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Dan Bern : Dan Bern
1997

  1. Jerusalem
  2. Wasteland
  3. Marilyn
  4. I'm Not The Guy
  5. Estelle

Jerusalem

D x54035
G
D/f#
Em/g
C
When I tell you that I love you, don't test my love
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C
G
C
Accept my love, don't test my love
C
D
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C
G
'Cause maybe I don't love you all that much Don't ask what kind of music I'm gonna play tonight Just stay awhile, hear for yourself awhile And if you must put me in a box make sure it's a big box With lots of windows and a door to walk through And a nice high chimney So we can burn, burn, burn everything that we don't like And watch the ashes fly up to Heaven Maybe all the way to India, I'd like that All the ancient kings came to my door They said, "Do you want to be an ancient king too?" I said, "Oh yes, very much, but I think my timing's wrong" They said, "Time is relative, or did you misread Einstein?" I said, "Do you really mean it?" They said, "What do you think we come here for? Our goddamn health or something?" Everybody's waiting for the messiah The Jews are waiting, the Christians are waiting Also the Muslims, it's like everybody's waiting They've been waiting a long time I know how I hate to wait, like even for a bus or something Or an important phone call So I can imagine how darned impatient Everybody must be getting So I think it's time now Time to reveal myself I am the Messiah I am the Messiah I am the Messiah Yes, I think you heard me right I am the Messiah I was gonna wait till next year Build up the suspense a little Make it a really big surprise But I could not resist It's like when you got a really big secret You're just bursting to tell someone It was kinda like that with this And now that I've told you I feel this great weight lifted Dr. Nusbaum was right He's my therapist He said get it out in the open I spent ten whole days in Jerusalem Mmm, Jerusalem, sweet Jerusalem And all I ate was olives, nothing but olives Mountains of olives It was a good ten days I like olives, I like you too So when I tell you that I love you, don't test my love Accept my love, don't test my love 'Cause maybe I don't love you all that much

Wasteland

I saw the best of my generation playing pinball Maked up and caked up and lookin' like some kind of china doll With all of Adolf Hitler's moves down cold As they stood up in front of a rock and roll band And always moving upward and ever upward To this gentle golden promised land With the smartest of them all moonlighting as a word processor And the strongest of them all checking ID's outside saloons And the prettiest of them all taking off her clothes In front of men whose eyes look like they were in some Little hick town near Omaha watching the police chief Run his car off the side of a bridge I saw men with dreams like the ones I'd had Beg quarters outside the seven-eleven Till it got so they didn't affect me anymore Then the mailboxes I'd passed 'cept that sometimes I'd put something in the mailbox I'd had the wind at my back Now I felt it cold in my face And for an awful long time now you were the only one who ever Called me late at night and I really never noticed till after You stopped calling and the emptiness, silence got so heavy Broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the promised land Broken up in Disneyland Broken up in the plastic land Broken up in the wasteland, broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the wasteland I saw dead Marilyn Monroe strung up on every street corner In Hollywood like some two bit whore offering a discount rate And I wondered how Joe DiMaggio felt I saw dead James Dean's ghost wandering the sidewalk Looking troubled and I wondered how his mama felt I saw signs that said head shots done for cheap Signs that said extras wanted top dollars paid Signs for haircuts signs for manicures and Signs for tanning salons and signs for wardrobe specialists Signs for cosmetic surgery and signs for assertiveness training And I stopped to read them all And every single block looked like every single block Looked like every single block looked like every single block Looked like every single block but you kept driving 'Cause everyone else kept driving and cause gridlock Is evil and not knowing your way is evil And those that had money looked good but weren't too happy And those who didn't have money didn't look so good And weren't too happy either and in a city of three million two hundred and sixty nine thousand nine hundred eighty four Everyone was lonely Broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the promised land Broken up in Disneyland Broken up in the plastic land Broken up in the wasteland, broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the wasteland And I watched as everyone I knew spent their lives Trying to be watched on a stage or watched on a film Or listened to on a record and they thought well maybe That way I could get a little love out of this life And I watched as the best of my generation abandoned their dreams And settled for making a little money And I watched TV and read the papers and listened to the radio And made all the fancy scenes and said all the right words And wore all the right clothes and knew the names of the hip people But I still felt out of touch so I stopped watching TV And reading the papers and listening to the radio And making the fancy scenes and saying the right words And wearing the right clothes and knowing the names of the hip people And I felt more out of touch than ever but I didn't care anymore And I felt you slipping away, and I felt myself slipping from you And I wanted more than anything else for it to rain for one Whole day like it used to but all there ever was was sun Relentless sun hot beating sun and everyone wore their Sunglasses and walked around like flies under a magnifying glass With their eyes removed Broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the promised land Broken up in Disneyland Broken up in the plastic land Broken up in the wasteland, broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the wasteland, broken up in the wasteland Broken up in the wasteland

Marilyn

Key:
D
D
A
G
D
Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller
A
G
D
But if she did he'd a taken her to Paris And if she did she'd have smoked a lot of opium And if she did she'd have dyed her hair blue And if she did she might be alive
A
G
D
A
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D
Oh-oh Henry Miller! Oh-oh Marilyn Monroe! Oh-oh Henry Miller! Oh-oh Marilyn Monroe! Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller She lived outside the Tropic of Capricorn Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller I don't even know if she knew Henry Miller But if she did he'd a taken her to Paris And if she did they'd have fucked every day And if she did she'd have felt like a woman Not like a photograph in a magazine Oh-oh Henry Miller! Oh-oh Marilyn Monroe!
Modulate to:
E
E
B
A
E
This is not a knock against Arthur Miller "Death of a Salesman" is my favorite play But Marilyn Monroe should have married Henry Miller And if she did, she might be alive
Modulate to:
D
A
G
D
'Cause if she did he'd have taken her to Paris Tied her to the bed and eaten dinner off of her And OK maybe she'd have died the same, anyway But if she did she'd have had more fun Oh-oh Henry Miller! Oh-oh Marilyn Monroe! Oh-oh Henry Miller! Oh-oh Marilyn Monroe!

