1. |
Pentecost
05:27
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When you died, I had feared that your soul,
once released, would not know where to go.
All of our friends, they all wanted to know.
Try as we could, we could not let you go.
There's too many chiefs and not enough indians.
How are we to ensure that you venture from the grave?
So that night, when came the witching hour,
we decided, if it lay within our power,
we should try as hard as we could for some way to summon you.
You appeared, looking just like you'd been.
You said "be not afraid of the holes in my skin".
Every single word you said was like a dagger.
We were all unsure exactly what the matter was,
so we continued asking you what death was like.
But the rising sun, you said, would end you,
and you had to leave us, so I said "Before we send you,
can you tell us anything about the afterlife?"
"We fall in front of trains,
give chains to poor wall sockets,
we dance with weather vanes,
when lightening strikes, we will not die.
Unhealthy habits made
will one day spell disaster,
but if your body breaks,
if your organs fail, you will not die.
Because, I'm unsure what you're asking me for.
How can time choose to only move forward?"
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2. |
Your Thread
03:41
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We don’t
meet too often and with caution
always our third.
We know
we know all the consequences
in every word.
And I know
it’s so below you, long ago you
let it slide,
but I’m still
dressed to kill and eat my fill,
it’s still on my mind.
You’re holding out your hands to say
there’s no hard feelings, there’s no hard feelings.
You’re hoping you can point the way
and if there’s no hard feelings, there’ll be no hard feelings,
but as I start to pull away
I am delicately hanging by your thread.
Blurry
Mata Hari in a sari
whispering to tell her one more time.
Secret,
but only cause of where she keeps it.
Will you be the one to leak it out?
You've promised me there's nothing there,
but I know I feel it, I know I feel it.
You've got me hanging in mid air
I know I feel it, I know I feel it.
And if you want to turn my head,
it’s delicately hanging by your thread.
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3. |
The Sound
03:45
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Oh no,
It's gone.
It's dead,
it's done.
You brought it down
to hear the sound
it made at last,
a final gasp,
just cause you wanted to hear
the sound of death.
And I, I don't blame you.
I don't wanna hang you by yourself.
And I, I don't hate you.
I could never bring myself to that.
I guess
why not
prevent
the rot.
I guess
die young,
so we can just
be rid of you
a little sooner.
So we can just
forget you even existed.
I try to say I'm over it,
but I always end up writing one more song.
And oh, sweet forgiveness.
There was once a stiffness in the way
I remembered
that fucking long November,
when time,
time appraised itself.
Time will one day tear us all away.
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4. |
Fourth of July
03:17
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I'm sorry my dear,
but enough is enough,
the more sorry we are the less we're just in love.
If this distance makes any more fondness grow,
it'll be cracking right up through the floor.
But I love my loneliness,
cause to a child, a firecracker is the Fourth of July.
You smile from the porch in a firefly night,
as I roll around.
I'm scraping my kneecaps and staring, mouth-open, into trails of light.
If this distance makes any more fondness grow,
it'll be cracking right up through the floor.
But I love my loneliness,
cause to a child a firecracker is the Fourth of July.
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5. |
Ghost Town
04:00
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Anton, he was a mastodon.
Worked on the railroad, lived on a sailboat.
Traded it in at the Bargain Bin, so he could go and buy the farm.
Irving reeked of his learning,
sweaters and brimstone, weak in the wrist-bone.
Started with football, then king of the dance hall,
until he kicked the calendar.
There's a bar in Barcelona, saddles are the seats
and if you give a nod to the right person, drinks are free.
So, we would liquor up and softly stumble to the sea.
You couldn't count the stars because there was no night between.
Martha smoked a cigar, but not in the shop, cause that's what her pop does.
Begging forgiveness of the family business,
she wanted to become a star.
Heather lived on a tether.
The cage was rusting and Mom was disgusting.
Dad fought for freedom. She wanted to meet him,
but he would not be coming home.
And when the water wasn't any wetter than the sky,
we began to drink the drink that finally drank us dry.
The only thing I thought of as I felt it filter by:
There'd better be wild horses at this ghost town in the sky.
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6. |
Fear
05:15
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I'm afraid of knowledge.
Everything I learn has tainted me.
Freedom comes with courage,
not by seeing all that you can see.
And on my knees you have found me serving,
but the best of servants are not seen.
And under me, all my roots are growing.
If I hack them up and down this tree,
you won't see me again.
You know you won't see me.
You won't see me in the morning.
Freedom comes with courage.
There will not be anyone but me.
And you will see,
what was once a vestige,
is a man who knows he now must be.
You won't see me again.
You know, you won't see me.
I'm afraid of nothing.
Line 'em up there right in front of me
and you will see something under my courage,
it will let you know what it's like to be me.
And what will be of the life we've made here?
What will come of all our luxuries?
Will they always be around?
I'm afraid of nothing.
There is not a thing you can do to me.
And I will be totally undaunted
by the things you say in front of me.
And I have been living in your fortress,
underneath your war chest.
Don't you see?
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7. |
Siren Singing In Reverse
06:39
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She's like a siren singing in reverse,
cacophonating through the universe.
Her barometric eyebrow phasing,
rapidly pulsating sense of truth.
Will your vibrancy confusticate your fuse?
Will your radiating pulse and rhythm
overwhelm your cylinders with use?
And he's afraid of being on his own.
