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Bootleg Powerhead

by John Lyle

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1.
Rivers of Stone 03:36
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Rivers Of Stone Neon Bride, please come inside, you’ve sanctified the street Now kiss my doors and bless the boards that run beneath my feet Neon Bride, please look alive and leave these streams of stone And search my banks and breathe your soul into my telephones Can’t you hear the silver sirens scream at sickle moons? Electric tyrants make my life a room and a road that leads nowhere Neon Bride, forget your pride and pave the paths to hell The street of lies runs through your eyes And the darkness knows you well Neon Bride, you’re not alive, your veins are coursed with gas Your life is light and like as not your light might never last Can’t you feel the fires burning all along the dream Glass hearts yearning by a silver stream Laid of stones that roll nowhere
2.
Livin' Through the Blues 02:28
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Living Through The Blues Missed a lot of lovin’ down in Tennessee It takes a lot of lovin’ for a fool like me Livin' through the blues I’m like a fricasseed chickadee Smoked a lot of dope and I’m an aeroplane I’m never gonna see things quite the same again Livin' through the blues I’m like a fricasseed chickadee See the little lady, boys, she sets my soul on fire I’m the kind of shady toy should be her pacifier If I run out of atoms on the Santa Fe Think I’ll pretend I’m Jimmie Rogers in a Chevrolet Livin' through the blues I’m like a fricasseed chickadee Had eternal contacts ‘til they disappeared Guess they’re somewhere in the middle of the hemisphere Livin' through the blues I’m like a fricasseed chickadee It blows my mind to find that I’m still on parole I’m dreaming on the outskirts of my only soul Livin through the blues I’m like a fricasseed chickadee
3.
Katherine Ross's Hosses 03:09
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Katherine Ross’s Hosses I wish that I was one of Katherine Ross’s hosses We’d ride the range to the silver strains of me She’d ride astride and I’d feel obliged to wander Wherever she might want the range to be Can’t you see me now? I ain’t no plow horse I’m a saucy, tossy Ross horse With my mistress mounting me so wild and free And if my libido’s showin’, bet your spurs I’ll be growin’ Palomino, pal of mine, you’re gonna do me proud I wish that I was one of Katherine Ross’s hosses From Tinsel Town to the sylvan mound we’d roam We’d stake our claim and she’d call my name- ‘Flame Wonder,’ My five-card pard, you’re never gonna let me down Can’t you see us now, ain’t we a picture Worth a thousand story-book words? Saddle pals with saddle bags of saddle songs ‘cause that long, long trail gets dusty and it helps To have a trusty saddle tune or two to fun the miles away I wish that I was one of Katherine Ross’s hosses No hitchin’ posts’d come between her steed and her We wouldn’t ford love’s stream, we’d ride her sparkling clean True waters into the setting sun for ever more Can’t you see us now, aint we a western, fairy-tale dream We’re the best one to slip out of here in such a lonesome time And if horses could get married to a starlet, not to a carriage We’d no longer wander shamelessly in sin
4.
Lies Are Only Letters 02:21
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Lies Are Only Letters Reverberating into the innermost reaches of his private brain Hal Humble tests the sad, sad state of his joke; fully realizing Lies are only letters to your heartsick mother’s Lonesome baby child, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! Complicating matters in the strangest way but with a sense of flow Hal’s Hannah smiles a quick ‘Hello! I know you know I know.’ Fully realizing lies are only letters to your heartsick lover’s Lonesome baby smile, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! Calibrating constancies across the room and through the great divide Hal Humble hears his Hannah sigh, ‘I guess I’m still alone.’ Fully realizing lies are only letters from your heartsick lover’s Mother’s broken child, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! Mitigating circumstances with his hands and with his sounds of love Hal Humble makes his special love across his Hannah’s eyes; Fully realizing lies and ties and alibis intensify Your lullaby of love- oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!
5.
Waves of Love 01:48
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6.
Come On Over 04:03
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7.
Keep the Banners Flying 02:07
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Keep The Banners Flying My heart’s been sent to heaven And the same old used to be Still lingers on beside the riverside That holds a line on me Holds a line on me The dream is an illusion And it never comes again Until the ocean tries to take you back To where you’ve always been Where you’ve always been And when the cave on sugar mountain Is the only home I count on, I’m a fool And when the grave beneath Death Valley Is my mind inside an alley, I’ll be cool A series of explosions From the leftest field there is Has come and left me with a big desire To break into the biz, break into the biz The scenes are always changing And I haven’t found the key But when I sing this song the ghost of God Comes sailing home to me, sailing home to me And when the cave on sugar mountain Is the only home I count on, I’m a fool And when the grave beneath Death Valley Is my mind inside an alley, I’ll be cool
8.
Hello Buddy 06:10
