Songs From Nowhere

Songs From Nowhere

Nowhere (and how to get there)

There is a place; we don't know when it is, Now the light that
we have lied is the religion of show biz, The sewer feeds the
sky; the sky leaks on the flowers, Money pays the tribute to
the gods of earthly powers.

Eat your sorrow like a four course meal, Save your soul for
that perfect deal.

Because this is; we think it ought to be, We work in a coal
mine called democracy, The ones who have; will sell you what
you need, They oil the chain in the machinery of greed.

We just empty our hearts to fill our purse, Convinced that
the bad couldn't get any worse.

Soap opera icons; leaders made of money, Comic culture glut
that's anything but funny, T.V. lessons victim; afraid to be
otherwise, Don't question the vision it's easier to believe
your eyes.

The art of making money, All the people all the time, To be
guilty of the law, Is to commit the perfect crime.

Land of infinite limitations, Coughed up cold war
variations, Fix it with the drug de jour, If you don't feel
sick you don't need a cure, Nowhere, and how to get there, It's
all so clear, You just stay right here.

Feb 97

Eye of the Needle

Jimmy Jones is trying to shrink his camel, Because his money's out grown his soul, But his envy keeps falling out of his pocket, Where his pride has worn a hole, He never hurt anyone helped all he could, Why should his luck be a sin, Sleepy sundays and strip tease sermons, And every prayer ends with amen.

Joe Dough is trying to balance his checkbook, Wants to buy some more honey bees, Another blossom from the root of all evil, He wants a garden of money trees, No second thoughts; doubts or regrets, It's all written into the game, He can be guilty of all guilt will allow, And innocent of any blame.

Sammy Smith wants to pay the electric bill, The nights are getting cold, But he's warmed by the thoughts that one day he'll walk, On streets paved with gold, He'll have all Heaven's riches to himself, He lives for that dying day, Righteous enough to be heaven's bouncer, He'll make the rich man pay.

Mar 97

Mars De Milo

She just plays the diagnosed victim, He just plays nobodies
fool, So proud of the way she tricked him, So proud of his
stage fright tool.

It's a match made in hell, It's the love that just has to
be, It's a secret she can't wait to tell, It's a light that
only she can see.

Hell denies what Heaven knows, Dress the wound in brand new
clothes.

He just pretends to understand, All he is is all he can, He is
just her idea of a man, A Friday night fuck and a wedding
band, Opposites love to attract, Make a theory of the fact, She
needs more than the little lacked, In her mind his bags are
packed.

All that could be more absurd, Is left to the time clock of
reason, And every breath that forms a word, Is weighed against
the bulk of treason.

The study of his only wish, A thousand dinners of his
favorite dish, Be the ocean to catch the fish, Read the lips
of his kiss.

Love that arouses a talk show host, The husband father and
lover's ghost.

When you wish upon a star, Make sure it's not the headlights
of a car, If you go nowhere and that's to far, Just average
your disgust to find your par, Want it bad enough and any lie
is true, Make an old world order; spin like a new, Make a
family value a devil's due, Make a seeing eye dog your point
of view.

She dug up her chance out of this risk, She don't want soul
searching just someone to frisk, She just loves to fill his
stomach between her legs, He's the chicken that lays the
golden eggs.

She just turns her discontent into a shopping spree, Turns
the writing on the wall into a spelling bee, She just learns
to love a real good fight, She just learns to cry herself to
sleep at night.

Dec 96

Where I'm At

My name is nobody, I come from nowhere, I live on nothing, I dream in Shakespeare, I cheat the meaning, I twist the thorn, I swallow the wind, I'm fiction born.

Neither here nor there; just where I'm at.

Always the mirrors foe, Never the weather's friend, Despising the break, In my virtuoso's bend, Cut me a princess, From the diamond of lovers, I'll sleep in her soul, Forsaking all others.

Neither here nor there; just where I'm at.

All I am is hard enough, I don't need some beggar's bluff, Take me where you'll find me there, Get me out of all this nowhere.

I wanna bang my head on solid rock, Rate the mind-quakes aftershock, See the dusk throw off the day's strip tease, Just for naked midnight's battered knees, Time's spaced out afterbirth, Sibling rivalry  of vested future's worth, The exquisite choice of method between hell and ice, The luck or the fuck of god's dice.

Tip of the tongue says nothing of interest to me, My eyes only look for what they can't see, Wondering how that rabbit got into my hat, I just can't be where I am 'cause I don't know where that's at.

Feb 97

Consumer Pride

I wanna be your delicate consumer; I wanna cure the doctor, I wanna grow the planet with your tokens of grace, I dreamed she stood at her cash register; a poet on the keys, The laughing behind my back marked down to a smile to my face, I need your thirty day miracle and your ten cent never, I hear your voice everywhere the radio, t.v. and I know what's real, But I try to fathom you and you just say I am that I am, You must know what I think because you tell me what to feel.

