Taste the Flavor lyrics
One
Who Fell
(Jessica's Got a) Ropeburn
Cornstarch
A Longer Leash
Back In Town
Self-Contained
Take Your Own Advice
Striver
Emphasis
Human Shield
Dry Spell
Swansong
ONE
WHO FELL
I had an atom smasher/I
was using it to mow my lawn
I was a party crasher/I used to stay ’til the rest of the guests were
gone
I was an empire builder/with properties that hid the sky
I had a charcoal filter/but now there’s nothing left for me to purify
because you/took my world
and placed it somewhere I was not allowed
yeah you/stole my whole world
now I don’t know how to knock you off your cloud
(ch)
but the space you fill/is blank as hell
and if you go/it’s just as well
but won’t you throw a rope to one who fell?
one who fell
I had a stately manor/and
a 9.7% yield
I was an urban planner/from Toluca Lake out to Bakersfield
I was a power broker/in my private Parthenon
I had an all-day sucker/but you took three licks and it was gone
since you/stole the world
and put it where the air’s too thin to breathe
yeah you/stole my whole world
and left me down here where the serpents seethe
(ch)
(JESSICA’S
GOT A) ROPEBURN
Jessica says that she can’t climb
the steps while she’s so weak and I’m
not going to help her anytime to soon
Jessica’s got her
mother’s laugh
I heard it when I asked her if
her daughter might come by some afternoon
she always looks like
she’s gonna play tennis with a corpse and lose
ever since that torturer put on the screws
(ch)
Jessica’s got a ropeburn
Jessica’s sliding down
Jessica’s got a bonespur
she’s spiral bound
she’s crashing down down down down
Jessica says that she
can’t scale
the stairs while she’s so thin and frail
can’t she see that I’ve got ailments too
Jessica forms attachments
but
she likes her foreign films uncut
Tennessee Williams might know what to do
she needs a guywire, not
another guy who’s gonna string her along
ever since that torturer came on too strong
(ch, minus last line)
she’s just like
tin-roof ice-cream melting
on a catgut racket
spent all summer wearing
Eisenhower jackets
(ch)
CORNSTARCH
you’re like a critic/who wasn’t sent a presskit
you can’t conceive of anything to write
you’re like a trained dog/who wasn’t fed a biscuit
you won’t perform for anyone tonight
you say you’re lonely/but
you won’t let me visit
you say you’re wounded/but you won’t let me kiss it
but I can see/what you want from me
by the way your eyebrows arch
but I’d rather have it watered down
than thickened up with cornstarch
you’re like psychic/who
says the future’s cloudy
you can’t predict how all of this will end
you do a highkick/you hug me and say howdy
I’m not convinced that you’re fit to be my friend
you say you’re weary/and
all your sleep is fretful
you say you’re sorry/but you don’t look regretful
and I can tell/there’s a parallel
between soldiers on the march
as they overrun some border town
and the way you feed me…
who gets the backlash
without all the hype
going straight from green to overripe?
you can fix me forever in your movable type
I would shout for assistance but you’re flooding my windpipe with
cornstarch
you’re on your knees/in
your powder-blue pajamas
I’m making scenes/you’re constructing dioramas
as you rehydrate/all your tears of hate
from their former state/as a concentrate
so the flavor’s not so harsh
do you like your gravy rich and brown
and thickened up with cornstarch?
A
LONGER LEASH
not to coin a phrase/but play it as it lays
make them think you’re safe in your restraints
not to tip my hand/but all these false demands
misdirect from what I really want
and how much I really want
I see a jar of pills and
a bottle of bleach
I want all of one or a little of each
they give me a longer leash but I keep straining
I know they check the
beds/when we’re fucked on meds
that’s why I keep your picture in my pants
but they don’t have a clue/what I intend to do
when we sneak out from the Easter dance
so I’ll tell you in advance
I want to lead you once
more into the breach
pierce you like the flesh of a peach
they give me a longer leash but I keep straining
why be brave
when fear is all you have?
why be saved?
there’s nothing to forgive
why behave
as if the life you live
requires explaining?
I see a jar of pills and
a bottle of bleach
a golden ocean just out of reach
they give me a longer leash but I keep straining
BACK
IN TOWN
I heard that she was back in town/but I haven’t seen her yet
I wonder how her hair is now/I wonder if her heart is set
against me still
as it was
when she took that long drive East
I wish she would have warned me
you’d think she could have called at least
they’ve torn a couple
churches down/they’ve put a couple condos in
but otherwise this town is how/I guess it’s almost always been
and there’s a pull
to this place
she was too weak to resist
there’s something in the air here
I know it isn’t me she’s missed
I wonder why she came/I
wonder if she cares
I wonder who’s to blame/for answering my prayers
I lift my eyes
to a light
in her second-story rooms
I know somebody hurt her
at least that’s what my heart assumes
has brought her back to town
SELF-CONTAINED
I can take/can take rejection
I can make/the moments pass
but upon/upon reflection
who’s that figure in the glass?
his heart is just a heart
is just a muscle
and his head is just a head is just a brain
his mouth is just a just a tunnel
and his eyes are just some things his face contains
if I had/I had not seen
him
perforated/into thirds
I would drive/a wedge between him
and insert his empty words
my heart is just a heart
is just a muscle (heart is just)
and my head is just a head is just a brain (head is just)
my mouth is just a mouth is just a tunnel (mouth is just)
and my eyes are just some things my face contains
my heart is just a heart
is just a muscle (heart is just)
and my head is just a head is just a brain (head is just)
my mouth is just a tunnel to my asshole (mouth is just)
and my prick is just a freak I can’t contain
TAKE YOUR
OWN ADVICE
you’ve got the self-styled aesthete
and the armchair athlete
and the prosecutor telling gruesome tales
but you can nurse that old gripe
until the sour grapes turn ripe
but the cross you’re on is short a couple nails
and you told your friends/it
wouldn’t be paradise
and you scold your friends/for wanting a bigger slice
you’d better take your own, take your own advice
you’ve got the air
duct creaking
and the feedback shrieking
’til it makes you want to holler, “oh shit, coach!”
