Dreamers & Runaways

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So much undone
But we packed her car
“Maybe I’ll come back”
She said with a bitter laugh

But we’re still here
You and I, you and I
Our story still unfolding here
Among the fault lines

Los Angeles
A siren’s song
For dreamers and for runaways
Beckoned by Pacific waves
But everyday
It all goes wrong
For waitresses and millionaires
Who disappear into the desert air

Broken glass
Ground into
The sidewalk gleams
Like so many buried dreams

But we’re still here
You and I, you and I
Like flames on the mountains
And haze in the sky

Los Angeles
A siren’s song
For dreamers and for runaways
Beckoned by Pacific waves
But everyday
It all goes wrong
For waitresses and millionaires
Who disappear into the desert air

We’re still here you and I, you and I…

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

Long Ways Left

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There’s an old man screaming at a young mother next to me
She steps in between him and her child instinctively
She didn’t ask to come under this fire
Riding on a subway car shouldn’t draw this kind of ire

I told her I was sorry after he got off the train
She said “Sometimes it happens and…It’s ok.”
But I know and she knows that it’s not
Add it to the list of things that somehow we forgot

We all get our wounds that just won’t heal
We all get our scars we know
Nobody else can feel
So much we thought by now that we’d outgrow
But we’ve still got a long ways, a long ways left to go

There’s arms locked across a road and tension in the air
They’ve all lost so much and still nobody seems to care
They’ve all been called anarchists and frauds
They’ve been called most everything except a child of God

We all get our wounds that just won’t heal
We all get our scars we know
Nobody else can feel
So much we thought by now that we’d outgrow
But we’ve still got a long ways, a long ways left to go

The long arc of history
Bends, they say, to justice
But it takes its time

There’s a pair of tired eyes staring out into the distance
Where they thought they were heading to didn’t look a damn thing like this
They never saw their bridges burning bright
Until the day began to die and they lit up the falling night

We all get our wounds that just won’t heal
We all get our scars we know
Nobody else can feel
So much we thought by now that we’d outgrow
But we’ve still got a long ways, a long ways left to go

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

A Beautiful Prison

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You said your life is your own
But is it?
All the stories you told
Did anybody listen?
Everything that you’ve known
Now it’s gone do you miss it?

In a beautiful prison
And there’s no way home
You’re surrounded by strangers
Who number you as their own

They watch you stare out to sea
A mystery
Every face in the street
Says you just need convincing
All they want from you is peace
But you can’t stop resisting

In a beautiful prison
And there’s no way home
You’re surrounded by strangers
Who number you as their own

They’ll be, they’ll be, they’ll be seeing you

Disappear
Disappear into the crowd
You’re just one of the crowd
You’ll see, you’ll see
You’re just one of the crowd
You’ll see, you’ll see…
But you’re not one of the crowd
And maybe they’ll see…

In a beautiful prison
And there’s no way home
You’re surrounded by strangers
But still you’re always your own…

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

The War in Me

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The mask I wear, I wear for you
So afraid of what you’d do
If you saw me for all in all
All my scars, and all my flaws

The war, the war you see in me
The moments I can’t breathe
I try to hide all this darkness inside
And keep it behind a façade, but it’s destined to break
And that’s a chance I just have to take

When the lights are turned this way
It always feels like somebody’s mistake
Another day and all its doubts
How long, I wonder, will I live under this cloud?

And I know that I’m hardly alone
In search water among these dry bones
In the dark, you say it’s all right
But how, I wonder, would it be in the light?

We are none of us a masterpiece
Just works in progress still

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

Voices

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The rain comes
On its own
In spite of all our plans
A shadow moves
And fear takes hold
No matter what we tell ourselves

And right now a mother’s singing to her baby
She can’t take away the pain
But she knows that maybe

We may not have much power in this world
But friends, we’ve still got our voices

Some endings
Are written much too fast
And not how we imagine them
Memories
Can disappear so soon
Like footprints lost beneath the tide

Maybe all we love was never meant to last.
But the better part of me’s saying, “Not so fast.”

