Lyrics

Reverend Zen Reverend Zen Magdalena New Wings Reverend Zen Videos

Magdalena | Bad Attitude | Don’t Try To Tell Me
The Boston Shakedown | Only A Fool | My Sigmund Freud
Her Love | Dangerous Times | Boy Genius | The One In Love

 

“Magdalena”

I was sleeping on a cloud
When an angel awakened me
With the warm, gentle voice
Of a heavenly breeze
She said, “I’m Magdalena,
I’ve come to speak with you
And whatever words are spoken
We shall always speak the truth.”

Chorus:
Oh Magdalena, how did you find me here
Sleeping on this cloud, far from that city crowd
Oh Magdalena, how did you find me here
Are you my patron saint or is this a fairy tale
Oh Magdalena, how did you find me here

As I rose up before her
Wiping the sleep from my eyes
She asked, “Are you lonely
Or is this your paradise?”
I replied, ‘‘Since a boy
I’ve always dreamed alone
And far from the busy world,
I made this cloud my home.”

I’ve rolled the dice, a gypsy read my cards
My fortune’s been told by Madame Zen
But I’ve never known a woman before
With a halo above her head

Chorus:

Then she wrapped me in her wings
And whispered in a quiet tone,
“We all must dream my love
But we must not dream alone.”
There was magic in those words
I’d searched for since my youth
And on a bed of eiderdown
Our love ended my solitude.

Chorus:
Oh Magdalena
How did you find me here
How did you find me, how did you find me
How did you find me here

 

“Bad Attitude”

I’m clinging to the top of a tree
Big dogs and black cats are laughing at me
The sky is raging with lightning and thunder
I have a feeling my days are numbered

Throw me a line, my boat sprung a leak
I clutch my flask for a final drink
A smiling shark is circling the bow
With a little luck I’ll probably drown

Chorus:
Would you show a little sympathy?
Why has this bad luck befallen me?
My lover says, “Jack, I’ll give you a clue
These things happen to no one but you.
Look in the mirror, you’ll see the truth.
You’ve just got, you’ve just got
You’ve just got a bad attitude!’’

Nine Hail Marys and kiss the ground
My plane’s in a spin and I’m goin’ down
Inform my lover I’ll be runnin’ late
Due to my aerodynamic fate

Chorus:
For a thousand years it’s been this way
It’s in my blood, it’s a family trait
My lover says, “Jack, that ain’t no excuse
These things happen to no one but you.
Look in the mirror, you’ll see the truth.
You’ve just got, you’ve just got
You’ve just got a bad attitude!”

A step from the curb I hear screeching brakes
A woman screams, “Stop!” a second too late
I’m nose to nose with a twelve-ton truck
So much for my odds with Lady Luck

Hey lover, can you spare any luck?
“It ain’t luck, it’s just your bad attitude!”
Hey Rockefeller, can you spare any luck?
“It ain’t luck, it’s just your bad attitude!”
Hey stranger, can you spare any luck?
“It ain’t luck, it’s just your bad attitude!”

 

“Don’t Try To Tell Me”


Don’t try to tell me it was all a mistake
Don’t try to tell me that
Don’t try to tell me sometimes love can fade
Like we’ve just become two passing
strangers without names

Don’t try to tell me I must see we’ve changed
I’ve been too blind for that
Don’t try to tell me there’s no one to blame
When I only feel this guilt that somehow I have failed

Wasn’t I the poet who spoke the words you longed to hear?
Wasn’t I the strong one who kept you sate from all your fears?
What could I do to prove my love for you?

Don’t try to tell me we’ve nothin’ left to save
We’ve come too far for that
Don’t try to tell me I should go away
When you’re handling me a suit-case full of yesterdays

You were just the painter who made my life a masterpiece
You were just the lover who made all my dreams so real
What could I do to keep from losing you?

