Written and recorded (mostly) in Ojai CA between 2018 and 2024. Drums on track 7 by Austin Beede. Cover art lifted from Cash4Cars of Oklahoma City.
Music located here:
https://landoflittlerain.bandcamp.com/album/obscurantia
1. Meadowlarking
Yesterday
Woke up to the rain
Felt like I was dreaming
All the world fitted out in gray
I wore it for the season
Hold my hand
Sparkle like the sun
And let me tie your laces
City lights and Lisa having fun
When we're roller skating
I remember the fucked-up weather
And the creme de menthe
Running down your sweater
It isn't love
But still it's lost in time
And the world keeps saying
"Never, never again..."
Monday comes
Sitting in my car
I think the word is broken
Wind pounds
Our crazy little town
Feels like time has frozen
Come on, come on
I wonder where you are today
Everybody duck and cover
If it's not one thing it's another
I lost track
And now I want you back
But the world keeps saying
"Never, never again..."
"Never, never again..."
2. Mile Marker 42
Out where the highway ends
A skinwalker with a talisman
Getting lost, maybe, I don't know
The saturation overloads
Don't know why I hesitate
Got nothing to negotiate
I'm going nowhere in particular
Those clouds are very lenticular
Traffic signs and broken lines
Slipping through a crack in time
I can feel it come and go
It's just so good to lose control
Oh the days just are
They crash like cars
And disintegrate
Into nights so dark
and shot with stars
They pixelate
I can feel the tension build
Keeps crunching up against my will
Makes me wanna pay for my mistakes
I'd be there but its too late
This pantomime is so sublime
That sound you make when you arch your spine
It's so clear in retrospect
Where the canyons intersect
Oh the days just are
They crash like cars
And disintegrate
Into nights so long
and shot with stars
They pixelate
Oh the days just are
They crash like cars
And disintegrate
Into nights so long
and shot with stars
They pixelate
3. What the Corner Collects
I remember
When the world asked me to dance
I said “No thanks man, I’ll just watch from the stands...”
Cause everything here feels like it’s shaking
And by the time it gets done all the good seats are taken
There’s a ghost in my room
It's been talking all night long
It might be the truth but why does it feel so wrong
To believe?
I am trying to connect
With whatever the corners collect
And slow walk my ass back from the edge
Tonight
Oh sometimes the days just seem a bit lost
With a head like a mule and a face full of moths
Who knew a dream could be so misshapen?
And float like the dust down to this station
Where I wait for a train that never arrives
It’s jumping the tracks and into another life
Just not mine
And it’s blowing the valves in my heart
With one fucked-up character arc
I don’t think it should be this hard
To reach for the ring or wish on a star
Tonight
4. Crazytown
Ten years gone
Working for the con
Ass against the wall
Where'd it all go?
I reckon I don't know
But this party's winding down
It's staring at a gun
Getting real done
In a solitary sky
But I don't know to go
Just let me hit the road
Back to crazy town
A devil in the corn
The day that you were born
Old Scratch on the way
You say you want more?
I'll get him on the floor
But he's gonna make you pay
With terminator eyes
And radiator thighs
A silver dollar day
But you can get it for a song
If you know which side you're on
Back in crazy town
Where the air's so sweet
It'll wreck your teeth
As you ripen on the vine
In a sky so blue
It's next to cruel
It'll make your papa cry
Apples in the sun
As the highway hums
To a busted radio
A whisper in my ear
It's not that clear
But I recognize the voice
It's sounds like a debt
Coming back to collect
and punch me to the street
But I'm all shook down
More lost than found
So it's back to crazy town
Where the river runs pure
And it's like a cure
For whatever you got
And the deer smoke dope
With the antelope
And flying saucers roam...
