751 : 4/30/00 : Whiskey

Perhaps it’s time to become
a whiskey man and
make my entrance on the
world stage
Who knows for whom the bell tolls
who else can turn my page?
Time for whiskey
cup full of ice
long afternoons in the sun
It’s like a habit
but I don’t mind
hey I’m not hurting anyone
So easy to imagine
going back to
the way things always were
I keep my mouth shut
smile sweetly
as it flies by in a blur

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

750 : 4/29/00 : Silence

Suffer me in silence
suffer me to be in silence
suffering in a golden silence
silence of the aftermath

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

749 : 4/28/00 : Cargo

have to hack through this jungle
Cross the mighty river flow
many with us now will not
survive to reach the cargo
Dropped by old gods long ago
ancestors drew maps in light
projected into diamond cubes
to shine forth in the endless night
To lead the way though perilous
the tombs of magic gone out of the land
brought back by the next young gods
the secrets of the past in hand
no more will the heathen thrive
what we bring back will prove so
the gods will smile and help us
smash our rivals with the cargo

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

748 : 4/27/00 : Olive

Man made the atom bomb
God made the olive
God made man
Now what the hell is that about
Noah made the ark
The Lord made Noah make it
The dove brought back an olive branch
When Noah cast it out
Man makes weapons
small arms and handguns
God makes the sun
and sets us swinging falling
The olives in their orchards hum
green and perfect
When you stop to ponder
the disparity’s appalling

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

747 : 4/26/00 : Everything’s Wrong

1,818 : 4 ?



Maybe God is sick of creating
and that’s why everything’s wrong
Maybe God’s as sick of reigning
as I’m sick of writing this song
Maybe in the endless reiteration
He saw a futile loop
an unavoidable recursion
Maybe he’ll wipe it out in one fell swoop
Maybe there’s something wrong with my brain
and nothing else is wrong at all
caused by fluoride or radiation
or missing an important call
Maybe nothing is wrong with me either
and the truth is stranger still
The seeming the being the wrong I’m seeing
just the flip side of an act of will

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

746 : 4/25/00 : Hero

I’m no hero I wait and see
but the world just can’t seem to
get by without me
All around I just see
people getting by
all around I see the
rules just don’t apply
Hello hero get on deck
this world ain’t got the time
to be circumspect
step to the issue, get on the page
prove my cynicism
wrong in the new age
choke back whiskey bite on rye
jump up and collect
a punch in the eye
bargain basement hero
substitute
I’m waiting for the bitch patrol to
give me the boot

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

745 : 4/24/00 : The Answer (13/3 minute songs 13)

Ask one question
only one
Ask with a bottle of wine
or a gun
Ask with a candle or
weighted line
You’ll know the answer true by how
it cuts so fine
Ask after god or another
theory
ask after the afterlife of
Timothy Leary
Ask only one ‘cause it’s all you get
It isn’t fair but it’s an
even bet

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

744 : 4/23/00 : The Digit (13/3 minute songs 12)

The digit had been hidden in the mists of time
the digit looked like cuneiform and read like rhyme
it was a number to be sure
and some said it was the cure
They say it’s carved into the ice of the North Pole
They found a tag stamped with it in a vein of coal
Where no digit should be
that’s what they told me

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

743 : 4/22/00 : Architect (13/3 minute songs 11)

Architect architect
show me the plan
I would suffer gladly
I would act just like a man
if I knew for sure
a cathedral was rising
form the seemingly senseless
relentless life thing

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

742 : 4/21/00 : Crystal Spinned (13/3 minute songs 10)

Blow it down
show it ‘round
who knew the thing just
made a sound
like a match head burst
like a cough of thirst
I seen some bad things
this was the worst
watch it spin
feel the wind
slip through the window so
the crystal spinned
just like that
sparked and spat
rolled up and turned black
and there it sat

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

741 : 4/20/00 : Travelers in Time (13/3 minute songs 9)

The travelers in time its said
would say this rhyme they said
the dead are alive somewhen
the living are dead somewhen
it’s already happening
it already happened then
And history is someone’s future
held on by a hazy suture
held in line by no one knows
only in its line it goes

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

740 : 4/19/00 : King (13/3 minute songs 8)

It’s lonely being king, it’s lonely at the top
I heard a voice on the radio
that said that everything had stopped
I thought it was a good revenge
I thought it meant I’d really won
I guess it got served back to me cold
I can’t even see the sun
It’s lonely being king
the last man on the west coast
the sole survivor of the crash
the only one who isn’t toast

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

739 : 4/18/00 : Flash Flood (13/3 minute songs 7)

I wanted the flash flood
I wanted the kind bud
I wanted everything on a platter
did I think it would matter
I wanted a three minute revelation
I wanted to trace out every station
of the cross in the road
and all it might forebode
I’m sick of the flash flood
I’m sick of the taste of my blood
I’ve been down the path and every fork
I’ve been over a barrel stuffed with pork
and here’s the holy end of it
they’ll try to make you bend to fit
their mediocre master plan
the curse of the everyman

