1. |
||||
At the Corner of Dude and Party
At the corner of dude and party
What was it I was trying to find?
It was some sort of freedom, that notebook with numbers
To every punk house and every land line
At the corner of dude and party
What was it you were trying to prove?
With a spiral-bound atlas and printouts from Mapquest
And half-baked directions from interstate exits
To the corner of dude and party
What is it that you can recall?
As we wore down the tread from our touring paths
From the co-ops to shows to the places we’d crash
As we ran from the truths of our traumatic pasts
As you stumbled through words I couldn’t quite grasp
At the corner of dude and party
How did we live with such ease?
And we spent time so freely like it would never pass
Like we’d always be lost boys with elaborate plans
and meet me
At the corner of dude and party
|
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2. |
||||
Snow Dusted Ponies
Here we traced all the tracks and the treads of your teens
Felt the wind on your face as you skated the sheet
Here we followed a fox as it danced in high beams
Watched the sun crack the sky behind a snow covered peak
Here you howled at the top of your lungs as we flew
Up the side of the mountain to the overlook view
Where I held on white-knuckled scared to open my eyes
As you took us all rattin’ for the very first time
And I understood what you were trying to say
About life in a northern town and the way
It can hold you, haunt you, live in the veins
And you’ll keep coming back when it whispers your name
Here you paced the floor like a wild caged beast
Here you looked to the sky and just longed to be free
Here you dreamt of a city by the shores of the sea
And you counted the days til you could finally leave
Here stood the ghost of a feeling you knew
That somewhere out “there” were others like you
And yeah you escaped but were you ever free
Because all roads lead back to your first memories
To the sound of fresh snow as it cracked under feet or
the ravens who huddled on lamp posts for heat
Or the snow dusted ponies on the side of the road
Searching for the fresh grass though its 40 below
For the feel of the word you say “family”
For the stories you write to hold your history
For your love letters written to the hurt, to the fear
To the ways you always say just what I need to hear
|
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3. |
||||
These Old Haunts
It’s all gone dull again, he said
Lit another cigarette
The revolution’s come and gone
And we’ve been left to carry on
Struggle struggle find a way
To earn a little less each day
See a ghost on every corner
As your memories replay
In these old haunts ¬¬¬
I’ve been thinking about getting
Even deeper into nothing
Or just stopping before starting
In my dreams I’m always quitting
Talk about hard travel
Shit we’ve toured some infernos
That would send Dante remolding
The halls of his 9th circle
In these old haunts
We’ve had punishers and jinglers
and nibblers and ringelers
You might ask, what are all those,
Well when you know, you know, you know
It’s one part energy vampire
Two parts master of disguise
And three parts just sheer force of will
Til suddenly they’re on the bill
Your cell phones out of data
The hummus has gone missing
Their ukuleles strumming
Just as you had dreamt of sleeping
In these old haunts
Stuffy nose and frozen toes
and greenroom couches full of mold
The perfect place to take a poo
was the old Adelphi loo
Black light poster covered walls
Dragons chasing waterfalls
Just when you start feeling right
The feedback’s cutting through the night
Dreams of climbing endless stairs
With 20 tons of merch and gear
Getting stuck in elevators
It’s so nice to see you, see you later
In these old haunts
Now hold on tight folks save some film
Surprises here in every room
Sights and smells yet to behold
On each ride through the Underworld
Welcome up onto the stage
Your tour guide for this next phase
Should you dare to meet his gaze
Bewitching spells he’ll cast your way
In these old haunts
The city’s bones, the old town soul
is built from sentiments we stole
And bought and borrowed
Swapped for free
The city aches like you or me
These photobooks so steeped in gloom
These visions of ourselves in bloom
The dust that follows borrowed youth
Hounds to the heals in hot pursuit
This ancient space of raging ghosts
And memories from long-gone homes
Though you may cast an altered tale
All truths in time will be revealed
In these old haunts
Not to say there weren’t good times
and even better oldies
But for sure the hardest moments
Left the chill of Satan on me
We can laugh about it now
But there were moments of pure hell
And we used to play a game
What’s worse than where we are right now?
