RECLAMATION PROJECT PART TWO: WILLOUGHBY LYRICS

See entry below for explanation. (These lyrics and those in the previous entry are copyright Mike "Sport" Murphy)

IT'S DEFINITELY SUNDAY
Feel like little Moses in the rushes - got a runny nose and I wanna scream.
Feel like little Moses in the rushes - got a runny nose and I wanna scream.
Who's gonna find me, now that I'm all on my own?
Who's gonna find me?
I feel like little Joseph in the deep hole - someone beat me up in my dreams.
I feel like little Joseph in the deep hole - someone beat me up in my dreams.
Dreaming is a hard thing, when you gotta wake up this-a- way.
Dreaming is a hard thing when you're utterl'ly nowhere... particularly sleazy...
it's definitely Sunday.
Jesus musta been there at the party - someone saved the best stuff for last.
Jesus musta been there at the party - someone saved the best stuff for last.
Change it back to water! I've never been so thirsty in my life!
Change it back to water!
I'd do a damn Novena if this agita would leave me... it's definitely Sunday.
Red-eyed in the Red Roof, apres-jag.
Guess I'll stick this Gideon in my gigbag.
Where the hell did last night go? My new friends turned into dead soldiers.
Run to the Chic Sale to throw a map, and then it's check-out time.
I'm in the fiery furnace and I'm burning... they didn't send an angel and I'm toast.
I'm in the fiery furnace and I'm burning... they didn't send an angel and I'm toast. Somebody save me!
Please, somebody, pull me out of here!
Somebody save me!
I'll vow to celibacy - & never look at whiskey! It's definitely Sunday.

THE DILETTANTE BALL
It's a dilettante ball. It's a dilettante ball.
A few bucks from now I'll be rockin' cause I'm goin' down to the Freemasons' hall
to check out the dilettante ball.
They got an excellent band. A wailingly excellent band!
I took a piss with the bass player one time - he let me shake his hand.
I said: "You're in a excellent band."
Ooh - now they're doin' the heap!
Do you know how to do the heap?
What you do is you get in a big sweaty pile, and then you all fall asleep.
Yeah! Now you're doin' the heap!
I got on my class action suit & I ain't gonna settle for "Scram!"
Gonna hang the belle-o-the-ball up like a big pink pinata
and whack 'er until she gives with the goodies!
Tonight she'll know I'm a mighty, mighty man... d'moppit d'moppit!
This is all I desire. All I could ever desire.
All we need now is some crazy ex-boyfriend to light the whole joint on fire.
This is all I desire.
'Twas a dilettante ball. Big ol' dilettante ball.
When you find my remains, just say: "Yup, here's another one..."
another one who gave his all to the dilettante ball. vout.

THE NIGHT SURROUNDS
Kettles will be whistling to proclaim, with shrill insistence, an impending cup of Sanka.
Someone will be hearing (and, presumably, enjoying) something written by Paul Anka.
Dogs will be forsaken and taken to the pound
on the day they lay your body in the ground.
A rock band will be praying for that single A&R guy who appreciates true genius. Someone in love will croon to someone who's already leaving:
"I hope nothing comes between us."
Flags the wide world over will fly high atop the mast when that day comes to pass. Smirking here inside our nervous breakdown - shaking while the Lucky Planet sleeps.
The night retreats... I swear it does... it can't stay dark for keeps.
So let's go out and act as if it's Saturday - I cannot bear to wait 'til one arrives.
The night retreats, the night returns. The night surrounds our lives.
Arguments will rage, between committed individuals, about substantial issues.
In a thousand teenage bedrooms, human passion will erupt
into a thousand Kleenex tissues.
Bats will keep careening 'round their echoes in their caves
on the day they lower you into your grave.
Come on with me, we'll wander to a quiet place -
an antidote to all this empty noise we've thrown up in our frenzy to deny each other's voice.
And, just for fun, we'll sing a little symphony -
and, just for once, not care if it survives.
The night retreats, the night returns.
The night surrounds our lives.

CARRY ME TO THE PIANO
Now, I'm counting on your kindness... all my bones are made of glass.
Carry me to the piano, and I will try to play a song that makes the sorrow pass.
Now, I always have imagined that I'd soar before I die.
Carry me to the piano. I'll fill the air with silver stars, or shatter as I try.
Well Iím awkward and embarrassed.
Iím a giggling grotesque.
I feel an end beginning... tossing, turning in my thinning skin.
Carry me! Carry me!
Now I'm homesick for my silence this dismal, long-awaited day.
Carry me from this piano!
Away, away, away, away.
Away, away, away!

