The Wallflowers

Shy Of The Moon
Sugarfoot
Sidewalk Annie
Hollywood
Be Your Own Girl
Another One In The Dark
Ashes To Ashes
After The Blackbird Sings
Somebody Else's Money
Asleep At The Wheel
Honeybee
For The Life Of Me

Shy of the Moon

Pretty little girl on the side of the road
Yellow hair in a yellow bow
Little thumb sticking in the exit lane
Two packs of smokes and a candy cane
With woman hips and baby lips
a Hallelujah book in the back of a pillow slip
If she gets out of here too soon
She'll run fast by the shy of the moon

If she's been havin' the same old dreams
Of lullabies and pale blue skies
Fallen asleep beneath the stars
Orion aims and shoots his arrows oh so far
Aims 'em hard
He shoots the moon and takes it as his own reward
If she's gonna see those stars too soon
She'll run fast by the shy of the moon
If she found out so long ago
That she wants more than all she knows
The river ends right as she goes
Water breaks and she's gone down in the undertow
She's below
But I'll stand tall and hold up high my mistletoe
She's gonna shine just like brand new
She'll take my hand and we'll run by the shy of the moon

Top

Sugarfoot

Sugarfoot's got two hands
Just as long as he can see
One hand in the birdfeed
And a hand in the apple tree
He stands in line, just a little behind
The yellow moon that hangs
He's all tangled up and he broke his sticks on the links
Of his own chain gang

You oughta see this home that he owns
It's like a box of jewelry
He's got his own church bell
And his bed it lays like a gallery
And all the colors they shine like flames
Coming in through the window pane
They end up getting checked over twice
For the reds of someone's veins

It's so cold and blown all apart
It's so cold and needing of a heart

He stands alone on the top of his home
Where all the blue birds flown
Sucks in on his cheeks and he cries
As he moans through a saxophone
He reaches high with his hands in the sky
And puts his fingers right into the storm
Always one to stand under the moon
And blow on his own horn
And anyone with anything has already begun to think
That somebody down there knows
Just how he sat down on his knees in the dirt
And buried someone's rainbow

It's so cold and blown all apart
It's so cold and needing of a heart

It's so cold and blown all apart
It's so cold and needing of a heart

Well, I know you ain't my enemy
The only one's inside of me
He's killing me, getting free
I hear he wants my head with an old ice pick
And fix me up on a stick
An' all I've ever got to be
Is everything I want to be
and Sugarfoot disagrees
He still stands tall underneath that apple tree
Man, he's still watching me
His chain gang is tryin' to pull me down
Like the birds and the fireflies
They shoot arrows up into the skies
And they burn all the feathers dry
Well, he only wants to fill his belly up
With rocks 'til it hurts, then he stops
Well, he don't know what to do with love
If it don't fill his belly up to the top

It's so cold and blown all apart
It's so cold and needing of a heart

It's so cold and blown all apart
It's so cold and needing of a heart

Top

Sidewalk Annie

She told you about it through a broken bleeding windpipe
It shook your bones and made your life feel skintight

Chorus:
Well, Sidewalk Annie
Now your coattails have come undone
Your whisper's a scream now
Since you don't speak to anyone

The howling winds could never care what she liked
Rhythm and Blues or A Stranger in the Night
It tore up the trailer with the sound of a howling wolf
The cellar was stone, even the garden was bulletproof

(chorus)

Little girl in your white ice skates
We've seen your face walkin' around the old school gates
With a hand on your hip and the other one on your head
You realized it wasn't gone, but lost instead

(chorus)

Invested a nickel into the banks of a wishing well
And blew out the candles and hoped for somethin' that she could
She could sell

(chorus)

Top

Hollywood

You talk so loud, you talk so much and you talk so funny
But honey, what are you talkin' about?
Something 'bout being, being reimbursed
For every unregistered virus

Drainpipes are filled up with dirty rain
And the leisure train is speeding in the diamond lane
With electricity shut off again
Leaving the night-life only for the madmen

Chorus:
Oh my God
They've sold Hollywood
Burned down my neighborhood
Even shot Robin Hood
And oh my God
I guess it was never understood
To understand brotherhood
Right from wrong
And the bad from the good

Well, everybody's got their own smoke-screens
With personal armies for everyone in between
With plastic rifles given to every team
What a beautiful dream, even bullets have guarantees

(chorus)

There's the sweetest evil image detector
As sweet as nectar, an overrated candy dispenser
She don't give food to eat or anybody, anyplace to sleep
But she can tell you, what you can and what you can't create

(chorus)

(chorus)

Top

Be Your Own Girl

I know you're tired of waking up on the floor
Pushed to the edge with nothing heavy to hold
Using you clothes as a blanket and a bed
Holding your hands just to lay your head

I know you don't remember ever falling down
Who picked you up, who gathered around
But you don't have to be his girl
And you don't have to be my girl
You can always be your own girl

