The Secret Marriage
The Soul Cages
The Wild, Wild Sea
The Wind Cries Mary*
They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo)
This Cowboy Song
This War
This Was Never Meant To Be
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The Secret Marriage

No earthly church has ever blessed our union
No state has ever granted us permission
No family bond has ever made us two
No company has ever earned commission

No debt was ever paid no dowry to be gained
No treaty over border land or power
No semblance of the world outside remained
To stain the beauty of this nuptial hour

The secret marriage vow is never spoken
The secret marriage can never be broken

No flowers on the alter
No white veil in your hair
No maiden dress to alter
No Bible oath to swear

The secret marriage vow is never spoken
The secret marriage can never be broken
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The Soul Cages

The boy child is locked in the fisherman's yard
There's a bloodless moon where the oceans die
A shoal of nightstars hang fire in the nets
And the chaos of cages where the crayfish lie

Where is the fisherman, where is the goat?
Where is the keeper in his carrion coat?
Eclipse on the moon when the dark bird flies
Where is the child with his father's eyes?

These are the soul cages    These are the soul cages

He's the king of the ninth world
The twisted son of the fog bells toll
In each and every lobster cage
A tortured human soul

These are the souls of the broken factories
The subject slaves of the broken crown
The dead accounting of old guilty promises
These are the souls of the broken town

These are the soul cages    
These are the soul cages
These are the soul cages    
These are the soul cages

'I have a wager' the brave child spoke
The fisherman laughed, though disturbed at the joke.
'You will drink what I drink but you must equal me
And if the drink leaves me standing,
A soul shall go free'

'I have here a cask of most magical wine
A vintage that blessed every ship in the line
It's wrung from the blood of the sailors who died
Young white body adrift in the tide'

'And what's in it for me my pretty young thing?
Why should I whistle, when the caged bird sings?
If you lose a wager with the king of the sea
You'll spend the rest of forever in the cage with me'

These are the soul cages    
These are the soul cages
These are the soul cages    
These are the soul cages

A body lies open in the fisherman's yard
Like the side of a ship where the iceberg rips
One less soul in the soul cages
One last curse on the fisherman's lips

These are the soul cages    
These are the soul cages
These are the soul cages    
These are the soul cages

Swim to the light    
Swim to the light

He dreamed of the ship on the sea
It would carry his father and he
To a place they could never be found
To a place far away from this town
A Newcastle ship without coals
They would sail to the island of souls
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The Wild, Wild Sea

I saw it again this evening
Black sail in a pale yellow sky
And just as before in a moment,
It was gone where the grey gulls fly

If it happens again I shall worry
That only a strange ship could fly
And my sanity scans the horizon
In the light of the darkening sky

That night as I walked in my slumber
I waded into the sea strand
And I swam with the moon and her lover
Until I lost sight of the land

I swam till the night became morning
Black sail in a reddening sky
Found myself on the deck of a rolling ship
So far where no grey gulls fly

All around me was silence
As if mocking my frail human hopes
And a question mark hung in the canvas
For the wind that had died in the ropes

I may have slept for an hour
I may have slept for a day
For I woke in a bed of white linen
And the sky was the color of clay

At first just a rustle of canvas
And the gentlest breath on my face
But a galloping line of white horses
Said that soon we were in for a race

The gentle sigh turned to a howling
And the grey sky she angered to black
And my anxious eyes searched the horizon
With the gathering sea at my back

Did I see the shade of a sailor
On the bridge through the wheelhouse pane
Held fast to the wheel of the rocking ship
As I squinted my eyes in the rain

For the ship had turned into the wind
Against the storm to brace
And underneath the sailor's hat
I saw my father's face

If a prayer today is spoken
Please offer it for me
When the bridge to heaven is broken
And you're lost on the wild, wild sea
Lost on the wild, wild sea...
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The Wind Cries Mary

After all the jacks are in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness
Staggering on down street
Footprints dressed in red
And the wind whispers Mary

A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterday's life
Somewhere a Queen is weeping
Somewhere a King has no wife
And the wind it cries Mary

The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sags downstream
'Cause the life they'd lived is dead
And the wind screams Mary

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past
And with this crutch, its old age and its wisdom
It whispers "No, this will be the last"
And the wind cries Mary
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They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo)


Why are these women here dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here
Their faces fixed like stone?
I can't see what it is they despise
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone   
They dance alone

