Lyrics

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First words

I thought so long about my first choice of words

That the time to tell them to you or even to the faithfully uneager dog’s ear

Had long come and passed

Well at last! That stressed me out

I’m a handful and a half to tout

And I’m unnervingly comfortable

With the deservingly punishable choices I have made

“Good day!” - What a mouthful to say

I appreciate those who just know what I mean anyway

I’ll try my best to still treat you kind

But would you mind just letting me be

Because I don’t want my first words to you

I don’t want my first words to you

I don’t want my first words to you

To be what his first words were to me

Man of tin

I’ve walked this yellow brick road

For longer than my memory can trust

And the longer I’ve strayed from what I knew

The faster I’ve started to rust

Holding this heavy emptiness in my chest

Weary and deteriorating from what I’ve lost

Tin is the virtue that no longer shines

Now to sell the scraps at half cost

I can think quite rightly for myself

And I’ve seen how it should be

But the fates do decide what others think of you

And knowing that would bring forth insanity

To confidently find the missing key

To unwind every knot I’ve strung up

That will be the day for true alchemy

And a man of tin I’ll never more be

I’ve Come down from it now

Show a little humility, bow your head in praise

Purge your heart of its wanting, lest you’ll remain unchanged

Pain of desire is service incomplete, fills the soul with an endless greed

From daybreak out until nightfall in set, show humility until granted to rest

I don’t run with pride no more

The boundaries of my being began to take, take, take dimension

I don’t humour that buzzing fly upon the wall

He steeps lonesomely all in the expectation of my frenzied chasing

Starved of whim until it ends

Starved of whim until it ends

There are gifts I never could let go

And others I never knew I had

I’ve come down now from whatever fevered dream took root in me

And ate away at my giving hand

Onto others now in meagre amends

Onto others now in meagre amends

The pulse of flopping fish in natural air

Them quaking at my feet and their eyes fixed on mine

Their shame for needing help and their helpless despair

Draws compassion to every fin, every scale, every kind

Draws from my body until it burns

From my body until it burns

From my body until it burns

Show a little humility, bow your head in praise

Purge your heart of its wanting, lest you’ll remain unchanged

Pain of desire is service incomplete, fills the soul with an endless greed

From daybreak out until nightfall in set, show humility pray ye never forget

Make the message clear

Have you got a message for me?

It never came and never will come

I have held my foot in the door

But there's no record that anything was dispatched

There's a puzzling nature to it all

And I hate how bored I get trying to solve it

Wanting to learn and wanting to love

Yet it's drowning when you start so detached

No metaphor in how I say it,

I'm bored of people, I'm so fucking bored of people

Talking about food, talking about news,

Talking about anything superficially amusing

I have nothing to say

It is not my conversation to have

So I'll stay quiet and wait out 'till I can split

I guess I'll make the message clear

I'll make the message clear

Am I too genuine to be enjoyed

Am I too distant to ever come through

I guess I'll make the message clear

I'll make the message clear

Am I too unfamiliar, unrelated, unfunny, uninteresting

To ever make a difference to somebody like you

I'm the musician and the singer

I'm the writer and the reader

The linguist and the explorer

The worrier and the sinner

I'm the politician and the thinker

I'm the athlete and the protester

The nerd and the designer

The scientist and the peacekeeper

But in all my experience

I still somehow

Am nothing to you

I'm bored of people, I'm so fucking bored of people

Talking about food, talking about news,

Talking about anything superficially amusing

I have nothing to say

It is not my conversation to have

So I'll stay quiet and wait out 'till I can split

I guess I'll make the message clear

I'll make the message clear

Am I too genuine to be enjoyed

Am I too distant to ever come through

I guess I'll make the message clear

I'll make the message clear

Am I too unfamiliar, unrelated, unfunny, uninteresting

To ever make a difference to somebody like you

In the hollow air

Courtesy had diseased the night and all its monstrous friends

Pale under a sea of filtered moonlight, I was free-standing but not unhinged

And the howls of those lusty wolves, ne’er tamed to earn their kill

Or the wanderings of the vampiress, barging in under others’ supposed will

Haunted by the many faces of man

Swept up in the hollow air

I always came to find spider’s silk, laced around my neck

The sort of sticky bait, that left me frenzied and perplexed

I am not won by the shrieks and cries, of a hungering, hairy maw

I am with the ravens, flying leagues above his harrowing façade

Haunted by the many faces of man

Swept up in the hollow air

But haunted by my own self

Under no stretch of night to hide

The present moment divides the darkness

By the hand that silently guides

By the hand that never fades

Not heavenly held, nor taken away

I see her ghost coming towards me

And she utters out my name

Haunted by the face of love lost

The night hangs since low

Haunted by the many faces of man

Swept up in the hollow air

Carousel

I heard the warm, warm carousel bells

Jingling nearer as your car would pull in

Spinning gently like a wind-up toy

Some nights I wonder if you might still call again

We stirred and stirred in a teacup

As onlookers swore that we'd get sick

Through my daze you would keep me smiling

But as the ride kept on going, relentlessly blowing,

Was it you who was getting jostled too quick?

