Nick Cave : Dig, Lazarus, Dig
2008
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- Dig, Lazarus, Dig
- Today's Lesson
- Moonland
- Night Of The Lotus Eaters
- Albert Goes West
- We Call Upon The Author To Explain
- Hold Onto Yourself
- Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)
- Jesus Of The Moon
- Midnight Man
- More News From Nowhere
Dig, Lazarus, Dig
E
E
E
A
G
Dig yourself, Lazarus
E
E
E
A
G
Dig yourself, Lazarus
E
E
E
A
G
Dig yourself, Lazarus
B
Dig yourself back in that hole
E
E
E
A
G
Larry made his nest up in the autumn branches
Built from nothing but high hopes and thin air
Collected up some baby blasted mothers
They took their chances and for a while
They lived quite happily up there
He came from New York City, man
But he couldn't take the pace
He thought it was like a dog eat dog world
But he went to San Francisco
Spent a year in outer space
With a sweet little San Franciscan girl
I can hear my mother wailing
And a whole lot of scraping of chairs
C
I don't know what it is
D
A
But there's definitely something going on upstairs
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself back in that hole
(I want you to dig!)
(I want you to dig!)
Yeah, New York City, he had to get out of there
And San Francisco, well, I don't know
And then to LA, where he spent about a day
He thought even the pale sky-stars were smart enough to keep well away from LA
Meanwhile Larry made up names for the ladies
Like Ms Boo and Ms Quick
He stockpiled weapons and took pot shots in the air
He feasted on their lovely bodies like a lunatic
And wrapped himself up in their soft yellow hair
I can hear chants and incantations
And some guy is mentioning me in his prayers
I don't know what it is
But there's definitely something going on upstairs
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, back in that hole
(I want you to dig!)
(I want you to dig!)
(I want you to dig!)
Well New York City, man, San Francisco, LA, I don't know
But Larry grew increasing neurotic and obscene
I mean: he, he never asked to be raised up from the tomb
I mean no one ever actually asked him to forsake his dreams
Anyway, to cut a long story short
Fame finally found him
Mirrors became his torturers
Cameras snapped him at every chance
The women all went back to their homes and their husbands
Secret smiles in the corners of their mouths
He ended up, like so many of them do, back in the streets of New York City
In a soup queue, a dope fiend, a slave
Then prison, then the mad house, then the grave
Oh poor Larry!
But what do we really know of the dead
And who actually cares?
Well I don't know what it is
But there's definitely something going on upstairs
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, Lazarus
Dig yourself, back in that hole
(I want you to dig!)
(I want you to dig!)
(I want you to dig!)
Today's Lesson
G
A
B
Little Janie, she wakes up from a dream
A gun like a jawbone down the waistband of her jeans, oh yeah
Mr Sandman, he can recite today's lesson in his sleep
He says there oughta be some kind of law against me going down the street
And little Janie pipes up and she says, she says
C#
E
E
B
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight
Yeah, tonight
All right
G
A
B
Down the back of Janie's jeans she had the jawbone of an ass
Mr Sandman, he runs around the corner
Trying to head her off at the pass
He sticks his head over the fence and yells something way too fast
It's today's lesson, yeah, something about the corruption of the working class
Little Janie wakes up on the floor and she says
C#
E
B
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight
Come on
G
A
B
Janie says we're all such a crush of want half-mad with loss
We are violated in our sleep and we weep and we toss and we turn and we burn
We are hypnotised we are cross-eyed we are pimped we are bitched
We are told such monstrous lies
Janie wakes up and she says
C#
E
B
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight
G
A
B
Mr Sandman, he has a certain appetite for Janie in repose
He digs her pretty knees and that she is completely naked underneath all her clothes
He likes to congregate around the intersection of Janie's jeans, yeah
Mr Sandman the inseminator he opens her up like a love letter and enters her dreams
Little Janie wakes up and she says
C#
E
B
We're gonna have a real good time tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight
C#
E
B
We're gonna have a real good time
C#
E
B
Come on, come on, come on
C#
E
B
We're gonna have a real good time
Moonland
Em
When I came up from out of the meat-locker
C
The city was gone
Em
The sky was full of lights
C
The snow provides a silent cover
Em
In moonland
C
Under the stars
Em
C
Under the snow
Em
And I followed this car
C
And I followed that car
Through the sand
Em
Through the snow
I turn on the radio
C
I listen to the DJ
Em
And it must feel nice
C
It must feel nice to know
Am
Bm
That somebody needs you
C
D
Em
And everything moves slow
Under the stars
Under the ash
Through the sand
And the night drifts in
The snow provides a silent cover
And I'm not your favourite lover
I turn on the radio
And it must feel nice
Well, very very nice to know
That somebody needs you
And the chilly wind blows
Under the snow
Under the stars
The whispering DJ
On the radio
The whispering DJ
On the radio
I'm not your favourite lover
I'm not your favourite lover
And it must feel nice
To leave no trace
(No trace at all)
But somebody needs you
And that somebody is me
Under the stars
Under the snow
Your eyes were closed
You were playing with the buttons on your coat
In the back of that car
In moonland
Under the stars
In moonland
I followed that car
Night Of The Lotus Eaters
Sapped and stupid
I lie upon the stones and I swoons
