End of "Darlington County"
´´….they got him for no license, no registration….drunken disorderly….resisting arrest….and impersonatin a human being….”
Intro to "Reason to Believe"
´´Now, this is a song about, uh….blind faith….they say the safeguard of democracy is, uh…. educated citizenry….and uh….if I was you, I´d watch what was going on down in Central America right now…because last time it was my generation and this time it could be your generation…..and just plain blind faith is a dangerous thing…”
Intro to "Nebraska"
´´This is for, uh, Annette, Annette Beaver….it´s about, uh…..about three, four years ago I got interested in an incident that happened up here in late 50´s….and, uh, she was a reporter on the case, she was kind enough to….to help me out, so Annette, this is for you….”
Intro to "Johnny Bye Bye"
´´I guess everybody has, uh, certain things in their lives that they mark, they mark their lives by….certain incidents….events, historical events….and I always remember I was….I was 13 and I was out in gym class when this kid came running across the field….and, uh, told us that John Kennedy´d been shot….and uh….I always remember where I was the day, the day when a friend of mine called me up and told me that Elvis Presley´d died….I was living on this farm in New Jersey and, uh….it was hard to understand how somebody, somebody who´d taken away so many people´s loneliness could´ve ended up so lonely….and uh….I guess, particularly here in America, a dream come true is a dangerous thing….”
Intro to "Glory Days"
´´(after the singalong) Everybody´s hire, everybody on stage….excellent singing….now, this is a song about….ancient history….I don´t mean about the Mesopotamians…or the Trojans ….or the, uh, or the, uh, or the Italians….or the stuff that you, that you learn here in school, I´m not talking about that kind of thing….I´m talking ´bout….personal stuff….I mean the kind of stuff that, that you´re gonna read in the National Enquirer after I die…or, or if my girl-friend gets mad at me, while I´m still alive….(?)(chuckles)….you see, when I was a kid, like, I was interested in three things….when I was about 13, 14, I got interested in playing pool, my father was real good at it, his grandfather was real good at it….so, I was interested in the guitar….and then the other thing I was interested in was, uh ….you know, that one, that one, that one….you know…so like when I was in….one Christmastime, my mother took me to Sears and for 69.95 she got me this little pooltable and like it fit just right in my bedroom ….so, like, I would bring my girlfriends over and I would say to my father : ´Dad, uh, we´re gonna go in my bedroom and play pool a little bit´….and you know, but the kitchen that he used to sit in was right underneath my bedroom…..so if he didn´t hear the poolballs knocking around, if he didn´t hear the guitar playing, he had a broomstick that he would bang on the ceiling….but I kind of had it all figured out, like I used to pull the pooltable way over close to the bed and every once in a while, like, I´d lean up and knock the balls around little bit…. don´t tell nobody this stuff ! (chuckles)….but anyway, as I matured…. I got older, anyway (chuckles)….I gave up pool ….and of the other two….the guitar is the only one I became proficient at…..but the third one…. I´m still looking for some volunteers who wanna practise, practise, practise….I gotta get this down, I gotta get it down (chuckles)….anyway, that´s my glory days….and in the end, all things will pass….so let me tell my story….are you ready, band ?…alright, here we go, ready, people ?”
Intro to "Sugarland"
´´Thanks….thanks, this is uh….I know you got a lot of farmers out here in this part of the country having a hard time….this is called, uh, ´Sugarland´…”
Intro to "My Hometown"
´´Thank you, this is, uh, this next song, I guess, I wrote….about three years ago, I was living in California for a while and I was thinking about the place that I´d grown up….and I guess everybody when they grow up kind of, uh, you end up with sort of a love-hate-relationship with the place that you were born….I know I was, when I was about 16, it was, I think, about 90 percent hate (chuckles) you know, I couldn´t wait to get out of town, it seemed real narrowminded, I used to go to New York all the time on the bus….but uh, I guess you get older, you kind of….get to a place where you kind of end up dealing with the fact that you got….that you got a responsobility to the place that you live….and you kind of stop being so afraid of belonging to something and belonging somewhere….so this is a song about responsobility, I guess and uh….tonight when you go out into the lobby…you´re gonna see some folks from Lincoln and Omaha Foodbank….and uh, what they do is they feed people, right now we got about 20 percent of the food that gets produced in the country here just gets
thrown away, just gets wasted and there´s a lot of hungry people still out on the street, people that have fallen through…uh, fallen through the cracks in our social system and they need a hand….and so those folks are out there trying to do something about it….and uh….you know they´re….I guess mainly they´re trying to make, make the place that you live, a more decent and a better place to live….and so if you can, give ´em a little support, they´d appreciate it, I´d appreciate it and this is your hometown…..”
Intro to "Pink Cadillac"
´´Take it easy now, boys….now….this is a song…..about the conflict …..between worldly things and spiritual health….between desires of the flesh….and spiritual ecstasy….now, where did this conflict begin ?…..well, it began in the beginning in a place called the Garden of Eden….now, the Garden of Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia….but the latest theological studies have found that its actual location was ten miles south of Jersey City, off the New Jersey Turnpike…..that´s why they call it the Garden State….now, understand….in the Garden of Eden , there were none of the accoutrements of modern living….I mean there weren´t any houses and there weren´t like any Laudromats you´d go down and do your clothes, there wasn´t any like, there wasn´t no toasters, you couldn´t put no Pop-Tarts in that toaster at nights and go watch Johnny Carson…..you couldn’t go out on to the highway and buy a cheeseburger if you wanted one….now, in the Garden of Eden….there was no sin….there was no sex…..man lived in a state of innocence ….now, when it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I live in ….but…. before the tour started I decided to go on a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden to find out the answer to some of these mysteries, to what temptation is about, to why my body pulls me that way and my soul pulls me the another way…so I went down to that spot and I found out that it´s now occupied by Happy Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot….so I walked in, the man looked at me, he said ´Son, you need a yellow convertible , a four-door DeVille with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat, fold-out bed in your backseat, eight-track tapedeck , TV and a phone so you can speak to your baby when you’re driving all alone’…I said ‘I’ll take two’….I said ´But Dan, that´s, that´s not the reason I really came, what I wanna know is what´s the answer to these mysteries, why I feel so torn apart by this conflict all the time´ and he said ´Well, son, that´s easy ….because right here in the beginning of time, on these ten beautiful industrially-zoned acres was the sweetest little paradise that man has ever seen, in the Garden of Eden there were many wonderous things : there was a Tree of Life, there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there was a man, Adam, there was a woman, Eve, and she looked fine and when Adam kissed her, it was the first time that a man had ever kissed a woman ….and she had legs that were long and pale …. and when Adam touched her, it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman…. and then they lay down in the green grass…..and when Adam….well, it was the first time…. but something else was in the Garden of Eden that day, Satan came slithering up on his belly and somehow he turned their love into a betrayal and sent them running down into the darkness below, but right here on this backlot, for 99.95 and no money down, I´ve got their getaway car…and if you´ve got the nerve to ride, son….I´ve got the keys….to the first….pink ….Cadillac…´´
Intro to "Racing in the Street"
´´Like, when….when we first started going out….we´d be going out and laughing all the time …always had a good time no matter what we did….and as time went by, it seemed like….the things that made her happy once, they just didn´t make her happy no more….and I was spending most of my time trying to find something new that would make her happy again…. and she got to where she started….hiding my keys so that….so I wouldn´t go out at night…. and, uh… it got hard to make her understand that when…when I took the car out and when I won…..that it was the only time that I…..I ever really felt good about myself….and that we were happy doing it once….and that to have just one thing….in your whole life….just one thing….that makes you feel proud of yourself…well, I don´t think that´s too much for anybody to ask….is it ?….
(….) Well, that was the night that we left….we still don´t know where we´re going yet ….but I guess that´ll come in time….as for this place….there´s a lot here that, that we´ll always remember….but you just gotta keep searching….”
| Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi. |
