Buskers at the corners burning their guitars

Their mothers cried blood when you’re gone

Their girlfriends in a row sketching your face on the walls

With candles in their hands when you’re gone

And I don’t know why you’ve been faking those smiles of yours

And I don’t know why you‘ve been waiting for love to bring you home

They turned your playground into a churchyard

They named it by you when you’re gone

Love is for trade, porn is the currency

And music is forbidden by the lord when you’re gone

And I don’t know why you’ve been faking those smiles of yours

And I don’t know why you‘ve been waiting for love to bring you home

A fragile vagabond in the making on the way to his own shining star

A homeless hobo eternally waking with his soul hanging onto a broken guitar

You’ve been dreaming with your tears run dry

Nobody taught you how to dive or run or fly

I missed your last sigh

Jackie told you: “You better quit this scene, before it leans, before it keens, before it messes up your genes (think about it)”. And I was thinking: “Tell him something more for love’s sake, you’re his god and he’s just fucking sixteen”. He said:” Classrooms won’t do you good, you really should be in Hollywood, if you could, and that’s what I mean”. And I thought: “He was born to feel misunderstood. He was the most ill-fated kid that I have ever seen”

Mothers cried blood when you’re gone

Mothers cried blood when you’re gone

Mothers cried blood when you’re gone

Mothers cried blood when you’re gone

© 2009 Ala Ghawas Records. All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday I killed a man named solider

I cutoff his throat and buried his gun

Today that buried gun came to seed

A grey tree fruiting bullets and bombs

My daughters and the grey tree are growing under the same sun

Oh God, what have my hands done?

Another man called solider came back from the dead

He broke my bones and dug a grave for two

And while my soul was departing my guilty body 

I’ve realized that my name was soldier too

Our grave is honored for the souls we slaughtered

Though the sand on top is wholly covered with

Red cash and blue blood with faces in the mud

Red cash and blue blood and hatred scars

Now I’m looking at this gory place from the sky above

I’m a dead soldier and I’m still on the run

Cupids and devils are indifferent here

They don’t care what we’ve lost or what we’ve won

The maps to heaven are lost and scattered 

And the holy books in God’s kingdom are completely colored with

Red cash and blue blood with faces in the mud

Red cash and blue blood and hatred scars

© 2009 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.

There were times when I heard you weeping

You came to be embraced and I pretended I was sleeping

I haven’t realized that my presence could pull you through

From the unkind things that the world has said to you

Life threw dirt on me while your light lingered

And you were there with me by the flood of love’s hunger

But I was too troubled to see how beautiful you grew

Daughter of the sun, help me get over you

Baby, baby stay

I want to tell you I love you again

Baby, baby stay

I want to send your pain down the drain

Baby, baby stay

I want to play with you in the rain

Like the two children we used to be

My head was always filled up with the stupid dreams I drew

My heart was always suffering from my failures and the things I couldn’t do

And I haven’t realized how far you flew, from me

Daughter of the sun, forgive me

© 2009 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

The sound of your sweet breath, triggers death, bends into the telephone

It cages my bitter bones in your frozen zone

The mathematical love of yours still ignores my fanatical care

And you just can’t declare your religious mind is spacing elsewhere

So you freeze my burning sun with words like bullets from a gun

And I’m lost here on the run between what you’ve said and done

Between our prophet’s son and your orphan

Tacit terms adorn your lips, deceiving tips, they mess with my head

They lead my sugary dread to my sweet deathbed

And my desire remains unfed; I’m cutting my roots so deep so you said: 

“Run baby run, you’re better off than dead”

My blood is on the gory line between your prophet and mine 

But the misery you designed and the sorrow you defined

Is so beautiful and divine

What’s the cost of dying in your arms?

I killed and drilled to know ya

I crossed the ocean to show ya

You’re etched on my skin

I wailed and jailed to steal ya

I bled my heart to feel ya

And you’re worth all my sins

What’s the cost of dying in your arms?