The darling little dandelions have done their thing
And changed from suns into moons
Dragons roam the shopping malls
I hear they're gonna eat our guts
If I had the strength, I might pick up my sword
And make some attempt to resist
Get ready to shield yourself
Grab your sap and your heaters
Get ready to shield yourself
On the night of the lotus eaters
Mmm, don't you love me baby
Mmm, and don't you love my baby anymore
They gilded my scales, they fish-bowled me
And they toured me round the old aquariums
They come in their hordes to tap at the glass
The philistines and the barbarians
I like floating here, it's nice
They've hung seaweed around my hips
And I do the hula for the hungry ones
And the lames all throw me tips
Get ready to shield yourself
Grab your sap and your heaters
Get ready to shield yourself
On the night of the lotus eaters
Mmm, don't you love my baby
Mmm, and don't you love me my baby anymore
Get ready to shield yourself
From our catastrophic leaders
Get ready to shield yourself
Grab your sap and your heaters
On the night of the lotus eaters
Now hit the streets!
Now hit the streets!
Albert Goes West
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Dm
C
G
Dm
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Am
Albert he goes west he crossed the vast indifferent deserts of Arizona Oh yeah
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
Am
He had a psychotic episode on a dude ranch that involved a bottle of ammonia
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
Am
Henry he went south and lost his way deep in the weeping forests of Le Vulva
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
He grew so wan he grew so sick he ended up in a bungalow sucking a revolver
Dm
C
The light upon your rainy streets offers many reflections
Dm
C
I wont be hold responsible for my actions
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
Am
Bobby he goes north then he goes east then over to New Hampshire
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
Bobby is a cautious man he walked into a Concord dive to drink a beer
Dm
C
Mmm, do you wanna dance? Yeah do you wanna move?
Dm
C
Yeah do you wanna dance? Do you wanna groove?
Dm
C
I said this world is full of endless abstractions
Dm
C
I wont be held responsible for my actions
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
Am
Me I ain't going anywhere just sit and watch the sun come up I like it here
G
Dm
C
G
Dm
C
I watch the people go ticking past go hey hey hey you know I gotta say I like it here
Dm
C
All right
G
Dm
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G
Dm
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Am
Sha la-la-la sha la-la-la sha la-la-la-la-la-la
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Dm
C
G
Dm
C
Am
Sha-la-la-la sha la-la-la sha la-la-la-la-la-la
We Call Upon The Author To Explain
Dm
What we once thought we had we didn't
And what we have now will never be that way again
C
Dm
So we call upon the author to explain
D
Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets, we've shunned them from the greasy grind
The poor little things, they look so sad and old as they mount us from behind
I ask them to desist and to refrain
And then we call upon the author to explain
Rosary clutched in his hand, he died with tubes up his nose
And a cabal of angels with finger cymbals chanted his name in code
We shook our fists at the punishing rain
And we call upon the author to explain
He said everything is messed up around here, everything is banal and jejune
There is a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me
In this idiot constituency of the moon, well, he knew exactly who to blame
And we call upon the author to explain
Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
Well, I go guru-ing down the street, young people gather round my feet
Ask me things, but I don't know where to start
They ignite the power-trail straight to my father's heart
And once again, I call upon the author to explain
Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought?
I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker, it's fucked up and he is a fucker
But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain
I call upon the author to explain
Oh rampant discrimination, mass poverty, third world debt, infectious disease
Global inequality and deepening socio-economic divisions, well, it does in your brain
And we call upon the author to explain
Now hang on, my friend Doug is tapping on the window (Hey Doug, how you been?)
Brings me back a book on holocaust poetry complete with pictures
Then tells me to get ready for the rain
And we call upon the author to explain
I say prolix! Prolix! Something a pair of scissors can fix
Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!
He wrote like wet papier mache, went the Hemingway weirdly on wings and with maximum pain
We call upon the author to explain
Down in my bolt-hole I see they've published another volume of unreconstructed rubbish
"The waves, the waves were soldiers moving"
Well, thank you, thank you, thank you and again
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, I call upon the author to explain
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, we call upon the author to explain
Prolix! Prolix! There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!
Hold Onto Yourself
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Am
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F
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Dm
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Am
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Am
I'm so far away from you
F
Pacing up and down my room
Dm
Am
Does Jesus only love a man who loses?
