1. |
Local Radio
02:39
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On one enduring July 4th
I found myself dependent
Working in service in the capital
I’d heard the burnout rate was off the charts
I should have guessed it
I ran into it like a dead end though
I talked some shit about the job
And I’m surprised with how it ended
Got interviewed on local radio
And they said “Who bites the hand when the hand feeds you?”
They’re passing out scraps, you can hardly believe
You’d be picking up tabs for some nouveau riche
Who’d be making in an hour what you make in a week
Trading shifts with the kids just getting started
And the kids spinning their wheels into their 40s, yeah
I wanted more, I wanted more than I was getting
I wanted more from my relationships
I wanted sleep, I wanted peace, I wanted ease, I couldn’t get it
I couldn’t find a way to pay for it
I dreamed of sleeping aids and counted days as they descended
I’d grit and smile and bear the weight of it
I’d allow myself a modicum of self destruction
A microdosed breakdown, semi-dysfunction
I’d be riding around the city to the sound of combustion
While the Lady of the Harbor was out drinking in public
She’d been pacing back and forth under winds of destruction
Taking swigs from a flask and selling SIM cards or something
While the Independence Day heat was getting me wired
I said “I just wanna see the city on fire”
And that patriotic thought tangled up the transmission
An anonymous voice on the affiliate station
Singing “Who bites the hand when the hand feeds you?”
They’re passing out scraps and you start to believe
Like you’re lucky to have all the scraps that you’re eating
While you’re climbing your way to the top of the scrap heap
Tell me who bites the hand when the hand feeds you
Who bites the hand? I guess you got to believe
You got to open your eyes to all the ways that they bleed you
While they’re buying your life up in cheap little pieces, oh
I wanted more, I wanted more than I was getting
I wanted more, I hit a dead end though
I wanted sleep, I counted sheep, I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t get it
My head was ringing like a telephone
My speech was slurred from shattered nerves and nights up with a headache
They sunk in steady like a status quo
I took the job and what I got was just some paid-off credit
And interviewed on local radio
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2. |
Night Terrors
02:39
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Sometimes I think all I have to do is keep us alive
Whatever happens, just make it till the morning light
Inhale, exhale, and repeat until dawn
But the hours have been dragging, dragging on
I can't sleep while I'm counting your every breath
Your chest heaves, there’s a rhythm, there’s a pattern I guess
Meaning, breathing, all dissolves in doubt
And the night terrors got you screaming out
We’re sleeping with the light on
Willing the dark to pass
It only seems to last, to last
You wanna find your salvation in reason?
And eulogize on the absence of meaning?
Reason hasn't ruled here in a long time
You’d never know if you’ve been comfortably sleeping
What’s it like to never worry if you’ll live through the night?
Must be nice — nothing like this restless, weak, wild-eyed,
Strung out, wrung out parasomniac
It’s a given: This is living, this is how we react
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3. |
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I’ve been running through this world just trying to pass through my days
Wondering what the odds say about catching a break
I asked my phone, she said I don’t know
She said one day you will too fade away
Till then, bask in my glory
Got a decade in my pocket and it ain’t coming back
A sucker selling content, I’ve been running the track
Shaking hands, building brands, posting Instagrams of my cat
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
Always coming up with something to say
I wanna tell you everything I’ve been thinking
But it never seems to come out that way
It comes out kinda twisted and strange
Like prophecies and long dark days
Like I used to think we’d go out in a nuclear war
Don’t know much has changed, but I don’t think that no more
I’m not trying to say we won’t see the day
There’s a genocide of the poor
It just might come in a heatwave
And that’s something no one’s trying to hear
You wash it down with liquor and beer
And spend the night with someone who’s near
And party with the kids who wanna party with you
You’re already in deep, you wanna watch for the cue
Consent isn’t complex, just no one taught it to you
Keep that in mind every day, everything that you do
‘Cause someone might be listening to you
When you’re coming up with something to say
To keep your mind quiet, scream out
To keep your mind quiet scream out
And I’ll meet you at the back of the bar
I’m asking my old friends “How you doing?”
I say “How do you even know who you are?”
