1. |
Emo Phillip's Revenge
02:56
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I wrote some songs—I turn the tape deck on
and I strum away my pain for everyone
I found a girl—she keeps me sane
and although I still hate my body I don’t have to hate my brain
and it’s all for you! it’s all for you!
Her veil is solid black— She had a heart attack
when her father died
And her sister kept the younger kids inside
You can try to run— I guess they tried to hide
but Death comes equal to everyone
an alcoholic father or his youngest son
You can’t choose
Because your life’s defined by what you can’t undo
and it’s all for you! it’s all for you!
and it’s all—all— for you
It’s all for whoever you’re singing this to
And in the innocent days when you sat in the pew
waiting for the dark voice of nothing to scream back at you
“kid I know that you want to be included too”
and in those childhood years when you sat on the bed
with a guitar in your hand and a girl in your head
Oh— you should have known you were better off back then
But everybody leaves, and every song must have an end
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2. |
Your Simple Songs
03:15
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(for Mark Kozelek)
I can’t listen to your simple songs
When you sing the words, the spirit’s gone
Your eyes glisten, but the words come out wrong
I can’t listen to your songs
I can’t stomach the sound of your voice
Your mouth emits an awful noise
It grates on my ears, it pulls on my strings
I can’t listen to you sing
Because I can’t respect any spade
that calls itself by another name
And I don’t believe anyone
who favors the moon over the sun
But dance with me still! my last ditch love
Drink ’til we’re intoxicated enough
Your arms are soft, but your heart’s become rough
Pretend that this will only happen once—
and I’ll do the same
I hate myself because I’m a spade
that calls itself by another name
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3. |
Be A Burnout
03:28
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I was five when it all came to pass:
I caught my eye on a pretty kid with her hair tied in class
and when she let it down, cast across the room
I swear I could see her begin to bloom
I never forgave myself
I never forgave myself for staring
I was fifteen when the disease entered me
Charted up its progress in a letter
She told her mom, who told her therapist, who told my parents
and I never forgave her
I never forgave her for snitching
Where does it go when you lose control?
I can’t wait to see where it leads—
Can’t wait to see you be a burnout, baby
Can’t wait to see you lying on the floor
Can’t wait to see you be a burnout, baby
and not love you anymore
Closing shop, everybody’s off the clock
College/townie dusk
It’s a perfect year for a summer fling—
we’re gonna write another record and I’m gonna sing
But I will never go back
No, I won’t go back to that subject
‘cause I watched it go when I lost control
I can’t wait to see where it leads
Can’t wait to see you be a burnout, baby
Can’t wait to see you lying on the floor
Can’t wait to see you be a burnout, baby
and not love you anymore
and not love you anymore
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4. |
All Natural
04:32
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(Blackout in E14)
Well no matter which way you look at it, half our backup supply is gone
Now the kids are out raiding their parents’ cabinets searching for any unturned stone
There are spirits in the searching for the courage to go it alone
I’d be a liar if I said this was not beautiful
And no matter which way you cut it, the pie is poison but we are sewer rats
And we ingest however much we can take with our circulatory systems intact
So take two shots for the future, and take another three for the past
Relax your mind and open your eyes and think of something clever to say real fast
There’s a small potential greatness concentrated in this basement—
A small potential for something transcendent
something that won’t make us all want to end it
A small potential greatness concentrated in this place
and we don’t have to burn it down to know:
It’s all natural
I started smoking cigarettes
Always felt like I was second best
so I only had a minor case of arrogance
I threw away my high school degree
as soon as they gave it to me
well, I’m sure that someone kept a record of it on the internet
I try to keep an open mind at all times
figure out which habits I should quit
There’s a small potential greatness in the routines to which I stick
and I don’t have to love my life to know:
It’s all natural
But let me tell you that when you talk to me
your voice reaches the corners of this fractured scene
so your high school party does not sound so appealing to me
It does… not sound appealing
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5. |
Christie
04:01
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(And her famous brothers)
I’ve got a two-step plan for resilience. It goes:
1) hate everyone you come in contact with
2) expect them all to love you. Expect all the girls to want to X you
I could cut off all my fake blonde hair
and broadcast my voice through the air
like an atom in the void, I am a special kind of boy
And you don’t know how hard you broke my fall
I can’t live without you, Christie
I’ve got a bottle I call home
I’ve got a tired metaphor— you’ve got a few of your own
In the words of every sad refrain
on every adolescent page
I want to cover up the bodies
I want to steal your daddy’s car keys
but in DRST 003a you’re arguing for God
and I swear I saw him through the fog
on College Street I’m walking— two blocks to your apartment
And you don’t know how hard you broke my fall
I can’t live without you, Christie
I’ve got a bottle I call home
I’ve got a tired metaphor— you’ve got a few of your own
It’s hard to know what’s right
I lost my Paradise Lost when I got lost in Paradise
so be my desert island keepsake for tonight
But the rescue ship is coming at high tide
And you don’t know how hard you broke my fall
I can’t live without you, Christie
I’ve got a bottle I call home
I’ve got a tired metaphor— you’ve got a few of your own
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6. |
Imaginary #2
02:23
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You used to say that with a lesser heart and mind you would’ve gotten far, but your torment persists and bad thoughts don’t quit. No, they brought you to where you are: by a bonfire on the beach with your head on your shoulders and your arms around me. Yeah, I know it’s not the best place to be, I agree. But when I turned seventeen you were the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. I imagined your past life in a larger city and I went cold with the thought of touching your body even inside my dreams. You were imaginary. You were trapped inside of me. But I was free.
You dyed your hair and then you cut it off. We met on weeknights at the coffeeshops. And you said, “I don’t exist to make you feel any better. I come and go like changes in the weather.” Well, if you were a hurricane and I was a storm, we will meet up someday soon when the air gets warm and we will give each other shelter as we travel up the delta ravaging city after city on the Northeastern seaboard in a downpour of love and pain and feelings more unsure.
And I suppose we might regret it, but I can’t forget it. We’ll figure out in twenty years exactly what we stood for.
So now you say that with a lesser man you’ll become emotionally blind, but I know you better: you don’t need anybody else to shine. Yeah, I know you well. You don’t need nobody… else.
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7. |
Childhood Bedroom
05:01
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(As J. Koster sleeps)
When that asshole tore the lining of my leather jacket
you punched him in the face
and when my ex-girlfriend came home for the weekend
you put her up in your place
We sing softly to The Lemonheads in my room
teenagers in a constant state of static crisis
“It’s a shame” and “I’ve never been too good with names”
but I still shine like the morning sun when you say mine
So, will you stay a little while longer?
I’ll tell mom and dad it’s a sleepover
In ten years I’ll be twenty five (watch the Autumn leaves fall)
In ten years you’ll be twenty nine (’til there’s no leaves left at all)
I was visiting museums on my winter break
while you were working nights for $8.99
So smoke a cigarette out of the window of my childhood bedroom tonight!
Nobody’s home except my former identity’s ghost
and he will keep quiet if you ask him real nice
But please, don’t call me “baby”
‘cause that’s my signature line
And I cannot afford to recall all the countless conquests
and all my regretful diaries and all the lies
We broke up in theory not in practice
But in theory, you were never mine
And now he laughs reading the warning labels on the bottles
crowding up the corners of his newly darkened mind
You were spinning “Silver Lining” when I called you on the phone
And I was standing on a bridge in Fairfield County
with a one-way ticket to the city and no will to go
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8. |
Liminal Space
03:07
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They replaced the record store today
with a cheap designer imitator
Pay $150 for a shitty sweater vest
and I see one on everybody I detest
I see one on everyone I hate
Sate desire ’til it’s over
Hell is frozen like your yoghurt
And we are fucking tired of its bright fluorescent color scheme
Plexiglas and plastic cutlery
I still feel the stagnant air from the harbor on my brow
It’s always fucking cold in this predictable town
But I threw a little get-together
in my college dorm last night
Listening to Jawbreaker and turning off the lights
I was a beautiful dreamer once I got a little in me
Face to face as in a mirror, dimly
So I swear I won’t spend one more night
worried about how I’m gonna die alone
I’d rather shoot the shit and talk about Yale kids
that I’ve made out with, with Jon Stone
‘cause it’s not enough to spend my idle days on the threshold
We’ve got to build a bridge that one day we might cross it
We’ve got to build a bridge that one day we might cross it
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9. |
East Rock Beauty Kids
05:10
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“I see the townies holding hands” — A. Maine
I do not dream
I do not sing— I scream
when I am alone
but I’m never alone
and I want to call you
and that already seems quaint
anachronistic
develop the film
unwind the tape
Return, Copy, Paste
Shift-key tapped to ruin
I’ve entered so much information
I no longer know what I’m doing
and I feel like my grandpa
with this infernal machine
that I was borne into
an inhuman being
But how could you never want to be so well connected?
My network’s expanding
My life is a checklist
Please accept my request
Please follow me back
to the ends of the digital universe
in binary White and Black
Let’s slow dance
But I do not dream
I do not cry— I empty
Just let it all out
the humors: the bile, the blood, and the gout
My constitution’s a mess
Oh, please held me undress
Please make me come
Redeem my defective corporeal atoms
But how could you never want to be so well loved?
I am my mother: an unconditional lover
I am an elusive fraternity bid
I am an East Rock resident
I am a beautiful kid
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10. |
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"His ibi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam / prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna"
In your new bedroom
You will forgive me for what I do
You’ll say it’s cyclical, like:
“[I] break [your] heart, so that [you] can’t break [my] bones”
But on the bygone Autumn nights
back when Alison used to hold me tight…
And when the ending came
I chastised myself to reorient the blame but
Would you believe that I’d never slept with anyone before?
I mean really slept— entwined, embracing
Not passed out on the floor
I didn’t realize that I had done something right
But the New York City car alarms are gonna keep her up all night
It’s a bad habit for a good girl and boy:
Don’t confront the chaos.
Maintain a passive-aggressive relationship with the void
I am borrowing my roommate’s guitar to write this one down tonight
because I broke mine two weeks ago on the Philadelphia ice
A shattered body’s not so bad— I’m gonna get it fixed in time
But I pray my heart, my blackened lungs will still fill up in spite
of what I do to them— I’m shattered again
Pretend like you really mean it
and I’ll try hard to pretend I don’t care
And when the queen is in my bed
I’ll finally be satisfied
She grabs my arm and pulls me close
as we watch Teen Suicide
Now we’re in Cameron’s house in Bloomfield
Reject the matter and keep the form
We are listening to Nothing Was The Same in my college dorm
Her lipstick’s on my neck tonight
and I’ve never felt more alive
But she says she feels nothing that her own touch can’t provide but
Would you believe that I’ve never felt so providential?
Like I’m a car you can climb into— shut your eyes and trust the world
You’ll never realize that I am on fire tonight
and I’m spinning out of control with no witnesses in sight
And it’s a bad omen for a good girl and boy:
Don’t confront the chaos.
Cut your ties and wait to slowly be destroyed.
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