Johnnie Walker

Protection - Massive Attack

This girl I know needs some shelter
She don't believe anyone can help her
She's doing so much harm, doing so much damage
But you don't want to get involved
You tell her she can manage
And you can't change the way she feels
But you could put your arms around her

I know you want to live yourself
But could you forgive yourself
If you left her just the way
You found her

I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection

You're a boy and i'm a girl
But you know you can lean on me
And I don't have no fear
I'll take on any man here
Who says that's not the way it should be

I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection

She's a girl and you're a boy
Sometimes you look so small, look so small
You've got a baby of your own
When your baby's gone, she'll be the one
To catch you when you fall

I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection

You're a girl and i'm a boy

Sometimes you look so small, need some shelter
Just runnin' round and round, helter skelter
And I've leaned on me for years
Now you can lean on me
And that's more than love, that's the way it should be
Now I can't change the way you feel
But I can put my arms around you
That's just part of the deal
That's the way I feel
I'll put my arms around you

I stand in front of you
I'll take the force of the blow
Protection

You're a boy and I'm a girl

Telling stories - Tracy Chapman

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn't mean
You're not just telling stories
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

Theres a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
Theres no one but you standing

Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between

There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

I'm looking forward to joining you, finally

As black as the night can get
Everything is safer now
Theres always a way to forget
Once you learn to find a way how.

In the blur of serenity
Where did everything get lost?
The flowers of naivete
Buried in a layer of frost.

The smell of sunshine
I remember sometimes.

Thought he had it all before they called his bluff
Found out that his skin just wasnt thick enough
Wanted to go back to how it was before
Thought he lost everything
Then he lost a whole lot more.

A fools devotion
Swallowed up in empty space
The tears of regret
Frozen to the side of his face.

The smell of sunshine
I remember sometimes.

Ive done all I can do
Could I please come with you?
Sweet smell of sunshine
I remember sometimes.

Casabianca

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood on
the burning deck". Love's the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love's the burning boy.

Crash

Graham : It's the sense of touch. Any real city, you walk, you're bumped, brush past people. In LA, no one touches you...
We're always behind metal and glass. Think we miss that touch so much, we crash into each other just to feel something.

Ria : Graham, we were rear-ended. We spun around twice. Somewhere in there one of us lost our frame of reference. I'm gonna go look for it.

Believing that putting a hole through something means destroying it; that is the greatest failure of mankind.

"I saw a human skull the other day. There was an inscription below it: ‘Look long and hard at me, for I was once as you are and you will soon be as I am.’" — Unknown

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" — Douglas Adams

"I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability." — Oscar Wilde

"Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." — Ambrose Bierce

"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done."— Louis Brandeis

"I hit him to get his attention. I shot him to calm him down. I killed him to reason with him." — Henry Rollins

"You get what anyone gets; you get a lifetime." — Death, Neil Gaiman Comic Sandman

"To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it." — Confucius

"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this because they manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them." — Steve Eley

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." — Carl Sagan

"Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth." — Jean Paul Sartre

"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?" — Blaise Pascal

"I was asked to memorize what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner." — Aleister Crowley

"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities." — Sophocles

"If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia." — Thomas Szasz

"On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points." — Virginia Woolf

The Apple the astonished Paris - Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Nine Inch Nails - Only

I'm becoming less defined, as days go by
Fading away, well you might say I'm losing focus
Kind of drifting into the abstract in terms of how I see myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself
Sometimes, I can see right through myself

Less concerned, about fitting into the world
Your world that is, cause it doesn't really matter anymore
(No, it doesn't really matter anymore)
No, it doesn't really matter anymore
None of this really matters anymore

Yes, I am alone, but then again I always was
As far back as I can tell, I think maybe it's because
Because you were never really real to begin with
I just made you up to hurt myself

I just made you up to hurt myself
Yeah, and I just made you up to hurt myself
I just made you up to hurt myself
Yeah, and I just made you up to hurt myself

And it worked
Yes it did!

