Favorite OtR Lyrics Options

[michelle]

These are some of my absolute favorite word collections scattered thoughout OtR's lyrics. Cut/pasted randomly from the Lyrics Page to make listing them easier (it's my day off - aka: more lazy than usual):

it's no dream you are the blinded eye observing
open my mouth you can finger your way to the words

and if my hand were taken hold of
I'd slip away with you love

Your skin was the paper your pages unbound

I end up a wiser person thanks to you

this night is so big
this night has stars falling into my hands

Last night I dreamt you knocked. I let you in.

but i want to stay with you
long enough to love you right

and our hate like toys should be put away

Electric lines and wispy jet contrails
Ships at sea and B&O train rails
...Meet me in the backstreets of heaven

Sometimes we deal with bygone bruises and find it’s been too long

pulling moonlight down and wearing it skin tight

if the rest of the world's goin' down you've got to breathe your breath in me

You threw a noose around my shadow.
Got me into all this mess.
I would have dove in head first anyway for less, for a whole lot less.

I can't even begin to see your eyes
but if I'm ever really drunk
it will be from drinking every drop of your soul
and running till I sweat your spirit

i've been praying you'd see me pass knowing somehow you've seen me before

And no matter just how bad it gets it does no good to blame somebody else

And if the music starts before I get there dance without me. You dance so gracefully.

i just want to hold you in my gaze for awhile
so i can remember every line around your smile

The moon blind-sided the sky again as we grabbed loose ends of the tide and then

someone opened up my mouth to speak someone pulled the words back into me

if murder is a man’s invention
love is not a man’s invention

Broken down
We're all so broken down
Bandages on our wings

listed last on purpose:

We're all beggars, tramps and fools


What lyrics do it most for you guys?

[Trudes]

....tell me this welcome peace
isn't dancing with the ghost of future tears
(it makes me wonder)

Every color of our sorrow
every fallen angel's graceful bow
I feel now
Every broken word unspoken
Every crooked line of this sad town
I feel....

for starters

[Trudes]

Say farewell to the confines of my own back yard.
Weeds growin' 'round the flowers.
Sometimes the only way to break the curse
is to leave it all behind.

[kylie jo]

welp, mich(and trudy's first post) ... that about takes care of it.

along with every line in 'Ect. Whatever'...

[keith from ny]

Michelle hit a lot of mine already, but also:

I'm just walking across your heart
in spite of the weather.


You are mercifully sadistic
and I didn't know that murder could be good.


you are a singer too
carry me like a tune
I'm like a newborn child
I'm wrapped up for a while
you're swaying like a hobo
you are a circus clown
I've never laughed before
beneath your canopy
oh say a prayer for me
I want this in a photo

so be a photographer
I'm dancing naked now
across the maple floor
above the lion's roar
your pictures will protect me
you must be a scientist by now
with rumpled midnight hair
you've studied every pore
and every follicle
of my bewildered body

I get to be guilty.


eyes soar hands clap
ears ring it's a sand trap
hair raising amazing
grey city transformations
as lips sink stomachs ache
monkeys shine fire flies
foxes trot hobs knob
porches swing brains storm
hearts attack and air supplies
heads light tails spin
steeples chase you along your chin
rock slides


I am hurting someone, I am hurting someone
Just like, just like you.


The body is a book of matches,
A little fire is required of this kindling flame.
Ohio Blue Tip Strike Anywhere,
Strike me, anywhere.


You can see there are so many of us here,
Breaking is the one thing we all fear.


This is lonely
but never alone.


Places, everybody places.
Embrace it, it's the way it has to be.
Wasted, is everybody wasted?
Complacent, is anybody free?


And though we love to numb the pain,
We come to learn that it's in vain.
Pain is our mother,
She makes us recognize each other.


I know I don't have to tell you
Only broken hearts can sing.
I'm hoping for a sign,
Pray that I'm anything but fine.


We can sleep when we're dead.


What she will not do
Is let you go before you're gone.
It's everything that's ever been wrong,
But it's all she's ever known.


I've learned to love the feel of this barbed wire,
The skin that separates your heart from mine.
It tears the fabric of my ordinary
And rips the cloudy curtain of my sky.


Gonna find the slow curve of a back road,
One hand upon the wheel.
Drive 'til I remember
How it feels,
So this is how it feels!


Hej you wanna read my poetry by the sea, boy?