Don’t try to tell me it was all a mistake
Don’t try to tell me that
Don’t try to tell me I’ll forget this day
As the curtain falls upon our dying passion play

I’ll remember you and the vows you made
I’ll remember you and all the love I gave
I’ll remember you for all my waking days
I’ll remember you as long as blood
flows through my veins

I’ll remember you and the price I paid
I’ll remember you and how love slipped away
I’ll remember you until my dying day
I’ll remember you until they lay me in my grave

 

“The Boston Shakedown”


She’s havin’ another party upstairs
They’re squealin’ and laughin’ in the August heat
With her trunk full of toys and contraband
That young fool don’t stand a chance
Now mobilize the troops, she’s on the prowl for recruits
When she starts playin’ that song by Marvin Gaye
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey

Chorus:
And just when you think you’ve won
That sweet thing will come undone
Here in this old college town
She’ll give your love the Boston Shakedown

She likes a schoolboy who’s eager to learn
Lessons he won’t find in a college classroom
But must she play that damn record so loud
Each time a pledge passes out
And in my sophomore days I felt her fire and flame
Before she pronounced love’s murderous words
Burn, burn, burn
Burn, burn, burn

And just when you think you’ve won
That sweet thing will come undone
Here in this old college town
She’ll give your love the Boston Shakedown
(the Boston Shakedown)
And you’ll be goin’ down
Down, down, down, down

I know love has a fuse, love will explode
Love will leave you one strung-out Romeo
I’m like those old men at Fenway who fear
When hopes are high the Sox may fold

Chorus:


There goes another scholar past my door
Bound for paradise on the second floor
Stolichnaya will flow, that lava lamp will glow
Before her love takes its toll
And though my jealousy is tamed, an itch still remains
When she starts playin’ that song by Marvin Gaye
Hey, hey, hey,
Hey, hey, hey

Chorus:

 

“Only A Fool”


How many times have I been the one who’s seen you through
With this power I have to turn your dark skies blue
And what will it take before you finally realize

That I must convince you, I must make you see
That I am the one who’ll make all your dreams real
Or am I the fool in love with what could never be

Refrain: I’m only a fool for you darlin’
I’m only a fool for you

Hasn’t my love tried to chase the demons from your heart
Still the wounds from your past are tearing us apart
Am I a martyr to play my role of confidant

Still I must convince you, I must make you see
That I am the one who’ll make all your dreams real
Or am I the fool in love with what could never be

I’m only a fool for your darlin’
I’m only a fool for you

And didn’t I do for you, my love
Those things that lovers do, my love
Do you see rain fall down from that sky
Falling down, down upon this fool’s paradise

I’m only a fool for you darlin’
I’m only a fool for you
’Cause when I see your lovely face
Smiling at me
And when I feel your sweet embrace
I know I’ll always be
I’ll always be the fool
I’ll always be the fool

 

“My Sigmund Freud”


I was skipping barefoot through the snow
Dressed to the nines in my blue tuxedo
As I passed two nuns on St. Marks Place
They said, “Hey man, would you like a taste?”
But I declined and went on my way
‘Cause my doctor and I had a dinner date

I rang his bell and he buzzed me in
I reclined on his couch and began to swim
“Doc, I saw a spaceship late last night!
It was full of green men with x-ray eyes!
When they beamed me up to examine my head,
My id ate my ego and left me for dead!”

Chorus:
Palpitations, shortness of breath
A racing heart, a fear of death
Delusions of grandeur, loss of control
Last week I dreamed I was Axl Rose
But my doctor cures my ills
With understanding and his happy pills
He’s filling up my emotional void
He’s my savior, he’s my Sigmund Freud
He’s my savior, he’s my Sigmund Freud

I took my doctor up to the zoo
We mingled with monkeys and wrestled baboons
Those primates loved his little gray beard
His Viennese smile calmed their primal fears
He knows I’m crazy but he likes my style
I’m the perfect patient with my twisted little mind

Chorus:

I knew a cat once named Joseph Cornell
That brother and I could raise a little hell
Then a Village poet put him in a trance
Now he won’t even write that little tramp
Everywhere you turn it’s lust, lust, lust
My doctor’s the only one I can trust

Chorus:

 

“Her Love”


She listens to his words
And lets him feel she understands
Her replies are chosen
So she can gain the upper hand
She cooly plays the temptress
As he gives himself away
She chooses her men cautiously
Only the ones she find easy to leave

Climb:
She gives them conversation
Seduces them with her charms
She’ll give them her warm body
But she will never, never give them her love

Chorus:
Never gives her love
She never gives them her love
Never gives
Her love

Friends watch her life go by
And they try to understand
How one so beautiful
Could still be searching for a man
She says, “I have high standards!”
While they whisper of her loveless life
But only she holds the secret
To why she lives this emotional lie

