Nearer to Nowhere
Copyright 2021 Mark Baughman

There's a high mass in the subway
There's a salon on the street
A crowd is giving witness
They drop at your feet
And all this went by while you
Waited for a sign
Eyes fixed on something shiny
It made you go blind

A stranger circling 'round you
Looking for his chance
He spied the situation
And he put you in a trance
He recognizes
Weakness and fear
I can see that he's drawing you -

Nearer to nowhere, further from where we started, remember? I know it's hard, but just close your eyes and try to feel what you felt when you held my hand

They opened up the prisons
But you stayed in your cell
The guards and the warden
Didn't treat you so well
The bars are in your memories
Stronger than steel
The lock's your confusion
'Cause none of it's real

Directions that go
To a place that's not there
And the driver you called
Just sits there and stares
You climb in the back
But the car, it won't move
And you find yourself desperate to - 

Prove to yourself, or the people who love you so much, but you don't seem to know they're right there, around you, just waiting to touch you if you'd hold out your hand

Open the envelope
Take out the papers
Fold them up neatly
And put them away
Pick up the pieces
Put them together
No misdirection
To lead you astray

Tear up the papers
Tear up the envelope
Crush in your hands
And set them afire
Sweep up the ashes
Throw to the wind
And ask yourself, honestly:
Want or desire?

They're dousing the candles
And crossing themselves
And the prophets of the sidewalk
Their books on the shelves
You stood up and ran
Down the alley in the dark
From the light that laid you out -

Stark - all the things that you know but still you can't face that it's hard and you need someone to cover for you while you find your place and station in time

Nearer to Nowhere

Seven Years at Sea

Copyright 2021 Mark Baughman/Working Theories Publishing ASCAP
All rights reserved

I Just got my legs underneath me
After seven long years at sea
I was longing to be back on the dock
Where I sat and I longed to be free
The ship deserted the captain
And the first mate, he came and he went
We swore that we'd go the distance
But we didn't know what we meant

My first port of call was a siren
Dressed in another man's shirt
She said, "Throw your fate to the winds,
But saying a prayer might not hurt"
So I walked down a path to a chapel
That hundreds had walked down before
I spoke to a stone in a garden
And wondered what it was there for

I wish I had known that this was just
The quiet time before the storm
But sitting there, thinking it over
The opinions I shouldn't have formed
Well, I couldn't say I wasn't warned

A character I read in a novel
I ghost I saw in a play
Just when I came to the precipice
She turned up with something to say
I went to her, put out my arms
And she vanished like dark in the night
So I carried on with my loneliness
Chasing the dimmest of light

Well, I lost my sense of contrition
And fell in with hustlers and thieves
They payed life like it was a card game
With more than an ace up their sleeves
But somebody's only a winner
'Till the dealer puts out a new hand
You don't really know where you are
When you don't really know where you stand

With all the conditional friendships
Not even my hand was warm
With all of their manifestos
And all of their movements reformed
I couldn't say that I wasn't warned

I don't know what's more important - 
Where I went to or where I came from
The souvenirs I collected add up to
A whole lot less than the sum
And the girl I left on the pier
On that morning I went out to sea
She's in love, or she's in denial
While she's unweaving her tapestry

I made some inquiries and there's no passage back
And there's nowhere to stay around here
It won't do just to ride along
But I won't mind if someone else steers
Everything comes to me bittersweet
My heart so exquisitely torn
And now my home's the relentless pursuit
Of a vision so beautifully formed
I know - I was told
With fanfare and scold
So I couldn't say I wasn't warned.

Seven Years At Sea

Coming Home

Words & Music Copyright 2024 Mark Baughman/Working Theories Publishing ASCAP

Something through the window
Sent me on that dream again
Standing sentry at your door
Waiting there in vain
I sat down on your steps
Looked up to the empty night
Then I fell down to my knees 
And I prayed to God for light

Tonight I know there's people out there
Sleeping in their beds
Hiding from each other 
With their pillows on their heads
The people in this town
Have their secrets locked and sealed
No one's going to let them out
Let no one be revealed

Summer sun was fleeting
Now winter's in the air
I don't know what she's thinking
But I know she doesn't care
We marched out wearing our colors
And surrendered all too soon
The angels we thought guarding us
Were never in the room

Close my eyes remembering
Was more than I could stand
Bargaining with no one
With nothing in my hand
Feel that night all over
Or feel nothing there at all
Hear my thoughts echoing
Off a chamber wall

Walking down the center of a highway
Late at night, a carpet in the hollow
A headlight flashed ahead, just as quickly disappeared
I prayed that this memory wouldn't follow

The smell of summer pine trees
From some forgotten day
Entices and intoxicates
Until I drift away
My friends all say I've changed
But I don't think they know
I'm still sitting on your porch
And you're never coming home

Never Coming Home

Your True Face
Copyright 2017 Mark Baughman

From the new Rock Opera Release.
The character Patrick is conflicted about his feelings about Amy, who saved him.

