Balls of Rice

Category: Lyrics

  • Lyrics of the Month: October 2023 – Destroy All Lawyers

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    There’s a plague on the planet
    And they went to law school
    A bunch of hornswogglers
    Treat us like fools
    Know who I’m talkin’ about
    Let me hear you shout
    Destroy all lawyers!
    Destroy all lawyers!
    Bunch of evil weasel poseurs!
    Destroy all lawyers!

    Watch them push them papers
    And bend them laws
    Will the chump with the most money
    Buy them all?
    Grab them by their tails
    Spit in their eyes
    Well they charge you by the minute
    While we get paid by the hour
    What I want to know
    Is how they steal all this power?
    I wanna see them explode
    In every zip code
    Destroy all lawyers!
    Destroy all lawyers!
    Bunch of evil weasel poseurs!
    Destroy all lawyers!

    They got, they got their own bar
    Where they drink pints of greed
    Let’s spay and neuter ’em
    So that they can’t breed
    So let us ??
    Is at the bottom of the sea
    Well they’re not even evil
    Yea they’re worse than devil
    Gonna blow up the planet
    Charge God double
    Wanna see ’em explode
    In every zip code
    Destroy all lawyers!
    Destroy all lawyers!
    Bunch of evil weasel poseurs!
    Destroy all lawyers!

  • Lyrics of the Month: May 2021 – Conway Twitty

    In Memory of Arnold Dean Wapan

    He put his arms around her shoulder
    And with a voice that sounded older
    He said mom I’ve got something on my mind
    I don’t want to bother you
    But I sure need to talk to you
    If you could only spare the time
    And mom I hope you understand
    How much I love and need you and
    I don’t want you to take this the wrong way
    But don’t you think I’m old enough
    And big enough and strong enough to play
    The games that daddies play

    My friend Billy Parker’s dad
    Came by today to see me and
    He wondered if I’d like to go
    With him and Billy on a hike
    And maybe camp out overnight
    The way I’ve seen them do in picture shows
    And there’s one thing I’d like to do
    And maybe if I asked him to
    He’s sit and talk to me man to man
    We’d only be gone overnight
    And I could find out what it’s like to play
    The games that daddies play

    She quickly turned to hide the tears
    From her son of seven years
    He didn’t know she’d read between the lines
    He’d never really known his dad
    And although he’d never ask
    She knew exactly what was on his mind
    She searched her mind in desperation
    Six long years of separation
    Dimmed the words she knew she had to say
    I hope you’re never big enough
    Or old enough or bold enough to play
    The games that daddies play

    I know you need and want his love
    But son, you’re the victim of
    Another kind of games that daddies play

  • Lyrics of the Month: July 2017 – John Prine

     

    https://youtu.be/DgRVNjsuycQ

     

    While digesting Reader’s Digest in the back of a dirty book store
    A plastic flag, with gum on the back fell out on the floor
    Well, I picked it up and I ran outside, slapped it on my window shield
    And if I could see old Betsy Ross I’d tell her how good I feel

    But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
    They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war
    Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for
    And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore

    Well, I went to the bank this morning and the cashier he said to me
    “If you join the Christmas club we’ll give you ten of them flags for free”
    Well, I didn’t mess around a bit, I took him up on what he said
    And I stuck them stickers all over my car and one on my wife’s forehead

    But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
    They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war
    Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for
    And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore

    Well, I got my window shield so filled with flags I couldn’t see
    So, I ran the car upside a curb and right into a tree
    By the time they got a doctor down I was already dead
    And I’ll never understand why the man standing in the pearly gates said

    “But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore
    We’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war”
    “Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for
    And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore”

    -John Prine, S/T, Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore

  • Lyrics of the Month: June 2017 – Good Riddance

    They’re wrong
    You can love the one your heart’s with
    No matter what you’re told about your choice
    By any xenophobic hypocrites
    Or small-minded misogynists
    you’re free
    You are free

    It’s alright
    There are those too slow to get along
    Keep twisting their morality with sin
    Remember life’s too short to waste on them
    And we’re too smart to just condemn
    We’re free
    We are free
    Now if we could only give them
    something to believe

    It’s anybody’s guess
    Why some cling to prejudice and fear
    For what they do not understand
    Now there is nothing left but common sense
    To wash away intolerance
    And realize that love is all the same

    And no one has the right
    To legislate your life
    They’re wrong

    -Good Riddance, Peace in Our Time, Teachable Moments

  • Lyrics of the Month: November 2016 – Nick Cave

    They’re gonna lay me low (Lay me low)
    They’re gonna sink me in the snow
    They’re gonna throw back
    their heads and crow
    When I go

    They’re gonna jump and shout (Lay me low)
    They’re gonna wave their arms about
    All the stories will come out
    When I go

    All the stars will glow bright (Lay me low)
    My friends will give up the fight
    They’ll see my work in a different light
    When I go

    They’ll try telephoning my
    mother (Lay me low)
    They’ll end up getting my brother
    Who’ll spill the story on some
    long-gone lover
    That I hardly know

    Hats off to the man
    On top of the world
    Come crawl up here, baby
    And I’ll show you how it works
    If you wanna be my friend
    And you wanna repent
    And you want it all to end
    And you wanna know when
    Then take a bow
    Do it now Do it any old how
    Make a stand Take my hand
    And blow it all to hell

    They’ll inform the police chief (Lay me low)
    Who will breathe a sigh of relief
    He’ll say I was a malanderer,
    a badlander, and a thief
    When I go

    They will interview my teachers (Lay me low)
    Who’ll say I was one of God’s
    sorrier creatures
    There’ll be informative six-page features
    When I go

    They’ll bang a big old gong (Lay me low)
    The motorcade will be ten miles long
    The world will join together for a
    farewell song
    When they put me down below

    They’ll sound a flugelhorn (Lay me low)
    The sea will rage, the sky will storm
    All man and beast will mourn
    When I go

    Hats off to the man
    On top of the world
    Crawl over here, baby
    And we can watch this damn thing turn
    If you wanna be my friend
    And you wanna repent
    And you want it all to end
    And you wanna know when
    Well do it now
    Don’t care how Do it any old how
    Take my hand Make a stand
    And blow it all to hell

    –Nick Cave, Let Love In, Lay Me Low

  • Lyrics of the Month: September 2016

    Stumbling drunk off a bus downtown
    You’ve got it bad for the system
    ‘Cause you know it let you down
    You see the marks on the whores
    And the dimes they lent you
    And your paranoia soars
    On the wings of your dementia

    Without a system that compels
    The growth of human compassion
    Its a face that will never change
    Nobody’s well when even one soul suffers
    We’re bound by circumstances
    We can’t dissarrange
    Does shame prevent you
    From engaging in the indigents struggle

    Just filling up a vacancy
    With nothing new to live for
    When I was young and naive
    I believed I could be so much more
    Out of touch with a world
    That never cared or knew me
    More dead than alive
    when you stare right through me

    Its a face that will never, never change
    never change
    You could be the one
    With your hand held out

    –Good Riddance, Bound By Ties of Blood and Affection, Shame, Rights & Privilege

  • Ten Years

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    It is ten years to the day that I started writing Balls of Rice.

    If you read from the painfully embarassing first post, to the lost and meandering most recent post, you’d see how I went from proud flag-loving Canadian to dissident anarchist-in-training. You can see a public journal of mental health. Ten years later I still don’t know why I write, still don’t know what I’m doing with my life, still eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches for supper. All I know is that Balls of Rice has both saved my life and ruined it.

    Naturally, the only posts worth reading were written in the last four years. The six years before that was trial and error, with more error than anything. These days there is less trial and about the same amount of error. The list below is not a list of the best writings, because reading over every single post could only end in crushing depression. But these ones are alright, I think.

