1. |
Swords
03:41
|
|||
|
I’m starting a revolution
no revenge, no hate
Just laying down the bricks
To steer my own family straight
Invited my folks along,
Turns that they were not able
pray it won’t be long
before they join us at the table
wide open doors,
Step across and toss yourself into what is
The truth cuts, but that’s what you do to build a bridge
I miss my mother she often shows up in my dreams
Here’s hoping things are more hopeful than they’ve initially seemed
We split like swords
We shake the dust
We didn’t abandon ship
No, that ship abandoned us
I had to escape from the family,
As well, even you
Hard to tell between the tar and glue
That held us all together
Instead of a part
My body stayed and decided split with my heart
Christmas will come around soon, there’s snow on the ground
And a dull pain in my pocket, a heart tightly bound
My freedom may be on the other side of grief
I fear that my detachment will provide me relief
I tried my hardest, I tried to mend it all
I didn’t leave you, I didn’t leave you at all
We split like swords
We shake the dust
We didn’t abandon ship
No, that ship abandoned us
|
||||
2. |
Peacemakers
04:10
|
|||
|
My father was a peaceful man
I was collateral in his peaceful plan
I was isaac, he were Abraham
Except without the ram
I was placed upon the alter
to the god of calm and proper
to the god of family secrets
My father was a peaceful man
Blessed are the peacemakers
and those that uphold the status quo
David’s daughter, Tamar was raped
He was grieved, but he could not take
Action against his favorite son,
“Forgive and forget” “what’s done is done”
What’s wrong with you that you can’t move on?
Don’t take it to heart, dear one
This family used to be so close,
We want you here, and we want your mouth closed
They say they want reconcile,
Want me to entertain for a while
The idea of putting it all in the past
As though these things never had any impact
They wanna sit down and “hear both sides”
They wanna make sure I’m remmebering it right
We need to guarantee that this won’t divide
We have to make sure we’re hearing the rapist’s side
|
||||
3. |
Bound by Blood
04:40
|
|||
|
It’s not the assault itself,
it’s something else
it’s King David on the throne eating cake all by himself
While I’m out here without help
you’re sitting back in the sunbelt
While I go through hell, no way to tell, if this will end well
It’s not like you left, or laid a hand
It’s more like Joab --
all the others stepped back at your command,
It’s not what happened then, it’s all that’s in between
It’s all the years, you made it clear, you’re not on my team.
In the light of day, is where I’ll choose to stay
Where I cannot pretend things have ever been
any other way
You offered me a room
in that dark house with you
Your shelter is a shadow, a room without a view
I’d live there, but I don’t think I’d make it through
It takes a lot of energy to blind yourself to the truth
You erase the past that is
Blind to all consequences,
And then hold white knuckle tight to your precious pretenses
You told my sister in a fit:
“He just needs to get over this”
So this is me getting over this,
this is me getting over you.
In the light of day, is where I’ll choose to stay
where I cannot pretend things have ever been
any other way
Wish I’d seen some reaction
Some sadness in your eyes
When you found out what happened
You say you don’t like him because
he reminds you of someone
An old boss that mistreated you once
No use in listing the reasons
you don’t like my eldest cousin
When you could just say
that bastard raped both my sons.
But you’re bound by blood
In the light of day, is where I’ll choose to stay
Is where I’ll choose to stay, is where I’ll choose to stay.
|
||||
4. |
Repeat
03:54
|
|||
|
I know I’ve been known to be indirect
I come by honestly, possibly
But it’s been a rough year
Heart held in fear
So if you follow me I’ll speak to you candidly
I’ve been crying like my parents are dead to me.
I mean, they're dead to me
No funeral, just grief
Hope is not the sort of thing I can see
from the darker side of calvary
Had an idea that I could write enough songs
To pour out of me all that had gone wrong
But the work of grief is oh-so thorough
Turns out you can’t sing your way out of sorrow
I’ve been angry, and I think that that’s okay
mostly exhausted by the that things I don’t say
thing with these family codes is that they don’t fade
Silence is peace, it’s not great, but "it's okay"
If I could put into words, what I know needs to be heard
I'd just end up repeating, that same song
that sinking feeling
My dad is already balding, a step closer
No balking on that heart halting day of departure
I know the Lord will take him, fix him up good
So we can walk hand in hand, like we both wished we could
I will be sorry, on the day he dies
But death is my hope, on the day that we’ll rise
I know that he’s struggled his whole ragged life
but I’m tired of being one of the ones to pay the price
I could be a good son to my father
or a good father to my son
not sure how I feel about the choice
but I know how I'll feel when I'm done
|
||||
5. |
Fluorescent Lights
03:41
|
|||
|
Florescent lights
In the morning shined
To show that you tried
To manage, to be bright
And I have to take time to remind myself why
Myself that it’s not good enough
We’ve all four agreed, that's not good enough
What if you’re a Narnian statute
No voice but to tribute the one who cursed you?
And what if the only way to break through
the only way to speak to you is to not to?
only talk once your stone eyes soften?
Is that the choice you’ve made but forgotten
Is it really my decision
It feels like it is and it feels it isn’t
The force of your shame is a gale that cannot be tamed and now I know who's to blame, I should've changed and renounced my name
I'm done with all this trying and plotting
and hoping and failing, engaging, withdrawing
not good enough -- it's not good enough
we're set to self destruct.
|
||||
6. |
Chinese Restaurant
04:19
|
|||
|
We ate at the chinese restaurant for Christmas dinner this year
exchanged gifts across the table, like a supervised parental visit
we ate pizza, but only for an hour, you chose her over that other little boy
I shut down like under a cold shower,
and forced my gut to be underemployed
And this is how things are
ten-thousand miles between our homes
and a distance longer between our hearts
and this is how I’ve learned to live
half of you lives in my heart,
and the other half in central Arizona
When I hold my daughter close,
she runs her palms along my hairy arms
reminds me of when I was a child,
bike rides in Springtime, going on for miles
You guided us through the land of Narnia
all those hours sprawled out on the bed,
I remember your tenderness
the feel of your mustache on my forehead
but this how things are
ten-thousand miles between our homes
and a distance longer between our hearts
and this is how I’ve learned to live
half of you lives in my heart
and the other half in central Arizona
|
||||
7. |
Phantom Limb
04:29
|
|||
|
Shut it down, shut it down
Keep the feelings underground
Fearing if I dip a toe
I’ll fall in and quickly drown
On the verge of the wilderness
Out of oppression, into nothingness
Never got much tenderness
From the ones I was placed with
I went for years living in a glass house
I break in just so I can smash out
I was born with a phantom limb,
and its been itching since day one
Can I call it grief if I chose it?
It’s an odd, yet reasonable notion
I didn’t choose this family system
Hearts too heavy to truly listen
I don’t say that with a lick of blame
It’s the rules of this unfair game
You try your best, and then prepare
To do your best at repair
I just need an apology
A promise you’ll be there for me
Can’t spell out any clearer
yet somehow we never seem to get nearer
I’m not holding onto the past
Just holding hope for the future
That I can speak truth without being harrassed
Hoping our family could be healthier
I made collect calls, staring at the pavement
and neither of you could afford to take them,
your heart’s economy already spent
on your own family, your own mind’s own lament
In a certain way you came around for rent
But collecitng from my heart never made a dent
In the debt that you owed your own parents
Stuck in your own, unknown defunct systems
So that’s why I find that I’m singing these songs,
Trying my best to not do my own kids wrong
Trying to grieve when I can, not let it tie my hands
To extend love to know my own children
And I know that you loved me best you could
But we need to move from ‘your best’ to ‘good’
Or at least halfway decent, so I can see that
You’ll have my back like you should
guess I’m just waiting on you
don’t know what the hell else to do
So I’ve grieved so I can move on
But hoping this isn’t the end of our song
|
||||
8. |
Hairy Arms
04:10
|
|||
|
I own everything that happened,
my own glasses, rose colored or mollasses
no fear now that your spirits might be dampened
It’s my story, all this of shit that has happened
Pull on string, unravel a sweater
knit it back together, for my mother
Trying so hard to make it all better,
Hide all these bruises, so as to protect her
My hairy arms hide no lies, cannot deny my family ties
No one lights a candlelight to place it under a bowl to hide
Peace keeping is a tough business,
it’s hideous, and somehow still a prerequisite
For maintaining, and for not straining
My randomly dealt hand of first relationships
My fond memories bank is vacant
Nostalgia's gone, it’s absence is blatant
I only recall feeling slightly connected, vaguely related
Mostly forsaken
I've every reason to cling to a story composed of lovelier things
but when the tide comes in who can choose what it is that it brings
trying to hold back the truth that the body tells takes such energy
tried to bury it into the ground, but it was buried in me
My hairy arms hide no lies, cannot deny my family ties
No one lights a candlelight to place it under a bowl to hide
|
||||
9. |
Relocation
03:23
|
|||
|
Pry back the mechanisms
And You’ll hear no transmissions
Just an escape pod foraging forward
Those ghost signals are better off ignored
Just a jangling jar of crushed up bones
My memories of home
oriented my sights to where the stars do roam
board up all the windows and unhook the phone
I know we’ll make our rondavue under our headstones
Two bowls full of whipped grief,
Milked from two years of sleep,
emerged slumberly from the deep
Out the folds of lost sheep
I slipped in without a peep,
a promise I couldn’t keep
Hid in a shadow of woe
and stepped in my toes,
and said hello to a home that couldn’t be beat
I was swept away
with no plans to stay
and I was framed and saved,
in such a way that was ended so bitter sweet
But here we stand with confidently modest plans
broke from the yoke
of self-blinded eyes, and goat-furried hands
broke free from the family
that cannot see, or understand
|
||||
10. |
Reconcile
03:44
|
|||
|
And I recognized
How ill you are;
How completely loved
Not far from the tree
For years blossoming
With racism and abuse
This passed on to you
From your fathers, too
patterns break, patterns continue
Jesus in your heart
sin in your bones
Forgiven and obtuse
but we won’t come together, no
won’t reconcile, ever, no
but we won’t come together
won’t reconcile, Never.
