Michael Hedges Lyrics
All lyrics by Michael Hedges (© Michael Hedges/Naked Ear Music) except “Guardian’s Trust” by Michael Hedges and Cate McNider.
Thanks to Jonathan Frieman, Annelisa MacBean, Darren Hightower, Tom Faison, and Radrock for helping out or offering to help out with the lyrics.
Once upon a timeless night
once behind my dreams
you scratched my makeup off so I could scream
The playhouse will pack tonight
metropolitan appeal
and all the actors fake
forgetting props are real
And the sirens harmonize tonight
in a million dollar show
they’re racing to that blazing fire glow
Policemen man their spotlight cars
and race around the stage
in my mobile dressing room the drivers change
The set is falling through the night
twenty inches deep
and all the shifting snow will drift my soul to sleep
Beneath the cold cold cream
she hides
refusing to yield her concrete arteries of life concealed
And the sirens harmonize tonight
in a million dollar show
they’re racing to that blazing fire glow
Policemen man their spotlight cars
and race around the stage
in my mobile dressing room the drivers change
I'm talking to my leading lady
she’s asking me how long
will these horizontal friends she made belong
So if you throw your cast away
we can travel on
if the beltway loosens up before the dawn
And the sirens harmonize tonight
in a million dollar show
they’re racing to that blazing fire glow
Policemen man their spotlight cars
and race around the stage
in my mobile dressing room the drivers change…
my sad-eyed drivers change
Go left—right—down through the middle
Go any way you want to go
From the blue Black Sea to the Ivory Coast
Or get tough—hard—dive into battle
waging new warfare
under heavy metal armor just running scared
Make a white flag
Bring the code book
Get the peace-pipe smokin’ good
Every worldwide color of meaning
can shade what we’re meaning to say
Before darkness falls—
it’s time we try and communicate
There’s one world—one sun shining
turning us eye to eye
as it filters through our perforated sky
Stand up—march to the new League of Nations
everyone face to face
’cause if no one gives, we lose the human race
Make a white flag
Bring the code book
Get the peace-pipe smokin’ good
Every worldwide color of meaning
can shade what we’re meaning to say
Before darkness falls—
it’s time we try and communicate
Now or never
Face yourself
No one else will do
Face your weakness
Face your pest
Let your scars show through
It's now or never
Don't look back
Just say you're gone
Gone away
Drawn away
Binary numbers
Media Masse'
I let my mind thumb through
Off/on
I'm off on
Sit Com
My cathode eyes obey
Zero/one/zero
Nineteen eighty-four
Just say I'm gone
Gone away
Drawn away
Face yourself
Face yourself
Face yourself
I have a lover
She drew me up
Out of my little world
We talk together
We touch our souls
We share a common ground
If you see Sonya
or any glitter girls
Just say I'm gone
Gone away
I was drawn away
Face yourself
Face yourself
Face yourself
Make up a story when you go to sleep tonight
Wake up in the morning and hold it down deep inside
And you can be a dreamer
You can be your dreams come true
Let imagine lead, reality will follow through
Some of us dance to the sound of fortune and fame
Others want to march all around defending their domain
But you can be a dreamer
You can be your dreams come true
Let imagine lead, reality will follow through
If darkness and pressure try to turn your story
down—
look back, think hard about how that story really sounds
Then you can be a dreamer
You can be your dreams come true
Let imagine lead, reality will follow through
It will follow you if you follow through
Of guardian’s trust and lover’s thrust
I give you my passion
Of seeming doubt and love-worn pout
I bring you my reason
Of silence never sounded and violence never pounded
I show you my remorse
The screaming fist always missed
Time will unfold my fear
Our spirit dream swims upstream
My will to follow survives
If life-long days of love-long trust are one
I relinquish my withholdings and offer you my sun
Relax
Get away from it all
No solutions seem to last
It's a holiday
Wear a smile
Put on a celebration mask
Take off
Leave a trail
Let the children wave their sparklers through the sky
It's a holiday
But if the fuses get too short, they won't ask why
If you hover above your enemy
and you're ready to send your aluminum boxes down
It's a holiday
send the soldiers on a one-way weekend pass
There's a field of blue in my memory
But the stars reform and the stripes begin to fade
For the holiday
When the world turns independence day at last
At last
I plugged in nine long years at my life to this family
I got a hundred big brothers and sisters on my wall
But every channel that I turn to
Screams the same damn thing
All the images rerun
and nothing's new
I want you
I want you
I want you
It's so confusing
I know your visible words speak no misunderstanding
But this love climbs till my vocabulary stalls
After a line or two my fingers strike the same damn keys
From every angle – it's the same point of view
I want you
I want you
I want you
It's so confusing
Why won't you draw near
Who taught you this fear
Who?
