Christopher Mortimer | Philadelphia Rose

Philadelphia Rose

Will I Ever See You Again When I Leave This Town?

"Will I Ever See You Again?" lyrics and music C. Mortimer © October 1990

In my time, I've seen faces that seemed to say love

Light that burst through the dark skies above

In my time, I've been frozen tricked and filled up with tales

From my path I've been led far astray

And any kind of love that I've had at the time,

Brought me arias of pain with the truth realized

In my time, I've seen faces that seemed to say love.

In my life, I've been blue in a world that's been grey

A sandcastle washed swiftly away

In my lofe I see red past the blue in your eyes

Love has sailed through an ocean of lies

I look straight ahead think of time gone by

The tear on your face when I drove off that night

In my life I've been blue in a world that's been grey.

CH: Will I ever see you again when I leave this town?

Will I ever see you again as I see you now?

It's been a different kind of pain every time she goes

In time another steps inside that open door, that's yet again closed.

About you, you're beautiful and always will be

The one who turned me from a fool into me

About you, you turned heads when you walked down the street

Took me home and let me fall off to sleep

I've turned into a man from this innocent boy

Living all kinds of loves in a weird kind of joy

About you, you're beautiful and always will be.

CH.

Will I ever see you again when I leave this town?

Will I ever see your face as I see it now?

I'll never forget being in love back at school,

With my heart set on you,

But I've moved on, but can't forget you.

The Power

"The Power" lyrics and music C. Mortimer © 15.8.94

Come child and take a look outside

It's time to be moved, by what you see

Its' no place for your sweet face

And bullets are fired in a storm of dark words.

Come child and take me hand

There's no use pretending that I ain't mad

Theres no way that I haven't been

So take my hand and follow me.

CH. And follow me into your sweet land

Where the water is blue and the sky is clear

I want to dry tour tear and see your smiling faces

I want to give to you not just warm embraces

Reach out, and feel the power.

Come child there's a better place

Then where you lay down and sleep at night

A real world is where your freedom lives

You're born to live and breathe and the air is free.

CH.

Suffer

"Suffer" lyrics and music C. Mortimer © 12.10.92

CH: You can't suffer,

You can't suffer, my lover.

You can't suffer, my lover

And I won't treat you like another

Girl who could be blind who could always find a replacement

Then I'd be purple dust and grass growing on your scen.

Well I know you're the artist girl and I pain t with you

Even through I'm colorblind,

I'm not a colored kind of guy.

CH.

I don' want another friend of lover

I don't want another, ‘cause she may suffer

Or someone who reads me like she thinks I'm a poster,

But I'm selling something I know you won't buy.

Well every singl time I try to hide away

It doesn't mean I hate you baby,

It doesn't mean that I hate you.

CH.

Well if you love her, you must trust her

And if it's half love make it double

And she must be with you and be seen with you all the time boy

‘cause another man could throw some petrol on the fire.

And it's the fire that burns in you each day and night,

You're a danger baby

A real inferno tonight.

CH.

Well I've fallen in your dragnet in your ocean filled with lies

You can't suffer I'm your lover in the waves I will not die

You're a good time girl who took me on a wild wild ride

Belly dancing and romancing chanting voodoo rhymes.

You can't suffer you're my lover, you're my girlfriend all the time

I will be your rock I will be faithful not some fall guy or lowlife

You can't suffer you're my lover you're the magic in my life

You are my ray of sunlight, golden river, peace of mind.

CH.

Philadelphia Rose

"Philadelphia Rose" lyrics and music C. Mortimer © 15.8.02

I was with you the day the sun on Philadelphia Rose

You tried to explain, our love was heading down an empty old road

You said its' not you, and don't you feel the years that we spent were long

But I could not understand, you were right and I was wrong.

You said it was complicated and you never quite knew

The riddle of love, is there light upon the dark side of the moon?

A stalemate of love smells like a '58 New York cab,

A lingering scent of time gone by, wilted rose petals on the dash.

CH: For 26 years, I've been in love with a girl from San Antone

On the Philadelphia Coast, home of the sad black rose

It's said for love to grow, she needs to reach within your soul

And speak the language of love, watching the darkness glow.

I was with you the day a cool wind froze me right to the bone

In a lone little diner, 20 blocks and 18 doors from my home

I looked inside and felt a blue chill, blistering my heart and face

When you touched his hand, I knew our love was old and I was in empty space.

CH.

And I was standing on a field that could yield no crop

Feel like I'm parking my cars in an empty lot

My mind was spinning round like a fairground organ,

I stepped back on the street and kept on walking

Your emotions are entwined and they're refracted too

Our loves' not watertight there's no forbidden fruit

For you are caught up in a branch that fell in front of you

You don't know where to go or you don't know what to do.

CH.

Into The Sublime

Benneath these floors of stone, is a land of buried tortured souls

It's a land that's ruled by greed, where lightening strikes a rising seed.

And the soil is barren noting grows

In a world where sunset never shows.

Behind these hearts of steel, is a love distant and hard to see

It's a love that's torn and stained as spirits sail to warmer places

And a cold hard wind just blows and blows

As the vodka's ice chills you to the bone.

CH: Into the sublime I spend my sleepless nights

I ask myself: "How can the world keep turning round?"

Into the sublime, I drift into the night

My strength has fallen down the dust has turned me inside out

These days to feel sublime, you need not make a sound

These days to feel sublime, your head must spin around.

Some say a wilted rose, never gets strong blowing blowing to and fro

When your conscience cannot heal your fragile hands and hearts eternal bleeding

You feel rigid like a totem pole

Having missed out on life's ebb and flow.

