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1. |
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Were we broken, weeping, wailing, spinning
Open-mouthed to swallow all that killing
For a dollar more, a dream, a fantasy
I think we were
You bet we were
I go blind
I go free
By design and desire
There’s nothing left to see
Anymore
Hold the handle of a knife
You’re taking or you’re giving
Would we ever slip this so-called living
All the property, the salaries, the stuff
I don’t think we would
No man, we never would
I go blind
I go free
By design and desire
There’s nothing left to see
Anymore
Anymore
This life can’t go on forever, can it
Clinging to the broken, choking planet
Is there a drink to drown us while we’re sinking
There doesn’t seem to be
I never found one, though I tried
I go blind
I go free
By design and desire
There’s nothing left to see
Anymore
Anymore
Anymore
Anymore
Anymore
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2. |
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In a six-foot hickory locker
In the basement of your school
The ghost of your first prom date
Saves a dance for you
In the backyard, in the laundry
Spectral in the breeze
All the girls you never kissed
Line the grass upon their knees
Away, away
You hope a new day has begun
Today, today’s
All your days, plus one
In a tiny fold of gray flesh
In the rear left of your skull
The sweetest salt you tasted
The sandy touch you knew so well
In the streetlights soft as Christmas
In the back seat of your car
Your fingertips like candles
Your heart wet, red and raw
I know you tried to catch him
He slipped out like a balloon
And you smiled at the party
While he drifted past the moon
Away, away
You hope a new day has begun
But today, today’s
All your days, plus one
Now they say it’s California
Palo Alto, Santa Cruz
And that you called me guilty
You won’t acquit
I am accused
If I acted out the dumb prince
Afraid to make the call
Well, you chose to the swallow water
And smeared your blood across my wall
Away, away
You hope a new day has begun
But today, today’s
All your days, plus one
Away, away
You hope a new day has begun
But today, today’s
All your days, plus one
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away, away
Away
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3. |
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I pledge allegiance to the unhappiest boy in the world
He finds me every morning with his coffee press and heart-attack complaints
He says the internet has dragged his love-life back into the ocean
The primordial ooze
It's way out, Jack
I pledge allegiance to the unhappiest girl in the world
She finds me in the pub I thought was mine, I thought my own
She resurrects unpleasantness, she drags it out like Christ
Must have dragged poor dead, dry Lazarus from his cave into the light
I try to say, "Is it like that, with this? Are you trying to impress disciples?"
Instead I say stuff like, "How's your Dad?"
It's an endless cycle
Every day
Every day
Every day
Now, Christopher Columbus never set foot in America
Though every teacher told me that he did
I try to kill the sadness in the word America
I keep unhappiness inside of me well hid
I keep unhappiness inside of me well hid
I pledge allegiance to the unhappiest dream in the world
It finds me every evening, when I sleep this dream unfurls
And in it I look like Sal Mineo, with black Italian curly hair
I'm auditioning for ‘West Side Story’, don't know what I'm doing there
But you, you're there beside me, and you're looking for a pointer
And I say, "Mumble every line and if you're not cast, don't be disappointed.
It's a hard town, and everybody needs a good waiter in America, every day
Every day”
Now, Christopher Columbus never set foot in America
Though every teacher told me that he did
I try to kill the sadness in the word America
I keep unhappiness inside of me well hid
I keep unhappiness inside of me well hid
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4. |
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How is your new home
Way up in the hills
I visited last July
But you were gone
You were gone away
How is out there on the road
Those dirty old motels
I hear you loved Georgia
So much you stayed
So much you stayed
So much you stayed
I hear your voice when I’m awake
It’s too close to understand
What was it you used to say
But it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
These trees, they gather round
These rivers stop and pray
All good men
They die today
Will die today
Will die today
I hear your voice when I’m awake
And it’s too close to understand
What was it you used to say
But it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
But it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
But it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
And it’s gone again
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5. |
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The last real poet walked into a bar called America
Where I sat most mornings drawing maps on napkins
Where the gray light punched through windows yellow from decades of Marlboros
Ate up your nerves like a two-toothed kid hungry for candy
The poet approached the bartender and said
“OK, bartender, give me what you got, if you’ve got any”
The barman let it bleed
Four long shots of courage and cool and good luck and chutzpah
The poet swallowed this poison and wheezed while I watched from my napkins
While in the halls over our heads, someone crashed into something and broke something fragile
Up there, junkies and musicians executed slow dives into obscurity in front of courtesy mirrors in low-price rooms to rent
“I could smell this place for a mile,” spoke the poet. “I could feel it like a planter’s corn, a small white hot spot on the tar, every time I took a step”
The bartender topped him off with courage and put the other bottles away
I collected my napkins and waited
The poet drank
“This is where art comes to die,” he said. “This is the final lounge in the final hotel of all of our lives. Whatever you’re serving, mister, make it a double, and one for my friend in topography”
“Are you dying?” I asked the poet, from my corner of the room
“I’m in exile,” he replied. “And my country is the namesake of this saloon
I’ve come here to remember”
“I remember my mother. I remember my brother a child with blue cheeks and limp wrists, never crying. I remember my ghost-white sedan, churning up the earth in another man’s hands, a beautiful man, a messiah, a Charlton Heston madman freedom fiction lover from Texas, forever”
The poet sang out this way for half an hour, rattling jazz at us, the only two listeners in the bar
The courage kept flowing
I’d had five, maybe six, before he was done
The bartender winked at me
He’d kept me on the poet’s tab
When he’d finished, words hung in the afternoon air like vapor from a gun
It smelled like oranges
The poet stood and I felt like I saw him for the first time … gaunt, roped with exercise, his eyes a flat grey like the seashore just before it rains
He plunked his money down and a tip
He tossed a paper envelope next to all of it
His fingers whisked my table on his way out the door
The bartender salted the change from the dollar bills and left the envelope where it lay
He blinked at me through the gloom
In my bravery I opened the envelope and into my hand fell a thin bronze disc
It was blank on one side
On the other was a word, like the stamped words on a pill, a medallion, a medal, or a coin
A-N-T-H-R-A-X
Somewhere upstairs, somebody sneezed
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6. |
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7. |
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I’ve been thinking, people, about how to make friends
How to get it started, knowing how it all ends
Not a friendly sort of person, still, I think you ought to know
It helps to have a friendly little place you can go
Now, in the way of making friendships, here’s a couple of rules
For friendly situations, for keeping things cool
To start, if friends are sweet, man, stick with sugar and spice
But if your friends are dirty people, I’ve got different advice
If your friends are heavy drinkers, you can go and get plowed
If they’re quiet, friendly thinkers, don’t go out and get loud
If they’re claustrophobic people, stay away from big jams
If your friends are open vistas, go as wide as you can
Now, if they’re chatty, chatty people, call them up on your phone
If your friends have lost their friends, be their friend and give them homes
If your friends are lonely people, don’t you leave your friends alone
If your friends are lonely people, don’t you leave your friends alone
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8. |
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Did you ever break down
In the energized wash
With your shoulders white ashes
With the heat of the cross
On a river rip-raging
Across a bridge of black thorn
In a medium wavelength
Did your fingertips burn
Were you raising that black soot
In a circle of night
Did an angel approach you
With silver daggers of light
Was it a ripple of thunder
Was it machine gun fire
Did the red foaming blood race
Through the trenches of liars
Heaven isn't a place, now
Heaven isn't a thought
Absent lords to be served, you
Throw a kingdom of darts
Did you ever break down
In the energized wash
With your shoulders white ashes
With the heat of the cross
Did you ever break down
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9. |
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10. |
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Just before the fly becomes the catch
Just before two hands jumpstart the chest
Just a booted foot upon the neck
Just around the bend and up a stretch
Such a dream
Such a dream
I don’t know what it means
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Just before our fingers touch the rope
Just as rows of ink-black printers choke
Just as rain-sauced color runs from cloaks
Just under the chin where they wrote hope
Such a dream
Such a dream
I don’t know what it means
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Just when we was sure it was our heart
Just as all the wires ripped apart
Just before our wild red blood runs home
Just around the bend I thought we’d roam
Such a dream
Such a dream
I don’t know what it means
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
I don’t know what it means
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
I don’t know what it means
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
I don’t know what it means
Such a dream
Such a dream
Such a dream
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Long story short (you can hear more about this in Season One of the podcast): Before I made 'All Your Days' (the album), I recorded a whole set of some of the same songs in a different way. More like the 'Careful in the Future' approach, but the parts are additionally open and layered. And I didn't know what to do with it.
At the time, in 2019, I thought, "Maybe it's too close to what I just put out in 2018." I guess I couldn't really hear it properly and so I waited. Then Rich Adkins and Matthew Girard - Music suggested we could make the tracks as a band. So we did. And that was 'All Your Days,' the album, in January
But then I started listening to 'Silver Crown' this fall and realized it's perfect. In its way, it's as deep and ambitious as its wildfire cousin, 'All Your Days.' I can't wait to share it with you.
released December 13, 2022
Written and performed: James O'Brien
"Gone" written by Karaugh Brown
Mixed and mastered by Matthew Girard
