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.