I'm Not The Guy

You can categorize me Lump me with the others If that's the way you wanna play You can say that the way it's been Is exactly the way that it's gotta be And I'll make you feel right If you gotta feel right Well if you're willing to live truthfully I think you'll see That, babe, I'm not the guy Who hurt you Many years ago I'm not the guy I'm not the guy I'm not the guy Babe, what are you seeing? When you look in my eyes Maybe someone from a magazine Is that someone who hurt you? You don't gotta explain it I used to read that magazine myself But last night in the kitchen, yeah I cancelled my subscription, yeah And maybe you'll believe me, babe That you don't need to carry yours Around anymore 'Cause I'm not the guy I'm not the guy I'm not the guy I'm not the guy who made you crawl into the shell I'm not the guy who threw your heart against the wall I'm not the guy who made you feel like all you did was lost I'm not the guy who loved you, babe, and kept his fingers crossed I'm not the guy I'm not the guy I'm not the guy I'm not the guy who tried to hide his wedding ring I'm not the guy who disappeared after the spring I'm not the guy who took care of you for a weekend stay I'm not the guy who loved you babe, and took his love away I'm not the guy I'm not the guy I'm not the guy

Estelle

I was painting a still life this morning Of a throat lozenge sitting on a copy of Tropic of Cancer The only thing weird about it is that a year ago I never thought I'd paint anything again I decided I wasn't ever gonna paint again It didn't bother me too much Warhol's dead, David Hockney's still alive I don't need to paint I painted over ten thousand paintings Sad ones, funny ones, dark ones, and light ones I've done haystacks and rich old ladies by their pools Wearing nothing but a scarf I've painted everything there was to paint Now it was time to sit back, give interviews Hang out at Club Med, get on the internet Take stock of what I've done You know, the best friend I ever had was a dog It sounds like a cliche unless it's happened to you Some days that dog was the only reason I even got out of bed That dog went everywhere with me And then I heard the crack addicts Were stealin' dogs and selling them for animal research It sounded like an urban myth to me, like the mouse in the Coke bottle But I started leavin' her at home after that You know, Paula was my wife for a while She ran off to Paris with the great grandson of Van Gogh A cartoonist who did fashion graphics for Le Monde When Paula left she took my dog, I never saw her again Except in the court during the custody battle She won and got to keep the dog And I didn't speak to anyone for months You know sometimes it feels like there's so much that you need Sometimes the world is upside down Sometimes it seems like the only thing you need Is holdin' someone's hand as you walk through town I started hanging around with Dino He used to run a poker game back east Now he sells cappuccino to his old pals Tommy Chicago and Jimmy the Wig and Ugly Rose You know the best person I ever knew was a Mormon woman named Estelle She still calls me drunk every few months And asks me stuff I don't want to talk about You can't talk to her very long unless you're drunk yourself Then we go all night She says, "Why baby, why baby, why baby, why Have you turned your back on love? You had so many chances Why have you let 'em all go by?" Well, one morning I was sitting in front of Dino's place with Jake the Shears, a guy from Philly who gives free mohawks There were a couple of young painters I was hopin' to come by So I could give 'em some advice Yeah, I was sittin' there updating my list of enemies When this girl walks in and the universe kind of stops Turned out she drank the same tea as me It don't take more than that to start a conversation sometimes She believed collage was the greatest of all the arts And was busy pasting pictures of horses Next to ads for laundry soap next to Mohammed Ali She had a turquoise in her ear And said Rachmaninoff was always in her head Later that day I was trying to describe her to Jimmy the Wig I couldn't find any words And I realized I'd started to sketch her chin Somehow it didn't look right, I scratched it out and tried it again I filled an entire pad, I threw it away, I never even came close For six days I sat at Dino's place The rain wouldn't quit and no one came in Finally on the seventh day it cleared and in she walked I asked her to sit with me and I bought her a cup of tea And I asked her to model for me sometime That afternoon I was at a canvas She was wearing a yellow dress I swore if she let me, I'd get it right I've painted over ten thousand paintings Sad ones, funny ones, dark ones, and light ones But sitting there, it was like I couldn't even write my own name I apologized and said, "It's been a few months If you have patience, I'll get the hang of it again" In the next few weeks, I painted her hundreds of times If I get the nose right, the chin's too long If I get 'em both right, the face is too thin But I keep after it and one day I get it all right I painted a still life this morning Of a throat lozenge sitting on a copy of Tropic of Cancer The only weird thing about it is I never thought I'd paint anything again I think I might go visit Estelle Those Utah mountains are good for the soul I'll bring my brushes and some Jack Daniels And we can make up for lost time She said, "Why baby, why baby, why baby why? Have you turned your back on love You had so many chances Why do you let 'em all go by? Why baby, why baby, why baby why? Have you turned your back on love You had so many chances Why do you let 'em all go by?" Sometimes it seems like there's so much that you need Sometimes the world is upside down Sometimes it seems like the only thing you need Is holdin' someone's hand as you walk through town