1. |
Great Man Singing
03:21
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Great Man Singing
On Marlon Brando’s island we drank wine from human skulls
while we played lawn darts
on the beach.
We took shots at helicopters full of
European journalists who’d come to take
the great man’s measure.
At night we watched old training films about
safety in the sawmill.
Marlon laughed at all the
bad fake blood.
We took our meals in silence
like two monks aboard a spaceship,
going nowhere and hideously bored.
The island was a dream,
but Marlon didn’t say much
‘til he hit me with a club to watch me bleed.
He said, “You give a guy a pass
when he’s good at playing creepy
or when he makes you laugh,
he works you like a dummy.
When staring in his eyes
is like staring at still water
you become a great
white flower, and
a newborn baby’s cry
ricocheting off the mountains
can’t capture your attention
when you hear the great man singing.
You think the song’s about you,
when even if it is,
it’s still a murder ballad.
But you give the guy a pass
when he’s good at playing creepy.
He wants to make you cry,
but you long for his comfort.
He understands your horror
since after after all, he made it —
like a god who’s gone to seed
and demands perverse devotions.
You give the guy a pass
when he’s good at playing creepy.”
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2. |
Unseen Ocean
03:30
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Unseen Ocean
The first time I saw you
you were drinking at the well
underneath a broken sky.
I saw the unmistakable
lightning of intelligence
in your eyes.
The next time I saw you
you were floating in the air
just beyond the grasp of time.
I heard the thunder of waves
crashing in an unseen
ocean nearby.
I think about you
when I wake up sweating
and I can’t catch my breath.
That’s when I think about you.
I saw you again
driving on the bridge
between your savage heart and mine.
You became a hawk, and I was a
rabbit running for the safety of an
unreachable treeline.
The last time I saw you
you were a statue
lying in pieces on the floor.
I said I’d put you back together,
but you laughed out loud when you
asked me what I’d want to go and do that for.
I think about you
when I wake up sweating
and I can’t catch my breath.
That’s when I think about you.
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3. |
Saint Teresa
04:00
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Saint Teresa
You ride around in the parking lot
of the Baptist church on a Sunday night.
You ride in circles
like a tilt-a-whirl.
You say your Hail Marys
like a little girl.
You pray the Our Father
and the Glory Be.
You clutch the handles
and a rosary.
Your head’s thrown back,
and your eyes are closed
like Saint Teresa
and the Holy Ghost.
I heard you had been married to a fireman
who died in a fire from the smoke.
I heard you had a son who sold insurance
and died at 47 from a stroke.
I heard you had a daughter in Salt Lake City
who left the church at 21.
She found the Book of Mormon in a hotel room,
and you never heard from her again.
I see you sitting on your front porch
in a rocking chair rocking back and forth.
A little smile across your lips
a glass of whiskey at your fingertips,
singing “Veni sancte spiritus.”
She’s made of stone,
and when she comes,
she comes alone.
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4. |
Weird Animal
04:13
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Weird Animal
Am I your weird animal?
Can you show me what I’m for?
Am I your weird animal?
Can you show me what I’m for?
Do you wanna put me on the leash tonight
and watch me crawl around
on all fours?
Am I your weird animal?
Am I your weird animal?
When you cry like a baby
I don’t wanna come home.
When you cry like a baby
I don’t wanna come home.
You see, I need you to talk to talk tough,
pull my hair, and
leave me alone.
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
you leave me cold.
You can never ride me hard enough
with your sensitive soul.
Either push me over the edge
or slink away.
You’d better figure out how to hurt me
if you want me to stay.
My soft body is harder
than that sad little thing.
I want to see you turn a piece of coal
into a diamond ring,
and if that diamond ring don’t shine
while you have me on my knees,
you gotta make me beg for it, baby.
C’mon and make me,
c’’mon and make me say please.
Am I your weird animal?
Can you make me obey?
Am I your weird animal?
Can you make me obey?
You say you’d like to set me free,
but you know I
love my cage.
Am I your weird animal?
Am I your weird animal?
Am I your weird animal?
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5. |
Yours Truly
03:48
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Yours Truly
The only fuck I ever gave
was for mother
and I know I’m supposed
to feel ashamed.
If one of the neighbors
had been looking
instead of looking
the other way
you would not have
had me here
to keep you entertained,
and you would not have known me.
We were laughing
all together
at the movie
when the child
was murdered by mistake.
Every life is precious
and God don’t make no trash
except that sometimes
killing plays for laughs.
Then I’m here to help you,
and I’m here to stay.
Go ahead and keep on laughing.
It’s always been this way.
I remain yours truly.
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6. |
Ellington Bridge
04:54
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Ellington Bridge
Under the Ellington bridge
on the parkway near the stables
it’s teeming with new green life
and bluebells.
The creek makes a white noise
it’s all that breaks the silence.
The deer with their headlight eyes
disappear in the woods.
An invisible spider’s weaving
a mercury web.
Nobody’s out and about.
They close these roads on Sunday.
Up on the bridge
there’s an empty bottle and a picture ID
a waiter’s wine key still in the cork
of a Château Lafite.
You can go into orbit
if you fall forward
with enough speed.
Maybe we’ll never land.
Maybe we’ll rise beyond this night.
Up on the bridge
there’s an empty bottle and a picture ID
a waiter’s wine key still in the cork
of a château lafite.
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7. |
Killer from the Mountain
03:50
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Killer from the Mountain
When you returned
we lay together
in the wood along
the river path.
The rain stopped
and the sky was clearing
the river frothed
and tumbled past.
I’d been alone
a long time by then
but with my palm
against your breast
and with your kisses
on my eyelids
and in the perfume
of your breath
and at the moment
The dam broke loose
when birds in chorus
sang your name
you took me in
with your gray eyes
and swore
you’d never
leave again.
Then you bit my lip
and the blood flowed freely
and where it spilled
pink orchids grew.
You picked them all
and you ate their petals
and in your moment
of returning
their beauty was
was returned to you.
The river came
down from the mountain.
The river came
Like Killer from the mountain.
The river came
like Killer from the mountain
whose awful face blocked out the moon
He snapped the wood like
old dry tinder.
Then he separated
me from you.
Killer dragged you
off into the ocean
You drew a breath and
the sea filled your lungs.
You became the ocean.
You became a rain cloud.
Steady winds
carried the rain cloud
across the sea
and back over
the land.
A storm gathered
and the sky poured itself out
over the wood along
the river path.
The rain cloud
came from the ocean.
The rain cloud
came from the ocean.
The rain cloud
came from the ocean.
The rain cloud came like
Venus from the ocean.
When you returned
we lay together
in the wood along
the river path.
The rain stopped
and the sky was clearing
The river frothed
And tumbled past.
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8. |
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Garden Below, Garden Above
That love looked
like if the slackers hadn’t slept.
No tears of blood because
nobody wept.
Nobody wept.
You held her
as she spoke to you.
She loves you in
a miniature room.
A miniature room.
You live inside
of the house she’s made.
Outside—calamity
but inside it’s safe.
It’s safe inside.
The cicadas come crawling
up out of the ground
and time keeps lurching out
ahead of their sound.
Out ahead of their sound.
When the night is a kiln
what can you do?
You surrender to the heat
as it finishes you.
It finishes you.
There’s no such thing
as a tragic love.
There’s a garden below
and there’s a garden above.
A garden above.
That love looked
like if the slackers hadn’t slept.
No tears of blood because
nobody wept.
Nobody wept.
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9. |
Weird Animal (Reprise)
04:38
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Weird Animal (Reprise)
Am I your weird animal?
Can you show me what I’m for?
Am I your weird animal?
Can you show me what I’m for?
Do you wanna put me on the leash tonight
and watch me crawl around
on all fours?
Am I your weird animal?
Am I your weird animal?
When you cry like a baby
I don’t wanna come home.
When you cry like a baby
I don’t wanna come home.
You see, I need you to talk to talk tough,
pull my hair, and
leave me alone.
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
When you cry like a baby
you leave me cold.
You can never ride me hard enough
with your sensitive soul.
Either push me over the edge
or slink away.
You’d better figure out how to hurt me
if you want me to stay.
My soft body is harder
than that sad little thing.
I want to see you turn a piece of coal
into a diamond ring,
and if that diamond ring don’t shine
while you have me on my knees,
you gotta make me beg for it, baby.
C’mon and make me,
c’’mon and make me say please.
Am I your weird animal?
Can you make me obey?
Am I your weird animal?
Can you make me obey?
You say you’d like to set me free,
but you know I
love my cage.
Am I your weird animal?
Am I your weird animal?
Am I your weird animal?
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10. |
Perfect Letdown
05:51
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Perfect Letdown
When you asked if there was anyone
in particular I’d been crushing on
maybe I should’ve held my tongue
but it’s always slipping through my
slick fingers.
I only wanted to see myself looking beautiful
in the mirror pool of your clear eyes.
I dove right into the shallow end.
Thought I could make whatever depths I wanted to
see myself as swimming in.
Heaven knows I’ve been a fool
and every day a little olde.r
When this persona fades away
what’s left may barely fill a thimble.
I only wanted to see myself looking beautiful
in the mirror pool of your clear eyes.
I was blind I couldn’t see.
You broke the spell and set me free from
all of my heartache and ruin
my sad greedy begging
the looming disasters
my grand empty gestures.
***
You take my hand in the dream world and
we walk from Broad to Main
past the magic morning glory vines
where no yearning is ever in vain.
Where the songs belong to songbirds
and the air is cool and fine
where if you want to make me sweat
I can respond in kind.
No hammers smashing rhinestones here.
No birds hung ‘round our necks.
No mad specters from the past or
hiding around the next turn.
I watch you stand inside the window
backlit by the sun
digging through a plastic bin
of old but useful stuff.
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Timothy Bailey & The Humans Richmond, Virginia
Where darkness seeks light
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