There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me

Well, the tiniest little dot caught my eye
And it turned out to be a scab
And I had this funny feeling
Like I just knew it's something bad

I just couldn't leave it alone
I kept picking at that scab
It was a doorway trying to seal itself shut
But I climbed through

Now I'm somewhere I am not supposed to be
And I can see things I know I really shouldn't see
And now I know why now, now I know why
Things aren't as pretty on the inside

There is no you, there is only me
There is no you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me
There is no fucking you, there is only me

Jeanette Winterson again

"What you fuck is more important than how you write. This may be because reading takes more effort than sex. . . . No one asks Iris Murdoch about her sex life. Every interviewer I meet asks me about mine and what they do not ask they invent. I am a writer who happens to love women. I am not a lesbian who happens to write."

"The spirit has gone out of the world. I fear the dead bodies settling around me, the corpses of humanity, fly-blown and ragged. I fear the executive zombies, the shop zombies, the Church zombies, the writerly zombies, all mouthing platitudes, the language of the dead, all mistaking hobbies for passions, the folly of the dead." — Art & Lies

"Why is the measure of love loss?" — Written on the Body

"Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid." — Written on the Body

"What am I to do? When I see a second-hand bookshop anywhere in the world, I will change my plans, behave brutally to others just to spend an hour inside it. My nostrils flare, my breath quickens, my heart pounds, my wallet opens. I cannot rest until I am alone in the farthermost edge, wedge, ledge of the shop, great or small, lying along the skirting board, legs propped, reading. It has to be second hand shops, (though alas they no longer sell corsets,) because these are the only places where the books, and therefore the book lover, is free. Here are no market forces or censorious librarians, no sameness or dreariness marks the waiting rows; there are no promotions or special offers. Above all, there are seldom any people. I do not like to do what I do in public, I like to be alone with my books, and I like them a little worn, a little knowing. I don't mind someone else's signature of ownership, though I am always careful to make a note of my own. I enjoy the past, compressed between the pages." — Second hand pleasures

"The dynamic of a book is unpredictable, not least because it involves another person. You. The meeting of minds, thought to thought, idea to idea, is a creative process. You are the element the writer cannot foresee. The book changes under your hands. This is why it is so crucial that the book should be under your hands, not flickering or scrolling, but physically held by you, page-turned by you, scribbled in, underlined, even torn up by you. If the text is to become your text, you will have to wrestle with it and pin it down. Literature is a hands-on experience." — Books in the Digital Age

"So if you ask me what art is for, I will tell you. It is the science of the heart, the science of the spirit, the science of the soul and we cannot live without its roots and maps into those places of deep feeling, where we dare not go alone." — Books in the Digital Age

"There are tribes who believe that only by worshipping the sun every day can we keep the world alive. I'm of the tribe who believe that only by re-telling the stories every day can we keep ourselves alive. What we remember, what we invent." — Books in the Digital Age

Mark Twain

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did... explore. dream. discover." — Mark Twain

Casablanca had to say it

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca

Best-first-lines

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. - Murphy, Samuel Beckett

Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. “Stop!” cried the groaning old man at last, “Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree.” - The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein

The moment one learns English, complications set in. Chromos, Felipe Alfau

It was the day my grandmother exploded. The Crow Road, Iain M. Banks

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. - Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. - Tracks, Louise Erdrich

It was a pleasure to burn. - Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. - The End of the Affair, Graham Greene

In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. - Wittgenstein's Mistress, David Markson

What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings? - Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things, Gilbert Sorrentino

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. - Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. - The Napoleon of Notting Hill, G. K. Chesterton

“To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die.” - The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. - The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. - The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley

“When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,” Papa would say, “she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.” - Geek Love, Katherine Dunn

Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women. - Middle Passage, Charles Johnson

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. - Scaramouche, Raphael Sabatini

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. - Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood

From Jeanette Winterson

"When children learn to count they naturally add and multiply. Subtraction and division are harder to teach them, perhaps because reducing the world is an adult skill."

"The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love."

"When we killed what we were to become what we are, what did we do with the bodies? We did what most people do; buried them under the floorboards and got used to the smell."

"If time is a river then we shall all meet death by water."

"Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough."

"What will happen when there are no more Public Libraries and the World is on CD-Rom?
Where will we go, we exiles from actuality?
What will happen to vets who read Miss Steen
and young girls looking for visions beyond their allotted lens?
In the homogeneity of screen and disc who will find the disruptiveness of the page?
And will we invent fabulous stories of lost libraries where rooked urchins gather books from mile high branches of crazy shelves?"

"Popular culture, that’s art isn’t it? Subjective, romantic, democratic, approachable, good notices in the quality press. If they don’t like it there must be something wrong with it. Does is smell fishy? What’s it about anyway? Where shall I put it?
Fit it all in. Fit it all in, as they say in the back alleys for a Saturday night fiver. So little time. Fit it all in.
Clock culture. Stuff me until I burst and make an installation out o the purée. Art? Don’t be silly. The contemplative life? I have a lunch appointment. How long will it take?
Lunch? Forever. Be forever lunching. Chomping bovinely through the day, wondering why all flesh is grass."

"When I say "I will be true to you" I must mean it in spite of the formalities, instead of the formalities. If I commit adultery in my heart then I have lost you a little. The bright vision of your face will blur. I may not notice this once or twice, I may pride myself on having enjoyed those fleshy excursions in the most cerebral way. Yet I wil have blunted that sharp flint that sparks between us, our desire for another above all else."

"The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God. I'm not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated. God has had a great deal written about Him; nothing has been written about me. God is bigger, like my mother, easier to find, even in the dark. I could be anywhere, and since I can't describe myself I can't ask for help."

"To kiss well one must kiss solely. No groping hands or stammering hearts. The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure. Passion is sweeter split strand by strand. Divided and re-divided like mercury then gathered up only at the last moment."

"I say I’m in love with her. What does that mean?
It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. Like genius, she is ignorant of what she does."

"There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other’s names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never be destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy."

Name Taken - Massive Attack

Hallways
I see
Always
Icy

Open rooms
Contra-zooms

Pictures may
Faces may
Fade away
Fade away

Brothers then
Get close to them
Step outside
Gunmetal sky
Peel away

Children play
Fade away
Where's the scars
Fade away
Fade away ...

The Sleep - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto souls afar,
Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace, surpassing this—
'He giveth His belovèd sleep'?

What would we give to our beloved?
The hero's heart to be unmoved,
The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep,
The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse,
The monarch's crown, to light the brows?
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

What do we give to our beloved?
A little faith all undisproved,
A little dust to overweep,
And bitter memories to make
The whole earth blasted for our sake.
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

'Sleep soft, beloved!' we sometimes say,
But have no tune to charm away
Sad dreams that through the eye-lids creep.
But never doleful dream again
Shall break the happy slumber when
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices!
O delvèd gold, the wailers heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God strikes a silence through you all,
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

His dews drop mutely on the hill;
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men sow and reap.
More softly than the dew is shed,
Or cloud is floated overhead,
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

Aye, men may wonder while they scan
A living, thinking, feeling man
Confirmed in such a rest to keep;
But angels say, and through the word
I think their happy smile is heard—
'He giveth His belovèd, sleep.'

For me, my heart that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would child-like on His love repose,
Who giveth His belovèd, sleep.

And, friends, dear friends,—when it shall be
That this low breath is gone from me,
And round my bier ye come to weep,
Let One, most loving of you all,
Say, 'Not a tear must o'er her fall;
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.'

The Ring - Marilyn Hacker

Her ring is in a safe-deposit box
with hundred-dollar bills and wills and deeds.
You used to hide my letters with the stock
certificates, unlock a room to read
those night thoughts in a vault under the bank
where we descend this noon: a painless loan
of cash from you to me, for which I thank
you, but tremble. Half as a joke, we sign
a promissory note on a looseleaf
page: odd, to see your name written with mine.
You fold that, file it in a plastic sleeve,
then rummage in the artefacts to find
and show me what you’ve just inherited:
your mother’s knuckle-duster diamond ring,
a fossil prism in a satin bed.
You model it. I see your hand shaking.
You ask me if I want to try it on
but I won’t put that diamond on my hand.
Once, I gave you a ring. You loaned me one.
What I borrowed that day has been returned.