I wanna be your customer but I'm scared you'll make me pay, If I buy it all will you promise not to take it all away.

I've got a picture of you stuck in the corner of my mirror, But I don't like it there because when I look at it I can't help but see me, But I only hate myself as much as your love will allow, And without your love to define my hate; what would I be, If you can't give it away you'll have to sell it, And if I can't afford it than I'll have to buy two, You see I'd do anything to make me yours, I believe your lies because; I'd rather be real than true.

I wanna be your customer but it's such a high price, If you're the religion; am I the sacrifice.

Every time I see your face light up a billboard I get the gold rush blues, But I know you want me I know you need me, You took my reason to believe but gave me a reason to be, But it just makes me hungry the way that you feed me, I really want to put my faith in you but it seems to easy, And the best cheaters in the world are the ones who put you totally at ease, And there may be a wolf under that designer wool, The perfect disguise of aiming to please.

I wanna be your customer but I've got my pride, and I've seen the light that you have lied.

Feb 97

Credo

Would you like to buy a little happiness, Would you like to
buy a little soul, Would you like to dream a little life, Would
you like to fain a little control, Kiss the cook and swallow
the food, Bite the waiter; lick the mood.

There is a sale for those who can afford not to care, There
is a sale on nowhere.

Well she's had plastic surgery on her soul, But I swear you
can't tell it from the real thing, She couldn't keep up with
the Joneses so she just laughed at them, Every joker wants to
be the king, Buy low; sell high, Everything is yours, Just leak
your poison; you don't have to worry about the cures.

There is a sale for those who can afford not to care, There
is a sale on nowhere.

Just shrug off injustice with another line, Just make the space invaders pay another fine, Talk about how you earned it; how you worked so hard, And how anyone could do the same if they weren't so full of lard.

But it's just another day of all you can take, And our glorious someday is always on the make, But there's never a care that's more real than you are fake, For those who can afford to say let them eat cake, Well it's easy to ask what are you worried about, When you make the weather and you thrive on the drought, When you're the man who puts the with in the without, When you sell all your beliefs for the dime of a doubt.

The only thing that's not for sale is mercy.

Jan 97

The Witness

After everyone was gone, I just traveled around from place to place to watch the change, At first it looked like it would happen pretty fast, In only a few years many of the roads and highways were covered with grass and weeds, After about fifteen or twenty years you could hardly tell where most of the roads had been, Those same roads that used to go somewhere; anywhere; everywhere, In the suburbs all the manicured lawns were now the wildest jungles, The houses all still stood in good shape; empty reminders of countless scenes of private life, Despair; fear; violence; hope; love; joy; a world framed in walls, After about a hundred years these worlds were the jungle's pedestal; as quite as loneliness, In the cities; the creatures vain monuments to prosperity, The jungle underneath was just starting to push off the weight of the concrete, And in a manner completely void of malice or pretension; weave its way into the work, Vines wrapped around skyscrapers; wildflowers and grasses take the place of once congested avenues, After several hundred years surprisingly most of the cities were still standing, Though they were covered in foliage in such a way, That if one were just seeing them now for the first time they may think that they grew organically, After a few thousand years there was hardly any sign at all that the creatures had lived here once, The cities had all crumbled underneath the weight of the jungle, The same jungle that these egos in stone had once crushed and held at bay, Here and there were conglomerations of unimpressive ruins, Ruins that could offer no clues to what had been engulfed in the lining of the womb, After several thousand years the whole of the little planet was once again pristine, It was beautiful; an absolutely aching beauty.

Jan 97

Heart Like a Pump

I guess there's something to be said for anything, But there's more meaning in the breath than the words, Lying awake at night trying to rehearse a dream, You just admit flying is for the birds, Sights and sounds and mirrors reflect the soul's grotesque, Beauty is the burp of a tanked-up party girl, And even the future that you planned now seems so Kafkaesque, As the planet stops its spin your head begins to whirl.

Never is the nowhere of all possible places, Time is a bullet waiting for the hole in your back, And you try to find a way to use the void to fill up all the empty spaces, Some kind of mystic nonsense for the practical wisdom you lack, Animal instincts and moon howling grace, If you could just crawl back to the cradle; pristine wordless thoughts, If you could just see somebody when you look into your face, You broke all your blessings fixing all your faults.

Heart like a pump, Mind like a dump.

Jan 97

Brand New Bullet

My guiding light warms the steel of my faith, The whore of truth gonna prove the virtue of my hate, You don't need an excuse when you're about to choke on the reason, I told Manny I was gonna bark a riot; maybe I was just teasing, I'm gonna wear my soul like a skin over the animal underneath, That way I'll feel more like an angel as I walk this devil’s beat, Born with my finger on the trigger; all that's left to do is pull it, I'm as confidant as a brand new bullet.