We may not have much power in this world
But friends, we’ve still got our voices

The truth is
It’s out there
But more delicate than I could know
Our blind spots
We hold so dear
The swords on which we throw ourselves

I can fill your heart with neither love nor rancor
But I can tell you stories of
Forgiveness and of anger

We may not have much power in this world
But friends, we’ve still got our voices

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

The Fight

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There’s so much they say that we can’t do
That we may try but we’re bound to lose
Brushed aside as simpletons and fools
We’re told our places, but our hearts they blaze and we
Stand up anyway
Stand up anyway

And the fight
May be one that we cannot win
But that don’t mean they’re right
And if we take this one on the chin
That don’t mean we won’t be
Getting right back up again

Is it naive to dream of change
When the world’s favorite refrain
Is “In the end, what difference can it make?”
To fight seems crazy but still these days we
Stand up anyway
Stand up anyway

And the fight
May be one that we cannot win
But that don’t mean they’re right
And if we take this one on the chin
That don’t mean we won’t be
Getting right back up again

We may see that what they say is true
And history won’t tell of me or you
Our legacy, it may only prove
Yeah, to be that in the end we stood
So we stand up anyway
We stand up anyway

And the fight
May be one that we cannot win
But that don’t mean they’re right
And if we take this one on the chin
That don’t mean we won’t be
Getting right back up again

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

Gone Wrong

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Well I guess we both got what we asked for
So why then does it feel like a car crash?
The gears and the springs of this broken machine
Just glittering mute on the pavement

Hold on
Where’d we go so wrong?

Well I guess I was blinded by victory
And somehow I lost who I was
The lies, the misdeeds I should’ve foreseen
And words that I only regretted

Hold on
Where’d we go so wrong?
It’s not enough to say,
“Mistakes, I guess, were made.”
‘Cause we learn from the past or repeat it

Maybe we just were too different
Or maybe we both could’ve changed
But that ship has gone by and all that’s left behind
Are rough waters and too short a memory

Hold on
Where’d we go so wrong?
It’s not enough to say,
“Mistakes, I guess, were made.”
‘Cause we learn from the past or repeat it

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

Wooden Jesus

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Written by Chris Cornell

Arranged by Vance Kotrla

Original version appears on Temple of the Dog’s self-titled 1991 album.

Sunrise

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Seventeen after three a.m.
A single light burning brought me out of bed
Found you outside wrapped in an old bedspread
I asked what was wrong and you said

I don’t know the last time I saw a sunrise
And I can’t think why I never seemed to mind
It’s a shame, all the days I never realized
All the ways that there are to be blind

Said you woke up from a dream
Of younger days and outworn identities
You forgot, you said, so many things
“How’d this life get so goddamn distracting?”

I don’t know the last time I saw a sunrise
And I can’t think why I never seemed to mind
It’s a shame, all the days I never realized
All the ways that there are to be blind

I slip my arm around your waist
As you turn east
Waiting for the light of day
Together at least

Cause we can’t sleep anyway…

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)

A Hymn for the Invisible

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Every night it’s the same thing
You try to sleep but your mind’s racing
Trying to keep a job, trying to keep a home
It feels that way, but you’re not alone

I wish I could tell you that we’re all free, free
And maybe someday we’ll be
I wish I could tell you we’re all seen, seen
Until then, just give your hand to me

And we’ll sing, Lord, how we’ll sing
Our voices will rise and ring
From roadside to hilltop
A chorus they can’t stop
Our stories told on the wind

You’re adrift and can’t make sense
Of worlds inside and out full of turbulence
You try to laugh, you try to keep it inside
But you know some things a smile can’t hide

I wish I could tell you that we’re all free, free
And maybe someday we’ll be
I wish I could tell you we’re all seen, seen
Until then, just give your hand to me

And we’ll sing, Lord, how we’ll sing
Our voices will rise and ring
From roadside to hilltop
A chorus they can’t stop
Our stories told on the wind

A single candle
It don’t burn too bright
But there’s not a fire
A million can’t light

We’ll sing, Lord, how we’ll sing
Our voices will rise and ring
From roadside to hilltop
A chorus they can’t stop
Our stories told on the wind

Music and lyrics by Vance Kotrla
Published by Antique Robot Songs (ASCAP)