NIGHT RAINS
Words & Music by David Bray
Night rains, rains down on the city
Night rains through a flood of lights
You hear the lightning crack
Feels like an urban heart attack
In the murmur of the night
Subway trains surge through the veins
Mainline to the heart of the city
Angry neon flashing
The city’s wild eyed and pretty
Chorus
Streetlamps like pneumatic drills
Pounding the pavement with light
Headlights barrel along the highway
Like pot shots into the night
Chorus
Some guy gives you the finger
But it feels like a fist
You can’t hear what he’s gesticulating
But you get the gist
SWEAT SOAKED CITY
Words & Music by David Bray
Sweat-soaked city
Night life in a working class town
Sweat-soaked city
To feel up we go downtown
Sweat-soaked city
Don’t let the work day get us down
Night life, night life in a working class town
They’re playing good time music
In a town that’s fallen on bad times
Deflated dollars, deflated pride
And dwindling dreams
This is the only place in town with a band
And this band piledrives a backbeat
To drive away the ringing in their ears
From the sound of machines.
Chorus
In the corner young alcohooligans
Are acting like fools again
For some couples, love
Turns this into a place for romance
There’s an old couple trying to find a fox-trot feel
In some small town hard rock rhythm
Work day’s load is put down
The feeling’s light ….. it’s time to dance.
Chorus
Come Sunday morning
The light seeps in
A bleary-eyed sun
Is hung over this town
The Sunday service singers
Are last night’s drunken choir
They’re somewhat more in tune today
But somewhat less inspired.
Chorus
THIS BAR INHEIRITS THE MEEK
Words & Music by David Bray
His rebound romance
Is a sad affair with alcohol
Now he’s barstool bottlenecking
Most every night
He says he wouldn’t run to her
Even if she called
But damned if he don’t keep checking
Left and right.
He says “Put on some music
Let’s have a hell of a time
Put on some music
Hey David lend, lend me a dime
Put on some music
Put on some music
Then he gets up and walks past the jukebox
Teary trauma, dreary drama
Barroom backdrop
He’s shot glassy-eyed
Trying to hang on
Face down toward a bottle
Staring down the barrel of a gun
He’s been dying slowly
Ever since she’s been gone
Chorus
One more of love’s
Wounded, weary veterans
Flanked by two dead soldiers
Just finished off
In this emergency ward
For the emotionally shattered
To whom all that ever mattered
Has gone off.
Chorus
So lady, wherever you are
I know your story
I’ve heard this man’s sad tale
Each night this week
I don’t know who inherits the earth
Or grabs the glory
But I do know that
This bar inherits the meek.
RENEGADE
Words & Music by David Bray
You turn you weary eyes to watch
The changing of the avant-garde
Everyone’s marching to the new drummer
But you walk alone and each step comes hard.
Frenzied followers of fads and fashions
Passing passions and political views
They choose their words like they choose their clothes
But those poses just aren’t you.
Renegade your youth is gone
Renegade still you fight on
Renegade your spirit’s strong
You just refuse to fade.
Now you don’t hear much from your college friends
Who spoke out and stood their ground
They’ve turned into couples
Beneath security blankets
Of suburban silence they lie down.
Some play their cards right
Make their bid for the top
Of the jacket and tie society
But you can’t bring yourself to follow suit
There’s so much more you have to be.
Chorus
You’re a pacifist with violent emotions
Your devotion is always strong
That anger of old still fills your eyes
When you see human rights being wronged.
You’re a wise man and a sentimental fool
To you, friendship is more than a phase
Your decade’s gone, but you fight on
Though you’re lonely and afraid.
Chorus
FLYING IN THE CITY OF ANGELS
Words & Music by David Bray
It’s hotter than hell
With a halo of smog
Traffic churns
Arteries are clogged
Jaded workers blowing horns
With a need to feel reborn
Like cagey prisoners
Looking for their next release
I’ve been flying in the city of angels
Flying in the city of angels
Where do angels go
When they sink this low?
If there’s a heaven
Get me the hell out of here.
High fashion paid for by the gram
High priests who don’t give a damn.
Lunatic prophets bark beneath a spotlight moon
When you read the bubble in this cartoon
It’s the high price you pay to feed the spoon.
Chorus
Smokestacks suck the clear blue out of the sky
This pipe sucks the life out of you and I
This city breaks you like a habit
And holds you like a spell
Til you can’t get high enough to get out of hell.