[Jeanne]

The wind blows through the trees,
but if I look for it, it won't come.
I tense up. My mind goes numb.
There's nothing harder than learning how to receive.

we dance on the tracks of a train called youth

Sometimes what feels like pretty good music
is just the same old song.
Sometimes we deal with bygone bruises
and find it’s been too long.

maybe i'm a little young to care
maybe i'm a little old to cry
i don't know
maybe i'm a little weak to dance
maybe i'm a little strong to die
i don't know

I wonder which part of this will leave the scar.

pray tell talk to me can you feel me in the fingers
of the wind in your hair as if i'm standing there

there's someone mapping out a rendezvous
it seems to me.

if i'm feigning coherence and calmness
laugh with me, laugh with me
if i tremble at your close proximity
then you better believe me
believe me

June I'm feeling so good I'd love to die here just like this
June I'm feeling so strange screams are tangled up with bliss
June when I'm afraid I find a thousand ways to laugh
June when I'm alone I forget you anyway I can

God look over there there's pigeons nesting on your saints

There is a me you would not recognize, dear. Call it the shadow of myself.

believe me when i say
i'd climb to heaven
crawl beneath the lowest hell
to stay near you

You can't put no bandaid on this cancer
Like a twenty-dollar bill
For a topless dancer
You need questions
Forget about the answers
Do you really wanna die this way

We can sleep when we're dead

shake it mama shake it
it was my idea first

I want to feel and then some
I have five senses
I need thousands more at least

if you stay and never go
away
i'll repeat the same mistakes
i've made

i'm not letting go of God
I'm just losing my grip

do you know they call it arson
setting fires without permission
in my heart for sure and maybe elsewhere too

[markianmc]

I breathe you 'cause you help me forget
everything I don't know about love yet.


Red is love. Black is night.
I'm drunk with angels taking flight.
The heart that beats is yours inside me.

There are more, but I'm too tired to think of them tonight!

[hometown boy dav...]

I just rediscovered Paul and Virginia. Wow!

spill-tainted pages of poetic prophecy
tickle my interest and taunt at my fantasy
gentle new lover, favorite friend
with hidden desire that bothers my conscience
again

cobalt blue vessels, clean same sex rabbits
old movie romance and a healthy new habit

moving in passion, resting in reason
with a strong tender poet who touches each region
within

illuminations that shine on the river
subliminal glances provoking a shiver

palms full of mystery, fingers of magic
greetings so glorious, partings so tragic

[zayne]

i will add:

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear

We've seen the landfill rainbow
We've seen the junkyard of love
Baby it's no place for you and me

Sleep with one ear close to the ground
And wake up screaming
When we lay our cold weapons down
We'll wake up dreaming

You either lose your fear
Or spend your life with one foot in the grave
Is God the last romantic?

My memory will not fail me now
And the rest is history

peace,
zayne

[aparadox]

What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be
Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy.

Feel the slip and the grip of grace again

I wrestle with these guilty thoughts
And I'm losing
You're all I am I'm what you're not
Confusing

i radio heaven
i get mixed signals

i guess i never told you
'bout this life i'm livin'
it's heaven versus hell
in a split decision

just a burning moth without a flame

And though we love to numb the pain
We come to learn that it's in vain
Pain is our mother
She makes us recognize each other

i'm not letting go of God
I'm just losing my grip

Wow, it's like K & L can take the twisted thoughts in my head, put them into words, and set them to beautiful music

[kab]

i apologize for the hijack here, but it seems a really appropriate place to say this...

i went to the jammin java show here in virginia on sunday. it was phenomenal. i was blown away.

the guy i took with me -- he and i have gone out a handful of times now -- said to me (paraphrasing here), "they were really good. but i'm not sure how you can listen to them on a regular basis, because they are so emotionally deep, and i don't want to feel that much every time i listen to music."

and that's precisely why i listen to them! like aparadox just said, they take the twisted thoughts in my head and make sense of them somehow.

i'm in love.
with over the rhine.


i want to feel and then some
i have five senses i need thousands more at least

[yojimbo]

Jacking the thread, and not apologizing for it. Why, because I can, muahahhahaha(evil mad scientist in training laugh)
Just a follow up to Kelly's comments. This was the first time I saw OtR live and all I can really say is "WOW!" Karin's voice grabbed ahold of me on the very first song and didn't let go until the end of the third encore. I can't really tell you all the songs they sang, everything kind of melted into one long set of "WOW!" It reminded me of the very first time I heard Tori Amos on a radio program in Chicago. Ahhh sweet discoveries. Thanks for coming out to the show with me Rose and Kelly! And if anyone has a set list I'd appreciate it if you PM'd me one. Thanks in advance. Rock on Apples!!

i apologize for the hijack here, but it seems a really appropriate place to say this...

i went to the jammin java show here in virginia on sunday. it was phenomenal. i was blown away.

