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Play the Part

by Phil and the Flying Leap

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1.
So your calls are un-inquired And your casting ain’t grasping your sleeve And a legion you’ve yet to inspire; An achievement you’ve yet to conceive Every doorway yields another Your audition’s positioned to die With a casual glance at your ‘drothers You’re askance in the drink of an eye Here's a health unto your duty! Here’s a health to cheer the team! May we toast the death of beauty With a pint of gasoline! With a hand you’ve accepted the offer With the offer, a sense of relief For what man would remain empty-coffered When a life empty-coffered is brief? Play the part. Play the part. Do whatever the hell that they want. If you do it half-well you have something to sell Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Without thinking you perished the thought. Send the check from your will To keep footing the bill Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Now your days are slightly shorter And your step is in line and direct And your hours have fallen in order And your credit is clean and correct Every fold you forged is flattened Every quirk is a shirt to be steamed If your enemy’s far from combatant Couldn’t this be the role of your dreams? Soldier onward into battle! Did ye seek perchance to find? Keep your head amongst the cattle Your opinion in your mind With a word, you've delivered the message With the message, a moment of truth: No one misses what no one expresses Do your messes bear burden of proof? Play the part. Play the part. You can't finish what you’ll never start When it’s off to the side You forget what you hide Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Before your horse cannot carry the cart Live the best of your life On the edge of a knife Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. How you swore to steer them truly How you swore to stay the road When your needs are noted duly It’s your back to bear the load With a deed you confirmed a suspicion With suspicion no option to flee No one’s leaving without your permission While you’re grieving who you’ll never be Play the part. Play the part. Would you throw this away for your art? You can more than exist With it left off the list Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Play the part. Redistribute the wealth of your heart Through the end of your days You’ve a part in a play Play the part! Play the part! Play the part!
2.
Give the boy a dollar If he’s treating you good Give the boy a dollar If you feel like you should And if your heart flew fast From out its cage Give the boy a dollar When he’s leaving the stage Give the boy a dollar If the rhythm was slick Give the boy a dollar If the lyric was quick And if you lost yourself Upon his page Give the boy a dollar When he’s leaving the stage Refreshingly so uncomplicated! As natural as learning to dance! If you enjoy what someone created Don’t just stay in your seat Better get on your feet And go over and give him a chance Give the boy a dollar If your ears are alive Give the boy a dollar So the music can thrive If you remarked “how complex for his age,” Give the boy a dollar When he’s leaving the stage And if you found your way to disengage Then give the boy a dollar When he’s leaving the stage And if you turned yourself around his phrase Give the boy a dollar When he’s leaving the stage Because to live you need a living wage (It’s true) Give the boy a dollar Or he’s leaving the stage
3.
La Joie de Vivre was all it took To finally read the goddamn book To walk the green and swim the brine And drown the rest in Spanish wine La Joie de Vivre, I’m glad you came To fling the windows open to the rain You’re mine to gain and mine to grieve To live my life or live la joie de vivre La Joie de Vivre, you came at last To crack the present from its cast To see my vision followed through To hear my heart and speak its truth La Joie de Vivre, I’m on the run To chase you ever on into the sun With one more trick left up my sleeve I disappear into la joie de vivre La Joie de Vivre, you’re all I got Beside the premise and the plot I marked my turf, but clipped my claws And never did what never was La Joie de Vivre, I wonder why You never called me after I dropped by Where can I find you when you leave to go your way alone, la Joie de Vivre? From Tokyo to Tel Aviv, I’d roam the earth to find you, Joie de Vivre
4.
Company Time 02:22
They told me “Philly, baby, God, he give you a gift!” Go give yourself away after the late-night shift And pony up the money that the company sent After visa and Mohela and the Somerville rent One make a dollar One make a crime It’s gonna take a minute, you on company time Tell the next caller “Hold on the line,” It’s gonna take a minute, you on company time I told my baby, “Baby, I been giving it thought, We gotta get away before our tails get caught” My baby told me “Baby, I been feeling the same But I can’t throw in the towel I got skin in the game One leave you taller, One leave you blind, It gonna take a minute, you on company time Midnight Mahlers, Cooped and confined: Tomorrow and tomorrow into company time Oo oo, company time . . . oo oo, company time . . . Oo oo, company time . . . Oo oo, company company— I got a little secret just for you and for me Don’t blame it on the weather or KGB You want it you go get it, nothing else to report Just as long as I depend on your financial support One take a tumble, One make a climb (You’re never gonna get it, you on company time) Keep your ass playing “Making a Dime” If it happens it’ll happen after company time Oo oo, company time . . . oo oo, company time . . . Oo oo, company time . . . Oo oo, company company—
5.
6.
Bad Juju 05:22
It came with a warning Mourning by morning Devoid of veneer or disguise We all knew that ‘someday’ Would turn into ‘one day:’ Bad juju on the rise And within the whispers Of homegrown insisters Refuting the nudest of ties We break and we splinter Inheriting winter: Bad juju on the rise Hand on my heart Buried in the ground Pause and restart Send another clown It roosts in the rafters To prey there ‘ere after And shade in the bluest of eyes We post and oppose it, (In truth, we all chose it) Bad juju on the rise We post and oppose it, (Complicitly chose it) Bad juju on the rise
7.
8.
Yesterday they found my lover (My lover with the golden hair) When they told me he was dead How I sighed and hanged my head Outliving your lover’s A burden to bear An hour ago they found my lover (My lover with the fiery hair) Though the news was no surprise, How the tears poured out my eyes To show ‘em a lover With someone who cared What’s to uncover In the language of a lover Alone in the night? What went unstated Got a little complicated Between bark and bite (To Hell if I’m right) And now I heard they found my lover (My lover with the raven hair) I was told he’d heard it said What became of Gold and Red So I smothered my lover And now we’re square So if you want to be my lover And feel my fingers through your hair I can hold you through the nights In this cell of bars and stripes Just know, as my lover, You’d better beware
9.
The moon is high The bottle’s dry It’s time to speak it plain: Do we call our long engagement By a legal tender name? We’ve two low scores In social mores We shelvers of the book. We ain’t read it, but we’re here to take a look: Would we give our hearts completely Crying out and running blind Like a Marco Polo gunning toward the wall? Do we dance it oh-so-sweetly Tangled in the ties that bind In a perfect pas-de-deux before we fall? The hour is drawing nearer, dear, To settle things in stone And cement the slack foundation Of our humble little home If bells and rings and squeaky springs Remind us what we’re not Remember what’s in our lot I’m grateful for what I’ve got I've got you in the bag already I've got you in the bag already Am I beaming with pride? Have we nothing to hide? I've got you in the bag already I've got you in the bag already I've got you in the bag already May my spirit retain Half the love it sustains I've got you in the bag... My waves of words collect and curl And crash right where you stand Inundating the remainder Of co-habitable land We beat the horse to death, of course, And dragged him through the flood (Do be careful we don't track in any mud) Do I stand my ground obliquely Here behind the crooked line That my toe so woefully dragged through the soil? Do I state it more than meekly From the corners of my mind In the shuffling of another mortal coil? With each new leg the question's begged What are we boys to do? Do we pay back fifty/fifty From the debt we both accrued? And if our fifty/fifty's really more like ninety/ten Take ninety from me again... Did it flounder and die When the ocean ran dry? I've got you in the bag I've got you in the bag I've got you in the bag Already
10.
