Lyrics (last updated 11/22/15 - check back for additions)

 2004-2015 words & music by Jordan F. White

Original lyrics posted here: Crazy Girl, Quarter-Life Crisis, No Promises, Kingdom Falls, Where To Begin, Walking Clean, Maybe Amy, Bloodshot, Therapy?, Engine of the Ocean, Comin' Round Again, September, The Days I Didn't Speak, Horseless Carriage (Whiskey On The Way), In Too Deep, Heads Up, 1993, Baby's Breath, Jackson Browne, Before I Go Out


Crazy Girl
(listen to an acoustic version on REVERBNATION or a piano version now on MYSPACE)

She was a beauty, batting eyelashes
Against blue iris eyes
She came up to me
Tapped me on the shoulder
And here comes our suprise

To her house her baby's crying "mommy"
From the other room
Better get out before I get swallowed
All too soon
Because..

Chorus:

Because you fell in love
With a crazy girl
There's no time for blame
Cause she's all in this world
Crazy girl and I'm playing your game
Crazy girl, I don't think
I can stay stane

When she's up she talks in circles
And tells me where she's been
My face stiff and unchanging
But weeping softly in the wind
Here all night, as if I have the choice
Oh boy, you know you don't have a choice
Oh you know
You don't have a choice
Because..

(Chorus)

I used to have an open mind
A mind that was crystal clear
They say man, "there's plenty more"
But right now none of them are here

(Chorus)


Quarter-Life Crisis (listen to an acoustic version recorded live on 90.3 WXLV FM by clicking HERE, on REVERBNATION or on MYSPACE)

So I've been hearing
"You're not really old"
And youth is something
The young cannot hold
And I remember when I heard the news
Yeah, 'til then I thought I sang the blues

(Chorus)
Cause it's a quarter-life, a quarter-life
A quarter-life crisis -
And I don't have what it takes to fight this, no, no, no
It's a quarter-life, a quarter-life, a quarter-life crisis
Can you give me what I need to right this?
No

An old friend is long gone
With his young man's disease
I was standing tall
Now I'm down on my knees
Stare up at sunsets
Until they fade away
Oh it's been so long
Since I got down to pray

(Bridge)
And the sun goes up and the sun goes down
But it's not enough to keep 'em around
And the sun goes up and the sun goes down for me
For you
And me, oh and me

(Chorus)

So I've been hearing
"You're not really old"
And youth is something
The young cannot hold
But that don't mean
The rain is worth a try
We line the clouds for all we're worth
And then we say goodbye


No Promises (listen on the Four Songs EP)

Last night I whispered to myself

That the true enemy comes from within

Cause I took another dip in your fire

And I think that I burned myself again

Yes I burned myself again

 

Backdrop, Philadelphia, 2003

All you needed was some oxygen

And a little bit of me

Flashback, Jersey shore, 2008

I'm running in the sand

But you're running kinda late

 

(Chorus)

No promises

No promises at all

Waiting for you waiting for me

Waiting for some call

There's no promises

No promises at all

 

Forget all that -

I just remembered one

The day you said you fell with me

The day without the sun

I'd keep this feeling checked

If I just knew what you would say

To keep you movin' on

To keep you on your way

 

(Chorus)

 

Driving through this city now

There's three words you once said

They picked me up they gave me something
To get outta my own head

Was something about the thunder

The way it comes up fast -

The way you'd wanna hide with me

And wait for it to pass

 

(Chorus)

 

As the skies explode above me -

As I pulled into my lane

I knew you were the only one

To drow me in your rain

Yes you were the only one

To drown me in the rain

Cause afterall

You gave me no promises

And you kept them all

You gave me no promises

And you kept them all

 

You kept them all

 


A Kingdom Falls 

Got myself a place and the first week I crashed on a floor
Got myself a place and the first month thought there'd be a little more
Nobody stops when they drive by when they see a light
Though they know I'm wide awake
cause its the middle of the night

At nineteen, threw stones at her screen
Waiting on a street that was certainly mine
At twenty-four, just knocked on her door
And I drove down that road one more time

We said "never call past ten"
Cause the family was asleep
We would just meet in the road
Where the sidewalk met the street

