Get all 146 Bill White releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of State of the Heart 4, Human Music, radio art -sightlines, Songs for Kelly, Footprints, Brothers and Sisters, BROTHERS, SISTERS, and 138 more.
1. |
Children Live the Fear
04:28
|
|||
Stay away from the playground
Where the grown ups play
Trauma and anxiety is the order of their day
But children integrate
Imaginatio and reality
I am a child I live the fear
Whether far Or whether it's near
I climb the rocks I fish the stream
Sometimes awake Sometimes in dream
But I'm not afraid of tomorrow
It's already here
Saturday afternoons at the movies
Children live the fear
We get frightened at the movies
We swim through the drills at school
We try to come up for air
But are chained to the base of the pool
Insects getting bigger People getting smaller
Im running up the aisle to the snack bar and I holler
If it wasn't for the monsters on the screen
I'd die of fright from reality
Grownups are afraid of alien invasion
While every day they swallow or inhale
Invisible creatures who would consume them
Had they the power to utterly assail
But I'm not afraid of mutation
Or of crossing the final frontier
Adults have no cushion to soften the blow
While children are living the fear
I'm in bed staring at the window
It was cloudy now the stars are clear
Why should I fear the end of the world
Dracula is already here
|
||||
2. |
The Do-It Club
03:05
|
|||
chorus We called ourselves the Do It Club
But the locals called us rinks
The girls we kissed in the commons
Scorned us on Newberry Street
I didnt kill Kennedy
I didnt kill Kennedy
I didnt kill Kennedy
Of course you didnt kill me.
I'm not dead.
Fuck you ,man.
We are all dead,
In those happy days of you
i was a pimp and you were a whore
what a jolly time we had
life was good and we were bad
but those happy days of yore
Are never to come no more
Why do you have to leave the party so soon?
Do you have an AA meeting?
No. I have to drive a truck to, Ohio
Wow. really? You're a truck driver?
Yeah, and I have to make the whole trip in one room.
What?
Yeah, and I must be at the theatre by six.
what would you do
if i snuck into your room
and stole the cupcakes
hidden under your bed?
you couldnt tell mama
because you stole them from grandma
who received them from mama
as a happy day gift
i think these two years of therapy have done you some good.
Two years? It seems more like two hours.
Life goes by quickly when you are under hypnosis.
repeat chorus
Do you want to play a song with me?
No.I am embarassed by emotion.
It is not emotion. It is volume.
I dont feel emotion when I sing.
It just seems that way because I have a loud voice.
Oh for the days of no regret
when i seduced you on a bet
you hate me now i love you yet
and bless the rueful day we met
when i seduced you on a bet
such were the days of no regret
|
||||
3. |
||||
I was killing time at the disco bar
Drinking club soda out of a fruit jar
When a woman on the stool next to me
and asked if I was a radio star
I wanted to wince but instead I grinned
and said I made a record once
But it went straight to the bargain bin
If she wanted a copy she could get one for a quarter on EBay
She said that's good enough for me
You might be able to pass for a celebrity
And you can escort me to the VIP room
So I showed the bartender my music union ID
And asked him if he recognized me
He said theres a good possibility
Didnt you sing at the WGBH ice cream festivities?
I said that was me and he lowered the rope
and we descended the stairs to a land beyond hope
After we went through the door
she didnt want to be with me no more
She made a run to the corner where the food was on the trays
And Peter Gabriel was scarfing up the crudite
Elvis costello and roger Mcguinn
Were singing Blowin in the Wind
And I plopped myself down
between Grace Jones and Eartha Kitt
Somebody gave me a pink armband
someone else put a long tall drink in my hand
I felt like a flower that forgot to bloom
In the loneliness of the VIP Room
The hours were passing painful and slow
I would have left but there was nowhere to go
Earthy turned to me and winked her eye
grabbed the inside of my thigh
and said its time for Grace and I to make our appearance
Would you be so kind to run interference?
I didnt really know just what to say
So I stood up and walked away
Then I got into an argument with Sting
Who punched me when I said jazz wasnt his thing
I felt like Dylan's Mr Jones
When in walked two of the Rollling Stones
I think it was Keith who helped me to my feet
But it might have been his brother from Alphabet Street
Things were looking brighte, then boom boom boom
Sting got me evicted from the VIP Room
Now Im back in my old skin
Drinking soda water at the bar again
Grace is flying around the room like a bat
Kitt us pulling monkey men out of a hat
And all of the common people like me
Are basking in the presence of celebrities
But Im still feeling the loneliness of the nobody
in the room where everyone else is somebody
Id rather spend my life singing the blues
Then have my dreams come true in the loneliness of the VIP room
|
||||
4. |
Vacate the Space
03:51
|
|||
When i vacate this space
I pray somebody better will fill it
|
||||
5. |
All these Witches
03:13
|
|||
Worms on their fingers And slugs in their toes
Cockroaches follow Wherever they go
If give up the world with all of its riches
To reverse the curses of all these witches
I threw the coconut into the sea
Burned all the pictures of my mama and me
My rash went away but my ass still itches
If like to drop the sky on all these witches
Dont drink the soup from grandmother's hands
Its full of roasted guts and gutted glands
Dig up her garbage and bring it back here
Ill make all these witches disappear
Only rabbis allowed To sweep out this room
In sneak the witches with potions and brooms
The ghosts of the harvest rise from the ditches
The hills are alive with all these witches
Out in the graveyard with nothing to eat
Vegetarians are hunting for pieces of meat
Maggots and rats in the throats of the choir
All these witches still standing in circles of fire
|
||||
6. |
Blood Moon Howl
04:00
|
|||
7. |
||||
For a split second back there
I had a one in a million chance
To break out the windows
And join in the dance
But now the time has flown by
And my feet are too sore
I missed the train to glory
And the spirit aint in me no more
Once I was terrified of heights
But walked across the Aurora bridge
On the day I was baptized
In the Creek below Cane ridge
The bible was my sole protection
And I survived the jungle war
Id go back home and cast out the demons
But the spirit aint in me no more
I used to preached the gospel
Outside the Bon Marche
Until two women took me home
And tried to make me stay
They fed me and they bathed me
And they raped me on a wooden floor
Made me a worthless rotten reprobate
And the spirit aint in me no more
The crosses have now fallen
From the spires of the church
And the broken congregation
Has given up the search
All that I held sacred
Is shipwrecked on a foreign shore
Id build a new house like Crusoe did
But he spirit aint in me no more
|
||||
8. |
Trouble House
03:03
|
|
||
Before you throw a mudpie through the window
You better think about where you are at
Stay away from Trouble House
Don’t look into the eye of the cat
Don’t dial that number
Unless you know who is going to pick up the phone
Don’t make contact with Trouble House
Aint nothing inside there but bones
Don’t knock on the door
Unless you know what is on the other side
If you step into Trouble House
Trouble will be your guide
You are such a beautiful child
People love to see you smile
But if you step into that house
You will come out with a face like a crocodile
Before you sit down to dinner
You better check out what is on your plate
You’re in Trouble House, baby
And the hostess, shes already ate
So pic up your feet and start running
Dont stop til you are out of the woods
Don’t ever go back to Trouble House
If you do, you;; be stuck there for good
|
||||
9. |
Look This Way
02:17
|
|||
Look this way
And you will look this way
Do as I say
And you will look this way
Look that way
And you will look that way
Do as they say
And you will look that way
But look this way
And you will look this way
Do as I say
And you will look this way
All of us are drunk
pretending to be sober
Trying to survive
Until the party is over
If I could feel like this on the inside
Without looking like that on the outside
I;d stay drunk until the witches come
On the last day of October
repeat first three verses
|
||||
10. |
I Dont Know Life
02:24
|
|||
i lived the low life
I lived the high life
but mostly I have lived
the i dont know life
its all a mystery
a mystery to me
i dont know anything Where would i have learned?
There are no teachers round here and the books have a been burned
Dont test my IQ , dont expect me to be smart
I'd try to figure it out but I didnt know where to start
WIhen I was a child I read 10,000 essays
each one slamming the others and leaving me in a daze
telling of women 50 feet tall and men who've shrunk to nothing at all
and food that eats you when you try to eat it
Its all just 10,000 ways of packaging shit
somebody found something inside my spine
It was a lobster claw with a satisfied mind
filled up with science and history so many things to know
more than I could take so i turned on the radio
|
||||
11. |
The Ghost of 1978
03:03
|
|||
I was hanging art last night
Down at Market Place
Looking for a woman
Who had an ugly face
I found one who looked like Goya’s mama
So I said how do you do
She said take a walk pretty boy
I said Im just as ugly as you
I was in the middle of playing
That little song
In the bookstore I had bought
When the telephone rung
It was my partner
Asking me what was up
You were supposed to bring me money
For tomorrows lunch
The place is packed \i told him
Ad the money is rolling in
Ill bring it to you tomorrow
Ill have plenty of money then
He said that wont do my friend
I need that money now
I eat my lunch at midnight
So close that damn place down
I laid down my guitar
But the crowd wouldn’t let me go
They asked if Id be back tomorrow night
I said I did not know
But rght now everybody here hs got to leave
Im closing down the place
When I started the song it was 2018
Now its 1978
I knew the song was no damn good
Even when I was singing it
But 40 years into my past
It was a smashing hit
My guitar wasn’t so hot back then
But I was playing like Hendrix tonight
And every one of my old fans
Looked young in the mystic light
Then all the people disappeared
Who came to hear me sing
Ad I drove to my partners house
With the money he told me to bring
But I asked him never to call me at night again
When I was at the shop
Nostalgia pays in this rock and roll town
And you made the music stop
Tomorrow night Ill be back again
With guitar in my hand
But I don’t know if Ill draw a crowd
Or if Ill even have a band
Tonight my muic brought them all
Back home from the dead
But i never got to finish my song
I had to pay the devil instead
|
||||
12. |
He Had Some Songs
02:18
|
|||
his fingers were too small for the guitar
but he knew what to do with a tune
he spent his days in coffee bars
and his nights singing in saloons
never could hang on to a day job
but he had some songs
through his life he kept a low profile
he never wanted to be big
the mountains around him were ripped with gold
but he never knew where to dig
the road he travelled was not long
but he had some songs
he had the music and the words
like nothing i ever heard
never had much in worldly goods
but he had some songs
he died of an unknown illness
that was never diagnosed
when his daughter cleaned out his apartment
she found nothing, not even a ghost
but somewhere in that room lies the dust of a broken swan
he had some songs
|
Streaming and Download help
If you like Bill White, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp