1. |
100 Summers
03:47
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I don't daydream about being a rich man
To pay the bills and keep my passions alive
I don't need a thousand friends who don’t know me
To make me think I've had a good life
I don't long for how I haven't lived yet
Or for the home that I haven't quite made
All I really have is the gift of today
So why would I give that away?
If I could have one wish
It would be to live
A life full of meaning and wonder
For a hundred summers
There's not some bucket list folded in my wallet
Burning a hole in the pocket of my dreams
Yes, there are things I would like to experience
But without them I will still feel complete
And while I love you more than I’ve loved anyone
And I would give my life to spare yours
You have your own desires and I have mine
We've our own trials and sorrows to endure
If I could have one wish
It would be to live
A life full of meaning and wonder
For a hundred summers
Our children run around and giggle in the front yard
On a day that brought sunshine and thunder
I’m sipping your homemade peach iced tea
Dodging water balloons and sunburns
If I could have one wish
It would be to live
A life full of meaning and wonder
If given wealth untold
I would trade it all
Just to have these moments so tender
For a hundred summers
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2. |
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You first international flight
To a place that you have never been
To meet a woman, kind and fair
From a gentle, peculiar land
You thought you went there to find
your darling, eternal lover
But little did you realize
It was yourself that you would discover
A feeling in your gut
You refer to divine intuition
A sudden urge to walk away
But you insisted that you take this mission
Like a thirsty, stubborn mule
You didn't listen and you never do
Eager to fill a void inside
Determined to see this through
There are angels on the other side
And you believed they were your guides
Telling you that she was not the one
But all they were trying to do
Was protect her from you
She would greet you at the gate
With her arms stretched open wide
How could she have known what you'd do
In the seven years that would pass by
When your eyes met at last
It was in that moment that you knew
That you did not belong to her
And she did not belong to you
There are angels on the other side
And you believed they were your guides
Telling you that she was not the one
But all they were trying to do
Was protect her from you
One foot in and one foot out
Cataloging her every flaw
Half your heart was full of doubt
From keeping track of them all
You lay alone in bed at night
Surprised she showed no grief
When she up and disappeared
Now all you want is some relief
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3. |
Santa Barbara
04:21
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I said farewell to San Francisco
At the cusp of spring and summertime
I’m following the winding slopes
Down the 101 to Anaheim
She kept the house, gave me the car
She wouldn't drive the hills of the city streets
So I packed my things and I headed south
I had to get the hell out of North Beach
When the freeway met the ocean
And the ocean met the setting sun
I felt the page of my story turn
As the road merged into Highway 1
Santa Barbara I have come
to hear your mission bells ring
To feel the warm sand on my feet
And the balmy Pacific breeze
On my skin
I'm here to start a new life again
You were a treasure chest of the Gold rush
Once a dangerous and lawless place
A bandit and a gambler’s haven
Found in the spoils to these United States
Your tragedies, they redefined you
Like a phoenix quickened in the hills
Rebirthed from the ashes of
Earthquakes, wildfires and oil spills
And I am nestled in the bosom
Of your Santa Ynez mountainside
Cradled in your June Gloom fog
That looks like a blanket from the outside
Santa Barbara I have come
to hear your mission bells ring
To feel the warm sand on my feet
And the balmy Pacific breeze
On my skin
I'm here to start a new life again
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4. |
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Hey, it's Rick from the band
I’m sitting here at home
I thought I’d check in
Could you pick up the phone?
It’s been a few months now
and I know your life has changed
You and I, we haven’t spoken
since Holly passed away
I came to realize
Since my heart attack in April
I need to do what I love
as long as I am able
so I’m giving you a call
to see how you'd feel
About getting the band together for a meal
You could wipe the dust off the bellows
I’ll string up my guitar
We'll play the "Alligator Waltz"
or Buckwheat's "Back into your Arms"
Life is one big performance
and we are the stars
so wipe the dust off the bellows
Please come play your part
Back in the day
The ladies called you "the squeeze"?
Cause you'd steal a girl’s heart
When your fingers touched the keys.