© 2009 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

It was right here in this leaf-covered house by the glow a hundred summers ago

I wrote down the very first verse on the cracks of the pretty sidewalks but my guitar was still ice-cold

You wouldn’t want to know me

You wouldn’t want to show me

There was you and me and the 14 beautiful souls sharing the beds and the meals with the other 7 next door

And as the time travel away I was still the same dull delicate bard in a sea of tears to explore

I was never bold, I was never whole

Dear God, don’t take me to heaven if there’s no rock and roll

I came all the way to tell you I’m still alive, a tortured roadie at the age of 25

All your thirsty sailors have sucked my blood and you just watched me nosedive

You wouldn’t want to reach me

You wouldn’t want to teach me

You let me see death and birth, pain and mirth, the joy of wealth and the struggle to survive 

I’ve seen enough for the final verse to fly around, to stick behind and to finally arrive

Those holy germs have left a big hole in my soul 

Dear God, don’t take me to heaven if there’s no rock and roll

Sons & daughters, people of mine, here’s my everlasting rhyme

I’m going now but I’ll see you under different skies so get by

I’m ready to go

I’m ready to go

I’m ready to go

Dear God, don’t take me to heaven if there’s no rock and roll 

I’m ready to go

Dear God, don’t take me to heaven if there’s no rock and roll 

Ala the child: Ala, are we there yet?

Ala the man: I don’t know, maybe we should sing it one more time

Ala the child: Okay

Ala the child and Ala the man together: Dear God, don’t take me to heaven if there’s no rock and roll

© 2009 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

Do you remember the days I was only nineteen?

I used to chase your smile at the avenues and the magazines

My heart enjoyed skipping beats after beats for you

Now I’m growing older in terms of maturity

Against my childish dreams and living’s duties

And the unforgettable beauty of you

But I still mourn

Lay down here by the telephone

Mourn, all night long

From my blood to my bones, for you

So I’m stepping forward without a trace

With my hunger for love and the memory of your face

And the passion I misplaced in you

And I still mourn

Lay down here by the telephone

Mourn, all night long

From my blood to my bones, for you

© 2008 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.

Hey love,

You’re drowning in your colors

Don’t you wanna have some rest?

You’re searching for yourself in me, I know that, don’t resist

Hey love,

I spent years on your bench

Can’t you feel my weary chest?

I’m tired of loving you

I’m tired of showing you my best

Because I’m burning in a gone down deal

Yearning for your art to heal and faking what I feel

Paint me a heart right now for real

Hey love,

Stop drawing my face

It’s growing ugly and old

Dig my heart

Don’t judge me from your painting board

Paint me a heart, though I know it’s gonna be fake

Paint me a heart, for someone else to break (you never loved me anyway)

Paint me a heart, with any color, any shape, any heartbeat rate 

Because I’m burning in a gone down deal

Yearning for your art to heal and faking what I feel

Paint me a heart right now for real

© 2008 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.

Father, I’m running through the fire

I don’t want to belong, I just need a place to admire

I run and I run towards the sun

Thinking about the things I could’ve done about it

My friends are gone, one by one

To the fighting, they just can’t live without it

You know I’ve never lost the faith within

If God is with us, then who’s with them?

Mother, I’m drowning in my desires

I just wanted to keep a wife and a home, but they call me a thief and a liar 

I drown and I drown in this fucked up town

The roots in the ground had poisoned my fortune

I see people meltdown for unknown grounds

What kind of love can cause this tension?

It doesn’t really matter where it all begins

Because we prayed and we cried and we moaned and we failed and we sinned

Call it rebellion, I found myself in this rebellion

In this rebellion, I’m not a blind civilian

I don’t bleed my head

I don’t wear the black

I don’t close my eyes and ears

To prove piety

I don’t grow my beard

I don’t preach slaughter 

I don’t raise a sword for the lord

To show loyalty 

And that’s what I see

What’s wrong with unity?

© 2008 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

Pretty girls standing by the door

Hearts of gold in their hands and still searching for more

Fragments from the past just come and mess with my dying soul

And all the city boys have packed up and gone

Leaving some beautiful schemes of houses left undone

They think that they were fooled by those dreams they haven’t won

Mama, this misty town ain’t the same

Mama, isn’t it a shame? What I became,

Another loser in this game

Mama, this dusty town ain’t the same

Mama, isn’t it a shame? I’m being blamed,

For being lonely through the crowd

Mama, this misty town ain’t the same

Mama, isn’t it a shame? What I became,

Another loser in this game

Mama, this dusty town ain’t the same

Mama, isn’t it a shame? I’m being blamed,

For being lonely through the crowd

Mama, isn’t it a shame? I’m being blamed

Because no one knows my name, no one knows I’m in pain

Mama, can’t you see my heart is left unfed

I live in my dreams from my own deathbed

Let me out, Ma!

