gotta get out of echo lake
is it too much to ask
to challenge your fate?
gotta get out of echo lake

gotta get out before it’s too late
it’s never enough to know
to jump aboard that train.

schedule me some piece of mind
let me fall into easy times
cover me with memory
til i’m blind

gotta let out all the collar seams
it’s a mouthful to swallow
in someone else’s dreams
i got to get out as real as this may seem

gotta get out of echo lake
it’s too much
to ask
to re-sign your fate
gotta get out before it’s too late

everything just fades

08.14.1995; 07.07.2006 9:57am

“Morning is the hardest time when the mirror leaves you blue”
“He says it’s always the same you got no one to blame but the one looking back at you”

“15 years working on the line just to try make a name”
“And all those voices are quiet now who said he’d be something great”

“Hey god here’s 50
Dollars for all the years
At a dollar a prayer that’s 50 Prayers ”

“help him get some help getting out of here”

“He’s been dreaming of Hunter’s fireworks – sayin ‘shoot me to space that’s cool’ ”
“Everytime HST looked up do you think he lit that fuse?”

“He’s been gambling with our future for a while”
“He’s been holding out all his life for that last quarter mile”

“But we can make it if we start now – it might not be too late
To turn one last midnight drive into a grand escape”

“Sometimes you seem to have fun with man,
picking him up just to knock him down”

Ever since that big causeway break
You’re in that trance where you never come out
& I keep flashing on that big wave
That came & washed our only way out

that’s all I know that’s all I know seven long years that’s all I know

Summer passed me by
You oughta know you
Were the reason why I
Wasted all this
Time

Always are stories you always tell
Drown it all out sleep through the night
Candides laughing behind every water well
All the hate and greed and power now amplified

it’s all the same it’s all the same since before before the wave

Summer passed me by
You oughta know you
Were the reason why I
Wasted all this
Time

I stopped thinking about life without war
Now there’s no such thing left as small talk
But I’ll never let down this old guitar
Even when it weighs so much
and this is such
a
long
walk

Lila, you’re catching fireflies
In that glass guitar slide
You keep your demons inside

You’re trying to capture the light
Learn to get through the night
Keep the darkness outside

you’re leaving
you got it all worked out
you got plans nobody knows about

you’re leaving
on the secret sunset moon
there’s no turning back fate will have you leaving

sparks can look like fireflies
when old friends come on like light
playing tricks on your eyes

Lila the world is made of surprise
But you are secret safe tonight
everything will be all right

11.11.2005, 10:03pm

AUSTINTOWN (ELECTION DAY 2004)
©2007, Westy Reflector

When they dig us up – they might never know
We dug so deep – left our evidence so far below
They might even think we were older than dinosaurs

Arrogance thinks we’ll see the end of the world
That we’d be last ones – that we’d get

the truth/the truth
it’s just funny how the truth
is just like Austintown

½ way between here & there
so many secrets I can’t begin to dare
to leave
escaping only in my dreams
sounds like Austintown

They’re gonna say we went backwards – all the way back
Before we went forward again (more…)

i had this debutante invite me to her ball
but she met another guy in the basement of the hall
wouldn’t you know it? she made 2 calls.

i gave them time to play a little duck and hide
i know they wanted ten but i only gave ‘em five
seconds to make up their mind

yeah, a coma or a straightjacket?
life is grand if you avoid half of it
your mind and body are forever split
so, a coma or a straightjacket?

you hear a man pump some gas into the car
how many gallons do you think there are?
you know if he popped that hatch – well, there you are!

yeah, a coma or a straightjacket?
life is grand if you avoid half of it
your mind and body are forever split
so, a coma or a straightjacket?

i had this debutante invite me to her ball
maybe next time she’ll only make 1 call
i just don’t think she remembers much at all

11.21.1996