[ Natalie Merchant ]

[ piano: Don Grolnick/cello: Dennis Karmazyn/viola: Novi/bass: Bob Magnusson/string arrangement: David Campbell ]

The man in 119 takes his tea alone.
Mornings we all rise to wireless Verdi cries.
I'm hearing opera through the door.
The souls of men and women, impassioned all.
Their voices climb and fall; battle trumpets call.

[ Robert Buck/Natalie Merchant ]

Heaven, is this heaven where we are?
See them walking, if you dare, if you call that walking.
Stumble, stagger, fall and drag themselves along the streets of heaven.

Where is the blessed table to feed all who hunger on earth,
welcomed and seated each one joyfully served?
See them walking, if you dare, if you call that walking.

[ Natalie Merchant ]

[ other voice: Michael Stipe ]

A lie to say, "O my mountain has coal veins and beds to dig.
500 men with axes and they all dig for me."
A lie to say, "O my river where many fish do swim,
half of the catch is mine when you haul your nets in."
Never will he believe that his greed is a blinding ray.
No devil or redeemer will cheat him.

[ Jerome Augustyniak/Natalie Merchant ]

Big plans are being made for my sisters wedding day.
We'll have a ball at the Sons of Roma Hall.
Family, friends come one and all.
First the best man makes a toast to Rocky and my sister Rose,
"A life of years free of tears. Bottoms up and lots of luck!"
`
Polka, tango everyone, cha-cha, mambo Rose and Rock alone.

[ Natalie Merchant ]

I always knew that you would take yourself far from home
as soon as, as far as you could go.
By the 1/4 inch cut of your hair and the Army issue green,
for the past eight weeks I can tell where you've been.
For I knew, I could see, it was all cut and dried to me
there was soldier's blue blood streaming inside your veins.

[ Cat Stevens ]

[ Banned from later U.S. copies of In My Tribe due to Cat Stevens' agreement to the fatwah issued against Salman Rushdie ]

Now I've been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come

And I believe it could be, something good has begun

Oh I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one

And I believe it could be, some day it's going to come

[ Jerome Augustyniak/Natalie Merchant ]

The Painted Desert can wait till summer.
We've played this game of just imagine long enough.
Wait till summer?
When I'm sure the rains have ended, the blooms have gone,
everyone killed by the morning frost.
Is a cactus blooming there in every roadside stand
where the big deal is cowboy gear won in Japan?

[ Robert Buck/Natalie Merchant ]

Over your shoulder, please don't mind me
if my eyes have fallen onto your magazine
for I've been watching and wondering
why your face is changing with every line you read.

All those lines and circles, to me, a mystery.
Eve pull down the apple and give taste to me.
If she would be wonderful, but my pride is in the way.

[ Natalie Merchant ]

The color of the sky as far as I can see is coal grey.
Lift my head from the pillow and then fall again.
With a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.
A quiver in my lips as if I might cry.

Well by the force of will my lungs are filled and so I breathe.
Lately it seems this big bed is where I never leave.

[ Robert Buck/Natalie Merchant ]

Hey Jack Kerouac, I think of your mother
and the tears she cried, she cried for none other
than her little boy lost in our little world that hated
and that dared to drag him down. Her little boy courageous
who chose his words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood.
Hip flask slinging madman, steaming cafe flirts,
they all spoke through you.

That young boy without a name I'd know his face. In this city the kid's my favorite. I've seen him. I see him every day. Seen him run outside looking for a place to hide from his father, the kid half naked and said to myself "O, what's the matter here?" I'm tired of the excuses everybody uses, he's their kid I stay out of it, but who gave you the right to do this?

Don't talk, I will listen.
Don't talk, you keep your distance
for I'd rather hear some truth tonight than entertain your lies,
so take you poison silently.
Let me be. Let me close my eyes.

Don't talk, I'll believe it.
Don't talk, listen to me instead,
I know that if you think of it, both long enough and hard
the drink you drown your troubles in is the trouble you're in now.