“Woof woof” says he From a pin off 95 This city slicker’s skipping town If I have to learn to drive With the back door open And the back seat wet Well lucky me, this pedigreed Heavy petter’s gonna get a better pet And I’m cooked in Cambridge Somerville is on the shelf In Mattapan I’m a wanted man (I gotta look out for my health) And his cup overfloweth In the quest to quench my thirst: He’s my Billerica Honey And I said I saw him first “Look, look,” says me “It ain’t tricky to explain That if you want sugar, Honey, You can lick it off the cane.” And his eyes turned beeswax And the air turned blood Oh, picture me a fleur de lis Before you leave me belly-up within the flood And I stayed your flower And the hour turned to two And before we blew it, Honey, We had loved us black and blue. And my fate I do not knoweth, But for better or for worse He’s my Billerica Honey And it’s just the second verse “But, but,” says me From the other side of town “Ever since you flew here, Honey, I can barely pin you down. And you put me through the ringer With your stinger in my side – Boy, you’re cute as hell But I still can’t tell If the admission worth the goddamn ride!” “Hush hush,” says he “What you wish is in my power, But to brew the truest honey I gotta buzz from flower to flower.” And I’ll burn him, Lord I’ll smoke him For to kick him out my hive He’s my Billerica Honey Wanted dead, but best alive “Knock, knock, knock” says he “What I got is all you need And if you want Grade A honey You gotta be prepared to bleed.” And my gut turned royal jelly As he rubbed my wounds with salt My shriveled slug ain’t got no love And it’s all your ego’s fault! “Kiss, kiss!” says he “What you are is what you eat! And if you’ll be Daddy’s sonny You can help inspect the meat!” Well I’m really sorry, Papa, No one speaks like that to me. Keep your Billerica honey, I’ve got Peaches in JP! Keep your Billerica honey, Honey, Don’t come back to me
11.
Good Times 03:37
We built a life up from the carpet on the floor And sealed a scroll inside a handprint on the door. "Vivir Apasionato, Carpe Diem,” that's my motto. Paint your colors on the walls A golden grotto hidden in the falls Lost in the clockwork of the day-to-day routine We move from room to room with eyes on separate screens. If you still fear I fake it, Break my heart before you take it! Find a shelter from the wind I called you over and you phoned a friend A heavy heart remains a heart at mend Good times They renovated and they raised the rent The lease was open and you lost your pen We're starting over but we start again Good times We made a wager on a bright bay window rise A shadow on the hearth but easy on the eyes How'd we get so claustrophobic Dancing tit-for-tat aerobics? Open up your lungs and breathe We settled down and now you want to leave Who knew a place would leave a space to grieve? Good times I pinched your pocket and you bowed your head Reiterating what you hadn’t said You might be smarter, but I'm better read Good times A word misheard but right on track We staunch and launch the first attack I bore you on my back My salt and sweat won’t let my feathers dry Our follies volley for control Deeper and deeper down this hole I’ll keep my heart and soul: you learn to fly Amidst the boxes of the lives that we once knew I cracked a rusted lock And borrowed something blue. Who is this three-faced liar Weeping o'er a tumble dryer? Crank the cycle up to press The tank was empty, and I shouted "YES." You told me "never,” but I asked for less Good times. For every bone I'd broken by mistake I flexed a muscle and you ate your cake I only offered what you couldn't take Good times.
12.
La Joie de Vivre, I took a break To mute the voice of each mistake You fooled me once, and fooled me twice I took a breath and rolled the dice La Joie de Vivre, I stopped and stayed In spite of the commotion that I made What you dispense, must I retrieve Forever on, my darling Joie de Vivre? La Joie de Vivre, I’d understood: If it was offered, it was good. I’d wait in line and take my cue And yield an untapped point of view La Joie de Vivre, come hold my hand And show me what exactly you had planned Forgive my tone, I am bereaved, But were you ever truly joie de vivre? Once I believed I knew the way And wrote myself a French cliché With nothing ventured, nothing gained, And no desire preordained. I felt the breeze and flew the kite And slept so peacefully again that night And when I sleep, what dreams I see Between who is and who I’m meant to be! If you would go, I set you free! I’ll only find la joie de vivre in me
13.
And lo, today you return my love, Oh how the pendulum swings! A rooster crow from a mourning dove, Oh how the pendulum swings! The fiery effort, the hefty hand, Oh how the pendulum swings! The early morning, the neighbors damned, Oh how the pendulum swings! Recall the ripening of the moon That wanes to shadow in time, You’ll swing away from me all too soon But here for a moment you’re mine The sun is shining upon your brow Oh how the pendulum swings! And where stand I to receive you now? Oh, how the pendulum swings, Oh, how the pendulum swings!

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released December 10, 2021

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Phil and the Flying Leap Cambridge, Massachusetts

New Americana Vaudeville music made proudly in Massachusetts, USA.

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