{"id":4055,"date":"2022-01-10T22:17:47","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T22:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/?page_id=4055"},"modified":"2025-03-06T20:22:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T04:22:56","slug":"catholic-boy-lyrics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/works\/jim-carroll-lyrics\/catholic-boy-lyrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Boy Lyrics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Cover<\/a>
Catholic Boy<\/em> (1980) – by The Jim Carroll Band<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Catholic Boy
<\/em>The Jim Carroll Band
Atco, 1980<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See also:<\/strong>\u00a0album details<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0audio clips<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LYRICS INDEX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

|\u00a0Wicked Gravity<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Three Sisters<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Day and Night<\/a> |\u00a0Nothing Is True<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0People Who Died<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0City Drops Into the Night<\/a>
|\u00a0Crow<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0It’s Too Late<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0I Want the Angel<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Catholic Boy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See how J. O’Barr borrowed from this album in\u00a0The Crow<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Wicked Gravity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Carroll<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gravity here is just sick for revenge
It’s like my lungs are filled with chains . . .
The sky seems so low,
It hasn’t moved this slow
Since the virgins, since the virgins went dancing for the rain

You know the stars in the night
They’re like the holes in the cave
Like the ceiling of a bombed-out church
But gravity blocks my screams
It’s like an enemy’s dreams
My guardians quit
They quit before they started their search

Refrain:
I want a world without gravity
It could be just what I need
I’d watch the stars move close
I’d watch the earth recede

I wanna drift above the borders against my will
I wanna sleep where the angels don’t pass
But now my lips are blue
Gravity does it to you
It’s like they’re pressed against a mirrored glass

I want my will and capability to meet inside the region
Where this gravity don’t mean a thing
It’s where the angels break through . . .
It’s where they bring it to you
It’s where silence, silence can teach me to sing

Repeat Refrain 2 times

I wanna lay beneath these sheets and never turn blue
I wanna hold you, hold you tight but never touch
I want some pure, pure white; hey, we can nod all night
We can do it without thinking too much

I want the dilettantes and parvenues to choke on my wrists
They think the pearls I wear are pills
I want their gravity to shatter . . . but it really doesn’t matter
I got something in my eye that kills!

Repeat Refrain

Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked gravity . . .
Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked gravity . . .
Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked.

\u00a9 Earl McGrath Music\/Jim Carroll Music ASCAP (1980)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Three Sisters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Carroll and Terrell Winn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I don’t really understand her
I love my sister, her name’s Miranda
The boys from uptown they can’t stand her
The more she denies them the more they demand her
But she just wants to lay in bed all night
Reading Raymond Chandler
She got high heel shoes
She sings the blues
She says abracadabra when she goes down on you

She got a sister and her name is Anita
Anita got one peculiar feature
Every time that they come to meet her
She turns out like a jungle cheetah
She got spiked shoes
She hums the blues
She says razor when she goes down on you

There’s another one that makes a trio
Her name is Sally but they call her Cleo
She’s a Leo
She got a flat in Soho
She breaks the ceiling
Every time she twirls her mojo
She ain’t got no shoes
Never had the blues
She ain’t never gonna go down on you

I wish that all the girls were my sister
Then all their dates would call me Mister
You know, sisters are the only ones that talk to me true
Hey, you could be my sister too

\u00a9 Earl McGrath Music\/Jim Carroll Music ASCAP (1980)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Day and Night<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Carroll and Alan Lanier<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day and night . . . the shadows move too slowly
From dark to light she promised she could know me
Remember when . . . I watched her on the stairway
She was drinkin’ wine . . . and she told me what the
stars
say . . .

Some destinies, they should not be delivered . . .
But in her eyes I saw a thousand reasons

Day and night

I feel her skin . . . it’s thin and white as pressed milk
I closed my eyes and she vanished just like burnt silk
And what remains was like some fallen thunder
And my lips were chained; they were filled with empty wonder

But the stars tell lies, it blinds the only warning
And when darkness dies, there’s nothing left but morning . . .

Just day and night

Day and night . . . the shadows start to scatter
When touched by light . . . each promise made is shattered
And even when the question find the answer
But even then, they’re something like a dancer
But even then, they’re something like a dancer
Like day and night . . . dark to light
I move from day to night

\u00a9 Earl McGrath Music\/Jim Carroll Music ASCAP (1980)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Nothing Is True<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Carroll and Brian Linsley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You get nothin’ back for all you’ve saved
Just eternity in a spacious grave
She said, Nothing is true, everything is permitted

Things just go from bad to worse
Starts like a kiss and ends like a curse
But nothing’s true, she said everything is permitted

She got jewels on her tongue to time the stars
She drives all morning in unmarked cars
But nothing’s true, it is all permitted

She got these special tools just to keep things tight
They robbed her eyes long ago of light
But nothing’s true, she told me it’s all permitted

She got inscrutable poise and nihilist charms
She gets her sleep through tubes in her arm
She said nothing is true, she said everything is permitted

She nods on graves, the marble’s cold and white,
Her dreams surround the sun like a satellite
She said nothin’ is true, she told me it’s all permitted

The spiders [milk?] her thigh, it does not phase her
She cleans her skin with a krypton laser
Nothing is true, everything is permitted

She got heels so high, she got a gown so thin
Her eyes stop the whip before it tames her sin
She says nothin’ is true, everything is permitted

Until they perfect the techniques to clone
You all better remember you’re all alone
Because nothing is true, she said everything is permitted

\u00a9 Earl McGrath Music\/Jim Carroll Music ASCAP (1980)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


People Who Died\u00a0<\/object><\/h2>\n\n\n\n