We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Dark Room - Tourist Ticket

by Bill White

/
1.
thunder in the air where there was no thunder before lightning covers the city like a rain covering the moors catching a grenade in the trench with no blessing in the end sometimes one death pays the price for everyone but this time even the innocent were condemned everything went bright to white in the blinking of an eye there was no last dance for this song no kisses, no goodbyes if we awake to a roosters crow again and find ourselves dressed up in a different skin when we come out from under cover i am certain we shall find each other like children find one another maybe we will be neighbors on the same street or lonely souls in science class strangers until our eyes meet like lovers on a field of battle seperated by the accident of sides nothing can keep us apart for long were coming back in like the tide ill find you in the rivers rolling down from the hills ill find you in the flowers on sombodys window sill as i loved you in the day time ill protect you through the night when dawn pulls down the covers we will cut through all the clutter and we will find each other the way children find one another we find it then we lose it then we wonder what it meant ive seen more depravity than dante in his descent we either suffer silently or else we just go wild then pass out like a drunkard and awaken like a child the right time the right place we were there i was picking out a tune on my guitar you were combing out your ebony hair now im lying still like dirt on an abandoned railroad track and i wont get up till i find the way to get you back stars stars burning bright which is you and which am i mother father sister brother like children we will find each other
2.
if i could see myself the way you see me then i might undestand why you left but i am stuck inside my own opinion of myself cause its the only thing that makes sense. each day gets worse and worse and worse i dont feel anything and i wake one dismal morninag on the far side of nothing im getting to be like w c fields kicking children, throwing rocks at dogs wish i could more like jimmy stewat kids junping all over me like monkeys while i lay in bed sawing my logs each day gets worse and worse and worse i dont feel anything and i wake one dismal morninag on the far side of nothing we used sing the songa from times gone by and repeat the words the wise men said now we walk past the graves without a prayer because every day is the day of the dead each day gets worse and worse and worse i dont feel anything and i wake one dismal morninag on the far side of nothing
3.
there are things you cant imagine until you see them for yourself there is plenty of gas in abandoned cars but nothing in the pumps we are born imto one world and die in another honey i know you did your best i wish i could say the same is the light eternal still burning? is the light eternal still on fire? i hear the whole world crying in his voice i know what its like to be lost in the night those who have recovered are the ones who dont remember when they died is the light eternal still burning? is the light eternal still on fire?
4.
some say the ghost of gypsy rose still haunts the trampled lawn in between the wind and trees a forlorn song is sung the panes on these old windows have been shattered by election and glassless windows cast the most terrible reflections as a child i was raised in this house on haunted hill renting rooms to killers on parole who worked at the sawmill and in our thirteen dusty rooms lost souls were resurrected where glassless windows cast the most terrible reflections 13 faces at the table 13 jailbirds on the wire 13 colonial cables 13 skeletons in the fire the old house is still standing but is buried deep in sand there might have been a landslide but there was no sliding land a rain of sand fell from above with no sense of direction and glassless windows cast the most terrible reflections
5.
im not saying we’re the best but we are better than the rest as we impose our will upon the weaker imbeciles we murder less we murder less we are better than the rest because we murder less there is a place for you here if you keep your mouth shut while you are at it keep your mind shut too we are the ones to decide what is truth and what are lies your job is to cut and paste while we cut and run im not saying we’re the best but we are better than the rest as we impose our will upon the weaker imbeciles we murder less we murder less we are better than the rest because we murder less you can go far if you play it smart and walk the higher ground with us here in the clouds we can drop our bombs and clean up the worlds dirty face there are places to go and people to kill your job is to take picutres we will write the headlines im nor saying we’re the best but we are better than the rest as we impose our will upon the weaker imbeciles we murder less we murder less we are better than the rest because we murder less dont try to talk in signs we can read your pantomime everything you think and do we can see and read and zoom our eyes are everywhere and your poor soul is bare so either come up here where you belong or touch your toes and say so long you have no other choice you have no other choice
6.
Hurricanes trace the slaveship trails Assailing the land with hieroglyphs of wind, Illegible to those illiterate of nature Who hear only murmuring silks As tall ships nudge the nascent moon Before phosphorous tides draw them down Into deep water of life forming Around the banished head Where magic plays wild in bubbling foam. The magic of innumerable loves Infuses a new sky with roundelays As bees, in flight From porous torsos of red wood, Remember the green ants Hollowing barracks Like canoe logs in glyphic tributaries. Now the hives are abuzz with men Who complain there is no honey. And there is no honey. What kind of bee would live among men Who kill what cannot be used Who tolerate not what may be feared And who despise all that issues From deep water of life forming From the innumerable loves Of the banished god. Away in the city of worms The castaways rise vain and secure Now that the walls have been sealed And nothing can get in And not even a mosquito squirms In the city of worms Where they grow their own Caligulas and Napoleons In armies of footsoldiers and fuckheads Good for nothing but gangraping the obelisk. In this circle-belt of trivia Where history is obliterated Where people are eternal And news the birdseed for parakeets, Thought is never the call And always the response. Away in the city of Roman and Japanese emperors Egyptian pharaohs and Farouks The great the terrible and the holy Annointed and appointed ones The witch-hunter and the bewitched Senate These iniquitous bastards of history and the present day Ride the barge with Cleopatra Down the Nile, the Amazon, the Yangtze, and the Mississippi rivers Killing everything in sight. Assassins of Allende and Romero and Lorca Assassins of language, music, and the tangible arts Assassins of Fred Hampton and the students of Kent State and Tiananmen Square Assassins of the elephant and the unicorn and 10,000 species of snake Assassins of the clouds Who bloody the sky with missiles And in the city suffer inviolate While in undersea volcanoes Where the great spirit is banished A new Earth rises But the chickenshits and crybabies The footsoldiers and fuckheads Will never see it. Instead, they leap about Boasting, “We are apes. We are apes!” And the great spirit nods in assent. “You are right,” he weeps. “You are indeed apes. But it wasn’t always so. It was not always so.”