With the sound of your feet you follow yourself to sleep
Restless and ageless and looking for something to keep
When you finally fall asleep you're awake in dreams
Hanging by the ankles in a skeleton ravine

I know you've kicked the lights, fell on your shoes
Punched out the colors, leaving you the blues
But you don't have to be his girl
And you don't have to be my girl
You can always be your own girl

There's a soft melody that's ringing in your ears
Simple and slow and it always brings you here
With broken crayons you've scribbled on the wall
Shapes of nothing and shadow box them all

Your fingertips are broke and your knees don't bend
Your imagination took the worst hit and cut its skin
But you don't have to be his girl
You don't have to be my girl
You can always be your own girl

Your rung is broken on the bottom of the rope
And you can't tie another, another knot of hope
And you don't have to be his girl
And you don't have to be my girl
You can always be your own girl

Top

Another One in the Dark

We took 'em high, we took 'em straight up the hill,
They wanted it all, we gave 'em such a fill
In their parades we stole every thrill
And in their games we made every kill

We took them hard, we took them up against the wall
In their loss we never let them fall
In their flames we sailed up to the moon
In their rains we slayed dry like a fire would

So the bottom of my fears
Is that the girl might just disappear
But that'll be the death of me
The day she's just a memory

Well she turned out the lights
When she opened the whites of my eyes
Another one in the dark
Broken hearted mama
Just another one in the dark

When we rolled, rolled on like a big drum
We went to the top just above everyone
They wanted to win, tie us up with a string, and steal everything
We took 'em skin on skin, we laid 'em down in the ring

So I swear, we're a pair
Like loneliness and a prayer
And you know I may still believe
You may still need me

Well, she turned out the lights
When she opened the whites of my eyes
Another one in the dark
Broken from the start
Just another one in the dark

And in their nights we made out with a loud scream
And in their sleep we howled inside every dream
So if you're trying to break me
Come on why don't you shake me
Right out of my tree
The one that you made me, me

Well, she sang out of tune
When she shot down the moon
As I saw my all freeze
Down onto my knees
Where I was hit at the hip
Between the cup and the lip
As I was struck down under
With lightning and thunder
As she cut all the strings
That I'd tied to her wings
Leaving me in the dark
We stood just feet apart
But she never seen me at all

Top

Ashes to Ashes

Well, you could walk like a stranger head back into here
Bringing gifts while you act so sincere
Bringing gifts for a boy who's five years
Looking for rocks and training wheels

I don't remember you from any of those books
Ashes to ashes and six feet under, face down in a box
Where did you ever learn to treat me like that?

You don't seem to have any of that family stuff
You know the hardwood floors and all that penniless rough
Your bad luck follows you like a heart attack
Twist your fingers, soon as break your back

I don't remember you from any of those books
Ashes to ashes and six feet under, face down in a box
Where did you ever learn to treat me like that that that?

It's coming from another with a mother who's just like yours
Givin' you headaches and all those mental sores
Give a little, have a little, take some for yourself
Like the needy and the greedy always seem by themselves
Well, you must be, have to be one of these
Hidin' in the shade under your family tree
Think I met you once in a liquor store
No think I saw you hanging by the stage door
Handing out programs to the family theater
Devised a role so you don't mistreat her

Take it wild, take it fast
You never gave yourself a chance

I don't remember you from any of those books
Ashes to ashes and six feet under, face down in a box
Where did you ever learn to treat me like that, that, that, that?

Top

After The Blackbird Sings

I'm finding it hard
Just to keep up with someone
Who's hangin' onto nothin'
Only to lose what's never mine

And I'm finding it hard
Just to keep up with something
That's hangin' on to nothin'
To keep all these chains tied up and in line, in line

Pretty Angel
She bites the hands of the lion
Ties it up with ribbon
Watches as hound dogs
Bang on her drums, drums

It's so, it's so easy for you to love nobody
It's so easy for you, 'cause you're not tryin' anymore

I seen this girl
She had her hands full of lightning
She rolled it down to me
A Lolita smile
With a thorn in her eyes
Now she, she spun the world
Up on the edge of a pearl
A carnivals girl
Up on a ferris wheel forever, forever

It's so easy for you to love nobody
It's so easy for you, 'cause you're not tryin' anymore
Just don't try anymore

Now she, she howled like an owl
Only to fall like a sparrow
And lay beside the scarecrow
But after the Blackbird sings
Is the song, the song

It's just so easy
It's just so easy for you to love nobody
It's just so easy for you, 'cause you're not tryin' anymore

Top

Someone Else's Money

We can buy that mansion on the hill
We'll fill it up until it's filled
We'll buy a big black Cadillac
And we'll keep an extra one in the back
We'll sit home just listening
To the sounds of the winds when they're breaking
And we can buy that diamond ring
And just about any other thing
With somebody else's money