I’d say “19th century chimney sweep in downtown London”
I’d say “coal miner on strike, it’s snowing and he’s freezing”
And for a moment we’d fall silent, lost in self reflection
Then out would come the sharpies to add new dicks to the collection
In these old haunts
The city owes you something
The city breaks your heart
Remember all your old haunts
Remember where it starts
|
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4. |
||||
Slowly Like Strangers
You were never really mine
And I was never really yours
We sang together for a time
Shared the chorus, split the verse
At night it was a dream
The whole world would slip away
But tell me now, what is there to hold onto
When the sun comes up and you step off the stage
Slowly like strangers, we slipped into silence
like most lost lovers, went our separate ways
Lovelorn and seeking some sort of solace
reviewing the wreckage, recounting the days
We were victims of sirens
singing some old tune long overplayed
crashed into the rocks together
holding each other, sinking from the weight
I was never really yours
you were never really mine
Now that an ocean divides us
I can feel you fading with the sands of time
Slowly like strangers we slipped into silence
like forgotten photos from bygone days
Seasick and seeking some sort of solace
Lost in these loves we were bound to betray
|
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5. |
||||
Mile by Mile
To wander down the roads of what should, could or might have been
To ponder possibilities, the left, the held, the in-between
To grieve, to hold, to morn the loss, these visions of ourselves
Set in silence, forbidden, through the years they howl
And mile by mile
Hour by hour
Lover by lover
You learned in time, you learned in time
Oh potential energy
Oh visions of past selves
Oh you psychic ghosts, you should have beens, you wish you wells
You patterns that do play upon the water in moonlight
You rainbow in the prism in the darkest part of night
And mile by mile
Hour by hour
Lover by lover
You learned in time, you learned in time
You learned in time,
That it doesn't get better it just gets more complicated
And everything you thought you knew you learned it on TV
Start to see the little things and the bigger picture clears
You haven't been yourself for years
So it doesn't get worse but it sure gets convoluted
The mirror's gonna lie to you, the world is going to burn
And when you beat your oppressor you have to face yourself
You'll learn to love your inner child and put him on the shelf
|
||||
6. |
||||
Wesley Crusher
I saw you staring into space trying to solve for an equation
What was E when MC squared was all your parents’ expectations?
When the cameras and the lights and the crew all fade away
We could see that Will and Wesley they were one in the same
Mr. Indigo child
Mr. Natural born nerd
Mr. Late nights in the lab
Mr. Screw the grading curve
Wesley Crusher, Child wonder
Wesley Crusher, Under pressure
Wesley Crusher, What’s your answer?
Down in southern California I was tapping on my TV
Sending signals through the static hoping that you might just hear me
Filtered through the subspace incoming transmissions
Past the cleverly disguised ceremonial rhythms
Mr. Lock onto my signal
Mr. One to beam aboard
Mr. Save me from my family
Dear Wesley, what you waiting for?
I saw you peering through the portal naming every constellation
You were looking for the logic in a fucked-up situation
Stuck between your true desires and your parents’ expectations
Lost in feelings of your future, trying to solve for the equation
|
||||
7. |
Memorizing the Horizon
02:52
|
|||
8. |
||||
And Just Like That, Life as You Knew it Ended
And just like that, life as you knew it ended
You were coughing at the sink
When the weight of everything took your feet
I was waiting to leave
When one more pebble brought me to my knees
At the bottom there is doubt
More anger in the silence than the shouts
I know I wasn’t here for most of our good years
I’m with you now
You pulled me from the corner
Swaying with the music at our feet
I held you a thousand mornings
Til the diamonds fell away from our rings
We’ve been awful. Sigh.
Found the bottom, said goodnight to all the moonlight we could stand.
Bed.
|
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9. |
Peter and David
03:41
|
|||
Peter and David
Peter and David on Avenue A
Heading for the Lower East Side
Cigarettes, coffee, a can of spray paint
A stencil of a house on fire
The sun was just setting, the men were just waking
Manhattan skyline, the city unfolding
Up all night
Every night
There they search for Saint Sebastian
Home so unforgiving, each with his own reason
To set out from the suburbs, for grey and gritty pastures
A third-shift busboy, the back-beat of the bass drum
The men who look at you like they own your every atom
Oh just for one night to stand within your presence
To wander through your piers, to get lost in your darkness
To weave between the hustlers and the queens and the trade
To feel the fire in your belly, as you set the world ablaze
|
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10. |
Island Maniacs
02:44
|
|||
Island Maniacs
Riding sidesaddle by the western waves
Swimming in the water of a moonlit lake
Peering at the Perseids from your bedroom
Staying up all night and sleeping in ‘til noon
We could ride the island road in circles all day
Stop and search for agates in the usual place
Or tumble through the tide to the empty stretch of beach
Where there’s no one else around just the sand and sea
The way I feel about you I can’t explain
Between the mystery and the magic and the day to day
Getting stranger by the minute getting weirder by the year
I’m just happy counting grains of sand with you dear
Let’s ride the Tommy Thompson through the Salish Sea
To the train car on the island by the old refinery
Or drive along the 20 and just see where it leads
Through the farms through the fields, counting all the snow geese
Later we can leave a trail out in the yard
Apples from a neighbors’ nearby farm
Then spying through the window what do we see
A pair of baby fawns that were born this spring
|
||||
11. |
||||
12. |
||||
In My Own Time
Do you ask yourself each day
What am I doing with my life?
Do you ask yourself each day
What am I doing?
What is an island but a break in the ocean
An invitation to a changing of tides
What is a lifetime but a series of questions
An eternal hunt to find what’s inside
What am I doing with my life?
What am I doing?
Is there something in the way?
Were you invited?
Are you underneath the waves?
Feeling divided?
Is there are reason for your current situation?
Is it a vacuum or a mass vibration?
Long is the night such a place to ponder
Mute the loop before it drags you under
What am I doing?
In my own time
I want to do it the right way
How can I do it the right way?
In my own time
|
||||
13. |
||||
Like You’ve Always Been
Do you remember feeling hopeful
Like the world was open wide
We couldn’t wait to travel it
For our turn on the ride
We drove all night to places
That our maps would scarcely show
And lifted up our voices
To the midnight radio
I still think about those moments
When the walls are closing in
And you are still beside me now
Like you’ve always been
Yeah, I recall when basement shows
were like our second home
A brand-new world that somehow
recreated all we’d known
And in the hum of summer
Underneath the streetlights’ glow
We circled blocks and questions
In search of all we longed to know
My favorite time, long walks at night
well after the shows end
And you are still beside me now
Like you’ve always been
A chorus of cicadas, they sang us home each night
Our secrets shared only in code, through blinking fireflies
I still hold onto that feeling, the way I felt back then
With you I knew I was enough, and that I’d always been
We used to look up to the stars
and wonder what made them shine
We couldn’t see that what they had
Was also yours and mine
|
||||
14. |
||||
Same Old Story
I learned early
The price of difference
I learned early
Not to stand out in the crowd
I learned early
To keep quiet
So on the back of the bus
I turned my headphones up and I’m drowning out the world
Cause I was 8 years old when I first heard the word faggot
A late bloomer I know but I guess it had to happen
Up ‘til then I was just fucking lost in the girls’ bathroom
Limpwristed and lacking language for the world I lived in
At that very moment it was 1989,
there was no internet, no dial up America On-line
The shit you learned in schoolyard was the truth above all other
Cause it trickled down through word of mouth from friends with older brothers
Now that I’m a Twinkle, that’s an older wiser Twink
I feel sorry for the parts of me, that were taught those things
My inner Christian Slater’s on pirate radio
yelling “fuck this shitty system, let’s burn down the world”
Same old story she said what’s the use of tears
Same old questions like how did we end up here
We’ve been going round in circles all these years
Barely breathing beneath all were taught to fear
So I took refuge in rock and roll and alcohol and rupture
where libertarian entitled boys posed as counter culture
thought I found myself but what I found was always so afraid
disaffected, down, dejected was the pattern to the play
It was still so hard to name against the claim of anarchism
With pizza party t-shirts and that transgressive rhythm
The politics of shame run deep, even punk scenes have confines to keep
It had me questioning my commitment to collectivism
Now I have some hindsight I can finally start to see
The ways I was put down became the ways that I saw me
world so structured by elite white male insider attitudes
Our collective power is always working to include
|
||||
15. |
||||
Queer Fire
Sullivan was right when he said he'd die like the men
That he spent his whole life loving, still they’d never understand
Just like Halston he’d been hunting for the feel of the unknown
Far beyond the mortal coil in a world all of his own
Speak to me
Of burning desire
Of burning desire
I dreamt a bathhouse full of bodies all much different than my own
A language of desire a new world we scarcely know
In the light that shows the distance a new the space for us to grow
I used to be ashamed
I’m learning to let go
Speak to me
Of burning desire
Breathe with me
In primal desire
Ancient whisper
mirror show the one
Self-satisfaction burning
like a thousand suns
Down to ember
hazy afterglow
Stoke body back to blaze
In a sensual tableau
Speak to me
Of burning desire
Breathe with me
In primal desire
Can’t quench the
Queer fire
|
||||
16. |
The Nothing
02:20
|
|||
The Nothing
You were more like the novel
Well after the movie ends
Just a wild-eyed dreamer
Who wished a single grain of sand
You were drawn to the darkness
It’s just the way you’ve always been
Between the Nothing and Forever
We hoped The Nothing would never win
But I can see you
Standing in the front row, singing every song
Fists up to the sky your heart beat with the drums
You were Zero to 100, a stunning speed of light
You were pushing past the darkness just to feel alive
And you and me, we go way back
To another storyline
We were just a couple kids then
Going to the show each night
But I can feel you
Bending like a Reed going wild in the wind
Cracking tons of jokes and messing with your friends
With the Auryn round your neck, playing hero again
You were bearing all the burden and you wouldn’t let us in
Now we’re calling out your name
But it won’t do any good
And now we’re sifting through the sorrow
Cause we all understood
That you were drawn to the darkness
It’s just the way you’ve always been
Between the Nothing and Forever
You knew The Nothing would someday win
You were drawn to the darkness
It’s just the way you’ve always been
Between the Nothing and Forever
We hoped the Nothing would never win
|
||||
17. |
Rattlesnake Lake
03:01
|
|||
Rattlesnake Lake
Rattlesnake Lake in early early summer
I was floating on my back like a baby otter
Old growth forest emerging from the water
Why does it feel like I've known you forever?
Bombing down the mountain
Born to Run is screaming
I-90 west just another homecoming
Man I got so stoned I could feel my body glowing
Gigi said “no man, that just your aura showing”
I got a strange strange feeling today
Trading molecules for psychic waves
I got a strange strange feeling today
Parallel lives running in one space
Longing for a life lived a little less lonely
Cast a single spell and you could look right though me
Baby I'm a mountain you can see me for miles
I got a real wild side and I cast a wicked shadow
How do molecules find their way together?
So that we can have ice cream and experimental records
You said something about how it all comes back to Michael
I pictured him shredding violin in the cosmos
Word is a 4-letter fuck and now he’s shredding
Sunshine is out on the lake and were swimming
Time is just a concept in which we are all traveling
Forwards and backwards in the same moment
|
||||
18. |
||||
Do You Dare to Dream with Me?
Face to face left so many questions
And what is truth but a matter of time
Left to live in the uncertain
Searching for signals and asking for signs
Do you dare to dream with me?
I felt safe and I felt seen
It was new and it was strange
Yet the only guarantee
Impermanence and change
Do you dare to dream with me?
Maybe there’s no meaning to be made
I’m here
You’re here
Impossible
Possible
|
||||
19. |
||||
Where Rejects Reign
Well I searched for myself as I poured over pages
Of ManDate and Rough Trade, the old magazines
Instead what I found was a fire, a fury
An anger that grew with a sure certainty
That no time and no place would exist in this life
Where a body like mine would truly be free
So I drag and I swish through the dangers untold
I dream in XXX theater late night picture shows
Where the lonely and lustful and rejected reign
Where the shadow meets shadow in the dark alleyway
Send me a sign
or send me a sin
or set me free from this earthy burden
When I am dust
Let the test pattern play
Let the signal go static
In a long slow fade
Meet me in shadow
Or meet me in memory
Meet me across the river
Where I am free
I studied each John and I prayed to Divine
I walked the path of all the elders similarly inclined
I found the price of living in the somewhere in between
Is the loneliness the comes with never truly being seen
But the road is long, who needs sleep
When I’ve got miles to go before I dream
|
Your Heart Breaks Washington
Your Heart Breaks is a queer Northwest band. Originally founded by Clyde Petersen in Bellingham, Washington in 1999, Your Heart Breaks has toured the world for over 25 years as both a solo performer and a large ensemble. Their new album comes out on Kill Rock Stars in 2023. ... more
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