Calling of the Tiger

Words and Music by John Thayer

This is the story of a young parish priest

In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu

He inspired all he spoke to

But he lost his faith

While celebrating the Holy Qurbana one day

He continued in this way

Lying to his congregation

Trying to convince himself to regain what he had lost

Praying to St. Thomas for direction

Angry at God for abandoning him…

One day he awoke from a dream

Standing over him was a tiger who spoke to him

“I am Lord Ayyappan, born of Shiva and Vishnu

You will listen and hear what I say

You cannot control what is right for you to believe

You will leave the land of your birth

You will open yourself to all gods

To all of humanity

To all creatures

When I Joined the Cult

Words and Music by John Thayer

I was brought out of my despair

By a woman who was a Baptist missionary

Seven feet tall and a shaved head

She had been in India for 5 years serving the poor

She had adopted many of the local customs and dress

She talked about a different kind of salvation

She said she was still working it out

We fell in love

She said she wanted to take me back to America

To live with a community of believers she found on line

We flew to New Mexico pretending to be husband and wife

When I joined the cult

They didn’t know my name

When I joined the cult

They were really glad I came

I liked their doctrine

And their moral codes

I liked their logo

And I really liked their clothes

The cult was a nice place

To make some changes to anyone’s life

The cult was the right place

To find a house and a dog and three wives

So you want some new flavors

Some new realities to try

Well we’ve got lots of saviors

You could be next to qualify

When I joined the cult

I finally found some peace

When I joined the cult

We had to evade the police

But they caught up with us

At our compound in Clovis

Guns and bombs ablazin’

The way the west was meant to be won

The curtain was rising

On the gods and the dogs and their daughters and sons

So you want some new flavors

Some new realities to try

Well we’ve got lots of saviors

You could be next to qualify

Yeah, Shiva was there

With his third eye and blue throat

The Christ child was there

With his mother and her unyielding hope

We thought the force was with us

Along with Gandalf the grey

Something within us

Wouldn’t let us give up that day

But we made it out alive

My lover and me

We hid out in an underground

Drainage pipe

Eating cockroaches until the troops left

Until we were declared dead

And free

It didn’t last between the two of us

She wanted to give up her quest for God

And go back to school

I hear she became an attorney

Specializing in anti-trust action

And hiding a 200 lb tortoise

In her upper east side Manhattan apartment

I can never forget her

My greatest grace

So you want some new flavors

Some new realities to try

Well we’ve got lots of saviors

You could be next to qualify

Recipe For Darkness

Words and Music by John Thayer

I found an old piece of paper

And on it was a list

Above the list, a title:

“A Recipe For Darkness”

“One Movie by Tim Burton

For best results, the most absurd

One broken down piano

That only plays the minor third

One double-crossing devil

Oh, and wouldn’t it be nice,

One angrier archangel

Preferring power over paradise

One long, looming recession

One teenager with depression

3 love songs gone unsung

4 miners with black lung

An old hound-dog’s growl

An irritated teacher’s scowl”

But the darkest thing written there

Was the most harrowing yet

The whole recipe would fail

Without this one ingredient

Search in every playground

With a magnet and a microscope

For “One nanometer-measured speck

Of one crushed, child’s hope”

I crumpled up that piece of paper

And I threw it away

I didn’t want that recipe

I’d rather make a triple chocolate soufflé

Blasphemy

Words and Music by John Thayer

Blasphemy is what I need

To get up and start the day

To chase these blues away

It’s a dog-dang-ity-blam

Son of sam

You son-of-an-udderless mother’s scam

Made the world in seven days, did ya?

Helped Moses free the slaves did ya?

I’d like to come up and have my way with ya

Shooby-do-bop-bite-skittly-ditey-dee

Judas was more than just all right with me…

Blasphemy is what I need

To help me count the cost

To keep from getting lost

I’d like to sow the seeds

For those with eyes to see

That Allah is most definitely

A She

And She exists in Trinity:

Mother goose who laid the world

Gave birth to neither boy nor girl

Yep, that’s right

Hermaphrodite

The only human who could possibly

Show us all the way

Oh, yeah and mixed race

Of all colors and creeds

Cause all of us need to feed

On that Spirit that binds us

And never blinds us

And one last thing

God needs us

As much as we need her

Devil, Savior or Terminator?

Omni-benevolent or just a hater?

Are you more Yoda, or Darth Vader?