the guy i took with me -- he and i have gone out a handful of times now -- said to me (paraphrasing here), "they were really good. but i'm not sure how you can listen to them on a regular basis, because they are so emotionally deep, and i don't want to feel that much every time i listen to music."

and that's precisely why i listen to them! like aparadox just said, they take the twisted thoughts in my head and make sense of them somehow.

i'm in love.
with over the rhine.


i want to feel and then some
i have five senses i need thousands more at least

[michelle]

maybe sorta kinda if i really had to say
something good is on it's way

When you play my song
Play it slowly
Play it like I’m sad and lonely


I can’t seem to let go
I’m so scared of losing
The deeper the love goes
The deeper the bruising
The trouble with talking
Is it makes you sound clever
The trouble with waiting
Is you’ll just wait forever

[DustyVolume]

and the cadences we hear
may grow different in coming years
still I'll tell you

that I couldn't love you
any more
than I do right now


you be the sea and i'll be the sky



Steal me from this jaded God-forsaken place
Write some new lines on my face


thank you my angel/
for making love a foreign language


meet me in the courtyard
where the saints pray
musing in our stare
still painfully aware
that there are others
shoulds and woulds with names and faces
close your eyes and open up your mind

You were the story I tried to tell
You were the savior that tripped and fell

then there is your flare for murder
there's a dagger in the border
of your cloak and I suspect a captain's gun
as you put to death suspicions
kindly kill my fears as well
exorcise and slay the demons one by one
Beautiful dancing infidel


cast your shadow across my heart
investigate me
i hope i've been yours right from the start


I wrestle with these guilty thoughts
And I'm losing
You're all I am I'm what you're not
Confusing


it's enough for now
besides I feel so awkward
anyway


forty-acre farm we can call our own
with a chocolate lab and no telephone
the full moon's leering in a lover's swoon
and the apple tree's swaying to a windy tune


Your fire burns me like a favorite song.


cast me away
from yesterday's things
in deed and in my memory

sweeten the taste
of the past
and borrow just a little more time for me


you water thirsty vines
that snake along my spine
in case I forget to shiver/
I get to be guilty


And my hometown train
is pulling from the station.
And I know for once
I really will be late.


I will stumble there with you
and you'll be laughing close with me,
trying not to make a scene
etcetera. Whatever. I guess all I really mean


Pressed beneath
your folded wings
the ground around receding
feel love's stinging sword
cut deep and catch
the joy that's bleeding out of
gentle wounds


help me tell the truth you see
that's all i'm trying to do is
tell the truth


you breathe, and I recall the power of trains


If I try to pray, it's like a game of red rover.
I take a real good run at it, but I can't break through.

sunday i hope you might come by
on a big white horse in the big white sky
sunday I know we'll reconcile


I will remember
every sliver of you
I will remember
every door we slip through
every curving hour
every dying ember
I will remember
there is no other



Till we lay these weapons at your feet, Lord
How long, how long


all the stray dog night owl junkies
orphans vagabonds
angels who lost their halos


yesterday i saw
the iron curtain
around your heart


Hard for me
This is too hard
Maybe I can't get through
What will I miss the most
Pray that I'm haunted by your ghost

Well I'm drunk on self-pity,
scorned all that's been given me,
I would drink from a bottle labeled Sure Defeat.


sit close to me on the swing
like paul and virginia!
sit close to me and i'll sing


I'm afraid I'm not all that you see
All along the coast of me


You can write your name on the water,
it’ll drift on out to sea.
You can treat me like a daughter,
you can write your name on me.


I wanna do better
I wanna try harder
I wanna believe
Down to the letter

Jesus and Mary
Can you carry us
Across this ocean
Into the arms of forgiveness


And I'm dyin' inside to leave you with more than just cliches


Last night I dreamt you knocked. I let you in.

[joshua]

There is a me you would not recognize, dear.
Call it the shadow of myself.

[Skoegahom]

From When I Go

i just want to hold you
in my gaze for awhile
so i can remember
every line around your smile

then i want to know
i want to know
will it make a difference
when I go


Changes Come
words: Bergquist/Detweiler
music: Bergquist
recording: OHIO

Changes come
Turn my world around

I have my father's hand
I have my mother's tongue
I look for redemption in everyone

I wanna wear your ring
I have a song to sing
It ain't over babe
In fact it's just begun

Changes come
Turn my world around
Changes come
Bring the whole thing down

I wanna have our baby
Somedays I think that maybe
This ol' world's too f#&$*@d up
For any firstborn son

There is all this untouched beauty
The light the dark both running through me
Is there still redemption for anyone

Jesus come
Turn the world around
Lay my burden down
Turn this world around
Bring the whole thing down
Bring it down

[joshua]

yes! the entire song - changes come.