    Thanks to whoever has read this in the past decade for the encouragement. If it weren’t for you, I’d probably be a successful engineer by now. Instead I’m a squatter in the back of a pizzeria.

    Thanks for still reading, mom and dad. Oh you stopped reading it in 2012?

    Yeah. Me too.

     

    Notable Posts:

    Realistic Ideas – August 30, 2012

    Losing Faith – December 2, 2012

    Cheap Attempts at Warping History – April 2, 2013

    Dear Mouse, – September 17, 2014

    I wasn’t shot dead in the CN Railyard – December 29, 2015

    Still don’t know – July 26, 2016

  • Lyrics of the Month: June 2016 – Neko Case

    Everything’s so easy for Pauline
    Everything’s so easy for Pauline
    Ancient strings set feet a light to speed to her such mild grace
    No monument of tacky gold
    They smoothed her hair with cinnamon waves
    And they placed an ingot in her breast to burn cool and collected
    Fate holds her firm in its cradle and then rolls her for a tender pause to savor
    Everything’s so easy for Pauline

    Girl with the parking lot eyes
    Margaret is the fragments of a name
    Her bravery is mistaken for the thrashing in the lake
    Of the make-believe monster whose picture was faked
    Margaret is the fragments of a name
    Her love pours like a fountain
    Her love steams like rage
    Her jaw aches from wanting and she’s sick from chlorine
    But she’ll never be as clean
    As the cool side of satin, Pauline

    Two girls ride the blue line
    Two girls walk down the same street
    One left her sweater sittin’ on the train
    The other lost three fingers at the cannery
    Everything’s so easy for Pauline

    -Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Margaret Vs. Pauline

  • Lyrics of the Month: May 2016 – Rilo Kiley

    Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can’t move
    Awake but cannot open my eyes
    And the weight is crushing down on my lungs I know I can’t breathe
    And hope someone will save me this time

    And your mother’s still calling you insane and high
    Swearing it’s different this time
    And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her
    And that God never blessed her insides

    Then you hang up the phone and feel badly for upsetting things
    And crawl back into bed to dream of a time
    When your heart was open wide and you loved things just because
    Like the sick and the dying

    And sometimes when you’re on, you’re really fucking on
    And your friends they sing along and they love you
    But the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap
    And it teases you for weeks in it’s absence
    But you’ll fight and you’ll make it through
    You’ll fake it if you have to
    And you’ll show up for work with a smile
    You’ll be better you’ll be smarter
    And more grown up and a better daughter
    Or son and a real good friend
    You’ll be awake and you’ll be alert
    You’ll be positive though it hurts
    And you’ll laugh and embrace all your friends
    You’ll be a real good listener
    You’ll be honest, you’ll be brave
    You’ll be handsome, you’ll be beautiful
    You’ll be happy

    Your ship may be coming in
    You’re weak but not giving in
    To the cries and the wails of the valley below
    Your ship may be coming in
    You’re weak but not giving in
    And you’ll fight it you’ll go out fighting all of them…

    -Rilo Kiley, A Better Son / Daughter, The Execution of All Things

  • Lyrics of the Month: April 2016 – The Weakerthans

    Had one of those days when you want to try heroin,
    drunk driving, some form of soft suicide.
    Sitting in silence and staring at ceilings
    or peeling the paint off of things to confide.

    Maybe someday the lies we’ve led around
    will crawl under our beds
    and sleep off the years.

    Teach me to wiggle my ears like that,
    show me the scar that you got when you fell off your bike.
    Ask me the questions you never want answers to.
    We can re-write them however we like.

    Maybe someday the lies we’ve led around
    will crawl under our beds
    and sleep off the years.

    Stop the hardwood floor’s lopsided grin.
    Leave the dirt and dead flowers in a brown coffee tin.
    Let your hand melt a hole in the frost.
    Peer out under a sky that looks just like a shirt I lost.

    Someday the lies we’ve led around
    will crawl under our beds
    and sleep off the years.

    -The Weakerthans, Fallow, Leash