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Better to have a good friend than a bad relative.

Sicilian proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fundamental of Liar Chapter XCVIII: Absolutely Relative

Expensive is absolute, cheap is relative
Far is absolute, near is relative
Ugly is absolute, beauty is relative
Weird is absolute, crazy is relative
Stubborn is absolute, brave is relative
Stupid is absolute, smart is relative
Weak is absolute, strong is relative
Old is absolute, mature is relative
Lose is absolute, win is relative
Rich is absolute, poor is relative
Sad is absolute, happy is relative
Misfortune is absolute, lucky is relative
Safe is absolute, fear is relative
Love is absolute, hate is relative
Important is absolute, forgotten is relative
Easy is absolute, difficult is relative
Wrong is absolute, right is relative
Bad is absolute, good is relative
Lie is absolute, truth is relative

poem by Maria Sudibyo
Added by Poetry Lover
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I'm Bad

bad bad bad bad bad
bad bad bad bad bad
bad bad bad bad
I was bas born
I'd be badder when I die
I'm bad when I am sober
I'm badder when I'm high
I'm when I feel good
I'm bad when I'm blue
I'm bad to myself
So I'll be bad to you
So I'll be bad to you
I should've been good
Look at the trouble I've had
I would if I could
But I'm just bad
bad bad bad bad bad
bad bad bad bad
I'm, bad and I'm alive
I'll be badder when I'm dead
I'm bad in my body
man I'm badder in the head
I'm bad in the bed
Something wrong from the start
Guilt in my mind
Evil in my heart
Evil in my heart
I don't need to be happy
I don't care if I'm sad
I don't care about nothin'
Cause I'm bad bad bad bad bad
bad bad bad bad
Don't lend me a dollar
Don't lend me a dime
Don't lend me your wife
She'll have a good time
I'm bad in my car
I'm badder when I'm home
I'm bad when I'm with you
And I'm badder all alone
I'm a low down worm
I'm a conquering worm
I'm a blood-suckin' worm
I'm a slime baitin' worm
I'll put you on the hook
And I'll watch you squirm
I could never learn
Any young turks new tricks
I could never learn
Not to kick against the pricks

[...] Read more

song performed by Violent Femmes
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bad Bad Boy

Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Said Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Come take me to your house
Then Im gonna rip you off
Well I made my first kill
With the old town girl
She was the apple of her daddys eye
Well that woman looked up at me
And I said honey well be
Together till the day I die
But I lied
Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Come take me to your house
Then Im gonna rip you off
There seems to be no end
Of women who are lookin for a man
My services dont come cheap
But I help out when I can
Tell them lies that they wanna hear
Andi really lead em on
Spend all of their money
And Im long, gone
Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Come take me to your house
Then Im gonna rip you off
Ive got tastes for fast cars
I dont wanna settle down
The good life sure come s easily
With all the mugs around
The women they just come to me
I dont have to look around
I move into their homes with them
Then I move on
Im a bad, bad, boy
And Im gonna steal your love
Im a bad, bad, boy
Im gonna steal your love
Come take me to your house
Then Im gonna rip you off
Im a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,bad, bad, bad, bad,bad,bad, bad, boy
Im bad, Im bad, Im bad, Im such a, such a bad, bad boy
Im gonna rip you off

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song performed by Nazareth
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bad Girl

Bad Girl"
Sho nuff
Shawty
What it do?
Oooooooh
Pimpin', oh boy
uh
What y'all know about a supermodel
Fresh outta Elle magazine
Buy her own bottles
Look pimp juice, I need me one
Bad than a mutha
I hear you sayin'
I need a bad girl
If you're a bad girl
Playas when you see me
Act like you know me
I keep a dollar worth of dimes
You know pimpin' ain't easy
For all my chicks in the club
Who knows how to cut a rug
If you're a bad girl
Get at me bad girl
[Chorus]
Ooh work me baby
Shakin' it the way I like
I'm ready to be bad
I need a bad girl (say yeah)
Get at me bad girl
What sexy lady's comin' home with me tonight?
I'm ready to be bad
I need a bad girl (super bad baby)
Get at me bad girl
Now I've seen a lotta broads
All on one accord
Everyone looked the same but
Take a look at my dame (my dame)
Fo' sho', she take that Hpnotiq or Alize
There ain't much more I can say but (I need a)
I need a bad girl (bad girl)
If you're a bad girl
Got one thou' on the bar now
Chick need a drink on the flo' now
Look at them bad girls movin' it
Makin' faces while they doin' it
Oh, I wanna take one to the restroom
So close I'm smellin' like your perfume
If you're a bad girl
Get at me bad girl
[Chorus]

