Going out in cars to find
Whatever drives the artists mad

Leaving all we had and
Leaving all we had to give behind

Leaving brushstrokes on a canvas
With a paint that never dries
Hoping only that the better parts
Will flash before our eyes before we're
Off again
On a whim

Going out in cars at night
To have a highway to ourselves

No we haven't got a map
We're only going somewhere else

And all the things we've yet to see
Become the things we left behind
It's worth it just to see that blur
We'd rather travel than arrive

No we haven't got a map
And no we haven't got a plan
But we're content to have our friends
and some vague picture of the end
That may well tear us all to shreds

And though we really were content
We found we felt far more than that
Going out in cars with paint, if
there's no way we'll take the one that we invent
we never seemed that far away
From what was falling into place
Or from a fireplace and beds
where we could rest our noisy heads before we're
Off again
On a whim
Leaving all we had
The goodbyes were sad




Had we been standing still instead
Had we been hiding from the rain

Had we been lying in
What passes for a home when we're afraid

Could we have been content?
With having years and years instead
And trying not to hear the
restless, reckless parts inside our heads

Perhaps not yet

Imagine when the noise is dim
We open up the curtains just to
find an unexpected and unwelcome
lack of anything behind them.

Perhaps not yet

But I imagine on my deathbed
I'd confess:

I never felt the change

And so we're
Off again
On a whim

And though it's only my best guess
I think what drove them mad was this:

How do you find yourself if you're always somewhere else?

I heard a story once
About a man who lost his sight

For three days

He watched the lights go out
Of everything he knew

You should've seen the look on his face

When they returned to chase away
The things that he'd imagined in their place

None of it was true
None of it was true

He watched the lights go out
Of everything he knew

But none of it was true


I think the reason that it stuck with me
Is that I envied him in a way
I wonder if he's ever had to sleep
With all the lights on just in case

Would he still be afraid?
Would he still be afraid?

And am I anything like him?
Staying up late, mind racing

Hands stained with paint
Hoping the colours don't fade


You should've seen the look on his face
You should've seen the look on his face

He watched the lights go out
Of everything he knew

But none of it was true

We Haven't Found an Anchor Yet (But This'll Have to Do)



...

Tear the clock off the wall
We'll say we invented
A world where time passes
The way it was meant to


We'll build it out of bottlecaps
Or cadences of songs
That were sung a long long time ago
And will be sung long after
We're all gone

It was good to sing along

Or build it out of unmade beds
Or scratches on the walls
Or the things we said before
We went to bed and
All the parts we can't recall

I know I loved it all


Our hearts are still red
And the walls are still white
And we haven't got a map
But we've got all night

The sky may turn black
But the ocean's still blue
We haven't found an anchor yet
But this'll have to do


Tear the clock off the wall
We'll say we invented
A world where time passes
The way it was meant to

Throw yourself to the wind
Let it take us wherever it will
We've hours and pages
and glasses to fill



Art for Aeroplanes



It was something, it had to be
something about the sound
The wind chimes made
That reminded me

Below flickering shapes
of the last silhouettes of the leaves
in trees in autumn yards we
made our way through

The melody was
Aimless and the
Cadence never came
So much different than the
Saddest thing
A symphony could play

Like the sounds from our childhood
Resolved into a wordless hum
We understood


It was something, perhaps
A particular way that the light
Hit the street
That reminded me

Connecting the dots
On those stumbling walks between
Softer parts of mid December's
Muddy sting

It had rained and made those
multi coloured
columns on the ground
We went walking down the middle
there was
No one else around

I think I felt the way we did
In all our favorite hiding spots
When we were kids


It was gone in an instant
It was gone in an instant
And so were we
We had places to be


Afternoon's grid
Of jet trails overhead
Looked nothing like the lines we would've left
Had we spilled paint behind us
Everywhere we threw ourselves
When that high sun had set

Not sure what we're looking for
If anything at all

Something that we've seen before?
Something that we lost?

Or maybe this is it, for all we know

The light was bright, we turned away
And the bits of it that stayed
Looked something like the softly focused
Half remembered shape of things
From sun baked roads so long ago
On rainy days

Not sure what we're looking for
If anything at all

Something that we've seen before?
Something that we lost?

