1. |
||||
|
We sensed that it would come undone, unravel like a sweater when we turned on, tuned off, cut & ducked & run and when it finally came unglued we were so stoked that they'd caught on that we forgot that they would drop another shoe. We still imagined we were free. I played the part of Kerouac so hard that I forgot a part of uh, then suddenly I sussed the score. The writing on the wall said "throw the towel in" but I came back for uh That was the decade that wasn't: 3/4 horseshit, but the rest was sorta pleasant. How could we think we would survive when every artifact we spit absorbed into the group-mind of the hive? With the co-opters up to their old tricks we thought we could disguise ourselves by singing like old-timers from the sticks. By then we'd blown our shot at heaven but by brightening the corners could consider maybe almost breaking even? Though I came to the party late, I wish someone had told me earlier that selling out would feel so great. I caught a taste of something fine when I learned to stop worrying and love the baby one more time. I think about it to this day; it's an exercise as rewarding as counting down the alphabet backwards from Y to K.
|
||||
2. |
||||
|
I could have gone for the girl next door but she'd never go for me. She was as short as a summer storm and hard as soccer cleats. I'll never forget the look in her eye as she knocked me in the teeth. "She's the one," I bled to myself with glee. I rode down to the corner store to see what I could thieve. Quick as a bee and out the door with pop rocks up my sleeve. The wind on my neck and the salt in my eyes as I rode down to the beach. "You're the one," the seagulls seemed to scream. I jumped off of the western shore to check out the sub-marine. Dragged myself home soaked to the core for a mug of Ovaltine. I kicked around with the girl next door in the forest warm and green. Sonofagun, I can't wait to turn 13.
|
||||
3. |
Millionaire
03:51
|
|||
|
Days blow through me like summer rain and I'm trying to make some sense of them, spinning like a weathervane at the mercy of the air. Glad we had a fuckin blast 'cause it's gone like through an hourglass. Jesus, how'd the kids get grown so fast? It's like I wasn't even there. Spring limps in on a crutch of green. I can't let this one slip away again, lost like looseleaf in a gust of wing, so brief it's hardly fair. Girls walk by in their summer dresses leave my poor heart in a tangled mess but I'm too old to hold much interest; I haven't got a prayer. Now the world we know falls down on us and the arms of love turn dangerous and there's nothing safe to hold or trust, dangling in the air. I spend my life living half alone, living too close to the bone but when you look at me when I get home it's like I was a millionaire. Now the world we know falls down on us and our love turns armed and dangerous and there's nothing safe or real to trust, living on a prayer. I spend my life living half alone, living way too close to the bone but you look at me when I get home just like I was a millionaire. Leave me here by the water's edge, let the river take me somewhere else. I can't control or trust myself, like a half-wild dancing bear. Days blow through me like summer rain and I might never get the gist of them but when I'm in your arms again it's like I was a millionaire.
|
||||
4. |
Pony Up
03:30
|
|||
|
There never was a time when you weren't lonely, even when it was her that you were with. Now you want her back forever and only, but you'll have to settle for the memory of a kiss because whatever else you break when you fall over I'm not going to let you wreck this. It's time to pony up and pay the bill. It's probably time to go. A man should be a man but some men lack a sense of when to throw the towel in and start again. I thought that it was time to let you know that it's time to pony up, so pony up; it's time for you to go. I've seen you driving 'round outside out house there to check to see if both of us were home and when I answer and there's no-one there I know that it was you who's on the phone and if you don't mind me handing some advice out I wouldn't mind you leaving us alone. Five years it's been and more and still you can't see it's time to just let her go. Take your manly pride, put it aside, or better yet swallow whole. I know she broke your heart of glass and you say you'll never be the same but I hate to see you burning yourself like a moth to your old flame. Now you're running 'round with someone you could hold to but behind her back you say she's not your thing and you say that you and my girl should try Round 2 now you've finally thrown away that awful ring. But if you'd just shut up for once then I'll tell you just once that for just once in your life you might think that it's time to pony up. What's mine is mine, what's yours is gone, and if you want to ask her she'll tell you so. It's time for you to go.
|
||||
5. |
Trying it On
05:45
|
|||
6. |
E's Blues
01:57
|
|||
|
I'm so blue the slightest breeze could knock me off my feet and send me tumbling through. I'm blue for you; you make it look easy having your heart broken clean in two.And as he left and dropped 5 years like an empty wrapper on the floor you must have wondered what those years were ever for as he turned and slammed the door on you. The sound of breaking glass was just your heart where he dropped it on the floor
|
||||
7. |
State With Queens
02:35
|
|||
|
Girl, the evidence is in so you drink a fifth of gin and assess yourself a sober judge. He's got all the things you lack, like a knife in your back and a heart of unconditional grudge. When he got you on his own and got you in a zone where he could paint you pretty scenes and you listened to his words, you slipped the bonds of earth and would scorn to change your state with queens. You would not be called a fool so you play it cool and pretend it's just a tryst but your head is in the sand; he offered you his hand but you didn't notice it was balled into a fist. POW! Right between the eyes! Girl, when you going to wise up & realize what betrayal means? The full house you thought would be enough was toppled by his bluff; he trumped your ace of hearts with a pair of queens. You were just one of his pair of queens. On the evidence that you presented, she judges you've repented. Cross your fingers, sly little beast. You're disoriented and as such you find that you're with what you most enjoy contented least. When you got her on her own and fed her an erroneous idea of what forever means, she thought you'd return her to the days before the great disgrace when she'd have scorned to change her state with queens.
|
||||
8. |
Distant Early Warning
04:13
|
|||
|
Wake up, darling of mine. Wipe your sleeping eye. I can't tell if it's early or late but I want you to come outside with me and look at the sky. Just take a gander at that cute little star that I wished on, surfing on that open half shell. I asked her for an internal piston to drive me past drooling at the sound of some stupid bell. I've got holes in my soul, torn up in blues. Holy god, mama, got a thought I'm being abused, ah, but one of these ugly mornings my train'll roll by. I'll have the red light beside me and the blue light behind and I'll be waving one finger goodbye as I go 'round the bend. Ain't no use me working so hard; I'll get me a woman in the rich man's yard & without a distant early warning they won't see me on the line again. When I come home at the end of the day, exhausted and with nothing to say, my hands blackened with dirty jokes like I was living in a tired beer commercial cliché, don't have to tell you that I'd give myself the axe in an instant if it wouldn't make pulpwood of our family tree, but I don't need a theory of devolution, darłin, to make a monkey's uncle out of me. My temper's getting short. The days are so long. How'd I wind up living in a Springsteen song? But if I'd known it would make such a mess out of me I would have never let that toad go and squat on me.
|
||||
The Neutral States recommends:
Good times with bad feelings.
go to album
Inside Your Mind
by The Pygmies
Sharp writing and playing make this Nugget a keeper.
go to album
Little Lovers / Dollar Bar - Split Tape
by Little Lovers
The greatest Aussie band you've never heard of. Do yourself a favour, willya?
go to albumIf you like The Neutral States, you may also like:
Philadelphia indie-rockers Field Mouse pile cozy textures and hazy harmonies high on their latest record.
go to album
Nina Nastasia & Jeff MacLeod join forces as Jolie Laide, playing noir-y songs that glow soft as moonlight.
go to album
Komm in Bewegung
by Der Frühling
Berlin songwriter and multi-instrumentalist spins krautrock and new wave influences into synthpop gold.
go to album
