Lyrics

Dollars to Donuts

I used to wake up every morning before sunrise

Make my way on down to the bakery shop

Spend the next eight hours making donuts

While you spent the whole day doin’ lord knows what

I’d bet dollars to donuts you don’t remember

I’d bet dollars to donuts you don’t care

But the problem with bettin’ dollars to donuts

Is the best you can do is a donut

Each man is entitled to a favorite

And the wise man keeps that as simple as it can get

‘Cause if you get in to likin’ apple fritters

And you’re late to the box, there might not be any left

I’d bet dollars to donuts you never really loved me

I’d bet dollars to donuts you never really cared

But the problem with bettin’ dollars to donuts

Is the best you can do is a donut

Aberdeen

I was here to hear President Hoover say

Everything ‘ll be fine in this frontier town

One year later 3/4 of the mills shut down

And 2500 people left

Without so much as a sound

Ain’t no one with somewhere to go still around

Good-bye Aberdeen, good-bye Aberdeen

At once both beautiful and mean

Aberdeen

I never thought I’d see the day when the timber went away, but now it’s gone

You can buy a house in this town for a song

And our biggest export is some punk kid

Famous cause he didn’t belong

Kinda like me now that I’m gettin’ on

Once Again with Feeling

One look at these stiffs

One might call a hearse

They’re here in their dust suits

For tonight we dress rehearse

Baton goes up

Orchestra begins to lurch

Their music clangs off the wall

Of this old abandoned church

Once again with feeling

Lets take it from the top

She broke my heart last night

This lousy orchestra is all I got

Principle gives out an A

Strings come in to soon

We’re half way through the funeral march

Someone’s still out of tune

Ensembles have a soul

And everyone plays a part

Our love is a requiem

Hey Mozart can you heal this broken heart

Once again with feeling

Lets take it from the top

She broke my heart last night

This lousy orchestra is all I got

Someone asked Berlioze

When he was near the end

Hey Maestro do you believe in love

He said “Je ne quois rien”

“Mais Je un choise”

I believe in us

We may be far from perfect y’all

But when we’re good, we’re good enough

Cause it’s Once again with feeling

Lets take it from the top

She broke my heart last night

This lousy orchestra look at them go

And given it all they got

Fishing for Trouble

I’m in deep water

Lying next to last night’s catch

Limited out at a dance hall in Arlington, TX

Fishing for trouble

The words of my old man

Haunt me like a Tom Rush ballad

“Best the bank that you’re on,

Than the one cross the rapids.”

Unless you’re fishing for trouble

Below the surface lies a lunker with an insatiable thirst

He strikes at the fly and they both explode

In a burst

          of

                       light

Stuck in an eddy of ideals

Against a rock of what’s right

I’d rather go round and round

Then back down from a fight

Still fishing for trouble

Sideshow Life

She makes me feel like a carnival monkey

Dancing for nickels with a carnival junkie

I’m on a spinning wheel and she’s throwing knives

We’re like the tall man and the bearded lady

She’s as abrasive as I am shady

I’m high above a bucket of water and she’s yelling dive

Welcome to my sideshow life!

Sometimes this world is just like P. T. Barnum

Its taste for suckers is quite alarming

I am a cupie doll and they’re throwing balls

Welcome to my sideshow life!

(Step right up! Step right up!

See it with your own two eyes!

The grotesque horror of a broken man,

No, my friends, that’s no disguise!)

Fish Soup

We met at a restaurant down in the Veaux Carre

I said “bon soir”

She said “elle est ce qu'elle est”

She began with the fish soup

I with the consumme

She was searching for something

And I was clearly in play

I'll have the poulet

and the lady will have the lapin

I was too scared to come clean

She was quick to move on

The next course was mixed greens

With a fine vinaigrette

I seemed stuck at an impasse,

She seemed soured by regret

She picked at the Roquefort

I waded into the Brie

I tried hard to lighten her blues

But they soon darkened me

We drank coffee and smoked cigarettes

A French band played a valse musette

I asked her to dance, and to my surprise she said “yes!”

We left a restaurant down in the Veaux Carre

She said “bon nuit”

And I said “elle est ce qu'elle est”

Another God’s Child

A figure in the distance framed by a cloud

Walks into the streets of Delamar

Hands on his buckle he stands up proud

“Can I drive a stagecoach? I can drive a stagecoach!”

Many a woman hears the call of the wild

And sometimes an orphan is another god’s child

And the truth is often unreconciled

Until it’s dead . . . dead and gone

With one bad whip and one good eye

Charley’d drive resigned to the silence

And the gunmen in the canyon sides

“Could he drive a stagecoach? He could drive a stagecoach!”

As time wore on and the rail ran through

And the cities rose up from the dust and the pews

They put up fences, laid down roots

“Could he drive a stagecoach? No need for a stagecoach”

LA (Is Totally Awesome)

Alarm bell rings at quarter to twelve, already eighty outside,

Her head still hurts from the two Kamikaze’s that capped off a typical Tuesday night.

Well, it wasn’t a total waste.

‘Cause she got home alright with the number of a guy who knows the guy who starred in

“Will and Grace.”

LA is totally awesome!

Everybody’s cool and everything’s fun.

LA is totally awesome!

Don’t forget to send the money when you send your love along.

Another name change so she sounds more “white”

Hispanics ain’t in vogue this year

“¿Como te llamas?”. says the boy at the counter,

“No importa - you ain’t scoring here!”

Well it wasn’t a total loss

She got five hundred dollars’ worth of jeans and a cute little handbag at half the cost.

