Gary Marks Song Lyrics: Selected Lyric Snapshots
Selected lyric excerpts from songs written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Gary Marks, spanning the 1970s through the 2020s and exploring freedom, love, memory, political power, environmental responsibility, and personal conscience.
“Choose your memories very carefully.
They’re the crossbeams of the world you’re living in.
They frame and form who you’re bound to be.”
“All the love we take and hide away
we swear does not get lost, it’s just all being saved
but love has to be remade every day or it’s over.”
“Maybe I’ve learned some things out here.
So much of our own fate we choose.
And there’s no road I’ve seen
where anyone outruns the truth.”
“All that is left for us in the end is a looking glass.
All that we can ever know of love and of the loneliness.
The story unfolds by holding up the looking glass.
What can we see?”
“Sometimes I wonder if we’re growing or we’re ending.
Does it all depend upon the messages we’re sending
— is that what’s true?”
“Floating away
on an ocean of time,
swept off to distant lands.
No way home,
just let go
and take in what you can.”
“First you leave the past behind.
Time to free our minds from merely thinking.
Clouds will melt away, nothing left to say
Just feel good in open space.”
“For every man who still can feel
a million more think thoughts are what is real,
and they follow them.”
“Hearts are the logic of man,
while minds scream all they can.
Shouts are bound to fall
but a whisper can change the world.”
“I’m a spirit with the soul of a windblown cloud.
And I’m sure to come to rest
if I only remember now to know why.
Got to remember to know why...”
“In the sun that shines I feel just energy,
the grace to be
simply a joyous feeling
without which the search doesn’t mean a thing.”
“I often thought of stopping thought
But the thought would merely cross my mind.
I used to think “I am what I think,”
But the more I thought about it
It just didn’t seem right.
I finally screamed, ‘Please leave me alone,’
But they told me I’ve been haunted by my past too long
and misery loves company.”
“Leaves drifting apart to be alone.
A sacrifice to help the soul to try and grow.”
“Listen, something’s been missing for a very long time.
I keep trying to find myself through a stranger’s mind.
I keep hearing stories I don’t quite believe in.
I keep living out these dreams that pin my life in.”
“Maybe it was just the hatred at every door.
The old ones on the street wondering what life was for.
Young ones like Cain himself, their minds tied up in knots.
I guess it never stops.”
“On the outside . . .
where reason dissolves with space and time
there are no answers there
that need questions to analyze the sky.”
“Promises of perfect worlds all to come tomorrow.
A heaven synthesized in labs but lord knows who’ll be God.”
“Reason is a nightmare.
Logic’s a pitiful game
if every thought erases the joy
while mocking the innocent things.”
“So on we go,
where our lives will take us
darkness is sure to fall and fall away.
Just one thing left to say - -
baby I wish you well,
I wish you love someday, in time.”
“There shines throughout
the love that reason only talks about
as some vague destiny.
Some eyes perceive it as truth some as God
and some feel free.”
“Try and try
to talk the sky out of times to rain.
But skies tumble on
no one knows
why all the colors change.”
“Walk away from memories
if they don’t build bridges
to where you want to be.”
“We all know we’re doing it
as we tear down this place we’re in.
See it in board rooms as they divide their share of it.
See it in classroom books with little lies built in.
See fathers playing god,
when children sin, they’re shocked.
I guess it never stops.”
“When you wander wear your armor
There are always those who’ll try to steal your soul.
Not all visions lead you home.”
“Why wait for the perfect time,
for the perfect within ourselves,
why wait so long to give and take love?”