1. |
Pleiades
04:10
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I try to speak out, but the words don’t come out
So the conversation moves on without me
From the backseat, the night passing next to me
And I’ve never felt, so alone.
See I’m not naïve to believe, that I’m without friends like family
I just wish I had something more to offer, maybe then I’d feel less like an imposter
Oh, it’s lights out and everybody’s headed out
it’s just me and the fluorescence overhead
I’m half-empty on cigarettes and whiskey
and I’m terrified of the walk ahead
See I can’t help but wonder if,
or am I just waiting for last call and shots of pity?
as my soles melt out into the city.
Like sailors of antiquity
I’m searching for it in the winter’s night
I’m drowning in a sea of eternity
and those seven sisters bring me back to life
I’m dissolving, like sugar in coffee
Like snow melts into resignation
Beneath the spotlights of the city streets tonight
I’ll find myself in their constellation
Cause Noah says, “We’re all just satellites, floating lonely in the night
until we crash into some stars and disintegrate.
Oh what lovely star stuff we will make!
Pleiades. That’s where you’ll find me. That’s where you’ll find me.
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2. |
City O City
04:01
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Cash register. Sky scraper. Gold-guilded legislature.
Turn a blind eye to the suffering and keep the spotlight on the novelties.
I can’t breathe under the weight of the price to be a human being.
Oh my city, where did you go?
I have loved you, and you have gone.
There ain’t no gold in those mountains. There ain’t no gold in those streams.
The only gold you’re gonna find, is gonna break your crooked teeth.
The city’s a white-washed tomb—the blood’s running through her streets.
Oh her heart has long been removed. She’s an empty cavity.
Ki-ki-ki-kick the kids out to the curb onto the cold, black streets
While the red, white, and blue-blooded Americans build their aristocracy
How could so much go to so few and how did we ever get this far?
When did the “tired, hungry, poor” cry out “more, more, more!”
Oh my city, where did you go?
I have loved you, and you have gone.
There ain’t no gold in those mountains. There ain’t no gold in those streams.
The only gold you’re gonna find, is gonna break your crooked teeth.
The city’s a white-washed tomb—the blood’s running through her streets.
Oh her heart has long been removed. She’s an empty cavity.
The vines hang heavy.
The birds will sing.
The grapes of wrath.
The reckoning.
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3. |
Snake Oil
04:42
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One, two three. One, two, three. Dance with me,
in the daylight, in the sun.
Colors seem brighter, the atmosphere’s lighter
when you’re on my tongue.
Your dress floating free and my tie in the breeze
we’re a hopeless, hopeless cliché.
The world fades away to a rose colored shade
and I’m drifting, drifting away.
But when I fall, I fall so hard
and you’re just a phantom
with no regard…for me.
Four, five, six. Four, fives, six. The band,
continues to play.
Spinning in circles, I’m coming unfurled,
and I’m dissolving away.
My body removed and my soul coming loose
I’m a sheet, tossed in the breeze.
For a moment I’m blessed but I know what comes next,
and the earth is waiting for me.
When I fall, I fall so hard
and you’re just a hunter
with no regard…for peace.
Seven then eight. Or is it eight and then nine?
I’m now stumbling, stumbling through time.
Caught in a tailspin of regret and sin,
and you’re absent in my decline.
Piercing the clouds as I make my way down
it’s in darkness that I see truth.
Delusions of grandeur, the narcissist
Pandering the snake oil of you.
When I fall, I fall so hard
and you’re just a phantom
with no regard…
Oh but when I fall, I fall so hard
and when I hit the ground
it’s such a deafening sound.
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4. |
Asian-American
05:16
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Asian-American
Slant-eyed and Southern Pride
Alienated
cause I’m hyphenated.
Well I guess I don’t belong here,
I’ve been told I never did.
But I was born here…
I’m not the yellow man, nor the redneck’s son
neither would take me in. They kept me on the run.
Folks always ask me where I’m from.
I tell em, “Texas”, but it ain’t enough.
No it don’t suffice. They want my bloodline. They want my pedigree.
The want to know these things before they know me.
I’ve taken my licks now and I’ve dealt a few.
But I won’t apologize for not being you.
I’m a model minority so long as I do what’s expected of me.
“Just play real nice, kid. Do how the other’s did. And, let’s see some kung-fu fighting”
But the only kicks from me you’re gonna see are to your fucking teeth!
The 9066 and the 442.
Have left me feeling black and blue.
But it ain’t no cause for a precedent.
Cause I’m still a goddamn American!
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5. |
The Heavy
04:15
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Here comes The Heavy. Here comes the mirror.
Here comes the shit you just don’t wanna here.
Delusions of grandeur. Narcissistic panderings.
The weight of the world on your broken wings.
Take off my clothes. Peel away my skin.
Wince at the black as night pours in.
Hear these heartstings played. Hear em bend and hear em break.
Hear the hurt in my voice when it quakes
You say it’s okay. I say that it’s not.
To be what I am and not what I ought.
Comfort dulls the blade of a life against the vein.
We’re only living when we’re dying every night.
Here come the tired, the hungry, the poor
Laying their wreaths at your feet, at your door.
Comfort them will you? Yeah, do it of me.
Do it cause I’m too much a coward to see.
You say it’s okay. I say that it’s not.
To be what I am and not what I ought.
Comfort dulls the blade of a life against the vein.
We’re only living when we’re dying every night.
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6. |
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Well I was born under a blood-red moon
and bleeding’s all I’ve known to do.
If you got nothing you’ve got nothing to loose,
so play the chords hard and out of tune.
My hand’s unsteady, shaking at best.
A transient heart beats out of my chest.
I’ve got a tongue that speaks in cigarettes.
Oh, I sleep but I never rest.
I’m all alone. I’m on my own.
But it’s alright.
Cause every chord must progress, across the board, across the fret.
Every finger must restep, along your spine, along your neck.
Every pen must spill its ink against the margins, against the reams.
Every bleeding heart must sing, from every suture, from every seam.
Oh, and the red and the greens in the blood-spattered trees
and the rust from the eaves of the abandoned buildings sing
a funeral dirge of the season’s passing
of the summers, the falls, and the beginnings
So you’ve been keeping time all of your life
For every step to the left you take a step to the right
Until all you’ve known is that nine-to-five
You live to live until you live to die
You’re all alone. You’re on your own.
But it’s alright.
Cause every chord must progress, across the board, across the fret.
Every finger must restep, along your spine, along your neck.
Every pen must spill its ink against the margins, against the reams.
Every bleeding heart must sing, from every suture, from every seam.
Every bud must bloom and burst, despite the chorus, despite the verse
Every son must render first, despite the murder, despite the curse.
Every pen must spill its ink against the margins, against the reams.
Every bleeding heart must sing, from every suture, from every seam.
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7. |
Double Life
04:05
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Oh, this double life I lead,
the steady-handed shepherd, the sailor lost at sea.
Beneath the shine there’s a darkness deep inside
and it’s keeping me awake in the night.
Oh my cross my regret
The sins I fail to confess
Cause if you knew the man I am, surely there your love would end
So I’ll be keeping all my secrets buried deep.
To much time to think and no time left to breathe
Oh the current pulls me underneath the waves
The pills that I take, to keep my mind at bay
oh the lies I say when I say, “I’m doing great.”
I’m a rock. I’m a stone.
I’m a myth out on loan.
Cause if you knew the man I am, surely there your love would end
So I’ll be keeping all my secrets buried deep.
I’m a troubadour selling my wares door to door.
A penny for your hopes and fears.
Cause if our hearts were on display, we’d see we’re all the same.
We’re all just laughing, laughing through our tears.
Why betray.
This image I’ve made
Cause if you knew the man I am, surely there your love would end
So I’ll be keeping all my secrets buried deep.
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8. |
The American
05:34
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He’s looking for a war he can fight.
Just like his daddy did. Just like his granddaddy did.
He’s see the world by the dawn’s early light.
And he’s willing to sacrifice, just to do what’s right.
He was trained to be a Spartan in the sands of Parris Island,
to guard the Gates of Fire and his Lady of New York Harbor
But the shrapnel in his legs and the demons in his head
and his decrepit living situation.
That’s the thanks of a grateful nation.
He’s The American.
Soldier of virtue looking for a country to turn to.
He’s The American.
Independent farmer. Coal-miner’s daughter.
She wears a hijab of blue and white,
crimson-stained—sutured with her sister’s life.
Across the sea far from those heresy songs
and those evil men, with their blasphemy bombs.
With her hand on her breast, she swears an oath of allegiance
without mental reservation or purpose of evasion.
But the color of her skin, was seen by some to be a sin
and it was justified by the presidency.
Well, how’s that for the Land of the Free?
She’s The American.
Tired, hungry, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
She’s The American.
Lonely and tempest tossed, waiting out at sea.
When they say, “Native” they don’t mean him.
He’s just a "cold-blooded injun, only good for raping and killing."
Through the tears to that damn reservation.
That long walk with no, no destination.
But he knows Sisyphus was triumphant.
Cause life itself is an act of defiance.
He’s The American.
Don’t you remember? I’m your native son.
He’s The American.
Don’t you remember? I was here before time begun.
He’s The American.
I’m The American.
I try to speak out, now the words they just come out.
We’re The Americans.
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