The beautiful people
all send their excuses:
(real estate and sex lives,
livestock and ex-wives) [1]
but the poor are coming
the lame are running
in their sleazy clothes &
orthopedic shoes
There's a hairlip spokesman
shouting out the news
"Come to the Banquet at the World's end!"
There's a string ensemble
and the King's court jester
Telling parables and big jokes
to mongoloids and old folks
The blind are seeing
the dead are breathing
and the mummies dance in
geriatric style
the amputees are
rolling down the aisles
"Come to the Banquet at the World's end!"
Candlelight and party hats
Duck and pheasant under [a] glass
aluminum walkers, thin white canes
caviar and pink champagne
the bride and the groom waltz on
club-foot lane at the Banquet at
the World's End
The Banquet at the World's End
The Banquet at the World's End
Say the beautiful people (the poor are coming)
"We'll live with the lights out (the lame are running)
Leave us alone now, because (the blind are seeing)
hell feels like home now" (the dead are breathing)
meanwhile...
the poor are coming
the lame are running
in their sleazy clothes &
orthopedic shoes
There's a hairlip spokesman
shouting out the news
"Come to the Banquet at the World's end!"
"Come to the Banquet at the World's end!"
"Come to the Banquet at the World's end!"
This song is an amplified version of Christ's Parable of the Marriage Feast. (Luke 14:12-24)
[1] Parallels to the excuses in scripture:
"The first said, `I have just bought a field, and
I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'
"Another said, `I have just bought five yoke of oxen,
and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'
"Still another said, `I just got married, so I can't
come.'
Taylor: "[A song] from the earthly plane seeing what
the future will be like when God calls all the sort of disenfranchised--the
poor, the lame, the blind--to that banquet. And it says the beautiful people,
they're going to stay away. As it says, 'Hell feels like home now.' Where
all the losers of the world will be coming to this great banquet."
Traps, Ensnares
words and music Terry Taylor & Jerry Chamberlain
...and He committed Himself to no man because
He knew what was in the heart of man...
Na Na Na Na... beware of traps and snares
Mr. Spoke speaks, deadly nightshade
in his brainpan
mock aliens breed silent blond zeros of
fresh young flesh [1]
Ignore the ghosts of books, they're getting
plastered in Paris
Della wears tupperware, and
Major-Domo's body
politicking in
Limo Land
Harry Fiasco is gulping down his moral fiber
and casts his hard shadow while wearing
those slippery soft supple slippers
He's got a plan
it's brash and it's bold
but there's danger in the fold
Hear his command "Don't get old!"
Bella Donna she's that poison eurasian
plant
Beautiful lady with the blackberry hat
Don't pull her finger
you don't know where it's been
Starts the great tribulation
all over and over again
It's a persecution loop,
curmudgeon in your soup
beware of traps and snares
beware of traps and snares...
Now for the cliffhanger ...
Taylor: "We have a song on it [the album] called 'Traps,
Ensnares' which is sort of indescribable. I don't even really know what
it is. There's a certain psychedelia element to it, and it's probably one
of the strangest things we've ever recorded."
[1] From a poem entitled "sandra" by Charles Bukowski. An excerpt:
to me
has brought her prizes
over for me to view:
silent blonde zeros of young
flesh
who
a) sit
b) stand
c) talk
at her command
Hole in the World
words and music by Terry Taylor
Hole in the world [1]
I can hear dead loved-ones breathing
Hole in the world
marble corridors and angels
I've been looking for Your Holy Face
through a window draped in lace
a vision of amazing grace
A lump in the throat and a bush on fire, [2]
dove coming down from the sky, [2]
An itch in the feet [2], and the helpless hunger
[3]
inside, outside
Hole in the world
Here every tongue cries "Christ is risen"
Hole in the world
I see old enemies embracing [3]
Moonlight falling on the blistered glass [1]
Someone whispers "Here at last"
that's when I saw Your shadow pass
A bump in the night, then an open border,
Bus ride over the moon,
a swim upstream in the living water[s]
inside, outside
Hole in the world
Mysteries and myths and wonders
(I've been looking for Your Holy Face,
through a window draped in lace)
Hole in the world
streets of gold and blood of martyrs [4]
(moonlight falling on the blistered glass)
Lightning flashes 'cross the purple sky
I strike the nail and watch You die
I'm drowning in the tears I cry
My heart is aching, and my legs are broken, [5]
waiting for the hand in the dark
The table is set and the door is open
inside, outside
Hole in the world
Hole in the world...