It's the only form of protest they're allowed
I've seen their silent faces scream so loud
If they were to speak these words
they'd go missing too
Another woman on the torture table
what else can they do
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone   
They dance alone

One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance
One day we'll dance on their graves
One day we'll sing our freedom
One day we'll laugh in our joy
And we'll dance

Ellas danzan con los desaparecidos
Ellas danzan con los muertos
Ellas danzan con amores invisibles
Ellas danzan con silenciosa angistia
Danzan con sus padres
Danzan con sus hijos
Danzan con sus esposos
Ellas danzan solas
Danzan solas

Hey Mr. Pinochet
You've sown a bitter crop
It's foreign money that supports you
One day the money's going to stop
No wages for your torturers
No budget for your guns
Can you think of your own mother
Dancin' with her invisible son
They're dancing with the missing
They're dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They're dancing with their fathers
They're dancing with their sons
They're dancing with their husbands
They dance alone   
They dance alone
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This Cowboy Song

We rode all night across an endless desert
We had no moon to light our way
And though a billion stars were slowly turning
We lacked the consciences to pray

Our horses running like devil chasers
Those feet they hardly touched the ground
Yes, I'm familiar with the grey wolves holwing
But I'm certain I never heard this sound

Devil to pay  
On judgment day
Would Jesus strike me down
If I should pray 

This cowboy song
Is all I know
To bring me back into your arms
Your distant sun
Your shining light
You'll be my dark star shining tonight

I've been the lowest of the low on the planet
I've been a sinner all my days
And I was living with my hand on the trigger
I had no sense to change my ways

The priest asked if I'd embrace the resurrection
To suck the poison from my life
Just like an existential cowboy villain
His words were balanced on my knife

Devil to pay  
On judgment day
Would Jesus strike me down
If I should pray

This cowboy song
Is all I know
To bring me back into your arms
Your distant sun
Your shining light
You'll be my dark star shining
Tonight

Every night
Every night
All my distances afar

This cowboy song
Is all I know
To bring me back into your arms
This cowboy song
This cowboy life
I'll be your dark star shining
Tonight

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This War

You've got the mouth of a she-wolf
Inside the mask of an innocent lamb
You say your heart is all compassion
But there's just a flat line on your cardiogram

Yet you always made a profit baby
If it was a famine or a feast

Yes, I'm the soul of indiscretion,
I was cursed with x-ray vision,
I could see right through all the lies you told,
When you smiled for the television

And you can see the coming battle
You pray the drums will never cease
And you may win this war that's coming
But would you tolerate the peace?

Invest in ammunition
And those little cotton flags
Invest in wooden caskets
In guns and body bags, guns and body bags

Your daddy was a businessman
And it always made good sense
You know the war can make you rich my friend
In dollars, pounds and cents

In the temple that was Mammon's
You were ordained the parish priest
Yes you may win this coming battle
But could you tolerate the peace?

Invest in deadly weapons
And those little cotton flags
Invest in wooden caskets
In guns and body bags
You're invested in oppression
Investing in corruption
Invest in every tyranny
And the whole world's destruction

I imagine there's a future
When all the earthly wars are over
You may find yourself just standing there
On the white cliffs of Dover

You may ask, what does it profit a man
To gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?
Is that your body you see on the rocks below
As the tide begins to roll?

And you invested in this prison
From which you never got released
You may have won this war we're fighting
But would you tolerate the peace?

There's a war on our democracy
A war on our dissent
There's a war inside religion
And what Jesus might have meant

There's a war on mother nature
A war upon the seas
There's a war upon the forests
On the birds and the bees

There's a war on education
A war on information
A war between the sexes
And every nation

A war on our compassion
A war on understanding
A war on love and life itself
It's war that they're demanding

Make it easy on yourself
And don't do nothing

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This Was Never Meant to Be

This was never meant to be
All the signs were there to see
From the first moment that we met I knew
This was never meant to be

This was always doomed to fail
From the moment we set sail
All our instincts told us we were wrong
This was never meant to be

But soon we were enraptured in love's dance
When the dance ended I found
I couldn't live without you
And now one of my dreams is sad embers
Here in the cold of December    
And now you're in the arms of someone else
I always knew that

This was always second best
Our love would fall at the first test
Common sense would tell us we were wrong
This was never meant to be

This was never meant to last
We drank our cup of love too fast
From the first moment that we met I knew
Now Miss, from our first kiss
I tell you: this was never meant to be