Rickie Lee Jones

Ghostyhead (1997)

HOME

MENU

 

  1. Little Yellow Town

  2. Road Kill

  3. Matters

  4. Firewalker

  5. Howard

  6. Ghostyhead

  7. Sunny Afternoon

  8. Scary Chinese Movie

  9. Cloud of Unkonwing

  10. Vessel of Light

Rickie Lee Jones

 

Little yellow town

 

Low tide tonight, low tide little yellow town

Green life teems up from the underground

Glows in the dark, sifts the sands of garbage

Reach hard in for the ragged star fish

And only her lipstick bleeds,

And the color seeds into all your paint by number schemes

What was yellow, what was white, what was day, what was night

And now in soft detective voices the past rises

And follows you in shapes of rain and dew

And you walk through the fun house,

Those sonic faces hit you like a bus

'Till you're knocked down by the doppler waves of trust

And over here I scare myself day after day,

Cube after cube, dot after dot laying down on the kitchen floor,

Tapped into the secret code she's a down girl,

The acid's eating out her mind

The altered universe, step right up

Door swings both ways and now tattooed children, two-legged potions

Follow us while lightening bugs circle overhead,

While lightening bugs circle overhead...

We tear their wings off and memorize what they said

Chasing us across summer and into sleep

It's down rain, down time, she's a real down girl,

the acid's eating out her mind...

'Till all is new and all is changed, the altered world

Spells out your name, see if it works

 

Road kill

 

What's the matter with it? why's it look that way?

What's the matter with it? what's it trying to say?

What's that on its back? where's it trying to go?

A mystical vision got dressed up one night

Locked the door, walked through the misty porch light

Headed over to somebody's house

For an occasion long awaited

As it crossed the road, vista del mar

A big red car

Big black tires, nice corvette

And the future has not arrived yet

Moonlight on the hill, lights up the road kill

Moonlight on the hill, and the future is a road kill

What's the matter with it? what's it trying to say?

What's the matter with it? I just saw it yesterday

The police came, the neighbors too

They tried to pick it up, what else can you do?

Meanwhile, somebody's waiting back at the house

For the future to dawn bright across the sky

Moonlight on the hill, lights up the road kill

Moonlight on the hill, lights up the future

What's the matter with it? what's it trying to say?

What's the matter with it? why won't it go away?

What's the matter with it? why won't it close its eyes?

What's the matter with it? who are those guys? what's the matter with it...

 

Matters

 

What you wish for, what you think

The photographs you carry around

What whispers to yourself when you're finally gone

What you take when you go

Adds up to the big number

What you leave with

Who you know

Makes the big picture matter

It doesn't matter if you're fat

Wear a helmet or wear a hat

If you're sorry or if you're sure

Who you are is who you were, who you were matters

So deep inside yourself

Looking out at everyone else

Think a thing, in a while you meet it on the street

Because it matters...

Ah...house across the sand

 

Firewalker

 

Julie got some ecstasy, she laid down on the steering wheel

Love comes to the first thing love sees

Love comes to the first thing that makes it real, makes it real

Everybody's been hit, everybody's been hurt

Everybody's been kicked, everybody's been dirt

Everybody had to drive all night to reach L.A. in the morning light

Try to lighten up, want to back you up

But you just back down

Julie got some brown girlfriend, got it for a coin

Landlord threw her clothes out on the street in the tenderloin

Everybody's been a dog, everybody's had to beg everybody's been a moth,

Been a moth, when she woke up on her knees, everybody made her say please

I was in a wild place where I go, I couldn't hear you

Julie found gOd in a bus station and she liked it a lot

You put your money in the basket that comes, you remember the first one that you bought

Everybody starts out pure, starts out ridiculous, starts out beautiful nobody wants to be alone

Out here I'm all on my own

I try to lighten up, I always bear down, I want to back you up

Julie found a sailor boy, sailed off to the deep blue sea

So Firewalker you can walk on me, walk on me...

 

Howard

 

The spirits of her abortion had manifested...