An instrumental mix of this song (with the background vocals only) can be found on the "Motor Cycle Tracks" disc.
[1] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"In the parish house of a church, I work in a room
which on Sundays is used for Sunday school. The window by the table where
I work has large, old-fashioned panes with wavy places and blisters
in the glass so that when the sun shines through, it makes Andrew Wyeths
on the broad window sill where the white paint is flaking off." (p. 73)
"My eyes are fixed sightlessly on the window just beyond the writing table
and remain fixed there for I have no idea how long. Finally their sight
returns and I see that all this time I have been looking at the window
without knowing that I was looking at it. Through it there is white picket
fence (sic) across the street, and one of the blisters in the glass
pane has taken an oval-shaped piece out of the fence and out of the grass
beyond the fence; it looks as there is some kind of hole in the world
there, some kind of oval-shaped entrance to another world inside this world."
(pp. 89, 90) The "hole in the world" and "blistered glass" are mentioned
frequently in this part of the book.
[2] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a
lump in the throat, to put it mildly, or with the bush going up
in flames, the rain of flowers, the dove coming down out of the
sky." (p.74)
"It was a lump in the throat. It was an itching
in the feet. It was a stirring in the blood at the sound of rain. It
was a sickening of the heart at the sight of misery. It was a clamoring
of ghosts." (pp. 109, 110)
[3] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"And I believe in magic or want to. I want flying
saucers to be true, and I want life to exist on Mars, and I dream of a
heaven where old enemies embrace one another and weep. . . All of
which is to say I am a congenital believer, a helpless hungerer
after the marvelous as solace and adventure and escape." (p. 41)
[4] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"'I cover myself with the blood of the Lamb,' I pray:
dark from the jugular of the beast slain in its innocence on an altar smelling
of rancid fat, blood the scarlet of martyrs and cardinals, their
hats and gloves and little pointed shoes, the wailing Jesus hymns and sinners'
scouring." (p. 78)
On page 98, Buechner quotes from G. K. Chesterton's
"The Man who was Thursday":
"Well really," said Syme, "I don't know any profession
of which mere willingness is the final test."
"I do," said the other. "Martyrs. I am condemning
you to death. Good day."
[5] This takes a bit of explaining. In "The Alphabet
of Grace," Buechner recounts his time spent writing his book, "The Final
Beast." One scene depicts an old man whose legs look broken: "Instead I
sit in an empty Sunday-school room and write how a black crow rowed back
through the air to fall like garbage at the feet of the clown who shot
him and how the old man sits there in his baggy, old-man pants with his
feet sticking out at odd angles as though his legs are broken. .
. Where your feet take you, that is who you are. My feet are crossed under
the table where I write. The heel of one is pressed against the instep
of the other. My legs are broken." (pp. 95,96) More on this point
can be gleaned from pages 91 through 92.
You're in the light and in the dark
in the peace and in the chaos [1]
in the world that's ours for naming
You're in my sleeping and my waking [1]
A vision in my ears and in my eyes
a lover in disguise
surprised again by
what's come over me
You're in the color and the sound
in every joy and every sorrow
You're in the faces of each stranger
in estrangement and in failure
Flowing in my blood and on my tongue
My heart pounds like a drum
undone again by
what's come over me
In the books I read and
in the air I breathe
You live and move and have your being
[2]
There's a window in the wall
there you are behind it all
the Holy Dream becomes a Holy face
and it leaves me reeling
You're in the sunshine and the rain
in the open spaces and in the shadows
You're in my incantatious longings
"Come unto me," I hear you calling [3]
and I fear the very thing I'm looking for
Here's someone at my door
I'm floored again by
what's come over me
I'm floored again by
what's come over me
Yes I'm floored again by
what's come over me
An acoustic demo of this song (recorded on a Tascam 4-track) can be found on the "Motor Cycle Tracks" disc.
[1] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"And God said, 'Let there be light.' Creation ex nihilo.
Light
out of darkness; Order out of chaos; Waking out of
sleep." (p. 14)
[2] A reference to Acts 17:28 : "For in him we live, and move, and have our being..." This verse also happens to be referenced in "The Alphabet of Grace" on page 83.
[3] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"Come unto me. Come unto me, you say. All right
then, dear my Lord. I will try in my own absurd way. In my own absurd way
I will try to come unto you, a project which is in itself by no
means unabsurd." (p. 28) "O Lord and lover, I come if I can to you down
through the litter of any day, through sleeping and waking and eating
and saying goodbye and going away and coming back again. Laboring and laden
with endless histories heavy on my back." (p. 29)
This song is for Andrew. Buffalo Hills is a little league ballpark.
I float on a cloud between the boy and the ball
The long haired mermaids lie on rocks by the ocean
Around the diamond grass
My Blue-Eyed Dream comes home at last
to the Buffalo Hills, to the Buffalo Hills
Here's God disguised as men in dark shirts and masks
In the center of the galaxy, I breathe
bright stars and planets
Sun dips to kiss the earth
My angel makes the play at first
on the Buffalo Hills, on the Buffalo Hills
Snap shot, visible sign
Spirit moving, bending the grasses
Runs free down the chalkline
Child of Wonder
Long legs and lashes
Proud fathers cursing the fates, then
speaking in tongues
Our dim dreams circle the moon, like
fog around gaslight
When all is said and done
we pray that innocence has won
on the Buffalo Hills, on the Buffalo Hills
In flares of distant nights
I see it all work out all right
on the Buffalo Hills, on the Buffalo Hills...
I float on a cloud between
the boy and the ball...
An acoustic mix of this song can be found on the "Motor Cycle Tracks" disc.
Taylor: "This song, Buffalo Hills, is a song about baseball, of all things. But I didn't want to write a song that says, 'My son plays baseball and I really dig it when he gets a hit.' I wanted to relate something spiritual in going to see him play--something about innocence, something in back of this game that's being played."
Compare Noelle, a song about
his daughter.
Guilty
words and music by Terry Taylor
Well I'm in a mess
What can I do?
yeah, I've second-guessed
so have you
but I've been all wrong baby
Ad nauseam baby
I'm gonna break the circuit,
put aside all my disguises
Don't run away screaming out
or worse, start laughing now that I'm
(chorus)
Guilty (take me back)
Guilty (take me back)
Guilty (take me back)
Take me back now
that's all I ask now
Take me back 'cause I'm guilty
Couldn't face the wrong
in myself
So I condemned
somebody else
You were in reach baby
I've been impeached baby
I'll plead for your acceptance
so I can walk the straight line again
What a big grim process this is
but I can't hide any longer cause I'm
(chorus)
Absolve me from the wrong I've done
Lay your hands on me and I will overcome
heal me now
and seal me now
in your gracious love
your fathomless love
'cause I'm
Guilty, Guilty
Well I'm on my knees again
and I got my heart in hand [1]
Girl I pray you understand
I'm a tired and broken man
Guilty, Guilty
I'll make it simple as I can
to say exactly what I am
I'm guilty baby, I'm guilty baby,
I'm guilty, guilty, guilty
Guilty, Guilty
I'm not the man I used to be
and it's so easy girl to see
I caused you misery
so let the judgment fall on me
and I'll tell you honestly
for the record here's my plea
I'm guilty baby, I'm guilty baby
I'm guilty, guilty, guilty...
[1] A play on "hat in hand," which means showing humility.
Compare this song to "The
Bubble Bursts" on BibleLand.
Motorcycle
words by Terry Taylor, music by Terry Taylor and Jerry
Chamberlain
Going places
in our crash helmets
Accidents happen
but for now we're alive on our
motorcycle
Sliding on wet roads
turning sharp corners
we almost lost it
but still we go around on our
motorcycle
Today is our last day
the first and only day [1]
we went out in the dark and
came back again
Getting older,
we've run some red lights
none of us are safe, no
might not even be remembered on our
motorcycle
But we were still honest
even when no one was looking [2]
Hard to breathe easy with
nay-sayers on the sidecar
of our
motorcycle
You've broken a couple of legs
I've broken a heart or two
but we loved each other and
came back again
And to our dear dead dears [3]
if there's anywhere to be, then
you must be there [3]
And to our dear dead dears
If there's anything to know, then
you must know it [3]
down here below it, we're
heading for the very same dead end
Stop lights and crash sights
and meeting again
Going places
in our crash helmets
Accidents happen
but for now we're alive on our
motorcycle
Going places (round and round we go)
Going places (round and round we go)...
