1. |
Play the Part
04:31
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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!
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2. |
Give the Boy a Dollar
02:52
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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
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3. |
Joie de Vivre
03:19
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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
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4. |
Company Time
02:22
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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—
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5. |
Professional Attire
04:27
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6. |
Bad Juju
05:22
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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
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7. |
Interlude: March
00:52
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8. |
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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
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9. |
You in the Bag
06:19
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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
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10. |
Billerica Honey
02:46
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“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
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11. |
Good Times
03:37
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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.
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12. |
Joie de Vivre (Reprise)
02:55
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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
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13. |
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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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Phil and the Flying Leap Cambridge, Massachusetts
New Americana Vaudeville music made proudly in Massachusetts, USA.
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