1. |
Golden Standard
03:24
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Nod my head/close my eyes/shift the weight from side to side: I’m dreaming of a different life. One where I’m not so tired, and we’ve got some money. I play the big clubs. You’re finally someone. Maybe then the river’s flow will pass our way? A chord and now I’m back in a crowd made up of bands, clapping for a song I can’t even tell you how it went. Tonight’s got me so tired/ feels never ending: “Fake it ‘til you make it” isn’t worth all this pretending. Yeah, I’m alive in the moment. I’ll own it. I’m free! Now it’s my turn to play. I’m live from the far-away. Nod the head/close the eyes/shift the weight from side to side. They keep clapping, I’ll keep dreaming. One day soon the river’s flow will pass our way. I can see it now: me on the bank, waving, calling, “Come on baby, it’s our turn to swim/the water’s rushing by we just have to jump in.”
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2. |
Count to Ten
02:38
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Time, it will equalize, but not before it knocks you down and scrapes your knees and you bleed in the dirt and gloom, or alone feeling sorry in an all-black room. And maybe you spend the next four years starting things and quitting them, trying to make some sense of it. Like all of a sudden the clouds will part and the sky will be bluer than the sun is bright. Time, it will equalize, but not before we lose our minds long enough to make mistakes, fall apart, love and hate. Maybe something happened and it’s too much to bear, and it’s hard to make believe you’re not gasping for air when all you’ve got to do is breathe and count to ten. The problem is it’s probably just in your head, but you don’t have to know what I mean. Time, it will equalize, but not before it knocks you down and scrapes your knees. You will bleed in the dirt and gloom, and spend the next four years trying to count to ten.
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3. |
Way, Way Up
03:41
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We’re gathered on the mountain’s pass, a one lane road. Frank’s banged up but he’ll still roll. We’re lucky to be alive though I’m not sure I see it yet. I’m more focused on the rising and the falling of your breath. You know I’m counting on you to be the one who guides me through the night/ if everything goes dark again/ and I can’t find the light. To keep my shit together means I can’t do this alone. Don’t ask me to follow somewhere I can’t go. We’re all the way, way up! and it only takes a moment to come down. Peering through the grate to the forest floor below, it’d be one quick drop then no more rock and roll. It happened so fast! There was a scream and then a flash. Now we’re gathered on the mountain’s pass, a one lane road. You know I’m counting you to be the one who guides me through the night/ if everything goes dark again and I can’t find the light. To keep my shit together means I can’t do this alone. Don’t ask me to follow somewhere I can’t go. We’re all the way, way up. And it only takes a moment to come down. To come down. (Some day this’ll fade, the quiet of the moment grown soft as a pale yellow moon. But right now I’m in it, hanging on as every minute blurs by. Oh, the world! I’ve never seen it look so vivid. Right now I’m—)
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4. |
Olympia
03:40
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The grand return, blown in with a summer rain. We take the exit off the 101, pass the looming evergreens, the old parade of freaks and fools standing at the bus stops on their way to school. What was I expecting coming back? A little pomp, some circumstance? Olympia’s a place where you go to stand still. Nothing ever happens/nothing ever will. It’s the same dogged circle of big questions, little answers—a cadre of bad haircuts who want to matter, who want to make change! in a place that stays the same. I meet Steve at the coffee shop. I wave my hands, I don’t say much. Sometimes my words fail me, like when the doom’s been creeping back in. And the rain doesn’t help. It’s been a while since I felt like I was someone else. A little out of control. And maybe that’s what’s got me in this foul, foul mood. The grand return! I thought I had better vision, or enough that I had learned to let go and feel strong again. They’re old patterns that I’m falling in. Being here, it’s the same as when I left/ I feel the same as when I left/ it’s like I never left. The grand return! What was I expecting? What have I learned?
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5. |
El Coyote
03:50
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Tell us all the secrets in this town, and in the way you left your own behind. That short black hair, oh you’re smoking now? Are you better off? Tell us of all the girls and the vampire boys in the shadows. We didn’t know which way it’d go, if you’d wanna be our friend. If underneath the glitz and glamour you would even be our friend. We’re plain clothes ghosts, haunted memory, maybe you just want to forget. Then we walk the length of Silver Lake, of your past, you tell us you’re miserable but you’re making do best you can. We didn’t know which way it’d go, if you’d want to be our friend. If underneath the glitz and glamor you would even be our friend. The night before: you read us letters private and outlandish but not altogether unromantic. He’s no vampire boy, but he’s been flirting with the shadows. You’ve both got good intentions in the middle of re-invention. Everybody changes, it’s in our human nature. We get a little messy. We clean it up later. So it goes…. On the ride home we roll down the windows and drive fast. The music mingles with the wind blow as I think about him, about you, about us. About how far away we are.
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6. |
Flying/Calling
03:10
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I followed my heart into the depths of the wild with callous abandon and "flashing smiles" and when I stumbled out, the weather calmed, there was salt in the air and blood on my palms. Now that I've been scrubbed clean, how do you feel about everything? Do you believe in me, or do you believe in anything? I know what you're thinking man, I know what you'd say, but I ain't no clipped wing just cus I'm saved. I fly and I call as good as I get dirty when I crawl. (Now that I've been scrubbed clean, how do you feel about everything? Do you believe in me, or do you believe in anything?). Two years ago you told me to follow what I feel, to chase after the abstract instead of what was real. But instead of finding summit I fell down the goddamn mountain. Then it was back to climbing, dogs together, always counting mile marker posts in the grass, in the snow. Now here we are, we made it up, but can I believe in you?
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7. |
Master Plan
02:55
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I’m somewhere in Delaware at a punk-rock potluck playing in the back yard and nobody’ll shut up. I just want to leave, so I play faster. Yeah, I’ve got a master plan: It won’t sell the merch, but it’ll get me out of here if the night doesn’t kill me first (skin pocked-full of bites, my last words “I’m fine”). I’m somewhere in Delaware on the beach and the surf’s rough. The show’ll be good, I’m playing in a shed the kids call Heads Up. Then I get to leave, avoid disaster. Yeah, I’ve got a master plan: I’ll sell all the merch, then thank everyone for reminding me my worth (the past projected back like a technicolor dream). Then I slip in to the dark, a twelve-hour drive to end this right. In the rear-view mirror the crowd waves goodbye. How many ways can I say the same thing? It's up, down, up, down. It’s peaks and it’s valleys.
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8. |
True Believer
03:51
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When you look at me I bet you think I’m far-away. Well I am, I am, I am, but I’m not sorry, Em. After starting things and quitting them to try and make some sense of it I finally found what I need to be: me and you, in perpetuity. I want to live in this forever, the same life we have just a little bit better. So when you look at me and my eyes are glazed, I’m coming at you live! From the far away. My mind doesn’t sleep/and the body don’t neither/Go go go/like a true believer. It’s not about the money, but the money’d probably help. It’s not about my ego, but it is about myself. Like what’s my legacy? Who will I become? Should I ever grow up, or do I keep staying young? No matter what: I want to live in this forever, the same life we have just a little bit better. So when you look at me and my eyes are glazed, I’m coming at you live! from the far away. My mind doesn’t sleep/and the body don’t neither/go go go/like a true believer. We’re on our way now. Can you feel the feel wait now?
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