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song performed by Usher
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bad Boy

Bad boy, bad boy
Bad boy, bad boy
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Boys will be boys, bad boy.bad boy
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Always gettin so restless, nothin but trouble
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Get me feelin breathless, nothin but trouble
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Bad, bad, bad, bad boy, you make me feel so good
Bad, bad, bad, bad boy, you make me feel so good, knew you would
The way you hold me tight you get me so excited
You do me oh , so right, my heart goes beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat
Bad, bad, bad, bad boy, you make me feel so good, I want you
Bad, bad, bad, bad boy, you make me feel so good, knew you would
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Always gettin so restless, nothin but trouble
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Get me feelin breathless, nothin but trouble
And when he drives me home
I feel safe at night
You call me on the phone
It goes ring, ring, ring, ring-a-ring, ring
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Always gettin so restless, nothin but trouble
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy
Get me feelin breathless, nothin but trouble
Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy

song performed by Gloria Estefan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Bad For Good

BAD FOR GOOD
Music: Rudolf Schenker
Lyrics: Klaus Meine, Dieter Dierks
Bad for good
She tells it like it is
The french word of a kiss
She's so bad for good to me
She's so bad for good
She wants more of this
You can feel it with a kiss
She's as bad as she can be
The thoughts in my head
Where would they be going ?
Seems to me
It's a tough call for one to imagine
They're saying they do when I win
I look in the mirror
Reflect from the ceiling
She wears next to nothin
Next to nothin but only
A touch of perfume on her skin, oh yeeeaaaahhhhh
She's so bad for good
She tells it like it is
The french word of a kiss
She's so bad for good to me
She's so bad for good
She wants more of this
You can feel it with a kiss
She's as bad as she can be
She's so bad for good
She tells it like it is
The french word of a kiss
She's so bad for good to me
She's so bad for good
She wants more of this
You can feel it with a kiss
She's as bad as she can be
If those were my fingers
What would they be doing
Is pouring along
From head to toe like a stranger
To be once again lost and found...yeeeaaaahhhhh
She's so bad for good
She tells it like it is
The french word of a kiss
She's so bad for good to me
She's so bad for good
She wants more of this
You can feel it with a kiss
She's as bad as she can be

[...] Read more

song performed by Scorpions
Added by Lucian Velea
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Tale XVI

THE CONFIDANT.

Anna was young and lovely--in her eye
The glance of beauty, in her cheek the dye:
Her shape was slender, and her features small,
But graceful, easy, unaffected all:
The liveliest tints her youthful face disclosed;
There beauty sparkled, and there health reposed;
For the pure blood that flush'd that rosy cheek
Spoke what the heart forbade the tongue to speak,
And told the feelings of that heart as well,
Nay, with more candour than the tongue could tell.
Though this fair lass had with the wealthy dwelt,
Yet like the damsel of the cot she felt;
And, at the distant hint or dark surmise,
The blood into the mantling cheek would rise.
Now Anna's station frequent terrors wrought,
In one whose looks were with such meaning fraught,
For on a Lady, as an humble friend,
It was her painful office to attend.
Her duties here were of the usual kind -
And some the body harass'd, some the mind:
Billets she wrote, and tender stories read,
To make the Lady sleepy in her bed;
She play'd at whist, but with inferior skill,
And heard the summons as a call to drill;
Music was ever pleasant till she play'd
At a request that no request convey'd;
The Lady's tales with anxious looks she heard,
For she must witness what her Friend averr'd;
The Lady's taste she must in all approve,
Hate whom she hated, whom she lov'd must love;
These, with the various duties of her place,
With care she studied, and perform'd with grace:
She veil'd her troubles in a mask of ease,
And show'd her pleasure was a power to please.
Such were the damsel's duties: she was poor -
Above a servant, but with service more:
Men on her face with careless freedom gaz'd,
Nor thought how painful was the glow they raised.
A wealthy few to gain her favour tried,
But not the favour of a grateful bride;
They spoke their purpose with an easy air,
That shamed and frighten'd the dependent fair;
Past time she view'd, the passing time to cheat,
But nothing found to make the present sweet:
With pensive soul she read life's future page,
And saw dependent, poor, repining age.
But who shall dare t'assert what years may

[...] Read more

poem by George Crabbe
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Too Bad

The troubles you've caused now on you sit.
Too bad.
Too bad.
And everyone of them you committed.
Too bad.
Too bad.
With a causing them you can't admit.
Too bad.
Too bad.

Your eyes now weep.
Too bad.
You can not sleep.
Too bad.
You want to blame somebody else
but on you people peep!
Too bad.
Too bad.