Traces of the apple find color in the red of her lips, Yesterday's house fire and tomorrow's fire sale with her off the deep end trips, She's working her way into my fist via my sense of pride, When I wake her from these dreams of a better life she'll be wishing she had died, I'm paying the price of a layaway life at the cost of my sanity, And the debt just grows and the ratio is the value of her vanity, Born with my finger on the trigger how much strength will it take to pull it, I'm as curious as a brand new bullet.

Maybe I need forgiveness but not the spiritual kind, Cause I've been looking for something special and guilty of taking whatever I find, Maybe I'll take her to the alter; let the recoil breed a sacrifice, And then lay my fury down with the bride and bones of night, But I guess I should rob a bank and then take her to Heaven's tower, And have generic deities wait on us like we were the saints of power, Born with my finger on the trigger but I've got to take aim before I pull it, I'm as capricious as a brand new bullet.

Mar 97

Babylon Blues

A city that's all one color, A sinister shade of gray, Where the walls tumble up, And there are seven nights in every day, Confusion is commodity, Desperation a new dance craze, The streets they don't go anywhere, They're just a tour of the maze.

What's the news, Babylon blues.

Just right up the street, At the corner of rape and vine, There's an excuse behind a badge, Feeding the dogs to the lions, There's a dream back in the ally, She'll help you catch up on your sleep, But Hell is so expensive, And man; Paradise is cheap.

Light the fuse, Babylon blues.

They're building a new religion, But they're not sure if the sidewalk can hold it, So they amend a few codes, And now the blind lead the blind folded, Now the third shift traffic masterpiece, Goes no way home to bed, Oily hearts pollute the mechanism, Of the cities clockwork head.

Digest the ruse, Babylon blues.

The old man of the parking lot, The doctor hands him the ink blot, He says tell me what you see tell me true, The old man looks and says I see you.

Feb 97

Waiting For Robin Hood

Just sitting here in this noisy little nowhere, Wondering
about someday and if we'll ever get there, But I'm scared
that it's desire that makes you greedy, But wanting to much
ain't what makes you needy.

Trying to separate the what does from the what should, Tired
of waiting for justice I'm waiting for Robin Hood.

Man; that sewer stinks like the devil's kitchen, That smell
mingles with the sound of the neighbors bitch’en, You can't
get out of this place it's like a sixth sense inside your
head, The cops trying to convince me I'd be better off dead.

Trying to wash all the bad out of what's left that's
good, Following Cain waiting for Robin Hood.

And this fucking job I've got; can barely feed me, It's just
another way for the vampires to bleed me, The ones with the
unfair advantage decide what's fair, But I guess I'm just
like 'em because I can't pretend to care.

And I know it won't no matter how much I wish it would, The
only thing left to do waiting for Robin Hood.

Comes a time when you don't want to die you'll have to
kill, Be it the devil's way or god's will, But they ain't got
nothing I want that's worth dying for, Think maybe I'll drive
downtown and find me a whore.

When all you know is can't you just pretend you could, You
see you get kind'a restless waiting for Robin Hood.

Feb 97

If I Were Me

In the midst of all these maybes I found the
never, Somewhere has a border but nowhere goes on forever, And
I am the messenger from this address, Caught in a different
kind of bind; an organized mess, Acceptance is for those who
find something acceptable, It's so contemptuous the things we
call respectable.

If I were me, I'd bind myself with the burden of the
free, Break loose of this soap opera slavery, Let the river
back into the sea, If I were me.

It's hard to enjoy the world you have when all you do is
dream of a better one, But I just like to look at the bullet
I don't even own a gun, When we can all call each other
customer then it will be a perfect world, When the white flag
of surrender is unfurled, Then the evil empire can drop its
disguise, And big business man will be know as the master of
lies.

If I were me, I'd crack the code of this misery, Let the
mirror glean what we refuse to see, Shine a light in the bed
of democracy, If I were me.

And they know how to turn the truth into a laughing
stock, Just some petty paranoiac trying to manufacture solid
rock, And it's colder than we could ever know; that black hole
of greed, Toss a scrap to the needy just enough to raise the
debt and the need.

If I were me, I'd live off the crumbs of reality, Make the
judge pay the legal fee, Forget how to live and just learn to
be.

And so I struggle, Like all, Thru a world that is a mirror of
the worst in us, Thru separate paths in our mutual misery, The
soul stopping boredom of fruitless labor, Stock market
suicides, King of the heap, Ant of the dung hill, We all sale
ourselves the latest version of reality and sale each other
the latest escape from it, All thinking that the machine will
run faultless if we each assume our proper duty, All embalmed
with the liquid gold parasite of the American dream, Placated
with the vision that with a little hard work you can get
somewhere, When nowhere and how to get there, Is all so clear -
You just stay right here.

Mar 97




Released March 1, 1997 All Songs Composed, Performed and Recorded by M.M.