The Sound & Time series is a compilation of singles and un-released songs, from cut-outs to songs that are newly recorded, to songs that were written for a specific album but never recorded or finished and acoustic versions of old tracks.
Fantasies
When you're all alone, And there’s no one to talk to, No one around, Nothing to do, Then do you sit back and drift, Into a world all your own, Where you can be anything, Or anybody you want.
Oh those fantasies, Those crazy wants, Those endless needs, Oh those fantasies, Those crazy wants, Those devilish needs, Those fantasies.
Sometimes life will get you down, But you don’t have to worry, Because you can drift off into a fantasy, And everything will be alright, But then you come back to reality, Got to face the world and all its agony, But you always knew you got to be yourself sometimes, And you can’t always live in your fantasy land.
Oh those fantasies, Those crazy wants, Those endless needs, Oh those fantasies, Those crazy wants, Those devilish needs, Those fantasies.
Then one day it happens, And you think you can’t come down, To face the world, And you know it’s always, Going to be the same, And if thats what you believe, Then you are living, In a fantasy.
Oh those fantasies, Those crazy wants, Those endless needs, Oh those fantasies, Those crazy wants, Those devilish needs, Those fantasies.
June 78
This is the first song I ever wrote. This is the first recording of it.
The Long Road
Seems like the closer I get, The further there is to go, Seems like the more I learn, The more there is to know, No matter which way you turn, Seems like you're going in the same direction, No matter how many times you check the mirror, You see the same old reflection.
And I guess it’s just a matter of time before I get to where I’m going, But it’s sure a long road there and my weariness is showing, And all my faith is in this road I travel on, To live the peasant's life and sing the poet's song.
This melancholy feeling, That has drenched me to the core, Never wants for nothing, But always ask for more, And never did the sunset ever look so nice, As when all the dues were counted, And I realized I paid them twice.
And I guess it’s just a matter of time before I get to where I’m going, But it’s sure a long road there and my weariness is showing, And all my faith is in this road I travel on, To live the peasant's life and sing the poet's song.
And on this road of sorrow, There is really nobody to blame, We're all just victims of our virtue, Or victims of our shame, There ain’t no way to turn back, But we always try, We don’t expect no answers, But we're always asking why, And sometimes it seems like we're traveling, Down the wrong road, But it’s not the wrong road, It’s just the long road.
May 85
This is actually one of the first songs I ever recorded on a multitrack machine (four track cassette).
This is a new recording of it, pretty much verbatim.
Voodoo
It’s something that you just can’t know, It’s somewhere that you never go, It’s something in the things you do, Don’t know who's fooling who.
Voodoo.
Voodoo.
It’s something in the way she walks, The things she says when she talks, There’s a path but you don’t know where, There’s a way but you don’t care.
Voodoo.
Sometimes get to feeling so strange, Like your head has been rearranged, And nothing seems to rhyme, And you feel like you're wasting your time.
Voodoo.
It’s in the night time under the moon, But it always ends too soon, And there ain't no other way to feel, There ain't no way to know it’s real.
Voodoo.
It’s something that you just can’t know, It’s somewhere that you never go, It’s something in the things you do, Don’t know who's fooling who.
Voodoo.
May 85
Early song. There is a four track version. This is a new recording, pretty much verbatim.
