The Little Band
Recorded 1992, released 1997, re-released 2009
A collaboration between Jack Devine, guitar, Will Stephens, Bass, and Bill Foreman, drums and singing. The Little Band played at the various Claremont Colleges in 1991 and 1992, playing a number of Bill's tunes to great effect. As the year was ending, the trio decided to record, thankfully, these ten tunes--nine of Bill's and a cover of Larry Williams' "Bad Boy." "Vandalized," included here, is likely Bill's best-known tune, covered as it is on Matt Nathanson's Not Colored Too Perfect. It is not available on physical CD.
This music is here to be listened to. Show your appreciation in one of two ways: donate, or, better still, organize a house concert or hootenanny.
Tracks:
Listen using the play button next to the mp3 download links.
Lyrics:
All songs by Bill Foreman ©1997, 2001 General Ludd Music
Can't Wait to be Free
"I've grown so tired of waiting,"
I heard a voice behind me say.
"Don't spend your life procrastinating
And we might meet again some other day."
I threw the phone right through the window,
Turned around and began to curse.
"Who do you think you're becoming?" she said.
"Your mouth has gone from bad to worse.
You've grown worthless," she said
While her face turned bright red.
Her eyes glowed like fiery embers.
"You're so ruthless and rash, and your mind's filled with trash.
You're a person I'd hate to remember."
"When did you become Miss Morality?"
I asked, "is that you my dear?
Why don't you just look the other way
Into the depths of that shining, silver mirror.
Yes, it's you that you see,
Not your mother or me.
Your own hatred is there, and it's shining."
And I said, with a smile,
"Your heart's brimming with bile.
I can't wait to be free from your whining."
She ran from the room in that instant.
She left without closing the door.
But these words she left, as a present:
"Don't expect me to come back for more."
From a Miserable Dive
I wasn't a hero, but I still am alive
And I live out my days in a miserable dive.
The people around me lay their hearts down and die.
I know that one day I'll stand up and take to the sky.
I've been told, I've been told too many times before
That I'm only a statistic, a grain of sand on the shore.
I swear it's untrue, though it's difficult to tell,
I'm not a dog to be beaten, nor a product to sell.
Do you know what I'm thinking? Do you hear what I say
Or are you turning your mind off when you work for your pay?
It tears you to pieces. It rips you to shreds.
It's invisible now, but it sticks in your head.
I live in the city with the garbage and crime
And the men in rat-races getting swallowed by time.
The people around me encase their hearts inside stone.
Their religion is empty, their spirits alone.
To them to care is but weakness and to live is to die.
Do you know what I'm thinking? Do you hear what I say?
Am I talking to you or are you turning away?
Footsteps
Whose quiet voice do I hear?
Whose footsteps still linger in the hall?
Whose shadow graces the corridor
And leans itself up on the opposite wall?
Is it you calling me from my corner
Who keeps drawing me onward and outward?
Do you call from the in or the outside
Or from some other place of which I've never heard?
Because it's here you must stay
Or be blown by the breeze to some strange circumstances.
You walk on the streets. You use the telephone.
You engage in conversation like everyone.
I'm familiar with all of these rituals.
It's society's hammer that pounds on and on.
I can see that you're not my enemy.
I can convince myself of your good intentions.
But is it really you who calls for me
Or is it just another victim of social conventions?
Don't be driven away.
Don't fall to the piercing of poisonous glances.
Because it's here you must stay
Or be blown by the breeze to some strange circumstances.
It's a very hard balance to maintain.
It's a very fine line that on which you now linger.
It's in each of the cells of your brain
And the tiniest touch of the tip of your finger.
Whose voice echoes 'round the hall?
Whose shadow still draws me and enthralls me completely?
Will that difficult balance not fall
Or is it only beginning its slipping discreetly?
Rare & True
"She's so fair and so fine
And one day she'll be mine."
With those words, I began
My pursuit of you.
Through persistence and time
I won both your heart and mind.
And I loved you with a passion
That was rare as it was true.
But suddenly, you turned the key.
Rejoined the outside world without me.
But, can't you see, you can't be free.
We'll be locked inside our hearts for eternity.
We lived inside these walls.
Read no papers, took no calls.
Left behind the outer world
Of indifference.
There were some who called us lost.
Said, "love always has its cost."
You said their hearts were only filled
With violence.
But suddenly, you turned the key.
Rejoined the outside world without me.
But, can't you see, you can't be free.
We'll be locked inside our hearts for eternity.
You said, "our love's become a lie.
The day has come to say good-bye."
You didn't ask for my opinion
Or for what I had to say.
You said, "our hearts were made to bleed.
Love's a potent, painful seed."
You'd been knowing all along
That it would have to be this way.
But suddenly, you turned the key.
Rejoined the outside world without me.
But, can't you see, you can't be free.
We'll be locked inside our hearts for eternity.
A Cat's Eye
When you walk on by
When you're smooth like the silent sky
When you move like the trace of a cat's eye
When you feel everything's rectified
Is that when you think of me?