So if my love just won't supply what you're demanding
There's a paragraph repeating in my heart
So if your story's lost in limbo down the same damn lead
You can follow up these last repeating clues
I want you
I want you
I want you
It's so confusing
It's so confusing
Dark clouds are moving in
On the ground—radar spins
Gray on gray
the sky takes me in
Today
I'm coming home
A needle sewn through aerial skin
The journey thread is growing thin
I went out and I tied it down
Today
I'm coming home
No one knows our sacred sound
No one knows the love I found
The tower keeps on calling me in
Today
I'm coming home
India, I want to offer up my weapon
If you open up and let me look inside
No other angel ever flew me through this heaven
Now I want to know the heaven in your mind
I love you, India
India, I want to break down your defenses
If you open up and let me through the glass
Maybe you can try and trust me with your senses
Maybe I can make a love that will last
I love you, India
Out on the parkway
A gray spike driven down the green
Neighborhoods blur by
and my shadow changes lanes to feel the breeze
Out on the parkway
Vehicles pause to graze
With hazy toxic eyes
Shot up
Octane high
Lubricated
Pressurized
We vent our vapors
Out on the parkway
Corpuscles of life are each alone
Within the flow
And every bleeding taillight
is seeking some suburban capillary home
Out on the parkway
The lanes are closing in on me
and the lines of division
begin their piercing reveille
Out on the parkway
Ready or not—here I come
Who shall I say is calling?
Hold the line—don’t hang up
A shutter is opening
My image is refracting
through wide wild angles of publicity
Ready or not
Tongue in groove
Lose yourself and wait for your heart to speak
Your only cue—a needle starts to cut
Lasers start tracking
Slow acting acids of industry
As the whole world turns us around
I keep hearing life’s echo sound
Songs of rhyming—leading, hiding somehow…
ready or not
Ready or not—here I come
Naked eyes and naked ears
sighting in
sounding out
Fear can always frighten up a few disciples
But no thing can convert true identity
As the whole world turns us around
I keep hearing life’s echo sound
Songs of rhyming—leading, hiding somehow…
singin’ ready or not
Throwing colors to the air
I follow the breeze
Painting a mural of dreams…
down the road—the road to return
I’m on this road to return
And the more reflection, the more I see
I’ll paint my future from memory
Friends and lovers step in time
to show how they feel
We’re spirits waltzing our way…
down this road—the road to return
I’m on this road to return
Feel the rhythm start to change
Some stay together—some rearrange
We are masses—and we’re moving
Lining up and down
We’re reflecting, revolving around this road—
the road to return
I’m on this road to return
Accelerating with all my force
I hit the mirror of changing course
and the destination is at the source
Somewhere defined in aimless words
Somewhere within my angry herd
of stampeding emotions
Love was running blind
I read my way through those scattered pieces
Gathered up all the trampled feelings
And built up the fences strong
so l could hide
But all night long I would stare
at all the moon and the stars I could bear
Then from daylight on
It would tear through my heart
It went tearing its way through my heart
Tearing its way through my heart
Dazzling circles slow too soon
But dancing to some forgotten tune
You weave in the sky some pattern I can trace
Fading to taste the afterglow
Pure as the song you sing so low
Your senses came down to meet me
Face to face
Baby all night long I would stare
at all the moon and the stars I could bear
Then from daylight on
It would tear through my heart
It went tearing its way through my heart
Tearing its way through my heart
Tearing its way
Time to talk
It’s time I speak
The switch is on and the light is green
Send me down this road
I will find my sister soul
I really want to know the sister soul deep inside me
A free sister soul is here in hiding…
deep in hiding
Time to walk
It’s time I seek
My breath is drawn—I’m awakening
I will rock and I will roll
and I will find my sister soul
I really want to know the sister soul deep inside me
A free sister soul is here in hiding…
down deep inside me
He's a streamlined man
Watch the wind from his direction as it breaks
He will understand
Needless words breeze by the angles of his face
No unnecessary motion
Point to point to point in line
Truth is racing through his emotions
Heart to mind
to heart to mind
The streamlined man
In harmony with wisdom and restraint
His streamlined hands
Strike those chords
Maneuvering
Stabilizing
Holding firm through fluid time
Youth and age move straight and forward
No rewind
No rewind
The streamlined man
Everyone sees their life a different way
Saviors even come on different days
Bleeding his colors into several shades
But I am a prisoner caught in the flesh, red-handed
Watching my life go by
I'm watching my life go by
Watching my life
Nobody knows how close "together" means
Love is a race we run at different speeds
Pacing ourselves to deal with different needs
But I am a spectator
caught in a crowd of laughter
Watching my life go by
I'm watching my life go by
Watching my life
Somebody help me find my way back down
There's nobody left for me to lap around
Everyone's breaking past my speed of sound
I am a dictator
I keep my soul surrounded
Watching my life go by
I'm watching my life go by
I'm watching my life
The woman of the world turns slowly
Days are drawn—seasons start to change
She finds that natural boundary
Her eyes change color—sounds begin to fade
I slowly turn away…
from the woman of the world
The woman of the world holds me
to colder courses farther out to sea
where no one really knows me
and if the anchor’s out boarders love and leave
She’s waiting on the beach…
my woman of the world
No one hears the way she whispers every changing season
Through every falling rain I listen without reason…
without reason…
’till the woman of the world shows me
the secret seed she planted in my heart
Her breath is cool to sway me
Roots shoot down
Her eyes begin to shine
My love runs leaf and vine
through the woman of the world…
You Can Have Anything You Want
I'm holding on—holding human
Human thought—human need
I need it now—maybe sooner
Love keeps calling me
You can have anything you want
Love may hurt you
but love will teach you
when to flee and when to fight
when to roll the dice
There’s nothing new
but something’s changing deep inside me
I hear your voice
It’s almost ageless
changing what is real
You can have anything you want
Love may hurt you
but love will teach you
when to flee and when to fight
when to roll the dice
Roll the dice…