On you...
All your sadness begins!
Too bad.
Too bad.

Your eyes now weep.
Too bad.
You can not sleep.
Too bad.
You want to blame somebody else
but on you people peep!
Too bad.
Too bad.

The troubles you've caused
now on you sit.
Too bad.
Too bad.
And everyone of them
you committed.
Too bad.
Too bad.
With a causing them
you can't admit.
Too bad.
Too bad.

On you...
All your sadness begins!
Too bad.
Too bad.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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Bad Boy

C'mon!
Yeah!
I thought that I was indestructible
But how could I imagine this
I never gave a second thought
Was only hit or miss
While you feed me and it feel so good
Does that mean that wrong is right?
Guess I got the warning
It happened overnight
Honey, it's only nasty
When it's nasty
And you know that it hurts
When it's right
I'm a bad boy
I'm a bad boy
They call me nasty
They call me bad
'Cause I'm a bad boy
I'm a bad boy
There are the good ways
To be a bad, bad boy
I'm a bad, bad boy
I'm a bad, bad boy
I'm a bad, bad boy
Well my behaviour has been in question
Since the day that I was born
I get on my knees to love and to please
Now you've been warned, yeah
Pay the price if you don't ignite
Now they're trying to pick and choose
You may be the most and know the cost
Yes, come to you
Oh your eyes are on me now
My defence must be bad somehow
Bad boy
I'm a bad boy
Call me nasty
They call me bad
But I'm a bad boy
I'm a bad boy
There are the good ways
To be a bad, bad boy
I'm a bad, bad boy
Show me
And it's only nasty
When it's nasty
And you know that it hurts
When it's right, right, right, right, right
I'm a bad boy

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song performed by Quiet Riot
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Decade Under The Influence

Sad, small, sweet, so delicate
We used to be this dying breed
I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about this
You kept still until the long drive home
You slept safe and close to the window...
I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about...
Who's to say you'll have to go (I could go all night)
Well say you'll have to go (I could go all...)
To hell with you and all your friends
To hell with you and all your friends, it's on
Sad, small, sure in porcelain
You're skin and bones, I'm a nervous wreck
I got a bad feeling about this (when it comes to this)
I got a bad feeling about this
You kept still until the long drive home
You slept safe and close to the window
I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about...
Who's to say you'll have to go (I could go all night)
Well, say you'll have to go (I could go all...)
To hell with you and all your friends
To hell with you and all your friends, it's on
I got a bad feeling about this (what is this for?)
I got a bad feeling about...
Anyone will do tonight
Anyone will do tonight
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Anyone will do tonight
Anyone will do tonight
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Anyone (anyone) will do tonight
Anyone (anyone) will do tonight
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Well I got a bad feeling about this,
I got a bad feeling about this (to hell with you and all your friends, it's on).
I'm coming over but it never was enough
I thought it through and my worst brings out the best in you
Well I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about this (to hell with you and all your friends, it's on)
I'm coming over but it never was enough
I thought it through and my worst brings out the best in you
Well I got a bad feeling about this
I got a bad feeling about this (to hell with you and all your friends, it's on)
I'm coming over but it never was enough,
I thought it through and my worst brings out the best in you

[...] Read more

song performed by Taking Back Sunday
Added by Lucian Velea
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Be Good Johnny

Skip de skip, up the road
Off to school we go
Dont you be a bad boy johnny
Dont you slip up
Or play the fool
Oh no ma, oh no da,
Ill be your golden boy
I will obey evry golden rule
Get told by the teacher
Not to day-dream
Told by my mother:
Be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good be good (johnny)
Be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good (johnny)
Be good be good.
Are you going to play football this year, john?
No!
Oh, well you must be going to play cricket this year then,
Are you johnny?
No! no! no!
Boy, you sure are a funny kid, johnny, but I like you! so tell me,
What kind of a boy are you, john?
I only like dreaming
All the day long
Where no one is screaming
Be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good be good (johnny)
Be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Be good be good be good
Johnny!

song performed by Men At Work
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bad Or Good