Going places
An alternate version of this song can be found on the "Motor Cycle Tracks" disc. Entitled "Building a 'Motor Cycle,'" it shows the song's progression from demo to rough mix, to final version.
The genesis of this song seems to have come from a brief passage in Buechner's "The Alphabet of Grace," pages 105 through 105. The author goes from discussing wet pavement to recounting a ride in a red pickup with a friend built like Popeye. (See footnote number 2.)
[1] This is a repeating refrain in "The Alphabet of
Grace." For example:
"Here and now. This day is our last day and our
first day and our only day, and if it's necessary to play idiotic games
to make it seem so, if it's necessary to play idiotic games to make it
possible to be idiotic and human together, than (sic) it is worth playing
them." (p. 61, 62)
"This is your first and last and only day.
Be alive all day in it." (p. 96)
[2] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"Square and short in his Big Jim coveralls, Popeye
is called forth. He has been summoned to speak for mankind because he
is an honest man, honest even when nobody is looking, honest even when
you take him by surprise." (p. 104)
[3] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"Is it true, my dear dead dear? Is all of it
true? Is any of it true?
If there's anywhere to be now, you must be
there. If there's anything to know now wherever you are, then you must
know it." (p. 111) The "dead dear" phrase is used numerous times, including
occurrences on pages 16 and 25.
The sun and I
watch rainbow days go by
Then he drifts away
and I'm staring a hole in the sky
ooooh...
wonderful
wonderful
ooooh...
Smoke ring clouds
are lit by the silver man
we shoot our stars
and set them up again
ooooh...
wonderful
wonderful
(Sunrise, sunset)
It's wonder (it's wonderful)
You're wonderful
(Night falls, Mr. Moonlight)
It's wonder (it's wonderful)
You're wonder...
Wonderful
Wonderful
Wonderful
Wonderful
ooooh...
So Long...
Would-be believers [1]
beat plowshares to spears [2]
will miracles happen on
my frontier? my frontier
Congenital lovers
whose crimes are too dear
all these self betrayals on
my frontier, my frontier
'Neath my face is a graveyard
all my days buried here
the people that I've been [3] on
my frontier, my frontier
Hurry sundown
bring us low
take us beyond our faces [4]
kick it apart
kick the whole world apart [5]
Hurry sundown
bring us low
take us beyond our faces [6]
kick it apart
kick the whole world apart, and the
night will absolve us,
wipe the slate clean [7]
maybe not for a lifetime
for just one day
just one more day, and
Would-be believers
beat plowshares to spears
will miracles happen on
my frontier?
my frontier
my frontier...
[1] More language typical of "The Alphabet of Grace":
"...I had been told that one of the fathers [priests]
there was a man who would be able to answer for me some of the more staggering
questions that periodically trouble the sensualist and would-be believer."
(p. 45)
[2] There are several references in scripture to the beating of weapons into tools, and vice-versa: Isaiah 2:4, Joel 3:10, and Micah 4:3.
[3] One of Buechner's premises in "The Alphabet of
Grace" is that we are our faces, and are in some ways limited by
them. A radical change in the face (such as
"I do not have a body; I am a body. And darkness is
upon the face of my face. Beneath the face I am a family plot. All the
people I have ever been are buried there--the bouncing boy, his mother's
pride; the pimply boy and secret sensualist; the reluctant infantryman;
the beholder at dawn through hospital plate-glass of his first-born child."
(p. 14)
[4] Buechner proposes that there are many things we may never be able to do because our faces limit us. They are too soft, or too harsh, or do not inspire confidence in others.