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Hello Buddy Well, I know your lazy susans, and I know your easy chairs And I know your swinging hammocks sleepy-two time your despair And I know the hours you kill spending seconds splitting hairs Cannot keep you from your purpose, cannot keep you from the stair And I wish that I could organize my mind Well, I know that your polemics, comprehensive and bizarre Could get me on your band-wagon if I was a movie star But I’m having trouble shaking, I no longer have a car And my best friend’s wife has left me in this lonesome, homely bar And I wish I had a dollar for a dime ‘cause I’m still a little thirsty and there’s still a lot of time ‘cause those big, old hands keep slowin’ and stopping on my dime And the world owes me a drink and I just want what is mine And I’ll hate the man who says you’re not my friend Well I think my stool is screwing me up into my hair And is that our old bar-tender with his arm up in the air? And is that a knife he’s holding? Well it’s just not hardly fair After all the time I’ve spent here and with all I’ve had to bear Do you think you have somewhere that you can spare?
9.
Deathless Song 02:37
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Deathless Song If the sun don’t burn the tears away from all our ragged dreams I’ll be the one to try to prove that I am more than what I seem If the steel, insane insistent rain from my old, lost guitar Can be a groove for me and a tune for you, help me raise the bar Love’s a wicked word when you’re a crazy cagey fool Beneath the silver wires and diamond knives in time Left alone and stoned into the heart of Emmot’s Zone I know that everything that’s passed ain’t left behind And so I’ll meet you in the countryside a love affair from now You know, I pray the breeze that feeds the trees Will hold us there somehow New bluebirds and old blue-devils war inside of me I guess a deathless song’s the only way I have to set you free Feel the blue cool burn of frontier justice in the yearning That we’re yearning every time we want to cry I’m the part of you that wants to be the part of me That wants to come into the sky while I’m alive If the sun don’t burn the tears away from all our ragged dreams I’ll be the one to try to prove that I am more than what I seem
10.
The Showdown Might Be Tragedy 03:49
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The Showdown Might Be Tragedy When our trust is in the gambler and the odds are on the wall And all the whores can beg for rain-checks While their johns lose all recall And when our minds are always busy mailing letters to the sea It’s the show-off age and it’s the show-off stage And the showdown might be tragedy When the preacher is a shadow hidden deep within himself And when the church is just a house around a promise to protect And when our eyes are always searching for an empty ecstasy It’s the show-off age and it’s the show-off stage And the showdown might be tragedy When the sun can break a window and a word can break my heart Into a bleeding, screaming billion scandalizing counterparts And when the dawn buys benediction and your voice is clemency It’s the show-off age and it’s the show-off stage And the showdown might be tragedy When the showdown is a shoot-out and the stakes are after all Just a price to pay for praying for another bang-up brawl And when our masks are disappearing into naked comedy It’s the show-off age and it’s the show-off stage And the showdown might be tragedy
11.
Lose 05:31
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Lose I can’t read between the lines between the lines I can’t say the words that touch off a good time only stop myself from having a good try at the fly ball that is lost up in the sky the limit’s known to me alone, all by myself in Emmot’s Zone you can rock the night away and say your prayers you can throw the key away and say you care about the wheres and hows and whys you’re not there and why you don’t believe that it’s not fair for me to care about you, for me to share what I lose think I’ll close my eyes and dream another song after all I’ve memorized it won’t be long before some new someone else happens along and I get a chance to prove I’m always wrong for you and your friends, tell me the truth, don’t I lose? I can’t see between the brackets of taipan but I have a very special friend who can she looks in on jack the ripper in between and paints self-portraits of the many things she’s seen like something dark, and noah’s ark that block the stream, confuse her dream she can’t see as far as she has never seen she can’t be as far as she has never been but she sure as hell can push you off the boat yes and seal her plastic hands around your throat she brings ice-box blues and sad good news worn out toys for broken boys used to be that we all slept around her bed with the dreams of her dead lovers for our head of the crowd that melted rosebuds on the sleigh and washed the guts of fallen angels down the drain we have had enough, she played too rough we’ve lost the pooh, now we’re all through
12.
Lost In The Dream 02:58
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Lost In The Dream The day of grace was up today, I’m shipwrecked in your arms All my false alarms ring true, old buddy, I’m blue Derek’s bass can fill the space between our tear-stained eyes Above the seizing lies we knew, oh, old buddy, I knew And you know, I love to play the fool, Capsized and baptized and scared to be in school But if you’re gonna leave me, you better leave me paralyzed ‘cause I’m telling you now, I’m in love with your eyes I think it’s the truth, I’m in love with your eyes Love to be the shooting star to suck you to the screen Just like Eddie Dean come true, oh, old buddy, come true I can sing a wave length out beyond the no mile reef Because of my belief in you, oh old buddy, in you Undertow, drag me to the deep Wrap your arms around me and rock my brain to sleep But I don’t guess a coma’s gonna keep me crystallized ‘cause I’m telling you now, I’m in love with their eyes I think it’s the truth, I’m in love with your eyes It’s hard as nails to try to find a silver thing to say When you’re a shipwrecked castaway Like me, oh, old buddy like me

credits

released January 1, 1971

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John Lyle Sechelt, British Columbia

The lyrics for most of the songs appearing in these albums are available in book form: "The Kindest Lies: the Lyrics of John Lyle", published by Leaky Boot Press (June 28, 2013).

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