Zero Cool
Shawn Colvin
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This is about my favorite singer, Shawn Colvin. I first heard her in 1995 when her song "Sunny Came Home" was really popular. I bought the whole cd and loved every song on it, which rarely happens with me. So I bought all her other cds (there are 6 in all), and loved them just the same. Her cds fall into 2 different categories; Folk and Pop. You probably haven't heard of her, as she's only had one really popular song. I get ripped on all the time because she isn't that popular, but she won TWO GRAMMYS last year! EAT THAT! I just really like her because her music is so easy to listen to, and her lyrics kick ass. In fact, they kick so much ass that I included her best ones below. All you simpletons out there in teeny-bopper land may not like them...but does it look like I care?

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Sunny Came Home

Sunny came home to her favorite room
Sunny sat down in the kitchen
She opened a book and a box of tools
Sunny came home with a mission

She says days go by I'm hypnotized
I'm walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire

Sunny came home with a list of names
She didn't believe in transcendence
It's time for a few small repairs she said
Sunny came home with a vengeance

She says days go by I don't know why
I'm walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire

Get the kids and bring a sweater
Dry is good and wind is better
Count the years, you always knew it
Strike a match, go on and do it

Days go by I'm hypnotized
I'm walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire
Light the sky and hold on tight
The world is burning down
She's out there on her own and she's alright
Sunny came home
Sunny came home...

Trouble

Baby let me set you down
You look so troubled and I think I know
Just when you think you've come around
There you go

Now I know the business of the heart
And it'll get you anyway it can
You need someone to walk with in the dark, well
I'm your man

I go to the trouble like a magnet
That's where I'll be
Trouble is just a place to sing
It's what you need

I swear you look like you're in jail
And all at once you're halfway out the door
One foot dancing, one foot nailed
To the floor

Chasing those circles in the ground
The same old shit is still the same old lie
Just when you think you've got it down
Watch it fly

I go to the trouble like a light
Or like a dare
Trouble is just a friend to me, I know
It'll always be there

It's really hard to make your peace
So give me some credit for the hell I've paid
This world's a blessing and a beast
Everyday

So come on baby let me show you how
The less you know the more I comprehend
You don't have to drag me down
I descend

I go to the trouble and I like it
That's where I'll be
Trouble is just like love, if it's half the way
It's all I can see
And it's just what you need

I Want it Back

I lost the thread, I lost the map
It's not a feeling, it's a fact
I had it once, I was on track
Why won't it stay? I want it back

I see you there in that magazine
You're looking smart, you sound supreme
You got such lip, you know the street
You been around, you took some heat

You mighta killed, you might be cruel
You might be stupid but we love you
You're in the paper, you're in the air
You're in my head, you're everywhere

I want it back

You're so extreme, you're feast or famine
You got one mission, just like a salmon
You said in life, mistakes are many
How come you never admit to any?

Are you for real or are you bluffing?
You really get me, famous for nothing
And every morning you got a name
In a world where people all look the same

I want it back

I can't give love, I don't know how
I write in code so you won't know
I was on drugs, I took a nap
I didn't mean it, I want it back

I dreamed again of paradise
I floated steady, it felt so nice
to sell your soul, just think of that
I'm halfway there, I want it back

I want it back

84,000 Different Delusions

Good love
bad love
good love
yeah
My time
your time
my time
yeah

84,000 different delusions
Take a ride in the car
84,000 different delusions

Good times
bad times
good times
yeah
Our world
their world
our world
yeah

84,000 different delusions
Meet me down at the bar
84,000 different delusions

Go look at the lake, please
Go look at the sky
Go look at a baby
We're all gonna die

84,000 different delusions
We don't know who we are
84,000 different delusions
We don't get very far
84,000 different delusions
Everyone is a star
84,000 different delusions...

Monopoly

I don't know what else to do
I would rather do anything
Than write this song for you
And perpetuate this thing
In my head, in my living room
With the usual arsenal
Of broken chords and rusty strings
To surrender all

And I don't like to be so weak
Retreating behind these lines
The same old tongue-in-cheek
Regretting that both are mine
And I don't like to live this way
This is really true
But I know better than to pray now
About what I just have to learn to do
But imagine the nerve of God
Letting me let you in
And I thought I could let you go in grace
I've gotta think again

Because right now I would be bought
and sold
To see your face somewhere
I would sell your sweet soul
Just to touch your crazy black gold hair
I don't care what's really real
I was someone that you'd heard of
I saw heaven in your eyes
And we made a deal
And that's what I know of love

Music, it never goes
But I told you I hate that shit
When people say "well you know
You got a song out of it"
But I don't know what else to do
I would rather be anywhere
Than here without you

Kill The Messenger

Jane it sure looks like rain
These Canadian plains
And their windblown hair
Jane the bruise colored clouds
The smell of the ground
In the ripening air

I have seen you
In your fluttering dress
And your dry face of steel
As you're dragging your red rowing boat
Cross the forever fields

See Jane something's gone dead
Inside my head
There's nothing but fear
Jane the rivers of grief
The tears of relief
Seem ages from here

Sometimes the beauty of life
Hits like lightening washing everything
clear
And these dimmers of doubt flicker
Fade out and disappear

But Jane that is a luxury
There are those of little faith it seems
And they beg for truth like charity
And I see them on every street corner

They are holding out one righteous hand
While the other leads the marching band
In the shadow hymn of the scratchman
Heed the message, kill the messenger

Jane I heard you found love
Wriggling up from the mud
On the shores of Granville
But Jane in the wink of an eye
The naysayers fly
Like hounds at your heels

Jane they'll whisper your name
And you won't feel the chains
And you won't see the moss
Oh, Jane there's an art to the game
The aesthetics of love
The athletics of loss

Sometimes someone drifts by
And our nets get entwined in the sea
And in time I might find
They still mean something to me

But Jane that is a luxury
There are those of little faith in me
And they pull me down like gravity
And I see them on every street corner

They are masters in the sleight of hand
They are dancers and they step so grand
To the shibboleth of Shadowland
Heed the message, kill the messenger

Steady On

China gets broken
And it will never be the same
Boats on the ocean
Find their way back again
I am weaving
Like a drunkard
Like a balloon up in the air
I am needing a puncture and someone
To point me somewhere
I'm gonna keep my head on straight
I just hope it's not too late
Open up the gate I go straight on, steady on

Steady on!

