we are the nobodies

SONG OF JOY “Allow me to impose on you. I have no place to stay.” “I had no idea what happiness a little love could bring.” “All things move towards their end.” “She grew so sad and lonely.” “Ah, I see sir, that I have your attention!” “How often have I asked that question?” “They were quiet as a mouse. There was no laughter in the house.” “She’d been stabbed repeatedly and stuffed into a sleeping bag.” “Someone’s taken four innocent lives.” “They never caught the man. He’s still on the loose. It seems he has done many, many more.” “The wind round here gets wicked cold.” “I’ve left my home. I drift from land to land.” “Do you reckon me a friend?”

STAGGER LEE “Never ever come back no more, ____.” “Mr Motherfucker, you know who I am?” “I don’t give a good goddamn.” “I’ve heard your name down the way and I kick motherfucking asses like you every day.” “Those were the last words that the barkeep said ‘cause ____ put four holes in his motherfucking head.” “Just count the holes in the motherfucker’s head!” “You ain’t look like you scored in quite a time.” “You’ll have to be gone before my man ____ comes in.” “You better get down on your knees.”

HENRY LEE “Stay all night with me.” “You won’t find a girl in this damn world that will compare with me.” “The wind did howl and the wind did blow.” “The girl I have in that merry green land, I love far better than thee.” “With a little pen-knife held in her hand, she plugged him through and through.” “Come take him by his feet.” “Throw him in this deep, deep well.” “Lie there, ____, till the flesh drops from your bones.” “The girl you have in that merry green land can wait forever for you to come home.”

LOVELY CREATURE “There she stands, this lovely creature.” “I asked would she walk with me a while.” “I’ll walk with you a while.” “At night the deserts writhed with diabolical things.” “The wind lashed and it whipped me.” “When I got home, my creature was no longer with me.” “Somewhere she lies, this lovely creature, beneath the slow drifting sands.”

WHERE THE WILD ROSES GROW “They call me ____ but my name is ____.” “Why they call me it, I do not know.” “From the first day I saw her, I knew she was the one.” “Her lips were the color of the roses that grew down the river, all bloody and wild.” “My trembling subsided in his sure embrace.” “He wiped at the tears that ran down my face.” “She was more beautiful than any woman I’ve seen.” “Do you know where the wild roses grow?” “Give me your loss and your sorrow.” “The last thing I heard was a muttered word as he knelt above me with a rock in his fist.” “All beauty must die.”

THE CURSE OF MILLHAVEN “I live in a town called ____ and it’s small and it’s mean and it’s cold.” “If you come around just as the sun goes down, you can watch the whole thing turn to gold.” “It’s around about then that I used to go a-roaming.” “All God’s children, they all gotta die.” “My mama often told me that we all got to die.” “They found him the next week up in One Mile Creek.” “We all had to watch as he buried her.” “Our little town fell into a state of shock.” “A lot of people were saying things that made little sense.” “Foul play can really get a small town going.” “Twenty cops burst through my door without even phoning.” “I’ve struck horror in the heart of this town.” “Since I was no bigger than a weevil, they’ve been saying I was evil.” “I’m a wicked young lady, but I’ve been trying hard lately.” “Aw, fuck it, I’m a monster, I admit it!” “They’re underneath the house where I do quite a bit of stowing.” “That was the biggest shit-fight this country’s ever seen.” “I was laughing when they took me away.” “It ain’t such a bad old place to have a home in.” “There’s so much more I could have done if they’d let me!” “I’m happy as a lark now, and everything is fine.”

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS “They found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed with a rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head.” “She’d grown up hungry, she’d grown up poor.” “She wanted to see the deep blue sea.” “She checked into a cheap little place.” “I’m a good girl, sir. I couldn’t possibly permit you in.” “In hope and loneliness she crossed the floor, and undid the latch on her front door.” “Mothers, keep your girls at home.” “Tell them this world is full of danger and to shun the company of strangers.”

CROW JANE “Horrors in her head that her tongue dare not name.” “She lives alone by the river.” “The company closed down the mine.” “Seems you’ve remembered how to sleep.” “I asked that girl which road she was taking. Said she was walking the road of hate.” “They’ve followed you right back to your gate.”

O’MALLEY’S BAR “I’ve been known to be quite handsome in a certain angle and in certain light.” “You wouldn’t be the first.” “My hand decided that the time was nigh.” “When I shot him, I was so handsome.” “I bear no grudge against you.” “I am the man for which no God waits but for which the whole world yearns.” “I’m marked by darkness and by blood and by a thousand powder-burns.” “You know those fish with the swollen lips that clean the ocean floor?” “Amongst the townfolk she was a bit of a joke but she pulled the best beer in town.” “I shot that motherfucker down.” “I have no free will!” “If I have no free will then how can I be morally culpable, I wonder.” “I’ve lived in this town for thirty years- to no one I am a stranger.” “I want to introduce myself and I am glad that all you came.” “I leapt upon the bar and then I shouted out my name.” “With an ashtray as big as a fucking really big brick, I split his skull in half.” “The light in there was blinding full of God and ghosts of truth.” “The remorse I felt, remorse I had, it clung to everything.” “Did you know I lived in your street?” “Drop your weapons and come out with your hands held in the air.” “I had one long hard think about dying.” “There must have been fifty cops out there.”

Joan Jett - Bad Reputation