EASY FOR YOU TO SAY When I woke up I used to say: "Anything can happen today"  I tell myself over and over that nothing has changed  I divine by your mouth's upturned groove: the gods must have been smiling on you and Iím so happy for you I could just cry  Nothing much  Same old stuff  No I quit that long ago  I know  Someday  Thatís easy for you to say when everything you used to laugh at you find yourself taking a second look at and things must seem so worthwhile when they work out so well  And everything I ever wanted turned out to be just a little too easy to get  I told life to leave me alone  Life did as it was told  But I'm so happy for you  So happy for you  And I'm so happy for you I could just cry  The rules of the game are more fun once you find out you've won already  Some deadly silence takes hold  because nothing shuts us up like cups that overflow  But everything that the hand of yours truly touches  I seem to be able to change from gold to rust and I know it's late  That's easy for you to say  But I'm so happy for you  So happy for you and I'm so happy for you I could just cry

ONE MORE TIME  Bills lie unpaid  Bed lies unmade  We lie there all day  Let the phone ring  Let the door swing  Let Ella sing  (CHORUS:  Please kiss me one more time  Please never leave my side  Don't wanna go outside  Please kiss me one more time)  Outside it's cold or so we're told  We wouldn't know Because all that goes on in that great beyond is over and gone  (CHORUS)  One more kiss goodbye  One more kiss good luck  One more kiss good measure  One more kiss good morn  Just outside the shade the rest of the day has faded to grey  But how could we sleep when here we can keep such a sweet dream?  (CHORUS)

LIKE RIDING A BIKE  You think up some tragic way to leave the room  You mutter the perfect curse to kill but leave no clue  Ah, the clip that they'll show when you run down the row and ascend the steps to accept that statuette  And some people say they don't like S&M but it's easy to find out what liars they've been  Plug em in  Wind em up  Let em go  Just sit back  Watch the cage match  (CHORUS: It's like riding a bike  It always comes back to you after a minute or two  And nothing's been broken that cannot be fixed  There's a whole lifetime left to try again)  You wish that you'd never met  You wish you had wings  You find yourself staying home in case the phone rings  And you find yourself saying the craziest things: "I swear I'll change, I'll be different, I'll do anything you want me to do-- anything you ask me to"  (CHORUS)  And you used to make me laugh and I used to make you laugh back  Do you remember that night when we danced in the middle of the street?  And making up is so sweet and you cannot stay pissed off in perpetuity  After all you've got copies of the keys  (CHORUS)

HUMAN RESOURCES Way out on the highway, road crew hunkered down  Clockin' 40 hours  Tearin' holes deep in the ground  Straight up through the concrete, 50 stories high, sprang a giant earthworm  Cast a shadow 3 lanes wide  All defenses useless  Stuffed itself till dusk  Ate up everybody in a 5-mile radius  MMMMM!  A factory appeared in town to manufacture microchips  The local high school football team upset the all-state championship  The weatherman predicted a swift end to the drought  He prophesied a bumper crop in soil from which no seed would sprout  The houses blossomed outdoor decks when the overtime was paid  And it rained . . . and it rained . . . and it rained . . . and it rained . . . AND IT RAINED . . .  Now they line up lawn chairs  Tailgates all ajar  Bring their chosen children where the creature makes its lair  Chuggin' 40-ouncers, pop and lemonade, they throw their best and brightest in the crater that it made  MMMMMMMM!

