Attractive Nuisance
Released: Feb. 22, 2000 (Alias Records)
Credits:
The band: Scott Miller, Kenny Kessel, Alison Faith Levy, Gil Ray
Guest musicians: Mike Keneally (guitar solo on "Nice When I Want Something"), Tim Walters (special effects processing on "Save Your Money")
Producer: Scott Miller
720 Times Happier Than the Unjust Man
Twenty miles walking down El Camino
I was starving for young people we know
No one calls but to weigh in against us
No one comes but to leave on the next bus
I forget who could hand out the birth rights
I forget who could break up the cat fights
I forget who adjusted our high chairs
I forget who could talk us down out of our nightmares
720 times happier than the unjust man
Dream the heaven where women fight hand to hand
Help the galley slave be all he can
I can tell that the industry's ravaged
I could steal gas and live like a savage
Sell it off if it isn't a canned good
Break the twelve-string acoustic to pieces for firewood
I can tell that you'd cut through the chatter
I can tell that the critics would scatter
I can tell by intangible somethings
I can tell by your preference of smart things to dumb things
Carve a way for the greater good
Lose the dogs at the river bank
You were kissing the summer gods, hot and rank
Choose your meal from our display tank
Eyes still adjusting
I have nothing to look at you with
But the mood that I'm in
I fill my days with work because I am lazy
The way a coward is hungry to get in any fight
That he can win
What to do now with Pallas Athena
Sharing space with the vats of retsina
What to do with two heros in one plot
What to say to two Johnnies who showed up on one spot
Something old better fall and die
When you ride in on something new
And that's the deal that's been made between death and you
That's the deal that's been made between death and you
Almost empty in the Fillmore
Ten or twelve who know the band look like they'll stay
But I'll be on my way
Heading back to work and days and morning
Almost grabbed you for a photo
Sprawled and laughing with the beers on empty tables
And who would not be able
To see that here was something to believe in
It's too late to be wanting anything
Besides what has to be
Too late not to see
That like any other it's a ride
And one will be the highway that it drops us off beside
We forget the need for soldiers
For the sadness when a soldier has to die
The tearful parent's eye
Bringing into focus what needs watching
How unlikely we should be here
Free to take the other's hand with little danger
Or leave it for a stranger
Uncemented by the fear of losing
It's too late to be wanting anything
Besides what has to be
Too late not to see
That like any other it's a ride
And one will be the highway this as well lies dead beside
You were going past airport security
Glowing with purity
Well worth the fare that was paid for you
Past a red neon sculpture you ride
The conveyer belt sidewalk
An old married couple is blocking you
And since your jacket was bought new
Then a girl in a similar jacket
Is going to be back in an hour
Just because she remembers you
Songs you bought for your Walkman cassette
Are what younger kids get
As if they must know something that you don't know
And every white courtesy phone
Has a call and the call is for you
And if you picked it up it would say
Save your money
What you want is going to be
More than
You have got in either pocket
Wait and see
You could come into stock market gains
And redraw the terrains
That were still up for grabs in between the towns
In your dream it looks gorgeous and violet
And you are the pilot
Who's suddenly turning the plane around
And in your dream it's going down
And there's just enough vapor
To write in the sky
On the way to the ground
Save your money
What you want is going to be
More than
You have got in either pocket
Wait and see
Spending nights on carpets
Like the new La Brea tar pits
Fell from grace with those who say who gets into bed
Counting foreign hours
Here like Francis Gary Powers
Trying to face the charges with the face of regret
And build new wealth systems based on cigarettes
I'm polite when crumbling
And I'm nice when I want something
I don't make a move before I know who would see
Pull my leash up tightly
Get upset with me so rightly
Something here is wrong, I'm all for saying it's me
I'm all for looking nice for company
We don't smoke
We don't even smoke
There isn't even a haze of good excuses in the room
We don't die
We don't even die
We let Osiris in Egypt drag our suitcase through the gloom
We don't think this frozen
Spite is what we would have chosen
Circumstances pulled us from our nature as friends
But this is home, this is where we spend weekends
Design your life
To live as if you're in a movie
And after three hours
Anyone is going to think
It's gone on too long
You're wondering why
I talk to you as if you knew me
But what would years of wrong impressions
Do besides distract you from
What should have been me
Maybe we'd better leave the past alone
I've had lovers and connections of my own
Waiting to be overthrown
By anyone
Do you truly believe it's all arranged
For us to get under Photoshop and change
For approval of a stranger?
Do you doubt me?
You've only heard good things about me
I'm wanting this
To be New York and we are Nico
And Jackson Browne, and
With our tambourine and
Folk guitar, no city's
Hard enough
To drive us into desperation
Or make us doubt the strength
We get from just each other
Rolling off the factory floor
Maybe we'd better leave the past alone
I've had lovers and connections of my own
Waiting to be overthrown
By anyone
Do you truly believe it's all arranged
For us to get under Photoshop and change
For approval of a stranger?
Do you doubt me?
You've only heard good things about me
I really shouldn't tell my problems to a stranger
And now I'm hoping, since I've told you,
There's still a chance to hold you
Maybe we'd better leave the past alone
I've had lovers and connections of my own
Waiting to be overthrown
By anyone
Do you truly believe it's all arranged
For us to get under Photoshop and change
For approval of a stranger?
Do you doubt me?
You've only heard good things about me
Wildness, wildness
Like a teenager's eyes
Could heart-struck
Mean that you would be
This careless
With one that's in your hands
Oh baby I guess I just am
Oh baby I guess I just am
Kindness, kindness
You know it suited you
Like sunshine carried
All around with you
How could you be
This glad it's turned to sham
Oh baby I guess I just am
Oh baby I guess I just am
At any given waking hour
I can in some way
Stand to see a living thing freeze
But when I'm trying to sleep there's ardor
I can't quite explain
And all that it can say is please
Blackness, blackness
Don't you know it hurts
The loudest sound is
Hands on the backs of shirts
Can you be
So sure your wrong will stand
Oh baby I guess I just am
Oh baby I guess I just am
Wildness, wildness
Kindness, kindness
Blackness, blackness
I used to want to get a-
Away somewhere
I used to live in a backward century
I wish it was the future
I wouldn't care
About the fearsome effects of entropy
I look around and see only what's obsolete
The early versions of things in redesign
Two Stanford students with lap-tops on Alma Street
Are coming up with the world I want for mine
Like Frankenstein
My brain will be fed nice thoughts, and I won't care
What goes on outside my ten foot bio-cube
They'll hook me up all day in a dentist's chair
Machines will suck out the drool with vacuum tubes
I used to want it to do something bad to you
As if it was going to show you decency
I surely thought it would shake out what wasn't true
Nothing would shake but beliefs and the leaves on the trees
The universal sign for do not disturb
The universal sign for do not disturb
The universal sign for take your trouble outside onto the curb
I used to want to get a-
Away somewhere
I used to live in a backward century
I wish it was the future
I wouldn't care
About the fearsome effects of entropy
I used to want it to do something bad to you
As if it was going to show you decency
I surely thought it would shake out what wasn't true
And nothing shakes but beliefs and leaves on the trees
Backward we're going backward we're going
Backward we're going backward we're going
Bye
I don't want anyone
Drumming up support here
I don't want capital
Whispering in my ear
I don't want anything
Done because in your rough
Neighborhood that was the only
Language they'd understand
She plays the drums in a band
She vibrates my bones
Soul D.C. fascinating me
Overnight industry
Plastic integrity
Willful obscurity
I don't want anything
Changing my position
I don't want anyone
Being my physician
I don't want anything
I know on a Georgetown street
She can find the antiques
By the curvature of the land
She plays the drums in a band
She vibrates my bones
Soul D.C. fascinating me
Overnight industry
Plastic integrity
Willful obscurity
Lyrics by Alison Faith Levy
We all have our little privacies
death-defying entanglements
vice, virtue and the other thing
slipping silently between the body and the mind
and then I lay it all on the apprentice
he can take it
he don't really know me at all
but I taught him how to fake it, taught him how to fake it
yeah
And in the morning I can have him
next to me in a foreign pose
in the evening I can sweep the whole mess away
like a shopkeeper itching to close
and then I lay it all on the apprentice
he can take it
he don't really know me at all
but I taught him how to fake it, taught him how to fake it
yeah
the flicking tongue of indecency
on the limp fingers of integrity
pulling the short hairs of a guilty conscience
into the void of lovesick reciprocity
Each match lit burns like guilt
each curtain drawn strangles our will
I shudder to believe anything will stop this endless stretch
of flag-waving and chronic misbehaving
and then I lay it all on the apprentice
he can take it
he don't really know me at all
but I taught him how to fake it
and then I lay it all on the apprentice
he can take it
he don't really know me at all
but I taught him how to fake it, I taught him how to fake it, I taught him how to fake it
and I should know how to fake it now
No One's Watching My Limo Ride
There you are where I could meet you
I could almost have you
I could almost pick you off the menu
Pour the champagne in the glove box
Work the power door locks
How much of what we wanted makes us happy?
No one's watching my limo ride
Am I cruising too slow?
I don't know
Drive anywhere the road goes
See the lighted windows
Lives as if in dreams, I should have lived one
Just as every night we spend here
Getting cabin fever
Looks secure and wonderful to someone
The only world that I know is the
One where I don't get you
What's to do?
Look out, she might want a word with you
And oh that wouldn't do, oh that wouldn't do
Look out, she might think the world of you
And oh that wouldn't do, oh that wouldn't do
Staying up until the sun shines
Lighting up the fault lines
Marching in like women's liberation
Then it was good and it was okay
To insist on getting our way
And the governmental cash was flowing freely
Now no one's watching my limo ride
San Mateo's asleep
I'm in deep
one to
I only
war
was waiting
I can show you the aggravation
Trip so those tripping can laugh themselves
I will go for a little space walk
I only
holy
for some
war
was waiting
I was only waiting for someone to yell holy war
I was only waiting for someone to yell holy war
I was only waiting for someone to yell holy war
I will go for a little space walk
I was only waiting for someone to yell holy war
I will go for a little space walk
I was only waiting for someone
I can say what I want to say
I don't know if there will be time
Thought I spoke the unchangeable
Now I've seen it turn on a dime
We forget someone giving us confidence
When we were naive
Since it's mainly the confidence it took to leave
I can say what I want to say
Still I know you're going to suspect
All my reasons for speaking up
Long before the words have effect
Should I smile as you're standing apart,
As you make yourself a name
Or say that's how I think we all
End up the same?
I don't know what the radio wants when the radio taunts
I don't know what the radio wants when the radio taunts
Won't say where it's going
Just that it's our last chance not to be left behind
I don't know what walls to climb
My little one
To get away from the range of their high citadel
I don't know what songs keep time
My little one
So I will sing to the motion of Ariel
I can say what I want to say
I forget why I think it's true
Once the proof sounded obvious
Now it's seeming out of the blue
I could dole out the war-room advice
To the joint chiefs, cool and calm
I could ride my intentions like Slim on the bomb
I don't know what walls to climb
My little one
To get away from the range of their high citadel
I don't know what songs keep time
My little one
So I will sing to the motion it's going to take
To set you free Ariel