The Magnetic Fields Album

we walked alone in the rain and lightning
when you were my baby
so much in love it was almost frightening
when you were my baby
everybody called you a fool
when you wouldn't play by the rules
everybody was wrong

there was nowhere to run away to
when you were my baby
everybody began to hate you
when you were my baby
time wasn't on our side
me and my foolish pride
then I said goodbye

now you've gone away and left me on my own
now I'm walking down the highway all alone
on a rainy night and crying out my eyes
crying out my, crying out my eyes

we were young, yeah, but old enough to...
when you were my baby
and I just couldn't help but love you
when you were my baby

just the way you wore your hair
and the way you just didn't care
and the way you danced
when you were my baby

we used to go out on those summer nights
and dance in the neon rain
we used to hold hands at the movie show
but we'll never hold hands again

those days are gone
you and I were young those summer nights
you'll see the world
diving for a girl you'll never find
and then we'll quietly grow old...
the saddest story ever told

once upon a time we fell in love
or at least that's what you said
you say I can find someone else
but I just wish I was dead

They say everyone you touch turns to gold
They say we're too young I think we're too old
Ugly as sin, pale, and thing
They've been wrong before

They say you're a frog prince swollen with pride
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride
Getting confused in Santa Cruz
Living in a dream

Touching across the room like lovers from the moon
Dancing all night to the tune of lovers from the moon

I'm not afraid to walk hand in hand
I think we were made to lie in the sand
Decadently by the sea, under the sun

Touching across the room like lovers from the moon
Dancing all night to the tune of lovers from the moon

candy, it's been really nice
but I've got to go
cause I can't be the part of your life
you don't wanna know

and I can't keep lying all the time
and I know you'll find a better man
they're all too easy to find
and I'll just go away somewhere
and slowly lose my mind

candy, they called you a baby
they called you a whore
and I can't see the light at the end for you anymore
candy, I can't be the man they want me to be
maybe it was only with you that I could be me

I was only doing my job for the company
with a gun in my pocket and no identity
I fell in love with you, but we're not free

tokyo a go-go
the dancing spies with evil eyes
that walk the night
tokyo a go-go
in colored scenes, the dancing queens
with laser beams

you were just another boy, only seventeen
well designed for giving pleasure
just a love machine
now we've got to run away
we're turning green

we used to dance like it was going out of style
when you loved me for a while
and I remember every word you ever said, every kiss
we used to sing all the oldest songs we knew
but the words were never true for you
was it all a game of solitaire played in the dark?

all the sweetest things you said and I believed
were summer lies
hanging in the willow trees like the dead
were summer lies
I'll never fall in love again

I whispered too, but the things I said were true
and I gave up my whole world for you
I gave you all the best years of my life
and half the worst
and now you're gone
I pine and wane, pale and wan
never knowing when it's dawn
curtains drawn, hiding in my room
wasting away, cutting myself...

Was there some part of you - tail, or hunchback;
That, when they cut it off, grew back?
You were a little girl with starry eyes
Now you're a sad young man and no one knows why.
When we go dancing underneath the city in the catacombs
When we go dancing the strobe lights and the disco will bring us home.
I know Old Orchard Beach is where you belong
You can go back, but, baby, that won't make you young
The wind will blow or it won't
The stars come out or they don't
The world goes round or we get thrown into the stars.
When we go dancing underneath the city in the catacombs
When we go dancing the strobe lights and the disco will bring us home.

we were young like the future
we were young and always wrong
we were young like our country
learning old ways to be young
random driving around with you
in my dilapidated car
like Isadora Duncan II
in impossibly long white scarves

autumn leaves, diaries, tennessee and jeremy
suddenly, willow trees, memories of jeremy

like a galapagos turtle, we grow old and stay that way
build a nest in the sand dunes, lay our eggs and walk away
I was writing our dreams down
making maps of an unseen plane
and I noticed anomalies
that you'd rather not see explained

we drove, canopy down, in the scalding rain
on the one day we were young
the house we bought was really a lake
otters scampered down the halls
there were whirlpools in the floor
and sails

you're alone and it's over
you're alone with your gun
you're alone from now on
you're all alone, and you're not young

the summer came and passed us by
we didn't care, we just let it die
but when we dance, just you and I
when we walk hand in hand in the rain

when we're young and in love once again
we will dance in the autumn with the leaves in our hair
when I look, I'll be dancing in your eyes

you've gone away over the sea
you will return, it's meant to be
never regret your time with me...

you held me upside-down
til I couldn't breathe anymore
then you held me like a baby

television, like wine
and cigarettes, like grains of sand
and raspberry schnapps, like a thousand sunsets

the boys talk like they own the world
the women keep their stupid diaries
but suddenly there's a tidal wave
and everything is sucked out to sea

there were probably birds outside our little room
I don't remember anything but you

we must have been the butt
of all the jokes in the world
for trying to live like pippi longstocking

I will not sing your ugly song
I won't put on your ugly play
I cannot join your ugly priesthood
And if I die I won't come home

Railroad Boy of mine...

I bought you crows and candelabra
And I went moth-eating with you
I held you down when you had seizures
And read to you at bedtime

We went to see a beaver dam
We went to see a coral ref
But life is more than going to see things
And that's too bad

Railroad boy of mine
Railroad boy of mine...