KITES  Up the sky the kites will climb on unseen sheets of wind  I will spy them as they rise and then fall down again  This blue sky turns like the eye of one we must not name  All good news so far is true: she does not weep today  (CHORUS: The air is so fair it will never end  If I can't fly then can I fly a kite instead)  I am standing on the earth and letting out the string  I am hanging in the sky and watching everything  (CHORUS)  Take this roller from my hand and let the string out tight  Guide my course and reel me in before Iím out of sight  (CHORUS)

HIGHER BEINGS COMMAND  Blind in one eye  Deaf in one ear  Shell in the other  Shed half a tear  And if you can recall any details at all we'll find out where those 3 hours went  So lie back and think back  Count back from ten  (CHORUS: Higher beings command  Remote control your hand  Draw them shapes on the wall and you can animate them all  I've been looking for you everywhere  Where have you been)  Cowabunga  Geronimo  Cue the new stuntman  Look out below  Skylab fell on a cow  Made a hole in the ground and the secrets of ages were told  Trucks into robots  Lead into gold  (CHORUS)  And breaker one-nine  Your song is so fine . . .  Blind in one eye  Dead to the world  All eyes akimbo  You know you write like a girl lifted up in the night by a hand made of light and the saucers will take you away  The man from Atlantis stands up and waves  (CHORUS)

PLACE IN THE SUN  The colony welcomes her highness  The red carpet rolls down the shore  Tributes behold  Gold from the ground that her majesty won  Silk that her subjects so gracefully gratefully spun  Trophies reflecting the light of a place in the sun  The governor begs of her highness an audience in the boudoir  She seems distressed  Not so impressed with our work here so far  Patience I nonetheless humbly request of the queen  My situation's unstable at best you see something's burning  All the natives are restless  They're fed up and something's burning  Just my bungalow yesterday  I fear tomorrow it might be my flesh which might compromise much that we've done  Neither friends nor possessions have I so if you've room for one  Won't you take me and all that is mine from this place in the sun

GATES OF HELL   I. Medulla Ostinato   II. Hasta la Queso   III. Disco Volante   IV. In A Gadda da V-Chip

MORE TO LIFE  An empty room now featuring an empty bed except for me  There's more to life  There's more to life  I see  A pot beside the window where roots and branches used to grow  There's more to life  There's more to life  I know  Coordinate components  In order never have a single doubt  Distraction for a moment could let you put your foot back in your mouth  She tells you life without you is just like cutting off one of your hands  But all sheíd change about you is everything you think makes you a man  So stand no ground  Take no risk  Don't decorate your room like this  There's more to life  There's more where that came from  It does not just stop  Life goes on and on and on  There's more to life  There's more to life

DON'T WANNA GO THERE  You lit a match in your basement  Made a hole in the sky  On the phone from the neighbors' now you moan and you whine that it's no fair  I just don't wanna go there  And a funny thing happened on the way to today  I took you seriously when you screamed in my face that you don't care  I just don't wanna go there  You can line up your suspects for as long as you like  To place at the scene of the crime  But we're all well aware what went awry over there and that you were alone at the time  Hammer away all available nails till the points from the hard wood protrude  Your head you can lay on this bed that you made  Then we'll all see what we've done to you  So go  Have a wonderful day as the master of all you survey  You'll be alone there  I just don't wanna go there  'Cause a doorway still stood and you beckoned me through  To attempt I'd be tempted except that I knew it leads nowhere  I just don't wanna go there

MACH MERZ EIN DER HAUS You know I'm large like the TARDIS, a Power Mac hard disc Rock it at the drop of a hat so let's start this The songs of Mike Merz got the power of the word Leave you begging for more just like Venus in Furs Not only heavenly hooks, they're literate like books They're hot, spicy, scintillating, like Dan Levine cooks A lot of wack  songwriters in the Land o' the Lakes wouldn't know a fresh lyric if it hit 'em in the face Even the rhymes I discard at the bottom of the page Hit you hard like a motherfucking runaway train As your agent I suggest a career as a stand-in A face like that, you might make a nice mannequin So if you're in it for the money or the chicks or the fame step aside, take a powder, and take the blame for the wack perception people got about musicians If you act like that, what else would they be thinking? Why don't you take a little time to try the thing that's the hardest? Be all you can be (What's that?) Well-- an artist You know I used to be a cynic, took my brain to the clinic Still satiric (check my lyric) but just listen for a minute I know I'm blessed & impressed by the best of the rest around me I'm glad they found me Stick around, please My mother taught me to appreciate the music I heard My father taught me to appreciate the written word Now I got my namesake angel sitting on my shoulder-- hands me the word and I drop it like a boulder I believe imagination is the highest human power I'll lend you mine, just step inside, enjoy me like a shower In summation my creation is worth writing home about Appreciation, salutation to the patron-- and I'm out