The spirits of all her abortions manifested themselves into the furniture in the room

There would be a chair waiting, smiling, the pictures on the wall watched her in disbelief

She'd go carry the garbage out to the sidewalk and come back in and sit with all her children inanimate, petrified forever

A little boy named Howard, everybody knows one of those guys in school who kills everything he finds,

Every little cat, every mouse, every dog, likes to burn his sister with cigarettes

Diabolical schemes, everything has been conspired, the doors wired

That's 'cause those south Americans tied him up in a chair,

He was doing that dope deal, he never got over that

You're just made of words, you're just made of sounds

 

Ghostyhead

 

Ghostyhead, ghostyhead, standing in the door

You think if you don't answer

I can't hear you anymore

Chains you hung from ear to ear

Finally drug your head

But I can see through anything

I know what you bled

Ghostyhead, ghostyhead, you think that I can't see

The shadow of another girl

Each time you look at me

People came from far away to watch us drop you in

But ghostyhead the crowd is gone

Come back up again

Ghostyhead, ghostyhead

Come out on the porch

There's a serpent caught in a fisher's net

Virgins light the torch

'Cause who this night would not stay warm

By any light they could?

You just eat your bread and cake

And tell them it was good

 

Sunny Afternoon

 

Walking down my street

Here's the room where I live

Here's the neighbor children, sometimes they bother me

Here's the window where you left

How can I forget to look,

How can I forget

A sunny afternoon

A plane goes by

Walking with my cat around

It's a sunny afternoon

Here's the window where you left

How can I forget to look

No matter where you move the light

Somebody's always got a needle in her eye

You can pet her, she won't bite

She's been lying very still all night

 

Scary chinese movie

 

And my hands are flickering and the water turns to tracing paper and I watch you dry

I'm an army of stills like you flick between your fingers

You will always make me be faster than I am

There's a banner rising

I know sorry when I see its bones

We will always end up washed up on the shore and my hands are flickering,

Some one's reading the book over us,

White letters cross your trousers, we were always being dubbed

 

Cloud of unknowing

 

So he dropped the webs of the spider of heaven down through the clouds,

All the way into the pool of blood at the bottom of hell

Far above in heaven a bird flys through the terrible cloud of unknowing

Trust can make a man into a wood, trust can make a man green

An everything that longs to Be

Broken and small enough to see

To be held in his hands

To be a part and yet alone

Here he is, reaching for...the speed of light

Here he is, reaching for...the sound of forgiveness

Now wounding 'round the waterfront she listens for a voice

A sign of Mother God, a sign of God the lad

I long to enter you with gentleness and compassion

But sorrow is always an open door

I know many days go by and I forget to look up at the stars

I forget there are stars, I forget there is the rest

Thin threads of light follow you around

Through the pale blue, down your skin

Down your skin

 

Vessel of Light

 

A distant light finds me when I'm with you

A distant light knows me when I'm through

Once I mistake you

For somebody else

Mistook you for somewhere, mistook you

A distant light that binds me

A distant sound that finds me

When I'm through

True Vessels of Light

 

Lyrics R.L. Jones © 1997 Geffen Records - BMG / Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited

Testi R.L. Jones © 1997 Geffen Records - BMG / Riproduzione per usi commerciali vietata

HOME

Musica & Memoria is a for free web site targeted to the musical culture diffusion. Lyrics, comments and translations in Italian are included in order to improve the knowledge in Italy of the selected artists.
Original lyrics are included following present Italian law restrictions (see DISCLAIMER for detalis).
Please contact webmaster for any observation.

Musica & Memoria è un sito totalmente gratuito, dedicato alla diffusione della cultura musicale. Testi, note critiche e  traduzioni sono inserite allo scopo di far meglio conoscere in Italia gli artisti trattati.
La pubblicazione dei testi originali segue la attuale legge italiana sulle utilizzazioni libere (vedi
AVVERTENZE per maggiori dettagli).
Scrivere al webmaster per qualsiasi osservazione.