Name: Chained to a Wall of Stone by The Overman
Duration: 2 min 31 s
Description: Written by Keith Charles Dovoric. Performed by The Overman. © 2020, 2025 Broken Pilgrim Songs (All rights reserved)

The Siren’s Song

Chained to a Wall of Stone

Meditation

Some people say that love is like a stranger
And lately, I’m thinking maybe they are right 
You lead your heart into all kinds of danger 
And let it suffer thru the endless night 

I look around to see stone-faced companions 
Members of the Gallery of Shame 
Tryin’ to remember satisfaction 
Tryin’ to remember why they came

And it’s a long road down to the execution block
And it’s a longer way back from the gallows
And I’m sitting with my memory
That is ticking like a bomb or a clock 
But I still feel nostalgic for tomorrow  

Now I recognized a trace of indiscretion 
When I looked into your face that final time 
You forced me into making a confession 
Even though I couldn’t name the crime 

And it’s kind of you to give this witness protection 
Maybe I’ll wind up in a safer place 
A place where ones like me can find direction 
Away from Yesterday and all her waste 

‘Cause it’s a long road down to the execution block
But it’s a longer way back with these sorrows 
And I’m sitting with my memory
and it’s ticking like a bomb or a clock 
But I still feel nostalgic for tomorrow 

Let me find another life tomorrow 
Help me find another life tomorrow 
Gotta find me another life tomorrow 
Let me find another life tomorrow 

© 2008, 2013, 2025 by K. C. Dovoric / Broken Pilhrim Songs (All rights reserved)

Nostalgic for Tomorrow

Pushin’ a pencil -- hey I can do that
I had a year of junior college
Graduated last
In remedial class,
Not a real big one for knowledge 

Daddy got me a job
Said I was a great big slob
Mommy could only sob
And look on in pity

It’s not what you know,
It’s who you know --
NEPOTISM 
It’s not what you know,
It’s who you know --
NEPOTISM 

Haulin sheet metal -- how hard can it be?
Under this gut is pure muscle 
A guy like me
Can stand on his feet
And nobody can give me hustle

Daddy carried me
Thru each opportunity
Affirmative action ain’t free
No, not in the city

It’s not what you know,
It’s who you know --
NEPOTISM 
It’s not what you know,
It’s who you know --
NEPOTISM 


© 2021 by K. C. Dovoric / Broken Pilgrim Songs

Nepotism

Here we go ‘round the prickly pear
Ain’t no one worth talking to in there 
Seeing, feeling, smell the ruin 
The inexplicable isn’t worth doing 

Come find me

Line up the animals two by two
To enter the domain of the déjà vu
The ship may float but the world will sink 
Under the rivers of God’s missing link

Come find me there 
Away from the pain 
The dislocation of being 
Unwelcoming terrain 

The fountain will one day be a lake 
The real McCoy would rather be fake 
And try on some wholesome pseudonym 
Thank every last star you'll never be him

Then come find me 

© 2023, 2025 by K. C. Dovoric / Broken Pilgrim Songs (All rights reserved) 

(From the album ‘Citizens,’ rec. Feb.—Mar., 2025)

One Less Next Day

Did you think you had control
Did you think you had control,
Ha, ha!
Did ya think you had control?
Did you think you had control
Ha, Ha!

You cast yourself a god
In a solo one-act play
You wrote the narrative
To play the hero of the day

Did you think… 

Now a plague is on the land
From a foe you couldn’t see
It blunts your livelihood
And deadens your family

The meek, they shall inherit
But what is it they crave?
We closed our eyes to dream
And woke up in a cave

We closed our eyes to dream
Just to wake up in a cave

Did you think you had control?
Did you think you had control,
Ha, ha!
Did ya think you had control?
Did you think you had control
Ha, Ha!

© 2020, 2025 by K. C. Dovoric / Broken Pilgrim Songs

Joke of the Day

Goodness Hasn’t Come This Way in Years

Lyrics and music by Keith Charles Dovoric. Performed by The Overman. © 2022, 2025 Broken Pilgrim Songs (All rights reserved)

(From the forthcoming album ‘Citizens’)

He closes out one more day
And writes down the tally mark
He puts all the toys away
And locks them all in against dark

Here is a family man
Deep in the throes of life 
The requiem of comfort 
Avails in battle and wife 

When darkness pours down at noon
When winter brings discontent
When time is marked by coffee spoons
You may wonder where pleasure went 

Here is a family man
Far into his orderly mess
Good tidings of great joy
The buffet of loneliness

He sharpens the Thanksgiving knife
And leads the chant of grateful words
Sets the table, his altar of life
For a scapegoat or a scavenging bird

Here is family man
Straight into his target of goods
Immediate in his plans 
And tragically faithful but good 

Lyrics reprinted by permission

Family Man

We don't know who
To include in the march
So we cancel
All the parades
We don't know how
To stanch the blood flow
So we invest it all
In Band-Aids
Forest for forests --
Tree for trees -- 
Progress always comes
In infinitesimal degrees
We don't know when 
To call the fight
So we tear down
The whole arena
We don't know where
To head for shore
So we drown ourselves
In the marina
Like a kid with a sledgehammer
To his Erector Set
Destruction is too easy 
And solutions ain't been tried yet 
We don't know what
The dream will look like
So we dare not
Go to sleep
We don't know why
We'd need a light -- 
We're so happy
In caves dark and deep
Forest for forests
Or tree for trees -- 
In the kingdoms to come
Our work will be done
In imperceptible degrees

© 2020, 2025 by K. C. Dovoric / Broken Pilhrim Songs (All rights reserved)

(From the album ‘Citizens,’ rec. Feb.—Mar., 2025)

Bloodflow

“Progressive-Folk-Alternative-Country-Blues Rock”

The Overman is NJ-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, author and educator Keith Charles Dovoric, noted for his unusual song-arrangements across a wide palette of genres, and for lyrics dealing with philosophical themes of religion, aging, death, mental illness, natural disasters and personal relationships. Of the lyrics, Mr. Dovoric says, “My little songs are essentially comments on the human condition, which though apparently bleak and dark still has the remote potential for a ray of light to peak through and illuminate things. And what seems like, in my work, acidulous harshness is really just tough love.”

Primary influences include artists like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Rush, Talking Heads, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams, the Doors, Warren Zevon, Marillion, Pink Floyd and Genesis; as well as writers such as Milton, Swift, Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Camus, Kerouac, Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, T. S. Eliot, James Baldwin, Ayn Rand, Saul Bellow and Cormac McCarthy. 

All tracks from the latest Overman effort, ‘Citizens,’ are now available on SoundCloud. Stay tuned for updates on the forthcoming album, eponymously titled ‘The Overman.’

Chained to a Wall of Stone

The Overman

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