Sunshine and super-dark tans,

Collagen, saline and churro stands,

Courtney and Chloe and that gay guy from that boy band,

And free courtside tickets to the Lakers

Her actor boyfriend is off on a shoot with the daughter of an A-list director.

While she folds classic black tees at the Gap, they practice their lines back at the trailer.

Well, it wasn’t a total bust.

‘Cause he got her an audition with a guy who made a sequel to “Fast and Furious.”

Reputation

You have what it takes

You make mistakes

I don’t know what you think you’re doing

But I smell some trouble brewing

Let’s go

Your reputation is sliding

But who cares anyway

Guided by touch more than feel

She’s got em fake, I like em real

It’s so rough the way she’s riding

Oh now you see that thing she’s hiding

Let’s go

Your reputation is sliding

But who cares anyway

Run fast, don’t get no where

Next day, same underwear

Oh you’ll come, Oh when she calls

Oh how you miss, both of your balls

Let’s go

Your reputation is sliding

But who cares anyway

Cascadia

Barons with beards blow in on the wind

Artisan gusts off the pacific rim

We'll stand in line for hours if you just give us a cause

Fair trade, a carbon tax, sasquatch

Welcome my friends to Cascadia

Premium blend here in Cascadia

We'll carve out a place custom made for us

Hear the woodpecker

Hear it's hammer call

In a Northwest for all

Men with wood machines toiling in the rain

Banding together an evergreen refrain

Women of steel join in on the chorus

Harmony emanating from all doors

Welcome my friends to Cascadia

Premium blend here in Cascadia

We'll carve out a place custom made for us

Hear the steller's jay

Hear its discordant song

Go ahead and sing along

Coyote kicking up clouds of dust

A reminder of the constant change

The restlessness in all of us 

As we ride along a tree-lined open range

Welcome my friends to Cascadia

Premium blend here in Cascadia

We'll carve out a place custom made for us

Hear the crow speak

Hear its wisdom ring

Tis of thee we sing

Wounded Heart

We’ll search for love to heal these wounded hearts.

We’ll search for love, but you won’t search alone.

We’ll gather friends and comb the beach like we did last summer, searching for shells and where I learned your name.

Searching for love to heal these wounded hearts

Posters put up on all the power poles just like the fall when the rain soaked them through. Damaged by the rain now it’s something fresh and new.

Searching for love to heal these wounded hearts

Evergreen

She graduated college when she was 19

Couple years for her masters a degree in botany

Goodbye to her classmates cause she’s gotta go

North to Cascades to the end of the road

She’s evergreen

Evegreen can she grow

In this emerald city

Soon her ladies reached for the sky

Her blend of sativa, a really mellow high

Lady Lovejoy, she’s a premium brand

Your green thumb and a solid business plan

Evergreen

Evergreen can she grow

In this emerald city

Her neighbors adore her

Wanna help her succeed

Pitched in when they could

To separate the stems from the seeds and the leaves from the flowers

Profits were strong right from the start

Water, Sun, nitrogen in her brain and her heart

Legal at last, the law of the land

Upgraded her Prius and bought a company van

Evergreen

Evergreen can she grow

In this emerald city

Oola's Song

Love, what's in a word?

Nothing and the works.

A blessing and a curse.

But that's how it is in a world of leaping letters, hieroglyphs

The old man on the corner shakes his head, "It's all been said before."

Delmont, what's in a place?

There's no longer a trace

of the founders or the faces of those who rode the stage

Before the war between the states

And the taverns all shut down because they knew, "This place won't ever be the same."

Ford, what's in a make?
Hard tops and fins like blades.

Galaxies and Fairlanes.

But their bright betrays the stars as light bends round bodies in an arc.

Leaving you wandering the dark with no place to go, "They don't make 'em like that anymore."

Oola, what's in a name?

It's not for the tame.

But Oola just the same, it's perfect for you. 

You burn bridges with the blues.

The old man on the corner lifts his head, because he knows "they don't 'em like her anymore."

Upstream

Sell it all, Marjolyn

Buy the kids a brand new set of clothes

Feed the chickens one last time

Then just let em go

Forget about the peaches

Cause they’re here with us on this ship

Packed up in these wooden crates

With all that's left to car about

And care to know

Cause free will don't matter none

If you don't act free

It'll get you somewhere but just somewhere

Ain't where you're looking to be

When you're upstream

Listen, Marjolyn,

I don't think this experiment is working out

The locals are a bit upset at the menu and the working hours

I heard a couple of ‘em talking

Just behind a rubber plant

They plan to cut the telegraph

And with it my only line to you

That should be a sign to you

My dearest, Marjolyn,

I can't tell if its the fever

or the feelings of a dying man

Who's drifting out to sea

Before you reach our native shores

I'm sure to be no more

But know that I still love you and await you

On that celestial shore

Passport

Here Bird

She lit in, all legs and feathers

A meadow maker among the bell heather

A mega tick among the fauna throng

I wanna sing, but I ain't got a song

Birds of a feather they flock together

3 chords, a bridge, and a love letter

Lay me a groove down with them four thick strings

Some chuck-a-chuck over which I can sing

Here Bird!

That ain't bad for a novice fledgling

Keep her distracted while I sharpen the edging

Another call and let’s see what that brings

Damn I think this song it might have some wings

Here Bird!

OK everyone, quit the talking

From our perch in this birch, it's time for our squawking

You are bestest little beastest of a bird

She says, that's the prettiest song I’ve ever heard

Here Bird!