Climb:

Chorus:

Nostalgic for long ago
When love was easy to give
For the man who made all her nights
Feel like New Year’s Eve
They danced into the dawn
She felt eternally loved
But suddenly he walked away
And all her trust was gone, gone, gone

She’s never faced the reality
Of his leaving her behind
She’s never let another man
Replace those memories of good times
The only love she allows
Is for the man that haunts her past
And she keeps that secret hidden
Behind a lonely, lonely mask

Climb:

Chorus:

 

“Dangerous Times”


Around here lately it’s like the old Wild West
With cowboys packin’ six guns beneath their vests
There’s Uzi’s and AK’s, there’s Colt 45’s
There’s clouds of gunsmoke in the Manhattan sky
So grab your hat, run for cover
Smith and Wesson just might dial your number

Chorus:
Call the sheriff, there’s outlaws in the street
Call the cavalry, there’s bandits on the corner
There’s desperadoes on the avenue
These are dangerous times on the new frontier

Hey, Mr. Cowboy, does that gun make you strong?
Does it make you feel big, does it let you belong?
Does it make you bold, does it make you brave?
Will it make you famous like Jesse James?
Be quick to the draw, squeeze that trigger
Be a legend, Gotham loves a winner

We had a shootout on Broadway Saturday night
Another cowboy took a bullet between the eyes
There’s a line of mourners and a mother’s tears
Nothin’s changed ‘round here for a hundred years
This is Deadwood, this is Dodge City
This is Tombstone, this is New York City

Chorus:

 

“Boy Genius”


A baby was born with a gleam in his eyes
That foretold the world he was one of a kind
One day while bouncin’ on his daddy’s knee
He said, “Daddy, I’m a prodigy!”

By the age of five he’d quote Socrates
And play in his room with a !aser beam
Baptized the kid with a metaphysical mind
He’s next in line for the Nobel Prize

Chorus:
He’s a boy genius, he’s lightning quick
He’s a boy genius, he’s the crack of a whip
He’s a boy genius

Don’t try and hip him to anythinq new
’Cause he knows Balzac and Shakespeare too
He’s heard Miles playin’ Bitches Brew
And he’s read every book by Albert Camus.

Chorus:
He’s a boy genius, he’s lightning quick
He’s a boy genius, he’s the crack of a whip
He’s a boy genius, he was born with a gift
He’s a boy genius

He lectures his colleagues at M.I.T.
On concepts of relativity
They claim he’s got a head full of wire
Einstein would surely admire
The girls on campus chase after him
He dates and drops them at slightest whim
With his I.Q. af 203
He needs a woman with superior genes

Chorus:

(Ooh with all his techno toys
all the girls will jump for joy)
This ain’t fiction, he’s a wiseman
Since he was small he’s had big, big plans
When his mom tucks him in, he says, “Don’t forget,
One day I’ll be president!”

Chorus:

He’s a scholar, he’s a sage
And he’s ready to amaze, he’s a prodigy

 

“The One in Love”


From the stage I face a crowded room
In a club they call the Crying Moon
As lovestruck couples dance the floor
The lonely read matchbooks looking bored
This is where I wait for you
This is where I play the blues

I remember the touch of your lips
Your pointes and pliés, the move of your hips
My ballerina, my swan on a lake
Your grace and beauty swept my soul awake
This is why I wait for you
This is why I play the blues

Chorus:
The one in love always waits
My sleepless eyes greet the dawn for you
The one in love always waits
My lonely life fills the days with you
My days and nights I wait here for you

Your letter lay beneath my door
Left in your search for something more
Or did old fears that haunt your mind
Drive you from me like a frightened child

The jukebox plays and I’m trapped in a dream
Billie Holiday sings of a sad, sad memory
Her voice full of love when life is so unfair
Her song full of pain, the pain too much to bear

Chorus:

On the stage I raise my saxophone
Solace from my life alone
Here I separate the truth from lies
This is my haven from the world outside
This is where I wait for you
This is where I play the blues

Chorus:
The one in love always waits
My sleepless eyes greet the dawn for you
The one in love always waits
My lonely life fills the days with you
The one in love always waits
Are these blues my legacy
The one in love always waits
Will this waiting, will this waiting ever end for me?