Where the air's so sweet
It'll wreck your teeth
As you ripen on the vine
In a sky so blue
It's next to cruel
It'll make your papa cry
5. Maricopa Highway Blue
In your mind, you leave it all behind
Drive your trouble, down the center line
To a place in the desert where you roll, free range
A place where the rocks and the ravens, know your name
And you rise to the parallax of dawn
To a lover you long thought had gone
Your skin weirdly renewed
In eyes of madrigal blue
Oh maybe you just had it all
A bit confused
I don’t have a reason
I just had to run
The sound of the highway
Makes me go numb
For a while, I can’t feel
Anything, but the wheels
But it’s no good
When it comes on like a drug
This fatal vision of starry wanderlust
The pikers each take their turn
You feel the schadenfreude burn
Think maybe a life’s just to learn
Ya get fuck all
So take the wheel
Before I succumb
The sound of the highway
Makes me go numb
For a while, I can’t feel
For a while, shit gets real
Drawn like a moth to a Texaco sign
Pick up the phone and fish for a dime
I can’t make it ring it and I can’t make you rhyme
Running around in this
Parasite paradise
Parasite paradise
Burn it all down
And I’m back home
In a world like a maze
Oh it holds me in a perilous gaze
My mission sorely suspect
With dots I could not connect
Oh but it’s you babe I resurrect
In the end
So run your fingers over the scars
The beat of your heart’s like a song from a star
Shining down - on me
Shining down - over me
Won’t you stay - here a while
Won’t you stay - here a while
6. Anymore
Anymore
This shit is worthless
Ain’t got no tack
Peeling up from the surface
Like some kinda patch
The overreach
Is looking weak
Every time I cut it down to size
The next thing I know it multiplies
And suddenly it all seems so overrated
AnymoreIt’s like a circus
Coming off the tracks
Getting bored, getting nervous
Something gonna snap
The shaking fault
Ain’t worth the salt
Crazy stardust trikes again
Floating through the mise-en-scène
And just when it feels like I’ve had enough
Pain and beauty always seem to hook up
The siren’s cry
My lullaby
Guess I’m picking up where you left off
If only the thing in my head would stop
Oh see the child oh when the world was new
Somehow knows just what to do
Oh before it all got confused
7. The Curvature of Space
I didn’t mean it
Or maybe I did
It’s hard to be sure
Who needs to be sure?
When snow covers the highway
What did that sign say?
Oh from our roomI see the moon
Moonlight on your face
The curvature of space
Around your waist
In these quiet days
My heart is breaking
I kept you waiting
Somewhere on Mars
Hey, there’s a star
Starlight on your face
The curvature of space
Around your waist
In these final days
Starlight on your face
I’m so messed up
The curvature of space
I’m so messed up
Around your waist
I’m so messed up
In these final days
I’m so messed up
8. Freakshow Index
Day-glow destiny
Dangling from a tree
You’re gonna have to pardon my
Mediocrity
Legend in the rough
If I rotated faster would it be enough?
The moonlight shining down on homicidal streets
Softly glistening
And through a fence darkly
The raccoons have crashed the party
And I can’t tell what’s real anymore
Making me squint
Bellybutton lint
And I don’t know what’s cool anymore
Just a buncha crap
Think I’ll take nap - for real
Heading out to sea
Islands of the damned
I’m gonna live a life of
Wanton piracy
Your knickers a twist
For all the Monday mornings I will never miss
I wanted to feel me some spiritual shit
But something tells me
Maybe I was born to be the universe’s bitch
I’m gonna spend my life rolling backwards
Burning joint to joint
Never quite on point
With every step feeling awkward
Lacking all finesse
Making a big mess
And it don’t taste like Coca Cola
Don’t know what it is
Just some kinda jizz
And they don’t know what’s cool anymore
Handing out nouns
To a shakedown in the cloud
You mutha-fuckas
You mutha-fuckas
9. The Sea Comes at Midnight
Softly color fads
Peels off the palisade
Oh how the winter falls
Oh how the darkness calls
And the sea comes at midnight
Like a wave in the headlights
Following in the night
Waiting for a prairie girl
Dust on my window sill
She wanders the empty plain
Doesn’t recall my name
And her sea comes at midnight
Like a wave in the half light
Shattering the night
You’re everyone’s
Second sun
Echoes on the shore
Figures without form
Oh how the river bends
Oh how the lovers end
And our sea comes at midnight
Like a dream in the daylight
Oh the sea comes at midnight
Like a train in the headlights
Shattering the night
10. Like Canvas
Tawny gold and midnight blue
A daze of dancer red
Secretly cerulean
Trying to pretend
A warm and yellow orange
Cold and wintergreen
Cloudy in November gray
Safely in between
We’re stuck in a box with nothing to do
So you paint me and I paint you
Something surreal
And just what you feel
‘Cause everything is ill-defined
In this paucity of light
Oh no what have I done?
A paintbrush in your hand
You wield it like a fucking sword
That doesn’t look like me!
Since when do I have horns?
