R.E.M. - Paroles

The Lifting

Grounded, 5 a.m.
The nightlite is comforting
But gravity is holding you

Once settled into sleep
You have watched, on repeat
The story of your life across the ceiling
And in review

You've said the air was singing
It's calling you, you don't believe
These things you've never seen

Good morning and how are you?
The weather's fine, the sky is blue
It's perfect for our seminar

Now, close your eyes and start to breathe
Allow the noise to recede
Allow yourself to drift and fly away
But you just stay

You've said the air was singing
It's calling you, you don't believe
These things you've never seen
You never dreamed

Did you hear these voices calling?
Did you hear these voices calling?
Did you hear these voices calling you?

Locked into a conference room
We're only what our minds assume
And rationale is leaving you

This conceit, these systems of belief
Your counselor agrees
You always marked these boundaries, now you're free
And with relief

You've said the air was singing
It's calling you, you don't believe
These things you've never seen
You never heard, you never dreamed

You've said the air was singing
It's calling you, you don't believe
These things you've never seen

Never, never, never...

Now, once you had a dream
Of oceans and sunken cities
Memories of things you've never known
And you have never known

I've Been High

Have you seen?
Have not, will travel
Have I missed the big reveal?

Do my eyes?
Do my eyes seem empty?
I've forgotten how this feels

I've been high
I've climbed so high
But life sometimes, it washes over me

Have you been?
Have done, will travel
I fell down on me knees

Was I wrong?
I don't know, don't answer
I just needed to believe

I've been high
I've climbed so high
But life sometimes, it washes over me

So I dive into a pool so cool and deep
That if I sink I sink and when I swim I fly so high

What I want
What I really want is
Just to live my life on high

And I know
I know you want the same
I can see it in your eyes

I've been high
I've climbed so high
But life sometimes, it washes over me

Washes over me
Close my eyes so I can see
Make my make believe believe in me

All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be A Star)

Humming all the way to Reno
You've dusted the non-believers
And challenged the laws of chance

Now, sweet
You're so sugar sweet
You may as well have had "Kick Me" fastened on your sleeve

You know what you are
You're gonna be a star
You know what you are
You're gonna be a star

Wing is written on your feet
Your Achilles heel is a tendency
To dream, but you've known that from the beginning
You didn't have to go so far
You didn't have to go

You know what you are
You're gonna be a star
You know what you are
You're gonna be a star

You know who you are
You know who you are
You know who you are

Humming all the way to Reno
You've written your own directions
And whistled the rules of change

You know what you are
You're gonna be a star
You know what you are
You're gonna be a star

You know what you are
You're gonna be a star
You know what you are
You're gonna be a star

Humming all the way to Reno
All the way to Reno
All the way to Reno

You're gonna be a star, you are
You're gonna be a star
You're gonna be a star, you are
You're gonna be a star

She Just Wants To Be

It's not that she walked away
Her world got smaller
All the usual places, the same destinations
Only something's changed

It's not that she wasn't rewarded with pomegranate afternoons
And Mingus, Chet Baker and chess
It's not the stampeding fortune of prim affectations
She's off on a ride but she knows now
Is greater than the whole of the past
Is greater, and now she knows

She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be

It's not that the transparency of her earlier incarnations
Now looked back on, weren't rich
And loaded with beautiful vulnerability
And now she knows

Now is greater and she knows that

She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be

Now is greater
Now is greater and she knows that

She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be

She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be

It's not like if angels could truly look down
Stir up the trappings and light on the ground
Remind us of what, when, why or who
That how's up to us, me and you

And now is greater than the whole of the past
Is greater, and now she knows that

And now she knows

Disappear

I dragged my feet across the seat
Jumped out the passenger side
The only thing worth looking for
Is what you find inside

But that had not yet appeared
Lost, invisible, here
Tel Aviv and Agadir
Taroudant or Olomouc
Before I learned to see
The vanishing point appear

I looked for you and everywhere
I looked for you and everywhere

There is a calm I haven't come to yet
I spent half my life figuring what comes next
I telescoped in, I'll finally win
I'll finally win the prize

That now my eyes see
A comic's perfect timing squeezed
I'm headfirst fighting everything
The crushing force of memory
Erasing all I've been
The vanishing point appears

I looked for you and everywhere
I looked for you and everywhere

Tell me why you're here
I came to disappear

Look at this face
Can you believe it?
Am I living in a beautiful vacuum?
Because I can't see it
The vanishing point appears

I looked for you and everywhere
I looked for you and everywhere

Tell me why you're here
I came to disappear
Tell me why you're here
I came to disappear
I came to disappear

Saturn Return

Easy to poke yourself square in the eye
Harder to like yourself, harder to try

These Elvis poses, postcards and neopryn
Roses, a dollar a stem
Everyone's sleeping or pulling a long haul
The key's in the cooler, it's 3 a.m.

And Saturn is beckoning no one
Is off on its own
Is offering up

Late shift convenience store, cut out the lights
Telescope roof towards the Northwestern sky
You pull the ladder up, no one's the wiser
You find your sights and discover

Saturn is orbiting nothing
Is off on its own
Is breaking from home

Harder to look yourself square in the eye
Easy to take off

You found the ladder in the pattern of your wrist
You've seen and you've marked horizons

Mother was difficult, she made you cry
Cover the mirror, look to the sky
You climbed into your rocketship triumph
Lift up and hold out your hands

Saturn is orbiting nothing
Is off on its own
Is breaking from home

Saturn is orbiting nothing
Is off on its own
Is breaking from home

Saturn return when you chase down its moons
Throw them into a new gravity

Harder to look yourself square in the eye
Easy to poke yourself, easy as pie
Easy to take off, harder to fly
Harder to wake Galileo

