1. |
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The civil war ain't over
Or the circus in your head
Another New Year’s day out side the grave
In the Valley of the Dead
To shiver in the sunlight
Melting in the shade
Where you stand
Living with these nativists
These self-aggrieved recidivists
Owing no faith to the common ground
Is like living with an arsonist
Who burns his own house down
To the ground
The mutiny has ended
All the madness at the helm
And the cautious optimism
Is the new coin of the realm
Shattered in slow motion
We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Living with these nativists
These self-aggrieved recidivists
Owing no faith to the common ground
Is like living with an arsonist
Who burns his own house down
To the ground
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2. |
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FEBRUARY : INSURRECTION BLUES
The truth will freeze in a deep sleep
While a lie travels round the world
You can believe what you wanna believe
But the virus won’t hear a word
Discontented winters
Unrepentant sinners
In the hands of an angry god
At the intersection of faith and insurrection
In the chants of an angry mob
200 days of the long spring
Did the seasons even change at all?
Who could believe we'd live through such misery
As the summer bled into the fall into…
Into candy-coated winters
absolute beginners
Where the time went nobody knows
We should get together
When the weathers better
And the violence is gone from these shores
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3. |
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LYRICS:
A love song for my friends
How long has it been?
How much longer will it be?
Until we throw down -
In some remote part of town.
Can’t come soon enough for me.
We’re still a mess
But you’re impeccably dressed
And you’re still good enough for me.
Spring is coming
The wait is over
Can we throw
All this weight over now?
Witness the sound
Of all the walls coming down
And the sunlight crashing in.
It won’t be the same
Until I’m yelling your name
Over the crowded, bustling din.
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4. |
April: Jean Say's Curse
03:56
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We never rehearsed
For Jean Say’s curse
And the boats that we’re in aren’t the same
Everything you can lean
On how the world turns
Is at the end of a monopoly game
Chorus
A heart that’s as hard as a diamond
And a love that’s more rare than gold
When you ain't got no plans
When the shit hits the fans
And you shiver all night in the cold
So blow the 4 winds
To their predictable ends
From New York to the Barbary Coast
The garbage truck choir
And all we lost in the fire
Is shuttled from pillar to post
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5. |
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Sometimes despair’s your only catalyst
It’s like a friend you probably never should have kissed
And hope’s a bird without its feathers
And both its wings are tied together
Stuck up on a roof
It could be me
And I hope it isn’t you.
(Blow the stars )
(Up into the sky)
(Like the seeds)
(Of a dandelion )
Perfect strangers with the benefits
Of all the people and the places that you miss
You shouldn’t have to sell your sorrow
When there’s still money left to borrow
Where you are still cared for
Enough to fill the ocean to the shore
Until the sun and moon explode
Until the mountain takes the road
Until the deepest lake goes shallow
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6. |
June: All the Mad Ones
04:37
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The nemesis you made
In the horror of 10th grade
Now
Is like sand in the vaseline
Hoarding the gasoline now
You cannot escape
The small town thats in your brain
Or can you now?
Now its disappeared
Im glad my friends were all weird
And still are now
It makes no difference to me
The only ones good to me
Were all the mad ones
When there's no fish in the sea
You can still count on me
Don’t ya know
They stood in your way
But they’ll fall for anything now
Stumble down the rabbit holes
Nothing more than bitter trolls now
You can keep yr guns and we’ll keep all the fun
How ‘bout it now?
But if you wanna step
My whole towns got my back
Where are ya now?
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7. |
July: Come Sail Away
05:32
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I'm sailing away
Set an open course for the Virgin Sea
'Cause I've got to be free
Free to face the life that's ahead of me
On board I'm the captain
So climb aboard
We'll search for tomorrow
On every shore and I'll try
Oh Lord I'll try
To carry on
I look to the sea
Reflections in the waves spark my memory
Some happy some sad
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had
We live happily forever
So the story goes
But somehow we missed out
On that pot of gold
But we'll try best that we can
To carry on
A gathering of angels
Appeared above my head
They sang to me this song of hope
And this is what they said
They said, come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me (lads)
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me (baby)
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me
I thought that they were angels
But to my surprise
We climbed aboard their starship
We headed for the skies
Singing, come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me (lads)
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me
Come sail away, come sail away
Come sail away with me
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8. |
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well the streetlamps are like stethoscopes
on all our teenage dreams
and the heartbeats are the engines
fuelled on by magazines
while the adolescent superhero watches over our defeat
with the last of the zit faced losers genuflecting at his feet
and we're dying to be like them
while they die at what they do
if i could touch the hem of his blue jeans
i believe he'd make me cool
and while the world spins like a drunk in bed
of everything i'd like to prove
the only thing i have worth having
is the thing i have in you
and everything is nothing next to you
we got that unconditional love
unconditional love
because it's unconditional love that you want
and it's all you been dreaming of
watch the new religion
as it reaches apogee
on the steadfast imposition of it's core of disbelief
Onward Christian soldiers marching off to civil war
while the last of the true believers are all filling up the morgues
some will die for country
and some will die for kicks
some will die on ventilators
just to own the libs
some are trapped in 1930s psycho-sexual berlin
some are dying at the hands of cops
from the color of their skin
the roof has raised but the walls are caving in
they got that unconditional love
unconditional love
because it's unconditional love that you want
and it's all you been dreaming of
the invisible hand is at the neck
of the people's marketplace
like the smell of long lost lovers
still upon your pillowcase
like a governor's high school pictures
smiling in blackface
we got 10 million people starving
but there are billionaires in space
we're just neo-feudal peasants
not to be outdone
like a city garbage truck
driving straight into the sun
while the dangerous propaganda
erupts across the TV waves
rattles the population
like an explosion in a cave
this is no way for a people to behave
they need that unconditional love
unconditional love
because it's unconditional love that you want
and it's all you been dreaming of
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9. |
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The moon takes the bench and then we all rise
Adjudicating the fault lines
Separating L.A.
The bailiff swearing in-n-out the long lines
Estimated wait times
Are being measured in days
Chorus 1:
The stars gather like an audience up in the desert sky
From Bombay Beach to the astral plane tonight
While the swollen cowboys make the pilgrimage down the Grapevine
For the California Gold they’ll never find.
The Oxycontin fields of New Eureka
The warm smell of paprika
The Catalina escape
The Crystal Palace closed till further notice
Methamphetamine poets
All hide behind drapes
Chorus 2:
Huell Burney Howser died on the crossroads for your sins
As the Central Valley bends in space-time
Coalinga Cattle staring at you with blank eyes
And the condors are just vultures in disguise
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10. |
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With yr shaking hands
And a door that slams
Behind you with a crash
Everything you gave
Wasn’t enough to save you
From everything you lacked
And you know when they go
You know they ain’t coming back.
Chorus:
You might be the last believer in an egomaniac
You might be the best of the least impressed
With the folks chained to the mast
And the hope
When it goes it ain’t coming back
You might slip on a Bronze Age myth
Of where the sun goes overnight
The existential dread they stuffed inside your head
Out of nothing more than spite
Out in the road
In the glow of red tail lights
(Chorus)
Bridge:
So constipated with the need to relate
To all these people you love
And all these people you hated
From the back of this bubble
That you had to create
So that no one gets out or gets in
All the years you spent
On the one percent
Pass like a kidney stone
Because your stupid ego’s
Never been your amigo
So you probably better leave it alone
Cuz when it goes
You’ll be glad it ain’t coming back
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11. |
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Music from the manhole cover
Like the sound of moaning lovers
With limited appeal
Cleverly concealed
Children in a field
None of this is real
(Chorus)
Big city crumble to the ocean
Little city cowering in fear
The final act of apostolic devotion
To the last unholy racketeer
Look at all these people dancing
Is there something here that strikes your fancy?
Something you don’t have
Something to make you mad
Nihilistic fads
Would you like to see some ads?
(Chorus)
Well you can tell yourself you just don’t need it
You can tell yourself you don’t believe it
But the outrage burns you clean
In the Holy Ghost machine
And it wants you to come along
But it don’t want you to hear this song
Big city collapse in slow motion
Little city with no restraint
The devil’s dancing at the bottom of the ocean
To the algorithm of the saints.
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12. |
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DECEMBER: GOTTA HAVE LOVE
When the worst imposter syndrome
Just keeps pounding in yr head
When the folks you needed most out here
Have left you all for dead
When yr so completely broken
That you can’t pretend yr tough
When the going gets so far from good
That it never got past rough
When you gave the very best ya had
And still it’s not enough
And you say
Oooooooh
You can have my love
And thats a start
Ya gotta have love
In your heart
When the present that you got
Is buried underneath the past
When the future that you worked to build
Just wasn’t built to last
When you’re spilling out the sides
From all the lies that you’ve been fed
When yr brain is out to get you
So you push it back with meds
When the folks that should have raised you
Just flattened you out instead
And you say
Oooooooh
When yr veering off the road
well I will grab the wheel and steer
When we burst into applause
instead of bursting out it tears
If the darkness overtakes you
I will make it disappear
Until the object in the mirror
Is better off than it appears
Make those shitbags that would break us
Will wish they weren’t so cavalier
And we’ll say
Oooooooh
Cuz were gonna have love
Because you deserve love
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13. |
Song for the New Year
03:48
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Happy new years baby
Sure am glad to see the last one go
And the one before and a couple more - who knows?
Maybe we’re the lucky ones - the ones of us still here
Not everybody made it through the year
Chorus:
Here we go again with this
The siren song of hope
Wishing on pennies cast to the gators in the moat
Spend yr Christmas money on some scratchers, food, and dope
Lay your afflictions on the alter of the radio
Confetti in the champagne glasses rolling on the floor
Amazon returns in a pile by the door.
Maybe this year will be better
Maybe the worst of it has passed
Maybe this is the year you get your head out of your ass.
Chorus:
Here we go again with this - The siren song of hope
Wishing on pennies cast to the gators in the moat
Spend yr Christmas money on some scratchers, food, and dope
Lay your afflictions on the alter of the radio
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Buck AE Down Los Angeles, California
Buck AE Down is an artist, writer and producer who lives in Los Angeles and who'd like to be friends with you, if that's cool.
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