Natalie Merchant - Natalie Merchant Album Lyrics

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Ladybird

Hey, Ladybird, ain't it just the way,
the way that love grows cold and then fades away?
Now when he touches you, make no mistake,
the fire's long gone out and the ash has blown away.
You don't know how to leave and you don't know where to fly.
You don't know what you feelbut you know it's not satisfied today.
So many little ones, so many mouths,
you've got a lot to feed and you know you don't know how.
Making the best of it, somehow you're making do,
making the best of the days that you stay
and you wait in this cage they made for you.
You don't know how to leaveand you don't know where to fly.
You've got a lot of things to lose,
so you've got a lot of things to hide.
You know you don't believebut you know you've got to try today.
You know the sweetest wine, it's a witches' brew,
pours like honey down and then burns a hole in you.
Yeah, you may think you're done but you're never throughspitting out
the bitterness to get the little sweetness you do.
You don't know how to leaveand you don't know where to fly.
You've got a lot of things to lose,
so you've got a lot of things to hide.
You don't know what you feelbut you know it's not satisfied.
You know you don't believebut you know you've got to try today.
Feel the winter bitterness; it's heavy on the wind,coming back again.
Maybe it's time to fly, time to fly away!
When you gonna spread your wings and fly?
When you gonna fly away?
When you gonna fly away?

 

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Maggie Said

Maggie said
Dig one more shallow grave before I'm dead
Maggie said
I'm just lookin' for a place that I can lay my weary head
There's no perfect end
Just time to leave

Maggie said
They wreck the table at the game of love
Maggie said
It's just stupid luck if you rise above
Everybody's second in death
Win or lose, my friend
It's so hard to leave

Holdin' back
What did I get for all of that?
What did it count for?
Tell me that
Nothin'
Nothin'
Oh, nothin', that's a fact

Maggie said
It's so hard to find the Golden Fleece to spin my golden thread
Maggie said
You're preachin' to the choir, girl, now
You're not stickin' out your neck
There's no risk in that
Darlin', please

Holdin' back
What did I get for all of that?
What did it count for?
Tell me that
Tell me that
Nothin'
Nothin'
Nothin', that's a fact

Maggie said
Don't let them take that halo from your head
Maggie said
I can see you're turning hard now, girl
Don't lose your tenderness
What's the use in that?
Darlin', please

Holdin' back
What did I get for all of that?
What did it count for?
Tell me that
Count for?
Tell me that
Nothin'
Nothin'
Nothin'
Oh, nothin', that's a fact

 

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Texas

Gonna get what's mine and wild horses couldn't keep it from me.
Papa says I'm a golden child and the whole world's gonna fall at my feet.
It's all coming to me.

Going down picking when it's harvest time,
gonna get my share, gonna get what's mine for me.
Sun is a-blazing down but I don't mind;
I'm picking, I'm digging, it's harvest time for me.
When I get my little eye on it,
when I get my little mind on it, you best believe.

Ole sweet tooth aching in my head,
gonna fill my belly to the brim, oh yes indeed!
Hive is a-buzzing in a hollow tree
and I don't care if I gotta kill a little honeybee.

When I get my little eye on it,
when I get my little mind on it, you best believe.
Oh my, it's all coming to me.

Gonna get what's mine and wild horses couldn't keep it from me.
Papa says I'm a golden child and the whole world is gonna fall at my feet.
It's all coming to me.

Pumpin' and a-suckin' till the well is dry,
nobody's booming in these busted times like me.
Down in Texas where the cattle don't roam
oil is a-dripping and the savings and loans, they bleed.

When I get my little eye on it,
when I get my little mind on it, you best believe.
Oh my, it's all coming to me.

Papa came along and he shook the tree;
down came a bushel and a peck for me.
Papa shooed away all the honeybees.
Papa dug a well and it flowed for me.
Papa caught the mother-lode fish for me.
Papa set a fire and it burned for me.
Papa put a skillet in the flame to fry;
Papa filled this little silver spoon of mine.
Papa said the Lord took a shine to me.
Papa said I gotta set the whole world free.
Papa said how it's gonna be.

 

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Go Down Moses

Moving on, moving on,
isn't that what I'm supposed to do?
Just hold it back and keep moving on.

Pushing on, pushing on,
isn't that what I'm supposed to do?
But it's so hard to keep pushing on.

I'm moving on, moving on,
isn't that what everybody tells me I gotta do?
But it's so hard moving on without you.

Every morning waking in a fever wet and shaking,
my heart inside me pounding, muddy water all around me.
Cold, shocked and speechless, can't anybody reach us
and why, oh God, why?

Go down, go down, Moses,
go down to the city of New Orleans.
Go part the muddy water.
Let your people cross over.

Go down!

I'm moving on, moving on,
that's what I'm trying to do,
just holding back and moving on.

Keeping on, keeping on,
that's what I'm trying so hard to do
but it's so hard keeping on without you.

Gone and lost my patience with this hopeless situation,
yeah, I'm alive, I'm a lonely sole survivor.
Spared me for some reason so I'm picking up the pieces
but why? Oh God, why?

Go down, go down, Moses,
go down to the city of New Orleans.
Go part the muddy water.
Let your people cross over.

Go down!

 

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Seven Deadly Sins

Well, of all those seven deadly sins
I wore around my neck for him:
Hunger, Anger, Lust and Greed,
Envy, Pride and Jealousy

There was one, I guess, that was the worst of all,
that gave a little push,
started the fall from grace that I took so hard,
I took so long, so long and far.

