Elton JOHN

There's a breakdown on the runway
And the timeless flights are gone
I'm a year ahead of myself these days
And I'm locomotive strong
My city spread like cannon fire
In a yellow nervous state
I can't cut the ties that bind me
To horoscopes and fate

And I won't break and I won't bend
But someday soon we'll sail away
To innocence and the bitter end
And I won't break and I won't bend
And with the last breath we ever take
We're gonna get back to the simple life again

When we break out of this blindfold
I'm gonna take you from this place
Until we're free from this ball and chain
I'm still hard behind the eight
My city beats like hammered steel
On a shallow cruel rock
If we could walk proud after midnight
We'd never have to stop

2. The One

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I saw you dancing out the ocean
Running fast along the sand
A spirit born of earth and water
Fire flying from your hands

In the instant that you love someone
In the second that the hammer hits
Reality runs up your spine
And the pieces finally fit

And all I ever needed was the one
Like freedom fields where wild horses run
When stars collide like you and I
No shadows block the sun
You're all I've ever needed
Baby you're the one

There are caravans we follow
Drunken nights in dark hotels
When chances breathe between the silence
Where sex and love no longer gel

For each man in his time is Cain
Until he walks along the beach
And sees his future in the water
A long lost heart within his reach

3. Sweat It Out

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No ceiling on hard living
Peace keepers keep on breathing
Can't deny eye for eye
It's open season
Dictate to my reason
She devils ruling Britain
Hey girl stick it in your purse
Call it treason

Band aids on dead doorways
No heroes in the Bat Cave
Don't give me Tears For Fears
Give me tears of rage
Fires burn with black smoke
Oil slicks put us on the ropes
Man it's hard to handle
When the bank's broke

Don't kow-tow
Don't bow down
Loosen up
Get the lead out
Backs up let them shout
Backs up sweat it out
When your back's up
Sweat it out
Backs up
Sweat it out

Hope froze in the cold weather
No ice on a greasy river
Liberty and John Doe
Stand and Shiver
War waits when the lines form
The baby sitter in a uniform
Knocking down your door
For your rice and corn

No ceiling on hard living
Peace keepers keep on breathing
Can't deny eye for eye
It's open season
Dictate to my reason
She devils ruling Britain
Hey girl stick it in your purse
Call it treason

4. Runaway Train

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There's a hungry road I can only hope's
Gonna eat me up inside
There's a drifting spirit coming clean
In the eye of a lifelong fire
Tell Monday I'll be around next week
I'm running ahead of my days
In the shotgun chance that scattered us
I've seen the error of my ways

Well we've wrapped ourselves in golden crowns
Like sun gods spitting rain
Found a way home written on this map
Like red dye in my veins
In the hardest times that come around
The fear of losing grows
I've lost and seen the world shut down
It's a darkness no one knows

And I've poured out the pleasure and dealt with the pain
Standing in a station waiting in the rain
I'm starting to feel a little muscle again
But love is lost like a runaway train
Oh I'm out of control and out of my hands
I'm tearing like a deamon through no man's land
Trying to get a grip on my life again
Nothing hits harder than a runaway train

5. Whitewash Country

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Tonight it's hot down here
I can almost smell the rain
And I can almost taste the fear
Behind your name
Fans turning on the ceiling
I feel sticky as a chili dog
White boys howling in the evening
On that hollow log

Tall tales down the river
Say we aim to bury the truth
But the right hand just delivered
The devil in a suit

And he talks big in Whitewash county
Talks sweet as sugar cane
Got a past that's filled with lightning
Got a future filled with rain

Bug buzzing in an empty glass
Fiddle scratching some lazy tune
We're just some place that history passed
New dust, new broom
And it's a high hot buttered moon
He's got a shiny new wax face
Swears the South's gonna rise again soon
All over the place

Rain down on Whitewash county
Smell the air coming up the line
Well you've changed your face so often
But you never change your mind

