Lyrics Heart in a Jar

heartinajar (78K)

All lyrics © Diftong 2010

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Longing for Water
Hot-shot Superstition
Van Gogh's Indian Summer
Cold War was Hot
Heart in a Jar
Timberline
The Ruthless Truth
Babel
Fiddlesticks
Out-of-sequence Re-assembly Gumption Trap
Travel Plans

Longing for Water

The flare of ignition
Was easily summoned
And the fire spread
With the flow of the words

He was pounding the keyboard
And living the dream
In the age of the sound-byte
The age of the scream

And the story got better
With each word he found
Each nail in the pine-box
Each thorn in the crown

It's better to burn out
Said a voice in his head
And once you are burning
There is no turning back

A cold wind on the river bank
It made the reeds shiver
As he went under
In a wake of sparkling silver

He was longing for water
To put out the fire

Hot-shot Superstition

Hot-shot superstition
For sale in every mall
The strong have long provoked the weak
And there's writing on the wall
The carrier plane is loading arms
To fight the devil in disguise
As the powers pointed out
It's a matter of choosing sides

Hot-shot superstition
In every church, in every mosque
Pity those who missed their clues
Bad luck for those in shock
All the sons are diehard liars
They lie what they've been told
By their cunning mothers
And misfit fathers
These lies are so damn old

Hot-shot superstition
For sale in every mall
The strong have long provoked the weak
And there are bloodstains on the wall
The carrier plane is loading bodies
For the loved-ones way back home
They were hoping to survive
Without a scratch on their soul

Let the poor man be forgiven
And his hungry mouths be fed
Let the fat man save his own skin
When it comes down to that

Van Gogh's Indian Summer

The rain it came down hard
On two buddies going up
But they were bound for glory
And made it to the top
A glider took the summit
And they kept their fingers crossed
The pilot waved as he pulled up
And nearly swept them off
Indian Summer on a mountain top
The sun came out and it smiled down
And they were smiling up

This Rocky Mountain canvas
It held a masterpiece
All these strokes of red and yellow
In the crowns of the trees
The rain it couldn't harm
Two buddies going up
From behind the clouds
The sun slipped out
And it was smiling down

All those colors
Oh the colors
All the colors
Of Van Gogh

Cold War was Hot

Never a war like the Cold War
With it's inspirational doom
The Minute Men were all lined up
Neatly polished and tuned

The audience was willing
The Cold War was hot
Eyes were bulging, ears were ringing
As they were calling their shots

A spitting image of the eighties
Sprayed in paint on a wall
Cracks were slowly beginning to show
That wall was ready to fall

Sexy Suzy was speaking in tongues
The half-wit poet
was screaming his song
Their graffiti wall has crumbled to dust
Some words are still there
But the meaning was lost

Heart in a Jar

I've put my heart on display in a jar
It's safer that way
You can clearly see
All the bruises and scars
It has seen better days
Too many times
I gave it away and it cracked
It was tossed in the trash
I had to fish it out
And patch it up
It looked like a mess

Maybe I will open the jar for you
Only if your intentions are true
Look at my heart
Maybe there's room for you
Only if your intentions are true

Look at my heart
At all the bruises and scars
It has seen better days
So that is why I keep it in a jar
It's safer that way

Timberline

I've been sitting on these mudflats
With my grudges and my spite
I've been sucking on these toothaches
With extraction on my mind
I've been acting like the underdog
Wagged my tail and licked the boot
I've been kicking up the dirt
I've been chewing on the root

I've been longing for the mountains
Stretch my hamstrings on a slope
The quiet victory of the summit
And all the mayhem so remote
Well, I guess that I got lucky
I sneaked out and got away
And I really can't be bothered
To be the scapegoat of the day

And tomorrow I'll make
My way through the pines
Tomorrow I'll go
Up to the timberline
I'll go up to count my blessings
I'll go up to count my blessings
Every single one I find

The Ruthless Truth

A young man with his book of truth
Came down to Earth from Paradise
Met a girl named Pretty Ruth
Head over heels
For her dark brown eyes

They made their home
And raised a child
Raised it by their book of truth
Harsh rules made the child grow wild
O poor ruthless Ruth

Forgiveness was a common word
On every page of the book of truth
It was only printed ink to her
O poor ruthless Ruth

An old man and his book of lies
A mother with her child gone wild
A young man drowning in the tide
O what a sad, sad sight

A promise of profits to be had
A furnace to be fed

Living in the bright white light
Can you keep your eyes
From losing sight
Staring in the cold white light
Can you keep your eyes
From going blind

Babel

When I was a kid
I shot Hitler from the hip
Watched him bite the dust
No limit to the faith
Of an eight-year old kid
The whole damn Third Reich went bust

All the people waiting
For E.T. to come along
From somewhere in outer space
To unfold his universal master plan
To save the human race

Take notice of that man
The big C couldn't stop
Building his inventions in the basement
He kept on going no matter what
Not a minute to be wasted

The sky is the limit
For things built on faith
The tower of Babel
The towers of Trade
You've got to stir the mud
You've got to settle for a low
Only dirty hands make things grow

Fiddlesticks

I dabbled in politics
I ransacked my bag of tricks
I whittled my fiddlesticks
No outcome, I didn't fix

Laundering money is a gas
What's the point of paying tax
I keep it in a gunny sack
Spend it big on the track

There is an end to every game
Especially in the hustler's domain
They fixed my horse and it went lame
I lost my grip on the reigns

When it was time to prosecute
I handed out the forbidden fruit
The judge and jury were in cahoots
And the plaintiff got the boot

Met up with Judas to steal a kiss
He dropped the stone into the well
Still I am sleeping in perfect bliss
Handled my assets fairly well

Out-of-sequence Re-assembly Gumption Trap

Damn
Where does this part go
I thought I'd finished
But that ain't so
I'll have to start all over again
Find the spot where this part fits in

Sitting on a stool
With a wrench in my hand
And a manual I don't understand
I drop it on the floor in a puddle of oil
And curse the machine on its stand

Without this whatchamacallit thing
This tiny piece of stainless steel
The whole mean dream machine
Is just a pile of junk on wheels

Out-of-sequence re-assembly gumption trap
Re-assembled out-of-sequence
That's just my luck
Out-of-sequence re-assembly gumption trap
Never gonna get my gumption back

Travel Plans

We envied hobos hopping trains
They had the guts to break away
Heading South across the plains
Sleeping on the boxcar sway

Old enough to fly the coop
We started making travel plans
Getting high on Kerouac
Saving up for an old sedan

On my return from the heartland hills
Thought I'd meet up with you
Off the record and for old times' sake
And to hear what was new

You said you never found the time
And made it sound like a joke
A lame excuse to hide the fact
Your travel plans went up in smoke

There's no way to cross the line
Between the man that went away
And the man that stayed behind