Let me out, Ma!

© 2008 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

I’m still here, hanging at the corners

Seeking your heart within people, the sad of them and the playful

In these dark years where love is shameful

And I’ve got nothing but your laughter echoed in my head

My heart is where the sunset is, where your truth denies your promises

In the wait for another dream, probably

My love…

We turn around for love abroad

We hunt for love that’s outlawed

We worship different holy books from the same God

It’s the same you and me, the busker and the refugee

In the wait for another dream, probably

My love…

Why?

Why?

Why have you taken my Sugarbee from me?

© 2008 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.

I flew those airplanes and I crashed those wheels

Like a vagabond in the search for something precious, something real

Look what I found now, the same old fish in my creel

The scars on my heart are getting so damn clear

My occasional tears are so foolish but so sincere

It makes me wonder, is it you yearning here? 

You and I have never made it to the time borders 

I spent my life in classrooms and you spent yours by the water

Though the only dream we ever had was to be footballers

You never mind weeping, you never mind to bleed

The dreamy Romeo and the delicate branch from this family’s tree

You jail the hearts so fast but you break so easily 

I’m just your replica

I’m just your replica

You’re the real diamond,

Now I seem to know myself when your light depart 

All this time you’re the original God’s master piece of art

I have the money and the deeds but I don’t have your heart

You’re the real diamond,

And all your virtues that I refused to borrow

Are the essences of my long journey to form my own duo

It’s the same old-fashioned song but on a new piano

I’m just your replica

I’m just your replica

© 2007 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

Well, it’s been 4 years and a half

Since you’ve captured my heart

I should’ve told you from the start

But I didn’t have the guts

And I spent all this time swinging those strings

And learning those things

I thought it would make me a king

Now, my heart skips 7 beats and a half

When you’ve said you’re leaving

How I hoped you’ve been deceiving me,

Ohh SugarBee

My world is going astray

I’m crawling right behind you, wondering what to say

But you’re already miles away

But I made you sing

I made you fly without wings

This can’t be the end

I’m getting over you

Though I know it’s true

There’ll never be another you

Ohh SugarBee

My tiny dancer, SugarBee

You nearly killed me, SugarBee

© 2007 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.

Urging to roam, urging to fly back home

Here on the snow-covered domes

A new soul, an aging face

An aware heart in the wrong place

I left my dreams on a sailing ship

To be carried on by my unborn daughter

Will I ever be loved?

Will I ever be thought of like my mother thought of my father?

I’ve got pictures I managed to paint

And I’ve got songs I left undone

Should I follow the light of my own little candle?

Or the sun of everyone?

I wonder …

I wonder …

© 2007 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.

She wears a green summer dress with cherubs around her

She stumbles in and out of this train

I came to welcome her back home

But apparently she forgot my name

Her careless look keeps rolling this pain

It sent me to heaven and hell again

She said she’s just a new heartbreak in this chain

And it’s all over

She spent years and years roaming these towns

And I spent them looking for her eyes

I kept on believing she’ll be back

But like a homeless sparrow, she flies and flies and now

She’s my favorite sad song at the break of the dawn

She’s my meaning of failure in the eyes of everyone

She’s my sweetest fairytale I never owned

And it’s all over

She got her red hair shining and a ticket in her hand

A couple of bodyguard and a handsome man

She’s got my tears, my songs and my plans

And it’s all over

I was never hers, she was never mine

And it’s all over

Redheaded woman

© 2007 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved. 

I remember my mewl

In our home’s balcony

On my first day in school

When you ran to me

There, when I first felt loved

And I remember your white hand

In the dark so sunny

It took me to my dreamland

Where Tom Sawyer is waiting for me

Again, your love forced my pain to fall to sleep

I remember the muse

You’ve lost within me

And the songs of Fairoz

You chanted constantly

There, when I first wanted to sing

And I remember my silly blues

When a girl gets hold of me

So emotionally abused

In my red room, solitary

Again, your love falls like rain and runs so deep

Was I worth the seeds of love you’ve thrown in me?

© 2007 Ala Ghawas Records. All rights reserved.