Death Is The Friend You Never Met
Going It Alone
Never Going Back To Sausalito
Time To Say You're Mine
So Alone
The Bright Side
Crying In My Whisky
The Score
Union Station
Going It Alone
Never Going Back To Sausalito
Time To Say You're Mine
So Alone
The Bright Side
Crying In My Whisky
The Score
Union Station
Hiding In Plain Sight is Turner Cody's eighth studio record. Working again with Dan Myers (producer of Adam Green's Gemstones), TC goes more country than on the previous Plans And Schemes. If real country songs still came out of Nashville, maybe they'd be "Bed Of Roses" "Going It Alone" or "Crying In My Whisky". TC makes more use of musical textures here than on recent records as well. "Death Is The Friend You Never Met", a haunting meditation on mortality, features Leslie organ and cello. The album's also got mariachi trumpet, swinging saxophone, ethereal female backing vocals, and bar room accordion.
One of New York City's great drummers, Parker Kindred (who's played with Jeff Buckley, Grand Mal, Adam Green, Luke Temple, and Antony and the Johnsons, among others) returns to lend his brilliant rhythmic stylings. The album also features the eloquent lead guitar of Samuel Grossman, one of TC's oldest collaborators and friends.
LYRICS
Bed Of Roses
I’m lost somewhere in limbo
I’m looking out the window
I’m watching everything go down the street.
My soul’s a cold December
My heart’s a dying ember
It’s trying to remember how to beat.
It ain’t no bed of roses
It ain’t no sea of clovers
You don’t get no do-overs round here.
The wheel is set in motion
The door opens then closes
And it ain’t no bed of roses my dear.
This city’s got me low down
I got no time to slow down
I got no road to go down it’s clear.
And I’m thinking about the old crowd
Who drifted back to hometowns
Or got buried in the cold ground this year.
It ain’t no bed of roses
It ain’t no sea of clovers
You don’t get no do-overs round here.
The wheel is set in motion
The door opens then closes
And it ain’t no bed of roses my dear.
And I don’t know how this ends
For me or for my friends
I don’t even know what it depends on.
I could be a contender
I could be a big spender
Or wind up in the tenderloin.
But there’s time for crying and moaning
‘Cause time is simply slowing
It’s flowing like a melting wax museum.
And I’m blowing like a siren
And there’s smoke on the horizon
And if I could be a better man I’d be him.
It ain’t no bed of roses
It ain’t no sea of clovers
You don’t get no do-overs round here.
The wheel is set in motion
The door opens then closes
And it ain’t no bed of roses my dear.
It ain’t no bed of roses
It ain’t no sea of clovers
You don’t get no do-overs round here.
The wheel is set in motion
The door opens then closes
And it ain’t no bed of roses my dear.
Death Is The Friend You Never Met
Death is the friend you never met
But he’s standing with his arms around you yet
The sky is full of fire and the ground is soaking wet
Death is the friend you won’t forget.
I was on the cheap side of the shore
I always end up somewhere wanting more
She’s always in my thoughts and I’m always in her debt
Death is the friend you never met.
I know a guy who flies in a private jet
He drives a 1965 Corvette
He’s had many beautiful women and he likes the high stake bet
Death is the friend you never met.
And you were on the wrong end of the score
You’re tired of wondering what you’re waiting for
And you’re not off the cliff but you’re as close as you can get
Death is the friend you never met.
And you came in all innocent and pure
And now you’re lying naked on the floor
And there’s someone here who knows you but you haven’t seen him yet
Death is the friend you never met.
He is in the curtain draped boudoir
He is at the dark end of the bar
And you don’t think about it but you’re always in his net
Death is the friend you never met.
Going It Alone
On the stage the country singer
Giving G-d the middle finger
He’s never been a winner all his life.
And at the end the juke box plays
The midnight serenades
Cracked old country blues and “Mack The Knife”.
He’s knocking over barstools
He’s howling at the full moon
He’s getting loaded and going home.
He’s laughing at the day
He isn’t here to stay
He’s holding out and going it alone.
On the street some mangy trope
On his way to score some dope
He’s never had a hope or a clue.
And to you he is the ghost
Of everything to not be most
But he’s just doing the one thing left to do.
He’s knocking over barstools
He’s howling at the full moon
He’s getting loaded and going home.
