Joe Moe Lyrics From Mainland

lyrics mainland joe joseph pulu moe rose moe lani hawaii hawaiian music hula heritage Lyrics – Joe Moe : MAINLAND

1. Aria ("The birds don't owe") (Brian Woodbury)
© 1987, Some Philharmonic Music (BMI)

The birds don’t owe their tweets to the trees
The birds don’t owe
The birds don’t owe
And the trees don’t owe their leaves to the breeze
The trees don’t owe their leaves
The trees don’t owe their leaves
To the breeze
The wind can’t blow out the carillon’s song
The bell can’t owe
Its ding dong
Its ding dong
Its ding dong
Its ding dong

(repeat - Hawaiian translation by Kape’eone):

‘A’ole na ka la’au ke kani a ka manu
Na ka manu no
Na ka manu no

‘A’ole na ka makani na lau la ‘au
‘A’ole na ka makani
‘A’ole na ka makani
Na ka la ‘au no

‘A’ole miha ka pele I ka makani

Na ka pele no
Ke kanike
Ke kanike
Ke kanike
Ke kanike

2. Car on a Hill (Joni Mitchell)
© 1973, Crazy Crow Music (Sony/ATV Tunes) (ASCAP)

I’ve been sitting up waiting for my sugar to show
I’ve been listening to the sirens and the radio
He said he’d be over three hours ago
I’ve been waiting for his car on the hill
He makes friends easy
He’s not like me
I watch for judgement anxiously
Now where in the city can that boy be
Waiting for a car
Climbing
Climbing
Climbing the hill

He’s a real good talker--i think he’s friend
Fast tires come screaming around the bend
But there’s still no buzzer
They roll on...
And-I’m waiting for his car on the hill
It always seems so righteous at the start
When there’s so much laughter
When there’s so much spark
When there’s so much sweetness in the dark
Waiting for a car
Climbing
Climbing
Climbing the hill

3. The Green Shade (Elma Mayer)
© 1996, Some Philharmonic Music (BMI)

It's actually cool in the shade
Actually almost cold in the shade
But the sun some yards away is hot
But the sun is millions of miles away
And my sweatshirt is at home

The green shade, the green green shade
The green sweatshirt, the green green shade

We hiked up a trail through the grass
Up a hill where the sun had yellowed the grass
But the woods right next to the path smelled cool
But the trees on the opposite hillside were charred from the fire
I was burning up in my black t-shirt
And my sunscreen was at home

The blonde grass, the ashen grass
The black trees and the black t-shirt
The green shade and the yellow grass

You ran waving your arms in the air
As you flew down the trail high up in the air, up on the hill
Above the bay, up in the blue sky
Above the clouds that came in waves from over the sea
Cold waves of clouds broke over the hills across the bay and covered
the bridge
But we were safe on the hot yellow hill
Looking out onto our home

The blue air, the blue blue air
The white clouds and the blue bay and
The red bridge and your blue t-shirt
The orange poppies, the golden hills,
The green shade and the blue blue air

I moved away from my home by the sea
I actually left my home by the sea
But I left my heart so I'd have to return
But my home has changed
The hills and buildings shift and burn
Now my house is thousands of miles away
In a city where nights are brighter than day
And I look out my window to the west, out at the pale sky
And after dark I close the green shade
But the sun's still high over the golden hills
And I want to go back home

The gray sea, the gray gray sea
The gray rocks and the gray fog and the gray sagebrush, the gray gulls
Or the gray city, the gray bridges, the white lights and the white
snowflakes,
The sparkling streets and the bright windows, the gray dawn
Or the golden sunset, the gray sea and the green green shade

4. Lotus Festival (Michael Webster)
© 2000, Michael Webster (BMI)

Everybody in the world loves a melon.
All the people in the park want to die.
Underneath the mighty palms floating flowers
And the sun is burning up in the sky

watermelon watermelon watermelon watermelon

All the people there and they’re waiting!
Underneath the palms for the night to come.

See the boys with their tatoos smoking Shermans
See the ladies in the sandbox getting high
Hope that nobody gets shot not on Sunday
while the sun is burning up in the sky

lotus flower lotus flower lotus flower lotus flower

All the people there and they’re waiting!
Underneath the palms for the night to come.

5. Cowboy (Van Dyke Parks)
© 1989, Great White Hope Music (Bug Music) (BMI)

Paniolo cowboy in a field of sugar cane
Once there was a forest where they hid there in the rain
Cowboy cowboy cowboy
Wanderin' Wahini under locks of raven hair
Beads of inspiration Hopin' he would not forget just where
Heyup cowboy!

Up above the canopy in the highest branches of a tree
He would take her longingly and say "One day you'll belong to me"

I forgot to mention it was nineteen forty-one
Zeros kept a-comin' like to blanket out the sun
Cowboy cowboy

So they lay suspended dreaming of some kind of god
With their limbs akimbo and extended to the mind of God
Cowboy

And the night without regret says it's time to let your hair down low
There they lay in silhouette he would say I'd stay yet have to go

King Kamehameha met with Captain Cook upon the shore
Lookin' at all the cattle asked him "What the hell are these for?"
Cowboy cowboy cowboy
Gone now is the forest and the lovers of the trees
Now there is a chorus playing golf who say in Japanese
Kau-boi

6. Dark and Wrinkled (music: Michael Webster, lyric: Arthur Rimbaud)
© 1998, Michael Webster (BMI)

v1
Dark and Wrinkled like a deep pink flower,
it breathes humbly nestled in the moss

c1
in my dreams my mouth was often placed upon its opening
my soul jealous of the physical coitus
made of it its tawny tear bottle and its nest of sobs

v2
dark and wrinkled, still wet with love
that follows the gentle descent of white buttocks
to the border of its edge.