I turn on the radio
There's some cat on the saxophone
Laying down a litany of excuses
There's mad-house longing in my baby's eyes
She rubs the lamp between her thighs
And hopes the genie comes out singing
She lives in some forgotten song
And moves like she is zombie-strong
Breathes steady as the pendulum keeps swinging
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C
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G
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Am
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F
Am
You better hold on to yourself
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C
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G
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Well, cities rust and fall to ruin
Factories close and cars go cruisin'
In around the borders of her vision
She says ooh
As Jesus makes the flowers grow
All around the scene of her collision
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Am
You know I would, yes, I would
F
Am
I would hold on to yourself
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F
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Dm
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Am
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In the middle of the night
I try my best to chase outside
The phantoms and the ghosts and fairy-girls
On a thousand and one nights like these
She mutters open sesame and Ali Baba and his forty thieves
Launch her off the face of the world
C
G
Am
You know one day I'll come back
F
Am
And I'll hold on to yourself
F
Dm
Am
Mmm, to yourself
F
Dm
Am
I'll hold on to yourself
Ooh baby, I'm a thousand miles away
And I just don't know what to say
'Cause Jesus only loves a man who bruises
But darling, we can clearly see
It's all life and fire and lunacy
And excuses and excuses and excuses
C
G
Am
Well, you know if I could, I would, yeah I would lie right down
F
Am
And I'd hold on to yourself
G
Am
Yeah, I would lie right down
F
Am
And I would hold on to yourself
G
Am
One day I'll come back to you
F
Am
And I'd hold on to yourself
G
Am
Yeah, I'm gonna come back, gonna lie down
F
Am
And I'd hold on to yourself, yeah, to yourself
Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)
Em
Well, you lost a foe
Em
And you found a friend
C
Am
Lie down here and be my girl
I'm back now, baby, that man
He won't be coming round here again
Lie down here and be my girl
I'm trying to tread careful, baby
You're as brittle as a wishbone of a bird
Lie down here and be my girl
We've been scribbled in the margins
Of a story that is patently absurd
Lie down here and be my girl
G
Let it all come down
Yeah, tonight
Am
F
Am
F
Shine
Em
C
Am
Let it all come down
It's a matter of some urgency
Oh darling can't you see, I can't hold back the tide
Lie down here and be my girl
And stop your frantic little fingers trying to collect
The years that pour from the hole in my side
Lie down here and be my girl
Don't worry, baby, this old snake
Banging at your door
Lie down here and be my girl (has got a few skins left to shed)
You look so good
You look so good
Lie down here and be my girl (and the rest is better left unsaid)
Let it all come down
Yeah, tonight
Shine
Let it all come down
One day I'll buy a factory
I'll assemble you on a production line
Lie down here and be my girl
I'll build a million of you, baby
And every single one of them will be mine
Lie down here and be my girl
I will fill the house with you
Stack you up in every room
Lie down here and be my girl (we'll have a real good time)
But right now I'm sitting here
On my own, going out of my mind
Lie down here and be my girl
Let it all come down
Yeah, tonight
Shine
Tonight
You look so good (tonight)
Jesus Of The Moon
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Em
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Em
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Em
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Em
|
Em
I stepped out of the St. James Hotel
Em
I left you behind curled up like a child
Bm
Bm7
A change is gonna come
Em
As the door whispered shut I walked on down the high-windowed hall
You lay sleeping on the unmade bed
The weatherman on the television in the St. James Hotel
Said that the rains are gonna come
And I stepped out on the streets, all sparkling clean with the early morning dew
C
D
Maybe it was you or maybe it was me?
Am
Em
You came on like a punch in the heart
C
D
Lying there with the light on your hair
B7
Like a Jesus of the moon
Em
A Jesus of the planets and the stars
Well, I kept thinking about what the weatherman said
And if the voices of the living can be heard by the dead
Well, the day is gonna come when we find out in some kind of way
I take a little comfort from that now and then
'Cause people often talk about being scared of change
But for me I'm more afraid of things staying the same
'Cause the game is never won
By standing in any one place for too long
Maybe it was you or maybe it was me?
There's a chord in you that I could not find to strike
You lying there with all the light in your hair
Like a Jesus of the moon
A Jesus of the planets and the stars
I see the many girls walking down the empty streets
Maybe once or twice one of them smiles at me
You can't blame anyone
For saying hello I say hey, I say hello, I say hello
Will it be me or will it be you?
One must stay and one depart
You lying there in the St. James Hotel bed
Like a Jesus of the moon
A Jesus of the planets and the stars
I say hello, hello, hello
Midnight Man
Em
Em
G
Em
Hold that chrysalis in your palm, see it split and change
Em
G
Em
It won't do you any harm, it's just trying to rearrange
Em
G
C
It was born to live a day, now it flies up from your hand
C
Em
It's beautiful, it's the one they call your ever-loving man
Wolves have carried your babies away, oh your kids drip from their teeth
The nights are long and the day is bitter cold beyond belief
You spread yourself like a penitent upon the mad vibrating sand
And through your teeth arrange to meet your midnight man
A
Em
G
Everybody's coming round to my place
A
Em
G
Everybody's coming round to my place
A
Everybody's coming round, oh baby, don't you see
A
Em
Everybody wanna be your midnight man
Don't disturb me as I sleep, treat me gently when I wake
Don't disturb me when I sleep even though your body aches
And even though your body aches to serve at his command
Between the wars she still adores her ever-loving man
Close your eyes, sleep in him, dream of your lost sons and daughters
Me, I'll raise up the dorsal fin, and glide up and down the waters
I'll glide up and down the waters, then I'll walk upon the land
And call the out, the ones who doubt your midnight man
Everybody's coming round to my place
Everybody's coming round to my place
Everybody's coming round, oh baby, don't you see
Everybody wants to be your midnight man
It's early in the morning and I don't know what to do
It's early in the morning and I can't believe it's true
It's early in the morning and it's happening again
I called you once, I called you twice, ain't I your midnight man?
Everybody's coming round to my place
Everybody's coming round to my place
Everybody's coming round, oh baby, don't you see
Everybody wants to be your midnight man
Em
F
G
F
Em
Everybody's coming round
Everybody's coming round
Everybody's coming round
To be your midnight man
To be your midnight man
Em
F
G
G
F
F
F
Em
More News From Nowhere
F
Bb
I walk into the corner of my room, see my friends in high places
I don't know which is which and whom is whom, they've stolen each other's faces
Janet is there with her high-hatting hair full of bedroom feathers
Janet is known to make dead men groan in any kind of weathers
I crawl over to her, I say hey baby, I say hey Janet
You are the one, you are the sun and I'm your dutiful planet
But she ain't down with any of that, she's heard that shit before
I say ah ha, oh yeah, you're right, 'cause I see Betty X standing by the door
F
Bb
With more news from nowhere
F
Bb
More news from nowhere
G
C
And it's getting strange in here
G
C
Bb
(F
)
Yeah, it gets stranger every year
F
Bb
More news from nowhere
F
Bb
More news from nowhere
Now, Betty X is like Betty Y minus that fatal chromosome
Her hair is like the wine dark sea, on which sailors come home
I say hey baby, I say hey Betty X (I lean close up to her throat)
This light you're carrying is like a lamp, hanging from a distant boat
It is my light, said Betty X, Betty X says this light ain't yours
And so much wind blew through her words that I went rolling down the hall
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And it's getting strange in here
Yeah, it gets stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
I turn another corner, I go down a corridor and I see this guy
He must be about 100 foot tall and he only has one eye
He asks me for my autograph, I write nobody and then
I wrap myself up in my woolly coat and blind him with my pen
'Cause someone must have put something in my drink, everything getting strange looking
Half the people had turned into squealing pigs, the other half were cooking
Let me out of here, I cried, and I went pushing past
And I saw miss Polly singing with some girls, I cried strap me to the mast
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And it's getting strange in here
Yeah, it gets stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Then a black girl with no clothes on, she danced across the room
We charted the progress of the planets around that boogie woogie moon
I called her my nubian princess, I gave her some sweet-back bad-ass jive
I spent the next seven years between her legs pining for my wife
But by and by it all went wrong, I felt all washed-up on the shore
She stared down at me from up in the storm as I sobbed upon the floor
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And don't it make you feel alone?
Don't it make you wanna get right-on home?
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Here comes Alina with two black eyes, she's given herself a transfusion
She's filled herself with panda blood to avoid all the confusion
I said the sun rises and falls with you, and various things about love
But a rising violence in me cut all my circuits off
Well, Alina, she starts screaming, her cheeks are full of psychotropic leaves
Her extinction was nearly absolute when she turned her back on me
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And it's getting strange in here
Yeah, it gets stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
I bumped bang crash into Deanna hanging pretty in the door frame
All the horrors which have befallen me, well, Deanna is to blame
Every time I see you, babe, you make me feel so all alone
And I wept my face into her dress long after she'd gone home
With more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And don't it make you feel alone?
Don't it make you wanna get right back home?
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Don't it make you feel so sad, don't the blood rush to your feet
To think that everything you do today, tomorrow is obsolete?
Technology and women and little children too
Don't it make you feel blue? Don't it make you feel blue?
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And don't it make you feel alone?
Don't it make you wanna get right back home?
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Well, I've gotta say
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye