Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood - Tommy Womack

Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood

Came to town with Death Cab for Cutie

I stayed home with my wife and child

And a six pack of beer

I pondered that name for 15 minutes

After I saw the poster stapled to a phone pole

On the corner of Grand and 21st

That was a couple of years ago

I was already in my forties then

So I didn’t go out on a whim just to see

A band called Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood

Just because I liked the name

Just because I’m 25 and every day’s a stoned summer day

My band’s always giggin' then

REM was still kickin' then

I drove that Ford Grenada Mom and Dad gave to me

After they got 'em a Ford LTD

And there was music on MTV

I smoked my manager’s pot

And got laid quite a lot

Planes hadn’t flown into towers yet

And we didn’t have a loose cannon president

We didn’t have all this credit card debt

Hangin' over the house like a cloud

Ensurin' there’s not much more druggin' allowed

A body won’t take it, wallet can’t hang

Singin' all the songs I’ve sang for years

And when it’s a band gig it’s rockin'

And when it’s solo the people are talkin' while I’m singin'

Make me depressed, you think I could take a hint?

My time came and went

Hell there’s many nights I came and went

In a manner of speaking my conscience is sleeping

The world is changing the good times are gone

We get to be the folks who greet the dawn

Of an age of distrust, surveillance and sleaze

And bombs in shoes and way too many enemies

I bet their name was Menstrual Blood

And the A&R guy said «That's no good

Make it Mystery and then we can target

A broader base of Goth dog lover market»

I love my boy, he’s becoming a drummer

Got a drum kit from Santa, at this rate by summer

He’ll be keepin' a beat in a world that needs a metronome

Shoved up its ass so hard that

All voices will raise in the heavenly choir

Shit’ll get straight, brothers will hug

We’ll dance like we did in the decades of drugs

I’m spittin' my genes in an ocean that’s risin'

Clingin' to Jesus with some compromisin'

Of how it was handed to me from my mom

And my daddy the preacher who watched all that TV

In a cream recliner

Scroungin' through life like a stoned hardliner

You couldn’t faze him, he knew Jesus

Died for his sins and was raised from the dead

And I’ve always wondered, why can’t he stay dead?

It doesn’t change any good thing he said

What matters is his life and not how he died

Why can’t he just be a nice Jewish guy?

Who was super clued in and showed us the way

To salvation from sin

And that doesn’t mean that you’re not quote-unquote «saved»

You fry like a piece of country ham in your grave

It’s a great big world, life is a joke

Arabs and Christians, Pepsi and Coke

People so gorgeous it causes 'em pain

And nobody gives any sympathy for something like that

You suffer in silence or form a band

With a name that appeals to Goth dog lovers everywhere

On a poster that’s seen by a forty-ish bastard

Walkin' to work at 8:15

$ 11 an hour for all that he does

Can’t be a has-been if you never was

Goin' all day long without eatin'

Till all my nerve endings are seriously overheatin'

I get wobbly walkin' down the stairs

To smoke me a cigarette in the cold fresh air

Wonderin' why I do the things I do

And I do 'em every day

And it can’t turn out good livin' this way

But live this life I must and

In some fuzzy God I trust

I’ll kiss my wife, I’ll kiss my son and

Maybe someday I’ll go for a run

Maybe someday a song will stick

I’ll walk around like I got a big boat

Maybe someday my boy’ll drum in a

Hippie jam band that plays out some

He’ll take after Daddy, get in the van

Go somewhere only young people can

Doing things only young people do

Bangin' those skins at Bonnaroo

Rockin' the dreadheads, dancin' in the mud

Before Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood

God go with him, Amen