He’s laughing at the day
He isn’t here to stay
He’s holding out and going it alone.
Everybody gets
Beer and cigarettes
And everybody sets their mind aflame.
Whether you are in the can
Or working for the man
You’re playing in the-end-is-coming game.
You’re knocking over barstools
You’re howling at the full moon
You're getting loaded and going home.
You’re laughing at the day
You aren’t here to stay
You’re holding out and going it alone.
You’re knocking over barstools
You’re howling at the full moon
You're getting loaded and going home.
You’re laughing at the day
You aren’t here to stay
You’re holding out and going it alone.
You’re holding out and going it alone.
Never Going Back To Sausalito
I met him on the road to Sausalito
I’ll never know what he was doing there
He wore a signet on his middle finger
And golden bows were fastened in his hair.
A distinct bell was ringing from the chapel
And just then I saw someone ascend a stair
I felt something stirring deep inside me
But when I turned back to him he wasn’t there.
Now, I told you when you met me I had visions
Visions of sorrow and despair
Of miscarriages of truth and inquisitions
And screams of bloody murder everywhere.
And the rats burrowed in colonies in Brooklyn
Let rise some note unknown to our ears
The dogs all bark at shadows in the alleys
And crows fly in circles when he appears.
And what we did to get this way is glorious
We paid off all our adversaries tolls
But what lurks in our futures could destroy us
And separate our bodies from our souls.
Now, I’m sorry that I left you holding the candle
While I wandered on the sad and lonely shore
I’m sorry that I took it from the mantle
I’m never going out there anymore.
And I’m never going back to Sausalito
I’m afraid to break the curfew of my mind
I’m afraid that I’ll be lost in limbo
And I’m afraid to be afraid of who I find.
I’m never going back to Sausalito
I’m never going back to Sausalito.
Time To Say You’re Mine
It’s not that I ain’t good looking baby
And it’s not that I don’t sing a pretty line
It’s only I don’t do right by you lately
I can see it in the soul that’s in your eyes.
I’m not waiting for a miracle to save me
I don’t look for any G-d given sign
But still, I hope He won’t forsake me
And I’m fine just so you know
But I’d hate to see you go
I’d hate to see you throw away
The times when we had time to say “you’re mine”.
I never tell you everything I’m feeling
But it runs just like film strip through my mind
It was never my intention to deceive you
I never meant to be cruel and unkind.
But here I am all but defeated
I can’t make a go at anything I try
I never have good luck when I need it
And I’m fine just so you know
But I’d hate to see you go
I’d hate to see you throw away
The times when we had time to say “you’re mine”.
From where I stand it all looks open
But everything we do gets left behind
In this place where we’re bruised and then broken
And I wonder what it is we hope to find.
And I wonder about all the words I’ve spoken
Does it do any good to so confide?
I think it does, at least that’s what I’m hoping
And I’m fine just so you know
But I’d hate to see you go
I’d hate to see you throw away
The times when we had time to say “you’re mine”.
And I’m fine just so you know
But I’d hate to see you go
I’d hate to see you throw away
The times when we had time to say “you’re mine”.
So Alone No. 2
I can tell you where I’m going but I cannot tell you when
Not until I see the smoke stack rolling high around the bend
And now I sit so patient with a dollar in my hand
With my eyes on the embankment and my feet upon the sand.
Last night I paid for it double when they hit me with a ten
And then dragged me from a puddle and put me on my feet again
And then Bernice Van Tuttle and her uncle Jimmy Quinn
They drank me on a jug full of Van Tuttle’s bathtub gin.
I was dreaming of Chicago and I dreamed of it until
The day broke like a bottle on the top of Weinbrecht hill
And then I heard a rocking of the chair beneath the sill
Where the rain was pouring steady like the pain I couldn’t kill.
No sooner had cracked my lashes then did Vasquez I spy
In the corner burning matches will a pistol on his thigh
And in that pile of ashes did his sad soul moan and cry
And his hatred wants for nothing and that nothing then was I.
And so I bade a quick surrender and I made a quick retreat
It was then all I could do to get back upon my feet
And with a note of legal tender and a baleful deceit
I ducked the money lender and I ran into the street.
