Vic Chesnutt - Is the Actor Happy?
Gravity of the Situation
We blew past the army motorcade
and it's abnormal load haulage
The gravity of the situation
came on us like a bit of new knowledge
Well, the bubbliest bubble bath
broke down on the bank
The gravity of the situation
Is why our old thought bubbles sank
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
The gravity of the situation
Well a fat hungry english crow
Was picking at a carcass
The gravity of the situation
Is hard to focus and harness
Well, we met Bill Lowery
at the Queen's Hall
The gravity of the situation
became apparent to us all
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
Humble and gracious, the gravity of the situation
The gravity of the situation
Sad Peter Pan
It's the plan of most
to discover that magnificent ghost
When did I get perverted
and my innocent eyes diverted
from the view so grand
imbued with distractions
I'm greedy like Senior Babbitt
I'm just chasing that electic rabbit
I'm a reluctant rebel
I just want to be Aaron Neville
With a crown on my head
and my denim shirt all dark with sweat
I'm just pushing the paint around
on advice from your lying mouth
You touched me and then you ran
and left some sad Peter Pan
all alone and awkward
but a transformation, I swear it will occur
Strange Language
Up on the bluff
where I wish I was
twisting up the pages of history
my cold feet dangling
my bony arms gesturing
to summon up a little chunk of that history
in the corridor, the shadows are long
and it messes with my equilibrium
and there's strains of a strange language
up on the bluff
where the hardwoods jut
out toward the gusts of history
my crusty mind cracks
my restless heart tracks
the fractal lines of history
in the corridor, the shadows are long
and it messes with my equilibrium
and there's strains of a strange language
in the corridor, the shadows are long
and it messes with my equilibrium
and there's strains of a strange language
Onion Soup
Thin and unshaved, drunk and mysterious
Oh I must say, lifestyle is curious
With a little touch of the sniffles
And filthy socks
Gnawed, crumbled fingernails
Never doing tomahawk chops
Flaky hair
Dandruff is distinguished
Laquer is red
Vain is the varnish
"What is at the root of this?"
She'll say "whatcha got?"
"What participle do you possess?
She'll say "which I have not!"
One blustery day
We rode out to the meadowlands
We saw and were amazed
Then hauled it back into town again
Mississippi is a mess sometimes
And not only when it rains
How come you went back to that malaria island
'Cause our friendship is strained
Those were the days
When you were so cosmopolitan
These are the days
My letters they're so increasingly maudlin
I wrote you an eloquent postcard once
About this most exquisite onion soup
But, of course I never mailed it though
Cause it was your turn in the loop
Doubting Woman
I was supposed to tell you
about the point of departure
But with the aim of a drunken archer
I will probably stray
But you can see in her bold eyebrow
You can see in that fancy cup
that even her freakish nipples are akimbo
No doubt she is the Doubting Woman
No doubt she is the Doubting Woman
There's the little matter of the bathing beauty
Who is such a little cutie but she's shy
She has a special sponge that is optional
To hide her painterly nipples from our eye
No doubt they are the doubting women
No doubt they are the doubting women
I was supposed to tell you the case of a cult
It's called the cult of inspiration and it is rewarding
You can be filled with the tingle of euphoria
Of total animation and of wonder
No doubt we love the doubting woman
No doubt we love the doubting woman
the doubting woman, the doubting woman
doubting woman, oh the doubting woman
the doubting woman
Wrong Piano
Oberheim, Yamaha
Steinway and the lot
I must of played the wrong piano
cause it left me with
I don't know what
so don't talk to me about mistakes
yes we all simply have got to take precautions
I must of played the wrong piano
cause now I just feel nauseous
some sexual
turned into some biblical
and then became a game
of just trivial pursuit
I used to gnaw on every word
but now I don't what's the use
Rupert Murdock and Larry Flynt
Bob Guccione and the U.S. mint
I took out the wrong subscription
and I don't know what I'm gonna
end up spending
Free of Hope
Bricks are dirty, lakes are dead
the family dog is mad
baby brother's science beakers are all broken
now the yard peacocks are all sad
board games are boring
may they rot on the shelf
big brother's at Columbia University
quote unquote he's tanning beaver pelts
Subtle as a billboard
Oh so refined
Smoking through my chimney
Burning up this life of mine
Free of hope, free of the past
Thank you God of nothing I'm free at last
Free of hope, free of the past
Thank you God of nothing I'm free at last
I'm free at last
I'm free, free at last
A chip on the shoulder usually means
there's wood up above
but no man at this shiny oblong table
is very very fibrous
Picnic demographics
I'm scorched and corn fed
leaning on the banister
I know it's just another twenty, twenty years of sweat
making up his Milkdud mind
gnawing on a Charleston Chew
look inside his hothouse eyes
see his budding youth
Free of hope, free of the past
Thank you God of nothing I'm free at last
Free of hope, free of the past
Thank you God of nothing I'm free at last
I'm free at last
I'm free, free at last
Betty Lonely
Betty Lonely
lives in a duplex of stucco
On the north bank of a brackish river
Her ears omit noise from the nearby airstrip
Her mind floats beyond the snapper boats
Betty Lonely
her green eyes are roughly staring
at a point through her sliding glass door
her heart lives over the drawbridge
her brain is wet like a thrownet
Betty Lonely
she will always think in Spanish
though I know
Her spanish black hair
it will start to fade
She sunk her past
Out in the surrounding salt flats
Her maidenhood was lost
beneath the Spanish moss
Betty Lonely
just talks to her grandbaby
everybody else, she blots them out
But her words stick
like a founder gig
her dry laugh is like a gaff
Thumbtack
Take a lightbulb from the closet
replace the one above the faucet
scrape the whiskers from my face
nick my lip in pointless haste
Take a magic marker black
Darken a spot on the map
Of a county on the coast
where i was born out of a ghost
Underneath the ceiling fan
Contemplate a master plan
Breathe a sigh of recognition
For a childhood superstition
Push a thumbtack in the wall
Pierce the picture i did draw
It's a graphic portrait from my youth
And it hurts my heart, this forced review
Thailand
It's a battle of the culinary arts
In this boiling land
You met your mate
over across that river
and some good old contraband
In Thailand
Thailand
Thailand
Thailand
Into our lovely story
who do we insert
but the mighty mighty
Steve Willoughby
he went searching for that big Buddha in a raincoat
but found a wife half the size of he
In Thailand
Thailand
Thailand
Thailand
Guilty by Association
you've been sanctified (terrorized)
and I've been tried
guilty by association
you've been canonized
and I've been fried
guilty by association
all the little loonies
with a salient obsession
come out from the boonies
with their sharpies and their guns
loaded with questions