til you’re ready
Sullen and sorry
No justice no peace
No more family
gatherings
With these men I once believed
who led us from the stream
and let my abuser run free
Broke the steps leaving the sanctuary…
No way to call me back, I’m leaving
Broken trust by my family
No way to call me back, I’m leaving
|
||||
11. |
Funeral Pt. II
03:51
|
|||
|
We don’t create tension, we bring it to the surface
stating plainly: this peace is a disservice
a negative serene, undertow in the stream
A well-oiled machine, rigidly following it’s routine
Tried the best I could, tried to hold steadfast
Hopes were brought up, then gone in a flash
A stroll down negotiations’ path,
I know things will turn back as they had been in the past far too fast
Hammering nails into the casket, my hands are calloused
head out to sea, to scatter those ashes
so many decades of damage,
don’t look back, there’s nothing left to be salvaged
We can only back out now, not fixing a thing
We can only wail out to the lord and sing
It’s fucked up beyond repair,
Drink down the despair
I haven’t seen my parents in years
Lord come down, off that cross, find all of us that are lost
Aren’t there enough crucifixions going on
And we’re still waiting for the coming of the dawn
Who will worship you if all the innocents are gone?
They say please, keep the peace
and sweep their sins beneath the carpet of our history
“can't you get back in line like the way God ordained it to be.”
the idolatry of a false unity
|
||||
12. |
Hope
04:04
|
|||
|
Standing on the sidewalk of my childhood home
I’m all alone and all I see is smoke
I’ve narrowly escaped the flames
And I hear my mother calling out my name
So I reach out a hand to save
But I just get burned again and again
And as the flames grow and the house implodes
And I’m standing on the sidewalk
All alone, and I lose hope
yeah, I lose hope
hoping that I could be good enough
to broker a deal
That would heal the rift between us,
that would mend and would heal
But as I lose hope, I start to relax
No longer trying to do the perfect thing
That will win your love and bring you back
Hope holds me captive, doesn’t allow me to grieve
Holding onto threads doesn’t let me give up, doesn’t let you sleep
But as I let go, I feel the relief
I’ve never been so happy to sink into grief
And I lose hope
And I see my son and daughter, and how much the need me now
How I can give them what I didn’t get, and love them better somehow
And I can break this cycle, I can cut it off at the root
No longer in and out, like the tides pull from the moon
And I have hope
|
||||
Maiden Name Portland, Oregon
If you like Maiden Name, you may also like:
Introspective bedroom pop with a literary-narrative bent, touching the mundane horrors of everyday life.
go to album
The experimental UK artist's latest album is decidedly genre-agnostic.
go to album
Brooklyn-based artist Devin McKnight makes terrifically experimental pop music, pairing skewed guitar arrangements with sly hooks.
go to album
Each zodiac sign gets a theme song on Ben Katzman's latest record, featuring members of Illuminati Hotties, Potty Mouth, and Colleen Green.
go to album
Raw live recordings back this rap album which peaks when guests like Lyrics Born, Ozay Moore, Mr Lif step to the mic.
go to album
A thrilling post-punk EP from this UK group that knows the value of tension and release.
go to album
The Power Of The Heart: A Tribute To Lou Reed
by Various Artists
Keith Richards, Rosanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, Joan Jett, and more pay tribute to the enduring and visionary music of Lou Reed.
go to album