We’ll find out soon enough, guess I’ll catch ya later

Blasphemy is what I need

To bring me back around

To the truth that I’ve found

Made from coffee grounds

And experimental sounds

Hoa-sha hoa-sha

I will no longer hate myself

Berate, frustrate or denigrate myself

And I promise not to judge you

Even though you

The Trinity

Words and Music by John Thayer

On the terms of their imminent separation

The Trinity disagreed

The Son had a lover,

A goddess who chose the life

Of a woman,

Flesh over infinity

The Father grumbled that

He wanted respect

To follow in the family

The Spirit just shrugged,

“I don’t care

I can dwell anywhere

In the hearts and the hopes

Of all who hold me”

Mary just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed

At how well she’d come to know all three

 

Pachamama is Ready to Rumble

Words and Music by John Thayer

She comes from Texas, her daddy raised lamas

Now she’s all grown up, she’s a red neck shaman

And she’s mad as hell, she’s going after China

She’s gonna go free the Panchen Lama

She’s an African princess, grew up in Ghana

She just had a vision of the Pachamama

Calling on her to start up some drama

By going to free the Panchen Lama

All you mamas stand strong, don’t stumble

The time is now to be proud, not humble

Pachamama is ready to rumble

Guatemalteca sin riqueza ni fama

Devotada, sobre todo a la Pachamama

Recibio en su sueño una gran llamada

Pa’ ir a China, no importa la trauma

Dejo un Beso a su amor en la cama

Y se salio a liberar al Panchen Lama

All you mamas stand strong, don’t stumble

The time is now to be proud, not humble

Pachamama is ready to rumble

From the mountains of Kashmir

From the French riviera

From the plains of Wyoming

And the sandy Sahara

The army assembled forged of beaty and truth

With their syncronized cycles (yeah, their watches too)

Their gonna free the Panchen Lama

Then their gonna free you.

All you mamas stand strong, don’t stumble

The time is now to be proud, not humble

Pachamama is ready to rumble

Intro to Cog in the Wheel of God

Words and Music by John Thayer

One night I lay out in the fields

I was thinking about the elections back in the united states

I was living in London then, don’t know

How long I’b been away

I was thinking pensively of public baths and Laundromats

Unwanted plastic bags, soda cans and welcome mats

And saw all at once all the squabbling of

Republicans and democrats

I felt the fury that comes with

Loss of control

I wanted to throw them out with the hogs so they’d feel

That night I headed south

To Wiltshire County where the crop circles appeared

I wanted to find out if they were real or just engineered

I went to the tower of one of England’s abandoned castles

Prepared to wait out the night

Then saw a buzz and a hum and heard a light

I walked towards it kind of fast

And there, in the middle of the grass

I had horrible flashbacks to my geometry class

Circles interlaced with circles

Spirals, fractals, pterodactyls

Connected by invisible equilateral triangles

And a voice

Terror upon terror

“Don’t be afraid to stretch out and feel the fog

Swimming as one with the sacred salt cod

For you are a welcomed cog

In the ever-spinning wheel of God.”

