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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Church of the Kitchen Sink: Resurrections - LP, Silver Crown - LP, Gone - Single, After the Glitter Fades - Single, Monster Storm - Single, All Your Days - LP, All Your Days - Single, Empathy Bomb - Single, and 17 more.
1. |
Jesus (Demo 2001)
06:32
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I’m down in a hole with Jesus and his brother.
There was blood on my hands,
I didn’t know; I have discovered.
I would give just about anyone’s true heart away.
I’d give this stomach full of whiskey,
and the pockets of my sister,
and the hinges on that silver gate.
On the blindest day you’ve ever known
It’s the blindest day you’ve ever known
When the sky it is a blank, and the thought a ghost undone,
when the note it is electric, and the lyric is a bullet,
and the microphone a rusty gun.
I may come to you with sorrow; I may come to you with the stains of crime upon me.
You may offer me forgiveness; you may head off the enemy when I run.
On the blindest day you’ve ever known
It’s the blindest day you’ve ever known
I’m up here dancing on the blindest day you’ve ever known
So, I’m down in a hole with Jesus and his brother.
He says, “It’s Rome up there; it’s murder, as you’ll discover.
But I’ll wait for you, I’ll wait for you, I’ll wait for you, sheltered from the sun.
Come back when you’ve decided, or else send someone.
For you must fill the hole you make when you have gone.
That’s the heavy price you pay to know Jesus for a day and leave innocent.
That’s the heavy price you pay to know Jesus for a day and leave innocent.”
On the blindest day you’ve ever known
It’s the blindest day you’ve ever known
I’m up here dancing on the blindest day you’ve ever known
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2. |
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I did not start the war.
I did not fire the cannons.
I was the one to watch you light the wick.
I was sorry when the ammunition hit the innocent.
The explosion ate up all the soil,
graves and groceries, fields and flowers.
The whole of the town … well, it was gone,
and everything we’d worked upon
was scattered into the sky.
I died.
I died.
I am alive
I am alive
I burn now down for you
I am alive
I am alive
I burn now down for you
You were the one to start the war,
and then you tried me for the crime.
I did not fire the cannons;
are you sure you want to say it?
Well, well, just say it.
I’ll be out here in the fields with the wreckage, baby, bleeding
while you’re reading off your list of injuries.
It’s as you see it.
It’s as you see it.
It’s as you see it.
Because you’re the only one who knows.
You’re the only one who knows.
You’re the only one who knows at all.
I am alive
I am alive
I burn now down for you
I am alive
I am alive
I burn now down for you
You
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3. |
Colorado (Live 2000)
04:38
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They came down from the roof wearing heavy black vests for to stop the bullets.
Proof of nothing, they wielded similar guns.
The idea black and inked like a nightmare to shoot children, to stop death on children’s wings.
In the hallways, in the graveyard, in the boiling cafeteria fifteen men, helmets, plexi-visors,
they are searching, they are searching, they are searching,
searching for the sons of the men of whom in turn they once were the schoolmates,
for to shotgun, for to shotgun, for to slay them where they stand;
for to shotgun, for to shotgun, for to slay them where they stand.
And they comb the rows of lockers,
rows of blasted metal, backpacks, brains,
interconnected —
the footprints of the tale,
in the classroom a shaft of brilliant sunlight on a chalkboard.
It reads the topic of the day,
Conflict and Resolution: Rethinking the American Landscape.
In the office, in the choir room, in the rafters of the ceiling,
the remnants of the hearts of innocents still beating.
They are dancing, they are dancing, they are dancing, they are dancing,
jerking like the puppets of the angel of mercy.
And I’m running harder and harder
Colorado on my mind
I am running, running harder and harder
Colorado on my mind
Then they find them in the book room,
wearing jackets of explosives,
their own gray centers splattered across bulletins and carpets.
There’s no answer at the nexus,
only hints and intuition;
the survivors are survivors, but the finished are not reason.
On the bookshelves, the databases, in the silence of the pages,
nothing, no wisdom is forthcoming.
But it’s Lazarus, it’s Lazarus, it’s Lazarus again,
rising from the fluids of his still and cooling sister.
It is Lazarus, it’s Lazarus, it’s Lazarus again,
rising from the fluids of his still and cooling sister.
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4. |
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In the weird dark 1980s, in the basement of our school,
they showed us nature movies on sixteen-millimeter spools.
Unfurling with a crackle and a whirring of the wheels,
salmon eggs and silverbacks cut through water white as steel.
I watched with my breath bated, bewildered by the speed,
while they thrashed and broke in the river — which ones died which ones would breed?
These days it’s much the same thing,
OK, it’s a slightly different show:
which way from here is upstream, which way should we go?
Little anthem, little children, little bomb
I’ll meet you behind the gym after the prom
Heartbeats being heartbeats, they served us back the war
after summer dinners, in suburban living rooms.
My dad said, “Son, for you an early bed tonight;
I don’t want for you to see this, and what’s good ain’t always right.”
So, I lay there in the darkness, my lungs twin purple cages,
needing more than oxygen for my dad to be courageous.
Less than a decade later, in a senior high school classroom,
while watching The Day After, at last I could forgive him
Little anthem, little children, little bomb
I’ll meet you behind the gym after the prom
Grand jury’s in discovery, and they’re choking on the burden of proof:
if the glove fits you must convict, when’s the last time that was the truth?
Now, I’m going to the tribunal, and I’m trading in my gown;
I’m trading my diploma; I’m getting out of town.
‘Cause I crouch still in my hallway like it’s a basement or a bed.
Forget the mushroom clouds over Kansas, 747s are over your head.
It’s this critical fork in the junction, some of us will got caught
and I know it doesn’t matter, babe, but this is all I got.
Little anthem, little children, little bomb
I’ll meet you behind the gym after the prom
I’ll meet you behind the gym after the prom
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5. |
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Lay down your alms at the altar of Joseph and Dee Dee Ramone.
Light a votive; the lowest common denominator is dearest, here,
in the Church of the Kitchen Sink (in the Church of the Kitchen Sink).
We have many things in common; we agree to disappear.
We have questions; we question motives of all the blackbirds singing here.
This is the juice of the oldest orchard. This is the fruit. This is the lamb.
I could feed you — you could feed me —but the hatchet-man hacked off our hands.
I feel closer to you
I feel closer to you
I feel closer
I feel closer to you
I feel closer to you
I feel closer
I grew up in front of a family of four hundred and twenty nine,
who never came together; they’d visit in twelves and only some of the time.
I wonder if they’d know me, gathered in one place,
if every sister and brother and mother and lover and father and cousin and pal,
with diaries and with notebooks, with memories and with tapes …
would dozenth version show a different guy with a similar face?
I feel closer to you
I feel closer to you
I feel closer
I feel closer to you
I feel closer to you
I feel closer
Hey, hey, hey
Do you remember those days on the radio,
do you remember those days in our cars,
when everything seemed very local and nothing felt very far?
Those were the days we ran like a wild pack,
the days we broadcast like stars,
and the big dish receivers read every signal;
the scientists resurrected microbes from Mars.
The walls cooled down. The Internet hummed.
And we flickered transistor brilliant.
And we coupled blue electric.
And we ate from each other’s fingers.
And there was no Spongifora.
And we were barely vegetarian.
We were barely out of the garden.
And we were waiting for our messiah.
And we were open to invention
in the Church of the Kitchen Sink (in the Church of the Kitchen Sink),
in the Church of the Kitchen Sink (in the Church of the Kitchen Sink),
in the Church of the Kitchen Sink (in the Church of the Kitchen Sink).
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James O'Brien New York, New York
James O’Brien toured the U.S. and the U.K. from 1998–2004 playing politically aware songs, sometimes solo and sometimes with
a band, sharing billings with artists such as Hamell on Trial, Dan Bern, Michael McDermott, John Sinclair, Bill Miller and Freedy Johnson.
In 2017, after a 13-year hiatus, he began to release archival and new material, expanding his catalog to fourteen albums as of 2022.
... more
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