But the only woman you fancied
All the boys wanted too
Thank God she had the moxie to propose to you
(Instrumental of chorus)
I think of her smile in the front row
And if Holly were here today
I know that she’d want you
To take the keys out and play
But I’m running out of tape
On your answering machine
So give me a call back
When you’re free
You could wipe the dust off the bellows
and play "The King of Zydeco"
I’ll take the harmony
And you can break out your solo
Life is one big performance
and we are the stars
So wipe the dust off your bellows
And come play your part
Wipe the dust off the bellows
of your heart
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5. |
Returning to Paris
04:35
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I can see the runway lights
We’ve returned to Paris one last time
It's been ten years to hell and through
Since our wide-eyed, red-eyed rendezvous
We were so impulsive then
Unbridled, no regret, no discontent
Two vows made, one just in case
This didn’t work out we’d come back to this place
The young lovers here don’t know what they do
There's this hunger in their eyes that reminds me of you and I
We have come to the city of love to say goodbye
For so long I believed this day would never arrive
But here we are looking down at all these lights while ours is going out
On our backs on Champ de Mars
In the dying grass underneath the stars
The clock strikes twelve, the bell tolls
As the Eiffel tower glints and glows
We booked flights on separate planes
Threw our wedding rings into the Seine
cut our lock off the Pont des Arts
And we said our final au revoir
Walking back to my room
I tried not to picture you
crossing bridges all alone
Uncertain where it all went wrong
We have come to the city of love to say goodbye
For song long I believed this day would never arrive
But here we are looking up at all these lights
While ours is going out
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6. |
A New Man's World
02:59
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Looking in the mirror
At the grey hairs on my face
I can still remember
The younger man who didn’t have to shave
Now the manager that I work for
Who’s younger than me
The one who signs my paycheck
At the end of the week
I was a new world man
in the days of old
now i’m an old world man
in a new man’s world
Now I can’t follow the new slang
Or even keep up with my phone
Technology connects us all
Together but we’re more alone
The videos, the TV
Only telling bad news
While outside the sun’s still shining
In a sky of blue
I was a new world man
in the days of old
now i’m an old world man
in a new man’s world
There’s safety in the shadows
Of the cynical and afraid
As the world around me changes
With every passing day
But there’s always a choice
Between fear and love
So I’ll embrace the changes
When they come
I was a new world man
in the days of old
now i’m an old world man
in a new man’s world
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7. |
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18 wheeler, without a trailer
17 minutes past the hour
16 miles to our front door
And then I'll hang these keys up for awhile
15 years since we settled down
14 of them spent on the road
13 year old baby girl
Just aching to get out on her own
I’m coming home
The miles keep rolling on the dashboard
I’m coming home
I watch the second hand turn slowly
around the face of the clock
I’m coming home
I count the days, I count the hours
Until I'm finally with the one I love
12 sunflowers on the passenger’s seat
Eleven year California wine
I’m shifting down through ten gears
As I pass the city limit sign
I’m coming home
The miles keep rolling on the dashboard
I’m coming home
I watch the second hand turn slowly
around the face of the clock
I’m coming home
I count the days, I count the hours
Until I'm finally with the one I love
Exit Texas Highway 9
The 8-track playing Fleetwood Mac’s
Seven Wonders
There’s all of these numbers
It’s like I'm looking out there for a sign
Telling me that it’s time
I come home to you
I come home to you
Six cold beers, five o'clock news
Four more smokes left in the pack
Three square meals with two sweethearts
I'm one lucky man who's glad to be back
I’m coming home
The miles keep rolling on the dashboard
I’m coming home
I watch the second hand turn slowly
around the face of the clock
I’m coming home
I count the days, I count the hours
Until I'm finally with the one I love
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8. |
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A corporate chain of grocery stores
Settled into town
Ran specials every week
drove the meat prices down
The feed lots came next
then the processing plants
They offered better pay
so the workers left the ranch
This was one fence
the herdsman couldn’t mend
it seemed his time on the range
Was coming to an end
How could he bear to ride in a stockyard pin
Confined by steel bars and concrete?
Or raise a sharp young man to do the same
then waller in old age and defeat?