Nobody told me it would take so long 
For you to grow young
Nobody told me a minute is just a minute
For just about everyone

And once there was a King high, high in a castle
They begged for his sword or his word - but he'd
 only send them away
And at last, with the wine he fell asleep 
As the Queen packed and moved away

Years later found myself backing up dad's Chevy
He said "son I'd change it all if you'd let me"
But you trespass from now on
If you set foot on this land
To shimmer the skies with my eyes
From inside our hands


Where To Begin (listen to it now on REVERBNATION or MYSPACE)

Do you have the strength to tear down something new?
I've been shutting down all week
And I've been falling through
I'm watching the sun rise in New Jersey
Hear the water bruising up the shore
It couldn't rain another drop
But the sky is breaking for more

(Chorus)
So can you tell me where to begin
It's like I'm sinking like I'm caving in
So can you tell me where to begin
I was finished in your skin

I can see the skyline by the boardwalk
Something's calling me to something new
I guess I should go and that's why I'm here
To suffer distances
From you

(Chorus)

The morning sun it dries up the ocean
It burns like the salt in the waves
The tourists are all stirring
They are counting their days


Walking Clean (listen to a full version OR acoustic version now REVERBNATION or on MYSPACE)

When I was clean and I felt free
It wasn't so long as we make it to be
And now I'm learning what to make
Of all my wreckage

Hangin' round the drug store
I am waiting on a line again and again
I am waiting on a line
But it never ends
And it wasn't always this way
But no part of me is etched in stone
But you can't help crashing
When you're coming down all alone

(Chorus)
You've gotta run and run
Until something burns out your sun
I've gotta stop the things we do
I gotta get myself to walk clean with or without
You've gotta run and run
Until something burns out your sun
I've gotta stop the things I do
Gotta get myself to walk clean
With or without you
With or without you

California dreaming on such a winter's day
California dreaming but they say it's so far away

But if I'm dirty I must apologize
If I've come alive
Cause this 5 o'clock shadow
Is coming way before 5
And it's right before my eyes
Right before my eyes

(Chorus)

So she said "you better stay off the rooftops if you,
If you wanna hide from the sky"
She said "you better stay off the rooftops if you,
If you wanna hide from the sky...."


Maybe, Amy (listen to a live acoustic version on 90.3 WXLV FM on REVERBNATION or MYSPACE)

You don't know me
Just a little from your T.V.
Listen to this little ditty
And maybe you'll see -
I'm only happy at the beach
When the skies are blue
When there's grey clouds
You may need you to pull me through
Pull me through -

We smell the inside of brand new books 
Cause we just don't care how stupid it looks -
And this could be a funny story how your path crossed mine
Like jumping in quarries with a no tresspassing sign
No one pays it no mind
 
(Chorus)
So maybe Amy,
You could pour me over your red wine
Your could call me up, anytime
 
There's people who'll light you on fire
Just to watch you burn
Ain't no rhyme or reason about it you just gotta
Turn and head back down
To the river you come from where there's water around
And you could meet me in a bar where nobody goes
Oh Amy, I don't really know
I just don't know
 
(Chorus)
So maybe, Amy,
You could pour me over your red wine
You could call me up, anytime

(Bridge) 
The sincerity of this feeling
Is the only reason I've found
To cut you from a crowd when I'm down kneeling
As the only diamond that shines in this town
You're the only one around
 
(Chorus)
 
So maybe, Amy
You could pour me over your red wine
You could call me up, anytime
Pour me
Poor me
Cause Amy
I've gone all of this time
Without somebody like you
Without somebody like you
 
("But for sure did I ever miss the mark, never again to be lead or play the fool, outside the dead, from inside the dark")
 

Bloodshot (listen to a live acoustic version on 90.3 WXLV FM on REVERBNATION)

$200 jeans, you can't afford her gasoline
Maybe someone, somewhere can tell me what that means
If your blood is boiling over again I guess you'll never learn

That all the bridges that we cross become the bridges that we burn

 

And the specials on the house tonight

So you can just have mine

You know she crawled inside my soul

And that's more than just a sign

They push me past doorways -

Where I could have walked on through

But it takes so much to run from you

 

