1. |
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She says, “This time it will be different.
This time you'll be fine.
If you just take me, I'll be your friend,
and make everything all right.”
And it's not that I really want her,
but I can't say I don't
I let her in cos she's my friend
who's always there when I'm alone
I let her in out of habit
I let her in cos I'm bored
When I take her down and give her a spin,
in my mind she's pirouetting down the drain,
but when I look, it's my glass that she's found.
And every morning I feel the pain
I wish that I could pour her down the drain,
but it's so hard each night she comes around.
And she's pulling me, pulling me down.
And maybe I went off the deep end,
never tried to swim back up,
just flailed my arms and legs a bit,
and then decided just to float
Cos I had a blind date set with Temperance,
but I never showed
Cos my old friend, she called me again,
and said, “Meet me up the road”
She'll give you what you want until you kick her out the door
She'll give you what you want until you don't want it no more
She'll give you what you wanted til you're crawling to her on the floor
She'll give you what you wanted til you want it baby,
And she's got me.
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2. |
Never Satisfied
04:00
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I'm starting to wonder if others more readily accept
They're so easily pacified
Cos I'm starting to learn that I will never be content
I'll never be satisfied
I've seen and had, hurt and lost,
I'm thirsty and I wanna drink it down
I've come and gone, been found and lost,
I've been, now I want a new town
And I say…
I know I've see much more than many have
But when I go to bed, I dream I'll wake
In someplace far away from here
And say, “I'm one day closer to being free.”
I'm starting to feel the booze take its hold
The booze that they feed me
Yeah the booze that I feed me
And I gotta get out
cos I got this fear, not of growing old,
but of ceasing to be.
Yeah I am ceasing to be.
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3. |
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Been smoking too much,
and waiting my by window for you to call
Thought I could have it all,
but now the rug's been pulled out from under me,
you're all I got to hold onto
Cos I've been living these years
hanging by a thread of nights of nostalgia
Thought they'd get me there,
but now I know,
I'm not going back to Liverpool
I'm not going back, says a note I got in the post today.
I'm not going back to Liverpool,
so I guess I'll have to try again,
some other time, some other way
Hope you know that I
would have wanted to stay with you while I was gone
Call me naïve,
but all I ever wanted was a song to sing
and someone to sing it to
But I've been living these years
hanging by a thread of nights of nostalgia
Thought they'd keep me warm,
but now I know
I'm not going back to Liverpool
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4. |
Not Alone
04:23
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When you wake every morning,
only wanting for the night to come,
with hopes that you can do it better next time,
Take comfort in knowing
that we're all hurting, except for those of us
who haven't had the chance to live enough yet
To live is to love,
to love is to hurt
to hurt is to learn
That you're not alone when your light's gone out,
and all your happiness has turned to doubt,
and you turn and say,
“I don't think I can do this anymore.”
You're not alone when you've lost your fight,
scared to death of a wasted life,
and you're afraid, you're terrified, but you can make it.
You're not alone.
Yeah I've felt it plenty,
that I've wasted my twenties on trying to find
the youth that somehow got left behind
Each day keeps compounding,
the throb in my head resounding, but there's things in life
I know I'm not ready to give up yet
The more I try to fix things wrong with me,
the more I seem to find about myself that I don't like
You're not along when all you see is dark,
the touch of hopelessness has left its mark
that won't seem to fade
But I know we can make it.
You're not alone.
Lift your head and say,
“I know we can make it.”
To live is to love,
is to hurt,
is to learn that.
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5. |
To Be Alive
03:58
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It's been too long with my head hung down,
or since I've felt at all like myself
But I just can't seem to get over things,
or figure out what's bringing me down
But it's not too late
I have to wait, and keep trying
I'm tired of being tired
And I'm tired of myself,
tired of needing help,
But I've decided I'll keep trying,
and with the love I have,
I'll dig myself out of this hole
Was losing hope, I was falling down,
but a stranger's kindness picked me up
Sometimes that's all it takes to know
that there's hope and things can turn around
and that it's not too late.
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Val Bauer Portland, Oregon
From Portland, Oregon, Val Bauer writes songs of earnest confessionalism, following in the songwriter tradition but built on a pop-punk foundation. Val's music is about the struggle, but also the optimism that it's possible to not have to accept what's given us; that we're all fighting the same fight, and that we're not alone. ... more
Val Bauer recommends:
Friends and fabulous artists.
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