I wanna tell you everything I’ve been thinking
But you’re telling me I took it too far
I take a take a ride on a heatwave
And crash into the rising sea
I got myself a SIM card, it’s prepaid
To tell me just what’s wrong with me
I asked my latest OS and she said “Pray for sweet singularity”
She said come on, get, get, get down on your knees
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4. |
Cape Henlopen
03:32
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I sank into the sun
I sank into the sun
I saw heaven undone
Singing reverie’s song
I sank into the sun
I sank into the sun
With strained serotonin
I chased reverie’s song
Straight into the sun
You carve a shape into the sand
And wait for the sea to dissolve it
And wash the wreckage from your head
You’re not afraid of the way that you feel
But the way that you’re seen in your body
You let the waves rush back again
We wade, past the jetty we run
On the desolate shore, so unguarded
Hop the gate and seen by no one
But the Cape Henlopen sun
You’re not afraid of the way that you feel
But the way that you’re seen in your body
Beneath the gaze, the ethereal touch
Of the Cape Henlopen sun
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5. |
Toward Crescent Park
03:29
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Tall pines
We finally made it across
State lines
You're letting a long breath out
Twilight on the cover of hanging moss
The light dies and leaves you alone with yourself
Southbound, you just wanna be okay
Get down to the quarter and drink all day
But right now, you can't shake the likeness you see
‘Cause somehow, it don't match your memory
Scuffing our feet down alien streets
Search for the words and call back to me:
“No one here needs you to be anybody"
No one here needs you to be anybody
Speed past the places where you grew up
Don't ask about the friends that you blew off
You burn gas, get that feeling every highway stop
You’re lost fast in the shadows of your old self
This shape, this frame, this silhouette
Don't match with the portrait in your head
It's grown soft from too much forgetting
An unfocused photo, a permanent negative
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6. |
Working For Free
03:04
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Do ya do ya want me want me working for free
Come on tell me, do you want my money
Do ya do ya want me want me working for free
I can tell the way you’re walking on me
Do ya do ya want me want me down on my knees
I’m begging you for a wage, please, come on
(You get it, you want it, you take it, you got it
The value, the labor, the profit, the product)
Do ya do ya want me want me struggling?
Come on, you think that poverty’s a role-play, baby?
(The worker, the smothered, Dickensian sucker
The server, subaltern, the self and the other)
Do ya do ya want me want me working for free
You feel entitled to determine my pay, huh?
You want a rock-bottom rate, ‘cause you’re there to appraise
The value of emotional labor?
Do ya do ya want me want me smiling, co-signed
If I bow, is that appropriate behavior?
You know I hear the word of god through the customer’s mouth
I survive by the kindness of strangers
This precarious wager, the structural danger
The uncertain nature, the conscious erasure
That’s not a bug, that’s a feature
(The value, the labor, the profit, the product
The worker, the smothered, Dickensian sucker
The server, subaltern, the self and the other
The givers, the tippers, the buyers, the users
The bosses, the owners, the hired, the doers
You get it, you want it, you take it, you got it
The value, the labor)
When the world’s run through the hands of unpaid labor
Excess income trickles up from wealthy interns
Who can afford to work for gratis and accumulated status
Skipping line to a management wage while their bills are all paid
The givers, the tippers, the buyers, the users
The bosses, the owners, the hired, the doers
The keepers, the makers, the havers, the favored
The leisured contempt for precarious labor
The worker, the smothered, Dickensian sucker
The server, subaltern, the self and the other
Directors, employers and lobbying lawyers
United in making survival untenable
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7. |
Muster
02:43
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Gave the cameraman everything I got
All the charm that I could muster
Can you turn me into something I can sell?
Can you turn me into someone else?
Can you turn a tide for me?
I gave you all I got
Everything that I could muster
I cast a shadow like a soaken household sponge
Pressed up to parchment paper
It’s kinda funny when you print it out that way
It’s kinda blurry, it don’t look like me
Like all I ever really wanted was
A portrait of my shadow
Once shot and twice exposed, yeah
One darkroom course for my self-worth
What’s straight up worse? No reaction
One played-out hand, I can’t, I can
See myself in the reflection
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8. |
Fog is a Funny Thing
02:54
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Fog is a funny thing
It settles over me at times, I know
That I should see much rosier
But I can’t bear the color, no
My mother says she’s sorry
For the years she spent unfeeling
I say, “Ma, I know fog is a funny thing”
Fog is a funny thing
It settles over me at times
It’s like the chill that comes in autumn
It runs up and down the spine
And I know that Saul is leaving town,
Although I wish that they would stay,
I tell ‘em, “Saul, you know that fog is a funny thing”
Take cover in the mist approaching winter
We’ll be blown over, you’ll see far less when you squint, you find you
Remember me as blurred, opaque and dim, you know
Of course, we know that fog is a funny thing
When the fog coalesces around a memory of a friend lost in it
Indistinct, a warning, it might swallow you up whole, that’s when I
Look out at the world filtered in brushstrokes, vague, impressionistic
And let it all roll in like fog, let it all roll over
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9. |
Same Bad Friends
02:46
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Same bad friends come over again
And take turns asking how you've been
And it burns to break it down slow
If it was this bad, you should have just said so
Turn up late, shirt shrunken again
A half-smile traced in dusty skin
Soft skills and delicate words
To cover up cracks and rust in the armor
But now they see you stretching your sleeves
Carving details off your disease
You had blisters, now you just bleed
You were special
And when intention sharpens your teeth
Your profession garbles your speech
Burning breaths that choke back belief
You were special
Frigid fingers fumble in
Airtight pockets, worn from wondering
You had time to turn out precious
Now you have less, it seems you’re just reckless
Same bad friends come over again
And coax out the worst about you
'Cause when you speak in spurts and stammers
The curtains crash down on what you were after
And now it's patience grasping your neck
Now it’s business gripping your chest
Your restraint compels you to rest
You were special
Your protectors bless your good deeds
Your successors live to succeed
You'll repress whatever you read
Hide out, measure the mess
Trust the nice family cutting the checks
Ride out nevertheless
To find your bad friends impressed with your progress
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10. |
Settle Into It
02:57
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I’ve been seeking hope in the water
When the rain comes pissing down
It don’t stress me out
I settle into it
And when the leaves pile on the corner
Under a frozen cloud
It don’t freak me out
They’ve gone the way I only dream about
The way the water rushes down and out
The way the water
I’ve been seeking hope in the water
And when the leaves pile on the corner
I’ve been seeking hope in the water
(When the rain comes pissing down)
It don’t stress me out
I settle into it
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11. |
Tides
02:25
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When you saw it for the first time
The beauty of the moment passed while you
Skimmed application guidelines
Tides rush ten thousand feet below
Where the hope for a reunion
Felt like waiting out the continental drift
A barrier to be outlived
It’s morning where I land
We’re texting from the customs line
To dull the ache of being left behind
Make do with what we can
A funeral in family threads and low-res JPEGs
Regret in each reply
A story told in headlines
And visa stamps denied
When you saw it for the first time
The condensation all grey and blue
The mist on the coast line
Ten thousand feet below
Where the prospect for reunion
Felt like waiting out the continental drift
A planetary movement
And the weight of displacement
While over the Atlantic
The story plays itself over again
A crowd of faces chanting
“Take back control” and all that shit
When freedom’s only granted
To those who have the means to buy back in
We’ll wait for continental drift
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12. |
End of Time
03:17
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I know you’re leaving tomorrow
And this is just the comfort of the living room
You don’t raise your pen from the crossword
We don’t say a thing the whole afternoon
Sit down, explore a common intersection
Look down, you see a problem that you can’t avoid
Four down, sparks some nervous apprehension
Calm down, it’s just a window to your fragile mind
And you’re having a good time
But the clue says, “You alright?”
Maybe this all ends up fine
Or maybe it’s the end of time
We’re still having a good time
We’re still having a good time
Maybe this all ends up fine
We’re still having a good time
We’re still having a good time
Or maybe it’s the end of time
Each circled letter in the crossword spells out
A techno-utopian highway, top down
This subprime survival is our shared truth now
Try these three:
Tent-cityscape views
Self-driving exhaust fumes
Co-working communes
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BAD MOVES Washington, D.C.
BAD MOVES is:
Emma Cleveland
David Combs
Katie Park
Daoud Tyler-Ameen
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