(Chorus)

But if my eyes are

Bloodshot

I'm not -

On my way home

You'll see -

It won't be

Me lying in this bedroom

And if you've got -

One thing left to say

That pretty, pretty girl

She's just one drink away

 

I shoulda been a cowboy on my way out west

With cowboy boots and cowboy hats and a cowboy vest

I'd get a gold rush fever of one-hundred and three

And let some ghost town haunt what's left of me

 

(Chorus)

 

Are you giving in or up 

In your car -

Cause I'm dropping down I'm burning out

Just like a falling star -

To rock the earth

That's what you are

(Chorus)


Therapy?? (new song)

There's two sides of you
And I never know which one I'll get
The side that burns my eyes
Is the side I could forget
 
Yeah you're beautiful
But it only seems to be skin deep
If beauty woke inside of you
Then I could stay asleep
 
Strike the lightning hard
Until your spark can wash away
Pour the acid in my eyes
Guess that could feel O.K.
 
The problem seems to me
You know you can't be replaced
I can't stop the silence
Inside a quiet space, when -
 
(Chorus)
She says well "you need therapy"
Well maybe, just maybe
I just need a bit more time
To get the part of you off me
To get you, off my mind
 
Now it's been four days
I haven't heard from you at all
I dialed seven digits
But I hung up on that call
 
The problem seems to me
Is you know you can't be replaced
What becomes of silence?
Inside a quiet space
 
(Chorus)
 
Yeah you're beautiful
But I've been thinking
It's just not enough for me -
Anymore
It's just not enough for me -
Anymore


Engine of the Ocean (listen to an acoustic version now on MYSPACE)

If porcelain was your face then you were a child of the candle
Sleeping in a raincoat in the shed
To awake like fire from the coal and fog inside your head
 
And you wanted to sleep through morning
But the sun you love denies
And you want to be a child but your Father's ghost replies:
 
"It's coming up behind you child, to show you where you lost -
When your way of letting go was your last chance to hold on...."
 
Chorus:
You keep me running like the engine of the ocean
I'd trade all the salt for some emotion
You keep me running like the engine of the ocean
I'd trade all the salt for some emotion
 
Now you find me on a line of the water and the land
Where the ocean breaks into rocks
That only become the sand
A sky whispering down on the beach
But I forget that it's all out of reach now
 
(Chorus)
 
And you could have found me on a line of the water and the land
I'm just like the rocks that only break into sand
And you, oh you could find me now
Running, running down now
 
(Chorus)
You're just the engine of the ocean now
Engine of the ocean now....


Coming 'Round Again (listen to a live acoustic version on 90.3 FM WXLV on REVERBNATION)

 

Slow down this tune

Cause I'm about to overflow

The melody dissipates

But the music is all I know

There's a look of cars at night

When their headlights shine bright

And they make you come alive

And this is what you call your life

 

Chorus 1:

So if you're coming 'round again

I won't break but I might bend -

You feel the darkness closing in

It fits just like a second skin -

 

There's a look upon your face

We know we just can't replace

But we let it go to waste

And now I fill this empty space

 

Chorus 2:

So if you're coming 'round again

I won't break but I might bend

You feel the darkness closing in

It fits just like a second skin

Easy come and easy go -

But it gets cold here in the snow

Ring, ring, there's no one home

But we both know you're not alone

 


September (listen to it on REVERBNATION or listen/watch the music video now on MYSPACE)

I cannot decide how far to go and how far there is
'Cause no one knows, the distance
Sitting out here in the stale air
Watching time fall with the sky it's got me thinking
How I'm so far from you
And there's no way at getting back
I feel you -
The mystery and misery returns
Just like seeing you 'round this cold night burns

And I'm talking to myself
And answering my own questions that you'd know
I'm falling out of sync in light
Now you're gone and it's alright
I watch the sky fall into the summer night

Chorus:
But something
Speaks in my ear
It's whispering "you threw away a year"
Alone and in your room
Septembers coming soon

There was a time there was a great time
But I don't know where it goes -
I'd like to say but I
I just don't know -
Stale air I was breathing and oh yeah,
Slipping into you
Still I feel myself slipping into you

(Chorus)

The wasted paragraphs
And all the words that you would say
Cause I am so far from you
A little farther everyday
But....

