone Pete



Blood and Adrenaline
Top

I tell a sad and simple story, about a sad and simple man

Still grieving for his murdered youth; left where the dreaming Buddhas stand.

In the southern half of a country, that the muddy Mekong spans,

We humped through the sweating jungles, our weapons in our hands.

We were there to save those people, and keep democracy from harm;

But we learned to save each other, and to hell with Vietnam.

The new LT ordered up an ambush; he was so "West Point," young and green;

Hungry for some glory, and a taste of blood and adrenaline.

When Charlie walked into that valley, we were ready to put their souls in flight.

Time stood still, and the Universe shrank to where I held them in my sights.

We unleashed the sound and fury, of claymore, grenade, and gun;

Lead and steel fulfilled their destinies; We blew them straight to Kingdom Come.

But just a half klick up the trail, was a full company dressed in black;

As our radioman screamed for air support, their mortars walked right up our backs.

They cut our platoon to pieces, before the gunships came blazing in;

Just as we'd done to them, they left us to lie, in blood and adrenaline.

Wish that I could find my lost innocence, and enfold it to my breast,

But it's still walking those dappled jungles, with the wasted dead that never rest.

When the politicians do their own killing; then killing will truly become a sin;

Maybe then I'll awake from this haunted dream, of blood and adrenaline.

©1997 Ozone Pete



Loretta
Top

I woke up this mornin', feelin' just fine;

No tearstains on my pillow, no worries on my mind;

Then I looked into the closet, where you could plainly see,

Loretta had up and walked out on me...

Hey-hey Loretta; I'm so glad that you're good and gone;

Hey hey Loretta... Goodbye; Good luck; So long...

I used to jump and jitter when the phone would ring,

'Cause it might be the sheriff or some other damn thing;

Then I'd search through the city like some broken-down machine,

Just to find you in a gin-mill with some guy I'd never seen...

A paralysed victim of her poison kiss,

I never thought that I was gonna live through this;

But now I'm just a checkmark in her big black book;

I feel like a fish that's shaken off the hook...

I'm walkin' like I'm dancin'; grin at everyone I see;

They're wondrin' 'bout this sudden change that's fallen over me

The possibilities are endless; my world is brand-new;

'Cause I'm startin' over... and I'm startin' without you!

©1997 Ozone Pete



The Ballad of Carlos Montoya
Top

He walked out of Puerto Barrios;

The smell of the shoreline, and the rusting tin.

His parents and sisters gone to typhoid;

He settled life over, his wand'ring begins.

When your family is gone you've got nothing,

And that nothing is a thousand miles wide;

Tho' the world fills the life of your senses,

There's nothing can fill the Big Empty inside...

The passage of five million footsteps,

Brought Carlos to follow the crops in the West;

With a wife and three little children,

In the bed of their pickup, they'd lay down to rest.

The San Joaquin nighttime is chilly;

Carlos slept in the cab, the sun dropped like a stone.

A charcoal fire in the back warmed his family;

In their sleep they had died, all the oxygen gone.

Maybe God sees all from his heaven;

His blessings and love to impart;

But he has no love left for Carlos;

He reached down and tore out the last of his heart...

So leave him to his bottle boys;

Forgetfulness, his only friend.

Lifetimes of sorrow relived in his dreams,

Carlos Montoya now prays for the end.

©1997 Ozone Pete



Nightmares in the Daytime
Top

I've got leavin'on my mind; I just don't know which way to go;

My woman she don't want me; Yeah, she drove me from her door.

Dont the world seem wicked, when your baby's love is gone;

She'll turn all your friends against you, and everything you do is wrong.

You will repent in leisure, when you take a girl in haste;

You'll regret the day you find that all your love has been misplaced...

Now my world is a ruin, where everything seemed so complete;

I have nightmares in the daytime, and I cry myself to sleep.

Lookin' down at the river, I just can't bring myself to leap;

I have nightmares in the daytime, and I cry myself to sleep.

My mama tried to tell me, she had others on the side;

My papa told me, "Son, you know you're livin' in a lie"...

Now my world is a ruin, where everything seemed so complete;

I have nightmares in the daytime, and I cry myself to sleep.

©1998 Ozone Pete



Cloak of Darkness
Top

Fortune smiles, and it smiles forever,

Smiles with a sharpened grin;

A rage against God, and base cruelty,

Leave life and love twisting in the wind.

Perform the deed, and the deed becomes the man;

Underground are hidden secrets, and blood is on my hands...

Is there a secret somewhere in the world;

I can't see revealed once the night is unfurled?

A creature of shadows; I'm doomed to remain,

Under this Cloak of Darkness...

Mortals sigh, and they sigh forever;

Sigh for what they can't possess.

Fruitless guilt and empty passion;

Blind and stumbling on the path of flesh.

One short embrace, embraces the mark of Cain;

A kiss: profane and deadly; as the blood pounds through my veins...

Is there a dreamer somewhere in the sun,

Who knows how the spark of my nature was born?

The years pass in loneliness; still I remain,

Under this Cloak of Darkness...

©1998 Ozone Pete



Breakdown Lane
Top

Cop car is screamin', pedal to the firewall...

Ambulance is doin' ninety, too slow to make the call...

Driver's slumped in a haze of gunpowder and booze...

It's ugly and it's clear: a mind's a nasty thing to lose.

The pictures come knocking when everything is still,

Fed by despair and drinking down your will;

Reel after reel; Frame after frame...

Crushed by your troubles and stranded in the Breakdown Lane...

I'd like to hear you brother but I'm just this side of sane;

Hard into the guardrails in the Breakdown Lane...

I think I hear you sister through the wreckage of my brain;

But we speak another language, here in the Breakdown Lane...

solous interruptus:

Without a cry or a struggle you can never break the chains;

Life's a dime on the dollar...here in the Breakdown Lane...

In between the silence and the hiss of the sea,

Is a place that's called for many and I know it's called to me.

Perhaps you know this stretch of roadway and it's well you know my name,

"Cause to me it's long-forgotten,

Must've left it in the Breakdown Lane...

©1998 Ozone Pete