Beat A Drum

The sun reflected in the back of my eye
I knocked my head against the sky

The dragonflies are busy buzzing me
The seahorses, if we were in the sea

Halfway from coal, halfway to diamond
My fall knocked a mean chip out of me

I'm gathering as far as I can reach
We're perched up on the precipice
And this is what I've seen

This is all I want, it's all I need
This is all I am, it's everything
This is all I want, it's all I need

A bluejay hectors from the felled catalpa tree
Doctorate in science and a theologian's dream

The dragonflies are trying to lecture me
The seahorses, if we were in the sea

This is all I want, it's all I need
This is all I am, it's everything
This is all I want, it's all I need

Beat a drum for me, like a butterfly wing
Tropical storm across the ocean

But don't explain, I'm sure I'll want to know
But don't forget, we're just halfway from coal

This is all I want, it's all I need
This is all I am, it's everything
This is all I want, it's all I need

Imitation Of Life

Charades, pop skill, water hyacinth
Named by a poet, imitation of life
Like a koi in a frozen pond
Like a goldfish in a bowl
I don't want to hear you cry

That's sugarcane that tasted good
That's cinnamon, that's Hollywood
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see you try

You want the greatest thing
The greatest thing since bread came sliced
You've got it all, you've got it sized
Like a Friday fashion show teenager
Freezing in the corner
Trying to look like you don't try

That's sugarcane that tasted good
That's cinnamon, that's Hollywood
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see you try

No one can see you cry

That's sugarcane that tasted good
That's freezing rain, that's what you could
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see you cry

This sugarcane, this lemonade
This hurricane, I'm not afraid
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see me cry

This lightning storm, this tidal wave
This avalanche, I'm not afraid
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see me cry

That's sugarcane that tasted good
That's who you are, that's what you could
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see you cry

That's sugarcane that tasted good
That's who you are, that's what you could
C'mon, c'mon, no one can see you cry

Summer Turns To High

Mercury is rising still
Turn the fan on high
I won't step on my own shadow
No one wants to cry

Someone put a pox on me
I'll spit in their eye

Summer turns to high

With my bedsheet, cape and sandals
Circle citronella candles
Summer's here, the light is raising
Hopes and dragonflies

If those hopes are overshadowed
Cotton candy, caramel apple

Summer turns to high
Summer turns to high
Summer turns to high
Summer high

After wine and nectarines
The fireflies in time
Move like syrup through the evening
With a sweet resign

I won't pine for what could have been
I'm preoccupied

Summer turns to high
Summer turns to high
Summer turns to high
Summer high

Chorus And The Ring

Hey there now, young one wholly, swing along
Quote the scriptures, keep them guessing which pit you crawled from
Just defy it, just deny it, was it fun?
Your time has come
What have you done?
What have you done?

That's when the insults start to sting
You can't remember anything
The chorus chime in, the greek chorus
The machine of God singing

It's the poison that in measures brings illuminating vision
It's the knowing with a wink that we expect in Southern women
It's the wolf that knows which root to dig to save itself
It's the octopus that crawled back to the sea

That's when the insults start to sting
You can't remember anything
The chorus chime in, the greek chorus
The machine of God ring

Hammered, shooting plywood in the backyard
Laughing 'cause the racket makes the blackbirds sing
Write the holy terror, suck the marrow from the bone
Singe your own wings burning books
You got the chorus and the ring

That's when the insults start to sting
You can't remember anything
The chorus chime in, the greek chorus
The machine sings

That's when the insults starts to sting
You can't remember anything
The chorus chime in, the greek chorus
The machine sings

That's when the calibration
Brittle as a stick
Gets you the gold ring and the tar museum
Che guevera wink

Gold ring
Gold ring

Sing
Sing
Sing
Sing

I'll Take The Rain

The rain came down
The rain came down
The rain came down on me

The wind blew strong
And summer's song
It fades to memory

I knew you when
I loved you then
In summer's yawn, now hopeless

You laid me bare
You marked me there
The promises we made

I used to think, as birds take wing
They sing through life, so why can't we?
We cling to this and claim the best
If this is what you're offering

I'll take the rain
I'll take the rain

The nighttime creases
Summer schemes
And stretches out to stay

The sun shines down
You came around
You love the easy days

But now the sun
The winter's come
I wanted just to say

That if I hold
I'd hope you'd fold
Open up inside, inside of me

I used to think, as birds take wing
They sing through life, so why can't we?
We cling to this and claim the best
If this is what you're offering

I'll take the rain
I'll take the rain

I'll take the rain

This winter's song
I'll sing along
I've searched its still refrain

I'll walk alone
If given this
Take wing and celebrate the rain

I used to think, as birds take wing
They sing through life, so why can't we?
We cling to this and claim the best
If this is what you're offering

I'll take the rain
I'll take the rain

I'll take the rain

I'll take the rain

I'll take the rain
I'll take the rain
I'll take the rain

I'll take the rain

I'll take the rain

Beachball

Tonight's alive
The beachball's set to fly
Those well tequila'd guys
Who smile at strangers

A tes souhaits
A tes amours chéri
You give a little sneeze
And dance the rhu-rhu-rhu-rhu-rhumba

This life is sweet
We're dancing in the street
Who knows who you might meet?
You'll do fine

The little weekend's here
Thursday has an ear
Her coffee klatch career
She talks to strangers

And kissing by the sea
Particular to me
'Ti punch, mojito, sling and
Dance the rhu-rhu-rhu-rhu-rhumba

This life is sweet
We're dancing in the street
Who knows who you might meet?
You'll do fine

We flash the seaside sky
With starfish butterflies
To cast a spell and welcome locals
Weekenders and strangers

You'll do fine
You'll do fine
You'll do fine