Lyrics: Ghosts Upon the Road

Belgian Bar (Eric Andersen) [Albums: Ghosts Upon the Road]

One snowy night alone in my house in Norway, I sat with pen, paper, and guitar and a candle by an old wood table. I felt a canopy in the air and the feeling of being somewhere else. I started to remember a time when I was with a close friend a couple years before. We had been in Brussels working on a film score together and we had many good evenings hanging out in this ancient city in the middle of Europe. And this evening it came rushing back. As if I had stumbled into a cathedral of memory. After we finished the project we took a train to France. I went on to Venice and it was right before Christmas.

We were living in a nice hotel on the avenue Louise
Workin on a project there it was just my man and me
I was unattached back then like a puppet off his feet
A crazy pile of broken strings only one I had to keep
We walked around the corner saw the lights of a little bar
The mood there made me curious a chance to forget
Awhile inside a couple of tables a couple rock 'n roll cassettes
I was drinkin rum that night with the barmaid speakin French

I wonder just how things have changed
I wonder where you are
And I wonder if a young French girl
Still works in a Belgian bar

Brussels in October the yellow gray's all I recall
The rain ran on forever like the wires on a trolley car
Walkin down the new wet streets ancient wind blowin through my heart
The only face I couldn't see was the face of my true love
I dreamed about the lights of Nice the rust rocks of the coast
I dreamed about a frozen path to the one I missed the most
Then I guess it wasn't long before I was on my feet again
It must have happened someplace quiet cause I don't remember when

I wonder just how things have changed
I wonder where you are
And I wonder if a young French girl
Still works in a Belgian bar

When I look over my shoulder from the window of my train
I think about my man again who I heard has moved to Spain
We worked hard and we traveled some through France and Italy
When it rained down hard in Brussels it poured on you and me
And when my eyes got tangled in the honey colored hair
Of the girl ho poured the drinks that night when we were talkin there
She had eyes that seemed to drink us up and a crooked little smile
When we sailed off for the starry night and forever took a little while

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Spanish Steps (Eric Andersen) [Albums: Ghosts Upon the Road]

This song is a brief chronicle of frequently separated lovers. It begins on the Spanish Steps of Rome. English poet John Keats died in a small house at the foot of the steps. I wrote this one night in New York.

Meet me on the Spanish steps oh you will not wait long
Near the place where we first met it was on the streets of Rome
You were young and your eyes were bright your cheeks were flush and fair
We were eye to eye on the Spanish steps I can see you standin there

When I was sailing the Portland coast your face came back to me
It became so real it was never a memory
A friend once asked would I send a word to the one in the long blue skirt
I didn't want to lose you I didn't know what one was worth

Later on we met again and we drank by the Oslo docks
The fire of art shot from your hands spillin freely from your heart
More than a smell of a memory and more than a love by choice
The thing that I remember best was the beauty in your voice

So now it's you and I my love and the two you bore for me
I love you for your strength that you carry so quietly
So let us hold our glasses high and keep our voices hid
And take me down on this summer's eve beneath the birches now

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It Starts With A Lie (Eric Andersen and John Leventhal) [Albums: Ghosts Upon the Road]

This song I wrote with guitarist John Leventhal. It reminds me of an African rhythm meets an Irish lyric. If it were a film it would be black & white and in grainy tones.

Walkin on shells and stones by the water
to find somethin that was mine
You who walked with me are so far away
I realized there's no further distance than time
I saw your face I looked for your face in the sea
Out in the harbor a sail silhouetted deep in my heart
I thought you were comin for me I reached out
to touch you It wasn't a lie when I called
If it wasn't true when I told you I loved you
It starts with a lie after all

I saw you wake alone in the morning
you opened the window to see Out in the dark
a storm all around us Light in the clouds
in the light do you ever see me
I reached out to touch you
It wasn't a lie when I called
If it wasn't rue when I told you I loved you
Then it starts with a lie after all

Watchin
Standin
Standin up close to the wall
Standin without you
Standin alone with no shadow at all

Walkin alone over stones by the water
feeling the wet of the rain Echoes of footsteps
vanish in darkness They disappear
along with the sound of my name
I reached out to touch you
It wasn't a lie when I called
If it wasn't true when I told you I loved you
It starts with a lie after all
I reached out to touch you
It wasn't a lie when I called
If it wasn't true when I told you I loved you
It starts with a lie after all
Yes it starts with a lie after all
No it wasn't a lie after all

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Trouble In Paris (Eric Andersen) [Albums: Ghosts Upon the Road, Blue Rain]

Looking out the window, one wintry Norwegian night, on the cold soft snow that weighed down the boughs of the tall spruces and made the world smooth and quiet, I had a strange vision. I started to see fog and gas lamps and in the mist the blurred red lights of the Moulin Rouge. I saw a woman light a cigarette. I heard a scream and saw a fleeing shadow on the wall leaving only a cloak's hem visible on the wet cobblestones in the crescent light. It was Paris and it could have been the 1880's. It is a murder ballad that came like a little movie.

