1. |
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Lyrics:
Here comes the serpent sound. Louder now. It tells me not to trust the man in handmade clothes.
The wet nurse sang the songs of freedom to the master's son until they took him back to America. And he felt like a motherless child. And I felt like a motherless child.
Here comes the serpent crown. Louder now. He tells the western world to fear the man on the video.
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2. |
Waiting for the Fix
04:18
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She was just a girl from the mitten. And I was chasing pills with power chords. She learned every word to every song I ever wrote but I was too fucked up to give it any thought.
She was much too young to waste her time believing songs. But she insisted that she join us on the tour. I told her every girl left disappointed in the end. I might have laughed when she said she could love me more.
Sign my name in dirt and let the rain come. Gravel, gravel road take me home.
We lived off fast food and faster liquor. We made love in abandoned parking lots. She made her way into every song that I would write and I got into bigger bars and bigger shots. She mouthed the words when I forgot the lyrics. Tried to wrestle my corruptions to the floor. There were other venues, other towns and other women and I wondered if they could love me more.
She got off the bus in New York City. And I got off the pills in Albany. When we got off each other I spent six months in Vancouver, and the band moved on to Calgary without me.
I'm still holding onto song-believers. I'm still holding onto Michigan. Sign my name in dirt and let the rain come. Gravel, gravel road take me home.
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3. |
Whiskey and Ginger
03:48
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Whiskey, she's got me on fire. Making eyes like midnight. She's a toxic desire. Green-eyed someone I imagine where you've been and where you might end up tonight. There's a tab for every refugee who's watching you in the bar room light.
Ginger, she goes down smooth. More a seamstress than a temptress. Not a mistress, but a safer place to groove. She holds me close. She holds accountable. There are politicians dancing, empty glasses, and a jukebox plays the fool.
The bar is closing soon and the song of the uncool is singing everyone goodnight. And the saxophone performer plays "Take Five" in the corner, in the streetlamp light. The night is getting sober and the streets are getting colder from the winter bite. Tomorrow's front-page news and the taxi-cab blues make me wonder, if it'll be alright. Will it be alright? Whiskey and Ginger, make it feel alright.
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4. |
Shame
02:25
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Shame is a face that I've tried to erase
For the last seven miles
The highway has tried to keep pace
With my rubber band cage
And my nightlife exchange
It's the thrill of the chase
And I open the door
And the house, still asleep
Without me...
Trip up the stairs
Quiet footsteps prepare
For the already open door
I move like a cat
Without light, I adapt
Like I've done so many times before
And my wife, still asleep
Without me...
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5. |
Amen
05:38
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Today's a hurricane
And you're swimming in the rain water now
And it's perfect somehow
Your life is passing by
But you'd rather spend it high
Keep your control
'Cause nothing's irreplaceable
When it's out of your control
Nothing's replaceable
Could you make it make sense
Could you scale a picket fence to understand
That it's completely out of hand
To do all you do
To make people fall in love with you
Awake at 4 A.M.
A train is passing by again
The night is over, Amen
Eyes stay shut
The window is wide-open still
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6. |
Ellie
04:44
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There's a wishing well and I'm a penny short. If I don't make a splash, If I don't make it count then I'll be bankrupt. There's a wedding bell and a rental tux. And a rice parade on your wedding day to avoid bad luck.
There is dumb-struck love. Like a slot machine. All the lights and bells will make you spend in spells 'till your wallet's clean. Now to the hotel bar. Onto a cheaper fling. We can experiment with new drugs, new sex, new anything.
Ellie, if your life is better would you tell me how you got so god-damn strong. Cause I've been off and on from song to song.
Alone with a cold meal and a press release. The diner speaks in the language of all the empty seats. To a new town, at a camping ground. With every breeze you can hear the chorus through the trees sing.
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7. |
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She sends me postcards from Vancouver, with no return address, on the fifth of every month, in memory of when we met. She says she's been waking early, writing poetry at dawn, sitting barefoot on the beach listening to Sufjan Stevens songs.
She says the pictures on the postcards don't do justice to the scene, but I have no way of knowing exactly what she means.
She was a camera I was somewhere in between. She saw picturesque and I tunnel-vision. Now in the darkroom she is waiting for the fix while I go undeveloped.
mmmm mm mm mmmm mm mm m
She says big crowds keep her company. Every artist that she meets has a nervous sort of comfort that reminds her of me. And I wonder if these postcards means she's having second thoughts. Or if she's just comparing what she has to what we lost.
If I were a camera I'd shoot postcard-worthy scenes and send them out to no one.
mmmm mm mm mmmm mm mm m
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8. |
The Killer
05:35
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the tips of my fingers are calloused
napkins full of lyrics strewn across the floor
there's a thickening air of frustration
and a scavenger hunt for a vague metaphor
i'm a killer, an anchor, a barstool
i'm a soldier, a vagrant, a merchant, a god
and my heart is a black hole, a sign post
it's the only way i can feel normal at all
is to keep writing words and keep crossing them out
to pull out my hair and then curse at the sound
that evolves from my mouth
when the song becomes noise becomes
i will try every time zone
each room of the house
search for new inspiration
from old stomping grounds
cause i'm sitting, not standing
not living, creating in vain from a false misery
i don't want to give the song away this time
no oh no
i don't want to give the song away this time
once it hits someone's ears
then it's no longer mine
it's my rock and it needs to stay mine
this blood on my hands marks my
blood on my hands marks my
i'm still the killer
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