Memorable Lyrics

"The cabaret was empty now, a sign said, 'Closed for repair, '
Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair
She was thinkin' 'bout her father, who she very rarely saw
Thinkin' 'bout Rosemary and thinkin' about the law
But, most of all she was thinkin' 'bout the Jack of Hearts"

 

Always enjoyed from Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl":

Called my mom from a payphone
I said, "I'm down to my last"
She said, "I sent you to college
Now go call your dad"
And the waitress that he married
Well, she hung up the phone
Ya know, she never did like me
But I can stand on my own
Sold my plasma in Amsterdam
Spent it all in a night
Buying drinks at the Melkweg
For a soldier in drag

 

Saving all your money for a rainy day
Giving all your clothes to charity.
Last night the wife said
“Oh, boy, when you’re dead
You won’t take nothing with you but your soul —
THINK!!!”

 

“It’s all a manual that we’ve been writing
Our future instructional guide
If we skipped ahead to our prefulfilled dreams
We’d be lost without our own advice”

Gets me every time.

 

Someday there'll be a cure for pain
That's the day I throw my drugs away

 

Saw them in concert before Sandman died on stage in Rome. Stood right by the stage. Great, great show.

 

Sandman’s mom wrote a book after he died about what it was like to outlive all three of her sons. I haven’t gathered the courage to read it yet.

I'm free now to direct a movie
Sing a song or write a book about yours truly
How I'm so interesting and I'm so great
But I'm really just a fuck-up
And It's such a waste

 

Shallow End of the Gene Pool
The Austin Lounge Lizards

My Daddy was a man of letters
My Mama was a head of state
And when they got their chromosomes together
They gave me all of their recessive traits
I'm an embarrassment to evolution
My disposition is unstable and cruel
My blood's a catastrophic blend
'Cause I'm from the shallow end of the gene pool

My IQ is a negative number
I've got a sense of humor no one can stand
And my development was seriously encumbered
By playing music with the Lounge Lizards band
I'm a social director's nightmare
At dinner parties I just babble and drool
It's not easy making friends
When you're from the shallow end of the gene pool

I'm from the shallow end of the gene pool
My x-rays make the doctors laugh
When they tried to chart my EEG waves
Well I wasn't even on the graph

Biological research is booming
They're making breakthroughs like you wouldn't believe
They say genetic engineering in humans
Will someday soon be a reality
I'm gonna get me a DNA transplant
They're gonna rearrange my molecules
Some natural laws will have to bend
To get me from the shallow end of the gene pool

 

I saw Bruce do this on The River tour. He sat on the edge of center stage with an acoustic guitar and sang it, cold and spare and stark. It hits pretty hard.


Wreck on the Highway
Bruce Springsteen

Last night I was out driving
Coming home at the end of the working day
I was riding alone through the drizzling rain
On a deserted stretch of a county two-lane
When I came upon a wreck on the highway

Now there was blood and glass all over
And there was nobody there but me
As the rain tumbled down hard and cold
I seen a young man lying by the side of the road
He cried Mister, won't you help me please

An ambulance finally came and took him to Riverside
I watched as they drove him away
And I thought of a girlfriend or a young wife
And a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night
To say your baby died in a wreck on the highway

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And I watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight
I just lay there awake in the middle of the night
Thinking 'bout the wreck on the highway