This Life - lyrics - Michael Mishaw: January 2010

1.27.2010

PERFECT ONE

I don’t know about this life

I can guess as much as you

If you feel you’re getting’ it right

Then I celebrate with you

Just don’t punish me tomorrow

‘Cause I try a different path

That you don’t understand

Let me have my joys and sorrows,

My own tears and my own laughs,

Not second hand, cause,

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

We have Buddah, Jesus, Allah, Neter, Eck and Dervishes

We have every kind of teacher, guru, starchild and prophet

Maybe some of them can help us

Maybe some of them can hurt, it’s tricky to tell

We have nothing, we have all things

We give everything its worth: my heaven, your hell

I can only tell you one thing:

My own history from birth

I know it so well, and,

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

Per-fect per-fect per-fect per-fect, per-fect per-fect per-fect per-fect

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

When it comes to life

Everyone’s searching for a perfect one

When we’ve come through life

Everyone wants to know their work is done

FRIEND AGAIN

New life, new reason for living

I thought the reasons were gone

I stepped out of line, I stepped on a friend

Before I knew I’d done wrong

She put me on hold for awhile

I thought it might be forever

Then she came back around with a smile

And now I’ll never say never

Never again

I got my friend today, I can begin today, life can be good

I got my friend again, we can begin again just as we should

What is joy? What is gladness?

I think I’m starting to know

It’s having a pal, a peer through this madness

To help you learn and to grow

If I think I see strings attached

I don’t care, they’re not ropes

I put my scissors away, they’re no match

For common threads of desire, for ties of hope

I got my friend today, I can begin today, life can be good

I got my friend again, we can begin again just as we should

I thought it ended when I got my friend again, who’d think I would?

I learned, by almost losing, what is my silver and gold

And somewhere I read that you can’t fear what you love with your soul

And those I hold precious I’ll keep

Through difference and disagreement

And when troubles arise I won’t sleep

Till we bury them in the cement, to never return!

I got my friend today, I can begin today, life can be good

I got my friend again, we can begin again just as we should

I thought it ended when I got my friend again, who’d think I would?

I got my friend again, so glad I’m in again, forgiveness is good

Friend….friend….friend….friend

MICKEY

Mickey has a problem that he cannot solve alone

He can fix it for an hour, then it comes back twice as strong

He takes obligations he can’t hope to satisfy

When I hear his explanation, why do I think it’s a lie?

I’ll do what I can do for him, I hope more help comes around

Maybe then he can stop letting me and other people down

I give him a ride, but we must stop on the way

Then his look starts begging pity; I’ve got nothing else to say

Finding him is futile, gets his number changed a lot

Then out of the blue he’ll call up all the anger I forgot

Well no doubt, it’s never boring, he always comes with a surprise

And there’s lots of truth just wrapped and wound up tight inside his lies

REFRAIN:

How you gonna fix it mickey? When you gonna fix it mickey?

How you gonna come back mickey? When you gonna come back mickey?

He keeps saying tomorrow, like the weather he will change

What’s the weatherman gonna do ‘bout today’s cold, wind and rain?

Why do I keep hoping? I know deep down he’s in pain

And below the pain is beauty that will never scar or stain

I wish I could wipe it all out, stop the world and start it again

‘Stead of standing by to watch him rushing toward a tragic end

Wonder if he knew it, that I loved him as my own?

He was out in another world looking for his way back home

He’s still takin’ the long road, makin’ detours left and right

But I guess the short way’s harder: gotta kick, scream, cry and fight

I can’t hold onto nobody that ain’t holdin’ onto me

Had to loose my grip, just let him go to see what he could see

REFRAIN:

How you gonna fix it mickey? When you gonna fix it mickey?

How you gonna come back mickey? When you gonna come back mickey?

How you gonna fix it mickey?

When you gonna fix it mickey?

Mickey when you gonna………fix it really?

How you gonna come back mickey?

When you gonna come back mickey?

Mickey when you gonna………come back really?

(repeat)

SCHEME OF THINGS

What do I do? How do I make a difference?

Where do I go to answer this inner insistence:

That I give something to insure

Some move towards a cure for this world’s ills?

I look to my heart, don’t know where to start

I don’t know my part in this scheme of things

What does it mean: old and young people homeless?

Where are their dreams? How did they come to this mess?

At a stoplight, I see in them myself

As I wonder how to help, the light turns green

I waiver in heart, don’t know where to start

I don’t know my part in this scheme of things

How do I choose between lose or misuse?

When there’s no answers, hints or clues?

Just chaos that confuses

The youth of today are skeptical of tomorrow

They can’t repay everything that we borrow

From the ground, the water, and the sky

Now we’re less afraid to die than we are to live

We’re weakened at heart, don’t know where to start

We don’t know our parts in this scheme of things

I look to my heart, don’t know where to start

I don’t know my part in this scheme of things

1.25.2010

WHY

And I thought I’d seek the answer to the questions we live

It never came to me

All around I’d go

And right back it threw me to:

Do we ever know what’s in store?

