If I'm lucky enough, I'll see fogs lift with suns
As we roll to play a show in Carolina, Oklahoma, or Chicago
I'll grow to know the road to home in places far away
Wrinkled, bald, and beat to shit, to never waste a day
Enough people will hate me that I know I did it right
But to never meet a human being that I say that I don't like
Let me learn the hard way and cut it close sometimes
That youth is the attic chest where every lesson lies
I'll have some kids and teach them that we are all the same
Sufferin', smilin', silhouettes of every passin' day

The love I have will always be something my friends yearn
My memories were never cheap and never easy earned
I hope to choke on jack and coke in a bar during a northern winter
On a night the band was tight and right as rooftop lights flicker
If I'm lucky enough, I'll understand losing someone close
I'll clench my teeth on New Year's Eve and try to talk to ghosts
I'll stumble through a market on a Sunday day in June
Smell the salt and asphalt on a Sunday afternoon

I reckon I'd be lucky if I made it half as far
To only die on hills that are closest to my heart
If I'm lucky enough, notebooks will be strewn across my room
Or play catch on green grass with spring time flower bloom

If I'm lucky enough, I'll tell the truth every chance I get
'Cause smiles faked to appease another is worth ten regrets
If I'm lucky enough, I will get through hard things
And they will make me gentle to the ways of the world
If I'm lucky enough, I'll have the courage to leave and go
Wherever my beatin' heart tells me to go

If I'm lucky enough, I'll get high and invite a guitar player over
And he'll play sweet notes until a New York City rooftop sun rises
I'll meet some kids in school that still know how to play instruments
If I'm lucky enough, I'll make it exactly to where I'm taking this breath now
Lay my head upon the Earth and laugh at passing clouds
If I'm lucky enough, I'll remember the shaky things we've seen
Grab your beer through tears and fears, the great American bar scene

"You settle in to routine / Where are you? What does it mean?” - Northern Attitude

"Write me a list of how it is, of how it was, of how it has to be / You burrowed in under my skin, what I'd give to have you out for me" - All My Love

"Don't you know there's a coffin buried under the garden? / Was there when we got here, will be there when we leave" ... "Don't you know there's a coffin buried under the garden? / Was there when we got here, will be there when we leave" - Come Over

"Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it."

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

You come along. . .tearing your shirt. . .yelling about Jesus. Where do you get that stuff? What do you know about Jesus? Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem everybody liked to have this Jesus around because he never made any fake passes and everything he said went and he helped the sick and gave the people hope.

You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips. . .always blabbing we’re all going to hell straight off and you know all about it.

I’ve read Jesus’ words. I know what he said. You don’t throw any scare into me. I’ve got your number. I know how much you know about Jesus. He never came near clean people or dirty people but they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out of the running.

I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men now lined up with you paying your way.

This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands wherever he passed along. You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who lived a clean life in Galilee.

When are you going to quit making the carpenters build emergency hospitals for women and girls driven crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about Jesus—I put it to you again: Where do you get that stuff; what do you know about Jesus?

Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn’t for the way you scare the women and kids I’d feel sorry for you and pass the hat. I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors. I like a man that’s got nerve and can pull off a great original performance, but you—you’re only a bug-house peddler of second-hand gospel—you’re only shoving out a phony imitation of the goods this Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.

You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions in the skies after they’re dead and the worms have eaten ‘em. You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross and he’ll be all right.

You tell poor people they don’t need any more money on pay day and even if it’s fierce to be out of a job, Jesus’ll fix that up all right, all right—all they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say. I’m telling you Jesus wouldn’t stand for the stuff you’re handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn’t play their game. He didn’t sit in with the big thieves.

I don’t want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion. I won’t take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory except the face of the woman on the American silver dollar.

I ask you to come through and show me where you’re pouring out the blood of your life.

I’ve been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha, where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is straight it was real blood ran from His hands and the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.

This guy’s walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can’t get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, “Hey you, can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up “Father, I’m down in this hole, can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. “Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A storm descends on a small town, and the downpour soon turns into a flood. As the waters rise, the local preacher kneels in prayer on the church porch, surrounded by water. By and by, one of the townsfolk comes up the street in a canoe.
"Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast."
"No," says the preacher. "I have faith in the Lord. He will save me."
Still the waters rise. Now the preacher is up on the balcony, wringing his hands in supplication, when another guy zips up in a motorboat.
"Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee's gonna break any minute."
Once again, the preacher is unmoved. "I shall remain. The Lord will see me through."
After a while the levee breaks, and the flood rushes over the church until only the steeple remains above water. The preacher is up there, clinging to the cross, when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and a state trooper calls down to him through a megaphone.
"Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance."
Once again, the preacher insists the Lord will deliver him.
And, predictably, he drowns.
A pious man, the preacher goes to heaven. After a while he gets an interview with God, and he asks the Almighty, "Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. Why didn't you deliver me from that flood?"
God shakes his head. "What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter."

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and he started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
All colors was what he saw
And the teacher said, "What you doing young man?"
"I'm painting flowers, " he said
She said, "It's not the time for art young man
And anyway, flowers are green and red

There's a time for everything young man
A way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one"

And she said, "Flowers are red young man
And green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen"

But the little boy said
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in a flower
And I see every one

Well the teacher said, "You're sassy
There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me"

And she said, "Flowers are red young man
And green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen"

But the little boy said
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in a flower
And I see every one

Well the teacher put him in a corner
She said, "It's for your own good
And you won't come out till you get it right
In responding like you should"

Well finally he got lonely
And frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to that teacher
And this is what he said

And he said, "Flowers are red
And green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen"

Of course time went by like it always does
They moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found

The teacher there was smiling
She said, "Paintings should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one"

But that little boy painted flowers
In the hues of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said

And he said, "Flowers are red
And green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen"

But there still must be a way to have our children say
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in a flower
And I see every one