Weak Signal
I've been wasting time, At the Hollow Vine, Dead on my feet, On a drop-dead street, Moving way too fast, Thru a slow motion past, I ride the crest, Of an age old quest, No way you can get free, Without the skeleton key, She is too elusive, To leave evidence that’s conclusive, You must pay the fiddler, Before you can even see the riddler, You must take the price, And multiply it twice, They're burning sacred heart, In leu of her false start, She has a master collection, Of the art of poor-perfection, I know the real reason, That she dances out of season, Her purpose is to tease, With promises to please, Lead us not into frustration, Or we’ll succumb to temptation, But the tiger he is tame, In the wildlife hall of fame, So please don’t move, Just pretend you approve, Because time don’t mean a thing, To the wasteland king, This is where it starts, Where the middle parts, A prisoner of casual laws, Search for the unknown cause, And I can’t be forgiven, 'Cause I just keep on living, Translating dreams, And concocting schemes, To fold up and die, To open up and try, But she passes thru, All the things that I do, The strictly sensational, The merely vocational, The world of high art, The lowland of broke heart, A fool of perception, She’s the master of deception, New lost horizon, Old sun a rising, Midnight at dawn, The night was all wrong, The bride is still waiting, The grooms are debating, The truth is still lying, The facts are still sighing, This is the last chance, For a freestyle romance, That point in your mind, Is so hard to find, As the seconds squeeze in, To the memory gin, The faith is proclaimed, The faithful unnamed, It’s way out of hand, This monument of man, You’ll never know, Always got somewhere to go, This way to paradise, This way is just as nice, I saw her there, She called it nowhere, She comes when she pleases, And constantly teases.
March 86
Early song, exists on four track. This is a new recording, pretty much verbatim.
Days of Swine and Locusts (Highway Philosophy)
I wrote a song yesterday that I can’t sing today, Days of wine and roses never matter much anyway, I dropped that four leaf clover down in the dust, I know there’s no way I can but try I must, But it’s to close to the beginning to be the end, You’ve been my enemy for too many years for me to ever call you friend.
This is the highway philosophy, This is past tense prophecy, I see so many things I want, And leave behind what I really need, I try so hard for charity, But all I ever get is greed.
I said my prayers last night but I don’t remember what they were this morning, My desire came in on short notice and left without a warning, But days of swine and locusts always leave their mark, Left on the lawn trying to decide was that the nightingale or the lark, Expectations lead to disappointments but time wounds all heels, Achilles in his wheelchair upon his ever turning wheels.
This is the highway philosophy, This is past tense prophecy, I see so many ways in, But I can’t find my way out, I try so hard for faith, But all I ever get is doubt.
I told a lie yesterday that I believe today, The truth is never known it doesn’t matter anyway, The truth is just another lie that someone says they believe, The trick is just to get up and go when you know it’s time to leave, Because yesterday is just tomorrow's answer for today, And tomorrow knows it don’t matter what you believe anyway.
This is the highway philosophy, This is past tense prophecy, I touch so many threads of bliss, But all I ever feel is sorrow, I try so hard for today, But all I ever get is tomorrow.
March 86
Early song, exists on four track. This is a new recording, pretty much verbatim.
God Knows Where
It’s in here somewhere there’s nowhere else it could be, The afterlife is an afterthought obviously, Maybe the world is a ghost that thinks I’m not real, Moving in for the keep or the kill.
Paralyzed with the motion of all I should do, God knows where my life is; do you?
All the explanations all the why-less whys, Mincing Heaven's rhetoric with sky-less skies, And all the work that amounts to moving a hole, The flesh on the machinery that wastes my soul.
Trying to define the colors of this unbelievable blue, God knows where my life is; do you?
Choices other voices and starless rhythms, Weather-less rain and unpacked meaning, Keeps a man in the plot of his place, Keeps a man in the eyes of his face, Living in between the grind and the grace.
Framed in the silence of my pointless pain, I am the ambassador of this reap-less rain, With the answers that no question ever ask, I carry bane and bulk of this shapeless task.
I have to solve this puzzle without a single clue, God knows where my life is; do you?
Oct. 05
Single, first time released.
Merchants of Light (acoustic)
Seeking proof that you can’t buy a thrill, I moved into my mansion on the hill, I put a second mortgage on my soul to cover the cost, The meaning; the only thing that has been lost, But the sacrifice is altered by the ceremony's seed, This pageant of desire is necessity's feed, When the medicine-man comes with cancers; cures and debt, Everything you own is the only safe bet.
Eat twice as much and still lose weight on this miracle diet, You can sell light but you can’t buy it.