Now, Moses the conductor he walks bent over a cane
With a face mask and a duster and a tear from lake Champlain
And I miss him like no other and I wish him to remain
Only long enough to pick me up and put me on the train.
The Bright Side
You will never get back the hours that you spent
On making waves on stock and trades and whims of incident
And you might always suffer and you might always pine
And you might always wonder where the rose is on the vine.
So stay on the right side when you carry that load
And stay on the bright side of the road.
I was drinking beers in Jackson when someone mentioned you
So I went to where the action was but it was nothing new
And I saw what they were selling I knew that kind of stuff
If at first you get it you will never get enough.
So stay on the right side when you carry that load
And stay on the bright side of the road.
In all my days of wonder I never wondered this
That all my rain and thunder could drown in the abyss
A million times unfolding the great forgotten song
Sprung from the dust below me and the dead we tread upon.
So stay on the right side when you carry that load
And stay on the bright side of the road.
Stay on the right side when you carry that load
And stay on the bright side of the road.
Crying In My Whiskey
I am crying in my whiskey ‘cause my baby doesn’t miss me
And I’m going to Mississippi by and by
The rain pours down in showers then the sun it dries my trousers
And the moon mightily towers in the sky.
In the sky, oh Lord, in the sky
The moon mightily towers in the sky.
I am singing with the blue birds and I’m thinking about the true words
That I spoke to you when you were by my side
And I’m looking at the swallows on this winding road that follows
To where all of my tomorrows do reside.
Do reside, oh Lord, do reside
To where all of my tomorrows do reside.
Now, my tracks were black and muddy but my Jacks were wild and lucky
And I came out of Kentucky riding high
But now I’m crying in my whiskey in this lonesome land of Dixie
For my baby just to kiss me one more time.
One more time, oh Lord, one more time
For my baby just to kiss me one more time.
The Score
You’ve got forty-two cents on the dollar
I’ve got a stack of bills to choke the crew
I’m putting one foot in front of the other
Where I’m going that’s what you’ve got to do.
A guardian angel tapped me on the shoulder
I road her wings across the avenue
I can never say how much I owe her
For she was not a second overdue.
And I don’t know when I’ll be returning
Though I’m going where many have been before
Where everybody’s got a burden
And everybody knows the score.
The rain falls steady like an arrow
It falls upon the dying and the dead
A graveyard man is driving a wheel barrow
And the whole damn town is painted red.
And I got a letter from my grandpa
It came to me from the way beyond
It told me if I look past the ramparts
That I would see the new dawn.
And I don’t know when I’ll be returning
Though I’m going where many have been before
Where everybody’s got a burden
And everybody knows the score.
And I don’t know when I’ll be returning
I might be done a lifetime or more
Where everybody’s got a burden
And everybody knows the score.
Union Station
I was sitting at a bar in Union Station
I was waiting for the 2 p.m. to Penn
When I got the sensation
That I was never going to see your face again.
And I thought how if all the times I’d said I loved her
Were stood up or laid out end to end
That they wouldn’t reach far enough to
Show her just how much I loved her then.
And I paused in thought for that moment
When memories and hopes start to blend
And everything looks blurred and out of focus
Like a dream that is too broken to mend.
I was sitting at a bar in Union Station
I was waiting for the 2 p.m. to Penn.
But that morning was not a morning for repentance
No essence came to wash away my sins
Sometimes some crimes find their sentence
Is the remembrance of what should or could have been.
Charley O had a ’71 Chevy Nova
That car was so far and away a perfect ten
And I thought about the autumn day he drove ya
All the way from Saratoga to Gravesend.
And I thought about the angels of your folly
And the devils that compel our kind of men
To ring out all the hinges of our body
Just to sing out in the bluest voice we can.
I was sitting at a bar in Union Station
I was waiting for the 2 p.m. to Penn.
Now, I have been homesick and frost bitten
I have been written off and worse
I’ve seen what you see from where you’re sitting
Through sadder eyes than yours.
But I’m too old to find a new vocation
And most of the dough I got is hers
So I’ve got no choice but to be patient
And wait until the last becomes the first.
But it’s a long long time until my salvation
And it’s a long long time until 2 p.m.
But at least I’ve got enough twenties to be a patron
And enough memories of you to be your friend.
I was sitting at a bar in Union Station
I was waiting for the 2 p.m. to Penn.