1.Happen Every Time

Don Chaffer

This is not the story of a girl who, for her senior photo,
Chose to pose with a tiger who mauled her
That’s a little low though
You ought to know- when you own a Siberian tiger,
And they want to pet it-
That it’s only an innocent query, and

You don’t have to let it happen every time, you know
Or happen at all
You could always just say no
You could take the fall

But again, it’s an inappropriate thing for me to criticize him
I understand
There’s a guy who hears about a deal and he just buys in
Never question, never wonder, never think hard
And I don’t despise him
I just hope he keeps the hell away from my kid
And the bed he lies in

Cause it won’t happen every time, you know
Or happen at all
You could always just say no
You could make the call

The lion will lie down with the lamb
Or at least that’s what I read
They made it work in a Las Vegas showroom,
But the lamb was dead
Topless girls with peacock feathers turned about like fans
I wanted badly to believe for the sake of the dance

But it doesn’t happen every time, you know

Or happen at all
You could always just say no
You could make the call

2.Couple Cheap Rings

Lori Chaffer

They found a couple cheap rings and a family photo
They say he flipped his Maserati on the way to Desoto
They started cleaning up the mess
Before anybody could make it home
Couldn’t get no one to confess so they let em all go

Hey hey break it up get on your way
Hey hey there’s nothing more to see today
Hey hey

There’s a crystalline aura at the local soiree
The cool kids swarm round like bees round a bouquet
Can’t keep from rubbernecking cause there isn’t anything going on
They say, what the heck, drink it up until it’s gone

Everybody wonders
If you’re ever coming back
After all your blunders it’s like a train running off the track
No one seems to get a second chance anymore
If you fall down they shut your broken face in the door
And say...

3.Haven't You Always

Don Chaffer

The Monk flunked out of the Franciscan order
The Rock Star deferred to her domestic side
The two were then married at the Mexican border
Each with a pistol and field guide

Strolling through fields of fresh-cut barley
Walking with the workers who harvested hay,
Leaning on ledges with staggering vistas
Depending on kisses to get through the day

Haven’t you always wanted to know
How it would feel to let it all go?
Haven’t you wondered, in line for the ticket,
Whether you’ll get in to witness the show?
Haven’t you always wanted to know?

And for a little while, no one was boring
Neither was far off and harder to see
But then the rain gave in to violently pouring
That’s when the monk had to take up a hobby

The Rock Star would sleepily strum with her fingers
Softly on an unplugged electric guitar
Every forsaken melody lingers
Every unfulfilled vow is a scar

4.Falling

Lori Chaffer

I’m gonna break you, baby
I’m gonna make your name
Something that people whisper
In the halls of fame
Here’s to the golden vein we’ll find
Everyone soon will listen and you will blow their minds

But it will be hard to hold
And you will grow old
Time won’t last forever
Your time won’t last

Just a little bend here, honey
To see the curve in your back
It doesn’t matter if you believe it
It only matters how you act
There’s the incision
Soon you’ll never have to try to make your own decisions
These are things you can buy

But they will be hard to hold
And they will grow old
Time won’t last forever
Their time won’t last

Falling

Let’s not pretend now sweetheart
Life is all compromise
Some things that look full are empty
A dirty cup can look white outside
Please understand me
I don’t mean to make you cry
The poor bastards just need a distraction
And ours is not to reason why

And they will be hard to hold
And they will grow old
Time won’t last forever
Their time won’t last

Falling

5.Needs a Break

Don Chaffer

Stop me if you’ve heard this one
I’m tryin’ not to repeat myself
But every other month or two
I take another one back down off the shelf
And turn it over like a rabbit’s foot
That’s dyed bright blue at a factory
And sold by a cashier wordlessly
Who’s planning a career as an actor

He just needs a break, needs a break, needs a break
He needs a break, needs a break
Everybody just needs a break

Stuck in his pocket like a life preserve
He got five smooth stones from an old weak brook
That’s one mile from the highest hill
Where he sits every night with a shepherd’s crook
And he hums some song from a red notebook
That he wrote while strumming on a beat up harp
He’s gonna ride their shoulders if he wins this one
But if he loses, they go get his body after dark

And he needs a break…

Now maybe I’m lost or maybe I’m just plain
Maybe I misheard it when they read my name
So I work my brain like a construction crane
I try to oversee
I nearly go insane
And I keep ending up on my knees
And begging God for a little mercy please
And at night sometimes when I unaware
I can tell He’s friendly
I can tell He’s there

He just needs a break…

6.Tools in the Garage

Don Chaffer

He was an old man
He had fourteen sons
And he didn’t always mention his daughters
He was a lame man
He had a bad war wound
He chased the ship that gave it to him and caught her

He had grandkids
They’d come to visit
They were young and they were full of wonder
But he wasn’t happy
He lost his dear wife
To some sleepy trucker’s midnight blunder

There were tools in the garage
There were shotguns in the closet
There were too many things not to touch
He was never really friendly to the children he was close to
He might have loved ‘em but not too much

He had wire racks
He had glass jars
Full of nuts and bolts and things he no longer used
There was an organ
That his wife use to play
And a cabinet that he would keep full of booze

And every once in a while
You could get that old man to smile
And then it’s like the heavens would ring
I never saw it last long
Ah, but now that he is gone
That’s the only thing that means anything

7.Gimme My Walkman

Don Chaffer

I bought a Bridge Over Troubled Water cassette
And I listened to it ten thousand times
To and from high school in my pickup truck
I was swimming in Paul Simon’s rhymes
Cause when you find a friend in need
I tell you, you find a friend indeed

Gimme my Walkman, Mom
Please I need it bad
That way I don’t have to listen to
The fights you have with dad

Sail on silver girl
Your time has surely come
Strike up the grand piano
Bang the big bass drum
I’m gonna blow this joint
I’m gonna be a star
Cause I don’t wanna drive a taxi
I don’t wanna tend a bar

So find me a good drum solo
Find one pretty quick
Maybe give me Ginger Baker, Keith Moon
Or give me John Bonham’s sticks
Call up a little thunder
Help me drown these noises out
There’s only one sound I hate worse
Than when they scream and shout

8.We're Not Gonna

Lori Chaffer

We’re not gonna dance
We’re not gonna cry
We’re not gonna sing you no lullaby
We may wanna
But we’re not gonna

We’re not gonna win
We’re not gonna lose
We’re not gonna make other people choose
We may wanna
But we’re not gonna

When I was a child
I spoke like a child
I acted like a child
I thought... Well you know
Then one day you grow up
Drink from that cup
And everything changes

You say
You are gonna laugh
You’re not gonna lie
You are gonna live better than you saw them try
Well you may wanna
But you’re not gonna

Now I’m a woman
I stick to my guns
But I have a little fun... well, you know
Cause one day you grow old
Wrinkle and fold
Everything changes
Oh everything changes and you tell yourself

Cause you are gonna live
You are gonna die
You are gonna make
Other people cry
You may not wanna
Ha
You may not wanna
It’s okay, man, you’re just gonna

9.I'm Gonna Love You

Lori Chaffer

I’m gonna love you in my way
I troll for good views in mounds of clay
It’s hypnotic if you stay
Underwater, deep at bay

You may think you see me for what I am
But I know you don’t understand
I must have loved you for what you gave
But you became some kind of slave

Put down your weapon; it will be good
I won’t put mine down though I know I should
I buried wishes, cut down wood
I’d forgive you if I could

10.Only One Time

Don Chaffer

Only one time and then I said no
But everything that I think
Is still caught on that one moment of weakness
Like watching a steamboat sink

How you play the game
How you say your name
These are things we’re working through without a clue
Haven’t you been gone?
I haven’t seen your dawn in a long, long, long, long time

Only one time and then I said no
But everything I believe
Is tainted by that one moment of weakness
Like watching a Greyhound leave

How you turn the page
How you act your age
These are things we try to do without a clue
Haven’t we had words?
I haven’t seen nor heard in a long, long, long, long time

Only one time and then I collapsed
And distantly, I’m quite sure
I heard, over me, a pardon pronounced
And now all I need now’s a cure

How you keep it up
How you fill the cup
These are things we’re living through, all thanks to you
Haven’t isn’t fun
I haven’t gone for a run in a long, long, long, long time

Only one time, and maybe that’s all
As long as I keep in mind
The fact that if I’ve done it that one time
One more could be close behind
So keep a close watch on this heart of mine

11.In The Middle of It

Don Chaffer

Halfway here
Don’t disappear
Things might go clear
If I just stay on deck
And don’t strain my neck
And get into the thing I’m in the middle of
Just one more time on the fiddle, love
I’m gonna pay attention this time, I swear

At the Loan and Pawn
You can see what’s gone
And there’s ghosts out on the lawn
If you squint your eyes
And don’t look surprised
They’ll stare right back at you graciously
And you don’t have to get high to see
Just remember, when the tire goes flat, to use the spare

I’m in the middle of it
I got everything I wanted, and I really love it
I’m in the seat of honor
If you could die from happy, baby I’d be a goner
So sorry when I go dark
It must ’a’ been that I forgot about the spark
So sorry when I go lame
I got no reason I should ever complain

Old sunshine
It’s goin’ all the time
And that’s not just a good tagline
Cause every living thing
Would cease to sing
If the sun just decided to close up shop
We’d all be lyin’ on the chopping block
And in a couple minutes there wouldn’t be anyone there

I should never complain
(He should never complain)

12.Difference Between

Lori Chaffer

Come down, come down, come down
Your gonna get your feelings hurt
I’ve found, I’ve found, I’ve found
That you gotta get your feet in the dirt
The ground, the ground, the ground
Is sometimes a just desert

But there’s a difference between believing in yourself
Difference between believing in yourself and being crazy
There’s a difference between believing in yourself
Difference between believing in yourself and being lazy

Come back, come back, come back
There’s no reason you should walk away
An attack, an attack, an attack
Is not allowed to make you think you’re ok
White and black, white and black
You’d think there’d be a little grey

We won’t give in
We won’t give in
We need something to defend yeah

13.Rivers Rise

Don Chaffer

I have watched
From a distance now for several months
We used to hang out
Every day and talk all at once
Those were greater days and greater lays
Or whatever it was that we used to say

But the rivers rise and
And our longing eyes are
On what’s gone downstream
And the ground is damp
And there is no lamp
And things aren’t what they seem

So we make calls
And we leave behind our voices after we’re gone
Each tries to catch
The other in between a hurry and a yawn
And the children need, and there’s ground to seed
And the general sense of security

On this bank where sinners sank
There’s polished bits of glass
From years ago when two guys swore
They’d never let this pass

14.Easy Baby

Don Chaffer

Be Easy, baby
Don’t cry so hard
My road was blocked
My way was barred
But it’s not all darkness
The night sky is starred
So be easy, baby
Don’t cry so hard

If I ever had a reason to run away
I would take it like a one horse open sleigh
I learned twice as much from sorrow as I learned
During all my days of study oh how I burned