Songs In The Wrong Key (excerpts)
SIDE 1
- Fear Of Nothing (A Children's Song)
- All She Wants Is My Bed
- Only One Way Out Of Their Heads
- Stay Up With Me
SIDE 2
- The Night Of The Lost Future
- A Song For The Lost Future
- Three Minute Love Song
- Three Minute Dream
- Three Minute Heartbreak
- El Dorado
SIDE 3
- The Man I Will Not Be
- Pebbles And Dirt
- Hand Full Of Jokers
- Heart of Darkness
SIDE 4
- The Air Between
- Soldiers' Song
- Death of a Spectator
- Another Wrong Story
SIDE 1
3. Only One Way Out Of Their Heads (11:56)
The village called City is easy to find
Just drive down any road
To the beginning of space and time
It's the last clump of houses
Balancing on the edge of the flat earth
The last station at the end of the dead-end tracks
There's nothing to do around here
And there's nowhere to go
You either walk off the cliff
Or turn around and go back
Or just stop moving
And become one small cell in a great little mind.
In the village called City
My boy will always remain a pup
They'll always be there to remind him
They'll never let him grow up
When he entered this land as a child
It wasn't by birth and it wasn't by choice
No one thought to ask him
He didn't have a voice.
The village called City always knows where you are
There's only one school and there's only one bar
The boys who grind your face into the playground
Are the men who will grind your face into the parking lot
All dancing to the same heartbeat
All hunting the same meat
All ready to kill and die for the same uniform
And how do they know who the enemy is?
That's easy.
The enemy is different.
The village called City has lots of guns
But it has no weapons
It's a peaceful little town
Where nothing ever happens
And nothing is ever forgotten
Each word and each footstep recorded forever
In pages upon pages of fast drying mud
The great book of the land where
Time itself forgot to grow up.
The village called City never forgets
If there's any way out of here
My boy hasn't found it yet
But there might be one way to get out of their heads
He's the only boy in town who's never shot a gun
But how hard can it be?
He doesn't even have to aim
Everyone on his death list
Just walks into the path of his bullets
School's out early this year
Time to return all the borrowed pain
And no one screams or runs away
They all just burst open and fall
Their blood cold and dry
Before it even hits the wall.
In the village called City
You can never get lost
There's only one road
And on the highest hilltop
A giant electric cross
A cross that never saved a soul
A road no one ever walked down
A landscape thin as paint on the walls of a tunnel
Flashing every day past windows on wheels
And today for the very first time
My boy is walking down that road
Following the trail of his own bloody footsteps
The gun still warm and alert in his hand
A beast of prey that just knows
You're never as alive as during the kill.
In the village called City
There's only one house my boy can call home
Where he lives in a dream that's not even his own
And the dog of the house is the dreamer's best friend
And the dog is now licking the blood from my boy's feet
How easy it was to blow away his whole generation
How hard it is to shoot this one stupid dog
How easy it was to make the dog's eyes fear him
How hard it is to make the dog's teeth kill him
If this dog refuses to be my boy's best weapon
Then I'll just have to be his weapon.
So my boy takes his pain by the hand
And together they sit down at the head of the table
No, the pain doesn't need a blindfold
Yes, the pain wants to watch itself die
And no one will hear my boy's last words...
There's no future in being a child
And isn't it better to die than to be born
Because to be born is to be owned
First a stomach to be filled
And then a brain to be filled
Until you're owned and filled by the whole world
So what do I have to lose
But these second-hand organs
And this ready-made brain
And my lost little self
That's always dreaming of a dirty war...
And the dog of the dreamer is already licking up
My boy's splattered brains from the floor.
Outside the village called City
There's an old fort overlooking the bay
The abandoned remains of a faraway war
That never reached the shores of yesterday
And today my war is over
And today my enemy is dead
And my afterlife begins here and now
Today I'm walking down that same old road
Following the trail of my own clean footsteps
Alone as before I was born
And tonight as I'm walking past the old fort
I hear sounds of dancing and wine
Tonight the fort is no longer abandoned
But the newest conquest of the tribe of the night
A new outpost for village misfits
And before the night is over
We've all agreed I'm one of them
My very first home in the afterlife
For as long as its lasts...
So this is where I've started my metamorphosis
In the wrong time
In the wrong story
A butterfly that awakens in the winter.
SIDE 2
1. The Night Of The Lost Future (4:36)
How we all fit into that one car
with all those spikes sticking out of us
I don't know
But no one had to stay behind in the fort...
Petals wither and fall from a flowered dress
Until the black background shines through
Torn by thorns and bitten by skulls
Fingers burning like cigarettes
And hair made out of knives
To poke out your eyes
And lips hard and shiny
To bite off your teeth.
Tonight's the night to bury our own future
Tonight we're all gonna be ugly
Tonight's the night of the lost future
Tonight you're all gonna be just as ugly as me
And tonight all I gotta do is act naturally.
I'm a bird with plucked wings
A tree casting off its leaves in the spring
A bucket of black paint without a brush
A toilet that won't flush
A spastic cripple attempting to dance
A dog on a chain sniffing up the remains
The rancid trail of yesterday's romance
I'm just a head on the end of a stick
Me and my body haven't seen each other for years
We wouldn't know what to talk about
My skin won't even say hello to my hair
My voice broke its neck falling down the stairs
And my bones growing slower than my marrow
And my brain growing faster than my skull
Am I the time machine that broke down
Or the explorer trapped inside?
Am I living in the future or the past?
I never can decide...
And now the present is spinning around me
Everything is moving too fast
The dance inside my stomach is turning into a fight
But the bathroom is booked for the rest of the night
All I really need now is a hole where no one cares
So I tumble down the stairs
And just as I'm about to stumble down the street
Who do I happen to meet
But the ghost of my own generation
Standing there waiting to see
What comes out of my stomach...
How can I ever grow out of something
That keeps growing as fast as me?
How can I ever kill something
That's already buried itself?
The coffin is sealed
And it stinks in the dark
How long can I stay above the ground
With this stench rising all around me
And my nose slowly getting used to it
Until the day I finally ask myself
What's that sweet smell I've been missing?
SIDE 3
1. The Man I Will Not Be (10:02)
The man I will not be
Is made out of stainless steel
I can make him jump
With a lash of my tongue
But I can't make him feel
His armor of muscle breaks
All my arrows and my spears
He has no use for tears.
The man I will not be
Would never crack a whip
Never abandon a sinking ship
He's never met a soul
That wasn't good decent folk
Never without a friend
Even when he's sick and broke.
The man I will not be
Is the measure of all things
Prophets, Chronicles and Kings
Is he my father and my mother
My blessing and my curse
The creator of my world
My entire universe
Mind molding matter
Like God on acid
His muscles are always hard
They're never flaccid
He's as tough as Cain
And as innocent as Abel
He'll stay up all night
Drinking Rasputin under the table
And then get up again at dawn
To shovel the shit out of the stable.
The man I will not be
Has a healthy appetite
He's got good table manners
He swallows every bite
He takes his holy communion
He consecrates his daily meat
He knows that everything that moves
Was made for him to kill and eat
He licks his plate clean
Like a man fresh out of jail
Wagging his whole body
Like a dog without a tail
Crazy horses kneel
At the sound of his voice
Whatever car he's driving
Just turns into a Rolls-Royce
Bloodthirsty dogs lick
The sweat from his feet
Poor angry beasts
He picked up from the street
He knows they'd never touch food
That wasn't coming from the man
They'd rather starve themselves to death
Than take a bite from my hand.
The man I will not be
Always knows the truth
And would never tell a lie
Speaks like the president
Serving home-baked apple pie
Works like God in hell
Dedicated and professional
Swears like the devil
In a bulletproof confessional
Laughs like an army after
Winning an historic battle
And then sprinkles his blood
Over their bones like Quetzalcoatl
He sleeps in his dreams
And he dreams of compassion
And the better world he dreams of
Is never out of fashion
He doesn't see the darkness
And he doesn't fear the night
When he plays a game of chess
Every piece on the board is white.
The man I will not be
Is he a freak just like me?
Why can't I ever be
Just for once just one day be
The man I don't want to be?
If he's Moses, am I Jesus?
I'm a rebel just like my dad
He's my pencil, I'm his pad
His story is my history
His fight is my birthright
I'm just a mask that fell from his lips
A footprint he stamped in the mud
With a mighty swing of his hips.