Well, you've got a really long name
It won't fit on any forms
You gave me all your mirrors
And they made me deformed

You're sending smoke signals
I know your secret code
We travel in the plaid van
And we give our puppet show
And we picnic in the winter
On maple syrup and snow

Well, you made a Molotov cocktail
And you threw it on the ground
And it sent us flying
And now we're flying about

You're sending smoke signals
I know your secret code
We travel in the plaid van
And we give our puppet show
And we picnic in the winter
On maple syrup and snow

Maybe tomorrow I'll see love in your eyes
And mine will dry
Maybe tomorrow we can learn how to fly on these
Nasty little wings

And I wanna take you out
But you always refuse 'cause
You only play the games
That you know you can lose
You love to fail, that's all you love

We don't know why you've been gone
Somebody said you're on the run
You're living where wild horses run
Well, hey, whatever turns you on

I'll be your confidante
Come and go as you please
I'll honor and protect my
Wagner in dungarees

All day, snow covered us
Night-time, it was always night
The people on the street
Were made of meat
Black girl, trucks ran us down
Blue boy...

The people on the sidewalk were traced in chalk
Whale embryos filled your enormous room
Screech-owl kachinas built your spiritual room
We were kings, kings!

where the workers stand in querulous rows awaiting dislocation
I will be there too
when you're cashing in your food stamps
when you're sleeping in a cattle train
I'll be with you
pushing up against the ticket counter window
face against the glass
bleeding from the waist
and kissing to be chaste
it is said that those who will not rest
have been cursed to tramp
like soldiers through the marshes
or that blessed are the ones who leave the stage
like babies falling fast asleep

so I twice am cursed and twice am stuck
affixed to this corner of the earth
that old river keeps on rolling
but the old man doesn't see it
he just stands there with his eyes closed
asking: "where'd you go? Where'd you go?"
Lyrics
so whererever you may sleep tonight
be it bed or bedrock, home, or open field:
when your breathing slows and your eyes are closed
and you begin to yield
then whatever you have taken as your pillow
may it serve as mine as well

underneath the weeping willow I will wait for you forever
my eyes forever closed
asking: "where'd you go? where'd you go?"

You're in your own little world:
An expensive birdcage;
Like a plastic baby in a Faberge egg
I saw you today at the Cafe Blase
And thought of the nights when we had fire fights

Nameless seaside ghost town
That's where I go when I see the moon
Living in an abandoned firehouse with you
You're in your own little head
In a field of sunflowers
And there's blood in your mouth
And there's rats all over town

Take me out to the beach
And I'll tell you my secret name
Take me under the sea
And we'll derail the trains
Let's run away into the caves
I still love you
I still love you baby
Lyrics
You're in your own little box
With ribbons in your hair
And there's dust in your mouth
And worms in the air
Hideous city of unknown words
That's where I live when I go to sleep
In an abandoned firehouse with you.

Take me out to the beach
And I'll tell you my secret name
Take me under the sea
And we'll derail the trains
Let's run away into the caves
I still love you
I still love you baby

tar-heel boy sings a song
about a girl who ain't comin' home
by-'n'-by

she worked too long in the mill
she gone to those rollin' hills
in the sky

we're barely off mama's milk
and we're locked in here weavin' silk
we can't buy

while you been off in oregon
I been drinkin' here all alone
all night long
all day long

they shot a nine-year-old boy
for a hundred dollars

she can make you feel like filth
she can make you feel like a star
she will scratch til her hand is bloody
but she'll love you more for the scar

she remembers the recent past
she's something the cat dragged in
she's a trollop in paisley
so take her down to the woods
where the wolfboy lives, so the villagers say
and the three of you evaporate into the night
til you both fall in love with him

with a face like an african mask
and the strength of ten men
when she's wrong, she's in charge of the world at large
and her novels are all very long
she belongs on the astral plane
she's probably a hologram
put her back in the padded cell

so you'll dress head to foot in lame and
you'll dance in december snow
when the sky turns to wine, you'll embrace
and forget everything that you know
she can tell you the will of the gods
butter won't melt in her mouth, but you will
don't bother to ask her name

If I were Napoleon, you could be my Josephine.
We could go to drive-in films in my red convertible.
If I were Napoleon, I might be in magazines.
I'd write some science fiction--science fiction about you.
You could be my Josephine: just you and your chaperone.
Let you be my Josephine, Josephine.
If I were Napoleon, you could be my lady love.
Look into my soft blue eyes.
Run your fingers through my hair.
If I were Napoleon, you could be my turtle-dove,
Living out in Corsica in our summer cottages.
And you could be my Josephine and we could be Siamese twins
Let you be my Josephine, Josephine

I have a mandolin.
I play it all night long.
It makes me want to kill myself.
I also have a dobro
made in some mountain range -
sounds like a mountain range in love
but when I turn up the tone
on my electric guitar

I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me.
I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me.

I went out to the forest and caught
a 100,000 fireflies.
As they ricochet round the room
they remind me of your starry eyes.
Someone else's might
not have made me so sad
but this is the worst night I ever had,

'cause I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me.
LyricsI'm afraid of the dark without you close to me. Always was.

You won't be happy with me,
but give me one more chance -
you won't be happy anyway.
Why do we still live here
in this repulsive town?
All our friends are in New York.
Why do we keep shrieking,
when we mean soft things?
We should be whispering all the time ...