Flying in the face of Reason
Twist Away
Words and Music by Greg Chargin and William Fuller
You been telling me that I’m just a fool
You been telling me that I’m just a tool
For your love, for your love
But I twist away, but I twist away from your words
I been called a lot of low down names
I been told that I was ugly and I play a lot of games
I’ll never be buried by you
I’ll laugh and I’ll twist away
But you driven me to Rome; I can’t go home
I look in your direction; all I can say is I’m sorry:
I got to twist away
I’m tired of all your words
I’m tired of all your blues
I’m tired of what you’re doing and your sticky views
I’m tired of you
Remember Me Like a Machete
Music by William Fuller
Words by Viola Weinberg
© Viola Weinberg
Remember me like a machete
Remember the sound I made
Remember how I came at you, how your ears were whistling
In the arc of the day
Remember how sweet the heavy scent
Of high dry grass under steel
How we tore through the shadows, how we tore through the night
The blade of sudden tongues was so real
Remember me like a fast pitch
Fired from an old soft mitt
It’s a blurry moon, cool dunes
Ah! the hard low inside rip
Remember me like a machete
Remember the stroke of my sphere
Remember how we rode through space
And the junk of the wires and the fingers and tears
Remember how your back cracked
As you twisted underneath our fall
Remember all the power in our hands and
The knives drawn along the wall
Remember the windows gleaming
Remember the lights streaming
Remember how I made your head ring
Remember how I made your soul sing
Remember me like a machete
The Strength of a Lie
Words and Music by William Fuller
(Channeling by Jane Hastings)
How can I leave someone who loves me?
You said it was easy ‘cause I didn’t really care
I believed you from that first lie
You could have said anything as I touched your face
and stroked your hair
How can I give up everything I’ve lived for?
You said it was easy ‘cause I didn’t really care
Nobody ever told me anything was easy
Nobody ever said I wasn’t guilty from the day I started walking
‘til the day I
saw you there
On the strength of a lie I let my heart fly
And I was dizzy from the height and from your kiss
and from the feel of your skin
On the strength of a lie I played the fool for you
On the strength of a prayer I’d do it again
How can you leave someone who loves you?
You said it was easy ‘cause you didn’t really care
You said we’d always have our memories
But all I can remember are some bittersweet months
and a love that was never really there
Triangle Tango
Music by William Fuller
Words by Viola Weinberg
© Viola Weinberg
Sure I’m thinking of you
I’m gonna take off my ring
I’m gonna pin you down, I’m gonna spin you round
I’m gonna pluck your strings
When I reach for his lips
When I’m kissing him blue
When I reach for his face
Then I’ll be thinking of you
But I’m not thinking of her
You’re not thinking of him
I’m wondering when and where and how
To get you both back again
I’m gonna start a fire
I’m gonna ring her up
I’m gonna use telephone wire
Shiver and shake and call her bluff
Quite Another Thing
Music by dRAW PiNKY
Words by Viola Weinberg
© Viola Weinberg
It’s 1953
We slow dance to a single bed in a beige motel
A blinking cactus overhead
The Gideon Bible and a brass plate star-burst lamp
Glow on the blonde bedstand
While we hold each other tight and writhe
in time to Les Paul and the band
You throw down pigskin gloves and a gun
My scarlet sling-back pumps with the fat dart heels
Hit the cool linoleum
In a single rough motion you hold my arms until the rayon rips
And my flesh spills out like white clouds
Gritting your perfect teeth against my reddening cheek
You growl and hiss
I’ve been wanting this and wanting this and wanting this
But Marcelo . . . what about the baby?
Brown eyes glaring zipper down
Your manhood sticking straight out like a compass
You throw me down on top of your seedy raincoat
Locked in place you slip
And fit into the ring of muscle and its trembling grip
I - I - I love you I say as I always do
Don’t talk you say as you drill me to the floor
And we fall in thunder under the crashing stupidity
Of brains running out on the floor
Pain
Words by Jack Hastings
Music by Jack Hastings and dRAW PiNKY
Headlights passing, darkness is falling
Everybody’s headed home
Except for this old soul, except for this old soul
Wind is blowing, hunger gnawing
Got no place to go
I’m walking on the edge of town,
ain’t headed nowhere but down
Standing in the pouring rain
Dreaming of your face again
Lord the night is long sometimes
And day may break but sun don’t shine
When you’re far, far from home
I got a bottle of red, I got a cardboard bed
I’m just looking for a place to hide
If only for a little while, Only for a little while
But the pain don’t die, it’s just a matter of time
Before I’m shattered and battered again
Looking for a little peace, on these lonely streets
Rich man sleeps between his satin sheets
And dreams no dreams of me
But I’ll be looking down on him,
when the wheel comes ‘round again
Well, the road is long but I’ll keep stumbling along
Though there ain’t no end in sight
Waiting for the days to pass,
when I’ll be taken home at last
The Torturer's Waltz
Words and Music by William Fuller
I saw you crushed, your brown eyes turning shades of gray
I heard the hush that fell over you the day I walked away
Dance the torturer’s waltz
Don’t tell the secret, don’t let the neighbors know
I guess those friends of ours think we’re still lovers
Let the idiots think what they will
Dance the torturer’s waltz
Oh, you can say I’m sorry so many times
and it don’t mean a thing
You want to dance the same old steps
you danced yesterday
Oh, I can say I’m blameless and that I don’t
enjoy a certain kind of pain
I move like molten lead through the night
Dance the torturer’s waltz
We watched the signs for years;
we read the graffiti on the wall
Like an old harlot whose face starts to fall,
you thought of other times
Dance the torturer’s waltz
I turn a little screw here, I turn a little screw there,
Watch the grimace on your face stretch tighter and tighter
Ooh, I know you must enjoy that too.
Dance the torturer’s waltz
This Awful City
Words by Jack Hastings
Music by Jack Hastings and dRAW PiNKY
The sun of Los Angeles weighs upon the smoking sky
Burns through long-buried memories
And I’m driving down Traction Street, past the American Hotel
Lying empty in the sullen summer silence
And I could not imagine that a face in the window
Could be heavy with such harsh and broken meaning
But my heart is a traitor and my mind is a fool
And my soul is an urn filled with ashes
And all the pretty women whisper from behind their painted lips
There is no love in Los Angeles
That night up in Griffith Park, standing near the telescope
I thought I heard the city sigh with longing
And I thought I heard the children weeping
Their childhood stolen by hopelessness and anger and bullets
Dialed your number on a pay phone and I spoke to your machine
I thought I’d ask but it had no easy answers
You’d left me from the inside out, left me here with all my doubts
Left me standing here in your shadow
And all the graffiti splashed across the stucco walls reads
There is no love in Los Angeles
And I’m dreaming of annihilation, dreaming of extinction
Let the earth crack and swallow up this place
Let the fire from the mountains sweep across the boulevards
And let the sea retake this awful city
There is lust and desire and the currency of flesh
But there is no love in Los Angeles
There is no love in Los Angeles
Target On My Heart
Words and Music by William Fuller
Here’s to the lovers all huddled in rejection
Oh, but they make such a tender holocaust
And here I stand with no affection
Wondering why I’m the one who lost
I heard you spin your dreams of glory
We sang like banshees for awhile
You said your dreams gave us direction
Don’t you know that nightmares never lie?
You put a target on my heart
Then you shot it
You put a target on my heart
And hit the bull’s eye
I heard you laughed when it was over
I guess a joker always wins
You laughed your way out of your hurt and out of my life
And now you laugh yourself to sleep alone each night
Going down to the river
Guess that’s what I’m supposed to do
When I get down to the river
Gonna wash away these blues
I guess that I’ve done too much drinkin’ and cryin’
I guess that I have mourned too long
It’s just the nighttime that brings on
something strange and startling
I wanna scream each night and never stop until the dawn
Strange Stains
Words and Music by William Fuller
I walk into the room no windows letting in the morning sun
I slip on empty bottles and fall flat down on my face
My face slap something sticky as I think of Aunt Jemima
I raise my head to look down; there are certain subtle traces of
Strange stains
Strange stains are coming to town
Strange stains are bringing me down
Strange stains are coming to town
I walk into the bathroom and I look into the mirror
But reflections make me ugly so I run back down the hall
I turn around the corner and the stain is so much bigger
I run outside the building and I started to call out
Strange stains
It can’t be oil, that’s too thick
It can’t be jelly, that’s too sticky
It can’t be honey, that’s too sweet
It can’t be milk . . .
Well, maybe so
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Words by Jack Hastings
Music by Jack Hastings and dRAW PiNKY
Well, pogue mahone and damn your eyes
I’ll spend my money on women and wine
Never save a penny for a rainy day
Though soon I’ll have not any
But I don’t care, no cares have I
I loved the women and I loved the wine
And I wouldn’t trade a moment of my misspent life
For all your wealth and treasure
Sing a song for the man in the dungeon dark
Sing a song for the lady of the court
Sing a song for the dead man on the rope
Sing a song for the daughter of the farmer
There came a knocking at my door
The sherriff’s men to settle a score
The sun will I see nevermore
From the cell of a debtor’s prison
No wife have I nor family
All I had was taken from me
By the law and the court of tyranny
and the greed of a miser’s pocket
Now if we then are led by fools
And fools we’ve left to shape the rules
It’s to them the path to choose
And fools are we to follow
And when I’m standing at the Gate
Saint Peter ready to cast my fate
Will I swim the fiery lake
Or dance the streets of Heaven
But I know the Lord and the Lord knows me
And on this one thing we agree
That a man must be what a man must be
And to hell with the preacher in the pulpit
Obliged to be Mexican
Words by Maria Ramos and William Fuller
Music by William Fuller
Sweet Maria phoned me up today, apologized and broke our date
She said she won’t be seeing me again
Her sweet Latin tongue revealed to me in all its ugly bigotry
Her father wouldn’t let her see a boy who wasn’t Mexican
I’ll do anything to get to you Maria
Te chupere el dedito chiquito
Obliged to be Mexican
I’m obliged to be Mexican for you
Este noche, manana, por le tarde, siempre
I’m obliged to be Mexican for you
I can still recall the stars that night, the way you looked,
the way they shined
I swore I’d love you ‘til the end of time
When I picked you up that afternoon, your mama said
"You’re back so soon?"
Your father wouldn’t speak to me and later on he yelled at you