c2
in my dreams my mouth was often placed upon its opening
my soul jealous of the physical coitus
made of it its tawny tear bottle and its nest of sobs

bridge
filaments like tears of milk have wept
under the cruel wind pushing them back
over small clots of reddish marl
and then lose themselves where the slope called them

instumental

finale

it is the fainting olive and the cajoling flute
the tube from which descends the celestial praline
a feminine Canaan, enclosed in moisture

7. The Married Men (Margaret Roche)
© 1979, Deshufflin, Inc. (ASCAP)

One in Louisiana
One who travels around
One of ’em mainly stays in heart-throb town

I am not their main concern
They are lonely too
I am just an arrow passing through

When they look into my eyes
I know what to do

I make sure the words I say are true

When they send me off at dawn
Pay the driver my fare
They know I am goin’ down somewhere

O the married men
The married men
Never would have had a good time again
If it wasn’t for the married men

One says he’ll come after me
Another one’ll drop me a line
One says all o’ my agony is in my mind

They know what is wrong with me
None of ’em wants my hand
Soloin’ in my traveling wedding band

O the married men
The married men
Makes me feel like a girl again
To run with the married men

One of ’ems got a little boy
Other one he’s got two
One of ’ems wife is one week overdue

I know these girls they don’t like me
But I am just like them
Pickin’ a crazy apple off a stem

Givin’ it to the married men
The married men
All o’ that time in hell to spend
For kissing the married men

8. Ravine (Joe Moe, Marc Doten)
© 2008, GoJoeMoe Music (ASCAP), Plastic Artichoke Music (BMI)

Looking down the Ravine
I see a fallen hollow tree,
an orange cat rolling in something green
Looking down the ravine
I trace a dark thick smell,
like stagnant water from a buried well
I can see beyond the day at hand
A time when grass was blanket and the wind would whip,
but the fort would stand
And I’d hide with you in the green
but all this remains to be seen
in a memory of the ravine

Looking down the ravine
I can almost taste the clean
of a honeysuckle stem
Looking down the ravine
I remember the pitch and the thatch
Gentle grass itch on my back
A place can make us back it up
Where a fawny chick and a downy pup will determine at last
where’s down, whassup
And would nurture new esteem
And all this remains to be seen
in a plush place called ravine

I can see beyond the lay of land
Where we counted hopes as we covet sand
Our skin would blush under trembling hand
As I hid with you in the green
But so much transpires in between
My memories of the ravine

9. Talkin' in Your Sleep (Roger Cook & Bobby Wood)
© 1978, Chriswood Music (Embassy Music Corp.) (BMI) & Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc. (BMI)

Three o'clock in the mornin'
And it looks like it's gonna be
Another sleepless night
I've been listenin' to your dreams
And gettin' very low
Wond'rin' what I can do

Maybe I'm bein' foolish
'Cause I haven't heard you mention
Anybody's name at all
How I wish I could be sure
It's me that turns you on
Each time you close your eyes
I've heard it said that dreamers never lie

(Chorus:)
You've been talkin' in your sleep
Sleepin' in your dreams
With some sweet lover
Holdin' on so tight
Lovin' her the way
You used to love me
Talkin' in your sleep
With lovin' on your mind

10. Mosque of Bones (Joe Moe, Michael Webster and Marc Doten)
© 2008, GoJoeMoe Music (ASCAP), Michael Webster (BMI), Plastic Artichoke Music (BMI)

A baby-child walked to the edge of the world
The edge of the crowd around the town square
The edge of the ax bit deep in the wood
A severed head nods, heading down to the dirt

Rolling…
Rolling like a cat in a pillow case
Rolling…
Rolling like a cat in a pillow case
A child and a head come face to face
On the way to the Mosque of Bones

The Mosque is ornate like a gingerbread house
Gold leaf burnished gingerly on the facade
Sweet ginger incense throws smoke from a fire
My lazy head lolls on the pillow of earth.

Bridge Chorus repeat –

You've seen murder and
I've seen love
Like the tar pits below
And the vacuum above
The tar pits below
and the vacuum above

A moment floats by on the blood of the hour
The pieces are gathered and put on the cart
Then all strewn aloft on the grate of the tower
For birds to devour, the sun bleach and scour
Bones slip through the cracks and fall home

I remember days when we were younger
We used to catch 'o'opu in the mountain stream
'Round the Ko'olau hills we'd ride on horseback
So long ago it seems it was a dream
Last night I dreamt I was returning
and my heart called out to you
But I fear you won't be like I left you
Me kealoha ku'u home o Kahaluu

I remember days when we were wiser
When our world was small enough for dreams
And you have lingered there my sister
And I no longer can it seems
Last night I dreamt I was returning
and my heart called out to you
But I fear you won't be like I left you
Me kealoha ku'u home o Kahaluu

Change is a strange thing
it cannot be denied
It can help you find yourself
or make you lose your pride
Move with it slowly
as on the road we go
Please do not hold on to me
we all must go alone

I remember days when we were smiling
When we laughed and sang the whole night long
And I will greet you as I find you
With the sharing of a brand new song
Last night I dreamt I was returning
and my heart called out to you
To please accept me as you'll find me
Me kealoha ku'u home o Kahaluu

Every time I turn around
A part of me is set sail
Bye-bye,
Dust to dust

And oh, I miss my shiny coat
Oh, I miss my sun

Most I miss the storytelling
When it all is done

I’ve no arms so raise a cup

Atlas and Ma nature
Grow tired of holding me up