A year ago I was in Austin for xmas/new year and wrote this on the plane rides there and back. In the track, six bigfancy city characters dream of escaping to Austin. A couple of them do and stay. It’s that kind of place.

“Tonight I’m leaving this big city and all its bullsh*t,
Where my friends have to clear their names
And the snow has to clear itself.

just a dj on a downtown A
sleepin it off to get up 1/2 awake
for a dead-end gig in the Rockaways
he sees this girl transfer from the D
dreams in her head, kid asleep on the seat
she’s always on his train
and always in the sky

she can’t know the sky
she can’t see the sky
she can’t have the sky
but she’s always in the sky

he pictures her as Grace
spinning records into the empty space
over the ocean off the Rockaways
her beauty is her pain
the moon’s behind clouds; the sun don’t play
she just loses days
always in the sky

she can’t know the sky
she can’t see the sky
but she’s always in the sky
she can’t dream the sky
she can’t live the sky
but she’s always in the sky

we’ve been (radiated)^3
always in the sky

always in the sky
always in the sky
so perfect it makes you high
always in the sky
always in the sky
so perfect you never want to say good-bye

a twistytrack nod to the wombats’ “moving to new york” and how real friends forgive.
i wrote it after living on the internet.

the past slides down a bottomless wall
over miles upon miles of one-way calls
man, it’s been years
since that open-arm town.

if you knew who your friends were
you wouldn’t go back.

stuff heard through the walls and vents. muffled, but clear enough.

(he said)
“I’ve given half my life
For the common good
And I’ve given away the rest
the best of me

everybody owns me
but nobody runs me
So now I get to be
the bitch of your worst dreams”

(she said)
“I gave all my life
Just to be with you
Here’s everything you need
And what do you do?

this song was inspired by a night at pinky masters bar, savannah, ga. the jukebox was connected to the master blaster so it found us brandy by the looking glass and then walking on a dream by empire of the sun. nights that never end are still never enough time, tho.…

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An old song that felt like now.
Recorded with a band for the first time this week.

Sittin down with my friend
Strumming those same three chords
Don’t it make no words sound like so much more
There’s just nothing new to say when everything is
Falling apart

Idle words float on by

There’s too many times I can’t begin to say
I’m on the verge of something big it just blows away
Into idle words

Ideas cloud my head
I can’t sort through
Here comes one more song written about you
‘cause every time I turn around these chords
They turn into…

Idle words floating by they bring me down down down

There’s too many times I can’t begin to say
I’m on the verge of something big it just blows away
Into idle words

November 1989, August 2009
Westy and Jerry Reflector

hey, old friend.

It’s always midnight
Somewhere else in the world
It’s always midnight
In a place that only lives for today

I know it ain’t right
The way our world ends tonight
But there’s nowhere to go
When you never ever never…never ever know
More than midnight

It’s always midnight
To someone without shelter
It’s always midnight
To a man with no sense of tomorrow

When you only know daylight of a lover’s life
You never get the daybreak, never see the heartache, never sleep off the fights
You never get more than midnight

Well, if you believe in fate, you cannot live in fear
Because nothing then is unknown
All your choices lead to here

So let’s make a toast to love
But also to the conflicted life
Because struggle makes love deeper
And brings real friends to light
Just like midnight
Just like midnight

February 2010