Is that when you want to drink of me?
Or is that when you start to feel free
Of the codes given out by society?
You bounce around without beliefs
Just the same, you have no time for griefs
No teary eyes, no worn-out handkerchiefs
You have no need of anyone's reliefs
You've grown much faster than your age
You're not a prisoner of a chronologic cage
Like thyme and parsley and rosemary mixed with sage
You're an unfinished poem on a never-ending page
When you slip between the lines
Between the twisted words that intertwine
Can you hear me ask you to be mine?
Do you think these words are sounding fine?
When you're strong enough to stand
Close your eyes and open up your hand
It'll hold you like a wrapping rubber band
Feel the whisper of the breeze
Watch it rushing through the hair behind my knees
Let it push you over here with ease
Because, don't you know, my heart will never freeze
Have you ever dreamed this way?
Have you ever seemed to feel this way?
At any time, on any given day?
Well, if you have, don't be afraid to say
Vandalized
Well, it's late at night.
There's nobody around.
Just the sounds of the cars
Upon the asphalt ground.
It's the waiting time,
When the hours grow still.
I gaze on through the glass
Inside my windowsill.
Though I know that you must be
Somewhere in this world,
In this place where, at birth,
You and I were both hurled,
To think that we once were relating
Is a thing that has almost grown foreign to me.
It's a bad sight,
Such a terrible waste,
To spend your time talking
In such bad taste.
It's the same old line,
Though it's not you I blame.
It's your teachers and television
That you put to shame.
The night's lasting longer
Because I've filled my head
With the things I could have done
And the words I could have said.
But, in truth, I was only spectating
And that's a permanent part of reality.
So many rude lines,
So many petty crimes
And you don't feel a need
To apologize.
Tonight is the time
That you stick in my mind,
But from now on I won't become
Vandalized.
Now the room's started filling
With the dawn's early light
And the end has arrived
Of this long night.
I turn off the television
And I hit the bed
While your shade is still haunting
My ever-vulnerable head.
And there's no use
In trying to compromise
When the kindest things we say
But it's time I should quit my complaining
And behave with a little more dignity.
So many rude lines,
So many petty crimes
And you don't feel a need
To apologize.
Tonight is the time
That you stick in my mind,
But from now on I won't become
Vandalized.
Take Me Back
On the streetcorner there, with your head full of nothing
You keep all to yourself that you could.
So they passed you, forgot you, and you just let it slide
Like your teachers had told you you should.
But I was the one for you to pass by
And you did the next morning though I slipped from your eye.
All the time we spent wasted without even a thought.
You yourself are the one that I should have forgot.
"Everything's Broken": you heard what he said
But you doubt that he's speaking to you.
And what if I said the same thing to you now?
Would you tell me it wasn't as true?
Would you call it a lie from a rude, vicious mind,
then throw me outside with the strangers you see?
Would you do that to them? Would you do that to me?
Take me back. Take me back.
Would you take me back into your life?
Take me back. Take me back with you.
I hid under the covers from the scene up above
But I couldn't stop hearing your calls.
If I had my choice, I'd leave here today
For a place without cages and walls.
But that's nowhere, you know. It just never will be
And it's more than a struggle to set our minds free.
I can see, but not touch you. I can hear, but not talk.
I'm held, but can't hold you. I can stand, but not walk.
Take me back. Take me back.
Would you take me back into your life?
Take me back. Take me back with you.
Imagine You're Flying
Late at night, when the sun goes down
And the evening spreads its wings,
I'm sitting down upon the shoreline
Just a-changin' my guitar strings.
I play, oh I play to the seagulls
Though they can't know what I say.
It does not begin to bother me.
It doesn't really matter anyway.
I left from the place where I came from
And I settled in the West.
It just happened like an accident.
It ain't the worst and it ain't the best.
The world, oh the world is a wheel
And it spun me 'round and 'round.
When I returned into my senses,
This was the place that I had found.
Back at home, I'm a poor, poor boy
And I play for all the passers by.
When they tossed to me their empty pennies
I didn't stop to even blink an eye.
My heart, oh my heart's now a window,
My mind a hall of crystal mirrors
Because I live among the reeds and rushes
Where the city disappears.
I left from the place where I came from.
I try to tear it from my mind.
Today, nobody tosses me pennies.
It always seemed to me a bit unkind.
My name, oh my name is now useless.
For it is just another sound
Like my hand across my instrument,
Like the rain that falls upon the ground.
September
Now she's gone
And the summer's ending.
Soon, the leaves will descend
From the sky.
Now she's gone.
There's no pretending.
Sometimes, in our lives
We must all have to fly.
Speak to me,
But speak directly,
For words are so wasted
These days.
Speak to me.
You can't upset me,
For my heart is with her
And with her it is going to stay.
Now she's gone
And my mind is bendind.
Yes, heartbreak is all
That remains.
Now she's gone.
There's no pretending.
September is here. Soon the leaves
Will start falling like rain.
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