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While I was hiding in front yards by hedges, you dangled your feet off of shiny gold ledges. At the top of your class, at the front of your line, while I
daydreamed like preteens, straight wasting my time. Dozens of nights looking over my shoulder, while you were receiving that gold stamped diploma. A key to the city while I dreamt of the street. Your mind wide awake while I was destined to sleep on a mattress of unanswered messages, sacrilege.
Climbing your ladder straight up over my head. And now we're sitting here face to face taking stock of what we've attained. I can't level the playing field, it's the killing fields of youth.
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Road Rash
We've got issues, we've got problems. A laundry list of insecurities. We've been emotional, self-promotional, fell victim to this social disease. But there is
no cure, only bottled time. And you just can't pop the top. It's broken up and bearing down, out of control. Hoping and praying to forget about you. I know
it's gonna be hard, but what am I to do? I've made some big mistakes and in turn, I've made some giant leaps of faith. Left with nothing but road rash on my
hands, and a bruise upon my face. I was told by older souls it would be a piece of cake, but they're all fried and petrified, left frozen at the stake. You,
horrible you. You, terrible you. You, pitiful you.
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I'm sick of the back and forth, stricken ill by the give and take. I grovel at the feet, I am anonymous. Spare me your pity for goodness sake. It's not wanted, nor needed. Met with hostility he pleaded. And the band played on like a soundtrack. I watched it unfold like a one act play. Here's the antagonist. There are no heroes, just onlookers who've seen it happen many times before. Shell shocked and indifferent. Just waiting for it to end. Really what's the point if we let you get away with this? It's not wanted, nor needed, met with hostility he pleaded. I came to escape from the very same thing that you're doing to people just like us. To the people just like us, lost my bearings, you've lost my trust. Pissed on your chains and watched them rust. To the people just like us.
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Youth Culture
I know it's hard to reside in a place you are constantly shit upon. Day after day they're always chipping away. Screaming at a wall, they force you to break.
And that's what it's like when the weight comes crashing down. A hole in the ground, it's awaiting you. A scared kid in the night, always shaking you. Try to
comfort you, put their faith in you. An altercation and they kick down the door to your room. That's just the way of the world. Feel like you're better off dead.
As you crawl through the wreckage, wounded barely alive. Never once taught to survive. That's just the way of world, things that are better unsaid. That's
just the way of the world bearing right down on your head. A glimmer of hope and it's snuffed out like a lamp.
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Southern Air
You found that happy place a private war against frustration. Yet, you say you want peace. Lock and load your thoughts, pull the trigger and explain, while
armed right to the teeth. They said that you would end up doing time for the way you acted as a child. So void, yet so unconstrained. The testing never told
the truth on what we knew. Oh well, said the administration as they wrote you off and they sent you home. That's life, guilty by association. That's when it
ended for you. Pushing on, you roam the streets at nightfall. Too scared, too worried to head for home. Riding alone down the borderline, one foot in our
town, the other worn to the bone. Gave you a ticket and a ride to the plane, they thought the southern air would straighten you up and out. I said goodbye as
I waved to the car, that was the very last time I saw my friend, and I had to shout! I'd love to see you when you get back. Summer vacation's just a couple of
months away. You never came back, you died on the vine. A changed kid in the sun, let's hope he stays that way. Pushing on, you roam the streets at
nightfall.
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Kennel
I have always kept my faith in you. You have always stayed the course. You have fought the greatest of fights my friend. The compass always pointing
north. Force feeding dogs into believing they are wolves. Rewriting the doctrines of law and faith in man. I slept on the desk in the corner, hidden behind
textbook camouflage. Sleeping this life away. Nourishment of intellect you had, a calming siren though the storm. To weak to wake, can't budge an inch, we
gain no ground. No time we're late, on your feet again, ankle deep in solid ground. But as usual, it didn't work out. You gotta get in to fit in. And you're fitting
in right now. It's a hard rain and it keeps coming down, and you won't find no shelter on the ground.
