Triffids calenture : tropical fever or delirium suffered by sailors after long periods away from land, who imagine the seas to be green fields and desire to leap into them
Bury Me Deep In
Love
Kelly's Blues
A Trick Of The Light
Hometown Farewell Kiss
Unmade Love
Open For You
Holy Water
Blinder By The Hour
Vagabond Holes
Jerdacuttup Man
Calenture
Save What You Can
BURY ME
DEEP IN LOVE
Bury me deep in love,
Bury me deep in love
Take me in, under your wing
Bury me deep in love
There's a chapel deep in a valley
For travelling strangers in distress
It's nestled among the ghosts of the pines
Under the shadow of a precipice
When a lonesome climbing figure
Slips and loses grip
Tumbles into a crevice
To his icy mountain crypt
Buy him deep in love, bury him deep in love
Take him in, under your wing
Bury him deep in love
When the rock below is shaking
The heart inside is quaking
How long this cold dark night is taking
Bury me deep in love
Bury me deep in love, bury me deep in love
Take me in, under your skin
Bury me deep in love
And the little congregation gathers,
Prays for guidance from above
They sing, "Hear our meditation,
Lead us not into temptation
But give us some kind of explanation
Bury us deep in love"
You may lose me on the east face
You may lose me on the west
I may be covered over in the night
Bury me deep in your love yes
Bury me deep in love. bury me deep in love
Take me in, hide me under your skin
Bury me deep in love
Bury me deep in love, darling bury me deep in your love
Deeper and deeper. deeper and deeper
Bury me deep in love
KELLY'S BLUES
Kelly left her front light on
I came around
Her tree blew over
I shook her branches down
The wind and I, we howled around her door
Now there's a buckle in the sky. Iightning on the shore
And a face reflected in a puddle on the floor
Nobody knows the darkness of Kelly's blues
How they turn in on her, how they let her bad side loose
How thin must she grow in this cold and dirty room?
How can I put it in between words?
Kelly, come on out of the gloom
Now her window frame is banging in the sea breeze
Her tabby cat is crying as it rubs itself up against my knees
Her typewriter keys chatter as my fingers freeze
Her lines are down, her phone is dead
Kelly's car is rusting in my back shed
How can I put it in between words?
Kelly, come on out of the gloom
How can I put it in between words?
Nobody knows the darkness of Kelly's blues
A TRICK OF
THE LIGHT
I have a letter. familiar paper
I keep a figurine in a locket
It's dedicated, engraved initials
Yellow photograph in a pocketbook
Well the rim of her mouth was golden
Her eyes were just desert sands
But that's not her!
That's just the light
It's only an image of her
It's just a trick of the light
She sent me letters, gave me directions
Name of the street where I should turn
And then she stood out front, wrapped in her bathtowel
Yelling, "Once you leave boy, you can't return!"
I was beating on her Iike an anvil
Beating her out of original shape
With that same old panic caught on her face
I copied the image of the ancient embrace
You remind me very much
Of someone that I used to know
We used to take turns crying all night
Oh, but that was so long ago now
HOMETOWN FAREWELL
KISS
My eyes are filled with light
My feet can't touch the ground
From up here I can see the sight
Of my hometown city burning down
Now it blazes for me house by house
And my legs they buckle under me
But I don't mind, t sing the old song of joy
For I know why and why it had to be
Higher, let the flames grow higher
Erase my name from your lips as we kiss
Higher, let the flames grow higher
Now there's one soul less on your fiery list
Now there's one soul less on your fiery list
Now I drive familiar smoky streets
I know this town, I know where to turn
All the while I kept a road map in my head
I just came back to see the people and their houses burn
One soul less on your fiery list
Hometown farewell
This is my homekown farewell kiss
UNMADE LOVE
Unmade love
Placed on probation from your limbs
Separated by a thin white veil of skin
And unmade love
Unmade love
To love you is to live beyond my means
The ghost of our love stalks me nightly
In my dreams
Dreams of unmade love
Let me sleep a little longer
Pray that in the morning I may wake a little stronger
I didn't think it would ever come to this
Your fingers that I counted on and kissed
Your body that once wrapped around me
Like a mist
Unmade love
And I'm not getting any stronger
The spade is getting heavy and the ground is getting harder
Harder than unmade love
Let me sleep a little longer
Pray that in the morning I may wake a little stronger
I didn't think it would ever come to this
Your fingers that I counted on and kissed
Your body that once wrapped around me
Wrapped around me baby like a mist
Oh like a mist
And I'm not getting any stronger
Let me sleep a little longer
OPEN FOR YOU
Now that you've gone away
So tired and full of pain
Do you remember the times?
Does it ever cross your mind?