6. The North

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Have you seen the North
That cold grey place
Don't want its shadow anymore
On my face
A man grows bitter
We're a bitter race
Some of us never get to see
A better place

In the Northern Skies
There was a steel cloud
It used to follow me around
But I don't see it now
There's a farm in the rain
And a little farmhouse
There were a young man's eyes
Looking south

The North was my mother
But I no longer need her
You trade your roots and your dust
For a face in the river

And a driven rain that washes you
To a different shore
There's a North in us all
But my North can't hold me anymore

7. When A Woman Doesn't Want You

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She may be lost
She may be out of bounds
All her tenderness and charms
Could be something
A man like me has never found
But in her woman's way
She's still a little girl
The things that she wants
The things that she needs
Oh well the choice is hers

'Cause you can't take a woman
When she doesn't want you
And you can't be a man
If you're blind to reason
Man might be strong
But true love is stronger
You gotta play it straight
When a woman doesn't want you

Her voice invites
Her eyes say more than words
But her needs and complications
Can tear away
The memory of last night's girl
And if you're weak
Yeah we're all weak sometime
The best things can wait
The best times they come
Oh when strength is kind

And if you can't read her
Leave her alone
And if you don't know by now
She's not someone's prize
And you can't take her home

8. Emily

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The church bells ring out morning glory
When summer bends to the winter's rage
Emily walks through the cemetery
Passed a dog in an unmarked grave
The old girl hobbles, nylons sagging
Talks to her sisters in the ground
SONG: I saw a lie in the mirror this morning
I heard a prophesy all around

And Emily they come and go
The shadows and the distant sounds
But Emily don't be afraid
When the weight of angels weighs you down

Emily prays to a faded hero
In a little frame clutched to her gown
Hears the voice of promise in his memory
SONG: Tonight's the night they let the ladder down
In a cage sits a gold canary
By a wicker chair and a rosewood loom
As a soul ascends aboard the evening
Canary sings to an empty room

9. On Dark Street

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I'm staring down a mile of disappearing track
Is this the best that we could do
I'm leaning through the rain but you ain't looking back
What did I ever have to prove

'Cause it feels like electricity hitting an open field
When am I ever gonna to learn
Married life's two people trying to grab the wheel

Oh and we must have got lost
Living on Dark Street
Looking for an exit
Sleeping on the concrete
You can't see it with your eyes
You can't find it with your feet
All I know is that we're lost baby
And we're living on Dark Street

All the layoffs and the pay cuts cripple me inside
I pay the price for living everyday
Trying to keep us all together along with a little pride
What'll it take to make you stay?

But I've dreamed about an island
And all I got's a bucket of sand
I'd give my eyes to give you all your dreams
Now I get to see my family slipping through my hands

10. Understanding Women

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Rolling over trying to sleep
And understanding women
Thinking of you out there somewhere
Looking for a new beginning

Just let me be the final word
In the book we haven't written
I won't be another page
In understanding women

I could drive to Mexico
On understanding women
Throw myself against the waves
And answer up to heaven

How come her heart's so stubborn
And what's so wrong with giving
Ask the big sky talking
About understanding women

And I'm not just anyone who ever stood outside your door
And I'm not any man you've ever known before
Don't judge this picture by the frame
Every man is not the same
Some men reach beyond the pain
Of understanding women

11. The Last Song

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Yesterday you came to lift me up
As light as straw and brittle as a bird
Today I weigh less than a shadow on the wall
Just one more whisper of a voice unheard

Tomorrow leave the windows open
As fear grows please hold me in your arms
Won't you help me if you can to shake this anger?
I need your gentle hands to keep me calm

'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd feel
This fire beneath my skin
I can't believe you love me
I never thought you'd come
I guess I misjudged love
Between a father and his son

Things we never said come together
The hidden truth no longer haunting me
Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken
That kind of understanding sets me free

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