Lyrics

Clothesline
Morning sun
Where there are two
The is only one

Hands hold fast
Days move too slow
Like the midnight rain
You come and go

Thoughts are bled
In my mind
Hold me down
Poison my time

And why can I never tell you
All the things that I’d like too
And all the things I don’t
They drag me out into the ocean

Deepest love
Doomed to last
Clip my wings
Bronze my cast

Take these eyes
They’re all I have
Where you see stars
I see only sand

And why can I never tell you
All the things that I want too
And all the things I don’t
They drag me out into the ocean

The might of dust
On the wedding bed
Prison gates
Things left unsaid

And why could I never tell you
All the things that I hoped too
And all the things that I don’t
They drag me out into the ocean

He says: Don’t believe in the choruses
‘cos they’re only words
before the second verse

He says: Don’t believe in their promises
because all their promises
are broken messages

He sits on the wall and eats his sandwiches
And all that matters is
That he didn’t pay for his

Because it’s a long way home
When you’re walking all alone
And the paving stones of gold
Are on the other side of the road

The clocks on the wall speak to a common sense
Of desperate measures spent
On hidden Rands and Cents

The locks on the door speak to the elements
Of wounded secrets kept
And violent entrances

He stands at the gates of eden, so he says
The only recompense
For ancient grievances

But it’s a long way home
When you’re walking all alone
And the paving stones of gold
Are on the other side of the road

Woah oh oh oh she’s gone
And she won’t be back no more
Said there’d always be something she was longing for

Her heels outside the door
Crack like earthquakes on the floor
And I wonder what I’m gonna be living for

She didn’t even wave
Didn’t even wave goodbye
She didn’t even break
Break a smile

Oh oh oh oh oh oh
Break a smile
Would it have cost her time?
Just a little smile

Woah oh oh oh who’s wrong
A question with an answer that’s just to long
Sometimes it’s better to be moving on

The knife stuck in my back
vs the days spent in the sack
And the pain of hearing her favourite song

She didn’t even wave
Didn’t even wave goodbye
She didn’t even break
Break a smile

Oh oh oh oh oh oh
Break a smile
Would it have cost her time?
Just a little smile

It’s the wonder I felt
Not the same as before
When I relied on the news
And the things that you told me
All the sounds, old and new
It’s the place in the night where I’d go

And the same way you said
How to use all the magic in the air
I dunno, it’s the way
That you told me to believe
In the things
The things that you know I can’t believe in

So I’ll be coming in
on the sidewalk
on the 12th page
but in first place

It’s not a time stamp
in the parlance
of the finance
or the last calls

I’m a hope train
with a hunger and
don’t need a CV
or a television set

I’m a hard rain
from the dashboard
with a six string
and a seventh chord
on the eight day
on the nine ball
on the 42nd number
on the 13th floor

Are you picking up?
Are you receiving?
On the internet
On the ham set

I know my way
to the frequency
and I can handle
any latency
I’m not a hothead
with his shoestrings
in a prison cell
of existence
it’s not a first date
steady heart rate
or spinning plate
or a cellphone battery

discharge
mischarge
low charge
no charge
In your car
turn hard
and then you
see me
in the mirror on your windscreen
I’m not a smoke screen
Just a steady stream
Just a human being

They sent money for a stadium
But behind these walls there is nothing but dirt
And they say that there are pipes underneath this ground
But most of the days these taps don’t work

You see the guys in the party eat the money away
And they leave the rest of us scratching around in the dirt
And the white folks in the city they just want to hide away
From the things that went before to live each day as today

But what about us living under the sun
We’ve got nothing left to lose and even less to gain
Living in this country which we thought we had won
But where the floors of our houses turn to mud in the rain

What we had before, nobody can recall
How much we had to lose, how far we had to fall
The only thing that anybody knows
Is that whatever it was it isn’t here anymore

I hear the words come out of your mouth
But I’m sinking in the bathtub
On a Thursday after work
I suppose I need some looking after

Some Birds fly out of the north
Searching for a happy ever after
When they return for whatever it’s worth
They’ll be dragging the winter after