WHEN I RAIN
When I rain, I'm gonna rain on something weak...
some drab Missouri shack that's bound to leak.
I'm gonna ruin someone's day.
I'm gonna make somebody pray that I'll dry up & blow away and rain no more.
And when I rain, I'm gonna pour.
I've been gathering my anger all these years - saving all this thunder, all these tears.
And it's a petty little mess, and I'll be stooping to impress,
when I wring out all of my distress one afternoon -
when I rain.
& I'm raining soon.
Gonna make sure I don't fill no reservoir or chance to slake some thirsty garden flower. They won't remember what I did.
So, when I put in my sorry bid, I'm gonna find some little kid out selling lemonade -
and then I'll rain on his parade.

AVA
Here comes Ava, swimming slowly.
Tiny bonfires 'round her body.
And she's smiling something holy!
Smiling at me... I say "Ave".
I move through a pinched & stricken world.
Oh! But your beauty, girl!
If I never find another moment's peace, at least I'll have seen Heaven.
There are cold spots in the bright lake where there were murders on early Sundays.
Ava shivers... keeps on swimming toward the shoreline.
Oh! The water is serene... it must remember everything.
And the water, it shines with a rapture now, 'cause it's holding beautiful Ava.
Up the bank strides perfect Ava... and, for a moment, everything matters.
It's her soft lips, and her heartbeat, and the sundown.
Bring the sundown!
Bring the Sun down.

THE MOON STARES DOWN
He thinks he's smelling violets - he thinks he's hearing chimes.
She moves in phosphorescent trails, and up them trails he climbs.
The headstones murmur sonnets and the shadows say "amen"...
friends old and wise who know that nights like this won't come again.
The moon stares down on them.
All his stupid "spooky" jokes are silenced by her smile.
The dreaded touch of wonder, and they stand like that a while.
The moon stares down!
The moon bears down!
The moon wears
down their... ( interlude-pan skyward)
...6 feet above some sainted stranger mouldering in the ground -
a feast of an epiphany, and paradise is found.
Aah!

SING ME TO SLEEP
Green with age and envy, here we are at last.
Nothing to distract us from the ever-changing past.
I'll sing you My True Story... it's bound to make you weep.
I'll sing what I remember, then you must sing me to sleep.
Lean low over me, beautiful angel. All of your tears fall warm upon my cheek.
Cry, cry, cry our blues away, away.
Angel, come sing me to sleep.
All my little life I yearned for something "greater"... even if it meant a greater kind of grief.
I said it and I meant it... I'm tired but contented.
Angel! Hurry! Sing me to sleep!
Pull away these shadows so that I can watch your face shine its fullest light throughout this sick and secret place.
Raise your golden voice again and I'm a happy man.
Sometimes the words are hard to catch, but sing.
I'll understand.

go 'bout your bizness
Well, the rain is come and the night ain't young
and the day's long gone with the carnival
where the laughin' and the singin' and the noise went on -
where the feastin' and the fightin' was.
And your old crowd's crowdin' the theatre now and they're all shoutin' "fire" in unison.
Christ! How they amuse themselves! They're never gonna miss you.
Go 'bout your bizness,
go on home... there's nothin' here to see no more.
Look out! There's bandits in them there blinds
and they're lads unmoved by history... and they're louts, unamused by mythology.
I can hear the cops already:
"Go 'bout your bizness! Go on home! There's nothin' here to see no more!"

KERRY DANCES
Don't mind what anybody's saying. The dogs are out here playing,
with God and Stanshall smiling down.
Don't mind those tombs you've half-erected from stacks of the collected works of Everyone-but-you.
Someday, our eyes will see the glory that we've only glimpsed, limping through this purgatory.
Hold on tight to these romances
days of Kerry dances; skies of Parrish blue.
Round here, no one understands us ...but look at what they're like!
Hallelujia! Strike the band up!
We'll grow old as two young lovers - here to see each other safely to our home.
Home!

A WRETCH LIKE ME
Smug as any specialist, blithely cruel as any child.
Vain as any atheist devout in all his high denials.
Thank you for the Four Seasons, God. Thank you for
the Beach Boys too.Thank you for my life, dear God
...and on a final note:
"AAH-OOOH!"