but when the units won’t shift
until you use a forklift
you might as well rethink your whole approach
and I know that once/they
were one you like white on rice
you can blow that once/but it’s not gonna happen twice
you’d better take your own, take your own advice
Hollywood to Hartford
flooding out to Fargo
America by dartboard
as bitter high-school loners
turn into attorneys, professors and home-owners
but you tell yourself/it’s
better to be precise
you could sell yourself/if you lower the asking price
you’d better take your own, take your own advice
STRIVER
with a smile like a crease in the shirt of his face
and a coat-hanger drape to his jacket
watch him tense every tendon as you sets the pace
in the race for the next income bracket
now there’s room
at the top but there’s more in the ranks
and he’s matching your stride but he’s straining
and he’s slave to the bite of the spur in his flanks
but you’re not gonna hear him complaining
it’s second nature
to the native son
the office joke he can barely decipher
at the expense of his naked ambition
a bit of a striver/he
tries so hard
greedy conniver you can’t disregard
every surface a scorecard
every edge is a measuring rod
when you hold it up against him
he’d be up in the
office while you’re still in bed
but you don’t want to give him the pleasure
as he’s sizing you up for the grave in his head
with a flick of his mental tape-measure
sliding levers through
the sand and grit
marbles drop, he’s the only survivor
the last to leave and the first to admit it
a bit of a striver, he
tries so hard
sputtering diver in his final yard
every surface a scoreboard
every edge is a measuring rod
pull a plank from the floorboard
every nail brings him closer to God
as you hold it up against, hold it up against him
EMPHASIS
I know you live in the world
I know you do what you can
but the way you turn tight corners
seems to shorten my lifespan
it’s not the weather
I love
it’s just the shape of the sky
but you shrink it to a keyhole
everytime you wander by
and I can barely miss
the package in your hands which is
my heart
you pack the powder so
tight
you wrap it up in some foil
now it’s not so much the rebound
as it is the sharp recoil
I’ve come to fear from this
undetonated bomb which is
my heart (which is my heart)
which is breaking again
I don’t want to tell
you what to do
I just wish you’d do it once without me asking you
I don’t want to tell you how to act
I just wish the story that you told me hadn’t lacked
the proper emphasis
on what I’ve got in mind which is
my heart (which is my heart)
which is breaking again
HUMAN
SHIELD
if I had an ounce of charm
I would take you by the arm
and you would not resist the pull
I know it sounds improbable
but it happens every day to people
just like you and me
if I had a lick of sense
I would wear down your defense
and kiss you while your eyes are shut
I know it sounds unlikely but
it’s still the only way two people
share one frequency
tell me now, before you
ask your agents in the field
why you hold your body like a weapon you can wield
as a human shield
I see you sitting on the
couch
I see you fiddle with your blouse
I watch you take a sip of tea
I can’t believe it’s up to me
the planets kiss/the seasons
shift
the major fall/the minor lift
the winter coats/the summer skirts
the autumn leaves/the springtime flirts
if I could overcome my fear
then this could be a banner year
and it happens every day to people
and what else can you say to people
just like you and me?
DRY
SPELL
winter is a solipsist
it can’t believe that spring exists
that’s a song I tried to start
but never could complete
until now
I’ve feel the downpour,
the flash flood, the end of a dry spell
up to my hips in the warm mud where no flowers grew
but now they do
Bas Jan Ader went to sea
searching for the mystery
the page on which I wrote that part
was crumpled in defeat (until now)
I feel the ice break,
the dam burst, the end of a dry spell
and as the fields slake an old thirst and growth starts anew
I tip my head back and drink well, the pen and the inkwell
are full of you
I feel the pull of you
the fount of you
it’s on account of you
SWANSONG
(written 1996; recorded Jan. 2001)
here comes the coda/here comes the ceasefire
here comes the baking soda/thrown on the grease fire
here comes the swansong/sung at the bombsite
here comes the Elton John song/they play on prom night
this is the purge that
all those emergency broadcasts were in case of
and this is the fate it’s a little too late for laughter in the face
of
(ch)
as equestrian statues rear up
and the storms that were gathering clear up
and inactive volcanoes flare up
you’d better burn everything that you can’t tear up
on the last day, on the last day
we’re such a throwback/I
think we’re played out
with lots of video black/after the fade-out
I’ve got the proof here/I want the kill fee
but you’ve got nothing to fear/unless your wealthy or filthy or otherwise
guilty
a vagabonds stands with
a sign in his hands out on Third and Alvarado
he knows how it ends, but you and your friends wander by with false bravado
(ch)
holed up with my wife
and kids
in my cabin at the ridge
watching g-men cross the bridge
bulges in their jackets
send my son out for supplies
watch the bullet as it flies
they fill forms out as he dies
as if they’re parking tickets
now I stand in judgment
of
every form of earthly love
I hope you like the rain of blood
’cos it’s coming down in buckets
(ch)
as the orbit of Mercury slows down
and Manhattan turns into a ghost town
and a ship full of angels sails down
you try to grab everything that is not nailed down
on the last day, on the last day