Diana
© 2012 Wes Collins

Climb on hold tight, let go don't fight it
Slide on down to the pool
The water's brown but it's cool and you probably won't die
We won't point and tell your boyfriend
Never swam till today
You jumped in anyway, came up shaking and I

I stood off to one side
Watched that trophy girl glide
Off your shoulders, into the woods and gone and I swear
It was hard not to stare
There in her place not seven feet in front of me
You turned around and caught me looking
Am I the only one who saw it

Diana turn your face away
Every time I try to tell you what I mean my thread begins to fray
I'm gonna try and work it out that I
I been round a while
I seen what you show but never who you are

Someone steer me, I can't hear me
I'll describe what I've seen
You tell me what I mean, I don't know anymore
You shook off that disguise
Burned a ring in my eyes
Tore away all my language and nerve from my tongue
There's no air in my lungs
And the only one I want to tell what happened to me’s
Standing right in front of me
Worried for my sanity

Diana, what I've got to say
I'm as apt to get it right as flap my scrawny arms and fly away
Cuz I'm afraid that if I say it plain
We can't start again
Let me put it this way

I looked up at you and saw a constellation
Is this some kind of prayer or just a conversation?

Diana, look at me again
I can't be your friend anymore
Might be easier for us
To keep it how it was
You could go that way
It's too late for me
I know who you are

Chasing Hallelujah
© 2012 Wes Collins

Feet on the floor
Get my slippers on
Try to line them up by feel
And run my finger round my heel
I pick 'em up
Put 'em down again
And the way it looks right now
I can't begin to work out how I'll ever

Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Somehow someway
Finding my way to the
Ah la la de day, singing hallelujah
Ah la la de day...

Get it in gear
Try to navigate
Around those pointy little toys
Put there so carefully
Along the hall
I kill the overhead
And I’m just steering for that blinker
Like a lighthouse on my coffeemaker

Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Somehow someway
Finding my way to the
Ah la la de day, singing hallelujah
Ah la la de day...

And now I hear them waking up
Yanking us into our day
Chair tells me it’s way too early
But my feet show me the way

I pick 'em up
Put 'em down again
That routine can run you blind
But if I ever need reminding
After bedtime
Peek around the door
And if I don't mind the clock
I lose an hour of sleep just looking at them

Ah la la de day, chasing hallelujah
Somehow someway
Finding my way to the
Ah la la de day, singing hallelujah
Ah la la de day...

Poor Little Sausage
© 2012 Wes Collins

I been through the grinder more than a time or two
Can’t cut no mustard I ain’t no good to you
What do you want a poor little sausage to do

You called me last night and said I got to see my sugar daddy
I hopped in my ride and drove all the way from Cincinnati
Now I’m hanging in the kitchen with all the other patties

Bridge:
You got me on that hook
You don’t even like to cook
Why don’t you mail back me my heart
Next time you clean out your pocketbook

Now the kitchen’s all smoky, you won’t get off the phone
Casing popped open and all my juice is gone
I’m just a poor little sausage got left on the grill too long

Come Around
© Wes Collins 2012

It isn’t like I don’t remember
Wouldn’t kill me to forget
Seven squares of white linoleum
From the window to the bed

You were out in front of the pain
And I couldn’t catch your eye
From the back of the chorus
Gathered round to say goodbye

The filter on the common window
Only let the sick light in
Chicken wire inside the glass
Saw that nothing got back out again

Kissed your forehead and whispered I’d see you
On the other side
Left my tears on your face and
Took a good long look so why am I looking for you

Everywhere
Might as well be sitting by your bed
Expecting you to come around

I thought I was inoculated
Dug in good against the grain but
Every time I dial your number
I

Guess I might have picked up a touch of
What’s been going round
Lost my bearings, the tide came in
And never went back out, and now I see you

Everywhere, just one layer down
I know you’re tied up right now
But I can set the table
Just in case you get the urge to come around

Come around

Waiting
© 2012 Wes Collins

This patch I been tilling, ain't nothing'll grow
You tell me what I'm doing wrong and then we'll both know
I got nothing left to give up to this land
My hands on this post and my head on my hands

Seems like the good done wicked out of this ground
The centipedes still like me, they stuck around

Livvie told me I ought to rotate them beans
Try putting some okra or corn in between
I let that fall by the last planting or two
But I done everything else she ever asked me to do

Busting my knuckles up year after year
Starting to come to me, why I’m still here

See, I'm waiting
Waiting to see
It’s on the horizon
Coming to get me
I couldn't tell you
Can't make it come clear
But something's gonna happen
And I aim to be here

Last time I had any company it was half of the town
Drank some coffee, sang some hymns and put Livvie in the ground
Sharpened up my tools and took it out on the dirt
I ground myself down and I liked how it hurt

I don't have many days piled up in front of me
I reckon I'll tick 'em off just like I please

Starting to think I’m gonna run out of time
My body is trying to fold up but I'm

Gonna make it
Never you fear
Who am I talking to?
There's no one but me here
The thing about waiting
And paying attention and living to suffer is
I get the feeling
It's just about
Over
And I’m waiting

This Is Then
© 2012 Wes Collins

Hey, there's that bag beside your feet
And there's your cab across the street
Right on time, your mama's on the phone

I tune you out, that's what you say
I miss the rest, but that’s okay
I've heard it all before ya know, we're over and you're done

And now we're coming to the part
Where I lied or something and broke your heart
And took away the best years of your life

You would have given me the moon
You really thought I'd change my tune
But that was then, you tell me, “son you just lost you a wife”

Yeah that was then
This is then too
I been round and round and round this thing with you
If this hand plays out like it always does
Then this is every bit as then as that was

And every time you get like this
You yank out that old laundry list
Of reasons why I’m driving you away

You used to see around that stuff
You were in love, that was enough
To see me as the kind of guy I ain't, but hey

That was then
This is then too
Believe you're leaving all you want to, hey, it might even be true
You go on and have a time if that’s the way you’re gonna be
But when you're done playing pretend you come on back to me

BRIDGE
Just wait a second while the taxi calls the depot
He don't care, I’m gonna pay him for his time
Think about the words I whispered fifteen years ago
Remember how I said I'd love you til I die

That was then
This is then too
Only difference is I might be more in love with you
We gone leaner than this and we come out fine
Come here baby, sit with me and be my valentine

Drive All Night
© 1999 Jamie Anderson and © 2012 Wes Collins

I like how the steering wheel is firm under my hand
I like how the headlights cut across the shadowland
I like how your voice is low and breathless in my ear
I like that it’s cold outside and warm in here

Surrounded by this highway
We’re at the speed of light
Baby let’s drive all night

I like the sound of the wheels against the road
I like how you can’t seem to keep your hands off the radio
I like how your features soften in the dashboard glow
I like how your body settles underneath your clothes

Surrounded by this highway
We’re at the speed of light
Baby let’s drive all night

Your hand on my shoulder
Then slides up through my hair
We are rushing forward
I’ll take you anywhere

When That Happens
© Wes Collins 2012

The morning light is ugly through my eyelids
Something keeps landing on my ear
The bowling shirt with someone else's name above the pocket
Like to cut me clean in half the way it's riding way up here

Sunlight bleaches the TV makes it hard to see the preacher
I've got to get some curtains for this place
The bottle cuts a sundial on the table
Still a little left I didn't pour into my face

And I like it when that happens
It's not the freshest start but it'll do
This ought to be enough to get me over
I can start right in forgetting you

Every couple of days I make it all the way around the clock
I don't get up to eat or even move
Some folks I used to hang out with are getting a little worried
Worried or pissed off I kind of doubt that they approve

But I kind of like it when that happens
When the evening comes around before I do
It takes some getting used to eating breakfast in the dark
But we both get a break, me and you

Me and you, we never should've happened
You were quicker working that one out than I could ever be
Been tutoring myself here undercover
It hasn't sunk in yet, but it will eventually

And I like it when that happens
It settles into stuff that I can see
Cigarettes and magazines and ass prints on the sofa
Haul it up and shake it of me
Leave them there and find a place to be

This Room
© 2012 Wes Collins

Can we get started without pulling your team in?
If you’re not angry, then why are you screaming?

If we could take it down a notch or two tonight
Then I could kid myself we’re only having a fight

I’m not listening, but I understand you
You can’t carry what I hand you

So we can inventory everything we’re not
Or we can torch this thing and then see what we got

I been ducking the blame so long it hadn’t even occurred to me
I don’t know what you’re talking about
But if we lay a blanket out under the canopy
Then I bet we could figure it out

I outran my luck, it caught me napping
If it sounds like I made it up, then that’s what happened
I can’t let you know how bad I want it back
I think you’d rather pull that string at the top of the sack

We been locked in this room for so long we gone grey
But maybe that door opens out the other way

Whatever I say I’ll never admit that you got to me
But all I want is to go for your hand
I know you’re afraid, you’d have to be an idiot not to be
But it’s the end of the day and here I am

Rabbit Hole
© 2012 Wes Collins

Light the fuse and walk away
Dominos will fall your way, it’s automatic
Whistle round the house all day
Mushrooms sprouting everywhere in the attic

Buzzing thoughts are caught in amber
All the fights you don’t remember
Something I was gonna tell you
Forgot to write it down and now it’s gone

Trouble seems to come in twos
Check the bottoms of your shoes, there’s your warning
Find a way to make it pay
Writing off another day every morning

Bees in my head have got no stingers
I think I found them in my fingers
Numb me up they’re all around me

I let it go
I’m going in
I get that vertigo again
I’m headed

Straight down the rabbit hole
The shortest path down the slippery slope
Straight down the rabbit hole
I can hang myself with the tiniest rope

This is what I get for concentrating
Black and white and grey and grey and grey and

Numb me up, they’re all around me

I tune ‘em out
It doesn’t show
I meet your eyes
You’d never know

Cover Me Jesus
© 1988 April Goodman and Michael Reynolds

I have been wandering here as a stranger
Through many dark valleys I’ve crawled on my knees
But when I am weary, my burden too heavy
My spirit cries Jesus Come Cover Me

Cover me Jesus Lift up my eyes
And when I am drowning hold back the tide
And when I cross over stand by my side

My heart grows fearful in these days of trouble
Death and destruction are all I can see
But do not forsake me dear Lord or forget me
But hear my cry Jesus and come cover me