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

738 : 4/17/00 : The Dive (13/3 minute songs 6)

The dive into the depths of what she’d
Come to think of as the wreckage of the
Ship of thought she had erected in the Tower
Happened on a day like any other
Happened to remind her of her mother
Seemed to happen every other hour
The wreck was not an abstract thing
Though made of dust wrapped up with string
It had a presence powerful and dark
She dived in with intrepid ease
And slipped through like an errant breeze
That curls a strand of hair back and reveals the mark

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

737 : 4/16/00 : Parabola (13/3 minute songs 5)

God in His wisdom on His throne
hid the answer to the riddle in the section of a cone
while the fakirs strut out the la-di-da
I ponder the means of the parabola
everything’s a circle everything’s an arc
the lesson of the message
of the dream of a spark
the parabolic gospel
the transcendent arch
the final disposition
in the ides of march

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

736 : 4/15/00 : The Scale (13/3 minute songs 4)

A thought evoked a tortured cry
the vision of the future’s fall
and seen in one mind’s fevered eye
the failure to measure up at all
the scale she cried the scale’s the thing
and turned her face away at last
The scale the measure the brass ring
the hourglass and time flies fast
I heard the marker chalk the line
the scale and its dominion strong
and everywhere from here to fine
we fight the scale our whole lives long.

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

735 : 4/14/00 : Compulsion (13/3 minute songs 3)

You are under compulsion
you are not your own man sir
say it too loud and you’ll make a stir
we live by desire and repulsion
I am under compulsion
the song must go on
hears the answer to the question long;
its all about jet propulsion

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

734 : 4/13/00 : Bang (13/3 minute songs 2)

Bang daddy downbeat fraction
one two three four
and an inevitable equal opposite reaction
Watch me close a door
bang bang nothing to it
creating space warped symmetries

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

733 : 4/12/00 : Magic Bullet (13/3 minute songs 1)

1,804 : 21 ?




Magic bullet find your mark
in the chaos, in the dark
just go to the place of your need
only my voice you’ll heed
magic bullet set me free from strife
do not ask after the purpose of life
just go to the heart of my problem
they do not ask and I will not tell them
mark me as one who saw the light
do not distract me from my endless night
far past reason down a hole
magic bullet strike your goal

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

732 : 4/11/00 : Obsession

Am I obsessed with the manufacture of verse?

am I under a spell, a voodoo curse?

does it all root back to my childhood days

or a summer long lost in a marijuana haze

I confess obsession with many things

God and watch works and Saturn’s rings

I’ve been recycling rhymes a long time it’s true

but I’m still trying to rhyme my way back to you

Is this obsession have I lost my mind

did I mask it with cigarettes and kind

if the therapy takes will I give it up

this fountain this overflowing cup

I’ve got a jones but that’s not what I mean 

I’ve got to wash till my hands feel clean

I’ve got to write till the words are gone

so hey, today, another song

One day I’ll break through the barrier

the unknown terrifies - the alternative is scarier

to find at last the plenum or the void

someday when my obsession is destroyed

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

731 : 4/10/00 : Dream Park

Is the unexamined life worth living
Is the dream park of philosophy
a line worth giving
You’ll die for it but
would you stand in line for it
We’ll all stand in the line someday
waiting on the gates of Dream Park
No more afraid of the dark
between the final lepton and the first quark
Yeah dream park
is there a vision in my mind
of a California coastline
and a submarine made of bent pipe
those were the days
now I’ve been up here a long time
hibernating in a Northern clime
I feel my blood rising at last
for the next go round
la la la
striking some memory of a spark
light on the big screen of the dream park

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

730 : 4/9/00 : Hibernation

I’ve built up a nice layer of fat
Time to settle into my habitation
For a patented reverse hibernation
I tell you it’s more fun than a vacation
Gluttony in moderation never killed no one
One more bold descent into the cave
try to figure out what I have to save
meditate for a blissful year
I’ll be grinning from ear to ear
when it’s all said and neatly filed
the office where the letters piled
will shovel out and demonstrate
more incidence of love than hate
thus proving that above it all
the great Director’s casting call
can dial you up at any time
but then why not it was his dime

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

729 : 4/8/00 : Value

When the thousand voices are connected
by the thousand points of light
soft comes the next wave new wave
knock the pendulum swing from left to right
When the hundred thousand junkie army
arms itself and starts a nation state
The new heavy in highway armadas
new pirates a new sea to regulate
when the mighty million rise up
and raise me to my true dominion
many who were called but chose to screen me
will beg to be my minion
Meanwhile there’s only one of me
if I’m one in a hundred still the hundred’s there
Buying this and that and the other
Value vanishes in thin air

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

The Other Analog Hole

I was going to forgo these intermittent statements but this is an important announcement, maybe, I guess? It's not that important as important things go but it is definitely an announcement.