Maybe this is it, all I know is
If our faces showed a little of the lights inside our heads
We put on quite a show

And so
One more for the road



One Thousand Little Rooms



We've left our shoes
By the doors of a thousand places
Much like this one
Before

I've seen those colours
In the eyes of a thousand faces
Much like yours
And yours and yours and yours

Marilee is pounding the keys of
A piano all covered in ash
Below bottles in a row on a windowsill
With paint stains on the glass
Paint stains on the glass


I think we're made up of
Sparsely scattered instances
In places
In time

Like shapes of cities at night
Are but a million filaments
Of incandescent light

Marilee still pounding the keys of
A piano all covered in ash
Below bottles in a row on a windowsill
With paint stains on the glass

And our conversation fell
And our conversation rose
And our conversation fell
And our conversation rose
And all the things we had to say
Overlapped the notes to make a space
Your restless island souls could call a coast


One thousand little rooms
Where we light our little fires at night
Are like the places in our lives and inside our minds
The way the shape of the city is a million lights
From little rooms where we light our little fires at night
Are like the places in our lives and inside our minds
The way the shape of the city is a million lights
From little rooms where we light our little fires at night
Are like the places in our lives and inside our minds
The way the shape of the city is a million lights
The little rooms where we light our little fires

Are what we call our home tonight
Are what we call our home tonight
Are what we call our home tonight
Are what we call our home tonight



Farewell Fires & Flying Machines



That night you brought a camera
That night your hands shook, but
It was the closest that you ever came, I'd say
To how it really looked

That night you wore a sweater
You left it lying on the floor
The folds I traced with tired eyes like some old map with lines that led to
Places we'd forgotten things before

So throw your paint on every wall
Illustrate the cadences of our favorite songs
Give them a shape
They're prone to fade away

We still had lights behind our eyelids
Long after we'd all gone to bed
I'd love to save them but I've never been a painter
And so I write it down instead

And I'll fill one thousand pages
I'll write whatever comes to mind
And on the day I find myself one thousand miles away
Perhaps a part of me will still exist behind

So throw your paint on every wall
Illustrate the cadences of our favorite songs
While I'm describing fleeting dreams
Of faces, streets, and wine
We'll make them real

Oh, but what colour was that fire anyways, my dear?


When I leave I'm going very far away
When I leave I'm going very far away

When I leave I'm going very far away
I don't want to see your colours fade
When I leave I'm going very far away
I don't want to see your colours fade

I don't want to see you
Looking like those grey remains
Of last night's farewell fires
Waiting to be swept away

So throw your paint on every wall
Illustrate the cadence of our favorite song
Each and every brightly coloured, tired eye
We'll leave a mark at all
The highest spots we rise

There are things which have no shape



While We're All Still Here**



We hid away in places
No one else would ever think to look
Imagined that the things we said
Were inked and set in pages
Of some great book

Well in a way they were
I think
Although we'll never know
Quite how the whole thing ends

When the sun begins to rise
When all our lines are said
When, someday this moment's passed us by
The way we seem to pass our shadows
As we're passed by cars at night

Will we see pages?
Looking like familiar flags
Will we see them through Old Eyes?

It was hand on heart
It was heart on sleeve
Impossible to miss, but
It was hard to believe
It was staring at the sun
It was stumbling blind
It was a place
It was a time
It was hard to define
It was the sum of all our footprints
And the paint we may have spilled
It was a little like a blueprint
Of a thing we'd planned to build
It was the times we had to whisper
And the things we had to shout
It was the candle that we lit
To see the last one burning out
It was hazy
It was aimless
It was staying the course
It was a weighty affair
With direction and force
It was a world that we built
Out of bits of thin air
It was bent light in a parting glass we've yet to share

We're all still here


There will come a day
When the sky goes dark with
Aeroplanes, angels, and black clouds

But we're still here
For now

There will come a day
When the sky goes dark with
Aeroplanes, angels, and black clouds

But we're still here
For now

...