I’m a terror in your eyes
So freakishly deformed
Shit’s getting real
And breaking my brain
This was one crap idea
You’re cutting a rose
I’m walking the plank
Here inside our funhouse mirror
Where the weather’s getting weird
And I am everything I feared
Oh baby please come back
I didn’t mean it
Don’t let this fever dream
Come between us
11. Ghosted
Something moving in the air
Hiding on the wind
And making crazy patterns in the trees
So I just stare
Like someone’s there
A flicker in the bough
And run my fingertips across the leaves
Hunkered down and bleeding out
In a hollow where I’m blind
I’ve been dragging you around
Like I’m doing time
And now that I’m out on my own
You’re finally coming close round
The river crashing though this deck
The shame you hung around my neck
I’m a swimmer with nowhere left but down
I thought If I stayed still it’d be OK
But do you feel me now?
Living down history
Sharp and angular
Cause’ every time you came at me
You went for the jugular
And now that I’m out on my own
Feel it on my skin
I get what I need to know
Where the veil is thin
Hanging out with your ghost
Something on the wind
Fading to monochrome
Feel it on my skin
12. Amaryllis Night and Day
She came in
Like the wind
On a dark December day
Saturnine
And half inclined
To slowly drift away
I can try
But you can fly
Like a pretty bird of prey
Let me fall
Till I finally find my way
To another world
And she holds an aching world
In her planetary arms
Reckon I was born to be
A widow from the start
Amaryllis night and day
Like a shadow cross my heart
Let me fall
Till I finally find my way
To another world
And it feels like home
And she calls
Out my name
And I finally found my way
To another world
13. A Widow's Song
Ya hear that rustling?
Hear that canyon roar?
My baby doesn't live here anymore
Bandaids on her fingers and wounded eyes
Her number off a napkin, a crooked smile
And in the morning light
The clarity confounds
With second sight
Running me aground
Bluebells hopping
Across the valley floor
Those clouds up on the mountains
Look like dinosaurs
In a moonlight meadow
Our house of straw
Made of second chances
Played to a draw
And your face went white
Cold to the touch
In the pale porch light
I know it's not enough
Babe where are you?
It's raining on the South Platte
Thundering in Omaha
Carolina, Colorado
The Panamints, the Ouachitas
Were you holding out
Or holding on?
When you add it up
There's something wrong
I can't make this right
A widow lives alone
In a pale blue light
And he's always coming home
And on the coldest night
He's always coming home
14. Low Plains Drifter
Holding out for a miracle
Oh you could peel me off a wall
Got a feeling I can’t shake off
Man I’m living a paradox
And I’ll slowly fade
Into skeletal remains
Holding my ghostly face
Know what I want but I can’t define it
Out on the road just trying to find it
Like a meteor on sunny day
I know I’m wrong but I just can’t fight it
A part time lover, full time freak
A low plains drifter on the street
And the morning comes too soon
For the mountains of the moon
Golden vespertine
Air tastes like tangerines
Days passing like a dream
Know what I want but I can’t define it
Out on the road just trying to find it
Like a meteor on sunny day
I know I’m wrong but I just can’t fight it
Take a look before I slip away
I know I’m wrong but I just can’t fight it
15. Far Western
The days deny what night divines, shakes it from your hands
And sunlight has vaporized these fragments of a plan
The joker in a shiny suit is striking up the band
And dancing as we disappear like cities in the sand
I hear you in the canyon and I hear you on the stairs
I can see standing on the dunes with seaweed in your hair
The moonlight on your fragile frame you're floating in mid air
And when my vanity is spent I hope that you are spared
You're a river
And you're the sea
A freak of nature born to torture me
I'm trying to swim
But keep downing in your wake
Losing focus as our imagine pixelates
Oh but I
Just wanna see you again
Oh but I
Just wanna see you again
I am sending a transmission in heartache megahertz
But in my broken alphabet it probably won't work
At least I know that we once burned like diamonds in the dirt
But all I hear is static now and that's what really hurts
Now I've been listening all night long to this radio
And when the morning comes crashing in it's like an overdose
Sick and drifting all these years, where I don't know
Can't seem to ever find my angle of repose
You're a desert
And you're the wind
A force of nature that is arguing for sin
And we should leave here
Cross the interstate
And be together when the world disintegrates
Oh but I
Just wanna see you again
And I
Just wanna hold you again
And maybe I just want to scream with you again
Oh maybe I just want to leave you again