7.
a superhero for every woman a hound dog for every man a chef to do the cooking and a maid to wash the pans black paint for the windows on what used to be a store a nurse to put you under when you cant stand it any more but i remember a time when you could hop on a train and go anywhere with anyone and do anything you liked no more breakin broncos no more cattle drives big sam the coffin builder was the last one seen alive ill ride through fields of thyme across the putple heather then throw my saddle in the river because nobody can be a cowboy forever you cant follow the science if you flunk your physics exams you cant form an alliance if youre looking for someone to scrub your back high speed tains will get you nowhere fast every river ends at the coast we are living in a spiral dream of suicides and ghosts but i remember a time when you could hop on a train and go anywhere with anyone and do anything you liked no more breakin broncos no more cattle drives big sam the coffin builder was the last one seen alive ill ride through fields of thyme across the putple heather then throw my saddle in the river because nobody can be a cowboy forever
8.
John Ford 03:45
that desert oasis was an venus fly trap we fell right into the enemys lap the doc was a drunkard the sheriff was quiet some called him earp but to his friends he was wyatt you can search for a meaning on the enlightenment ward but ill take my chances out here with john ford we never meant to kill lincoln it was a kidnapping plot the ransom was freedom for the rebels they had caught but at the last minute a decision was made to shoot the man dead and to hell with the trade so take your fistful of dollars and those morricone chords ill throw in my lot out here with john ford three years ethan wandered alone on the plain taking the scalps of the injuns he'd slain with a hatred so fierce he would kill his own kin had it not been for the love he had stifled within there is a depot called hell where the grapes are stored the stagecoach aint stopping because it carrying john ford after the lights came up on red river john said to howard you made a damn good picture its no fort apache but im a little jealous. im fact i never even suspected that big dumb bastard could act its a long voyage home for the damned and adored expendible sailors going down with john ford from the myths and the movies and the cheap paper backs you learn more history than from history hacks we were born in the rubble of an uncivil war and johnny's not welcome in his brothers house any more and when justice prevails and our sanity restored ill stand with the indians along side john ford
9.
she made me believe love could be eternal lasting through many lifetimes we travel through the stars theres a sucker born every minute you never know it till youre in it then you forget who you are how can something so soft be so hard? i threw everything i owned on the table set my eyes upon a fixed star she was like my second skin so i played the game to win and lost it all on the turning of a card how can something so soft be so hard? i hear these jokers singing all their love songs some are blazing with emotion others weak with tears i am feeling numb in the trainyard with the bums waiting for my life to disappear everything i loved inside a spooky mirror
10.
Lyrics: i remember the times we had together but i dont remember you i remember the things we did but i dont remember you making love by the fountain before the donovan show getting picked up by the police as runaways long ago i remember your fathers face when he cussed me out but i dont remember you the grateful dead at golden gardens smoking perfumed cigarettes meeting each other in the middle of the night making love without regrets i remember the all day bus pass and all the places we would go to i remember every kiss we shared but i dont remember you i met her in ravenna listening to the music of the magic fern and i left her in a fairy tale but it was very real to her i was following my horoscope it was the stupidest thing i ever did some peole go sliding out me i only slid i still think about you but i cant picture your face you were always right beside me but i was in some other place we shared a bottle of gin on the ferry the night we almost ran away and sometimes when i wake up in the morning it still feels like yesterday
11.
goin back home on a dc 10 aint never comin back again gonna figure out where it all went wrong put all the answers into a song im gettin on a dc 10 gonna be gone with the motherfuckin wind take me back to where ive been get these damn tattoos off my skin im breakin clean on a dc10 im standin in the ticket line triple feature for a dime a silver dollar in my hand coca cola at a hot dog stand just another sick delinquent teen flyin high on a dc 10 back on lsd again everything melting in my head comin down on a dc 10 i hear some screamin in the early dawn but i dont really know whats goin on im gettin thrown into the back seat of a car got no idea where my parents are no sense of time in a dc 10 lost all my sense of where and when pieces of light as we slowly descend then turn around and around to the end all alone on a dc 10
12.
We enter time we exit time all must meet the end of time they say some will not taste death this does not mean they wont die they just might be the ones who find the highway in the sky that leads to their home on high without falling it is not the end of the world it is the end of a generation everything happens to everyone everything happens to everyone we enter time we exit time all must meet the end of time it is not the end of the world it is the end of a generation everything happens to everyone everything happens to everyone

about

Everybody wants to peek into the dark room, if only to be able to say they have been there. But it may not be a destination of choice for long excursions. Fewer still are liable to get excited about making the committment to listening to five albums of songs by somebody they have never heard of..especially if those songs were written and recorded in the dark room.
But maybe if there were only one album of 14 songs, and it was being given away for free. How many people would tak me up on that offer? to find out, I have selected 14 songs from these albums that are diverse yet flow together both musically and lyrically in a way that will give you a compact dark room experience at no cost or obligation.
I call it the tourist ticket, and it is yours for the taking

credits

released December 3, 2021

all songs written, arranged, and performed by bill white C 2021

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Bill White Lima, Peru

contact / help

Contact Bill White

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Bill White, you may also like: