Songs Volume 1 – Notes & Lyrics


Written and (mostly) recorded between 2003 and 2007 at Euclid Manor in Santa Barbara, CA. Cover art by Benjamin Billingsley.

Music located here:

The storm plays out her course
And morning found me crawling north
The stranger inside me came
But I don’t really know his name

And something’s gone awry
Thorny plans in a cactus sky
Crushing down like stone
When I’m living alone

These are words from coarser times
Fractured and spoken in blackbird rhyme
These are days of touch and go
Don’t lose hope, you never know

I held it once before
But all the pain and revolving doors
Pinned me to the ground
You know I heard you were in town

These are words from coarser times
Fractured and spoken in blackbird rhyme
These are days of touch and go
Don’t lose hope, you never know

Head full of horses you’re not gonna last
Let’s take a picture before you collapse
The frogmen are coming
They’re gonna hand you your ass

In the white out
You’re perfectly still
Loaded and beautiful

Your face is a fractal the way that it bends
Seen through the edge of a distorted lens
You’re painted with fictions, you spark and you spin
Over the edge and back again
You’re lost on the ocean
You’re raking the swell
Steer me by starlight and I’ll take up your sails
But the hurricane’s on you and you’re stuck on the rails

In the white out
You’re perfectly still
Loaded and beautiful
Your gaze penetrates my body
Pulls across an open boundary
A signal so electric
Discordant but I kept for the future
A time of pain sutures
When I might need some pleasure
Travesties in extra measure
Super metaphysical
And crazy wistful
Sleeping in my robot skin
And hoping for a freakish wind
To sail this shame
The spiders creeping in my veins
And absence so compelling

You know they tell me that you’re dangerous
An isotope so monstrous
That gravity could not contain you
The system will not claim you
I want outta here
So pick me up I don’t care where
Just put it to the fucking metal
You’re the stamen you’re the petal

Soon your head is going to puncture
And your shit is going under
All the innocence you plundered
In the place where you keep falling
All your enemies come calling
Stuck inside Saturnalia

And everybody wants you back
But you’re missing from the photographs
We took the day you crept away
Leprous and feeling psychosocial burns
Your crippled head so taciturn
Which you claim was made of language
But if that’s true then suck the message
From my lips
This steady heart longs to skip
And beat to your wicked drum
You’re like a drug

And I know you’re dangerous
An isotope so monstrous
That gravity could not contain you
The system will not name you
I want outta here
Pick me up I don’t care where
We’ll put it to the fucking metal
You’re the stamen you’re the petal

Soon your head is going to puncture
And your shit is going under
All the innocence you plundered
In the place where you keep falling
All your enemies come calling
Stuck inside Saturnalia


5. Bright Red Sail

When the bright red sail touches down
It turns to fire
You cross a wayward path
A twisted braid
Another lie
Frailties multiply into the face you recognize

Oh you can find danger
Anywhere you want it
Oh such a fine danger
Anytime you want it

Now I lay me down
To rest my weary head
The pilgrims gathering wood to burn the dead
Spirals flash out from your eyes
The wicked rust of compromise

Oh you can find danger
Anywhere you want it
Oh such a fine danger
Anytime you want it
6. Forever 

I can’t find it anywhere
It’s lost in the haze
You were here yesterday
Right in that chair

Time passes by
But you seem better to me
Oh, it’s hard to say

Freaks come out dancing
Trip on the stage
Sisters of circumstance
So bright and strange

Life passes by
Without redemption worth your skin
Oh does it matter?
If it takes forever, oh it takes forever
If it takes forever

People pass by
I feel so dismembered and frail
Oh I’m still your friend
Who knows where you'll been
Oh I’m still your friend
7. The Ruins

Hanging on the man
Making it harder
You and your army of tigers
Miseries and ecstasies collide
You got girls on the moon
Love in the ruins

Shaking clear
Wasted and near
Oh it’s getting colder
This new disorder

Watch yourself out there
You and me got reasons for running
Seasons turn California burns to nothing
Mysteries and auguries collide

Shaking clear
Wasted and near
Oh it’s getting colder
This new disorder
Watch yourself out there
8. Something About You

There’s something about you
I just wanna do it
But you’re scaring me
Oh you’re so frighting yeah yeah yeah
And your head

Makes it so easy
You’re so freaky
All I want is to hold you
So hopelessly in trouble

Keeping it simple
Those two little
Lumbar dimples yeah yeah yeah
But you’re scaring me
Oh you’re so frighting yeah yeah yeah
And your head

Makes it so easy
You’re so freaky
All I want is to hold you
So hopelessly in trouble

There’s something about you
There’s something about you
There’s something about you
There’s something about you
9. Candy

Caught in a slow decay
Candy’s gone away
Took her sweetness and angular ways

Oh and carved into your chest
Every loser that you’ve left
Crumbling
I you listen really hard
You can hear the broken parts
Tumbling

Messages cross in these wire
Whatever your tongue desires
Strike the match I’m a house on fire

Oh and carved into your chest
Every loser that you’ve left
Crumbling
I you listen really hard
You can hear the broken parts
Tumbling
10. Juniper 

Just shut up and dance
Yeah you’re beautiful
You don’t stand a chance

To Juniper
Oh Juniper

Jumps like jaguar
When you’re dreaming
She knows where you are
She’s kicking your ass

Yeah, Juniper
Juniper
Juniper
Juniper

You don’t have to ask
It belongs to you
Don’t be the last
Juniper
Juniper
Juniper