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Three Weeks in the Desert
Did we ignore the warning signs. Clearer and brighter than days in the sun. And now we're running out of time. Limping and shuffling, painted and
numbered. Relax in a chair, take a drink of future vistas, plains and the pavement. And I would like a snapshot of future amounts, future accounts. I'd like to
take comfort in a rock solid idea. Like a children's race track, driving in circles, the basement as scenery. I'm tired waiting, my eyes, my will is self
restraining. Unchained and unbroken. Unbowed and undefeated.
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Conspiracy Theories
You've got conspiracy theories, planting charges all inside your veins. Exploding trains. An explanation's easy if you want it, a secret society pulling strings.
Ever wonder who killed the Kennedys? They did, they did. Satanic masons running all our banks. Vatican agents guarding gold in Nazi tanks. And that
black cloud that's hanging over your head, is a black helicopter gonna shoot you dead. You've got conspiracy theories, running circles all inside your head,
and they're all dead. Never looked it up in a single book. Bumper sticker on the back of a car. Like a bubble boy out of oxygen, starved for information, yea
you know who you are. I've got a theory of my own about you.
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Little Pill
Put a little pill under your tongue. You ingest the medicine it's a candy coated pain disguised as fun. Put a little idea in your brain. You mull it over for hours
and hours, it just doesn't fit, you can't acquit. This home is made of sticks and stones and fear. You don't go back. Because it's not safe, and there's no one
there, and it's not safe in the poison air. Pulling up the road where we used to live. There's a fucking crater where it blasted up our street, and through your
hair. And it's in your brain, and it's in your brain. Don't go, because it's not safe. A warning label draped across an open space. And it's hard to hold what you
can't take. You find yourself calling out to God, and you feel fake. Jet stream across a winter sky, coughing as he said goodbye. Paperwork and forms to file.
Stamping, sealing every pile.
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COLD & GRAY
Active imagination, stations of the cross. Kneeling, counting on beads. Hail Mary's and prayers for the lost. Class war in the pews and the aisles, a rally cry
for the faith that's been lost. Hopelessly devoted to statues and men of the cloth. I've seen a passion in you. Unwavering faith in what's true. Coins in the
basket till your satin lined casket, shiny and new! It gets put in sacred ground, like Christ in his burial shroud. But in three days you will not be waking up. No
ascension into heaven, no tombs rocks breaking up. And in the end we will all be cold and grey.
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Grifters
Take a seat and have a talk a with me as I plant the final nail in the lid. I was warned by others sounding alarms, reminding me of shady things you did. You
made your pitch, and I bought every word of it. I had the blinders on but I did not see any harm in handing things from the bank. You spoke of my old lady,
and our newborn baby. Smiling eyes they were blank. And one day there will come a time when you're gonna see the end of your line. The skeletons in your
closet, they'll be dropping like flies. It sank in your back pocket, with my hopes and my dreams.Another sucker born into the world, while you're behind the
scenes. Your own flesh in blood, your own wife and kids, they hide themselves from your deeds. With your lies and bullshit, your confidence and your
charm, sewing those seeds.
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Bog Road
I can't believe that it's coming down to this. When your life's like a name on chart filed on a list. And I think about how we walked along that old bog road. You
pulled me out when I fell in. Now it's me that is walking you. Every step, it's a give and take, let you walk away from it all down that road. And now that it's
gonna end. I'll take everything but this last breathe in the house by the bog road, a hiding place up ahead. Evening plays tricks cuz it gets dark so damn late.
When the fights at the dining room table still escalate. I answered every question posed but it's just not good enough. Took a stroll by myself, I'm allowed.
Closed eyes as I sang to the crowd again and again. If I look inside the side door, will my boots be where they were before. Slide them on and they feel a bit
small, force them on and I'm walking tall. A little faster, littler older now.
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released August 9, 2011