Chorus
WORKING DAY TO DAY
Words & Music by David Bray
Subway trains surge through the veins
Mainline to the heart
Highways pump exhaustion
Into a city bursting apart
Some guy on a caffeine high gives you the finger
And it feels like a fist
You can’t hear what he’s gesticulating
But you get the gist
Working day to day
Working day to day
Gets in the way
Of things working out like you planned
Gunfire is eating up
Starving neighbourhoods
Anger feeds on frustration
Kids are kindling wood
Crushed between where they are
And what they need
Some call it hunger
Some call it greed
Chorus
9 to 5 doesn’t add up to much
You’re counting on the lottery
Resigned to not being able to quit
That’s your destiny
So mix or match your metaphors
The story’s still the same
In this city, you don’t stop to win or lose
You just keep playing the game
Chorus
Every morning you look in the mirror
To see what you’ve left behind
Your kids call you distant
Before you know it you find that….
Chorus
SIFTING THROUGH THE SAND
Words & Music by David Bray
Seething heat bleaches
The snow white sand beach
Girls flex power over muscle boys
Their toys
Stuttering rain interrupts
Their smooth patter
One rainfall and pick-ups are destroyed.
Why does it feel so cold?
Why does it feel so lonely?
Why does it feel so cold
In this sun and sand?
Why does it feel so cold?
Exposing little of ourselves
While we’re getting perfect tans
Men drift, sifting
Through beauties in the sand.
Like a lounging lizard
Summer scales the beach.
My need to touch someone
Is getting out of hand
Beneath the surface
Warmth is out of reach.
Chorus
In the distance
Hills bloom through a daybreak rain
Nothing lasting grows here in the sand
Yesterday’s impressions
Have been washed away
Here, grains of hope
Can sift right through your hands
Chorus
GO OUT DANCING
Words & Music by David Bray
I’m going to go out dancing
I’m going to go out dancing tonight
I’m going to forget her
The more I learn about love
The harder it seems to get
It was easier trying to find love
Than it has been trying to forget
Chorus
The people I thought would stand by me
Just stood me up in the end
They loved the man who laughed
The one who cries Is no one’s friend
Chorus
I’m going to kick off my shoes
Rock and roll with the punches
Try to find the life I lack
You see, I’ve been trying to kick the blues
But they just keep kicking back
So….
Chorus
ROAD RAGE
Words & Music by David Bray
My job leaves me rundown
But I’m never going to settle
The highway throbs
Now I’m pedal to the metal
Like I’m driving the tempo
With a big kick drum
Look in my rearview mirror
You’ll know where I’m coming from
Road rage
A finger feels like a fist
Road rage
A finger feels like a fist
You can’t hear what he’s gesticulating
But you get the gist
Rush hour exhaustion
It’s getting hard to breathe
An hour to go ten minutes away
The city starts to seethe
Life takes a detour
Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way
Now I’m tearing along the dotted line
Ripping down the highway
Chorus
DON’T LIE
Words & Music by David Bray
They say nothing lasts forever
Does anything last long enough?
Can we live with what we’ve lost and
Hold on when we’re feeling out of touch
Don’t lie, don’t lie
Don’t try, try to tell me that
Everything will be alright
Don’t lie, don’t lie
Don’t try, try to tell me that
Dawn blooms through the darkest night
I always thought that I had more time
All of a sudden it seems I don’t
All the things
I thought that we’d do
Now I know we won’t
Chorus
I can brace myself and brave the storm
But the calm is a different matter
Amid the noise I can see through the pane
But the silence makes it shatter
Chorus
You go from feeling blessed to feeling cursed
Feel like you’re drowning dying of thirst
Chorus
MY EPITAPH
Words & Music by David Bray
Every day the clock’s hands pull me here
And here they hold me down
With sleight of hand
They steal my life away
Then my time is measured in money
If that’s how they sum up my life
It’s a hell of a thing for an epitaph to say.
I don’t want my spirit
To die before I do
I won’t let these wasted years
Turn into my life
I don’t my spirit
To die before I do
So get out of my way
I’m having my say
I’m taking my life
Get out of my way
Let my epitaph say
That I reclaimed my life.
Well, you know that talk is cheap
And I found out that when it talks it lies
I traded my youth
For a working wage
Now I find the price I paid was far too high.