All the time alone
I wondered to myself
Did anybody hear a thing I said?
Acting out the simplest things
Living impatiently
Locked up in the prison in my head
From the moment 
You stepped into my world
And did those things you naturally do
I was at home at last
Finally safe, at peace
With faith in someone beautiful and true
I know enough to know what I am
Didn't know what I could be

The sun came out 
Gave warmth to this space
And the chill that I lived with
Left without a trace
I remember the instant
It fell into place
When you opened the door
And showed me your true face

All the ships that sailed
And crashed upon your shores
Was it that they couldn't see your light?
I've been fixed on your beacon
Though it's aimed another way
It may be dim to them, to me it's bright
What I give to you
I know doesn't mean a thing
It's not what you were looking for
I would build you a palace
Of hope and faith and peace
But you'd never let me walk you to the door
Traded one prison for another
But now I can say how I feel

When the sun comes up
And you look around
And you listen for
Some distant sound
It will be me you hear
Singing from this place
Where you opened your heart
And showed me your true face

All the time you spent
Chasing your dreams
Seeming even longer on your own
There's nothing sadder
Than looking all your life
Then finding it, and finding you're alone
I know enough to know who you are
I know who you could be

When the sun is high
And it's beating down
And it's hard to tell
The sky from the ground
I'll be on the horizon
Saving your place
Where we can live peacefully
Out of this race

When the sun goes down
And the night grows cold
And the winds of time
Are testing my hold
I will live in  the moment
It fell into place
When you opened your heart
And showed me your true face

Your True Face

The Weight

Eureka Springs
Copyright 2019 Mark Baughman

At a café on a mountain
In a town that time rolled by
I was thinking about my next stop
When something caught my eye
She was sitting alone at the counter
Looking up and stirring her tea
She slid off the stool, skirt bellowing
She set sail right over to me

She stopped and looked out of the window
Distant, eyes fixed, on a dream
A noise broke the spell and she looked down
And asked if I was what I seemed
She pulled at my arm, then released me
Walking away, then looked back
Watching her dance, I was thinking
Her train’s on some other track

She sat down, took my hand
Reading my palm
I closed it on hers
She was suddenly calm
Said she was an actress
What role would she play?
I felt this compulsion
To take her away

We left through a door in a mirror
To a valley with river and mill
Slowly we walked through a garden
Our way to a house on a hill
A flash – and the house burned to ashes
And the garden turned into dust
So quickly defying description
Whatever had happened to us

 I went to my coffee
She went to her tea
I tried to ignore her
Looking at me
The turned and announced
As she reached for the cream
“I’ve seen it before
He’s not what he seems.”

Eureka Springs

Racing to the Bottom

Copyright 2020 Mark Baughman
All rights reserved

My eyes were tight and burning
When I came to in the cell
With a hundred true believers
Sent to spend the night in Hell
They'll be picking up their ribbons
Disappear into the crowd
And waiting for dispatches
That will come through clear and loud

I walked around a corner
There was something going down
Heard a siren from behind me
Someone threw me to the ground
They were kicking me as I
Curled into a ball
Then the boots went marching on
And the sky began to fall

A soldier rolled me over
I couldn't see his face
His black boot on my throat
While he sprayed my eyes with mace
He was acting on instructions
He was answering a call
He pulled me by the collar
Threw me up against the wall

 He said "Take me to your leader."
I said, "I don't understand
I was only on my way home
Wasn't there to make some kind of stand
It's not Selma, It's not Montgomery
It's not 1968
That show's in syndication
And we already paid the freight."

I could barely make him out
My eyes all tears and blood
I reached out to touch his face
And he hit me with a club
I heard a woman laughing
Then beckon him away
He gave me one last shove
Then headed back into the fray

Deep inside you hear a voice
Telling you that everything has rotten
Sitting in your living room
Watching as we're racing to the bottom

 
The smoke and tear gas drifted off
I could make shapes out of the dark
They chained me in the wagon
Just for being in the park
I passed out in my filth
And I woke up to a fight
Restless and exhausted
It went on and on like that all night.

On and on.

