1. |
Reckless and Heavy
03:19
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I fix the broken clasp on my backpack and take the stairs
Even if these walls could talk, they wouldn’t dare
He always said my legs weren’t strong enough to get away
Come tomorrow morning I wonder what he’ll say
Oh, I’m leaving all my troubles soon
My back turned like a hangnail moon
Broken escalator by the record store
I wonder what I’m worth, what I’ll let them take me for
Nobody worth a damn has seen me in a couple days
Sometimes I feel like I’m from so very far away
But like cheap stereos from across the sea
I see my baby coming back to me
I try to read by shafts of sunlight through the broken blinds,
Job pays half as much, rent’s twice as high
I was a stranger the first time you brought me to this place
Now we split the bills about every 30 days
Hazy sunlight, smoke alarm
I’m gonna die right in my baby’s arms
I see a specter walking up and down our block
We paint blood on the door, it costs too much to change the locks
Too tired to look around, too poor to get another place
Ghosts are everywhere, pretending that they’ve changed their ways
Sky is falling, I don’t know
We’ll probably only stay here for a year or so
Seasons changing, I don’t mind
I’m gonna love you ‘til the day I die
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2. |
Leaving Kent
03:23
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I’ve spent the last few months storming Jerusalem
Earning the holes in my shoes
This winter came up on me quicker than last year’s
But I know that that’s no excuse
I had so much to lose, not least of all you
I shouldn’t pretend that I’m staying when I know that isn’t true
I’ve been trying to leave Kent so long
I might as well have just been passing through
I’ve been preoccupied stripping the mountainside
I keep forgetting to call
Don’t you wait up for me, I won’t be home
Without something to hang on the wall
I don’t remember it all, but I remember enough
Like that old myth that I loved, with the ending I might’ve made up
And I can’t find the line between the parts that were mine
And the parts meant to tell us what we should have done
I live in sets of months, chasing oblivion
Burning the red in my eye
These winters keep coming on later and later
This summer refuses to die
And I still act surprised, I still shift the blame
Like when I lock the door and you don’t break it down all our breaking’s the same
But if you find where I hid, if you don’t just forget
I swear I can love you better than this
It was the best I could be, to love like I did
A burrowing insect who digs ‘til it’s freezing
And wonders when the warm air went away
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3. |
Future-Girl
02:51
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You were leaning against a gas pump
Peeling a satsuma with your hand, oh so close to your white shirt
You’re gonna make a mess, my love
You’re gonna make a mess out of my pretty little heart
I don’t remember what I was singing but I was probably singing something
When you said that I should come along
You took me into a stranger’s place
I looked the moon in its big fat face
Oh I wanna pull it down from the sky, I wanna pull it to the guest room
So it can shed some light
On the way you make me feel, feel like I’m coming alive
I wanna feel this way every night
Oh there’s something kinda funny about it
I just can’t put my fingers on
There was a church across the street
You said the roof wasn’t too steep, you could probably pick the lock
If there was no one outside
But the devil patrols with a flashlight sometimes
But there’s nobody here, nobody but us
I wanna watch the door turn to dust
We made it up to the roof, we didn’t know what to do
I sat and threaded the stars with you
You were leaned against the steeple like if you could you’d pull it down
Let the whole church get swallowed by a crack in the ground
There was something about that night, we could’ve floated if we’d tried
We could’ve brought the dead back to life
But there was something kind of sad about it
I just can’t put my fingers on
We made it back to your friend’s house
And waited for sunrise
And if I could wear a plain white dress
I would tie a ribbon around my neck
I would search high and low for you
And follow wherever you’d want me to
And at this point I don’t even know what you’d say to me
I don’t know what you remember, but I remember everything
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4. |
New Lips
02:16
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I’ve got skin made of glass
Not blown but crystal-cut
I’m all edges and chips
I’m all pockets and dust
I’ve got a pack of white shirts
You can see right through
I’ve got a hand-drawn map
Of where to meet you
I want to practice kissing you with new lips
I want to hide out and watch the sun drip
I want to feel the rain after a long drought
I want to see the city with my legs out
As soon as we touch
You clench two fists around my lungs
I’m a strawberry sliced thin
Dissolving on your tongue
Honeysuckle wilts
After a day or two alone
From a few states away
You watch me finish on your phone
I want to practice kissing you with new lips
I want to build a temple where my skin fits
I want to be the valley when the dam bursts
I want to grow my fingers in the soft earth
I want to take you home, I want to take you home
I want to take you home, I want to take you home
Reach with both hands, we’ll never be here again
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5. |
Leather Teeth
03:24
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He stomps gutters in the sidewalk
There’s metal on his hip
He’ll take your blankets in the winter
He’ll put bullets in your friends
He thinks that he’s a sun god come to punish you for waking up
Rows of boots to form a mouth
Bedbugs crawling from the teeth
You’re gonna live right where they tell you
And then they’ll tell you when to leave
Origami tigers, shouting orders while you suffocate
He sets his heel between your ribs
You try your best to stay awake
It’s like you’re looking down a tunnel
And the rails just start to shake
Then a pinpoint in the distance starts expanding like a star
Policemen in a choir, singing all the songs they stole
Will put spades into the red clay and bury us in rows
But when there’s no one left around, and our bony fingers break the lucky ground
They won’t be singing anymore, they won’t be singing anymore
When you finally make it home
You see him standing at your door
You see him watching from your corner
You see his footprints on your floor
There’s nowhere in this city he can’t find you by your scent
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6. |
American Accents
00:46
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You came back for the winter, just a few pounds thinner
I took you out to the lake so you could think straight
You spent two years on another coast, you got nothing to show
But an American accent and a bad habit
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7. |
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Old lockpicks north of Lexington
A few bucks at a roadside stand
I’m coming back for what I left
And I’m never coming back again
You changed the locks at the side door
And the deadbolt to the cellar
I’m coming back from underground
The walls, the walls are cracking with the pressure
You may own the house where we lived
But you don’t own the gold I hid in the basement
Your hands can’t weight my ankles anymore
I’ll go swimming in the brown water where it’s warm
I’ve got teeth where I shouldn’t, I’m made of matchsticks
I’ve been sleeping anywhere my skin fits
The cellar floors are wet and rising faster
The walls, the walls are ringing out with laughter
Pace around the rooms you lined with waste
Stay still this long and your accent doesn’t change
Try and try but you can’t get this house cold enough
Tonight I’m burning everything you’ve touched
I think you’ve touched me enough
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8. |
Someone Else
02:39
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This time God’s gonna hear me out
This time time’s gonna wait for me
I’ll be strong as a tidal wave
I’ll be ready for anything
I’ll have called you the right name
I’ll have called you at all
I’ll say I love you for waiting up
I’ll be ready to come home
I thought love was a slash in a purse
A hole in the floor of the sky
You could fill it with stardust and diamonds
It could only ever get worse
I thought love was a heavy load
A current to break on the rocks
Leave you dead on a barricade
Wearing the wrong clothes
We’ll explain all the silence
Like a tunnel you swim through
Like you never blamed me
And I never left you
We’ll find cash we’d forgotten
In the pockets of old jeans
We’ll ask where we’re going
And pretend that we can’t see
We’ll tear the wood out of the floor
Build wings on our backs
Leave nothing but splinters under our bed
We won’t need it anymore
This season were gonna get free
Be as lucky as anyone
I’ve been away long enough
Baby you’re gonna hear from me
I’m gonna go back I’m gonna go back
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9. |
Sarah Confronts a Pond
03:06
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I burned the back of my hand on the side of your train
It hurts when you leave, it hurts to beg you to stay
Loudly the first time, and silent the third
I could’ve called you by now but I don’t know if I should
Yea, nothing gets better, yea, nothing feels good
I play it again in my head but I can’t change a word
We stretch all our limbs out in every direction
We cringe at the pain but we beg for the tension
I’ll pretend I didn’t mean a thing I said
I’ll crush both my cheekbones to make the occasion
Dressed like the devil and torn like a tendon
I’ve got nothing but ice at the top of my legs
Do you think if you missed me do you think I would know
Like the heel of your hand on the bridge of my nose
Cool air in my lungs, both my wrists in your belt
Oh some names we take home but same names are bent
You weren’t leaving me, no, just leaving for Kent
Do you even remember the way that it felt?
