Jack Hardy — Lyrics for The Passing Copyright © 1996 Jack Hardy Music 1. The Passing 2. Black-eyed Susans 3. Willie Goggin's Hat 4. The Halloween Parade 5. The 20th Century 6. You Only Leave Your Heart Once 7. That Close to Crying 8. If I Ever Pass This Way Again 9. Dachau 10. Morgan's Dance The Passing It was a bird, a petulant bird that pecked upon the window First so slowly, slowly then with urgent crescendo As if it could it finally could say what it had to say-o Its cry so muffled by the glass the structure in the way-o chorus: Mo ghrá sa'n Bás is deacair a rá 'S riamh an lá d'ag gabháil-o (siud sa chré-o) She had lain for many days, no years of indecision Drifting in and out of sleep, no words describe the prison With passion all reduced to pain in swollen joints and vision She once independent now dependent on good wishing I walked so slow so not to scare this cold bird at the window Trying the while to ascertain its variegated colors As if the seasons there had left confusion in the willows Of leaves and flowers blown apart and covered on the pillow She had said o'er and o'er that they could take her home now As if she was some other place with strangers all unknown-o Was it home to Clay Street to her childhood she would go now Closer than I would have come this bird had come much closer This bird was finally dismayed to find its own reflection Stood so starkly motionless then flew in all directions By the lines of modern thought the ancient body was consigned-o The ashes to be placed somewhere where stained glass cast its light-o Was it there it finally flew, this bird that was at the window? It looked so free in passing as if the passing opened in-o 'Twas days and days and days before I could finally hear the cry-o As if this passing the only way that I could say goodbye-o Black-eyed Susans Black eyed susans by the road In all those places time forgot Run and run from what we know Sometimes easy, sometimes not Youth is but a flowered field Daisies and forget-me-nots All of this a letter sealed Reminding us what we forgot Old enough to touch a heart Young enough to not reply To stand upon the kitchen stool And kiss your mother goodbye Open to the morning sun Reveal the beauty 'neath the cloud Only nature having fun All for crying out loud The wind upon the clouds on high The wind upon the brittle chaff Birds on the electric wire To see who will be last to laugh All these colors on display They all go so well with you All so well in god's bouquet All except for black and blue Willie Goggin's Hat Met him on the Killorglin road Thinking mine was a heavy load Said to stop and rest awhile Long enough to find your smile Said I don't know this and I don't know that But I know what's under Willie Goggin's hat chorus: And if it ain't broke don't fix it But how many of us ain't broke And how many of us ain't died A thousand broken hearted lives? And how many of us, amen Ain't got a broken heart to mend? And I may be a tinker and I may be a fool But I'll fix anything as good as new I can fix anything but the golden rule For gold can only fill a tooth Long as I've got the price of a pint My hands are rough but I can sleep at night I learned years ago and years since then There's no such thing as a common man Don't work for pay, get paid for work And on the day I forgot these words I lost the play and I played a part And I lost the gift of a golden heart There are those that always buy things new And those that always must make do Here's to Mary-Margaret and Maureen And all the folks from Cahirciveen Who'd give you the shirt off their back And gave me Willie Goggin's hat The Halloween Parade Over the Pulaski Skyway Down through the tunnel of love A school bus in day glow colors Filled with bygone hippie stuff Don't laugh, your daughter might be inside The officer laughs anyway Don't ask, don't tell, it is just as well You're heading for the Halloween parade Here between the police barricades They won't stop the Halloween parade They won't paint the line green, the mayor isn't here There won't be any cuts in aid There won't be no military fanfare But it has the blessings of several popes Jesus carrying his own damn cross Or carrying just enough rope chorus: Here on the Avenue of the Americas Larger than life, behind makeup and mask Everything America is afraid of Is lost in a ritualized hell All so the children won't ask All so we won't have to tell It's the yearly meeting of the never-minds The artists and actors and clowns On this night and this night only It is the only show in town We're all of your worst nightmares We're all of your wildest dreams The pagans and gays the specter of aids In a riot of color and screams It's the morning after the night before Hanging with the leftover leaves Deflated balloons and streamers In the thin arms of the dying trees There is an awkward silence As awkward couples come and go Looking sadly at this boulevard Wondering if and when they'll know The 20th Century The twentieth century was a train Sleek and fast and so streamlined Steel and diesel power unchained Cigars and oysters and black shoes shined The twentieth century is already gone Come to think of it the millennium is too All those years and the buck stops here Except I fear it's not worth as much this year Thomas Jefferson was a man Didn't have to grow up to be president For no woman had to vote Nor any man of African descent Two thousand years of the golden rule We still keep illegal aliens out of school Someone's gotta wash dishes and clean toilets too Someone's gotta play football and someone's gotta sing the blues This little experiment of ours Is pretty damn new and shaky so far We have the freedom to hang out in bars To buy shiny new guns or shiny new cars There's no trains