Encore Without an End

Pushing back grey curtains of doubt
Allowing tired eyes to finally see
That I'm sick of being sick with attempts to compromise
Crying for something we'll never be
You look at me and say
That you despise me more everyday
And you never meant for this to go on so long
Anyway...

One life, two tries, three times (X2)
Who can't live, can't live without

This is what you get,
I'm sorry but I can't hate you yet
You need this more than I do
And that's why I still love you

Adrift on this isle of my discontent
She's holding on to hurt me one more night
We're two dark stars decaying each other
Complaining that they've lost their light
She looks as if to say
Until I hate her she won't go away
Or else she would have left me alone
Yesterday

One life, two tries, three times (x2)
Can't live, can't live without

This is what you get,
I'm sorry but I can't hate you yet
You need this more than I do
And that's why I still love you
(repeat)

We take our final bow,
Done because I hate you now
You'll never stop the pain
Because we'll never dance again
(repeat)

One life, two times, three tries (X2)
You can't eat, can't breathe or sleep
You can't walk, can't hear or see
So don't talk, don't say you're free
'Cause you can't live, won't live without me

So sayeth The Brad...

The Other Side of Waves

Awash in her arms of blue, and ebony,
Promised a sweet mileu of apathy
And something so new it had never been seen
Or heard or felt or lived before

The goal of a better day, a peace,
From looking up at thin rays draping over me
Resigning to this only way to be,
Exist, to wait in the sea

I hear it bellow from the deep
Crashing ships while I'm asleep and dreaming
And when I wake the flash of fires floating
Somewhere far above has caught the
Skeletons of those I loved and

Sinking brings them closer to me than ever before
Extinguishing the heat now and exchanging it for
A deep, a hard desire for what they've never known
No sweeter thing than this: the ice-quick grip of letting go
(Letting go)

A current of no more pain
An icy chokehold like a soft refrain
Aware that the urge has finally waned:
To hope, to hurt, to ever rise again

I hear it bellow from the deep
Crashing ships while I'm asleep and dreaming
And when I wake the flash of fires floating
Somewhere far above has caught the
Skeletons of those I loved and

Sinking brings them closer to me than ever before
Extinguishing the heat now and exchanging it for
A deep, a hard desire for what they've never known
No sweeter thing than this: the ice-quick grip of letting go
(Letting go)

Crush me now, save me now, my watery grave
I'm staring at my life through the other side of waves

It bellows from the deep
Crashing ships while I'm asleep and dreaming
And when I wake the flash of fires floating
Somewhere far above has caught the
Skeletons of those I loved and

Sinking brings them closer to me than ever before
Extinguishing the heat now and exchanging it for
A deep, a hard desire for what they've never known
No sweeter thing than this: the ice-quick grip of letting go

Letting go (repeat through)

Crush me now, save me now, my watery grave
I've given up my life behind the other side of waves

So sayeth The Brad...

Potentia

Work that mouth, tow that line
Electric Man is feelin' fine
Grab that wrist, shake that hand
Rise to your feet for Electric Man

I'm just an ordinary man with nowhere else to turn
I've seen my share of soldiers coming through
So when the book are out of words, and nothing's left to learn
I'll bow to the only thing I really know how to do

Work that mouth, tow that line
Electric Man is feelin' fine
Grab that wrist, shake that hand
Rise to your feet for Electric Man

An eye, a shadow, a fist, a frown
He points his finger and the city falls down
An eye, a shadow, a fist, a frown
He points his finger and the city falls down
An eye, a fist, a shadow, a frown
He points his finger and the city falls down
An eye, a fist, a shadow, a frown
He points his finger...
And even God falls down
(DOWN!)

There's no shame in mediocrity, just a twinge of doubt
Of what you are and who you could have been
An uphill cart race with a tire out
(Is what we've earned)
And I'll stop to smell the briars in the shadows of much greater men

Work that mouth, tow that line
Electric Man is feelin' fine
Grab that wrist (grab that wrist)
Shake that hand (shake that hand)
Rise to your feet for Electric Man

So sayeth The Brad...

The Fabled Beauty of Sophia

She left me in her room still shaking, I couldn't speak at all
An orphan to the world, a dying leaf in the fall
Buried in a garden, but no flower'd grow again
This world had reared its ugliness, its corrosion and its pain

There's beauty in this life still
Yet some glory, she would say
You can find it even though all of
The heroes left today
There's beauty in this life still
Yet some glory, she'd contend
Even after all the ones you love
Become your dear departed friends

This place feels black and hollow and their hands feel harsh and cold
Decaying in the twilight of a world that's growing old
With children weeping softly and widows left to cry
When the evils of our fathers are nothing like the sins of you and I

There's beauty in this life still
Yet some glory, I need to believe
Able to be found even when
The heroes have to leave
There's beauty in this life still
Yet some glory, I'll depend
Even after all the ones you love
Become your dear departed friends

Dark funnels laugh with Armageddon's breath around me
A cyclone roars, no light ever shines through
You took my wings to go ahead and soar above me
To leave me flightless in a field, and mired in these memories of you

A world with no comparison, a world with nothing left
A world so unfamiliar, a world that was bereft
A world that does not have her, but then still I hear her say
It was you that I have died for so you'd know to live another day
Because there's motive yet to love
And there's basis to be strong
Because there's beauty in this life still
And there's reason to live on...

So sayeth The Brad...

A Mother's Proverb

Mama said
Don't leave the casket in the sanctuary or
Wait just to wonder why
There's a thousand ways to live and
The world won't stop to watch you cry
Take your sorrows to the pasture
Won't you bury them alive
Turn your head to better things
While I wait here where grass has met the summer sky

She said
Kick off your shoes, leave this town of misery
And don't come back again
If you spend a lifetime looking back
You'll get to feeling salty in the end
But I've ran this track so many times
While watching many friends
Beat me to the finish line and
They've left me talking to these headstones once again

Papa said
She's in a better place, my son
Take some joy in moving on
There's a thousand ways to live this life
And only one is mourning what is gone
So I picked up, stepped out of the shade,
I saw the sun still shone
And this is something we all can do
I left those headstones on my own
(and now I know)

(But that doesn't mean
That I'll stop
Missing you...)




So sayeth The Brad...

Symphony

Echoed (echoed) lightly (lightly) overhead?
Are you listening to me in the sweet symphony?

Can you hear the bells above the drums
Echoed (echoed) lightly (lightly) overhead?
As you clap with all the hands around you (overhead),
Are you listening to me in the sweet symphony?

Cigarettes and chandeliers and velvet
Caught reflected in your eyes...
Canes and gloves and scented cloves on ruby lips;
A million people all dressed up to watch me die...
Will someone hear this now
From the crowded seats?
A woman that will listen
Just for me?

Can you hear the bells above the drums
Echoed (echoed) lightly (lightly) overhead?
As you clap with all the hands around you (overhead),
Are you listening to me in the sweet symphony?

Piccolos and resined bows and brass horns
Surrounded in a sea of black and white...
Gods and men and soaring wings of angels
Staring from the painted marble sky...
Will someone hear me now
From the crowded streets?
A woman in a million
Just for me?

Can you hear the bells above the drums
Echoed (echoed) lightly (lightly) overhead?
As you clap with all the hands around you (overhead),
Are you listening to me in the sweet symphony?

Symphony...
My sweet symphony.

So sayeth The Brad...

Cody's Quote

The tears run,
sometimes they stop.
You wipe them away,
wishing to save every drop.
You cant believe,
that any of it is real.
Your true feelings overwhelm,
there is no reason to conceal.
Waves of emotion,
they break through your mind.
You think so much,
but do not want to unwind.
Wonderful memories abound,
wherever you look.
Everything is going to be ok,
remember cookbook.

Sophia II

Though no plaque or inscription bears witness to your name,
Nor do the people shout praises of your fame;
To the children belonging to you for all time,
As the ones you have brought into lives so divine
Your GREATEST act was giving them lives they loved so
And their HARDEST act has been letting you go

[we love you, Mom]
[we always will]