What the salesman tells us is all we know of truth, You get no sells receipt on corrupted youth, An impulse buy takes years of concentration, Anyone can feel pity for the victim of overt temptation, We all sleep in our budget dreaming of that best buy, Making payments to the guru of how; because we can’t put a price on why, And I’m no better than the man I’d like to be, But they’ll show you what to look at; they’ll even show you what to see.
You don’t even have to really want it; all you have to do is try it, You can sell light but you can’t but it.
I cracked open my life and found a salesman inside, He said; "god is the question that your answers cannot hide".
And all of us are just dying proof of the will to live, Selling what we don’t know how to give, But it doesn’t mean anything deeper than the gloss of the paint, We want the flesh of a tycoon and the soul of a saint, And the value of our emotions radiates to the pulp of our possessions, So the mechanics of our greed drives the junk of our obsessions, And the world is a kiosk for the merchants of light, Market prices based on the petty differential of wrong and right.
We don’t really know the truth we just lie it, You can sell light but you can’t buy it.
Nov.99
Acoustic version. Recorded in jan 2000.
The Wheel on the Runaway Train
It is the story; it is the crux of the creation myth, A simple beauty absent of all pretense and pith, The marriage of the mind and the motion, And the reaching for the apple was just an impulsive notion.
It started with a good idea to ease the burden on our back, But now it’s on the train and the train is on the track, And the doctor can not heal you if he is insane, Started out with the wheel and ended up on a runaway train.
Now where is nowhere going so fast, The future is just some fiend from your shady past, Doom is not the destination just some perpetual discontent, But this landlord pays the rent, Down at the Olympus museum the unknown is on display, If you're already vested you don’t even have to pay, You can sit and have lunch and watch the train roll by, Wonder how fast it’s going; wonder how fast is why.
It started with a good idea to increase the mileage of our mind, We used it to travel down that road didn’t know what we’d find, Now were numb and we can’t figure out how to describe the pain, Started out with the wheel and ended up on a runaway train.
Past this artless architecture like a blur, With all the humility and the arrogance of fake fur, The muscle in the soul and the faint stench of worth, Mother in heat sloshing thru the afterbirth, Nature's tongue probing nature's toothache, Sacred city to build; abandon and forsake, The essence of empty; the something of more, Thru pastures of May; electric Babylon whore, Modern man with his stone age passion, Computer animated designers command the latest fashion, Soul of the circuit board fuels the mind of the wheel, Till what’s false in design is all that seems real.
We’ll get our mercy tied to the tracks, Building our myth from these born again facts, The luxury of ease is now the burden on our backs.
Sept. 97
Cut out, Blues in Code. I had so many songs recorded for Blues in Code I was going to make it a double album but I decided I liked my original scheme with the eight songs that make up that record.
Hotel Never
The people in the next room are a world away, But I can still hear everything they say, I’m paid up thru the summer I’d hate to leave, Radio says one thing t.v. another; I don’t know what to believe.
The people in the next room are getting on my nerves, But every tenant gets just what he deserves, I stare out the window; out where the airport used to be, Not a figure makes sense except upon poetry.
The people in the next room I don’t wish them any harm, But just to get rid of ‘em for a little while I punched the fire alarm, Her letters ask when will I be coming home, A BMW rolls by; I admire the chrome.
The people in the next room don’t realize who I am, But I could paint them into a hell of a jam, The room service is good but I don’t use it much, It’s that tip you have to give and the bell boys grateful touch.
The people in the next room don’t even know I’m in here, They don’t understand midnight and that bottomless fear, The way this room is decorated it’s really not me at all, I don’t know which escort service I should call.
The people in the next room are just a wall away, But they still can’t seem to hear anything I say, Tonight I study-unborn and revise my doom, I’ll just have to learn to live with the people in the next room.
Sept. 97
Cut out, Blues in Code.
Underneath the Bottom
It’s a dirty little world, Full of dirty little minds, Wrapped up in clean and cunning faces, You better believe that you don’t know, You just try to read the signs, It’s a fairy-tale; the tortoise don’t win no races.
The winners don’t win much and the losers don’t lose a thing, You just spend a little time underneath the bottom.
Well it all came down to hard, And it all moved way to fast, And I tried to be so righteous and strong, But I let it break me down, Though I knew I could get past, Because even when it felt right I knew it was wrong.
But I never felt so victimized; I never felt so helpless, So I did a little time underneath the bottom.
I straddle this point in time, And look back at all those other mes', And I seem like somebody that I made up, I try to think but I just dream, I try to move but I just freeze, I poured out the wine and let the rain fill my cup.
But it’s not like giving up it’s just not caring that it takes me down, And if you need me I’ll be underneath the bottom
June 94
Cut out, The River and the Sea.
Burden's Bride
Deep in the clockwork of unfashioned time, Where the hour stutters and the eons rhyme, An expatriate of eternity, Found his will to live; lost his will to be.
Come; come slow sister under the silence, Come; come help me lay down my oblivion.
Thur the fugitive streets I slowly unravel, Direction is lost in the meaning of travel, Awkward bones and lip reading stranger, At home nowhere mansion or manger.
Come; come slow sister under the silence, Come; come help me lay down my oblivion.
With tragic patience everyday I live my suicide, Every honeymoon's eclipse I’m met with burden's bride, Filled with this sacred self-pity, All alone in the bones of the city.
Come; come slow sister under the silence, Come; come help me lay down my oblivion.
I sweep the pennies up off Heaven's floor, And there’s barely enough to make me want more, And the fire is raging but there is no smoke, I’m desperately bending but my fix is already broke.
Come; come slow sister under the silence, Come; come help me lay down my oblivion.
I bought the swamp from the weather salesman’s tongue, Back when I was a hundred years too young, And the more it’s over the less it finds its end, It just clings to your apathy like a needy friend.
Come; come slow sister under the silence, Come; come help me lay down my oblivion.
Now that I’ve learned to crawl I can’t remember how to fly, I’m sure it’ll come back to me the day before I die, If it means anything this doesn’t mean a thing, Just more music to sigh another song to sing.
Come; come slow sister under the silence, Come come; help me lay down my oblivion.
Oct. 97
Cut out, Blues in Code.
All My Life
I’m standing in line at the Bitter End, I search the crowd for the faith of a friend, I find only the hurt and haunt of loneliness in all, Strangers wrecked by the same flight and fall, Empires and intentions all will come to this, The cold lips of this open eyed kiss.
But there is no weather I have not swallowed, All my life I’ve been a dying man.
Fortunes are kept beneath her shadow's clock, And the weight of the dreaming is the skull of the rock, She screams to the world you're liar’s shrunken head, I just pretend I have nothing for what she said, To this and every nowhere I am debtor, I hoped but I knew it could never get better.
She has a tease she spent greatly on me, All my life I’ve been a dying man.
And the sorrow unstrained from the vine, Is the euthanasia of the wine, The tuning bones of the weather's whine, All the mercy that was never mine.
I dreamt the map thought somewhere was here, She says let my body violate the ever-clear, If it’s me you want god riddle the snake, Can't turn the key for the doorknob's sake, So graveyards; shipwrecks and Wall Street wishes, Sweep the floors; milk the math and wash the dishes.
A blind in one eye scenario typecasts me, All my life I’ve been a dying man.
Oh that the light may be delivered in heat, Could you sing the clock of songs for this feat, She could grace the never with your bleeding, Her definition set for breath and breeding, But the futility of direction is intrinsic, And desperation is a matter of fact forensic.
Never been outside the dictionary’s hard pages, All my life I’ve been a dying man.
If the day can undo me could; this night renew me, From the barstool of this drunken philosophy, The pennies and the nickels of this de facto world, Is the fortune round which the snake is curled, And I am all river's envy dumped into an impotent ocean, Lost in the exhaust of this chronic motion.
Some are born to wreck rivers and unhinge orbits, All my life I’ve been a dying man.
Oct. 05
Single, recorded for this record.
Released 01 December 2005
All Songs Composed, Performed and Recorded by M.M.
