Proof Through The Night

T-Bone Burnett won songwriter of the year in the critics poll in Rolling Stone Magazine in the eighties for his album, Proof Through The Night. Two of the most notable lyrics follow here:

PRESSURE

I was once obsessed with being cool being no one's fool
Breaking every rule winning every duel
I tried to hide behind my pride and so I lied
Even when I told the truth
And it's a lot of pressure
From behind

There are those who loom somewhere in doom and they presume
To tell you what to do - they would run your life for you
And at times they've made me so afraid that I was plagued
By doubt and grew confused
And it's a lot of pressure
From all sides

But I will hold on to this hope
That life is not some gruesome joke
That love is not some wretched lie
Oh! How I cry! Ay Ay Ay

I can't ask you to measure whether you can weather
This storm that beats the shore by some means of keeping score
Cause filled with dread I've heard it said "Only the dead
Have seen the end of war"
And it's a lot of pressure
From below

SHUT IT TIGHT

I find it hard sometimes to say the way that I feel
I do the very things I hate to do
I act like a child and I'm afraid of what is real
And so I try to cover up the truth

I stumble like a drunk along this crazy path I walk
I have a hundred thousand questions too
I'll go to any length to prove that nothing is my fault
Then later on I will deny the proof

I don't like to win but then again I hate to lose
And in between is something I can't stand
I don't care what you think and I hope that you approve
I am just an ordinary man

Sometimes I want to stop and crawl back into the womb
And sometimes I cannot tell wrong from right
But I ain't gonna quit until I'm laid in my tomb
And even then they better shut it tight

http://www.tboneburnett.com/