Closing Time - Leonard Cohen

Ah we're drinking and we're dancing
and the band is really happening
and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high
And my very sweet companion
she's the Angel of Compassion
she's rubbing half the world against her thigh
And every drinker every dancer
lifts a happy face to thank her
the fiddler fiddles something so sublime
all the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's CLOSING TIME
Yeah the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
and it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:
it's CLOSING TIME

Ah we're lonely, we're romantic
and the cider's laced with acid
and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"
And the moon is swimming naked
and the summer night is fragrant
with a mighty expectation of relief
So we struggle and we stagger
down the snakes and up the ladder
to the tower where the blessed hours chime
and I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
but CLOSING TIME

I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
the Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
CLOSING TIME

I loved you for your beauty
but that doesn't make a fool of me:
you were in it for your beauty too
and I loved you for your body
there's a voice that sounds like God to me
declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you
And I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime
and I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's CLOSING TIME

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's CLOSING TIME

Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening
and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night
And my very close companion
gets me fumbling gets me laughing
she's a hundred but she's wearing
something tight
and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth
which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth
except to say it isn't worth a dime
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights
we're busted in the blinding lights,
busted in the blinding lights
of CLOSING TIME

The whole damn place goes crazy twice
and it's once for the devil and once for Christ
but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights
we're busted in the blinding lights,
busted in the blinding lights
of CLOSING TIME

Oh the women tear their blouses off
and the men they dance on the polka-dots
It's CLOSING TIME
And it's partner found, it's partner lost
and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops
It's CLOSING TIME
I swear it happened just like this:
a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss
It's CLOSING TIME
The Gates of Love they budged an inch
I can't say much has happened since
But CLOSING TIME
I loved you when our love was blessed
I love you now there's nothing left
But CLOSING TIME
I miss you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex.

Breathe (2 AM) - Anna Nalick

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

May he turn 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
"Just a day" he said down to the flask in his fist,
"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year."
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

There's a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.

One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

For what it's Worth - Cardigans

One, two, three, four

Hey baby come round
Keep holding me down
And I'll be keeping you up tonight.

The four letter word got stuck in my head
The dirtiest word that I've ever said
It's making me feel alright.

For what it's worth I love you
And what is worse I really do
Oh what is worse I'm gonna run run run
'Till the sweetness gets to you
And what is worse I love you!

Hey please baby come back
There'll be no more loving attack
And I'll be keeping it cool tonight.

The four letter word is out of my head
Come on around get back in my bed
Keep making me feel alright.

For what it's worth I like you
And what is worse I really do
Things have been worse
And we had fun fun fun
'Till I said I love you
And what is worse I really do!

For what it's worth I love you
And what is worse I really do....

Feathers and Down - Cardigans

So you trying to do what they did
Your friends that turn to liquid
And got lost in the sea
And now you’re drowning me
With your talk of four leaf clovers
You turn to rocks and omen
To beat the ambient harm
But it’s bruising your karma

Oh I wish my arms were wider
I wish that I could hide you
So you can rest and repair
Without the blanket of sorrow
The thick and the grey
Your blanket of woe
So heavy and stained
And it only weighs you down

So you thought that getting sober
Would mean your life was over
I don’t think it’s that bad
I don’t think it’s that sad
Just you sleep a little baby
Leave the world alone and later
If you wake up alive
That old blanket of sorrow
Could be feathers and down
Your blanket of woe
Would leave you alone
And I can love you till you drown

Come to me let’s drown
Come baby let’s drown
In feathers and down

Home - NIN

Everything
Is catching up with me
I awake
To find i'm not at all where I
Should be
And it feels
I'm getting to the end
And it's hard
To figure out what's real
And what's
Pretend

To break from what
We're tied to
God knows
How much i've tried to

And I am still inside you
And I am still inside you

I escape
Every now and then
And to think
I find myself
Back here again
And again

I used to know who I was
Untill you came along
I return
To the only place
I've ever felt
That I belong

To break from what
We're tied to
God knows
How much i've tried to

And I am still inside you
And I am still inside you

Right where It Belongs

See the animal in his cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs

What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
While you're hiding in the trees

What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?

