Misc. Lyrics

Differing Touch

By Jim Carroll, Jon Tiven, and Sally Tiven
From A World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band

Every time she calls I’d like to just ignore her
I think she’s working both sides
It’s not my paranoia
But I can’t cut her loose
That girl does the act
Like a snake with wings . . .
I know this for a fact

Refrain:
One night she’s dark and French
One night she’s blonde and Dutch
Every time you near her
She has a differing touch

She’s like a salamander, the way her colors change
And you can’t understand her, unless you get deranged
She be Italian and tan
She be German and light
I’ve seen her Oriental
It changes every night

Repeat Refrain

© Dr. Benway Music/Sally Tiven Music, ASCAP/Jon Tiven Music, BMI (1995)

Plain Division

By Jim Carroll, Jon Tiven, and Sally Tiven
From A World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band

There’s a wind up in the trees
Like a voice that’s whispering Please
Someone’s decided on dividing
Everything in two

I’d rip the money in half
I’d even break the staff
But split apart my heart
And there’s no room for you

Refrain:
Listen, love will always divide
You may not need both sides
It may be empty, it may be full
It’s all just push and pull

The front might be the rear
My poison pet
And you can’t be sure which side you get
Come on,
Then make the decision
It’s a love division

All the jealous gestures, the blades of hurt desire
Slit my heart apart
Hear the cries that flow through the wire
They’re passing through
They’re split in two
I know inside, I can’t divide the things I’m sure are true . . .
But I could take what you break
And make it all seem new

Repeat Refrain

Everybody’s underground commuting at the speed of sound
Listen what the wheels say
They say: Rip apart, rip my heart, rip my heart,
rip the dark, trip the dark, abattoir . . .

Repeat Refrain

© Dr. Benway Music/Sally Tiven Music, ASCAP/Jon Tiven Music, BMI (1995)

Junky Man

From Rancid’s album . . . And Out Come the Wolves

By Rancid:
The common man doesn’t suffer pain like this
Only the soul that has never been kissed
Let us adore our beautiful son
He’s ridin’ on the rivers of Babylon
Bootin’ up, shootin’ up
Bring on the brightness
See the son of God is comin’ up
Your [sic] caught up in a system that’s goin’
No one answers no one takes that call from you
Junky man tell me what your story is . . .
Water I desire
Some parents [sic] house is on fire
Slowly the house gonna burn to the ground
The neighborhood will watch . . .
Will someone be a witness please
Tell me that he’s crazy
But he’s not and they thow that
And they can’t get him ’cause he’s not crazy
Beat him lock him knock him take away his authority
Hit ’em, ship ’em, club ’em submitted conformity . . .

By Carroll:

My hand went blind clairvoyant
I make love to my trance sister
My trance sister went on
And my trance parents see from the balcony
I looked out on the big field
It opens like the cover of an old bible
And out come the wolves
Their paws trampling the snow
The alphabet
I stand on my head and watch it all go away

By Rancid:
Bootin’ up, shootin’ up
Bring on the brightness
See the sun of God is comin’ up
And there is a likeness
Internalize the lunacy
The misery is showin’ when your [sic] brought up
And your [sic] caught up in a system that is goin’

© I Want to Go Where the Action Is Music (1995)

Perfect Water

By Jim Carroll
Recorded by Blue Oyster Cult on Club Ninja, 1986

Perfect water
The dark wind braids the waves
The crazed birds raid the trees
Is this our destiny?
To join our hands at sea
And slowly sink, and slowly think
This is perfect water, passing over me . . .

Do you know Jacques Cousteau?
Well, they said on the radio
That he hears bells in random order
Deep breaths beneath the perfect water

Love that is frightening
But still so inviting
To drown inside a sound
That lay so far underground
And to think . . . and to think
This is perfect water passing over me

Refrain:
To flow inside the spiral tide
To drown my eyes like a blind ride
And to cross the perils of black water
It waits for me like mother and daughter
A life of perfect order
A strange and perfect water

Perfect water
I dream this dream within the warm Gulf Stream
Where two blocks of ice melt into my hands like dice
And I roll seven on the floor of the sea
And I feel the perfect water washing over me

Repeat Refrain