But I just couldn't spend me another night
in the cold, cold bed of the butcher's wife,
so afraid to fall asleep, afraid to wake,
and afraid to dream.

No, I just couldn't stay, I couldn't wait it out
and bite my tongue for another hour,
one more endless day,
day after night and night after day.

Well, it's been a two-year stint in no man's land.
Nobody here really gives a damn
so why can't we call it a draw
in the bloody war to end all wars?

In the bloody war
In the bloody way
In the bloody, bloody war
In the bloody, bloody war

Well, I'm far too quick with the poison pen,
can't believe I'm writing again after all these goddamned years.
And someday when the ghosts have all gone home,
far too late to be rattling bones, then will you lay me down,
lay me down? Oh, will you let it be?

Such a bloody war
Such a bloody war
Such a bloody, bloody war
Such a bloody war
Such a bloody war
Such a bloody, bloody war

 

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Giving Up Everything

Giving up everything,
my hungry ghost of hopefulness.

Giving up everything,
not haunted by wanting this.

Giving up everything,
the fortune I was saving.

Giving up everything,
I mercy-killed my craving.

Giving up everything,
I've opened up my eyes for this.

Giving up everything,
see the whole magnificent emptiness.

Gave what I want for how it is,
for the stone inside and the bitterness,
for the sweetness at the core of it.

Giving up everything,
the master plan, the scheming.

Giving up everything,
my cursed search for meaning.

Giving up everything,
the compass and the map I was reading.

The hinterlands I'm leaving,
I'm finally leaving behind.

Giving up everything,
the big to-do, the hullabaloo,
the tug-of-war for some twisted truth.
For the everlasting ache of it,
no longer slave, not chained to it,
no gate, no guard, no keeper,
no guru, master, teacher.

See the slow-receding faces
dissolve to black, no traces.

 

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Black Sheep

Oh, it's no secret
You know my every weakness
Oh, haven't the strength now
Not enough to waste tonight

Oh, spark the fire
Tinder blocks of desire
Oh, Lord have mercy
The first to feel tonight

I can see that you can see my eyes

Black sheep up on the fence
You're a naughty little boy and you make me tense
Prodigal son, won't you come on home?
Door's open wide, take a look inside
Take a look inside
Take a look inside

Oh, my hands are tied now
So you gotta decide now
See, I just can't take it
Can't you see that I'm breaking tonight?

I can see...

Black sheep up on the fence
You make me tense
Prodigal son, won't you come on home?
Door's open wide, take a look inside
Take a look inside
Take a look inside

Baa baa black sheep up on the fence
You're a naughty little boy and you make me tense
Prodigal son, won't you come on home?
For the door's open wide, take a look inside
Take a look inside
Oh, take a look inside
Take a look inside
Just take a look inside

 

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It's A-Coming

It's a-coming.

Wild fires, dying lakes,
landslides, hurricanes,
apocalypse in store
like nothing ever seen before.

It's a-coming.

Third-generation refugees,
street mob burning effigies,
revolution, civil war
like nothing ever seen before.

It's a-coming.

Pale-horse rider come,
blistered by the morning sun,
tell about what he can see,
crystal ball of mercury.

It's a-coming. It's gonna come.

Jungle slashed and jungle burned,
the monkeys and the painted birds
climb the vines, the limbs and leaves,
the lungs that let the whole world breathe.

It's a-coming.

All the ones that failed to thrive,
starved out and buried alive,
something evil, something free,
calamity.

It's gonna come.

Space Race, the old Cold War,
atom bomb was gonna settle the score.

You wait and see. It's a long time coming
but it's a-coming. It's gonna come.

Third-generation refugees,
street mob burning effigies,
revolution, civil war
like nothing ever seen before.

Like nothing ever seen before.

 

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Lulu

They said that Hollywood was
never gonna be the same without you,
still, you're gone.

How could we forget that face
and all that silver, flickering grace
that died with the silent age?
When everybody knew your name;
they all knew your name.

Born wild like a prairie flower,
she was sown by the wind and blown for miles.
Kansas couldn't keep the child.

Hell-bound for the Great White Way,
for the tawdry-bawdy burlesque stage
and Wichita was miles and miles away.

Everybody knew your name.
Everybody knew your name,
they knew your name.

So you burned the candle,
burned it at both ends.
So love ends in scandal.
You burned it brief; you burned it bright.
And the light in your immortal eyes
is the light that will never die.

Christened in straight-up gin,
Pandora was born in Weimar Berlin
and that was the rise before the fall!

Everybody sat in the dark, dark, black as night.
Everybody wanted to go where the light was so bright
and your shining face was gonna lead the way.

Homecoming like a heroine-bride
but the honeymoon was over before you arrived
and now they all cursed your name.
Everybody cursed your name.

Cold winds of Gotham howled
and the princess pawned her celluloid crown
in the glass castle walls.

Where nobody knew your name.
Nobody knew your name.

 

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The End

That'll be the end of the road,
when my battered, embittered
body and soul will go home.

That'll be the end of the war,
when we finally lay down
the barrel and the blade and go home.

By the sea, so wide and treacherous,
by the land, so dark and dangerous,
how can we have so far to go?

That'll be the end of the law,
of Bible, Koran, Torah, lost and gone.

And the sea, so wide and treacherous,
and the land, so dark and dangerous,
how can we have so far to go?

That'll be the end of arms stretched wide,
of begging for bread, of emptiness inside.

And the sea, so wide and treacherous,
and the land, so dark and dangerous,
so far left behind.

That'll be the end of the war,
when we finally lay down
the barrel and the blade and go home.