Don't Know When, But a Day Is Gonna' Come...
Scarlet
She’s standing in a room in my dreams
Wearing scarlet
Shining like tinsel and the blood stained cover of my father's new testament
I ask to pay for dinner and she yawns and just slips me a check
She always laughs at me when I try to be a prince
I wake up and buckets of water dump on my head
Out of the clouds
Painting the sky, making shapes like…
Never cry, never cry
I saw her drugs, her bible, her palm readings and her roses
I saw her shadows in the fading light
I asked her if she would wear scarlet tonight
I saw her pills, her lipstick, and her favorite dress
I wonder if she knows, she’s been stuck in her own shadow
She’s trapped on the glass side of the T.V. screen
I’m too scared to ask if she’s wearing scarlet for me
She slips on her baby blue suede legs
Under her sheets
She’s wearing a shirt that I painted in 1st grade
She looks warm, but I am freezing
I think she probably drove us back to my place
Lay me down, and try to get the sky to stop running round and round
She says it’s just the stars
Silver tears in sync, constellations on a paper plate
It's hard to look at her. It's hard to say,
You can’t never cry, You can’t never cry
I saw her drugs, her bible, her palm readings and her roses
I saw her shadows in the fading light
I asked her if she would wear scarlet tonight
I saw her pills, her lipstick, and her favorite dress
I wonder if she knows, she’s been stuck in her own shadow
She’s trapped on the glass side of the T.V. screen
And I’m scared she might be wearing scarlet for me
Hey, just put your dress away
I don't wanna go out tonight
It's not you. It's just string intertwined, pressed and stained with red dye.
Hey, I'm tired of the picture you made
Copied and printed in shades of gray
Colored it in, but it still doesn't look the same
Hey, don't ever feel afraid
Keep your chin up, and your eyes toward the train
It's moving faster than a dream, and there's nothing to gain
Be strong, and when they take me away
Do you think that I’ll feel, will I know, will I taste, will I grow,
Will I wake, will I see? Will I live or just “be”? Will I love?
Or will I just be a shadow of the things that I recall?
...Don't know when, but a day is gonna come. When there won't be a moon, and there won't be a sun. It'll just go black. It'll all go back to the way it used to be.
posted by 'Connell at 2:15 PM
6 Comments:
Don't know if you have music written up for this yet, but I can hear the first several lines spoken, no backing music at all, and then a gradual introduction of instruments.
Maybe it's the Elvis Costello...
Who is Bob Dylan, but with a singing voice and more of a jazz/big band backing.
e-props... this is intricate
In case you deleted pure genius...
"She's standing in my dreams wearing scarlet/like the blood-stained cover of my father's new testament/I ask to pay for dinner and she yawns and slips me the check/She always laughs at me when I try to be a prince."
And go with the piano-balladry there...I don't know if either Waits or Adams is the answer, but probably somewhere in between.
yeah. somewhere in between. Hmmm... not sure what to do about the last four lines. I mean, the very last one is good. Other than that, I've been thinking of re-tooling the end of it to be... more succinct. Maybe? Something like that.
Okay. I wanna keep the tinsel, or something, some element of that christmas, shinier part... And I'm wondering as to whether I should put it together, like maybe "Shining like tinsel and the blood-stained cover of my father's new testament", or (since it's shorter) "Tinsel shining on the blood-stained cover..." but I dunno. Probably doesn't make much difference.
All I know is that its taken me forever to get this read. Somehow my schedule hasn't had room for two minutes in some weeks.
I like the painted shirt line. Not much to say but it brings the couple very close very quickly. They're both very human this way. Ex: she lives in her shadow. solid ending. As always, you portray a very vivid scene in so few words. I regret not reading this sooner.
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