There are those who can never be tamed
Like the stubborn last cowboy in Hutchinson county
The machinist builds the gear drives
That turns the water pumps around
To pull the moisture from the earth
from the outskirts of town
That quench the fields of white corn
For the harvest ahead
To fatten the Longhorn steers
And make a damn good loaf of bread
Wrapped in a burlap rag
Cut from the sack that held the corn
Tucked in the satchel of the herdsman
From whom the machinist was born
These are changing times for a dying breed
And for the only son of a simple man
Who cut the teeth of his dreams on books and magazines
And a world wide web in his hand
Such a future is too bright for him to see
He's the son of the last cowboy in Hutchinson county
At 6am the shift bell rings
the machinist leaves the shop
Hangs his safety hat on the rack
and punches the time clock
Rolls the windows down
of his four-door sedan
at the edge of the parking lot
to let some fresh air in
In the patience of the twilight
A restlessness ensues
That the hum of the power lines
and the street lights can’t subdue
It's a three mile drive through suburban streets
The smell of feedlots fill the air
And everyone at home is sound asleep
Except an old weathered man in his chair
The machinist pours some coffee to drink
and sits with the last cowboy from Hutchinson county
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9. |
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Do you suppose that the Son of Man knew
That he had no doubts about what to do
Did he lay awake paralyzed
By second thoughts of his own demise
Between Crusades and the inquisitions
The indigenous slain through Spanish missions
All of it done in his name
Would all he’d preach be heard in vain?
Even if he was perfect in every way
You don't have to be a sinner to feel afraid
Let’s go down to the river
Cast our nets into the water
We can catch us some dinner
And leave the saving souls for later
In a two-piece, pinstriped suit and tie
With the morning's sleep still in your eyes
You part the bible like Moses and the sea
So many lives left to set free
While the camera sits on the shelf
Next to a portrait of the Lord himself
Your children play in the yard
Forging memories and earning scars
We are made from the dust upon the earth
And to that dust we will return
So let us go to the river
Cast our nets into the water
We can catch us some dinner
And save the saving of souls for later
The good word, it does not change
Doesn’t come and go and doesn’t age
Doesn’t long to make someone proud
Then disappear into the crowd
Will you lay your yoke down and come with me
For soon you’ll be just a memory
Let us go to the river
Cast our nets into the water
We can catch us some dinner
And save the saving of souls for later
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10. |
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Some nights I dream that I am falling
From a window down to the street
Trying to grab hold of something
While I’m breaking through the sunbeams
And wishing that I was still asleep
I'm woken up by screaming in the darkness
On a bunk bed that feels like concrete
In the barracks of the Army
In Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
A drill sergeant calls us to our feet
He yells “what makes the green grass grow, soldiers?”
“Blood! Bright red blood!”, we shout back
In only eight weeks
We’ll be killing machines
But there’s no green gras in Iraq
(Chorus)
I think a lot about that September morning
I watched the whole thing unfold on the news
While co-workers and friends
All met their end
I was sick at home with the flu
So I handed in my two-week notice
I knew exactly what I had to do
I mustered up the courage
And I stepped out of the brokerage
And into a pair of boots
(Chorus)
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11. |
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On the 6th day of creation
God put Adam in a slumber
Took a rib from his side
To create another
From his side he did take
Not from his head or feet
So that in his garden of Eden
equals they would be
An eternal life in paradise
All was perfect, all was right
No worries and no strife
Until she took was just one bite
Then sin cast them out with shame
And somewhere along the way
In the thorny, ragged briars
She received the blame
If Eve hadn't eaten the Apple
Would we know the name
of the wife of Cain
or the widow who gladly gave her mite
oh, if Eve hadn't taken a bite?
The apostle Paul once said
For every woman on this Earth
There is a god-fearing man
that should be the head of her
But even the proudest of men
Were all once sucklings on a breast
Helpless, safe in a mother's love
Heartbeat to heartbeat, chest to chest
(Instrumental)
Oppression comes from fear
and fear comes from survivalism
Survivalism is just ego
Ego is just a prison
For our daughters and our mothers
Sisters and our lovers
They are all and have always
been our equals
Oh, if Eve hadn't eaten the Apple
Would we know the name
of the wife of Cain
or the widow who gladly gave her mite
oh, if Eve hadn't taken a bite?
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