The Wayward Bus

All songs written by Stephin Merritt.

When You Were My Baby

We walked alone in the rain and lightning when you were my baby. So much in love it was almost frightening when you were my baby. Everybody called you a fool when you wouldn't play by he rules. Everybody was wrong. Oahu. There was nowhere to run away to when you were my baby. Everybody began to hate you when you were my baby. Time wasn't on our side. Me and my foolish pride. Then I said goodbye. Oahu. Now you've gone away and left me on my own. Now I'm walking down the highway all alone on a rainy night and crying out my eyes. We were young, yeah, but old enough to... When you were my baby. And I just couldn't help but love you when you were my baby. Just the way you wore your hair, and the way you just didn't care and the way you danced. When you were my baby.

The Saddest Story Ever Told

We used to go out on the summer nights and dance in the neon rain. We used to hold hands at the movie show but we'll never hold hands again. Do do do do do come on. Those days are gone. You and I were young those summer nights. You'll see the world diving for a girl you'll never find, and then we'll quietly grow old: the saddest story ever told. Once upon a time we fell in love or at least that's what you said. You say I can find someone else, but I just wish I was dead.

Lovers from the Moon

They say everyone you touch turns to gold. They say we're too young; I think we're too old, ugly as sin, pale and thin. They've been wrong before. They say you're a frog prince swollen with pride, always a bridesmaid, never a bride, getting confused in Santa Cruz, living in a dream. Touching across the room like lovers from the moon. Dancing all night to the tune of "Lovers from the Moon." I'm not afraid to walk hand in hand. I think we were made to lie in the sand, decadently, by the sea, under the sun.

Candy

Candy, it's been really nice, but I've got to go, 'cause I can't be the part of your life you don't wanna know... and I can't keep lying all the time, and I know you'll find a better man, they're all too easy to find, and I'll just go away somewhere and slowly lose my mind. Candy, they called you a baby, they called you a whore, and I can't see the light at the end for you anymore. Candy, I can't be the man they want me to be. Maybe it was only with you that I could be me.

Tokyo a Go-Go

I was only doing my job for the Company, with a gun in my pocket and no identity. I fell in love with you, but we're not free. Tokyo a go-go. The dancing spies with evil eyes that walk the night. Tokyo a go-go. In colored scenes, the dancing queens with laser beams. You were just another boy, only seventeen, well designed for giving pleasure, just a love machine. Now we've got to run away. We're turning green.

Summer Lies

We used to dance like it was going out of style, when you loved me for a while, and I remember every word you ever said; every kiss. We used to sing all the oldest songs we knew, but the words were never true for you. Or was it all a game of solitaire played in the dark? All the sweetest things you said and I believed were summer lies. Hanging in the willow trees like the dead were summer lies. I'll never fall in love again. I whispered too, but the things I said were true and I gave up my whole world for you. I gave you all the best years of my life and half the worst. And now you're gone. I pine and wane, pale and wan, never knowing when it's dawn, curtains drawn, hiding in my room, wasting away, cutting myself.

Old Orchard Beach

Was there some part of you--tail or hunchback; that, when they cut it off, grew back? You were a little girl with starry eyes--now you're a sad young man and no one knows why. When we go dancing underneath the city in the catacombs. When we go dancing the strobe lights and the disco will bring us home. I know Old Orchard Beach is where you belong. You can go back, but, baby, that won't make you young. The wind will blow or it won't. The stars come out or they don't. The world goes round or we get thrown into the stars.

Jeremy

We were young like the future. We were young and always wrong. We were young like our country, learning old ways to be young. Random driving around with you in my dilapidated car, like Isadora Duncan II in impossibly long white scarves. Autumn leaves, diaries, Tennessee and Jeremy. Suddenly, willow trees, memories of Jeremy. Like a Galapagos turtle we grow old and stay that way, build a nest in the sand dunes, lay our eggs and walk away. I was writing our dreams down, making maps of an unseen plane; and I noticed anomalies that you'd rather not see explained. We drove, canopy down, in the scalding rain on the one day we were young. The house we bought was really a lake. Otters scampered down the halls. There were whirlpools in the floor and sails. You're alone and it's over. You're alone with your gun. You're alone. From now on you're all alone, and you're not young.

Dancing In Your Eyes

The summer came and passed us by. We didn't care. We just let it die. But when we dance, just you and I. When we walk hand in hand in the rain, when we're young and in love once again, we will dance in the autumn with the leaves in our hair. When I look I'll be dancing in your eyes. You've gone away over the sea. You will return. It's meant to be. Never regret your time with me.

Suddenly There Is a Tidal Wave

You held me upside-down till I couldn't breathe anymore. Then you held me like a baby. Television, like wine; and cigarettes, like grains of sand; and raspberry schnapps, like a thousand sunsets. The boys talk like they own the world. The women keep their stupid diaries. But suddenly there's a tidal wave and everything is sucked out to sea. There were probably birds outside our little room. I don't remember anything but you. We must have been the butt of all the jokes in the world for trying to live like Pippi Longstocking.