I’ve never seen the break of day
Come without a night as it would in Norway
But I know I have felt the pain
That comes with standing in your doorway
And I pray for whatever it’s worth
For a time that I can remember
Sixty years from now
Without an echo of your laughter

Far away
On your windowsill
Yesterday
Over river still
It’s cold today
Wonder if it’s gonna stay

The time it takes
For you to photograph
A lonesome honey bee
Splits the world in half
A mind awakes
To what appears at last
From across the sea
On an electric raft

When I look into your eyes
When I feel you in my arms
I know that something must be wrong
To take me far away from home

So I am here just to tell you
And I am here just to say
This takes me away for the last time and when I come back
It’ll be just like the first day

They say that takings never easy
I know that giving’s just the same
When you’ve lost count of those you’ve lied to
But they’re the only ones that know your name

So I am here just to tell you
And I am here just to say
I’m going away away for the last time and when I come back
It’ll be just like the first day

I wouldn’t ask so much as to change your point of view
I wouldn’t think so much if the story weren’t so skew
The times they never change, even when they seem so knew
Still stuck inside this head searching for the perfect view

I’m hungry for the day when love becomes a feeling
Since I sent you away I’ve been stuck below the ceiling

A shelter from the storm, people line up two by two
But still my telephone call call anyone except for you
When the days are days at all, the nights I hobble through
The pictures on my wall, the only table set for two

I’m hungry for the day when love becomes a feeling
Since I sent you away there’s been nothing but a ceiling

I’m only here to say goodbye
I’m only here because it’s time
To send this ship below the tide
I’m only here to say goodbye

I always feared that nothing would come after
But now all I held dear fades away as the days move faster
I used to think that you were the one and only
I used to dream of letters you never sent me

I’m only here to say goodbye
I’m only here because it’s time
I knew you once but that was another life
I’m only here to say goodbye

She comes home under a daydream
She comes home under wishing well
She comes home under grey cloud
She comes home under a ringing bell

He comes home over a bicycle
He comes home over a carousel
He comes home over a lost cause
He comes home over one last hill

It’s so simple
See what the day brings
It’s so simple
It’s so simple

Time flows like a daydream
Time flows like a sleeping cell
Cells divide like a feeling
Dreams divide like an iron weld

She takes the hand of a stranger
He takes the lead from a country girl
She sets her stall out in the courtyard
He lays his head on the warm ground

Where you are

And I’m always there with you
And I’m always by your side
Like the weather waiting by your door

Maybe a happy tune can make a happy heart
Maybe a snappy tune can make a snappy start
Maybe a dancing tune can make a dancing start
Maybe a rolling tune can make a rolling start

And if I whistle while I walk
And if I sometimes stop to talk
And learn to work and learn to wait
And if I’m early and not late

Will there be a time when I’m at peace
When I feel that great release
When there’s not weight upon my heart
And there’s more light than there is dark

She sings in the daytime
She sings in the night
All alone she is waiting
Like a bird for flight

No matter where I go
I’m on my own
No matter where I go
I turn to stone

Nowhere will I find a way
Nowhere will it be today

And if I’m losing it’s ‘cos you don’t pass me the ball
And if I’m losing it’s ‘cos you don’t know which way to score

And all my friends say, you should be passing to me too
And all my friends say, if you don’t I should just find somebody new

Sometimes I dream that you’re alone with me
Sometimes I feel I’m only half the man I could be

How many times will it take
Before I can lose myself again
And how many walls must I break
‘Til I can feel myself again
Will the winds of change ever come
The open road ever run
Where the only notes that I’m singing
Will be the tone of a phone call ringing

There’s a prodigal son
At the bottom of a well
He’s reaching up for heaven
But his feet are balancing on hell
Tie the rope to my ankle, baby
Because I’m going down
And if I don’t make it back
Drop the rope and come on down

It’s the same every time
I just want some of everything
And I’ve got nothing left to show
But a bit of self control

It’s same every time
I can think of everything
But I’ve got no place left to go
But sink into the show

All the time
It’s just a matter of time
Just a matter of time

Oh the time
It’s just a matter of time
Just a matter of time

It’s the same every night
I just drink up everything
And I’ve got nothing left to show
But a risk to call my own

It’s same every time
I can think of everything
And I’ve got no place left to go
But sink into the show

All the time
It’s just a matter of time
Just a matter of time

Oh
It’s just a matter of time
Just a matter of time

The people we lose fade away
The distance we stretch, it draws out every day
Seasons change the same way
I’d remember your name but I don’t remember your face

There’s never the time to make a change
The harder we push, the harder it is to remain
What was earned is spent in a day
Sometimes the moment we met was the moment we drifted away

The dream when your letter arrives in the one that’s always the same
The need to have your arms wrapped in mine is the one thats hardest to tame

Do feelings change or get locked away
Is it the past or just a path down which we never stay
Seasons change day by day
A star has your face and your name is in the words on a page

Sometimes I feel it’s alright to remember
Last time I saw was here in September

There are times when I’m afraid
The decisions that I’ve made
Tell me right or wrong
And I weak or strong
Turn left or right
Do I run or fight
Will I sink or swim
This position that I’m in

A lot of people they’re all the same
Want to be hard but they’re tame
Lots to say but no real plans
For fame fortune or true romance
There’s always something else to blame
The world turning, a little wind or rain
Dreams chained to a pole in the ground
They’d rather sit than take the long walk round

And I know the pain
A soul crying when it’s got no aim
The dark nights bearing down
Days spent grinning like a circus clown
Skin wearing thin
Walls closing in
Thinking about what might have been

So maybe you just want to pay the rent
Or steal money like the president
Could be it’s a plane in the clouds
Or a cage fighting career now
But the rules are all the same
You don’t work and you don’t get paid
A little effort it knows no bounds
When the breaks start coming around

For all the barrels life can send
Jumping makes more sense when it’s your life you’re in
And not on some other monkeys train
Where you take his hits just to play his game
So even when I cry for help
Lost and lonely and upon the shelf
The dream I’m living in is where I find myself
And I’d rather be here than be somewhere else

Well I never thought I’d see the day
When you would look at me and say
Here is a small black diamond ring
Can you hear the bells
They are starting to ring

Oh oh oh starting to ring
oh oh oh starting to sing

But can’t we just run away
‘cos the people at work are starting to say
“You need to lose weight so you can fit into your dress”
And can’t you see these magazines are making be distressed

Just you and me
And George Marchinkowski
What a perfect day it would be

All my cousins from Canada are coming to stay
And the wine farms near Stellenbosch are all really gay
It’s R500 a head and I would rather spend
That money on a house on a river bend

Just you and me
And George Marchinkowski
What a perfect day it would be

Just you and me
And George Marchinkowski
What a perfect day it would be

I went to the doctor yesterday
Because I was worried and I needed to check
I’d been bitten by a mosquito in Mozambique
And I’d been drinking all weekend since

And I’d smoked ten-thousand cigarettes
At the wedding of an old friend
And with the strong medication that I had to take
I has pain from my stomach to my neck

But all these things they wash over me
No matter how hard I try
There is something in me that I cannot defy
Even When I ask why

So I went to get some blood tests done
And when I sat down to fill in my forms
I saw that one of the doctors there
Was a guy who I had been with at school
I wanted to shrink down into my chair
Because I can’t even afford medical aid
And I had to leave the space for employer blank
Because that’s not really how I get paid

But all these things they wash over me
No matter how hard I try
There is something in me that I cannot defy
Even When I ask why

I went in to see the doctor
And he asked me all about my life and my work
He told me off for smoking cigarettes
And told me to take off my shirt
And then he told me about his son in university
And how his friends take too many drugs
“Well, I don’t know too much about that I said,”
“If you don’t know it’s there you don’t see too much.”

And then he told me all about his life
Growing up in rural Natal
Back in the days when it still was a homeland
Because I told him I worked out there sometimes
And he talked and he talked because he knew so much
About how messed up those communities are
About how few good people are left out there
And that they can’t even look after themselves

And he said I could call him a racist if I wanted to
I though to myself, “The picture is bigger than that”
But I didn’t say anything, I just
Nodded and smiled at him from where I sat

And all these things they wash over me
No matter how hard I try
There is something in me that I cannot defy
Even When I ask why

The times of our lives
Like the tales of a stranger
The sign of the times
Is a dog in the manger
The makeup we’ll bring
The songs that we’ll sing
The days of our lives
The days of a stranger

The times we recall
Are the lines we remember
The strain of our lives
Is a long, distant thunder
And to take what it brings
Is to tie and to link
To lines that remain
To the dreams and the hunger

The days of are lives
Are the tales of a stranger
The sign of the times
Is a dog in the manger
The makeup we’ll bring
The songs we will sing
The days of our lives
The days of a stranger

This is the road
God’s only open road
And we must ride
For it’s our only way home

And this is the tree
When winter steals its leaves
And it is the sign
That opens up our minds

Outside,
Thunder is the sound
And if the rain does come
We can only hope but drown

We are the leaves
Of haunted frightened trees
Fallen to the ground
To die without a sounds

And this is the road
God’s own forsaken road
But it’s our home
We home we must follow when it goes

Outside,
Thunder is the sound
And when the rain does come
We can only hope to drown

In the morning you shout
Here is the way to the top of the hill
And in the evening you doubt

And in the water it sprouts tender fruit
And then comes the drought
Dead vines piercing the walls of your heart

And all our problems are the same
We only wish that they were different
So we’d have someone to blame
And all the books upon our shelves
Are nothing but the way we like to see ourselves

I met a man one day out on the street
who said he he’d dreamed he’d been lost in a forest of trees
and then woken up cold on a hard stone floor
with holes in his hands and scars on his knees

and two thousand years of history in his head
but with no explanation for what‘s been done or been said
Just a feeling as empty as an old abandoned building
on a winter shore

And as we stood there on that city street
With the cars rushing by but no one else to meet
and just the company of birds who kept their distance
up on the barbed wire fence

He was pulling in air like a baby being born
but the air here is heavy with the promises drawn
from billboards above and poisoned rivers below
so the words came out like a bells last toll, and he said

There are so many mines and factories
But still so many people on their knees
And so many people without a job
And so many who work too hard

And then there are those who plunder the earth
With hearts as black as the shadow of a funeral hearse
And so many saviors that come too late
And so many that come but just make things worse

And I said, Man if you are going to talk to me
you might as well come back and sit down at my place

He said man if I could I would tell you about all the things
that I’ve wanted to do in my life but
if only I still knew just what they all were in the first place

He said man if I could I would take you to where I was born
but I’m just so afraid I’ve been gone for so long
that we’d get there and in the end
I’d just feel out of place

And he said man do you know that there are children being born
who will never understand their place in the world
but who’ll still always long for a place to call home
and some sort of heaven to aspire to.

And if there is something to believe in
it’s certainly not anything you can see and
if man is the image god
then he’s nothing but the product of his own imagination,

And if you go on from that then it must be true
that nothing that you can ever say or do
will ever mean anything to anyone anymore
when everyone you know here is gone.

I said, what can I say other than
that you might as well come back and sit down at my place.

I said man if you are going to talk to me
then you might as well come back and sit down at my place

You take a little walk you
As deeper that it goes the farther to the sea
You take a little walk you know
Sometime you’ve got to pick it up before you let it go

A grain is an awful load
A truth in an empty show
A flame has a strength no stronger than a tree
The sky is the limit, sometimes you’ve got to let it be

So it goes
Along the winds are sown
The careful dreams
As stones overturned
Turned away
Place to hide
Knees to pray

Trading on an open code
Betting ‘til the cards are shown
Sailing on a wind that’s hard enough to see
Straining to concile the strings of mortality

So it goes
Along the winds are sown
The careful dreams
As stones overturned
Turned away
Place to hide
Kneels to pray

Come into my world, where no-one stands next to me
The scriptures of my heart are nothing but chemistry
Come into my world where all understandings cease
The light upon my path, an image I cannot see

The last thing that you said about dealing with honesty
A noose around my neck is a life without boundaries
Terrors of the night are those of an empty page
The words upon my lips are stories I tell to erase

Seems like the loves I cannot claim are like the voices I cannot change
And all the currents that move my heart just keep me circling in the dark