Inside Out
©1986 Andrew Calhoun, recorded on Shadow of a Wing.
Written for a bartender at the Mill in Iowa City.
Please don't take me lightly when I'm
Rocking in your chair, on
Your warm bosom, with our shadow everywhere
Don't you hear the sirens calling down the stretches of the street
Toward some holy name disaster of a body losing heat
Discover me, I'm as lonesome as a whale
I'm as waxy as a turnip, I'm as weary as a jail
Discover me not, in rays of angry sunshine
In the songs of vicious children
To the governing piranha
Discover in me, the iridescent shadow
The water in the lock
The song in the piano
The body in the block,
Oh
I know what you want to hear
That's why I can't say it
When my heart is drawn to you
Well I do obey it
The joke that fell between us
Left us rolling in the aisle
Sometimes lips have words to say
Sometimes they smile
But the words have all been spoken
At this window we stare out
Some promises are broken
Other ones wear out
I'll take a hundred
You'll take a hundred
Go our separate ways
And the life we spent, so huge and blue
With turn into a phrase
Like, "I shoulda known better."
"I just had to get out"
Things look different from outside in
Than they do from inside out
Please don't take me lightly when I'm
Rocking in your chair, on
Your warm bosom,
With our shadow everywhere