The Fragile - NIN

she shines
in a world full of ugliness
she matters when everything is meaningless

fragile
she doesn't see her beauty
she tries to get away
sometimes
it's just that nothing seems worth saving
I can't watch her slip away

I won't let you fall apart

she reads the minds of all the people as they pass her by
hoping someone can see
if I could fix myself I'd - but it's too late for me

I wont let you fall apart

we'll find the perfect place to go where we can run and hide
I'll build a wall and we can keep them on the other side
...but they keep waiting
...and picking...

it's something I have to do
I was there, too
before everything else
I was like you

The day the whole World went Away - NIN

I'd listen to the words he'd say
but in his voice I heard decay
the plastic face forced to portray
all the insides left cold and gray
there is a place that still remains
it eats the fear it eats the pain
the sweetest price he'll have to pay
the day the whole world went away

Love Calling Earth - Robbie Williams

This is love calling earth
Do you know how much it hurts?
I didn't die overnight
In the wind I had candlelight
I'm controlled by my fear
All the voices in my head
That I can hear

Please don't hurt me

How do I learn
To give love and be loved in return
If this is heaven I'm falling
I'd rather jump and run away
Than see it burn
I feel I could die
Before I sleep I kiss your cheek
And say goodbye

I'm so sorry
Please don't hurt me

This is love calling earth
Do you know how much it hurts?
I didn't die overnight
In the wind I had candlelight

I'm controlled by my fear
And all the voices in my head
That I can hear

I'm so sorry
Please don't hurt me

If you could see me through my mother's eye
Only then would you begin to realise
All the places I have ever been
Have scared me half to death or
Somewhere in-between

I'm so sorry
Please...

By all Means - Robbie Williams

Canned laughter for applause
You've opened doors
In and out of their wives
In and out of your smalls
It's not a BAFTA you're after
You want a million dollar lay
By all means necessary
You will get your way

It all seems so easy
But so are you
That's what I've heard them say

All the make up that you wear
Can't hide the flaws
Your work in charity for your own cause
You won't be dating a teacher
You'd rather shag a manic street preacher
By all means necessary
You will get your way

It all seems so easy
But so are you
That's what I've heard them say

Sex with a stranger
You've been laid in a manger
And you think he's your saviour
Will he leave his pager?
You could be his daughter
Look what he's bought ya
But the money won't change ya
Of that there's no danger

Now your life's gettin' darker
It's you that they're after
Fifteen minutes a martyr
Blame it on your father
That dress nearly fits ya
Girl what's possessed you
Can we please take your picture
You know they'll forget ya
Ooh yeah

It all seems so easy
But so are you
That's what I've heard them say

By all means necessary
You will get your way
By all means necessary
You will get your way
By all means necessary
You will get your way

You don't get your way
By giving it away

New Years

Sitting here stressing at 2:30am
About how fast the year can go
I wonder where it went
If we start all over again, would it really work
I know that you could be, could be, coming back to me

Mesmerized, but of thoughts of fear
Traumatized, I'm so scared to feel
Wanna stop thinking gotta get to sleep
Gotta wake up fresh, get on my feet
Push the thought of you away
Do it today

I'm older than my years
Drowning in my tears
Surrounded by the fear
Since you went away, a year ago
At Christmas

You locked away your secrets
Kept them away from me
I only came to say goodbye, now you finally see
You wanna start all over again, make it work this time
But I don't wanna end up feeling far away from fine

I memorized, what you said to me
So surprised, it was hell to be
So frustrated with the way we were
Not a single word could make it work
Now look at us today
We blew it away

I'm older than my years
Drowning in my tears
Surrounded by the fear
Since you went away, a year ago
At Christmas

Teardrop - Massive Attack

(love)love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Feathers on my breath
Gentle impulsion
Shakes me makes me lighter
Feathers on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Feathers on my breath

In the night of matter
Black flowers blossom
Feathers on my breath
Black flowers blossom
Feathers on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Feathers on my breath

Water is my eye
Most faithful my love
Feathers on my breath
Teardrop on the fire of a confession
Feathers on my breath
Most faithful my love
Feathers on my breath

Teardrop on the fire
Feathers on my breath

Stumbling a little