1. |
Marian
06:05
|
|||
Drunk and invulnerable
Driving home in the snow
The pikeʼs a time tunnel, honey lamb
Wonʼt bother quitting
Already seen the way it ends for me
The mine collapses in spring of ʼ67
I was a bastard anyway
But feigning tenderness
I left you something dreadful
And you didnʼt know
She was a blue baby
Hole in her heart
From the start
Came two months early
Call her Marian for grandma
She grows up fast and moves to new Babylon
Watches the plague take her pretty friends
Flash to her middle age
The storm on Jupiterʼs abating
Sheʼs our blue baby
Hole for a heart
From the start
Her whale song wakes me
Reach for your warmth
You know that I am with time, honey
I ainʼt in time
And I see these arcing streams
Tracing something grander than you can imagine
If you want
I donʼt mind
Iʼll whisper the date and time
A phase change
Condensate
Reason to be afraid
Now and then
The light bends
After my accident
‘Round a room
Where I hide
In a sea of Virginia pines
A burnt bus
Further in
McDowell County District
I climb up
Take my blade
Start carving the name of my blue baby
|
||||
2. |
Diamond
03:54
|
|||
The day bled rain
I’m more than my thoughts
Beech trees shake water off
Like colossal dogs
I leave a me-shaped tunnel in the tawny fog
Let’s head upstate when
I get my advance
We’ll build our studio
Or just shoot at cans
You know your home is wherever I am
I say awful things
‘Cause it makes you smile
With the empty glint
Of a diamond mine
“Life is mostly shit
You make it seem alright sometimes”
We’ll be East coast til
It all hits the fan
Gave us this world
Never said it was fair
Move to console you
But I’m nailed to the air
I say awful things
‘Cause it makes you smile
With the empty glint
Of a diamond mine
Life is mostly shit
You make it seem alright sometimes
The yard is an ancient garden in a future age
Above the flagstones she’s hovering
Dreaming this present
She is tall and thin and totally terrifying
Hey, the distances
|
||||
3. |
Ultrasound
03:22
|
|||
Time felt
When sunʼs rays rake us
On Loveladies sands weʼll lay
A baby grand hanging over my babyʼs head
In five business days
Weʼll know
Body horror
Never thought
Of all the things that could go wrong
We try to sleep
Weʼre spinning ‘round
A shadow on the ultrasound
I would never leave you darling
No
Wanna take this weight off of ya
No Fear TM
Yup, I grew up here
Mudding trucks with dixie flags
The yawning void in the shadows of ball caps
The ancient glacierʼs path made the valley
Body horror
Pace the hall
Waiting for the morning call
We tried to sleep
Weʼre spinning ‘round
A shadow on the ultrasound
I could never leave you darling
No
Wanna take this weight off of ya
Between depressive episodes
Weʼre living in the golden zone
Just fleshy things
Electric lives
A universe expands inside us
Body horror
Realized
The million things that all went right
To lead me here
Weʼre side by side
Letʼs leave this house
Letʼs take a ride
|
||||
4. |
Untitled
04:40
|
|||
Ate LSD today
We like the way it makes trees breath and sway
Just like they always have
Walking hand-in-hand onto stained glass Hazel Ave
We fell in love on drugs
Other epiphanies bleed and blur
But this one never did
Now we watch soft shadows of leaves on the buildings
Never soul sick
On this new trip
Ivy wither
River shimmer
On the coal pier
Only you dear
Keep all the flags half mast
Worse even than we feared and twice as fast
“You’d think this life is a dream”, dad said
And cued up “Bobby Jean”
Long ago
Hieroglyphics on the houses
I got shivers
Afterimages
On Europa
An ocean
It’ll strike you deaf dumb and blind
Every lifer’s life ends sometime
|
||||
5. |
Chance
06:13
|
|||
Bobby, send me a memory
Stalling on Ringling Bridge Causeway
Old light
Living and mythic
Ghost of a dead distant system
Starlings swimming in a helix
(Starling swimming and murmuring)
I was ashing in a tambourine
On the passenger seat
Now I’m sleeping in the screen house
(Sleeping, dreaming of waterspouts)
Dreaming dancing pairs of waterspouts
I’ve been laying off the soft packs
Ever since our human angel appeared
A smile and a tear
Little fingers bending ghost notes
I sing “Green, Green Rocky Road”
Entropy slows
Debbie laughing with the camera
She captures everything
My Claddagh ring
Making someone out of nothing
We gave our own secret name
To this painted world
|
||||
6. |
Emerald
05:44
|
|||
Pack of kids blast by
On quads and dirt bikes
Rachel’s sedated
I’m disassociating
Kenzo has cancer
They used to smelt lead here
Trapped in this sprawling dream
Glow, emerald city
Had choices ’til I chose
Scorpios don’t have souls
(But we can take them)
Love watching you watch the sky flood the highway
(At the horizon)
County fair
Woodwind band
Never let go of my hand
(I’ll have to sometime)
Let’s leave it for a while
Hope our hearts halt softly
It’s all been a gift
The crescent sun shadows
In the solar eclipse
It’s two hours to Cape May
Or the Pine Barrens
Always crossing the river
To see all our friends
(Doesn’t make sense)
I think we’d best get back West
Seemed we were happy
Left all our memories
Left our reflections there
Way up on B street
|
||||
7. |
Becca
02:54
|
|||
Becca didn’t sleep a single wink last night
She was busy working the X-acto knife
Trimming squares of tinted plastic carefully
During the eclipse she will be Downtown Disney
Her license was revoked and so she calls a car
Stakes her spot at Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar
Sipping Hpno-tinis ‘neath the blank blue sky
Handing paper shades out to the passers by
3 o’clock approaching
Soon the moment will come
Becca’s given glasses out to everyone
Beholding the celestial phenomenon
She’s the only one who isn’t looking up
Folks won’t notice right away that something’s amiss
Strange the way the setting sun blurs and bulges
Waking in the darkness to their crying kids
Feeling for the light switch
They will hear the ocean
|
||||
8. |
Clearing
03:44
|
|||
Accutane
Dried my brain
It cleared my skin
Now my hair is thin
It’s clearing up
And it’s not enough
It turned my bones to dust
It turned my bones to dust
It turned my bones to dust
Days of glass
I just let em pass
A supercell
With the face of an angel
Golden is her countenance
Bereft of blemishes
Bereft of blemishes
My soul is smooth as a river stone
A trillion voices told me so
It’s clearing up
But it’s not enough
It’s clearing up
But it’s not enough
|
||||
9. |
Southern Cloud
03:27
|
|||
I’m a swallowed colony
A jetliner vanishing
But there is no mystery at all
I ride this sine wave
See steel in the saplings
The years keep passing
And all the while I’m free
To reject the misery
The rotting family tree outside
In the changing light
Leave the ground
This Southern Cloud
I’m never coming down
When the panic’s gone
What will remain
I’ll never feel the same
The voice inside
Wrong every time
Wrong every time
Doom was predicted
Cyclonic conditions
His wife had visions that night
From the Mascot Aerodrome
Over a sea of cortisol
There was no radio
Just the taste of driving rain
No suffering just pain
The full moon starts to wane again
Now I left the ground
This Southern Cloud
I’m never coming down
Southern Sun
What will remain?
I’ll never be the same
If you tell yourself
You’re still a shit
You’ll start believing it
And the voice inside
It’s wrong every time
Wrong every time
|
||||
10. |
Swim
06:12
|
|||
Got a tattoo on my ribcage
Of the second plane hitting
Had it done while I was doing time up in Ossining
Got my game down in the shore towns
With the boardwalk trash
22, I was a blue eyed sociopath
Black out often, not sure
Think I might have hurt someone
Always, same dream
Moonlight silvering the pine trees
I’m guilty
Maybe you could come and live it down with me
As we’re crossing the Walt Whitman
Catch my startled reflection
Don’t think I’ll ever feel like myself again
I’m an Okie from the ‘30s but it’s 2020
The black blizzards on the blank prairie
Casing places
Packing the pistol that my dad left me
Tubs of street chalk
You draw messages for yuppies
We’re evil, baby
sorry
I guess some people have to be
Come and live it down with me
|
Streaming and Download help
If you like Empty Country, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp