1. |
Copper Candles
04:51
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Well, I move to pack
'Cause there's a little light that shines on all the things I can't take back
I shake 'cause this museum is cold
I move to curate my own past
There's a polaroid I can't unfold
Everything's at longest last
You slap my face
'Cause I lied and said I died
at the bottom of some wet and lonesome place
Where there's copper candles burning clean
Is that a hipbone or a heart?
If you never said my name to me again,
that wouldn't be the hardest part
My whole memory is coming apart
Paradise looks so afraid
of all the stone I turn to face
But even at a distance, I still can't no space
I hug the walls
Because to hear the way you talk of ghosts
It's like I never lived at all
I shake because the feeling's cold
I see fire, I see pink
There's a bedroom set I can't unfold
It's what I steal, it's what I think
And I'm halfway down the parish steps
And everything about it's a false start
If you never said my name to me again, that wouldn't be the hardest part
Any fool can kill a dream, any dream can break a heart
If you never said my name to me again, that wouldn't be the hardest part
I see a home; it's coming apart
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2. |
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If time doesn't change us,
what's a childhood friend?
If there's yard signs for greener pastures
we should've moved again
But there's softball in your driveway
and cotton in my mouth
I'd take you on, my darling
But you only take me on the couch
You'd have us pick horizons,
but what you mean is a way out
And I can't, or won't, understand you
so I choose a round-a-bout
And we'd ask around for last rites
when it's time to ride the bus
I'd write you up, my darling
But all I feel is buzzed
And the growing pains are empty,
because bodies need to vent
I'd lie down like your sister:
The twist you saw before the end
And when we say, "You could've learned more,"
maybe we just like to teach
You coulda just got tired
of saying deserts are the beach
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3. |
Jake LaMotta's Car
03:50
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Nestled in the lakeside sand,
he's homeless through addiction of the heart
He never got to know the land,
hitching up clydesdales behind the cart
He found the great wide open,
and he's sad to say it looks like Bryant Park
The book that keeps him cold at night,
the one about the recluse in the rye,
you kill 'em, kid, you hold the line
somewhere between sorrow and delight
Well, he never met the author
but he knows somehow the end is plagiarized
He hopes the point of no return
is somewhere on the route he's taking back
And he hopes that all the laudanum burns
are just to slap the face of all the facts
He found the great oasis
but she takes such pride in showing what he lacks
I never had the heart it took
to sound the soaring song of all the choirs
And I never had the energy
to sweep up after all my funeral pyres
I miss you, Carrie Fisher
and the way you always looked so goddam tired
I totaled Jake LaMotta's car
thinking about the fixes and the dives
I regret regrets just as they are
fighting toward the edge of being edgewise
I never miss the violence
but knowing I could take a punch was nice
They like to say with open arms
that free air takes the measure of a man
smeared upon an old frontier
free soil on the back of someone's hand
I found the great wide open
and the fences stretch on farther than the land
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4. |
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I caught all the parachutes
as they fell back down from home
then, we painted in the sky
with a candle here from Rome
I put sulfur in my love for you
you put fire in my eyes
you live inside the residue,
a trick of fading light
I don't need your cigarettes
I only need your fire
And you'd fine me in a factory war
if assembly lines would hire
But you know I don't remember
the scarlet or the scare
And you know I don't remember
a woman in Time Square
You took me on a freight train ride,
white cities that you chase
I have been your alibi
You could be my early grave
Pouring from the Saltless Sea,
the headdress that you wore
billowing in charcoal tea,
the credits and the score
Please don't introduce me
as the plane to end our wars
Please don't introduce me,
American, anymore
Please don't make me answer
how I feel upon your door
how I'm like the ocean
how I'm endless on your shore
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5. |
Townie Hall 2014
03:34
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Happy New Year's Day
you're sitting in the dark sucking candy canes
wishing that the aspirin was Novocain
and dishing on, about last year's days
while the dishes aren't doing themselves
Now, you're seeing things
floating in a bottle of green champagne,
the touchdown you scored in 11th grade
the claps on your back, and the bouncing braids
I guess you were always seeing things
When the ball came down
joy to the city you can't live in right now
You're not even sure you'd ever quite know how
the music box lights up midtown
but do they ever put those cameras away?
Now, you can't see why
you shouldn't start a bar fight on this quiet night
winking at the people through your bruised black eye
and start the whole hospital screaming,
"You shouda seen the other guy."
January 1,
'cause I lost another year when you were under my thumb
I'm just a recollection of the man I've become
I'm just a reflection of some coach and his son
January won
It's a given thing
that floating in a bottle of green champagne
the rim's ten feet high in the 11th grade
and it's hard to resent what choose not to stay,
so Happy New Year's Day
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6. |
The After-After Prom
05:27
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I wish I went to pieces
like a puzzle, not a jar
And I wish you'd cut me off
like a machete, not a bar
If you'd just let me lie,
like a lawyer, not my wife
I only wanna sign
in some language, not on some line
Pour one out for Tom and me,
and how we're never ever gonna live that dream
of putting back bubbly
on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
under a blue moon on the Washington Mall
and for no reason at all, there's no security
Come on, Tom, at least skip a meal with me
Pour one out for Tom and me,
we saw a balloon in the desert on a taxi TV
when the gangsters died in the Mojave
We get yelled at by Sperry-wearing guys in the street
because the shirts we're wearing were made for ladies
which we realize
but not immediately
Come on, Tom, at least skip a meal with me
Pour one out for Tom and me,
and how we always get hustled at Venice Beach
by the blind guy with the burned CDs
We went looking for a club that was 18-plus
but all the guys there were better versions of us,
and it's the worst of ourselves
is the part we can trust
Come on, Tom, at least skip a meal with me
Just when we're sure we can take it no more
we're 20 miles north of the cherry fields
and still 20 south, of Baltimore
Tom says one last thing before we turn and run:
"I think it's fucking funny how every song about two people
is just about one."
Come on, brother, no. Don't say that, please.
I wish I went to pieces
like a puzzle, not a jar
And I wish you'd cut me off
like a machete, not a bar
If you'd just let me lie,
like a lawyer, not my wife
I only wanna sign
in some language, not on some line
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7. |
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A five-year plan?
Like I run some kind of country
Like my name is on the factory
my kids run into the ground
Then, the town
they decapitate my statue
but I'm still looking right at you
as they kick my head around
Don't stall
but I keep begging you to listen
something about how traditions
are just pathologies
You had a thought
that there's the road and then there's prison
But that's the thing about fan fiction
all the characters have peaked
You can tell everyone that it's your song
or you can pick
most things only happen once
But then more things aren't
a bachelorette party district
We're almost home, babe
but this is just a car commercial
there's the sun and there's the dapple
and the course is always closed
Through it all,
I think I'm right back in the saddle
A new lease is half the battle
Then take an airbag to the nose
You can tell everyone that it's your song
or you can pick
most things only happen once
But then more things aren't
a bachelorette party district
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8. |
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9. |
Sorry, If You Heard That
03:22
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It's the scar on your leg
that betrays to us, that you're just a child
walking just knee-high
in the weeds of your hundred-acre sky
If it's the err of your ways
you exchange in good faith
for the love of your life
you could say it's going right
If you're the trembling cup
I can't help you, shut up
And to the city, I beg
no more cabarets in my ear canals
you took all my dearest pals
in the third act of the play
but at least they left it all on the stage
And when push comes to shove
there's nothing you love
about the great beyond
or an icy tarn
or an old family name
or just what your children all became
Through the walls, baby,
I don't know what you heard
but it probably wasn't me,
I just learned all the words
What's the last thing I can say?
"There's so much about you I don't hate."
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10. |
Your Favorite Birthday
03:51
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You laugh and pretend to like soccer
with your friends
And swap oxymorons, maybe one last time
again
Like: personal philosophies and "College World Series"
And I fast-forward "True Love Will Find You In The End"
Conversation's a kitchen sink
It's a sign of times you think
everybody wants to write
every job is some kind of publishing
Then, the doorbell starts to ring
Your favorite birthday's when they sing:
"We know you're not a prodigy at anything."
So we just hang out in these alleys to stay off the streets
when fighting in a proxy war is the nearest thing to peace
I've got love for other cities
Can't you read our jerseys?
We'd trade in all the banners for mystique
So we get drinks, and that's it
It's the last thing on the list
when the only code I share with you is morse,
not zip
For the umpteenth time you try
you wanna know what it's just like
It's like you missed the red eye flight
And lied down alone at night
You know that feeling when your phone's about to die?
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