NO SUCH THING AS SATURDAY The big secret of rock & roll is that we are not working Joes 'cause we went to college with the daughters and sons of the people who run the record companies we would be very pleased to sign with (wine and dine with) We give up easily because we've got bourgeois memories of cozy bedrooms where we listened to the records that made us really want to play guitar and be stars CHORUS: Every day is Friday, every night is a partay every job is a temp job Every asshole is a friend And every morning is Monday but there's no such thing as Saturday anymore We anaesthetize ourselves in the bars and in the bedroom doze off in the break room and dream in the rapid-fire editing video style of what we would do to go that extra mile They starve us, they thwart us till they know they can force us to jump through all their hoops Like trophies they award us to people who applaud us till it's time to discard us and say we're wasting our lives (Imagine that) So we send off packages and get them back again We're left to wonder if we are insane or if it's OK spring summer and fall Just making phone calls and  copies (nice and dark please) CHORUS

LEO THE LION  Some people like to talk to the animals and I think that's pretty cool 'cause I've had plenty of pets who were a lot more interesting than whoever I knew at the time and 24 of your Earth years ago I was sent to this sector to teach proper grammar-- I failed Should have bailed when I had the chance CHORUS: Now I'm talking to myself Not dealing well with the challenges presented There's things I gotta do I'll be seeing you on the proverbial flip side I crush your head I crush your head I crush your head My window is a video game I programmed I'm dreaming up sites on the Internet that you cannot imagine yet You're so 5 minutes ago What do you know anyway? I'm calculating chasms of eternity that you could never fathom 20,000 leagues beneath me Never catch my submarine 'Cause I'm the Gingerbread Ubermensch CHORUS

BRIGHTER FUTURE  You were born in the lap of leisure and your crib was made of wood You got a real good education like a human being should And you walked around on 2 legs but you saw those profits soar when you acted like a creature that crawls around on 4 CHORUS: And together we can build a brighter future whether by the pen or by the sword 'Cause if we all work together we'll be light as a feather yet stiff as a board We can build a brighter future  Meet the goal we're working toward Well the working classes had a plan that they'd unite today But they all got kinda caught up in the Twins & the White Sox game So they punch in Monday morning just glad they're still alive 'Cause now all that is revolting is the way they smell at 5 CHORUS The Martians monitored the broadcast from the Earth way down below They caught an episode of Baywatch and a Hootie video They said "These people have attained a culture the likes of which we can only dream of So let's do ourselves a favor and blow their planet up" CHORUS

LIBRA MOON  On the 7th long hot day of August in the year 1970 my mother gave birth to a baby that one day grew up to be me Beneath the constellation of Leo did this natal occurrence transpire The sign of charisma, performance, generosity, and arrogant fire But though the soul and the heart just such scrolls may thus chart with an uncanny cosmic foresight The heavenly anatomy's miscellany other astral persuasion invites CHORUS: Libra Moon quivers aloft like some madman's cartoon Betwixt the sign of the scales  the night's velvet curtain unveils Libra Moon bathes the land in the glare of high noon The only man one will spy within this white orb is I The moon in Libra lends tact  and lets others relax as a crisis is calmly defused The self-same agitation that sparks provocation makes peace if but properly used A certain magnetic charm protestations disarm as the balm of diplomacy soothes and the best is elicited from all those solicited as the Leo is so wont to do CHORUS You may find it a ludicrous notion that the stars our personas inspire that the Zodiac's fickle contortions calm our nerves or trigger our ire But your own chart might prove quite revealing You may find your own sign predisposed to scoff at such frivolous notions; at their mention to turn up your nose CHORUS

