1. |
Martin Street Revisited
03:56
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We came from Cuyahoga, Ann Arbor, St. Paul
The smell of burnt caffeine, how it clung to us all
We sold our plasma, worshipped boredom
Sneered for tips, deferred the loans
Still we came cause it wasn’t home.
Then someone snagged a Fender, someone wrote a song
Borrowed mikes and broken amps fed back all night long
We played for gas, we played for cases
Played for handfuls nodding off
Sub Pop bound (or so we thought)
Spines all limber, visions clear
So sure the galaxies would meet us here
Pushing to the front
We weren’t fooling anyone
Then, one by one, we cashed it in or sobered up
Slipping discs and freezing rain kept calling our bluff
We tucked the merch up in the attic
Walked the aisle or just stumbled off
From a fire that never caught
Come on, let’s kick the gravel and raise a box of wine
To the days of sweet inertia whistling down the line
We’ll watch these kids load in and set up
Open tabs, and check their sound
All that current seeking ground
Room warm and crowded, see the pickguards shine
By the second verse we’ll be feeling fine
Good as nights of old
Yeah, we will not fool a soul
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2. |
Fit to Burn
05:59
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Somewhere back there we used to share a stage
And your Ibanez would rain down fire
With a deep vibrato moan
Haunting every alley to its boyish bones
We’d shoot tequila and punch each others’ arms
And wait for Slim’s stairwell to fill
Bloodshot believers down
To hear us decimate this stranger-speckled town
Didn’t we just howl down each horizon
Weren’t we just fit to burn
Scuffed up, shining like a knife fight
Screaming hard into the hot mikes
Fearless, streaking down the straightaway
With a lifetime left to learn
One night we almost caught a spark of something
On the cusp of a five a.m. blue
Maybe just a hopeful shadow
Moving undetected between me and you
But I was always a sucker for the soft lights
There was a cut rate wisdom I could never see
Succumbing to a flash of teeth, some raven eyes
Some promise that could never come to be
Trying to just howl down each horizon
Weren’t we just fit to burn?
Scuffed up, shining like a knife fight
Leaning hard into the late nights
Fearless, streaking down the straightaway
With a lifetime left to learn
Now I trawl deserted intersections
Beneath the yellow stoplight’s sway
Over a city hard with sleep
Your voice breathes between the tree lines
Unheeded and fading away
Tonight the sky looks like one we used to call each others’
Spilling pails of color across the dawn
You let it ride on a handful of gestures
Or you nourish certain certainties for way too long
Should we meet, wind-blown, sand-blasted
With a couple fresh napkins to scribble on
Madrigals of love and war
But who are we gonna play them for
Those kids are ghosted, gone
Gone with the boyish bones in the alley
Gone with the hopeful shadows
Gone with your voice between the tree lines
Couldn’t we just howl down each horizon
Like we were fit to burn
Scuffed up, shining like a knife fight
Breaking down between the footlights
Fearless, streaking down the straightaway
With a lifetime left to learn?
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3. |
Reckless Stranger
04:42
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It’s hard to get your bearings
In the shadow of the cranes
These are young men’s alleys
And songbirds’ claims
But one faithless smile and I’ll
Smite all these jokers just the same
All the comrades and the sweethearts
Have coupled up and flown
We’ve been betting on some phantoms
We’ve been starving like stones
The red clang of midnight
Will be here soon enough to shame us home
So you fake a swagger
I’ll pick my dress up off the floor
You can’t clear out the wreckage
If you won’t even clear the door
Hear the snare drums beating
So insistent, wound so tight
Stranger, will you see me tonight?
Once trouble was a treasure
And we chased it like the wind
Paraded all our damage
With a flourish and a grin
Our chests thrown open
Just enthralled with all the sadness rushing in
Now, countless autumns later
And the trouble’s grave and true
A mist has crept up on us
Our nerves are scattered blue
The store fronts blink out
And we squint for just a trace of what we knew
So slur me sweet nothings
Just before the moonlight dies
Drop it in reverse
We’ll hold on for dear life
And if we fall short of stunning
At least we can say that we tried
I’ll fake a swagger
You pick your mask up off the floor
We can’t clear out the wreckage
If we won’t even clear the door
Hear the snare drums beating
So insistent, wound so tight
Stranger, will you see me tonight?
I got my back against the record machine
I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen
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4. |
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Cacophony on Reaves Drive, horns out in the hall
Stallions twitch in the kitchen, Betty Pages play the wall
There’s powder in your pocket, feel it burn, hear it call
But you’re careful to keep the proper mix in
Billy’s howling lonesome on a Honda Civic hood
He’s sweating out the toxins and he sings so bad it’s good
You shake the glitter out your hair to the pulsing of your blood
Heart of Kevlar, but you’ll strain to get his fix in
Lovers so convincing, got their faces in their shoes
Ingrained as affectations, like the cigarettes you chew
It’s whiskey in the milk, angel, you know it’s so bad for you
Guitars in the stairwell as I follow Laura down
She leans like Catalano, manic panic by the pound
She pleads halitosis and drops me at the lost and found
Jonesing for a single-serve companion
So I take a run at Nikki Pale, all paint thinner and bones
Pat my coat for matches, seek ascension to the throne
She says, “You country boys are sweet, but so desperately prone
To lupine kisses and deliberate abandon.”
I bet on winks and baubles just to come and set me free
Halfway to sotted silver, but damned if I can see
It’s whiskey in the milk, sir, it’s gonna be the death of me
We’re so blind to the abundance, duck the sun at every turn
Those flashing neon portents so hard to discern
Unaware as Balthazar, feasting unconcerned
As that galloping sound grows ever nearer
Some day these hours we trash will be hoarded and maintained
The industries we’ll navigate, the progenies we’ll train
We’ll outrun the low-rent habits and inherited pain
Till our parents all show up in the mirror
Beyond the creeping sunrise, the oracular scrawl
Choke down your blood of Christ now, as the ending credits crawl
It’s whiskey in the milk, friends, you know it’s gonna kill us all
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5. |
Mercer/Million
03:12
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I first heard those skittish chords
Way up on top of the twos and the fours
In the millennium of our lord
I was right there with them
There was a party that night on the Fall Creek line
Past a ratted-out couch, a smile met mine
No looking back or estimating designs
I was right there with them
Cold birthing pure light
Baffled by the heat in my hands
It might be the only life
So throw down the sawdust and dance
A van from Hoboken is coming to town
I’ll get us a sitter, we can take a cab down
You invite the neighbors and we can soak in the sound
We could be there with them
Headlights get dimmer and muscles get tight
I can’t recall when I last slept through the night
It won’t beat the memories, but maybe it might
Let us be there with them
Let us be there with them
Cold birthing pure light
Baffled by the heat in our hands
It might be the only life
So throw down the sawdust and dance
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The Monologue Bombs Raleigh, North Carolina
Solo music project of Scott David Phillips. Raleigh, North Carolina.
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