So, I did something I'd been meaning to for a long time and ran the dates from my current songwriting through an internet widget that calculates and the number of days elapsed between the dates. The number of days between the dates (inclusive) equals the number of songs, and thus did I discover that my song count was off by 599 (seriously). In a general sense this explained the frustrated sense that's been scratching at the back of my mind lately that I ought to have written a whole lot more songs by now.

Specifically though I had to dig back through the volumes to discover a total of four errors, three of which made some kind of sense (in two cases it seems likely I misread the previous song's number and so wrote down an erroneous number for the next in the sequence, in the other case it looks like I flipped back an extra page when checking the previous song's number); in one case the error was inexplicable, I jumped the number ahead by several songs without any reason I could discern. The first error I made way back in volume three (I'm on eleven now, mind you), almost 6 years ago. Dang. Such are the travails of a hand-numbered sequence in a series of longhand volumes, especially with handwriting like mine.

This is clearly far too many to write in corrections by hand (I'll take care of it piecemeal when I eventually get around to transcribing these songs) so instead I made notes on the front and back endpapers of each affected volume with instructions on correcting the numbers via simple mathematical corrections.

The other upshot of this of course is that basically every song number I've posted in the weekly status updates is incorrect. I fixed things from 1/25/10 on but other than that you're on your own, because explaining how to correct the other dates would be tedious and I'm sure nobody really cares. Suffice to say I should be writing song 1,800 of the second project today.

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

728 : 4/7/00 : I Don’t Want to Talk About It

I don’t want to talk about it
no more talking talking’s done now
no more waiting
no more wondering
time to start it time for fun now
thought you had my poor ass cold
You thought you had me bested
You have not a notion of
how often I’ve been tested
there is nothing like perfection
in a verse ad lib and rhyme
that will not protect your treasure
when I smash your paradigm
no more waiting for a savior
Savior’s been and gone
now the stage is set to meet and
receive virtue’s paragon

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

727 : 4/6/00 : Fast Track

Hey bodhisattva
won’t you fast track my enlightenment
I’ve got some big ideas about
nailing the establishment
I must be holy holy
So I must be full of power
I’m so convinced this autumn’s
gonna be my fate’s true hour
If you’d come along and free me
from attachment to the dust
I would know right at the moment
how to do the things I must
I’m on the fast track baby
no more waiting for the light
the time for words is over
no it’s time to rise and fight
No more need for patience baby
I am way beyond all that
I’m convinced I am a buddha
‘cause I’m wearing Buddha’s hat

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

726 : 4/5/00 : Jerk

1,797 : 14 ?


Hey jerk
where’z your big plans now
spilt hastily across the page
lost somehow
where’z your holdout stash
your emergency supply
dealt with without regard
and many a day gone by
I must be a real jerk
to fool myself around
leaving all my best devices
on hard winter ground
soon to be snowed drifted over
Lost until another spring
When at last the freezing passes
I won’t recognize the thing

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

725 : 4/4/00 : Hard Planet

Hard planet
Young love
angels seen
meanwhile up above
the stars cross
a fate is prepared
revenge is a dish
best served shared
hard planet
forbidden and vile
stay with me and dream
of lost love a while

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

724 : 4/3/00 : Patient

I’ve been patient as can be
I’ve written many a line about me
seems I’ve got no stories left
I am inconsolable bereft
I have waited still and calm
for a word just like a balm
to come down like morning rain
to feel joy feel joy again
I’ve been patient I’ve been true
I have sworn myself to you
When each day ends like the rest
I have not put you to the test
Will you forget me always
will you walk with me all my days
Will you keep me dedicated
will this fearful thirst be sated
I’ll be patient one more time
wait and listen it’s my dime
wait and offer one last rhyme
hang my head it’s not a crime

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

723 : 4/2/00 : Golem

I feel like I’ve been carved from wood
hollowed out and filled with lead
I feel my hands are seven thousand
miles from my head
The Golem of what’s left of me
orbits in an unreal space
Leaving me to contemplate
the thing that I refuse to face

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here

722 : 4/1/00 : Fool

A fool rushes in
ready to begin
the evening’s entertainment
the table was set
the guests were grabbing what they could get
most were already moderately bent
and the fool sang
You’re all gonna die
by and by by and by
I look at you and see only earth
ashes to ashes dust to dust
pretend the bell tolls for your neighbor if you must...
pretend for what pretending’s worth
have you seen it in your dreams
the long table we’re all bound for it seems
welcome to the banquet honored fool
grab a fork and feed your neighbor
an eternity sentence of easy labor
Welcome to the age of the golden rule

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here