Everybody got some soul
I dont care about young or old
Gotta hold on when all is gone
Make out like its fine
While we say yeah (bad or good)
Oh yeah (bad or good)
Yeah (bad or good)
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah (bad or good)
Thatll ever happen (bad or good)
Everybody (bad or good) sometimes
Oh, oh yeah
Dont even have to say one word
And its nothing that weve seen or heard
Get out, get out, jump and shout
Theyd like to know what its all about
Just say yeah (bad or good)
Oh yeah (bad or good)
And its alright baby (bad or good)
Gotta happen (bad or good)
Everybody (bad or good)
Sometimes (bad or good)
Some sweet time, ooo-ooo
(instrumental)
If theres something baby
You want me to do
Come on over here and Ill see about you
Yeah Ill make ya shake it all about
Jump and shout
Just say yeah (bad or good)
Oh yeah (bad or good)
Wah ooo (bad or good, bad or good)
Thatll happen, everybody (bad or good)
Sometime (bad or good)
Fades
At sometime (bad or good)
Oh yeah yeah (bad or good)
Oh yeah (bad or good)

song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Fourth Book

THEY met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence
When Lucy Gresham, the sick semptress girl,
Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick,
And leant her head upon the back to cough
More freely when, the mistress turning round,
The others took occasion to laugh out,–
Gave up a last. Among the workers, spoke
A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,–
'You know the news? Who's dying, do you think?
Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it
As little as Nell Hart's wedding. Blush not, Nell,
Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks;
And, some day, there'll be found a man to dote
On red curls.–Lucy Gresham swooned last night,
Dropped sudden in the street while going home;
And now the baker says, who took her up
And laid her by her grandmother in bed,
He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk.
Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach,
For otherwise they'll starve before they die,
That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell,
I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone
Is paralytic–that's the reason why
Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath,
Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle!
Why, Marian Erle, you're not the fool to cry?
Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dress,
You piece of pity!'
Marian rose up straight,
And, breaking through the talk and through the work,
Went outward, in the face of their surprise,
To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life
Or down to death. She knew by such an act,
All place and grace were forfeit in the house,
Whose mistress would supply the missing hand
With necessary, not inhuman haste,
And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues:
She could not leave a solitary soul
To founder in the dark, while she sate still
And lavished stitches on a lady's hem
As if no other work were paramount.
'Why, God,' thought Marian, 'has a missing hand
This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps.
Let others miss me! never miss me, God!'

So Marian sat by Lucy's bed, content
With duty, and was strong, for recompense,
To hold the lamp of human love arm-high
To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them,
Until the angels, on the luminous side

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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So Bad

When you move electricity pulses And the crowd clears out of your way When
you dance it gets a little explosive So look out I think I'm headed your way
I'm movin' in fast Comin' on strong Baby, you're becoming my number one
You're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had Dancin' like you wanna make your daddy mad
You're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had I'm comin' in fast Comin' on strong
You're dancin' like you wanna prove your mamma wrong
When you talk to me I'm not even listening It's your lips not in the things
that you say When you walk it's not about your direction It's a chance to
see the way your hips sway
You know, I'm comin' in fast Comin' on strong Baby, you're becoming
my number one
You're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had Dancin' like you wanna make your daddy mad
You're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had I'm comin' in fast Comin' on strong You're dancin' like
you wanna prove your mamma wrong
I bet you never hear no Bet you get what you want There's no one who'd dare
deny you And if you feel insecure If in doubt, if unsure A mirror will
surely remind you You're so bad (so bad)
So bad
You know, you're comin' in fast Comin' on strong Baby, you're becoming
my number one
Because you're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had Dancin' like you wanna make your daddy mad
You're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had You're comin' in fast Comin' on strong
You're so bad (so bad)
Ooh, the best I had Dancin' like you wanna make your daddy mad
So bad (so bad)
Ooh, I bet you're glad You're comin' in fast Comin' on strong
You're dancin' like you wanna prove your mamma wrong
So bad
So bad
You're so bad
You're so bad
So bad
So bad
So you're so bad
So bad
You're so bad
So bad
So bad

song performed by Darren Hayes
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bad Dream

Im living in a bad dream.
Theyre supposed to be here by now.
What the hell is taking them so long?
I parked the car just like they said.
Now, Im sitting, waiting for a bullet in my head.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
Im supposed to be feeling better by now.
What the hell is taking me so long?
I hit the hay just like they said.
Now, Im sitting, waiting for a bell in my head.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
On a curve, lost control.
On a cliff, lost control.
This is not happening to me.
I say so.
Im supposed to be a better person by now.
What the hell is taking me so long?
Dying saviors off sum cross.
Now, Im hoping and Im praying that theyll nullify my losses.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Gordon gano: vocals, guitar
Brian ritchie: acoustic bass guitar, vocals, autoharp
Guy hoffman: drums, vocals
David vartanian: electric piano
Produced by brian ritchie and gordon gano
Recorded and mixed by david vartanian at dvs perversion room, milwaukee, wi
gorno music reprinted with permission

song performed by Violent Femmes
Added by Lucian Velea
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