left to make run on time But that's not gonna keep them from trying How we gonna keep 'em down on Broadway Let's try religion, sports and a lottery a day This car screaming down the road Rebel flag and talk show overload Passes a school bus on the right Racing that train to a wreck tonight 2001 candles to blow Twenty centuries down and one to grow Except for ten days taken away by Pope Gregory I lost ten days in college, they didn't name a calendar after me And this is the America Columbus discovered Yeah the Vikings could have discovered this one too The Indians fought the Braves in the World Series Let's get serious and open another brew You Only Leave Your Heart Once All those people who have pieces Of you spread out 'cross the plains Left your heart in Oklahoma Left it lying out in the rain Left your arms in too many places With your eyes as big as fun Calling cards and other traces But you only leave your heart once Can I get it get it back? Can I give it once again? Said this cowboy to his shadow Which was made of wind and of rain When I touch you I feel distance Never know if yours or mine Have I left it has it left me Oh my darling Clementine The blistering heat and the hay down your shirt The barbed wire fences where the greenhorns get hurt At a campfire in Colorado Or a beach on some dark sea A smoke-filled room in El Dorado Singing nearer my god damn to thee Damp leather and faster horses And a south wind bringing rain Too many miles for changing courses Pushing on the point of pain Left your arms in too many places With your eyes as big as guns Calling cards and other traces But you only leave your heart once That Close to Crying There's not an ounce of softness left within this weathered heart The hand against the nap of fur disturbs that sleeping part No need for caution don't need remorse That close to crying Bristled and borne an altered force That close to crying Semi-automatic steel gray hollow eyes how they stare back Impassively mechanically annoyed in bluish black A twitching tail a nervous finger That close to crying What tension waiting to slash in anger That close to crying A click of light and then a flash of any action taken Illumined mystery clear and sharp and all of my own making A shattering crack a full report That close to crying Released and slack a slumping form That close to crying That close to crying is not close at all what line of fire was crossed No cerebral contemplation of carefully altered thought No Hail Mary no desperate toss That close to crying The wave awaited recedes in loss That close to crying If I Ever Pass This Way Again And if I ever pass this way again And if I ever sit alone with you And if I ever whisper all those thoughts I did hold inside past our adieu And if I ever walk that painted deck And watch the birds that fly so free between Across the rocks and waves that washed my hopes As I whittled on a memory chorus: The sails aloft are filled Filled with fickle winds That blow across the faces of this land There are no corners left There are no stones unturned That have not all conspired to my return And if the water trickles down the glen And if the moss turns green as light grows thin And if that flower has the will to live It will cast its fragrance on the wind And if that fragrant flower so dear to me So cross the waters to dispel belief My hand at once upon the rail and ropes Till I almost see that telling green Dachau Only a stone's throw That close to knowing Over the stone wall That close to the town That place you can't go So hard to travel Picked up a small stone Could not put it down Take all of my money Take all of my clothing Take all of my labor I still do not know I still cannot feel it Or make it a real thing How one to another Could ever be so And I'm not a tailor And I'm not a gypsy Nor a professor With my name on my face A freedom fighter A left wing conspirer Who traveled the boxcars To this lonely place I'm just a tourist I take a memento Or maybe a relic Though only a stone Like East Europeans Posing for photos In front of the ovens A video show I wanted to feel it That final solution I want it to touch me To take me inside I want it to hold me I want it to scold me Make me part of the blame Why so many died But only foundations Are left of the stone wall Almost at closing With time running out I walked in the cold rain Clutching a cold stone The gate was still open For us to walk out Morgan's Dance I wouldn't dream of ever following this trail If I was seen it was a hollow self and frail Under that sheening of her hair about the wind And I am clean feeling the air upon my skin Follow that gleaming to the hallow of this field Cathedrals greening in the hallow of these trees Offering me on the all hallow of my knees And I am free on this the hallowest of eves chorus: This whistled lore Is now a hum This thistled floor Now smooth and spun This listening shore Is now undone This glistening chorus Is now a drum To feel the cold dirt in the clawing of my toes Tear off my old shirt or the shawl that is my clothes My step's most surely in the footfall of the host In glowing turf there is a healing in the smoke Perhaps you've seen them only then you've just believed And when they're fleeing then you feel you've been deceived But in that feeling something ancient's been retrieved And in the meantime something new's being conceived And now the glowing in the halo of the moon Rising so slowly in the palest of the gloom The heel and toe now moving closer through the foam Pulling the flow of all the waves of ocean home The oak the ash the thorny apple in the breeze Pale glow of lichen phosphorescent silver green No thorny crown no iron nails hung in the trees Only these sounds sung on this hallowest of eves