(Chorus)

I cannot decide how far to go
And how far there is cause no one knows
Cannot decide how far to go
Or how far there is
Cause no one knows
No one knows

No one knows


The Days I Didn't Speak
(listen to a full version OR acoustic version on REVERBNATION or MYSPACE)

Another silent morning for another quiet day
Some nights I believe I've said years ago
All I'll ever need to say
And this heavy foot in exile is the time that tip toes away -
Always thought I'd have more words
More nouns, more lies, or more verbs, to say
 
(Chorus)
But today, no way
I swear I didn't say a word
And today, no way
I swear that I wasn't heard
But the days I didn't speak and the days I didn't eat
They were the days that turned into weeks
 
I was sitting out on a curb
People walking by feel me
So disturbed -
And no sound, as I stare at the ground
And it's only coming down and when it all goes down
You know just where I'll be found
No sound on the ground
 
(Chorus)
 
And all the silent times at the bars
I wish the smokey roof was open
So I could see some stars
Do you feel like a piece of paper in the wind?
Or do you sit still when you try to spin?
Cause they come at anytime....
 
(Chorus)
 
Oh these days turned into weeks
You could pull yourself out of your sweater
All the lightning like the fuse
If you only knew it's the lightning you use


Horseless Carriage (Whiskey On The Way) (new song)

I never meant to run on empty
I never meant to hit these streets
With everything I didn't have -
With everything I didn't need
 
It's a sad, sad boy with the same sad tune
Runnin' round the track
Finishing just too soon
You shoulda spoken down
Bowed down with the crown
Yeah, cause you were never were around
Yeah, you shoulda spoken down

So where's the weatherman go
When there ain't no weather
Where's all the pain go
When there ain't no pressure
 
Wandering black streets
With a black and blue eye
Then my head hit the wheel
Cause I was staring at the sky
 
(Chorus)
And you could be drawn and quartered
In a horseless carriage
Put your money down on a pointless marriage
We'll get the whiskey on the way
We'll take it day by day
We'll blur the lines 'til the lines look okay
Until tomorrow is a friend
And somehow he lives again
 
Never imagined this kind of day
Writers block in an open bed room
Nineteen years with girls in bloom
Hadn't had a drink
Had my old man to think
I had to listen really hard
When he parked my car in the yard
 
(Chorus)
 
And all along I knew the path would turn
That coming up there was this curve
And years from now they'll say
That boy got just what he deserved
That boy got just what he deserved
 

In Too Deep (listen to it on MYSPACE)


All of life's little layers
Piling up and over me
Sipping tea from a wineglass
Sitting on a dirty carpet
I have Jesus on my wall
And a Queen in my pocket

(Chorus)
But I'm in too deep, down in the dark
And I'm in too deep, no light from the sparks
And I'm in too deep
Can you find me a way out?

July suns burned what mattered
Right through the skin now in this bitter end
Do you think, do you think, do you think that you understand me?
Know me?
No, you don't know me
Do you understand that you don't understand me?

(Chorus)

So it's midnight in the millennium
But it's so much darker than before
But maybe it isn't any less
But it surely isn't more
And 1999 went and slipped away
So I trade this future for some stones
1999 is gone forever
And it ain't ever comin' home

(Chorus)
Cause I'm in too deep, down in the dark
And I'm in too deep, no light from the sparks
I'm in too deep
Can you find me a way out?
And I'm in too deep, holding the reigns
And I'm in too deep, counting the trains
And I'm in too deep
Can he find me a way out?



