1. |
You Are a Stranger To Me
03:28
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You are a stranger to me as I am trying to leave.
I look back for one last reprieve.
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2. |
What We Lost
04:57
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well in my life,
there is a darkness
as cold as winter
and bright as now.
I've prayed for rain
and I've seen the floods
turned from the river
and walked through the mud
and oh how we've grown
and not changed at all
another summer
one last fall
and these are truly the last days
through all this changing, we stay the same
oh New England, how I love you.
Maybe more than you deserve.
But as my bones brace against your cold,
I know you are my home.
Carry me through the cracks in between
waking up and dreaming
and the confusion that comes with sleeping.
I remember once we ran away
dug a hole in which to hibernate
in the warmth of the roots and ground
we threw what we lost and knew what we found.
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3. |
Easter Bird
04:06
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where are you now, oh little Easter Bird.
Maybe you're curled up on a bed,
writing a letter, with your whole future stretched ahead of you.
A whole life around the bend.
But when a chapter's over the book doesn't end.
In the waning pages that've been yellowed by the ages,
I would ask that you would read or write the tale of the two friends.
I wish that we had met at this time in our lives
instead of when I was just a kid
but forty candles in a place beautified by vandals
i saw our lives flickering.
I'll be fine. I'll find what's mine. Our path is no longer a beginning.
I've chased your bus. I've felt your touch. I have loved you too much and not enough.
Maybe you will leave with a uke and a backpack
on a trip from which you won't come back.
I will leave with the leaves with my feet pointed East,
my roots are strong, but they sure as hell aren't deep.
And maybe we will meet in the streets or in our dreams when we're far too drunk to fuck. When you wander off into the world with a name that's finally yours, I wish you friendship, love, and the best of luck.
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4. |
Eastern Washington
05:40
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5. |
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You left with bare a whisper.
I stayed behind without a whimper.
But you gotta know when to walk away,
maybe suddenly or it could take a couple days.
I just hope that you make it home safe.
A promise it blackened when the dusk came.
the air it escaped from me as the light changed.
and a smile crept and it took over the train
and dust was in our nose and rust colored our clothes
and our lives are not lies but we're not the only light
so we grasp at what is real while crying "stay here."
all that i remember is your pack didn't fit and your back kept giving you trouble. so cut the cardboard, your back it was bent double. we painted the cardboard, our backs they were bent double.
you changed your name to little wanderer. you hoped it would prove to be something they'd remember. but all that i remember is your pack didn't fit and your back it kept giving you trouble.
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6. |
Spoon River
04:44
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Just because you no more could love me
nor pray for me
nor write me letters
the eternal silence of you spoke instead.
my boy, my boy, my boy...
wherever you are,
work for your soul's sake
that all the clay of you might yield to
the fire of you.
til the fire is nothing more than light.
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7. |
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Lyrics improvised and at times indistinguishable.
we fell...
you know that I know...
we're not just this...
and we live without fear of wind or vertigo...
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8. |
Hush
04:08
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sometimes i have moments when I want to cut off all my hair
go and wipe my skin clean, erase my tattoos, and just be bare.
my jewelry's a distraction at times to who i really am
and my body's all that's forcing me to think i am a man.
but there is a secret world buried beneath this one.
there is music under the concrete, and secrets to be sung.
my clothing is a billboard and my words are just a mask.
our lives are quiet as a whisper--we think we have to be loud
to understand that.
and I'll wear my heart as a patch upon my sleeve,
but even punk rock metaphors fall short of what I mean.
I know that I'm not an artist, but I think that art gets at the truth
of what it means of being buried by the weight of what it takes to be
me and you
don't depend on music or the pen
while i try not to be a burden on my friends
but it's like Adam said:
I don't want to be alone when this world ends.
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9. |
We Got Lost
03:00
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aaah....
wait
whisper
winter
but i'll be left,
little lover.
I would be lying if i said I wouldn't want any other
in the wild woods we met, you said well ain't that oregon
wanted her to know this city won't be called home again
ain't no words to be tellin a friend
put them in a box with a bit of paper and a pen
might never know what it means to me
but then there are some things that I will never understand,
and that's fine.
she clutched at her coat because he
was selling shivers
so naked we returned to those smoldering ruins.
we felt the size of the dark
and knew the hush of the stars
knew the world isn't ours
in a summer night we got lost
in a summer night we got lost
there's an old bridge that bears the weight of our bodies.
the clumsiest things we've ever been allotted.
But they are burning now, in a summer night they're burning now.
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10. |
My Hollows
04:13
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you've heard my hollows.
felt my highs and deep lows.
and we awoke
in the soft snow
grasping brittle
bones.
we reach for
some fiction
a teacher
who would listen.
But we know that no one is coming.
as the seams split
and the beat stops
the afterglow
of dry rot
or tired
companions
we walk on
dry land.
And rose up
tried to touch
with fingers
the rafters.
But in
the distance
it glistens.
the water
froze
solid.
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11. |
This Is It
02:46
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12. |
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we have all found secret teachings deep within our bodies.
But when we look up we see everything preaching, "you're not yourself, you are pretty at best"
and the sea is seething.
when mallory said "there is nobody coming"
i think that's the truth.
it was a shot fired in warning.
when your friends don't recognize you
throw away all of your disguises
look where the seams rip
that's where some truth is
find where the light lies and not where the lies hide and I
am searching with you.
a place on earth could be enough for the yearning.
a pure place within us is quietly burning and i am older now but i can't say how.
caught a glimpse in a mirror: just a ghostly reflection. that isn't me. it's just chameleon skin.
this is my name now. so much has been written down. but there's been so much left out. i know i'm doing badly when I think that I know me.
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13. |
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this track was entirely improvised, and inserted into the album over a year after its initial release. I think it makes no sense but I thought I should include it anyway, and I can't find the original file to clip out the weird and stupid ending.
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14. |
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You are the stories i have told for all these years.
(lyrics improvised)
Death was silent.
We're not just stories, we're not just songs, these are our lives and they'll soon be gone.
Why do we do this to us?
In waking up we found leaves rotting on the ground.
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15. |
Sometimes
05:04
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those places left a mark on us, for sure.
which trains carried you how far? and what names
gave you which scars. did fingers
create contours?
your hands were travellers
and the water named them makers.
you're made of lines
and quiet disaster.
you're made of mountains and laughter.
And you ate the moon
like she taught you to
and fell asleep at dawn
in the morning dew
and a nightmare knows where you are sleeping
i trapped that bad dream and skinned it swiftly
bound that book in its mangy pelt
i closed my eyes as the smoke came pouring in
fire makes fog
and the fog was hiding
us on the bridge where i swear i saw lightning
all of our gifts got hung on handles
love was a noose, we held hands up on the scaffold
when the floor gave out it felt a bit like flying
I can't tell if you're as scared as i am
we threw our windows and our eyes wide
and fearing for our lives
we stayed inside.
and we looked out
at a dying world.
we have felt our shape and felt our size
hung our laundry on old barbed wire
the farm is a flood and the town is empty
deserted dirt road in the pioneer valley
after that it rained for three weeks straight
so we changed our names and hoped they'd help us float
we were praying for rain and we nearly drowned in
a chair on a porch in a county called Franklin
we threw our windows and our eyes wide
and fearing for our lives
we stayed inside
and we looked out
at the coming storm,
bringing apocalypse and newborns.
is it a gift or a mistake?
in the last days, we love it for the night's sake.
I suppose I love this life, sometimes.
Finally found words they're pretending to be
something to hold (but even hands are fleeting)
and I suppose I love this life, sometimes.
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