He's catalytic conversational.
He keeps his hands at two and ten and
anxiously awaits oncoming views,
but the more I gain the more I must refuse.
An invasion of the body-snatchers,
waiting for someone to capture me.
And she can only stay, just for a while.
She's saving time 'till it comes back in style.
She's packing up her overnight and
chiding "there's no point in fighting me,
for I cannot die, I can only change my leaves.
I'll be back tomorrow evening leaving
shortly after morning, after noon"
And he has heard the rain come down in sheets.
He lay there by the window for a week.
He dreamed he took the fire escape
and stalked his way across to Clarkson St.
As he, silent, jumped the borderline between
something grey and something ancient,
thought he "my, oh, what a burden we must breathe."
And I imagine if she was in town,
you wouldn't be so haphazardly wound,
pretending these excuses
aren't the nooses that you use to criticize.
You know better than to belly up and die.
You have cloaked yourself in other's safety.
Come on. Let's be honest baby:
You know it's not like that.
Nobler reasons will not leave you tread upon more softly.
If you know it's a not fair fight,
then why on earth are you so slow to turn around?
Are you awaiting a changing of the guard?
The efficacious death of some great star?
Unceremonious and fading
backwards, fading faster, fading free.
I can see it in the bait between your teeth
You have set a course for failure.
You have sailed yourself toward the reef.
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8. |
Red Carpet Wedding
06:16
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If we knew
other people
to hold onto,
then would we know
how many others
we must let go?
So, as I grow,
I find the ones that
I'd like to know.
And please,
please forget
all of the pieces
that I have set,
because when
the time it comes,
your board is what I
am walking from.
And she put her red dress on and she orbited the room
and she soon withdrew from the presence of the fumes
that were echoing from the mouths of everyone that she knew.
She knew.
And I'm not sure what we could disagree about.
I feel you, as a whole, are on the up and up,
but if you cannot meet me in the middle and concede
to give it all to me, then
then will I
be forced to act a
way I don't like?
For the sake of both of us,
don't make me feel I'm so dangerous.
Because if you do, I'm afraid I'll get carried away, and I'll cause such a mess that the rest of the day, I'll be tied to supply all that I cannot pay, so please, don't leave it up to me.
Twice a week,
Marcus Aurelius,
he comes to speak.
And it always starts out great,
but he ends up boasting
about his slaves.
And if
Genghis Khan,
he comes this evening,
prepare to run.
And don't allow
record collectors
to slow you down.
Because if they do, be afraid! They'll get carried away.
And they'll cause such a mess that the rest of the day
they'll be tied to supply for what they cannot pay,
so please,
leave it up to me.
In all her fairy tales,
a red carpet wedding
to the Prince of Wales.
But then,
white dress fatigue.
It made her sullen
It made her weak.
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9. |
Blood Stone
04:33
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Horror films and
news reports,
watching dizzy girls contort and
growing old and
getting short,
being hunted just for sport,
monsters living in the dark,
dogs with bites worse than their bark,
people saying "we should talk",
getting famous,
being stalked.
Nothing frightens you, but I can smell your fear.
Cause not a word I've said has ended in your ear.
It went into your hair, it's never coming out.
It tangled with the wind, knotted with the doubt.
We are not getting younger
We'll only get what we deserve.
We are not getting younger
We only get our blood from stones.
Because what scares you most is I'm starting to make sense
and nothing you can do is adequate defense,
so why not live with it?
We are not getting younger.
We'll only get what we deserve.
We are not getting younger.
We only get our blood from stones.
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10. |
Why We Stay
06:50
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I don't know,
I don't know why I need you so bad.
There are times,
times every day that I wish that I had
never known,
never known that you even exist,
but if you,
but if you leave me, you would not be missed.
I can see that you're aching,
not much left for breaking.
Your mind is a bottomless pit
that swallows you whole,
when you've lost all control,
and you're screaming that you just need to sit.
You started to cry,
till your water supply demanded you feel some other way.
And your wristband was barbed,
and your Indian garb was betraying you.
You just kept saying "Okay..."
But I don't know
why you stay.
For all that I've done to you,
why you stay.
If even you don't know
why you stay,
then that's enough reason to know
why you have to leave.
Not that you,
not that you even need me around.
I cannot,
I cannot be your council to the crown.
You need some,
you need someone who needs to be you.
But what I,
but what I need is in relation to
relying on chemical fixes
and drug induced mixes
and leaning on this crutch.
But how can my voice,
your prophetic choices be heard
when one cigarette's still just too much?
I've sobered up now, but how 'bout tomorrow?
My crowning achievement's been drowning myself
in one moment kicks I get from these tricks,
but all I end up tricking is myself.
And if even I don't know
why I stay,
then how can anyone know
why I stay?
But I think the real reason
why I stay,
is cause I can't find a reason
why I have to leave.
My radical views
are all tantamount to
all the ugliest social injustices, but
if I know myself,
then tomorrow the wealth
of my thoughts today will be tomorrow's smut.
Deep down, if I'm honest,
what I hinge upon is the glory of being told I'm wrong,
so I'm counting on you to know to see me the moment I start to talk too long.
And if we never know
why we stay,
and if we're real about
why we stay,
and if we don't ask
why we stay,
then no one can tell us
why we have to leave.
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My Roaring Twenties New York, New York
Jack Frederick of Hook Moon and Black Elk Speaks.
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