Heads Up

Where's this color come from 
Of that that's already been
A black eye that lasts forever
Bruises deeper than the skin

A body set on fire
Frozen and unmasked
Let he who turns down his wine
Have the first stone to cast
         
Now I'm far from hopeless
Cause I watched the planes crash on down
Put a flag out on my doorstep
Before I saw 'em all over town
Here's a little tip toward oblivion
For you and your things lost
Believe in something bigger
It comes at quite a cost

Here's a heads up
For those like you and me
Who press back on gravity
Until gravity lets us be

So I never heard the truth
'Til I heard it in his song
And I never saw the buildings
'Til I saw that they were gone
And here's a heads up
For those who hang their heads low
Don't break yourself to pieces
Before you even know

Here's a heads up
For your blue eyes marked by ash
For some highway closed 
For the stocks that crash

Heads up, for those who hang their heads low

Heads up


1993 

Riding in a fast car in sights of a shore
Never knew what those brakes were for
Say, Elliot Smith -
Can you tell us who you're up there with?
Is misery still lost between the bars
Within the stab of an acoustic guitar

What defined you was not what you had earned
Deserts filled with shock and awe
What Prince Walker had burned
Who's mouth is full of lithium
Who's face is set in stone
Shining by a moon 
We long have left alone

(Chorus)
But where were you in '93
When Kurt was on the radio
And Brenda Walsh was on the T.V.
We had somewhere to go
But we had no where to be
In the troubled years that followed 1993

The prophet had a talking stone
And there'
s time left to start again
Closing time, have you found a friend
In fields of gold inside the lion's den

(Chorus)

To be live on a Saturday night
To be an angel on a Sunday despite
The one who knew but gave up his song
Swore there was no gun all week long
But a trigger he became
Aimed from you and me

And Philly nearly had a winning team
Hit the ball hit the needle
But just missed the dream
Fifty two times the Buffalo cried
Shot down in Texas -
Where seventeen survived
A whisper took seven and who took warning
None until the screaming of a September morning
One less song to sing 
One more ghost to see
Lyrics lost amongst summer days in 1993

One less ticket you won't be paying for
Hovering beyond my bedroom door
It echoes from outside the inside of the spring 
Of 1994


Baby's Breath (featured on 2006 release CD "Care Package")

A little match blown out and thrown away
Too young, too old, too sad to say
When a baby comes crawling around
Mother is sadder for the things she's put in the ground
 
So you try to walk with your head up high but at night you lie in bed and you cry
And your friends say it will get better
But they haven't been there
Or read your letter
 
(Chorus)

Cause you're a younger mother than you know you should have been
You've denied another and some say you sinned
You're a younger mother than you know you should be
You're calm as a river but still you blow by the sea

And my cousin cries cause a young baby dies
Blue eyes I find
But I can't lie
Cause it was just a year before
You decided you didn't want her anymore

And the things you took away
Now I'm saying what I said I'd never say
A baby's first breath
Won't be today


Jackson Browne 

I wanna be Jackson Browne
He's up like me
But kinda underground
I wanna be something not like me
I wanna be amazing
I wanna be something a little more dear
I wanna be your armour
 
(Chorus)
Cause Jackson Browne
We hang around this town
When sober suns are shining
We breathe in the heat
From the summer street
And those days are amazing
 
So there's this girl that always speaks her mind
Even when those eyes are fading
She comes around
Come finds me when I'm down
Cause she know she's amazing
 
(Chorus)
Cause Jackson Browne
We hang around this town
When our suns go shining
We breathe in the heat
From the summer street
A lesson learned from leaving you
 
(Chorus)
 
But I don't think I -
No I don't think I can make it through
Could it be that just I
Could it be that just I
Will make it through


Before I Go Out
 
With thorns and rushes
Of rose and sorrow
Yesterday got taken out
By tomorrow
And I promise to tell you something
If you tell the sun not to rise
And if you keep my secret
I'll keep your lies

We're in a little bit of trouble
For the little things we need
When all the rainy days
Either shine or they bleed
With no separate peace
The branches hang too low
There's somebody caught
In the catcher left below

(Chorus)
But if the sun, it don't need me 
And the shadows just don't please me 
Could you let me come over again?
Let me come over again

It gets darker by the mile
Every glance that you pull down
Lean my head against the wheel
Lean against the sound
And the pavement hits us hard
All the concrete steps
If my blood was in your veins
Would you tell me where it went

(Chorus)

And when I needed someone
I knew I'd go without
Like the bulb that burns it's brightest
Just before it goes out

(Chorus)


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