I Could Laugh (Live at DK’s, 1988)

[Spoken Intro]
We'd like to leave you with this last number. Because you are beautiful. We'd like to thank you for coming to our concert. Hopefully, y'all go out and buy the record and bug these people that own this place, they'll bring us back, and we'll come back and play the exact same concert. No, hopefully by then we'll have some more relevant and pertinent songs for your liking. Thank you very much.

[Verse 1]
Mama don't understand
She wants to hold my hand
Night and day
And she don't like my clothes, and
They're wearing thin
On her nerves
And she don't like my hair, and
My glorious crown
Brings her down
And she won't take me serious
Think I'll join the circus
Be a clown

[Chorus 1]
And they'll all laugh
They'll all laugh
They'll all laugh
But it's not funny, no

[Verse 2]
And I'm restless
Wanna bust out of my skin
Got a rocket
In my pocket
Got no fuel
No charted course
Got no direction
No, they did not give me those in school
Yes, I've been a fool for cool
But no kind of hair, no shoes, no jacket's
Gonna help me to hack it, hack it
Hack it to pieces, man, I've had it
And you can have it

[Chorus 2]
Then I'll laugh
And I'll laugh
Whoa, I'll laugh
It's not funny at all

[Verse 3]
Should I recall
All the people
I have hurt along the way?
Then I try to justify
Every wrong I did not right
But two wrongs don't make it right
And so they keep me up at night
And I lie awake and while away the meanwhile
And meanwhile
Meanwhile I dwell
On the baby that I killed
Or the drink I should have not refilled
And every heart I've broke in two and left to die
Bleeding on the roadside
Or I could sit
Let my eyes get filled with mist
For every girl that I should not have kissed
And all the broken family ties
The loved ones I have missed
Yes, I have mist in my eyes
And so I cry, but why should I, should I

[Chorus 3]
When I could laugh?
I could laugh
I could laugh
But it's not funny, no
It's not funny, no
It's not funny, no
It's not

[Verse 4]
Well, I wonder what'll get me off
So I pick and choose and take
And in a couple years, you're right, I'm left with
A great big heartache so deep and wide
That no matter
What I stuff inside, it's empty
Just the way it came
It's a crying shame
But all the same

[Chorus 4]
I laugh
Oh, I laugh
Yes, I laugh
But it's not funny
It's not funny

[Verse 5]
Ah, everything I've got, I'm gonna lose, both good and bad will pass
And what next? What lies beyond the broken dreams
And shattered mirrors
I keep looking in to check my luck or skill?
But only pride
Only pride
Only pride
Only pride keeps staring back, and still

[Chorus 5]
I laugh
Still I laugh

[Verse 6]
And none of this
Of course, will stand
When I stand
Before the man
On that great day
Of the great divide
When all the queens and kings
Will have their closets emptied
And the bones will all fall out
Them bones, them dry bones will not fail
Dead men will tell tales

[Chorus 6]
And you can laugh
And I can laugh
And we can laugh
It's not funny, no
I can laugh
You can laugh
We can laugh
It's not funny, no
And I can laugh
We can laugh
We all can laugh our butts off, but it ain't funny, funny
No, no, no, not funny
No, no, no, it's not funny
No amount of money
Will make things sunny
No Playboy bunnies
You can laugh
It's not, it's not

[Guitar Solo]

[Outro]
Thanks an awful lot. Goodnight.