Lyrics

You can find the lyrics to your favourite Sound of The Ladies song here, should you wish to cover it at your granny’s wedding.

I’ll add more lyrics as I get around to it, but I am a slow typist - in the meantime, you can contact me if you’d like to know the lyrics to a particular song…

Centralia, PA
D-E-A-D
One of those girls
The Clouds at the Top of the Sky
Up! Went my dreams
Wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake

Centralia, PA

You stood so close
You could catch her breath
But left it hanging in your stare
She pressed her palm down firmly
Pushing on your best friend hat
You said you didn’t want to
That you didn’t want her
I doubt I’d go as far
As to say that

So obsessed with your own secrets
You spun out eccentrically
From the other dancers
A wave of humiliation breaking
Why, did you expect a different answer?

From the fire on the outskirts to
A tower of ash ascending
The burning coal which blew a hole
Where your home had been
The mine would not stop burning
Time to take that final step
If I were to stay here
I’d be swallowed by this thing

So the carnival left town
Cast off and carried away by this catastrophe
Our hopes were dirty footprints heading to Centralia
So I led the way, and the shadows followed me

You stood so close
You could catch her breath
A tower of ash ascending
She pressed her palm down firmly
Where your home had been
You said you didn’t want to
Take that final step
I doubt I’d go as far
I’d be swallowed by this thing

So obsessed with your own secrets
Cast off and carried away by this catastrophe
A wave of humiliation breaking
So I led the way, and the shadows followed me

D-E-A-D

No matter where you go, it’s never far away
Let us picnic in the park - we’ll spread our blanket of smiles
And all the people who are passing by our spread today
They might confuse you for my sweetheart

Why can’t I share a picnic with a friend?
In this weather, surely, that should be ok?
I love… that dress you wear
This is how I chicken out of what I have to say

Your hair is falling light and long and lost, it suits you well
It’s like you had it when we met at Jo’s party back in ‘99
I was really nervous but I don’t think you could tell
You told me later you know then that we’d be friends for quite some time

You moved down two years ago
I wish I could see you every day
I love… this city’s open spaces
Oh no, don’t go- that isn’t all I had to say

Back in the real world, I just look slightly vacant
The moment has elapsed and now you have to go
You can’t read my expression as you kneel down to kiss my cheek
But inside my eyes are zeros, my mouth a silent “no”
Inside my mind’s a swollen zero, my eyes a silent “no”

One of those girls

Everybody’s had one of those girls
Everybody worth knowing, it’s true
To the soundtrack of Siamese Dream
Or whatever the young folks are listening to

It’s the cut and the cotton
Just a touch and it blossoms
It isn’t a rosebud it’s a little carnation
So you’re pouring it out ‘cos your heart is still working
Back then you opened your eyes when you walked into damnation

And everybody’s had one of those boys
Everybody worth knowing, for sure
When you met him he gave you the world
And when he left, he took so much more

The blood and the passion
Fading to grey
As the back end of your love affair is pulling away
That’s one journey you won’t make again
You’ve been thrown off the rails by this lachrymose train

And everybody’s shed tears over someone
Someone too foolish to see what you’re worth
Don’t you know that’s where rivers come from
And the water that covers two thirds of the earth

And everybody’s been somebody’s sweetheart
For some that they know
And some that they don’t
And for a little while they were totally loved, they were somebody’s world
Everybody’s been one of those boys
Everybody’s been one of those girls

The Clouds at the Top of the Sky

They clustered ’round in fours
Hands full of mud and straw
Pushing it together
To make those great big walls
An armful of sand
Slips upon the table
And your skin is rough and broken so a little blood will fall
A little blood will fall into the bricks

Lord you know I’m right
I’ll be tickling your chin
Close enough to see what you look like
“Give up your foolish dream”
That’s what my father said
I told him I’m the builder
I am not the architect

In the middle of the night, sometimes
I’m thrust rudely into awareness
A tall, gray doorway opens to the stars
At the foot of my bed
I’m afraid to catch my head
On the clouds at the top of the sky

People are so malleable
When you know the power of words
“Malleus” is “hammer”
So that’s how I get heard
Maria’s girl fell down, and I don’t think she’s getting up
She only made two feet today
Do you think that it’s enough?
Do you think?

Don’t you want to scrape the paint on the globe that spans the sky?
Don’t you want to see what lies beyond before you die?
I can only grieve for the hopes that lie as dead
I am not the author, friends, these are just the words I read
These are just the words I read

Up! Went my dreams

ou came in my window
You midnight accost
You rattled and rumbled, roared
“One day you’ll lose her”
It shook from my lungs a bubble of purest sorrow
And up! went my dreams, up and were lost!

You filled up my ears
With your molasses
Paraffin, saltpeter and phoenix’s ashes
And a match struck out one -
One struck to my cost
And up! went my dreams, up and were lost!

At two I awoke
Eyes wide as the river
Everything jewelled in an icicle sliver
And I saw you there, lying sleeping and still
And I closed the window to take off the chill
Our warmth turned to steam the last of the frost
And up! went my fears, up and were lost!

Wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake

You don’t have to look very hard to find people
Who’ll tell you how you should be living
So I’ll add my voice to the dischordant chorus
Like chimney-smoke proudly uprising:
Life is a dream from which we’ll all one day awake
In a manner most likely abrupt
And profoundly surprising

So wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake

And I think of those people who cut their own throats accidentally
Catching their razors on moles or recalcitrant stubble
They missed the chance to die older and lonelier eventually
And to think there are those who say life’s but a pitiless struggle

So wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake

This dream of a world wars, applauds mediocrity
Lies and brutality
Flight from reality
Poets and people who speak rationality provide me a sliver of hope
But you rain down your ribbons and furbelows
On your dumbfounded progeny
Who, if they wonder, lament the glacier holding them
By their powder blue toes

So wash the sleep from my eyes, for one day I’ll have to awake