Pointed Accounts of People You Know

Release date: 1983

The band: Scott Miller, Nancy Becker, Fred Juhos, Michael Irwin

Producer: Scott Miller

Penny, Things Won't
Metal and Glass Exact
Selfish Again
I Wanna Get Hit By A Car
Life In July
37th Day

Penny, Things Won't

I try not to say I love you
just because it's something so many say
and I think we've got the chance
for something that you just can't get the easy way.
Well I'm not the perfect person
I just go through what I have to every day.
And the pavement's not so stable here
that you might never think to walk away.
'Cause Penny you're just a girl that I know and I'm just me
Don't ever find words for that look in your eyes
And I like to believe I'm the only one who sees
It's all the faith I keep sometimes and I can't watch it leave
I don't mind trying harder everyday, oh no
'Cause Penny, things won't always be this way
Ah, when we're close
I get fooled into thinking it's all planned
That if we aren't sure
That someone's going to take us by the hand
But getting lost is easy
And you know they'll leave you stranded in the rain
Wishing you'd made that one right move
Oh, Penny, can you keep me from that pain?
Cause I'm sitting on fences
Lost in my old why's and wherefore's
And I trip over promises made too soon
Worried I'll end up kicked out your door
But you know I'll be there knocking
And asking you for more
I don't mind trying harder everyday, oh no
'Cause Penny, things won't always be this way
oh no no no
We pick a direction and take it as far as we can go
And we wonder sometimes if we've done the right thing
Kills me just to think we'll never know
Sometimes I want to drop it but I can't let it go
I don't mind trying harder everyday, oh no
'Cause Penny, things won't always be this way
I don't mind trying harder everyday, oh no no no
'Cause Penny, things won't always be this way

Metal and Glass Exact

Don't take her places she's been
She knows how to lose like some people win
Oh, she's at a high point when you're alone
Waiting in lines and answering phones
She likes to drop a few names and places
With a soft laugh at your faces
And you're changing your bases
Ways that no amount of time erases
She likes metal and glass exact
She can afford to have metal and glass exact
What's that she thinks that you've said
She takes off her clothes and marks you in red
It's all in good fun, you do what your told
Until you find out it's her highest goal
In her bedroom, disconcerting,
Lined with royal blue curtains
It looks so inadvertent
But it makes you that much more uncertain
She likes metal and glass exact
She can afford to have metal and glass exact
She sits still risks losing her shame
Paying the times and shifting the blame
Decendent of generals fighting in wars
All smiles at the cameras no common cause
Yea, the kind that leave you falling when your
Engines are stalling and it
Gets your skin crawling
Open every night you hear them calling
She likes metal and glass exact
She can afford to have metal and glass exact
She likes metal and glass exact
She can afford to have metal
and glass and glass exact

Selfish Again

I wrote a note to Ray
And said don't come round today
You know I hate to have to aim to please
The jungle days are gone
I'm feeling like King Kong
And maybe you're a little bit like me
I know
We won't find it if it doesn't show
At least until we learn to keep our expectations low
I cross my fingers twice
And throw out all advice
And someday I might lose it all that way
The room is made of wire
The telephone's on fire
With open eyes a scare comes into play
And I do
What appears to be the thing to do
That accidentally sacrifice the many for the few
It's good when it's good and it's bad when it's bad
And sometime it goes nowhere
It's good when it's good and it's bad when it's bad
And it might seem like I care
But I'll be selfish again
Like the weather
Well Ray gave me these lines
And learned a few of mine
And we worked hard to hear the angels sing, sing
It's up and then it's down
But he never liked the ground
And now he isn't careful with his wings
I don't see
Why he had to go depend on me
He tells me all the time that all he wants is to be free
Well it's good when it's good and it's bad when it's bad
And sometime it goes nowhere
It's good when it's good and it's bad when it's bad
And it might seem like we care
But we'll all be selfish again
Again and again and again and again and again and again
Again and again and again and again and again and again

Life in July

Black and white
Don't believe them
Guiding lights
I don't need them
If you really want to be my friend
Keeping in-
Side the margins
Got to say
Is your calling
Never making moves you can't defend
Though they say that winter's cold
I'll find myself known and older
Though they say they'll make demands
I'll find myself some ground to stand on
These are words I'll never understand
Always making plans for
Life in July
Life in July
Life in July
Life in July
Life is thorns
But I don't feel them
Please take care
But now you need to
Find someone who
Tells you that she can
Oh it seems
To work so neatly
They might go and
Say I never signed and
It's no longer in your hands
And all your friends have taken wives
You think it's time to change their lives
And though they say they'll make demands
And find myself some ground to stand on
These are words I'll never understand
Always making plans for
Life in July
Life in July
Life in July
Life in July