There's a blue shadow moving through the Moulin Rouge
And a man with a knife point pickin his teeth
An off duty cop sits with his back to the door
And somebody just took a piss in the sink
The cop's drinkin Pernod thinks he's drinkin absinthe
With the girl who had loved him on the Rue St. Denis
While somebody's slinkin smokin under a light
And there's trouble in Paris tonight

Now Simone pulls the collar up tight to her throat
While the riverboats knock under the old Pont Neuf
A rat makes a run for his hole in the wall
She stops by a street light and lights a straight cigarette
A Gitane on his knees starts to howl like a dog
She closes her purse and tries to peer through the fog
Nothin seems wrong but somethin ain't right
And there's trouble in Paris tonight

Now the man cleanin his teeth well he ain't satisfied
He's hungry for somethin that he just can't define
The one by the sink is now sweeping the floor
And the cop he ran short of dreams a long time ago
While under a street lamp there's trouble it seems
First there's a struggle and then there's a scream
She didn't know what hit her when she asked for a light
And there's trouble in Paris tonight

Simone had been a town girl not far north of Nantes
Who did it for money once then she just couldn't stop
Had a fight with her mother another runaway teen
Who had hotel love with a cop on the Rue St. Denis
And a boy once abandoned by a cop and a whore
Has a knife in his hands he was a child of the war
It was either Simone or cut out the lights
And there's trouble in Paris tonight

There's a blue shadow moving through the Moulin Rouge
And a man with a knife point pickin his teeth
An off duty cop sits with his back to the door
And somebody just took a piss in the sink
While somebody's standin out cold in the rain
Could be all warm inside drinking champagne
Bin thin as a shadow smokin under a light
And there's trouble in Paris tonight

Bein thin as a shadow smokin under a light
And there's trouble in Paris tonight

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Listen To The Rain (Eric Andersen) [Albums: Ghosts Upon the Road]

I wrote this song in one of the loveliest and rainiest parts of the world, Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. The terrain, seascape and weather are much like the Northwest Pacific coast states.

Take your time and rest your heart
Time will fade away your pain
Close your eyes take some time
Stop and listen to the rain
Sorrow's in the air
And trouble's on the wing trial and despair
Ain't no use in trying to run
Like a spirit in the night
You can try with all your might
But pride's been stripped away

Take your time and rest your heart
Time will fade away your pain
Close your eyes take some time
Stop and listen to the rain
And let your sorrow go
Let romance keep your heart cast your fears away
See what's right before your eyes
Will be gone before you know
Time is all we have
So let the moments grow

Take your time and rest your heart
Time will fade away your pain
Close your eyes take some time
Stop and listen to the rain
Take your time and rest your heart
Time will fade away your pain
Close your eyes take some time
Stop and listen to the rain
Listen to the rain
Take your time and listen to the rain
Take your time and listen to the rain
Take your time and listen to the rain

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Ghosts Upon The Road (Eric Andersen) [Albums: Ghosts Upon the Road]

Sometime the typical song format gets limiting and boring. There's the urge to push out and redefine the boundaries. So in this piece I tried for something different. I wanted length and breathing room. Something closer to a narrative without melody, like a short story, set to rhythm and music, that would incorporate abstract sounds. It takes place in Boston and New York. Places I had lived when I started out as a song writer.

I was stranded up in Cambridge Mass it was the winter of 64
Before that in a torn down building up on Beacon Hill
I made my money mowing lawns that fall and junkin in a band
The air was full of energy only a few could understand
Now I was lucky in my building because the city had forgot
To board up all the doors and windows and shut the electric off
An abandoned dog had earlier destroyed the first and second floors
I found some country records there but I had no stereo
But sometimes I'd heard noises in the night
On the 3rd floor there I was living by candlelight
crashed out in the corner of a room Afraid to draw attention
I was eating cold out of cans Later they said I was livin like a rat
Now the crowd that I hung out with well they were outcasts too
Suzie alone and pregnant with my best friend's kid
Johnny Boy just got thrown out of the local looney bin
And Brian was rentin out apartments that didn't exist
Then one night alone I wrote a song about something that I knew
About the black faced miners it was tune from a man named Blue