We can buy you that flower garden
With every rose that's ever risen
With a blanket and a safety pin
We'll keep away all the boogie men
And we can buy you that swing
Swing through the skies openings
And we can buy that diamond ring
And just about any other thing
With somebody else's money

We can tattoo nickels on our skin
We'll drain our veins and put honey in
We'll buy new fingers two times ten
We'll even put pennies in our chins
We'll buy a silver set of wings
Lay 'em on our backs for the winds
And we can buy that diamond ring
And just about any other thing
With somebody else's money

We'll crash in on the neighbors wedding
We'll steal the cake and go running
You'll head straight for the jewelry
And I'll steal the money like a lottery
We'll buy a set of legs just for walking
And another set of tongues for when we're small talking
Another set of lips for being obscene
And another set of heads for Halloween

And we can buy you that swing
To swing through the skies openings
We can buy that diamond ring
Just about any other thing
With somebody else's money

We can buy babies for the babies
We'll give them both big red ponies
They'll live in that mansion on the hill
That we'll keep on fillin' until it's filled

We'll watch the neighbors fatten up with greed
Watching us buying everything we don't need
I know they're listening
Through a telescope from across the street
Watching us fillin' up the bathtubs with sweets
Money, money, money

Money on the floor put money in the beds
Put money in the drains
Money coming out of our heads
Money, money, money

We can kill many a dirty man
Work by the church when they bring us in
We can buy anything
Because there's always something
That's so funny about spending
Somebody else's money

Top

Asleep At The Wheel

Do you ever stop to count all the invitations
At the end of the day when it comes down to one decision
Of dead beat girls and freaks at a peoples convention
All these sugars with no vitamin sensation

Do you ever stop to look over old relations
Or look to the belly of another one's emotions
Someone young in the winds of a revolution
Trying to save his face in the evolution

Chorus:
Asleep at the wheel
No windshield
But you know that the streets
Here don't change

He's kept alive in the chain of mental starvation
Bone rail skinny, only feeding off frustration
Unlike you who seem bred from corruption
Feeding off the plates of an ununited nation

(chorus)

With a lover in the street whose waiting to make a connection
To be the mother to the soul of your next abortion
She'll steal your money with the eyes of a baby's complexion
Then she'll laugh at you and your sexual invention

Smelling like a rose, in the flowers of devotion
Devoted the heat of a spotlight in motion
With a face full of mud even though you were only joking
As if you really understood the value of isolation

(chorus)

Your tongue so fast like a freight train coming on rollin'
Every smile you give's just to keep your mouth from clothin'
Every engine burns as a sign of the explosion
Locked in neutral your engines are broken

Like candle wax that sun melts into the ocean
Like the moon that lights the tracks of the old train station
You can color in the lines of mother earth's addictions
And not hold a gun in the face of the Earth's abduction

(chorus)

Top

Honeybee

Seen the shadow on my wall
Turn and fall
On broken hands and all
Turn and crawl
Seen that sun gone down
And the waterfall
She stood tall in the fallen rain
Right off an orphan train
She'll run to me again
I believed
See how wrong, how wrong you can be

I know who watches you
Who watches me?
I know who hears you
Who hears me?
If my eyes blind
Who'll see
The best in me?

I hear all the lonely cries
Underneath all these lies
She can't get them by
Or through me
See how wrong, wrong you can be

My honey bee
Why are you flyin' so far from me?

She keeps her hands so free
And walks through me
Straight on through the dead of night
Her face is painted white
By these street lights
They hold you down so tight
And like hounds they bite

She fell down in her diamond suit
On lonely avenue, her color's only blue
She won't take clues
See how wrong, how wrong you can be

My honey bee
What on earth are you trying to do?

And where that hero falls, I held on
I always thought I'd see the lights close on me
And the water freeze, surrounding me
Look how wrong you can be

My honey bee
Why are you flyin' so far from me?

Top

For The Life Of Me

Well, I know you find it hard to smile
To keep your happiness in style
You pass in silence in the mornin'
You know you shouldn't ever try to ignore me

And you look to be pretty nervous
Sweaty hands and blood shot eyes
So hard to identify you
Just a loser in a loser's disguise

Chorus:
She don't back down
And she won't come around here
Now there's all this talk about dying
Well I don't get it, for the life of me

With your fingernails painted red
And your eyes all ready to wed
Decorated from head to toe
Like a magician in a talent show

(chorus)

So you've smoked your last cigarette
Burned coldly on a train from Tibet
And broke your last bottle of wine
And unraveled your last ball of twine

(chorus)

(chorus)

Well, I know you find it hard to smile
To keep your happiness in style
You pass in silence in the mornin'
You know you don't usually ignore me

Now there's all this talk about dying
Well, I don't get it, for the life of me

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