Disc 1 | ||||||
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1. |
| 6:28 | ||||
'So long, everything' he shouted,
then he ran next door to Margot's house. 'I'm moving' he said. 'Where' asked Margot. 'Two weeks away' said Mitchell. 'Where is that' asked Margot. 'It's everywhere I will be after I walk for two weeks' said Mitchell. 'I have lived in the same place for a long time. It is time for me to go some place else.' 'No' said Margot, 'you have only lived next door for fifteen years.' 'Sixteen' said Mitchell. 'Fifteen, six, what's the difference' said Margot. 'I want you to stay next door forever.' 'I can't' said Mitchell. 'I do not want to go wake up in the same old bedroom and eat breakfast in the same old kitchen. Every room in my house is the same old room because I have been there too long.' You turn on a spindle, you're so much looser now but you're not explaining how you've gained such new repose. I touch the clasp of your locket with its picture held, some secret you wouldn't tell but let it choke your neck. So we imagine a darkness where all shapes divide, solids changing into light with a burst of heat so bright. Well fine don't you do what I want you to, don't degrade yourself the way that I do because you don't depend upon all the shit that I use to make my moods improve. 'And you look at me and think 'same old face, same old tail, same old scale, same old walk, same old talk' said Margot. 'No' said Mitchell, 'I like your face, tail, scale, walk and talk.' 'I like you.' 'I like you too, said Mitchell. He walked to the door. 'I must pack' he said. Near a sea of pianos, there were waves of chords that crashed against the shore in one huge and useless roar. And there were girls bringing water, like a dream they came to cool the fever of my brain and soothe my burning throat. And they made me a necklace, hanging beads of sweat on a string of my regrets and placed it round my neck. They were singing don't you do what you've wanted to, don't destroy yourself like those cowards do. Maybe the sun keeps coming up because it's gotten used to you and your constant need for proof. |
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2. |
| 2:45 | ||||
Here's a scale, weigh it out and you'll find, easily
More than sufficient doubt that these colors you see were picked in advance by some careful hand With an absolute concept of beauty They are smeared and these blurs come in random order And they color the eyes of your former lovers Hers were green like July, Except when she cried they were red Now I know a disease that these doctors can’t treat You contract on the day you accept all you see Is a mirror, and a mirror is all it can be A reflection of something we’re missing And language just happened, it was never planned And it’s inadequate to describe where I am In the room of my house where the light's never been Waiting for this day to end And these clocks keep unwinding and completely ignore Everything that we hate or adore Once the page of a calendar is turned it’s no more So tell me then, what was it for? Oh tell me, what was it for |
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3. |
| 3:56 | ||||
Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning
when you start to raise your head? And does he sing to you, incessantly, from the space between your bed and wall? Does he walk around all day at school, with his feet inside your shoes? Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you? Oh, Does he know that place below your neck that's your favorite to be touched? And does he cry through broken sentences like, "I love you far too much"? Does he lay awake listening to your breath? Worried you smoke too many cigarettes? Is he coughing now? On a bathroom floor? For every speck of tile There's a thousand more You won't ever see But must hold inside yourself Eternally Well, I drug your ghost across the country And we plotted out my death In every city, memories would whisper, "Here is where you rest." I was determined in Chicago But I dug my teeth into my knees And I settled for a telephone Sang into your machine, "You are my sunshine, My only sunshine. You are my sunshine, My only sunshine." And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw That her father gave to her She had eyes bright enough to burn me ; They reminded me of yours And in a story told, she was a little girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field And there were rows of ripe tomatoes, where a secret was concealed And it rose like thunder Clapped under our hands And it stretched for centuries To a diary entry's end Where I wrote, "You make me happy, Oh, when skies are gray. You make me happy Oh, when skies are gray, and gray, and gray." Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest With its hands stretched towards the calendar hanging itself But I will not weep For those dying days For all the ones who've left There's a few that stayed And they found me here And pulled me from the grass Where I was laid |
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4. |
| 3:34 | ||||
Now and again it seems worse than it is,
but mostly the view is accurate. You see your breath in the air as you climb up the stairs to that coffin you call your apartment. And you sink in your chair, brush the snow from your hair and drink the cold away. You're not really sure what you're doing this for but you need something to fill up the days. A few more hours. There's a dream in my brain that just won’t go away. It's been stuck there since it came a few nights ago I’m standing on a bridge in the town where I lived as a kid with my mom and my brothers. And then the bridge disappears and I’m standing on air with nothing holding me. And I hang like a star, fucking glow in the dark, for all those starving eyes to see, like the ones we’ve wished on. But now I’m confused. Is this death really you? Do these dreams have any meaning? No. No, I think it's more like a ghost that's been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing |
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5. |
| 4:03 | ||||
You follow the footsteps echoes leading down a hall To a room, there's music playing Tiny bells with moving parts Here the shadows make things ugly an effect quite undesirable And The gold and yellow daylight Grows like ivy across the wall And it bounces off of the painted porcelain A tiny dancing doll Her body spins as she pirouettes Again the world suddenly seems small On an off-white, subtle morning You stretch your legs in the front seat The road has made a vacuum Where our voices used to be And you lay your head onto my shoulder Pour like water over me So if I just exist for the next ten minutes of this drive that would be fine And all the trees that line this curb would be rejoicing and alive Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes fountains of your eyes Because you finally understand the movement of a hand waving good-bye |
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6. |
| 3:45 | ||||
The fragile keep secrets
Gathered in pockets And they will sell them for nothing. A cheap watch or locket That kind of gold washes off. And the sad act like lepers, They stick to the shadows, They long to ring bells of warning To tell of their coming So that the pure can shut their doors. The angry are animals, Senseless and savage, They act without order In logical lapses, They stain their mouths with blood. So take my hand, This barren land is alive tonight. Oh, the corn has grown stalks That form a wall to hide. But the wind carries sounds That I can't see from beyond that line. Then the stalks begin to sway... Oh, stay with me, Arienette, Until the wolves are away. The wicked are vultures And they bake in the canyons, They circle in sunlight And wait for their victims To collapse and call to them. The desperate are water, They'll run down forever And soak into silence, And end up together. In a dark and distant, dark and distant place, So don't leave me here with only mirrors watching me. This house, it holds nothing but the memories, And the moon, it leaves silver but never sleep. And then the silver turns to gray... Oh stay with me, Arienette, Until the wolves are away. |
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7. |
| 2:41 | ||||
Tomorrow when I wake up
I’m finding my brother And making him take me back down to the water That lake where we sailed, and we laughed with our father I will not desert him I will not desert him No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean Or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me I put my face in the dirt and then finally I'll see The sky that has been avoiding me. I started this letter I’m going to send it to Ruba It'll be blessed by her eyes on the gulf coast of Florida With her feet in the sand, And one hand on her swimsuit, She'll recite the prayer of my pen Saying, "Time take us forward. Relief from this longing. They can land that plane on my heart; I don’t care. Just give me November, The warmth of a whisper, In the freezing darkness of my room." But no matter what I would do in an attempt to replace All these pills that I take, trying to balance my brain See the curious girl with that look on her face So surprised she stares out from her display case |
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8. |
| 4:44 | ||||
to moonn 6pence from shootingstar
The phone slips from a loose grip Words were missed then, some apology I didn’t want to tell you this No, it’s just some guy she's been hanging out with I don’t know, the past couple weeks I guess Well, thank you and hang up the phone Let the funeral start Hear the casket close Let’s pin split-black ribbon to your overcoat Well, laughter pours from under doors In this house, I don’t understand that sound no more It seems artificial, like a T.V. set Well, haligh, haligh, haligh, haligh This weight it must be satisfied You offer only one reply You know not what you do But you tear and tear your hair from roots From that same head you have twice removed now A lock of hair you said would prove Our love would never die Well ha ha ha I remember everything The words we spoke on freezing South Street And all those mornings watching you get ready for school You combed your hair inside that mirror The one you painted blue and glued with jewelry tears Something about those bright colors would always make you feel better But now we speak with ruined tongues And the words we say aren’t meant for anyone It’s just a mumbled sentence to a passing acquaintance But there was once you You said you hate my suffering And you understood And you’d take care of me You'd always be there Well where are you now? Haligh, haligh, haligh, haligh The plans were never finalized But left to hang like yarn and twine Dangling before my eyes As you tear and tear your hair from roots From that same head you have twice removed A lock of hair you said would prove Our love would never die And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings As my fingers press onto the strings In yet another clumsy chord Haligh, haligh, an awful lie This weight will now be satisfied I'm gonna give you only one reply I know not who I am But I talk in the mirror To the stranger that appears Our conversations are circles Always one sided Nothing is clear Except we keep coming back To this meaning that I lack He says the choices were given Now I must live them Or just not live But do you want that |
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9. |
| 4:43 | ||||
At the center of the world