I'm enamoured with a sense of adventure

And I'd like to think you were too

Never was it my intention to have you contemplate the thrills

I'd blazed on through

We would alternate up and down all day

As onlookers cawed and gawked

On steeds so noble and high it seemed

But as the ride kept on going, relentlessly blowing,

Were you also ashamed of what they saw?

And maybe I was just a dirty carnie

You just came to of all my freak show shit

Well then here's your ticket of remission

A foolish declaration of how much I appreciated it

Because the carousel, it goes in circles 

Slowly working down the rows

Of folks to see who don't know

Because the carousel, it goes in circles 

Slowly working down the rows

Of folks to see who don't know

What's worth the ride

It's a little bit dizzying, a little bit passé, and a little bit childish

A little bit pensive, a little bit isolated, and a little bit intimate

It's a little bit dizzying, a little bit passé, and a little bit childish

A little bit pensive, a little bit isolated, and a little bit intimate

Tearing Flannel (Repulse)

The nights that precede and the image reinvoked

To see him again, present in the passions of rigid men

Sometimes the force feels stronger when thought

As repulse

All that wavered, reincarnate

And now begs at the gates

Of the hearts of brutes

Prying over my shoulder

Is the banner of charm

That I long envied to grasp firm

Instead, overinvested

In its checkerboard frame

Stands the ghost of an affection

I cried aloud

But misnamed

Sometimes the force feels stronger when thought

As repulse

And I wished nothing but to tear

That flannel that he held near

As an electron far flung into an over-excited state

Best to run, best to unthink, best to deny

An inner force to wait

Sometimes the force feels stronger when thought

As repulse

Sometimes the force feels stronger when thought

As repulse

And sickly spectating is the curse of those

Who can never get close

Visions of Good living

There are shades of blue more vibrant than the eyes can intake

A sorrow seeded long ago blooms like dandelions in the wake

Of true intentions

Of a new world view

I’d hoped to crush the nihilist out of you

There was promise of a friendly world

Why then from me must it divide

Brothers, sisters, bring me within your circles

I veer lefter though what I try

Was it clean enough

Was it pure enough

Was it worth losing your good will

Wash my hands again

Scrub my tongue again

Could you rinse away these deepest aches

I can’t part from these visions of good living

Risk my being to see them rise

Butterfly Song

I spent all day chasing a butterfly

I spent all day, all day chasing a butterfly

With wings so stunning, I must have surely been blinded

Or some other lame excuse why

I came home empty-handed again, again

I spent all day chasing a butterfly

I spent all day, all day chasing a butterfly

Who twisted the wind in ways I’d never before seen

Or some other lame excuse why

I came home empty-handed again, again

I spent all day chasing a butterfly

I spent all day, all day chasing a butterfly

And when I came home, revealing my air-filled pockets

There was none of the shame I feared I’d have gotten

Foolish to think my worth is only in what I pursue

To have tossed aside my wonders and the marvellous things I do

I spent all day chasing a butterfly

What motivated me, I still cannot say why

But dearest friends will, regardless, shower you in praise

Just ‘cause you got the right shoe on the right foot today

The natural fight

My sapling heart stands weakly, weakly in the cold

Despite my tries to brush off, brush off

Every hindrance to my growth

It’s an awful long Winter, don’t you know?

You’ve gone so knotted inside

It’s an awful long Winter, don’t you know?

Don’t you know?

The Spring will come

When you cease to run

From every twisted image in yourself

These forests of old-growth

Endure ever so

From a strength to bear it through the bitter night

Darling, it is not a natural fight

And high as I can see

Well, well up in those trees

There is life still thriving, thriving

And cursed are they

Who from you stray

But there’s no use in wishing for those who’ve faded

From your sight

You’ve gone so knotted inside

You’ve gone so knotted inside

The Spring will come

When you cease to run

From every twisted image in yourself

These forests of old-growth

Endure ever so

From a strength to bear it through the bitter night

Darling, it is not a natural fight

(Unwind)

(Revitalize)

(Make a home for yourself)

Last day of sun

In the warmest light we bid adieu

My thoughts wander amongst the clouds as I ramble along

She embarks for New York just this eve; waiting, sitting my last day of sun

And the waves, they howl across the coast

My sagehood running lack

Flowing ahead, I carry your tears

And the knowledge to never bring back

Cronus and the Vessel are a merging force

Cruelest as ever a titan may be

To thresh the seed from its root in an unwinnable dispute, and then to hush it so tenderly

And of dusk, I’ll reach the Western edge of the sky

Of waves that mince the form, and cool winds that tear the soul

There’s something sickly sweet trying to outrun my last day of sun

(We made our departure

In the early hours

Of the day

Just as the first glimpses of light

Graced our cheeks

But we are unraveling

In our ship

Despite the progress we make

This youth cannot last

There is no stop for old age)

But the night still comes just as it ought

And I sense the release is quite near

For hexed am I on the loneside

Wrought with an ever-building fear

But yonder the moon she soothes, the old unworldly gargantuan doe

Soft mother glissens upon every fractal of ice and the endless seas below

And stood there

I knew

Of living beauty and of life

And a shimmering peace cast me towards the silver light

Epilogue

And the next morning still sunrise came

And the familiar birds did chirp

In the night were heard ten thousand winds and rains

That did innumerous flowers usurp

A solitary gull transcends the realms of earth and heaven

The world yet burgeons wonder and life past the last day of sun