Do we ever know what it’s for?

And the changes kept coming at me as I whirled around

See a cat rolling in the dirt, eating grass contentedly

No thought or emotion for time to come or past

Just being in motion

He doesn’t want to know why he does

“Cause he barely knows that he does

And the changes keep coming at him as he twirls around

CHORUS I:

Oh, oh, oh why, why, why, why

Do the changes keep on coming as the planet’s hurled around?

Life is fun and rich at times

Yet at times life’s light and airy

It can be a bitch

Life can be real scary

It’s all that and it’s a:

Crippling fright to a crashing bore

It’s everything between, yet we reach for more

Still the changes will keep coming at us as we swirl around

CHORUS II:

Oh, oh, oh why, why, why, why

Do the changes keep on coming as the cosmos curls around?

CONSUMED BY YOU

You don’t know me like you think you do

Or like i thought so too…well, okay

If you want to, you can look and find

Some new part of my mind every day

Why guess my thoughts and deeds? that’s what you’ll expect

Just let me give them, let them be what they are, leave them to rest

When my presence you no longer need,

When you know what i’m going to do,

When my every movement’s guaranteed

I’ve been totally consumed by you

You don’t hear me when i talk to you

The style without the stuff hits your ear

Too much passion, you say, is in my voice

Although my words of choice are all clear

There’s a time to be tender, a time to be tough

I decide when i am reasonable, i choose when i’m rough!

When my voice you can no longer hear,

When i’ve nothing to say that’s new,

When i must walk and talk on eggs with fear,

I’ve been totally consumed by you

You don’t see me till i make mistakes

Then, once again, my face disappears

I’m a ghost now, haunting you day and night

No other way, not fright, to break clear

Trapped in a motal coil, i eat and i sleep,

Scream, shout, kick, flail, jump up and down

You look through me and can’t hear a peep!

When my face you can no longer see,

When there’s no more of me that’s new,

When you can have time with me absentee,

I’ve been totally consumed by you

ONE FIFTEEN

We talked and talked and talked and talked

And talked and talked and talked on the phone before

Then we met and talked and talked and talked

And talked and talked and talked and talked some more

Then he came!

Damn! All that for this dead gun?

Shoulda quit while I was bored, ho hum….

Now he waits, I take my turn, I come

But it’s not clear where I’m coming from

Then he gets up, washes, zips and ties,

And dressed, he says, “You’ve got my info,

“I might be coming back to your town soon.”

Then he leaves –

la la la la la-la

La la la-la la la la la laaaa

Then I sleep –

la la la la la-la

La la la-la la la la la laaaa

No one eats –

la la la la la-la

La la la-la la la la la laaaa

La la la la la la la la-la

La la la-la la la la la laaaa

TOO BAD

I let you let me down

I watched myself go down

Now I don’t expect

To ever see you come back around

We did the preliminaries

We made the game extra hard

And then ended up where you wanted all along

Your back yard

We ate at a restaurant

We walked though the old town

And when we got here

It was clear what was gonna go down

Another big mistake

Another failed moment

Taking what I didn’t want

Going where I never meant

REFRAIN:

Too bad, too bad you don’t want love too bad

Too bad, too bad that I want love too bad

Your face is so beautiful

But past that I’m mystified

What’s down below?

I need to know if there’s something inside

It’s money and things you love

This little I can see

And having your way

With simple, love-sick suckers like me

You turned on so strong, so fast

I wanted to run away

You’re like a vampire

Or the devil himself out to play

You’re not the lonely model

That no one thinks they can approach

You’re just someone who has a choice

And chooses not to get close

(REPEAT REFRAIN)

HOPE FOR THE WORLD

No good news, nothing bad can shock him anymore
Anyone not just on the take to wake his old faith for
All the kings who’ve come and gone
Pledges breached once on the throne
And the ones who cared are silent, scared, dead or alone
He has no hope

No hope for the world, no belief in any other to come
No hope for the world, no relief till death’s oblivion

He’s a champion of man’s peace and enlightenment
If we’ve gone to the moon, he says, we can disarm armaments
Catch our hearts up with our brains
So our thoughts and works wax sane
Build a bridge of trust to “them” who are “us” with different names
He still has hope

Still hope for the world, still belief in the good in everyone
Still hope for the world, that one day we’ll come together as one

Over there, ‘cross the river styx awaits his goal
Out of space, out of chronos, kyros, homeland of the soul
But for now chant, meditate,
Pray and plod through this world’s weight
He’s deferred his bliss ‘cause hope for this world is too late
He has no hope

No hope for the world, yet belief in a new one to come
Whose inhabitants will be salvaged from the present one
Hope for the world, yet belief in a new one to come
Whose inhabitants will be salved from the present one…
(repeat twice)
Hope for the world, yet belief in a new one to come……