There's a statue of a girl, She is standing near a well With a bucket bare and dry. I went and looked her in the eyes And she turned me into sand, This clumsy form that I despise It scattered easy in her hand. And came to rest upon a beach With a million others there, We sat and waited for the sea To stretch out so that we could disappear Into the endlessness of blue, Into the horror of the truth, See, we are far less than we knew. Yeah, we are far less than we knew. But we knew what we could taste. Girls found honey to drench our hands. Men cut marble to mark our graves, Saying, "we'll need something to remind us Of all the sweetness that has passed through us." (Fresh sangria and lemon tea.) The priests dressed children for choir (White-robed small voices praise Him.) But found no joy in what was sung, The funeral had begun. In the middle of the day, When you drive home to your place From that job that makes you sleep Back to the thoughts that keep you awake, Long after night has come to claim Any light that still remains In the corner of the frame That you put around her face. Two pills just weren't enough, The alarm clock's going off But you're not waking up, This isn't happening, happening, happening, happening, happening. It is. |
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10. |
| 4:32 | ||||
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
Swiftly go the days Sunrise, sunset, you wake up then you undress It always is the same The sunrise and a sun sets You are lying while you confess Keep trying to explain The sunrise and the sun sets You realize and then you forget What you have been trying to retain But everybody knows it's all about the things That get stuck inside of your head Like the songs your roommate sings Or a vision of her body as she stretches out on your bed you raise her hands in the air Ask her 'When was the last time you looked in the mirror? Cause you've changed, yeah, you've changed The sunrise, the sunset, you're hopeful and then you regret The circle never breaks With a sunrise and sunset, there's a change of heart or address Is there nothing that remains? For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you're depressed Will you ever feel ok? For a sunrise or a sunset, your lover is an actress Did you really think she'd stay? For a sunrise or a sunset, you're either coming or you just left But you're always on the way Towards a sunrise or a sunset, a scribble or a sonnet They are really just the same To the sunrise or the sunset, the master and his servant Have exactly the same fate It's a sunrise and a sunset, from a cradle to a casket There is no way to escape The sunrise or the sunset, hold your sadness like a puppet Keep putting on the play But everything you do is leading to the point Where you just won't know what to do And the moment that you're laughing There is someone there who will be laughing louder than you So it's true, the trick is complete You've become everything you said you never would be You're a fool, you're a fool Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset The sunrise and the sun sets Sunrise, sunset, the sunrise, the sun sets The sunrise, the sun sets Sunrise, sunset, go home to your apartment Put the cassette in the tape deck And let that fever play. Sunrise, sunset, where are you, Arienette? Where are you, Arienette? |
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11. |
| 8:29 | ||||
Did you expect it all to stop
At the wave of your hand? Like the sun's just gonna drop If it's night you demand. Well, in the dark we're just air So the house might dissolve, But once we're gone, who's gonna care If we were ever here at all? Well, summer's gonna come, It's gonna cloud our eyes again. No need to focus When there's nothing that's worth seeing. So we trade liquor for blood In an attempt to tip the scales. I think you lost what you loved In that mess of details. They seemed so important at the time, But now you can't even recall Any names, faces, or lines, It's more the feeling of it all. Well, winter's gonna end, I'm gonna clean these veins again So close to dying that I finally can start living. |
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12. |
| 5:30 | ||||
There's a middle-aged woman, she's dragging her feet,
She carries baskets of clothes to a laundromat. While the Mexican children kick rocks into the street, And they laugh in a language I don't understand. But I love them, why do I love them? So the neighborhood's dimming, I smoke on the porch, Watch the people as they pass enclosed inside their cars. On their faces just anger or disappointment, I start wishing there was something I could offer them. A consolation, what could I offer them? Well, they are sad in their suburbs, robots water the lawn And everything they touch gets dusted spotless. And so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all, And the cars in the driveway only multiply. Well, they are lost in their houses, I've heard them sing in the shower, Making speeches to their sister on the telephone. Saying, "You come home, woman, you come here, Don't stay so far away from me." This weather has me wanting love more tangible. Something I can hold, 'Cause it's getting cold. Let's hold up our fists to the flame in the sky To block out the light that's reaching for our eyes 'Cause it, 'cause it would blind us. Yeah, it will blind us. Well, I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine So I may never be free of this apathy. But I wait for a letter that's coming to me, She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope. So there still is hope, yes, I can be healed, There is someone looking for what I've concealed In my secret drawer, in my pockets deep You will find the reasons that I can't sleep, And you will still want me. But will you still want me? Will you still want me? Well I said, "Come for the week, you can sleep in my bed And pass through my life like a dream through my head, It will, it will be easy. I'll make it easy." But, all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time And a melody to keep me from worrying. Some simple progression to keep my fingers busy, And words that are sure to come back to me. And they'll be laughing. And they'll be laughing. My mediocrity, my mediocrity. Yeah, they'll be laughing. Yeah, they'll be laughing. They will be laughing. |