Alcatraz

I Wrote A Book About Rock and Roll

Let me tell you something you don't seem to understand
I don't really care about your crappy local band.
Don't you tell me I can't tell you what to do
I can, on the whole,
'cause I work for a magazine
and I wrote a book about rock and roll

I wrote a book about rock and roll
I wrote a book about rock and roll
I think rock and roll is wonderful
and I wrote a book about rock and roll

I know words like "sobriquet," "malaise" and "plutocrat."
And I compare the Shaggs to Wittgenstein--
how cool is that?
Oh, you don't? I didn't think you would.
Aren't my references out of control? Sometimes I even stump myself,
but it's all in my book about rock and roll.

I wrote a book about rock and roll
I wrote a book about rock and roll
rock and roll is in my soul
so I wrote a book about rock and roll

hey yeah yeah, rock and roll

if you start doubting me
there's something you should see
take a look at these
thousands of CDs
no one has more than me
and I got all of them for free

Hey, thanks for the free CD, I can sell it at the store down the block
And don't be surprised if I say "kiss my ass"
that's how rock and rollers talk (like me)
but you better treat me right
'cause I'm mean and powerful
but you'll never be a reference in
my next book about rock and roll

I wrote a book about rock and roll
I wrote a book about rock and roll
rock and roll is wonderful
so I wrote a book about rock and roll

Your days of going through a phase
are finally lashing back at you
there's more to shut up and ignore
but there's even less and less to do
and there's nothing to say, and they're looking away
what have you got yourself into?

One little miss apprehension got you
now they're lining up around the block
to watch you screw yourself up
for this bitter cup, which pains you the most
when it's too late to say you're sorry
and pretend that it's a toast-- Naomi

You struggle with the reality myth
when you're talking on the tv screen
about choke chains and mary janes
in Seventeen Magazine
and you're thinking of your JC Penny lingerie
that nobody has ever seen

No one understands your comments
or why you're so obsessed with undergarments
from multi-cultured pearl to Glamour girl
took less than a day
and your Wonderbra world of Disney
was just a make-over away

Naomi, it's just a matter of time

What's that they're saying now?
Oh wow, she looks good in tears
that you can't allow
but now you haven't looked this young in years

You look sweet walking down the street
but no one's even slowing down
they can't decide, should they offer you a ride
or the head of Helen Gurley Brown

Naomi, it's just a matter of time.

You owe a lot to self-pity
it got you through your darkest days
and anybody looking at the record
would say you had a case
you never imagined
that you'd ever really make it through
and now that you have, you don't know what to do
the future has arrived, but where are you?

ooh wah ooh, I see you crying
ooh wah ooh, I hear you trying
though you've got it down to a science
self-pity won't help you now

look at yourself,
do you really believe
that the world needs to see
another aging enfant terrible?

Alienation makes the world go round
and as a fashion statement
it's absolutely sound
but you're not really an alian, as such
self-confidence makes you seem so out of touch
but self-pity seems like it's a bit too much

ooh wah ooh, looks like you blew it
ooh wah ooh, looks like you knew it
though you taught the world how to do it
self-pity won't help you now.

Any two other poeple just like me and you
never seem to go through half the trouble that we do

It's the end, over and over again
when did you first begin
to be so disappointed in everything?

Could you have always been this way?
Dead to the world, as some would say,
and in such perfect disarray?
Hey, Emily
there came a time to speak your mind
you said: "goodbye"
Emily, you say goodbye
but you're still here with me

No one knows what we're wanding toward
and I suppose ignorance is its own reward
but such a lot gets ignored

you've no idea of what I'd do,
bullets that I would take for you,
and what I'd let you put me through

Hey, Emily
you see the questions that arise
you close your eyes
Emily, you close your eyes
but you're still here with me,

and I always wonder, where do you pretend to be?

Hey, Emily
if you get called to testify
you'll say "goodbye"
Emily, you say goodbye
but you're still here with me.

This is no time or place to wake up
but there are things to do and space to take up
I'm in love with something I dreamed about
I'm in love, but it's not really there
I'm in love with something I said in a prayer.

Tomorrow is a harsh mistress
that I don't want to wake up to.
which I force myself to do
I guess I'm a harsh mistress, too.

I'm what you might call
the once and future nothing at all

I believe in something the cat dragged in
I believe but I think it's a crime
I believe in what tasted all right at the time

Tomorrow is a harsh mistress
but that won't matter anyhow
'cause I stayed in bed all day
who's the harsh mistress now?

Hey yeah, that's right
'cause yesterday took all night
that's right, you bet
yesterday's not over yet.

With each passing day, a world destroyed,
all the things I've worked so hard to avoid
the future's unwritten, so they say
and I'm just trying to keep it that way
OK? OK?

Tomorrow is a harsh mistress
that I don't want to wake up to
which I force myself to do
I guess I'm a harsh mistress, too.

I'm in love with something I dreamed about
I believe but it's not really there.
I'm in love with something I dreamed about
I'm in love but it's not really there.

Now there are two of us, instead of only one,
two times as many things get left half undone.
We're twice as half-asleep when the new day has begun
and maybe twice as on the run,
'cause some of them will still be making fun of us.
They'll say "the two of you will never be one of us."
But even if that's true,
they'll have twice as much to do
when there are two of us,
and one of them is you.

They'll find the two of us much harder to restrain,
outsmarted by our impressive double brain
If one of us runs dry, still another will remain,
and it's twice as hard to pull the chain
of two of us, against a ton of them:
but two of us outnumber every single one of them.
Two lives are semi-rough
with half the rent and twice the stuff.
There are two of us, and that should be enough.
Look at everybody.
Everybody's always
falling apart or breaking up.
But the two of us never will be one of those,
and I should know-- I have had a run of those
Our love's not guaranteed,
but it's growing like a weed.
There are two of us,
I think that's all we need.