I was feeling imploded
A wooden smile, a wooden heart
The things exploded
Like rockets in the dark
Now I'm pulling out splinters
And I'm off to hibernate somewhere
For the nuclear winter
Of another love affair

"Cause he seemed like a miracle
I ate it up like cereal
But it was something like shrapnel

Steady On!

It's like ten miles of a two-lane
On a South Dakota wheat plain
In the middle of a hard rain
A slow boat or a fast train
I am gonna keep my head on straight
I'm gonna keep my head on straight

Steady on!

Shotgun Down the Avalanche

I'm riding shotgun down the avalanche
Tumbling and falling down the avalanche

So be quiet tonight the stars
shine bright
On this mountain of new fallen snow
But I will raise up my voice into
the void
You have left me nowhere to go

I love you so much and it's so bizarre
A mystery that goes on and on and on
This is the best thing and the very
most hard
And we don't get along

After countless appeals we keep
spinning our wheels
On this mountain of new fallen snow
So I let go the catch and we are
over the edge
You have left me nowhere to go

I'm riding shotgun down the avalanche

Sometimes you make me lose my will
to live
And just become a beacon for your soul
But the past is stronger than my will
to forgive
Forgive you or myself, I don't know

I'm riding shotgun down the avalanche
Tumbling and falling down the avalanche

So be quiet tonight be sure to
step lightly
On this mountain of new fallen snow
But I will raise up my voice into
the void
You have left me nowhere to go

I'm riding shotgun down the avalanche

The Facts About Jimmy

Jimmy is married and he lives down south
His wife lives somewhere colder
He sees another woman in a badlands town
And she cries upon his shoulder

Jimmy thinks that he's a helpless man
He thinks about love in a vacuum
And he won't remember that talk you had
When you were walking into the bedroom

He'll say I don't know why we met
The simple truth is always the best
C'est la vie - what's done is done
And there's somebody for everyone

Jimmy has debts and Jimmy has ties
That he can't get out from under
If you look far enough into his eyes
It'll rock you just like thunder

Jimmy broke locks and Jimmy broke bolts
Just to get himself out from under
When you feel like you're lying in a prison cell
It'll kind of make you wonder

He'll say it's destiny we met
The simple truth is always the best
Don't you see what's done is done
And there's somebody for everyone

I used to get drunk to get my spark
And it used to work just fine
It made me wretched but it gave me heart
I miss Jimmy like I miss my wine

Jimmy as if you didn't know by now
Let me tell you a thing or two
Everybody might have someone
But everyone falls in love with you...

He'll say you get just what you get
The simple truth is always the best
Don't you see what's done is done?
And there's somebody for everyone

I Don't Know Why

I don't know why
The sky is so blue
And I don't know why
I'm so in love with you
But if there were no music
Then I would not get through
I don't know why
I know these things, but I do

I don't know why
But somewhere dreams come true
And I don't know where
But there will be a place for you
And every time you look that way
I would lay down my life for you
I don't know why
I know these things, but I do

I don't know why
But some are going to make you cry
And I don't know how
But I will get you by, I will try
They're not trying to cause you pain
They're just afraid of loving you
I don't know why
I know these things, but I do

I don't know why
The trees grow so tall
And I don't know why
I don't know anything at all
But if there were no music
Then I would not get through
I don't know why
I know these things, but I do
I don't know why
I know these things, but I do

Orion in the Sky

Maybe somewhere in the southern
hemisphere
There could be room for all this love
Where they've saved a place for innocence
And what is still mysterious
And their dreaming time
They're dreaming time

Because we've broken down the
wilderness
And we've blackened up the skies
And we cry 'cause we've got no vision left
While the smoke gets in our eyes
And there's no more time
And the dream is dying

But I love you baby
And I know you and I
Can find a way to heaven
Just like Orion in the sky
He's the long lost hero
He's the guardian of your son
But can he protect us baby
From all the sad things we've done

Now I know there's no sense in hiding
And we can't escape this war
And I have made my peace with dying
Down here on this killing floor
In a world gone blind
Where there's no more time

But I love you baby
And I know by and by
We gonna find a way to heaven
Just like Orion in the sky
He can walk upon the water
He can shine for everyone
But can he protect us baby
From all the sad things we've done

Is it too much to ask in a lifetime
For just one shot at happiness
Do you just have to laugh at the right lines
Until you come face to face
With the looking glass
To be reckoned with the sins of our time

I love you baby
I can see you and I
As we fly away together
Up to Orion in the sky
He's the last of the fallen angels
He's the light of the Southern Cross
Maybe he can take us baby
Back to the paradise we've lost

So I'll see you darlin'
Now fly baby, fly
Down across the Fiji Islands
To where the Seven Sisters cry
Gather all your dreams and take them
Somewhere so far out of reach
Follow the sword of the hunter, baby
And meet me on the beach
We are forever tied
Still on the run
To the medicine man
For all the sad, sad things
We've done

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