Racing to the Bottom

Please Take Me Home
f. Mella Barnes
Copyright 2020 Mark Baughman 
All rights reserved

Watching my life 
Unfold like a movie
With one desperate scene 
Then another
Misjudging the players
The way that I do 
And when it’s too late
I discover
It all came to nothing
And it’s starting again
I keep thinking different
But the same way it ends

Watching the episodes
Hoping the hero
Can see what’s just
‘Round the corner
The signs were all over
The messages clear
But I couldn’t stop
Couldn’t warn her
It wouldn’t have mattered
She just looked the other way
With all of the ways out
She just stayed

Well, I’m getting tired
Of watching this movie
The ending is always the same
And I’m getting weary 
Of feeling like this
I did nothing to be so ashamed

I don’t understand
What keeps holding me here
But this is not me
It’s what I became

Somebody
Please take me
Please take me home

Year after year
I lost self-respect
And made up for it
Drowning in prayer
All of my family
Looked away, laughing
And eventually
They didn’t care
It didn’t matter
I let them treat me that way
With all of the ways out
I just stayed

I gave them more
Than I thought that I had
Recklessly piling up debt
Then came the time
When I called it all in
And nothing was all I could get

Now I don’t remember
What I was trying to do
Or what I meant to forget

Somebody
Please take me
Please take me home

I see it unravel, despite
All the years of my loyalty
A humble devotee, a soldier
Who stood on the line
I never aspired to be taken
As noble or royalty
But I never earned the disdain 
I’ve felt from them all of this time

Oh, now I resolve
Let slip the bonds
To handle the oars
And to row
Out to a place 
On the edge of the world
A place they said
I coudn’t go
I know what matters
Blessed with a gift
One last chance 
To find what I missed

I let chances go
One after another
Waiting for something in vain
Now I can see
They were messengers sent to me
Lovingly to ease my pain

Will i get the chance
To take it all back
Knowing nothing is ever the same?

We live out our lives
Collecting regrets ’till there’s 
Nobody left here to blame

But for once in my life
I can be so much more
Than that person they think I became

Please someone
Send me an angel
Who can come take me home

What I Became (Please Take Me Home)

Get Me Back to Birmingham
Copyright 2021 Mark Baughman, all rights reserved

I was falling out of my dream 
And my hands began to shake 
And the wind blew through the  
Open windows fast 
One last pack of cigarettes 
I bought to stay awake 
I can only hope what's left 
Is going to last 
Listnin’ to the radio 
I don’t care what they play 
Just got to get me to the 
Jefferson County line 
She said she’d leave at sunrise 
She said this would be the day 
Got to get me back to 
Birmingham in time 

The flags above the rest stops 
And the crosses on the hills 
A dixie call to prayer 
That was and always will 

Everything is possible 
And nothing’s out of reach 
When you’re driving on this road 
This time of night 
A phrase without a sentence 
Her name lit on a screen 
Next thing I know I’m here 
Racing with the light 
I just counted all my blessings 
You know, it didn’t take me long 
Some I know and  
Some I just believe 
Need to get me back to that sleepy town 
Paint my shadow on her door 
And show her why she  
Doesn’t need to leave 

Oh the air is wet and warm 
From the Gulf of Mexico 
Moving up from Mobile 
Where the world is turning slow 

I met her at the fairgrounds 
Right outside the revival tent 
We went down to the river 
And we wondered where it went 
She invited me into her house 
I said I couldn’t stay 
She said she couldn’t leave 
And the wind took me away 

 
The numbers on the highway	
Are counting down to her 
With all the needles 
Riding on the red 
And the cameras are flashing 
But I drive on undeterred 
The truckers making runway lights ahead 

Oh, the steering wheel is turning 
As if it knows the way 
It turns down to her street 
Just in time to meet the day 

And there were all my blessing 
With her suitcase at the door 
She smiled at me and opened it 
Just like she did before

Get Me Back to Birmingham

Does anyone out there still write songs that are interesting, with melodies and lyrics and meaning?  -  Yes!

Mark Baughman is a composer, guitarist, playwright, visual artist and architect (yes, really, an architect). Based in Washington, DC, Mark writes songs that are more than stories - they are movies with vivid characters and real emotions. The songs have carefully crafted lyrics, melodies and song structures. Mark is incredibly versatile and prolific, easily moving from one genre to another to express what's on his mind and in his heart.

Mark has written and produced to stage 3 rock operas - 99, Release and Energie. Each tells a story of complex contemporary adult life. He is presently writing his 4th show, entitled Victoria Falls, and he posts the new songs as they are completed. 

Between the rock operas, Mark has produced 5 other albums - She Dreams of the Ghost, Charmed Life, Victoria Falls, No Prophet Here and Divided by Zero - which further showcase his songwriting dexterity and musicianship. 

Mark's live band is called Working Theory and takes different forms depending on the show  and venue. And he's busy now working on the next thing.

Seven Years At Sea

Mark Baughman's Working Theory

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