Lyrics Index
From A World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band:
- Differing Touch (also recorded by the John Tiven Group)
- Plain Division
From Rancid’s … And Out Come the Wolves:
From Boz Scaggs, Other Roads:
From Blue Coupe, When Legends Collide:
Differing Touch
By Jim Carroll, Jon Tiven, and Sally Tiven
From A World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band
Also recorded by the Jon Tiven Group
Every time she calls I’d like to just ignore her
I think she’s working both sides
It’s not my paranoia
But I can’t cut her loose
That girl does the act
Like a snake with wings . . .
I know this for a fact
Refrain:
One night she’s dark and French
One night she’s blonde and Dutch
Every time you near her
She has a differing touch
She’s like a salamander, the way her colors change
And you can’t understand her, unless you get deranged
She be Italian and tan
She be German and light
I’ve seen her Oriental
It changes every night
Repeat Refrain
© Dr. Benway Music/Sally Tiven Music, ASCAP/Jon Tiven Music, BMI (1995)
Plain Division
By Jim Carroll, Jon Tiven, and Sally Tiven
From A World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band
There’s a wind up in the trees
Like a voice that’s whispering Please
Someone’s decided on dividing
Everything in two
I’d rip the money in half
I’d even break the staff
But split apart my heart
And there’s no room for you
Refrain:
Listen, love will always divide
You may not need both sides
It may be empty, it may be full
It’s all just push and pull
The front might be the rear
My poison pet
And you can’t be sure which side you get
Come on,
Then make the decision
It’s a love division
All the jealous gestures, the blades of hurt desire
Slit my heart apart
Hear the cries that flow through the wire
They’re passing through
They’re split in two
I know inside, I can’t divide the things I’m sure are true . . .
But I could take what you break
And make it all seem new
Repeat Refrain
Everybody’s underground commuting at the speed of sound
Listen what the wheels say
They say: Rip apart, rip my heart, rip my heart,
rip the dark, trip the dark, abattoir . . .
Repeat Refrain
© Dr. Benway Music/Sally Tiven Music, ASCAP/Jon Tiven Music, BMI (1995)
Junky Man
From Rancid’s album . . . And Out Come the Wolves
By Rancid:
The common man doesn’t suffer pain like this
Only the soul that has never been kissed
Let us adore our beautiful son
He’s ridin’ on the rivers of Babylon
Bootin’ up, shootin’ up
Bring on the brightness
See the son of God is comin’ up
Your [sic] caught up in a system that’s goin’
No one answers no one takes that call from you
Junky man tell me what your story is . . .
Water I desire
Some parents [sic] house is on fire
Slowly the house gonna burn to the ground
The neighborhood will watch . . .
Will someone be a witness please
Tell me that he’s crazy
But he’s not and they thow that
And they can’t get him ’cause he’s not crazy
Beat him lock him knock him take away his authority
Hit ’em, ship ’em, club ’em submitted conformity . . .
By Carroll:
My hand went blind clairvoyant
I make love to my trance sister
My trance sister went on
And my trance parents see from the balcony
I looked out on the big field
It opens like the cover of an old bible
And out come the wolves
Their paws trampling the snow
The alphabet
I stand on my head and watch it all go away
By Rancid:
Bootin’ up, shootin’ up
Bring on the brightness
See the sun of God is comin’ up
And there is a likeness
Internalize the lunacy
The misery is showin’ when your [sic] brought up
And your [sic] caught up in a system that is goin’
© I Want to Go Where the Action Is Music (1995)
Perfect Water
Lyrics by Jim Carroll
Recorded by Blue Oyster Cult on Club Ninja, 1986
Perfect water
The dark wind braids the waves
The crazed birds raid the trees
Is this our destiny?
To join our hands at sea
And slowly sink, and slowly think
This is perfect water, passing over me . . .
Do you know Jacques Cousteau?
Well, they said on the radio
That he hears bells in random order
Deep breaths beneath the perfect water
Love that is frightening
But still so inviting
To drown inside a sound
That lay so far underground
And to think . . . and to think
This is perfect water passing over me
Refrain:
To flow inside the spiral tide
To drown my eyes like a blind ride
And to cross the perils of black water
It waits for me like mother and daughter
A life of perfect order
A strange and perfect water
Perfect water
I dream this dream within the warm Gulf Stream
Where two blocks of ice melt into my hands like dice
And I roll seven on the floor of the sea
And I feel the perfect water washing over me
Repeat Refrain
Repulsion
Lyrics by Jim Carroll
Recorded by Truly on Feel You Up, 1997
Lightning strikes drags me downtown
Where I can find the air
With a switchblade mouth
The damage has arrived and it smells divine
Like a rainy twilight
I will not hide
I will hang my head on the metal light
Lights down
Lights down
Ask the queen why I’m all alone
Overwhelmed but overthrown
Bitter, pretty, and appalled
Queen blip city we’ve rejected it all
My heart shakes in your hand
Drops in the snow moves like a frog
So break it
Now, it’s one of those times we cannot land
Or slit the wrist of the worried hand
I want to try, what gets me off
Is what makes me right
Lights down
Lights down
Ask the queen why I’m all alone
Overwhelmed but not overthrown
Bitter, pretty and appalled
Queen blip city we’ve rejected it all
Angel’s Well
Lyrics by Jim Carroll
Recorded by Blue Coupe on When Legends Collide, 2023
We do our magic in the red desert
Our hands wear gloves from skins of a lizard
We summon black clouds to fill our lake
And rain starts falling like teeth from a snake
We′ve got the password sewn to our eyelid
We live in great caverns where the holy saints hid
We licked our wounds by the tongue of heaven
We know the meaning of the number of seven
We swore that we would never tell
But we dug our way out of the Angel’s Well
We taste its holy, holy spell
It’s hot like all the stars from hell . . . How it serves us well.
We paint symbols on sharp cliffs
We dance to thunder when the night sky shifts
We hear the cities, they’re always calling
They want that magic to keep from falling
We cover our faces with the skulls of dead cattle
They come in handy just before the battle
The angel calls us to give us his orders
He says the first thing is to drink from my waters.
We swore that we would never tell
But we dug our way out of the Angel′s Well
We taste its holy, holy spell
It’s hot like all the stars from hell . . . How it serves us well.