James Maddock
Live at Masterdisk
Another Life
My future's uncertain
My back starts hurting
As soon as I get out of bed
I listen to the news station
Trouble in the whole nation
Airplane passes by gotta be a mile high
Reminds me that I'm not a bird
There's a side of me
One part prisoner and one part free
There's only so much any man can be
We all want another life
Another fifty years
To see the outback and the Himalayas
Feel that arctic wind around your ears
We all want another life
Picking up my paycheck
How am i going to make it
How am i ever getting out of this hole
Stuck in a time frame
Caught up in the mundane
I wanna learn dancing
Motorbike riding
Maybe have a kid or two
(chorus)
I wanna try acting
White water rafting
Be a total failure
Backpacking in Australia
Learn to play the sitar
Get better on the guitar
Try some illegal substances
There's a side of me
One part prisoner and one part free
There's only so much any man can be
We all want another life
Where's so much to know
So many places that you want to go
We hardly have time to stop and say hello
We all want another life
To sail the Baltic Sea
Ride an elephant to Timbuk three
Walk this land from sea to shining sea
We all want another life
Better On My Own
I washed up some plates
Cleaned out the fridge
Dusted some shelves
Look what I did
Emptied the bin
Tidied a drawer
Hung up my coat
And I went to the store
Better on my own
Better on my own
I tell myself as I'm walking home
Better on my own
Better on my own
I don’t know how to stop or how to carry on
I sat on my bed
Thinking it through
When the answer arrived
It just didn't ring true
I'm not myself
But I never was
I can't find the keys
To open my doors
Better on my own
Better on my own
I tell myself as I'm walking home
Better on my own
Better on my own
I don’t know how to stop or how to carry on
The girl in the wheelchair
She's dressed up to kill
If that don't impress you
Then nothing will
Her hair done all pretty
She's so full of pride
I stare at the pavement
And I choke up inside
I did what I did
I hid what I hid
We ain’t got no papers and we ain’t got no kids
I'm as sad as a brick
That ain't got a wall
The lonely old timer
Seen and done it all
Better on my own
Better on my own
I tell myself as I'm walking home
Better on my own
Better on my own
I don’t know how to stop or how to carry on
Lavender Blue
Sun come up on our sleepy town
You’re in the garden in your dressing gown lavender blue
Sunbeams dance in your long grey hair
I get all sentimental when I see you there
In lavender Blue
You’re feeding the birds and the hedgehogs too
If you go away what they gonna do ?
A bag of old pegs where the washing dries
A banged up shed and some old mince pies
You're baking a cake or a pie for tea
You’re asleep reading a book and I’m watching TV
Rag Doll
I’ve got to find my smile again
Took off running when my world caved in
Took all my bonamie
All that’s left is here to see
I gotta find my smile again
I’ve got to find my soul again
All that made me whole again
All that money can not buy
A simple natural high
I gotta find my soul again
Dragged from pillar to post
Never even coming close
Rag doll, feeling like a rag doll
Getting pushed and pulled around
Rag doll, feeling like a rag doll, feeling like a rag doll
Getting pushed and pulled around
You may think I’m spinning wheels
But you don’t know how losing feels
I can barely leave my room
And sleep can’t come too soon
I’ve gotta find my way again
I’m trying to get back some control
I’m trying to buy back what I sold
Rag doll,
I hear the call of the wild
But I’m trapped here like a child
Getting pushed and pulled, shaken and thrown,
Tossed and dragged around
Like a rag doll
Like a rag doll
When You Go Quiet
You say I can read you like a book
That no one knows you better or hangs on every letter
I look out for you and you for me.
But there's one thing that you do gives you away
There's one thing that you when you're not ok
You don't bang on the walls
You don't return my calls
Chorus
When you go quiet
That's when I know you need to talk
When you go quiet
Let's get out and take a walk
And let me know
That there's something on your mind when you go quiet
I know how your mind works when you're down
You think that you're not loved
That you ain't good enough
You fight back the only way you know
You go inside yourself and close the door
Well that ain't how we're going to win this war.
We've all got our ways
And I know yours these days
chorus
Well take the train uptown and lie down in the park
You go inside yourself and close the door
That ain't how we're going to win this war
We've all got our ways
And I know yours these days
When you go quiet
Well come on don't go all the way
And let me see
If I can make it go away
I bet I can
CauseI feel so much for you when you go quiet
When you go quiet
Arizona Girl
We met in Santa Barbara
Me and Darryl hopping bars
Out there it's like a movie
And we were movie stars
In a trailer park of dreams
In a silver stream I slept
Hoping that tomorrow
Your promise would be kept
My Arizona girl
My Arizona girl
You got work in Encinitas
SaidI should meet you there
I wondered if you meant it
But I really didn't care
I was counting down the hours
As I boarded my plane
My head full of my future
I'd never be the same
My Arizona girl
My Arizona girl
My Arizona girl
I still get that old feeling whenever you call
To head out on the highway and relive it all
Night pouring through the driving rain
You were taking me somewhere
Turned your back on Santa Barbara
And a broken love affair
Then I had to leave you
But I knew we'd meet again
If I'd have known the truth
I'd have never left you then
My Arizona girl
My Arizona girl
My Arizona girl
I still get that old feeling whenever you call
To head out on the highway And relive it all
I still get that old feeling whenever you call
To head out To Santa Barbara and relive it all
Sunrise On Avenue C
The bars are closed and the streets are dead
And you'd kill to be alone in bed
But the powder's carried you away
Now you face the light of day
From a basement bar she rises from the ground
climbs the rail and pulls that shutter down
Chorus
Ain't you got a kiss for me
The village is a symphony
Where else would you want to be
It's sunrise on Avenue C
Sunrise on Avenue C
We came to make this place our home
You say you've had enough You're moving on
We stood our ground and built our dream
But you say "nothings quite the way it seems”'
Forget the past. We'll start our lives again
Don't shake your head cause baby I know we can
Chorus
Ain't you got a kiss for me
The village is a symphony
Where else would you want to be
It's sunrise on Avenue C
It may not be the Mona Lee
The Ritz or Yosemitie
But it's good enough for you and me
It's sunrise on Avenue C
Sunrise on Avenue C
How do you feel you made the big time
You're on the stage in morning sunshine
So do the dance like no one's watching you
We'll find our place and start our lives anew
Don't shake your head, have some faith in me and you
Chorus
My Old Neighborhood
Let's go back in time
To that childhood of mine
To where the gypsies parked their cars
Beneath that bridge we'd hide
Down riverbanks we'd slide
Under those English summer stars
I wonder what became of
Those kids I knew the names of
I still got a deep love
For my old neighborhood
Did I just see an old ghost?
Hide behind a lamppost
Been talking to the fine folks
In my old neighborhood
So take my hand lets go
Where memory’s rivers flow
And every footstep rings a bell
And in those deep dark woods
My childhood memory floods
So be my witness as I tell
I wonder what became of
Those kids i knew the names of
I still got a deep love
For my old neighborhood
Did I just see an old ghost?
Hide behind a lamppost
Been talking to the fine folks
In my old neighborhood
I’ve been meaning to have people over one evening
Put on the songs we believed in
When we were young
And let them take us all away
And I lean on a memory that I thought was long gone
A memory that I thought was all wrong
But here it is
As vivid as a sunny day
I wonder what became of
Those kids I knew the names of
I still got a deep love
For my old neighborhood
Did I just see an old ghost?
Hide behind a lamppost
Been talking to the fine folks
In my old neighborhood
Timing's Everything
When I saw you
When I saw you
I felt it here
I felt it here
Your every move
Said you were mine
Your body drew a Picasso line
And I just knew
And I just knew
There's no way out
And no way through
'Cause you had yours
And I had mine
And if our lives weren't so out of time
Timing's everything
Timing's everything
Timing's everything in life
And when I saw you there
I knew life wasn't fair
Timing's everything in life
When I saw you
When I saw you
Down I came and up again
If only you could read my mind and if our lives weren't so out of time
Timing's everything
Timing's everything
Timing's everything in life
And when I saw you there
I knew life wasn't fair
Timing's everything in life
I Can't Settle
Eyes wide in the dance hall, backstage, trembling
Beer soaked timber floor boards, outsider in the ring I'm alone
Lying here in my bunk bed, I'm just watching TV
I got no one I can talk to, just my company I'm alone
The way water moves in a boiling kettle
The spirit horse rides the plains
The wind blows the shimmering petal
I can't settle
I've had many chances, but I'm hard wired, stubborn and slow
I've turned down those advances, waiting for what I don't know
I'm alone
The way water moves in a boiling kettle
The spirit horse rides the plains
Like wind blows the shimmering petals
I can't settle
Like the distress signals in my head
Like the moments of genius that keep me off the ledge
Like the fly banging on the window pane
Do you see what I see
Do you feel the way I do
I see cruelty, greed and injustice We can't settle, not me and you, we're not alone
The way water moves in a boiling kettle
The spirit horse rides the plains
Like a wind blows the shimmering petals In the campfire I'm the dancing flame Like the ragged, tattered, ceaseless, spinning, rusted weathervane
I can't settle
Once There Was A Boy
I have danced in clouds and run through fields of flowers
And hunted the speckled egg
As evening falls, my mother calls
Once there was a boy
I’ve got a compass in my shoe, tiger footprints too
And a jam jar held with string
in the brook I wade, with a fishing net I made
Once there was a boy
And when the day is done
And the sun becomes the moon
Little boys are all called home
But it always seemed too soon
On a big rope we will swing, and then go blackberrying
Till I hear my mother call
But Mom I cried, it’s still light outside
have danced in clouds and run through fields of flowers
And hunted the speckled egg
As evening falls, my mother calls
Once there was a boy
I’ve got a compass in my shoe, tiger footprints too
And a jam jar held with string
in the brook I wade, with a fishing net I made
Once there was a boy
And when the day is done
And the sun becomes the moon
Little boys are all called home
But it always seemed too soon
On a big rope we will swing, and then go blackberrying
Till I hear my mother call
But Mom I cried, it’s still light outside
You And Jean
Skimming stones and fishing bones
Nets and shells and wood
Empty houses on the shore
Ornaments whatever for
And the grandpas doze in grandpa clothes
In deck chairs on the sand
The phone rings and I wait a while
I kind of cry I kind of smile
When umpires finally leave the crease
I think of you and Jean
Afternoons and ticking clocks
People all on their own
Calendars from years ago
Birthday cards for those you know
And the rain makes all the noise I need
Feelings overwhelm the dream
Crammed against the window sill
I wave at you I’m waving still
Whenever flowers need arranging
I think of you and Jean
And the grandpas doze in grandpa clothes
In deck chairs on the sand
The phone rings and I wait a while
I kind of cry I kind of smile
Whenever flowers need arranging
I think of you and Jean