The man I will not be
Is naked and unashamed
An unnamed beast
That will never be tamed
His sex swinging mighty
Like a six-foot sword
Without a sheath
And without a lord.
The man I will not be
Would never drag a pretty girl
Off into a dark corner
Would never show her his knife
Never corrupt a minor
Never cheat on his wife
All the dirty little sins
That would bring down lesser men
The true king of the henhouse
Doesn't need to mount every hen
But what can he do?
He knows how women smell his power
He keeps looking for a friend
But all he finds is an open flower
A garland of virgins
He doesn't even need
All begging for his seed
They should know better than that
They know me
The man I will not be
Has a wound I cannot see
The death of his and my family
A corpse already rotting
That just can't stop waking up
For yet another last drink
From that old poison cup
The man I will not be
Laughs and drinks his wound away
And doesn't speak of the good old days
As much as he used to
Yesterday just isn't what it used to be
For a family man without a family.
And now the man I will not be
Is chewing on my first flower
He'll forget all about her in an hour
Father I forgive you
You don't know what you're doing
You're the man I will not be
Who will eat my every flower
The stainless steel tower
Standing on the foundation of my fears
And now I'm a man
I have no more use for tears.
I'm finally breaking out of this village called City
I'm tired of walking around in circles
I've had enough of all their pity
No one wants to be the village idiot's date
Down here I'll always be tainted, a freak of fate
I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
Blend in with the stars and the low down creeps
Going to find me a dirty woman, a true soul mate.
Saturday at sunset, out come all the evildoers
The spirit of the night creeping up from the sewers
To take over the minds of the weakest creatures
The sinners and the preachers
The beginners and the teachers
The Hitlers and the Nietzsches
Am I the last man breathing? I can smell the slime
The streets all empty and crowded at the same time
It's like the ultimate bomb, it doesn't make any holes
It doesn't harm human bodies, it just kills the souls
And they didn't even notice
The pretty girls and happy boys
All walking up and down the streets like wind-up toys.
A million ant-men rising on their brittle wings
Strong as slaves and proud as kings
To meet their queen, their beloved, their goddess Kali
Climbing up through the air, rowing down in the galley
For her power and her glory they have won
This one brief moment of life in the sun
But not a single one of them will survive his own seed
All their dreams mean nothing, their ambition, their greed
All the winners and the losers, all the gold and the rust
Are all dead and forgotten before they even hit the dust.
Am I in the wrong century, on the wrong dance floor
Am I the last man standing and still asking for more
I watch her showing off her body, she sees me secretly glancing
We're not touching, not flirting, not even really dancing
Just jumping up and down in front of each other
I feel safe with you, she says
You're like my big baby brother
So different from all the others
Just dance with me like we're together
So those creeps will leave me alone
But don't think you can bring me home...
Am I in the wrong century, in the wrong empire
Did I aim too low, could I have climbed up higher?
Joined Genghis Khan and his band of merry woman eaters
Joined the sultans and the pimps and all the other wife beaters
Drinking all the pain and drinking all the fear
Drinking all the blood the way you drink your beer.
Fucked by the sexual revolution
Raped and still a virgin
I want to chop it all off
Castration is the final solution
The end to every pollution
The only cure for this chemical hallucination
The rock and roll, the drugs and every other masturbation
The birds and the bees can keep their sweet pollination
For the future of the nation
Try artificial insemination.
The door slams shut crushing unsuspecting fingers
And still the longing lingers
To sleep with every enemy
To betray every ally
Just for a taste of the see-through mystery
The rainbow so close you can grab it right out of the sky
The glands are the master of the brain
And love isn't a marketplace
It's a food chain
Must I explain?
Rivals might get in the way
But at both ends of every knife
There's only predators and prey
I'm not the one to blame
I didn't invent this cliché
It invented me
So like that lonely dying explorer
My last words in this world
Will be the horror... the horror...
SIDE 4
A hundred happy soldiers
All marching into town
All looking for the same up and down
A thousand happy soldiers
All marching down the street
All satisfied customers
All bought the same piece of meat
All splashing in the puddle
That the last one left behind
A million happy soldiers
And only one single mind.
All words and images copyright 2008 by Vanita & Johanna Monk