Day 1 started out badly
Day 2 left me perplexed
I would have stopped at Day 3 gladly
but Day 4 came next

and as the days turn into weeks
and as the weeks turn into months
you start to turn into yourself
you only get to do it once
you close your eyes
you realize--

our days are numbered
our nights are, too
there were so many I could have spent with you
we got no credit for the full amount
our days were numbered
but they didn't count

Day 5 felt like it took ages
it seemed that Day 6 would never arrive
but when I looked up from turning the pages
it was Day 365

How did I miss another year?
and what will happen to the rest
as my days all disappear?
no one will process my request
to add a few to spend with you

Our days are numbered
they've always been
events have played out
they can't be pulled back in
some linger with you, some barely come to view
our days are numbered
and out of order, too

la la la

somehow it just occurred to me
I never thought of it before
you know I never thought I'd see
Day 12,034
sounds like a lot
but it's not
no it's not

TWe would always dream of things that we could never touch
and in the scheme of things we never mattered much
nobody knew what a nobody could do
so don't you feel so sad
when you think of the times
they've tried to tell you that you're no good
over and over again
we were no one then
but we're together so we're not no one now

And in this mad affair, they're onto us again
who never had a prayer of ever fitting in
we're nervous wrecks
we've got the world breathing down our necks
but your hair looks great, and that's the main thing
so come on down
the show has just begun
for two audiences of one
I'll be yours if you'll be mine
and we'll do just fine
because we're not no one now

I suppose no one knows where it all will lead
who will care, who we'll spare, how we're gonna plead
I don't know, I don't know where we're gonna fail
In their notes, down their throats, up against a wall?

because there's never ever gonna be enough time
to pay them back for what they did and said
soon the subjects will be dead
but who cares about them
'cause we're not no one now.

You've been spilling all over me
ever since I broke your seal
now you're seeping into my memory
and storming my Bastille
the world can see you fell for me
when I unscrewed your lid
'cause I'm the one who told you so
and you're the one who did

hey hey yeah yeah wo wo
re-active your heart

our entaglements and ties
of which we often spoke
they're attracted to us like flies
we drift away like smoke
if they steal our hearts, and other parts
it's only petty theft
but I lost track of all of them
and you're the one that's left.
hey hey yeah yeah wo wo
re-activate your heart

and I'm lost inside a dream
hooked up to your machine
when I hear you screaming:
darling, it's all right

there's someone you connect into
when all is said and done
it's unlikely to be you
so I must be the one

hey hey yeah yeah wo wo
re-activate your heart

Maybe the world has finally gone so wrong
it's taken all the pleasure out of being right
even ordinary things seem so far out of reach
that they are almost out of sight

so why propose worst case scenarios?
they seem to find ways to come true

we live in an imperfect world
that we must concede
and some things are impossible
take that as agreed
but getting some of what you want
and most of what you need?
perhaps, perhaps

Now that the endless march of bitterness has worn us out
it could be time to call a halt
sometimes even victims of injustice must admit
that something might have been their fault

all the same assigning all the blame
could take all the time in the world

and I don't have that kind of time, forever is a curse
and I don't want to be the ruler of the universe
but staying in a little world that won't get too much worse?
perhaps, perhaps.

"A world of our own" sounds so trite
but that's almost all right

the way I thought that it would be has vanished in the air
and most of it's impossible, and I don't really care
but reaching out for somebody who's actually there?
perhaps, perhaps.

Now you see it now you don't
things make sense, and then they won't
I can barely see across the bay

she's so distant and obscure
I can't escape from her
until I'm far enough away

and Alcatraz comes in and out of sight
and Alcatraz is flashing in the night
and I think of the one, a distant blur,
a piece of me still lodged in her
held prisoner - she's my Alcatraz

things I think I almost know
discontinued long ago
once occurred inside her walls

and I can't helping thinking of
harsh rituals of love
that no one quite recalls

but Alcatraz doesn't really care
and Alcatraz almost isn't there
but I think of the one, so dear to me
whose face I still can almost see
distantly --she's my Alcatraz

so un-together
under the weather
I can't make it out

and Alcatraz is a distant blur
so Alcatraz looks a lot like her
and I almost see her taking shape
and part of me still can't escape
nobody has - she's my Alcatraz

Baby, I love the way you be
everything you think I want you to be
but I can't deny, my heart keeps asking me
if she'll still feel the way she did before?
so I feel for you
and when I'm through
I feel for you once more

you feel like you feel like you felt it too
hey, you're as young as you feel
and you feel pretty young to me

Baby, when I lay beside you
in the still of the night
I can hear you sigh
and I'm hoping that you feel all right
I wonder how you're feeling now
(I think I thought about it once or twice)
so I feel for you
and when I do
you feel really nice

when the night is gone
I still feel you coming on
and I gotta tell you
how it feels to me appeals to me
I gotta try it every now and then
so I feel for you
and when I'm through
I feel for you again

Somehow after I got you
I got put in charge of making your dreams come true
well I'll see what I can do
but I can barely tie my shoe

going: maka-bam-pow, maka-bam-pow, maka-bam-pow
rama-ama-lam, wama-lama-barn
maka-bam-pow
we'll get by

You take care of holding our place
and I'll be in charge of not falling on my face
but try to catch me just in case

'cause: make-bam-pow...
we'll get by

and I've been spinning ever since
I've been in charge of making
everything all right

Somehow we slipped by
when the world was young
people like us were just left out to die
but evolution went awry

mmmm: maka-bam-pow...
we'll get by.