[7] From "The Alphabet of Grace":
"Oh, but my dear dead dear, what better place? Life
is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves us. Darkness wipes
the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another
day's chalking." (p. 25)
Grace is the Smell
of Rain
words by Terry Taylor
music by Terry Taylor & Jerry Chamberlain
The cauliflower ears
The crocodile tears
The hearts too hard for breaking
We hobble down to your undertow
The lunatic fringe by the Quackery
Miracle Sludge from the factory
Come to trouble the water
Angels and otters,
Psychosomatics cleaning their
attics--they learn
Grace is the smell of rain
Pride that stiffs the neck
healed by graceless genuflect
Heaven and earth embracing
Like lovers under the mistletoe
These low of lows, dregs of the earth,
malcontents when the last are first
come to trouble the water
Mothers and fathers
Immersing their babies, they pluck them from
hades
where
Grace is the smell of rain
There's old sleep in our eyes
and deep thorns in our sides
but old dogs learn new tricks
when the rain is falling
By the bottomless lagoon
a drunkard's dancing in the moonlight
The cauliflower ears
(the dregs of the earth making their way)
The crocodile tears
(a drunkard's dance under the moonlight)
The hearts too hard for breaking
We hobble down to your undertow
The lunatic fringe by the Quackery
Miracle Sludge from the factory
Come to trouble the water
Angels and otters,
Psychosomatics cleaning their attics--they learn
Grace is the smell of rain
Grace is the smell of rain
Grace is the smell of
rain (motorcycle)
rain (motorcycle)
rain (motorcycle)
rain, etc.
A shorter, "radio edit" mix of this song can be found
on the "Motor Cycle Tracks" disc.
Noelle
words and music by Terry Taylor
This song is for my daughter (t.s.t)
She lives in the little green house
and drives an electric car
She's very good friends with the mouse next door
and the flowers in the yard
She combs her golden hair
by the Lake of the Talking Fish
She loves a Prince, she says her prayers,
and she sings in perfect pitch
And I've prayed her into a dream
where hate can't break the spell
and the breezes blow
gently whisper low "Noelle,
Noelle, Noelle"
She gets her just deserts, 'cause
the sky is in the pie
she wants her cake, she eats that too
as the meringue clouds roll by
sweet by-and-by
Noelle
She breathes the air so clean
tastes the water sweet to drink
does a hoop skirt dance, she's a whirling top
of indigo and pink
And though the world outside's at war
to her there'll come no harm
'cause an angel guards her golden gate
in a place called "Father's Arms"
And I've prayed her into a dream
Where it all turns out quite well
and the weather's fine
and the church bells chime "Noelle,
Noelle, Noelle"
She gets her just deserts, 'cause
the sky is in the pie
she wants her cake, she eats that too
as the meringue clouds roll by
sweet by-and-by
Noelle
Taylor: "The setting for this song is sort of a fairytale... and it's the desire to want for your child peace in this life, and protection from harm, from all the dark that's in the world... In the deepest part of my heart, I want to see her in that fairytale... Really the best thing we can do as parents is to pray that God will watch over [our children] and set his angels round about them."
Compare Buffalo Hills, a song
about his son.
Wise Acres
words and music by Terry Taylor
Gonna have to pass by Wise Acres
You can smell the fish fry at Wise Acres
There ain't no mysteries
'cause all the citizenry
is re-writing history
I don't mix with the chemistry
at Wise Acres
Says Mayor Smart Alex "There's a
meeting in the hall" (hear ye, hear ye,
hear ye!)
for the Very Wise Guys
and the Very Wise Girls
conditioned to live in their
Wise Acre world
They're gonna put a fence 'round Wise Acres
and in the end they'll tear down Wise Acres
The Truth would set them free
but no one there can see
the greatest enemy
is the exclusivity
of Wise Acres
Wise Acres
Wise Acres
Wise Acres
Here's to Perfect Days
(it's gonna take so long)
Lock all these fears away
(it's gonna take so long)
I dreamt a golden key lay
underneath my pillow
Here's to peace on earth
(it's gonna take so long)
Where the last are first
(it's gonna take so long)
I saw an angel laughing beneath
a weeping willow
Take so long...
...and to our dear dead dears
if there's anywhere to be then
you must be there
and to our dear dead dears
if there's anything to know then
you must know it
down here below it, (we're)
Going places (round and round we go)
going places
Might not even be remembered on our
Motorcycle...