CH.

This Game Is Won

"This Game Is Won" lyrics and music C. Mortimer © 31.8.93

Softly calling gentle warnings, rumour that my life is falling

Still believing that there's breathing

My music's dying my chords lie bleeding

My soul is hurting and can't go on,

Oh this game is won.

A man is caving into Satan, angry thoughts of sex and hatred

I sit inside my room and view it

My TV tells how sad the world is

Caught up in a web of madness

Oh, this game is won.

CH: This game is won, this game is won

Long as I am strong, I will not lose. (x2)

Flying high into the sky, dreaming of a better life

My carousel is turning round,

So secure and on the ground

It doesn't pay to risk your feet,

Oh this game is won.

CH.

I dream of love and I dream of peace

But there are stars in both my eyes

I play the big man I dish the dirt

My feelings lie in a tomb of hurt

Like a deer caught in the headlights -

A man on the run who is longing to be free.

Solo

CH.

The People That I See Are Never Here

Another harlot, princess of Oxford Street

Young policemen, drift onto a different beat

Well I look out, and move onto the city's end

Bright bright bright bright bright bright lights

Attracting all the city's friends

Well I've lived an been on every scene

When someone's gone too far

Taking a little journey

But they can't get back to the start.

Obscene spenders they're buying up the whole damn street

"Real Estate Crime", they can buy but the can't steal

A Japanese child, plays a game of chasing with her father

Steps a little faster like some prima donna

Dancing at her hardest

A vintage male sells papers on the sidewalk

Stands there every day

Stares into the air his time is so cheap

He'd rather waste it.

CH: Fly away, fly away

Flying away flying away (x2)

The people that I see are never here,

Gone for quite a while.

Small Town Girl

"Small Town Girl" lyrics and music C. Mortimer © 16.8.02

We were sitting under and oak tree in South Carolina,

Eating chips that we'd bought from some old diner

You look just like your mother in that dress you wear,

A beautiful lady with long brown hair.

We had our plans to drive on to the river,

Today the water is a blue shade of silver

And the wind blows over our heads and the birds fly high

The fish hear us coming and pretend to die.

Well we drive into the city in my old Cherokee

You sing with the radio, in a different key

I met you at your best friend's house one night on the porch

You were sipping some whisky just to stay warm.

CH. And small town girl I love it when you know

That we can do silly little things at a pace so slow

And small town girl, well you've become my life

My true north and my lover, in you my faith is justified.

You wore a pair of blue town jeans that looked like they'd been through a war

Sally talked to you of a two timing guy, who just walked out the door

She said: "I want to rearrange his face, he's no friend of mine anymore"

You said: "Amen, hallelujah, losers like him can have their stinking whores!".

CH. And small town girl I love it when you say

That time goes by so quickly when we chill and play

And small town girl one day you'll be my wife

The car door for you will be open, when you step in off my drive.

And being with you feels so real, there's no clouds in the sky

I never sail close to the wind, sugar coat things or tell no lies.

I feel we've crossed seven seas eight times, and now we're living for the moment

Walking with a lively springing step, down an grassy knoll we are rolling.

CH. And small town girl, I love it when you know....

Listen To The News

I don't care about the politics in Cuba

But I care when I see a line of refugees

When I see the lines on an old woman's face

As she trudges through the snow

I listen to the news and I feel ashamed.

I don't care about campaigns I don't care about leadership

All I know is that my soul is alive and well

Almost a fitting story about the 90's

"His soul survived the news, but still he died".

CH: And as I die I don't do so with any grace

I sit here and I constantly complain

Do people want to rule the world is there just one reason why

I listen to the news and feel ashamed.

I don't care about the welfare of Albanians

I don't care about the climate in Northern Ireland

I care when I see birds die from the grief of a

Stricken liner's oil

Which kills the kingdom beneath the sea

Which isn't ours.

CH.

I Wanna Make You Think Twice

Seeing is believing or so I'm told

And believing in someone doesn't mean you have to be cold

Well you don't think much about me anymore these days.

But if you keep me by as a friend for time

Things would be ok and in my mind, things would be fine

If you'd just open up and say you think of me sometimes.

But your coldness and your lies, they put me through the fire

Theres and angel in the sky who will look at me though loving eyes.

CH: I wanna make you think twice, I want to make you see the light

I want to make you see he's just no good for you, anymore than I know I am.

And if you'd only think twice, I might have the chance to make you mine

You'd realize that he is just no good for you anymore than I know I am.

And all the best loving that I gave you once before

Was the nicest feeling at the time, you could never want more

I tell you: "I was the best thing at the time for you".

But the seasons have changed, winter's here in summertime

Shadows block my daylight, turn each day into night

But I can't stop loving you, it's eating me alive.

I've come home too late, the locks are changed with the keys

And beside you now he lies, with me you've taken a lifetime of leave.

CH.

Disco Lights

Love is blue love is just what you make it

Love can take you to the strangest places

I heard this song that I hardly knew

You didn't know me and I didn't know you.

But something brought us into that room

People were dancing to this haunting groove

I loved that place but I didn't know why

Just beautiful people and disco lights.

My friend said this girl kept looking at me

Well I was innocent I was just 18

And she was sitting far, far away from me

Blonde hair and a t-shirt, and torn blue jeans.

The DJ kicked up the bass some more

A song of weird imagery, by The Doors

Sammy came on over she was by herself

She asked me to dance with her and her friends.

Under disco lights, under disco lights, love makes you high under disco lights

I looked in her eyes and she looked back and smiled, how could I stay cool under

disco lights?

chris mortimer

Philadelphia Rose

ART OF SONG