1. |
Reason to Believe
03:56
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She quieted the last bit of her trembling
And lay her head down on the table by the phone
Let her mind drift back to every bit of knowing that was given to her a long time ago
The way her mother used to say that there’s a meaning
In the way that broken people learn to sing
The way the world is built through struggle with blood sweat and muscle
The constant rebirth that controls everything
She put a kettle on the stove and lit the burner
Then she waited for the whistle that it gave
Closed her eyes to hold his image a little longer
Let it linger keep his memory safe
She knew her father as a man without direction
Who got lost somewhere in life along the way
Some men they search for meaning
Come up empty go on careening from that moment to their last day
So quit your crying she said tell yourself a story
About the way you wish the world was born to be
And when you’re finished with your faith and doubt
Close your eyes turn the lights out
You gotta find yourself a reason to believe
She filled a mug and sipped it standing at the counter
Put on her coat and grabbed her keys went on her way
Boarded a bus to the downtown transit station
Punched into work like it was any other day
So quit your crying she said tell yourself a story
About the way you wish the world was meant to be
Make your facts out of your fictions if it gets you through the friction
If it gives you a reason to believe
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2. |
Down in Oakland
04:51
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He got his hands on a handgun in the backstreets of the bay
He’s got the kind of rage that makes you foolish and bold
Said you don’t disrespect my family
You don’t walk over my friends
You don’t talk to my woman
You were told
Cause young men have fire in their stomachs and it burns in their bones
Cause a man aint a man if he can’t hold his own
So he started something he didn’t understand
When he kicked in that front door
And sent a boy out on a stretcher from his home
Threw himself out into the great unknown
That hour cost 28 years
A 47 year old man steps out on broadway
A little different and a little bit the same
He learned from hard men how to take a hit
And from wise men when to fall
And from the prophets how to stand back up again
Said I’m gonna stand up again
But the world is breaking down in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay
Cause with a record there aint no place to go
And their pushing out the neighbors so there’s no one that you know
Your body’s free but the state still wants your soul
You got no place to go
He looked for work down by the water in the docks along the bay
With the fervor of the hungry and the bold
The markets booming in this city they said just not for men like you
So when the winter came he found himself out in the cold
Cause there’s no redemption in a town that’s lost its soul
Cause the world is breaking down in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay
Along the freeway down telegraph avenue
And he knows it he’s seen the highrise where the market used to be
The way each neighborhood is called something new
The way the world goes on without you
So tell the landlords and the developers and the market too
That you might own it all but it don’t belong to you
He said you can beat me try and break me
Chain me up or tie me down
But you can’t erase me from this place this is my home
Cause the world is breaking down in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay
Cause with a record there aint no place to go
He said you can beat me try and break me
Chain me up or tie me down
But you can’t erase me from this place this is my home
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3. |
Like You
04:24
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His hands are clutching to the wheel as she’s laying there tonight
In the backseat of a broken down sedan
And the traffic lights are blurring as they speed out in the night
And his eyes are filled with worry in that steady glare
And he said darling I’m gonna get you there
Don’t you worry none
I aint been married 50 years to watch you die
And in all that time you carried me like no one ever knew
So I swear to god and all that’s holy I’m gonna get you through
I swear to god I’m gonna be strong like you
There’s a girl in the city in a brand new room
As the sun’s coming up over the Bay
And she left family behind her just find something new
She’s watering flowers at the beginning of the day
And with the city up above her and the concrete below
At her fingers a garden grows
And she said I’ll find home some day
But right now I’ve got so much rambling to do
And to the lilies in the pots that grow up so far from home
She said I’m gonna blossom like you
So if there’s meaning in the broadness its in the simple things we find
Its in the darkness where my hands are scared to go
And if there’s no greater purpose at least there is in a mothers song
That’s where my hopelessness find hope to carry on
That’s where my hopelessness finds hope to carry on
His hands are clutching to the wheel as she’s laying there tonight
In the backseat of a brand new minivan
And the traffic lights are blurring as they speed out in the night
And his eyes are filled with worry in that excited stare
And he said darling I’m gonna get you there
Don’t you worry none
She said I know you will
No one loves me like you do
And its gonna be a boy and his eyes are gonna be the fiercest blue
And darling he’s gonna be beautiful
Like you
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Westerly California
East Bay Indie-Folk for people who want to be considered both hip and pretentious
Sterling Spence,
Brandon Seinturier, Chance Cochran, Scott Wilson, Gordon Allen, and Leah Woodard.
www.facebook.com/westerlytheband
www.westerlytheband.com
... more
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