the blog of Jerry Bolton
Posts tagged Lyrics
…too good not to share
2Current Tunage: Thrice – Beggars
Album of the year.
It’s been forever. I’m (kind of) sorry. There’s much to report on, but that will be another post.
For now, here’s what’s on my mind:
“THE WEIGHT” by THRICE from their new album BEGGARS
There’s many who’ll tell you they’ll give you their love,
But when they say “give” they mean “take.”
They’ll hang ‘round just like vultures till push comes to shove.
They’ll take flight when the earth starts to shake.
Someone may say that they’ll always be true,
Then slip out the door ‘fore the dawn.
But I won’t leave you hanging on.
Another may stay till they find someone new,
Then before you know they’ll be gone.
But I won’t leave you hanging on;
No, I won’t be that someone.
And come what may, I won’t abandon you or leave you behind
Because love is a loyalty sworn, not a burning for a moment.
And come what may, I will be standing right here by your side;
I won’t run away, though the storm’s getting worse and there’s no end in sight.
Some talk of destiny, others of fate,
But soon they’ll be saying goodbye.
But I won’t leave you high and dry.
Because a ring don’t mean nothing
If you can’t haul the weight,
And some of them won’t even try,
But I won’t leave you high and dry;
I won’t leave you wondering why.
And storms will surely come,
But true love is a choice you must make
And you’re the one that I have set my heart to choose.
As long as I live, I swear I’ll see this through.
…identity crisis
0Current Tunage: Thrice – Identity Crisis
read below for lyrics:
This song has been meaningful to me of late. It’s old Thrice, from their album of the same name as the song. Enjoy.
Thrice – Identity Crisis
Image marred by self-infliction
Private wars on my soul waged
Heart is scarred by dual volitions
Juxtaposed and both engaged
Kindle flame, a test of faith
Help me see it through
I put all my trust in you
Refine hate and love
Fall afresh on me
End this crisis of
Identity
Draw this darkness out like poison
Stab, retrieve, again decline
Help me drive the dagger deeper
Trace with me explicit line
Take this blade, a test of faith,
And strike me deep and true
I put all my trust in you
Refine hate and love
Fall afresh on me
End this crisis of
Identity
This is my voice, all shadows stayed
This is my heart, upon the altar laid
Please take all else away,
Hear my cry, I beg, I plead, I pray
I’ll walk into the flame,
A calculated risk to further bless your name
So strike me deep and true,
And in your strength I will live and die, both unto you
…all the neighborhood watched the fire burn
3Current Tunage: mewithoutYou – C-Minor
One of my favourite mwY songs – in no small part due to the lush horn section.
Some lyrics from the fourth and soon-coming mewithoutYou record have surfaced. Here’s one song, which I’ve already taken a shining to. Note that they’re rough because they’re leaked and based on someone’s transcription (which means there’s definitely been some mis-heard words).
“a Stick, a Carrot & String” by mewithoutYou
The Horse’s hay beneath his head
Our Lord was born to a manger bed
Then all whose wells run dry,
Could drink of His supply
To keep him warm, the Sheep drew near,
So grateful for his coming here:
You come… with verses of grace,
Come to take my place?
The Donkey whispered in his ear:
Child, in thirty-some-odd years,
You’ll ride someone who looks like me (untriumphantly)
While the Cardinals warbled a joyful song:
He’ll make right what man made wrong!
Bringing low the hills that the valley might be filled!
Then, Child
Asked the Birds,
Well, aren’t they lovely words we sing?
The tiny Baby lay there
Without saying anything.
At a distance stood a mangy Goat
With crooked teeth and a masked coat,
Weary eyes and worn, chipped & twisted horns
Thinking:
Maybe I’ll make friends some day
With the Cows in the pews and the Rambouillets
But for now I’ll keep away -
I’ve got nothing smart to say
…but there’s a sign on the barn in the Cabbagetown:
WHEN THE RAIN PICKS UP
AND THE SUN GOES DOWN,
SINNER, COME INSIDE!
WITH NO MONEY, COME AND BUY
NO CLEVER TALK NOR GIFT TO BRING
REQUIRES OUR LOWLY, LOVELY KING
COME, ALL EMPTY-HANDED
YOU DON’T NEED ANYTHING ELSE
The night was cool and clear as glass
With a sneaking Snake in the garden grass
Deep cried out to Deep,
The Disciples, fast asleep
The snake peeked up when he heard You ask:
If You’re willing that this cup might pass
I could find my way back home,
Maybe have a family all my own… but
Does not the Father guide the Son?
Not my will but Yours be done!
What else here to do?
What else here but You?
And the Snake who’d held the world,
A stick, a carrot and a string
Was crushed beneath the Foot of
Your not wanting
Anything
…the messenger
1Current Tunage: Thrice – The Messenger (Live @ The House of Blues)
Lyrics follow.
Mark me with fear and trembling; send someone else instead.
I know my world is ending; I can’t repay my debt.
How can I carry such a heavy burden?
How can I move when I am paralyzed?
I see a fire behind a heavy curtain.
I lean in closer and I close my eyes.
Kiss the coals; breathe in smoke, and I say,
“HERE I AM, SEND ME.”
It lifts my soul; I’m free and so unafraid.
“HERE I AM, SEND ME.”
Mark me with fire and send me among the living dead.
They cannot comprehend me; I watch the sickness spread.
How can they hear me when their hearts are hardened?
How can they see me when they close their eyes?
Still they can tell that I’m an easy target;
A wooden saw is quite a way to die.
Kiss the coals; breathe in smoke, and I say,
“HERE I AM, SEND ME.”
It lifts my soul; I’m free and so unafraid.
“HERE I AM, SEND ME.”
-Thrice, “The Messenger”
…put music to our troubles, we’ll dance them away
0Current Tunage: mewithoutYou – The Ghost
Love, love love, LOVE, love, and superlove.
On my shortlist of “BANDS SO AWESOME THAT THOSE WHO DO NOT LOVE THEM MUST CERTAINLY HAVE ROTTEN TASTE IN MUSIC” is a little band out of Philly by the name of mewithoutYou. I love them dearly – between the delicious bass-driven melodies, the satisfyingly crunchy electrics, the well-versed poetry, and the sparse and glistening soundscape… I love them a great lot.
…and as I read on Buzzgrinder not but a day or two ago, they have a new record coming out that everyone and their kid brother should buy. It is entitled:
it’s all crazy ! it’s all false ! it’s all a dream ! it’s alright
…and it is due out later this spring. Oh joy. Oh the joys.
Love.
I’m not the boy that I once was, but I’m not the man I’ll be…
…and I’ve been waiting now for six years on, and I’ve only just begun:
for the day You’ll hold her in Your arms,
Oh Risen Lord, my precious one.
-mwy, ‘the ghost’
…make believe
0Current Tunage: Sintax.the.Terrific – Make Believe
Very worth sharing. Read ahead…
My first series post will come later this evening. Until then, here’s the song that has been resonating in my mind and heart a lot over the past couple months (when Underoath isn’t playing). I trust you’ll enjoy reading it, just imagine a brass-driven beat filling the air and impassioned vocals, and you’ll get the idea.
“Make Believe” by Sintax.the.Terrific off of his album Curb Appeal
Chorus
You make me believe it’s not make believe
Fill in all the gaps that I can’t conceive
Break a skeptic down to his basic need
To put a finger in the wrist where salvation bleeds
You make me believe it’s not make believe
I’m breath taken by your sacred mysteries
Take me to the root of that ancient tree
Where knowledge is the fruit that only faith can see
Verse 1
Make me believe this that you can match wits
With the mind who in six days mapped the atlas
And strapped the mattress of the mountains across the matchless
Skeleton of dirt to work a backbone axis
Tell me can you understand the plans of perfect genius
That span outer space but placed his lifeblood intravenous?
And sets the sun seamless in the west every evening
Just to resurrect her hydrogen flesh to rest our dreaming?
And the best reason you can give for non believing
Is the fact your mortal eyes haven’t seen him?
Come on dog, that sort of lies got me grieving inside
And bleeding from the same heart that pumps to survive
The assumption of pride is we can understand our Maker
Like paper trying to understand the tree from which we shave her
Like vapor off the kettle can’t know a clouds behavior
Or a sediment of stone pontificate on Himalaya
He’s the flavor of a delicacy, delicately savored
Savior set Himself at a distance to tease our nature
Not to overcome our will or frustrate our labor
But instead to set us free to chase His heart or flee His favor
So make me believe that we walked on all fours
And that a billion years of accidents could give us something more
I’m beggin’ you explore the facts plus faith between
Exacting what is actual from what is make believe
Verse 2
Make me believe that rappers aren’t in danger
That kids will continue to capture human nature
To the four-four time swagger of youthful anger
Take a portrait of disaster and repaint her into hope, now
That’s what I call dope, believing that individuals
Can re-scape the city out of vision based on principal
Most are too cynical, forgotten the hope in prayer
Believing that life is rotten and broken beyond repair
I’ve spoken this song in rare angel tones to fill the air
At an octave where only lonely souls can hear the way I care
God, make us believe in modern miracles and healing
I want to lower my crippled faith through the ceiling, so you can touch me
I’m feeling pretty lucky, so pull the finger on that shotgun
And resurrect my faith even before it hits the bottom
And tell me it’s not a problem to accelerate the process
So that water into wine isn’t nonsense; it’s logic
I’m only being honest, ‘cuz it’s hard to imagine
How a seed of make believe could shake a mountain – could it happen?
Could people ever fathom the mystery of first Adam
Made complete in the death and ascension of God-man
Bridge
You’ve been breaking me down from A to Z
Making what’s mysterious so plain to see
Lord forgive me of my mind and its disbelief
Holdin’ on with my faith until my soul release
Verse 3
Make me believe that Your love is everlasting
That the bread of life sustains when we’re fasting
That casting the first stone is reserved for Christ alone
That the poor in spirit will inherit a king’s throne
I’m prone to cast judgement over things unknown
Asking the shadow thrown how does the day’s sun shown?
Disbelief collapsing these grey lungs blown
Breath-taken by the way You lay the moon hung low
Strum a lullaby of language hum the tune sung slow
Crumb-speak the truth to let the fool dumb know
That belief is the sum of science and reason folded
Into faith to knit the fabric of our spool spun soul
Gotta let it go – like new son grow
To a man, in a world where cruel runs show
Christ rule come so, let your jewel sun glow
To illuminate the darkest place deep-space hole
…all heaven cries
0Current Tunage: David Crowder Band – Wholly Yours
So here I am, all of me, finally everything: wholly. I am wholly, only, wholly yours. You are holy, holy, holy.
It’s a quiet morning on the Bolton front. We’re up, with strong brewed coffee about to course through our veins at a quick rate (“rappers bored with hip-hop? just wrap your face with grip-tape”) and we’re listening to worship tunes (good ones), and praying that God would shake us up, shake you up, shake everyone up today. In a good, good way.
We love and miss you guys. Peterborough, TCF, family, friends, children of the above – have a great Sunday and join us worshipping the one true God of the universe who loves you and died, was buried, and rose again conquering sin and death and reigns forever and is forever praised and glorious.
Amen. Rock it.
…all this wishing (is getting old)
0Current Tunage: mewithoutYou – Tie Me Up! Untie Me!
Lyrics follow.
I’ve had quite a day already.
I was looking at the leaves
Climbing to the tops of the trees
But you were nowhere to be found,
Just beneath all the green
You were buried like a little seed
Among the roots and underground,
I was licking at the leaves
But I was in short sleeves and you -
You were like some sickness that I caught.
My sweetheart moved away,
Swept off like garbage in the alleyway…
…and I need more grace than I thought.
‘Cuz Brother, I’m far
Brother I’m far away
I’m far away, Brother…
I’m far away from everything
I’m far away,
Brother, I’m far away from everything good!
She’s like a hot cloth on a fevered head
And like a needle she leads me
(Well, I follow like thread)
Tie me up! Untie me!
All this wishing I was dead is getting old, is getting old…
It goes on, but it’s old.
I was swimming through the waves
For what must have been days
But could find no relief,
When I started sinking down
I thought for certain I would drown
Until I saw you in the ocean underneath
All the bright coloured fish
Tell of a treasure in a dull shell,
“Such subtlety, so easily missed!”
You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love
And I’m a living example of 100 percent the opposite of this
If I ask the same questions
Well, you say I ask the same questions
(Well maybe I repeat myself from time to time)
But if I ask the same the same questions
And they’re like “no”… but I ask the same questions
(It’s because everyone who answers me is a liar.)
She’s like a hot cloth on a fevered head
And like a needle she leads me
(Well, I follow like thread)
But you untied me – didn’t you untie me, Lord?
And now I haven’t even thought about
Killing myself in almost five months.
-mewithoutYou “Tie Me Up! Untie Me!”
Although it’s been years and years since thoughts of dying as a result of acts of my own volition danced their way through my head…
I find the same tangle of emotions runs up and floods me through whenever, by the grace of God, my sin is exposed and dealt with. Because, in many ways, it’s a re-living of a much more important death than the physical one I’ll pass through someday.
I’m thankful for these days of reminder that I am both literally and figuratively “post-suicide”.
Jesus saves me everyday, but some days I feel it much more acutely than others.
…the music our collisions make
1Current Tunage: Celldweller – Birthright (Demo)
Excellence at it’s finest. Can’t wait to hear the sophomore record in full.
The bird that plucked the Olive Leaf
(has) Been circlin’ like a record ’round the spindle of my mind
Where the needle’s worn the grooves too deep,
And scratched the wax that’s blistered from the heat besides
From any movement in the room -
If my cat walked by, the arm skipped
But to my surprise,
My interrupting cat improved
The sound already so severely compromised…
The needle’s worn the grooves too deep. (x4)
I’m a donkey’s jaw on a desert dune
Beside the bush that Moses saw that burned and yet was not consumed!
She’s the silver coin I lost! I’m the sheep who slipped away!
We pray with fingers crossed, but You listen patiently anyway.
I wrote a little song for you
With a melody I’d borrowed, put to words that didn’t rhyme
To repeat what you already knew,
As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation.
You kept a distance, out of fear you’d break
But what good’s a single wind-chime hanging quiet all alone?
The music our collisions make
Is the sound that turns “the road that leads us back home” into “home.”
The music our collisions make. (x4)
I had a rusty spade, but I’m not the fighting sort!
If I was Samson I’d have found that harlot’s blade and cut my own hair short!
Then, in a market dimly lit, I’d come casually to pay:
“You see, my coins are counterfeit. Would you accept them anyway?”
So spare me your goodbyes, your waving-handkerchief goodbyes!
Given my tendency to err so on the sentimental side,
I will spare you my goodbyes:
The truth belongs to God! (The mistakes were mine.)
-mewithoutYou “In A Market Dimly Lit”
And now that I’ve quoted the song I’ve had in my head all day, check out this video of a humanist Jew debating some other dude that Christian rock doesn’t suck. Be warned: It’s a rather extensive debate, very good, and features musical interludes provided by the guy arguing in favour which includes the likes of Larry Norman, mewithoutYou, and Over the Rhine… as well as others.
Long story short: It’s stellar. Check it out.