Cog in the Wheel of God

Words and Music by John Thayer

Hey, son, come on in

Glad to see ya’, grab a snack

Your ma’s crackin’ crab claws

Out in the yard out back

And there’s a crack in the universe

And one in every soul

And I’ve been getting used

To bein bought up and sold

Like a Cog in the Wheel of God

Like a Cog in the Wheel of God

Three days in the mountains

Oughta do me some good

The fish are in the fountain

Fightin for their food

And I’m feeling crushed

Or at least a little creased

Somebody’s workin hard on me

Tryin’ to stop my squeak

Like a cog in the wheel of God

Like a cog in the wheel of God

And everyone’s on to you even though you’re not

You’re livin like rust in a body shop

Jesus hid out in the desert with the devil

Each hair is counted but your head’s disheveled

Sometimes my job

Leaves me no time to cope

I can live without fortune

But not without hope

Look around and everyone

Is acting like they’re trapped

From the alien in Roswell

To the priest who’s faith has lapsed

Like a cog in the wheel of God

Like a cog in the wheel of God

Science can answer some questions

And chickens can cook in convection

And this is the new insurrection

No one will win the election

Just a cog in the wheel of God

A cog in the Wheel of God

Jesus Was Just Joking

Words and Music by John Thayer

Jesus was just joking

Jesus was just joking

When he told you

To gauge out your left eye

To chop off your right hand

And throw it into the fire

He thought you’d understand

It was a literary devise

And not some 14th commandment

But you’re such a literal thinker

And prone to be a fanatic

So you’re left with a stump

And an eye-patch

You can laugh about creation

And the meaning of it all

Laugh about temptation

And how hard the angels fall

You can laugh until you’re choking

Or your heart starts to stall

Cause Jesus was just joking after all

Jesus was just joking

Jesus was just joking

When he told you

To turn the other cheek

When somebody wants to hit you

Geez you’re such a geek

You fall for it every time

And it never gets old

Next thing you know you’ll be

Carrying a cross on your back

And man that shit is whack

You should have seen him laugh

When he did that bit about temptation

He didn’t really think lust was a sin

Ask Mary Magdalene

You can laugh about creation

And the meaning of it all

Laugh about temptation

And how hard the angels fall

You can laugh until you’re choking

Or your heart starts to stall

Cause Jesus was just joking after all

New Day Coming

Words and Music by John Thayer

This one’s for the tired

This one’s for the weak

This one’s for the dumb struck

Or just too struck down to speak

This one’s for the anguished

The unrepentant

The never-believer

The unwilling participant

The outlaws are changing their ways

By chewing through their chains

And I can feel a new day coming

The Prophet she screams

Breaks at the seams

And doesn’t receive applause

The crowds were all shocked

When she started to talk

And out of her mouth blew bright moths

And they scattered the skies

Like an army of light

And we knew nothing was what it was

And the ghost riders made their way

On weltering wings of change

And I can feel a hard day coming

A poet and a cheat

Met out on the street

And I couldn’t tell ‘em apart

I’ve been writing this song

For a hundred years or more

And I still don’t know where to start

You know, God’s got one eye

On the deeds that we try

And the other on our dark secrets

For the president’s guts are made of the same stuff

As the bag lady pushing her cart

They would like us to all go blind

But the scales are falling from our eyes

And I can feel a clear day coming

Out of each open wound

A torrent pores through

And sometimes God looses hope

But the battered bells ring

To soften the sting

And we sing cause we sing cause we sing

The sayers have all had their say

Its time they got out of the way

I can feel a new day

I can feel a hard day

I can feel a clear day coming

Day on the Rapid Ride

Words and Music by John Thayer

Sometimes I like to take a good look outside

Take a deep breath then take the day off

I like to climb aboard the Rapid Ride

And visit some of the stops

You know

Some of the stranger places that I’ve yet to see

Cause if you begin to make believe

That you’re free

There’s a much better chance

You actually will be

So the other day I had some breakfast

At one of my favorite haunts

Frontier Restaurant

Then I crossed over the bookstand

Bought a book and then

Took the bus to Rio Grande

I walked over to the religious supply store

Bought a guitar pick with St. Anthony

A Jesus Key chain and a Rosary

Then got on the next bus to the zoo

The ducks were laughing at the swan

The lemurs were making love on the lawn

The baboon was not in the best of moods

First she flung some dung at me

The she ate my rosary

I went to try to wash my shirt, hands and face

Decided I’d better cal it a day

Now one thing about the bus that’s true

No one really wants to sit next to

Some fool who smells like baboon poo

So I stretched out in the luxury

Of my very own air-conditioned seat

I let the bus move me along

Took out my pen and wrote this song…

Climb on in

Words by John Thayer and Su Avasthi

Music by John Thayer

The tiger and the elephant

The liar and benevolent

Climb on in, climb on in

The police and the scum

The priestess feeling numb

The shark and her chum

Climb on in, climb on in

The abortionist for life

The polygamist’s brother’s wife

Sitting next to Mac the knife

Climb on in, climb on in

We gotta get this bus uptown

Everybody get inside

Stop lyin’ on the ground

Climb on in to the rapid ride

The socialite and the Carmelite

Ben and Jerry with their appetites

John Wayne and Mary Magdalene

Climb on in

Minutemen swinging riffle butts

Fundamentalists preaching Vonnegut

Climb on in, climb on in

The circus touring Walrus Man

Making love to the Taliban

Climb on in, climb on in

Stop asking if it’s right

Hurry up and get inside

This is the last bus of the night

Climb on in to the rapid ride

We’re using new alternative fuel

Made from love and Jamba Juice

Everybody get inside

Climb on in to the rapid ride

Everybody get inside

Climb on in to the rapid ride