I hate the way, I hate the way I feel
I hate the way, I hate the way I feel
If you’d only forget it would only get better
Yea, no one ever comes south except for the weather
So I’ll dream that you come back, you come back to me
But come morning I’ll pray that you don't make it back here
Maybe I’ll get to Memphis
Start hormones like my friend did
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10. |
Healer
01:11
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Like a raindrop
You fall ‘til you’re gone
Or turn into something new
‘til no one can tell what you’ve been through
So we’ll grow wide and green
Lie through our leaves
Pretend we had someone else’s summer
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11. |
Seneca River
02:07
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Where do you live when you’ve got nowhere to live?
What do you eat when there’s nothing left to eat?
We stand across the river and we dare ourselves to jump
There are letters in the sky that everyone can see but us
We could give each other everything and never have enough
There are letters in the sky that everyone can see but us
How do you live when you’ve got nowhere to live?
(You slept in the gutter and the runoff is still on your lips)
What do you eat when there’s nothing left to eat?
(You keep losing weight like that I won’t recognize you when we meet again)
Before the roots that break the ground can pull us down
We’ll cross the Seneca River and we’ll find somewhere to live
Our bony fingers will pick new names from a list
There’ll be better days than this, there’ll be better days than this
And if anybody finds us
We’ll draw salt-lines at the door
We’ll scatter acid in the garden
We’ll stagger bear traps on the floor
We’ll hide out in the kitchen
Eating food from dusty cans
We’ll grow sticky with the syrup
And we’ll never starve again
We’ll never starve again
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12. |
'til All of Us Are Free
03:09
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With razors in the pockets of our fathers’ tattered jackets
We’d inherited like heavy chains and dragged along the road
Locked out of all the old gods that lay scattered on the skyline
We shouted out for justice from the ribcage down below
You could smell the leather boots, the metal of the handguns
The flares along the barricades, the thick and heavy smoke
With the cracks all on the roads reflected in bank windows
You could almost taste the tear gas come for voices made to choke
With broken, backwards fingers that still point towards the sunrise
Through the wreckage of the teeth that bleed through lips already pale
To the bullet, the revolver, may the chamber spin forever
Venceremos! Venceremos! We shall all of us prevail!
Skin stretched against our bones, we were beat before we came
But shaking in our coats, we were almost unafraid
It almost feels like flying when you know that soon you’ll crash into the sea
No, none of us are free
Until all of us are free
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13. |
Took Me Down
00:50
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After the second time you went away
I asked if you could find me with my back turned
You said you knew me by the fruit I ate
But we met months before you say
I had such a different face
When you came to settle all your debts
We tried to form a vanguard on the sidewalk
Now I’ve got this pain all down my leg
My love, my love, I’m gonna die for what you want me to
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14. |
Eager for Light
03:38
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Our love like clutter in a spare room
Insides like a crypt
I split my knuckles pounding the door
Of the prison cell where you slept
We got strong in the last year,
You buried a name
Now I try to find light in the eyes
Of the guard who empties its shallow grave
All these marathon days
Sore where I’ve sat here for hours
And busted my wrist on the stairs
Three days of packaged food scratch at my guts
And I can’t get to sleep in these chairs
At shift-change they ask me to leave
My dry throat is starting to swell
Nobody who loves us has money to spare
And we’ve got nothing left to sell
Amy drove down from Portland, Maine
To post the bail I couldn’t pay
And at the door where you meet
You smile for the first time in weeks
It was something to see
If we make it, by the end of the spring
We’ll drive through a wind-farm upstate
Your hand on the back of my neck
Pregnant with something great
Reckless and heavy with wonder
Restless and eager for light
Reckless and heavy with wonder
Restless and eager for light
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