How you had no key
But how the door was always open for you
Yes I left the door open for you
So you can walk through & through & through
And it will always be open for you
Well they've dug up the patch
And found the remains
They've taken them all away
The beads end the bones
Hidden beneath that old stone
Where we carved our names on the underside
If you're back this way again
Don't feel any shame
Walk up my front path
There's no disgrace in that
Walk right up to the door
Cos it will always be open for you
HOLY WATER
Blue girl
In a summer dress in the greenhouse
Where she overslept dreaming of an ocean
Like a meadow
But wet, wet with holy water
Blue girl
In the shallows floating completely bare
We fell together cos good love is rare
And in the dying light a kerosene sun
Burns warmer than none
Holy water, holy water
Sleeplessness
In the deepest night
Her smallest fear becomes a reef of death
And the Blue girl's maiden voyage
Is shipwrecked and sunk in holy water
We go swimming in holy water
Floating in holy water
We fell together cos good love is rare
Holy water soaked through her hair
Holy water, holy water
Blue girl
In a summer dress in the greenhouse
where she overslept dreaming of an ocean
Like a meadow
But wet, wet with holy water
We go swimming in holy water
Lying in the shade of the tree of man
We fell together cos good love is rare
Holy water soaked through her yellow hair
Holy water, holy water
BLINDER BY THE HOUR
Now you'll have to hold me up
And now I'll have to fall
Sew up my eyelids, stitch up my lips
Take me down Roman stairs through your secret back door
With your lips for food. andyour skin for sheets
Your eyes for light, and your blood for heat
And your two white arms for an overcoat
Lay me down now by your side
For I'm blinder by the hour
Take me down, out of sight
For I'm blinder, blinder by the hour
O bundle me tight in your overcoat
With the damn-all we said and the damn-all we wrote
In the stillness of breath. in the dampness of walls
We are taking the cure, we are taking no calls
With our hair for straw. and our teeth for dice
Press air through my lips. slap me once or twice
I know your secret delight in vice
And this is all I have
And this is all you get
With my lips for food, and my skin for sheets
My eyes for light. end my blood for heat
And my two white arms for an overcoat
And this is all I have Lay me down
And this is all you get Take me down
VAGABOND HOLES
Holes in my body, holes in my shoes
You can put your fingers in me
Let the north wind blow straight through
When you left I almost disappeared
Now you've gone, I'm not quite here
My friends say they call me, but there's nobody home
And they say talking to me these days
Is like squeezing blood from a stone
They say I'm fading fast, my signal's weak
You told me to forget about us,
I just forgot how to speak
Holes in my body. holes in my shoes
Who can mend these vagebond holes?
No one's going to love you when you're wrinkled and old
No teeth in your gums,your hair the colour of snow
Up two flights of stairs to your ten dollar room
With the smell of all your cats and dust
And the newspapers strewn
Holes filled with whiskey, holes filled with damp and mould
Days get short, and the nights get cold
Days go missing when the bottle closes in
Weak grow sickly and the sick grow thin
Holes in my body, holes in my shoes
Who can mend these vagebond holes?
JERDACUTTUP MAN
I live under glass in the British museum
I am wrinkled and black, I am ten thousand years
I once lost in business, I once lost in love
I took a hard fall, I couldn't get up
I was frozen out in the lean winter years
When the dollars were few and the faces were mean
I was frozen in business and frozen in love
I took a ten minute nap, man I never woke up
Old and lonely, dirty and cold
I'm a Jerdacuttup man
They stitched up my eyelids so l couldn't see
They sewed up my mouth so very carefuly
They stitched up the wound they had made in my side
They wrapped me up tight and they threw me inside
I tried to object but the words didn't come
Say, "You're making a mistake, boys, you've got the wrong
one,
I'm a little out of shape, but I'm too young to go!"
But my throat just seized up and it started to snow
Old and lonely, dirty and cold
l'm a Jerdacuttup man
They soaked me in brine and thy stewed me in juice
Thy took out my eyes and replaced them with glass
And with skin made of leather, and teeth made of dice
I slept in the peat under ten feet of ice
I had no luck in business and no luck in love
I guess I'm a fool, you could say I'm a chump
I'm shrivelled and black and my bandage is torn
But my fingers are cold, won't you please take me home?
Old and lonely, dirty and cold
I am the Jerdacuttup Man
SAVE WHAT YOU CAN
Well it doesn't look much like we'll see the new year
Cos all the bright young faces are here
And I can't see us rising to their occasion any more
No, not their Christmas cheer
Time is against us, even love conspires to disgrace us
And with things being what they are ...
Yes and things being what they are
Oh my friend, we used to walk in the flames
Now somebody's taken my arms
The shadows are taller. you're missing your halo
With your face in the half-light you Iook like a stranger
You made me catch my breath just then
You made me catch my breath
Is that you:... is that still you?
If you cannot run, then crawl
If you can leave, then leave it all
If you don't get caught, then steal it all
If you don't get caught. then steal it all
Steal it all
The final time we touch
I watch as you enter the church
You turn and you wave, then you kneel and you pray
And you save of yourself what you can save
If you cannot run, then crawl
If you can leave, then leave it all
If you don't get caught. then steal it all
If you don't get caught. then steal it all
Steal it all
And between ourselves, and the end at hand,
Save what you can