MIKE MERZ / DISCOGRAPHY / CONCERT CALENDAR / CONTACT / TRIBUTE ALBUM / REVIEWS / LYRICS / MP3/ RealAudio / LINKS / PIMENTOS FOR GUS

ROCK & ROLL  Whaddaya think about women in rock? Whadda you write first: words or the melody? Check one check to the bridge once please We need three mikes four if you count me Little ditty last minute in the studio Ooo-wee Louie do we gotta go? Oh oh oh (CHORUS: So gimme that rock & roll Knock it off my shoulder/away that boulder I dare you Cause without that rock & roll Sticks and stones would scare you) Boys with guitars sleep on floors while you're at work, play while you sleep Live on the dark side of the clock, around which they rock (Got a buck?) Plugged into walls When you called I had the headphones on Hang on I'm on the other line Some other time I got a power dinner with the undersigned CHORUS And you know you're at a radio-sponsored show when no matter who the band is, the guy sitting next to you says: "Oh-- he sounds like Elvis Costello" Practice makes perfect so work it Testify to the idol Rehearse it for recital But the only thing those boys can give you is a song with your name in the title CHORUS

YOU DON'T LIKE PUNK ROCK ANYMORE  Nowadays it reminds you of high school when you swore that it ruled But you wore more black back then At the time it was your bread and butter From the Dead and the Allman Brothers you were exempt But you won't be popping Black Flag in that boom box like before Cause you don't like punk rock anymore Used to be 60 seconds a threshold Patience wore thin beyond It got so old And you were so young Here and now you disavow over cocoa On the hi fi a half-hour solo blows Goes by quickly enough But you can't believe how rapidly they yell 1-2-3-4 Cause you don't like punk rock anymore You could give a damn how many people they wanna cram in that pit past capacity The slam's a sham, that's veracity As far as you're concerned it's adjourned Tell me why you don't like you don't like you don't like punk rock anymore

I WISH I WAS DEAD  Well I'm sitting in my armchair brushing my teeth The people at the coffee shop hate me but I don't mind them too much And all my clothes are dirty so a shower makes no sense Oh I Oh I Oh I (CHORUS: I wish I was dead Wish I'd never gotten out of bed Instead I wish I was dead) And I know the day will come someday when you come to visit me in a house that looks a lot like yours and some kids who look like me And the things I want to tell you sound stupid on the phone Oh I Oh I Oh I CHORUS So I'm sitting in my armchair picking my nose At the coffee shop they still hate me and I'm getting pretty tired of them And I can't even concentrate on a television ad Oh I Oh I Oh I CHORUS

MY OTHER JOB  At my other job there's this guy that you really oughta meet He plays drums in a techno band & he programs all the beats Xtian would call you one of my rock & roll friends and I must admit that it is true But thatís nothing to be ashamed of Cause I have those at my other job too

DRAG & CLICK  Pick a timecard Any one you want, dilettante Nothing up my sleeve I'm fresh from Human Resources on contingency  Fisher of men dragging nets all day Set on the Jim Jones Dao te Burning to surf that Third Wave (CHORUS: I am the Emperor of the Service Sector I am the kingpin of the Buzzkill Nation The dough you're rolling in, I'm remote controlling Trained in to traffic in your demographic) A bonanza Just pick a scab Grab a hook Powerbook of Life Step in my parlor It's hard to hear when you stand outside You are a lamb in sheep's uniform Born in a widow's web site under the ATM sign CHORUS

PROTECTION  The ceiling was dripping all over the floor We tried mopping it up but it just dripped more So I walked down the street to the hardware store Bought some plastic in packets of four And I passed by a headline that said to me that the welfare state was now history And a bunch of old men clapped each other on the back like a team that just tackled the quarterback (CHORUS: Mmm, protection Everybody needs a little big brother these days Gonna getcha Boogeyman's on the lam and it's certain that there he will stay And you can't rent a cop who can stop the onslaught when it strikes in your very own bed So you strive to forestall the inevitable Kill the time till you're blind lame or dead) And even a trust fund kid knows some things that he did that if anyone else knew, they would have vomited Even Mario Andretti had a blind spot And when they drove by the playground the bully got shot CHORUS And the neighbors downstairs are giving us the what-for It seems that their ceiling is our floor So that plastic we unravel wall to wall Hope it girds us against further calls CHORUS

HAIR IN THE SOAP DISH  I know it's time to clean up but I don't know where to start cause there's bread crumbs on the rug to match the debris of my heart My life has been a shambles since the day that she left me and thereís hair in the soap dish where her Camay used to be Well there are roaches in the living room, dirty dishes in the sink TV's been on since yesterday but the stereo's on the blink My life has been a shambles since the day that she left me and there's hair in the soap dish where her Camay used to be What I realized as I woke up on the floor today was simply that I wanted not a lover but a maid My life has been a shambles since the day that she left me and there's hair in the soap dish where her Camay used to be

N.O.E.W.D.  They call this happy hour? Well they don't have a clue There's not enough whiskey sours in this world to get me in that mood I sit and I mutter what I would say to you Things I'd say to some other if some other I could say them to (CHORUS: No one else will do There ain't nobody who can thrill me quite like you All the others I can see right through No one else will do) Read my horoscope daily Keep track of yours too 5-star days for you lately Mine says give up and find someone new You think Iím joking I should be But I swear that it's true Just as true as I would be If I could be just one of your two CHORUS And I wish you dreams as sweet as mine Otherwise I'll sleep alone tonight If only time and space could be erased That's all that it would take The street's filled with lovers They walk by 2 by 2 Holding on to each other Holding on for dear life I assume I see faces so pretty but none so fine as you walks the streets of this city or any other that I have ever been to CHORUS

EVERYTHING'S COOL  A thousand monkeys with a thousand pens could never ever write this plot again The movie I directed in my head was so different Cause it coulda been not the kind of flick to grace the screen at any theater where I'd be seen But now it's foreign and dull they're walking out in the middle (CHORUS: So don't start I won't call you sweetheart My love songs will not fill the air It's mellow You won't have to worry Cause you'll know everything is cool) There oughta be some kinda booby prize for being even more blase' than I That's my line but this time it seems I've met my maker But if you beat me to the parachute then what the hell am I supposed to do? You're jumping Something's on fire You'll be the only survivor CHORUS There's a place some other space-time continuum parallel to this one Zero-G  You + me equilibrium Frictionless vacuum Collision commences Contraries attract Action and reaction guarantee further contact

FRIENDLY GHOST  Back in the good old days I slept so peacefully I had a lot to say I trod so heavily Stepped of my own free will into an open grave Promptly undressed to kill Subsequently remade Sure don't mean to be rude Happy to hang around Much harder to intrude 6 feet above the ground From my new P.O.V. surfing a cushy fence I can appreciate both of the arguments Safe at the standard length of one translucent arm Call it a show of strength as long as I cause no harm

RIPPLE  If a train leaves from Cedar Falls Iowa traveling at X velocity and another one leaves at identical speed from a yard down in New Orleans If they travel in opposite directions never once crossing each other's terrain, what was the favorite beer of the engineer and what were the conductors' names? Forget me not I'm an astronaut Call me, Lancelot, toll-free (CHORUS: Every grain of forgiveness vanishes into an ocean of regret Did you ever fall? Did you ever want to start again? Is it true / unto you if I do not one thing at all, will I have done nothing wrong? Did you ever fall? Did you ever wish that you were dead?) Run angel run Iím named after one There's a place for fun At the end of your street should be easy to meet someone far more exciting than you But the ones that you met are a good argument for a Zimbardo prison review 10 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by car What convenience but you're well aware It's a natural fact It takes longer than that to get back what you should not have shared CHORUS La da da