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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of fin(n), Gunfight in Your Mind, Walk Off the Indian (Original Version) FREE DOWNLOAD, Collected EPs: “Asleep in the Time Machine” and “Spooky Action at a Distance”, Spooky Action at a Distance, and Asleep in the Time Machine.
1. |
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Did you ever wonder whether
The dust will ever settle, ever
If you’ll even see it clearly
Before it disappears
Those shaded eyes are part of the disguise
True to form uniform
Black and white
Cuneiform!
It’s a lawless place you can’t escape
There’s a gunfight in your mind
All the prisoners escaped this lawless place
There’s a gunfight in your mind
You never know the trouble you’ll face
There’s a gunfight in your mind
It’s not the safest kind of place
There’s a gunfight in your mind
Can you see what happened here?
They cleaned up the street
Now the coast is clear
All traces disappear
A consequence or common sense?
True to form uniform
Black and white
Cuneiform!
Black and white
Shaded eyes are part of the disguise
Cuneiform
Black and white!
It’s a lawless place you can’t escape
There’s a gunfight in your mind
All the prisoners escaped this lawless place
There’s a gunfight in your mind
You never know the trouble you’ll face
There’s a gunfight in your mind
It’s not the safest kind of place
There’s gunfighting!
Try to shut it off
Pretend it isn’t true
Imagine this kind of things only happens to you
Play tin star victim
In a ghost town pig pen
It doesn’t change a thing.
The fight is continuing
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2. |
The Purple Cactus
04:50
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Drop it on the pavement
Drop it in the sand
You feel a little nervous
When you’re shedding off the skin
Leave it to bake in the sun
Let birds pick at it for fun
It’s like ditching your shadow for a while
Another one’s on the way
The purple cactus sits and rots
The flowers wilt in terra cotta pots
Goodbye old friend
It’s time to leave this snakeskin
Nothing is permanent, don’t pretend
I’ve been covered up with anything but snakeskin
Remnants become rags
And rags become threads
Even cobwebs one day line coyotes’ beds
And all coyotes shed
Ain’t nothing stable, but nothing moves
Just a storm of our restless molecules
The purple cactus sits and rots
The flowers wilt in terra cotta pots
But you leave it to float like a feather into the ether
And drift like a seed, roll like a tumbleweed
Through all this Western weather
Through this unholy Western weather
I slithered in the technicolor widescreen
I left the pigpen
Sloughed this snakeskin
Red dirt upon my shirt, you know where I’ve been
The worm has turned and the game has changed
But the snake it still remains
The purple cactus sits and rots
The flowers wilt in terra cotta pots
But you leave it to float like a feather into the ether
And drift like a seed, roll like a tumbleweed
Through all this Western weather
Through this infernal Western weather
The purple cactus sits and rots
The flowers wilt in terra cotta pots
But you leave it to float like a feather into the ether
And drift like a seed, roll like a tumbleweed
Through all this Western weather
Through this unholy Western weather
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3. |
Pilot to Bombardier
03:45
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Pilot to bombardier
Make sure those doors will clear
And we’ll fly on through
On the way, I want to talk to you
Even though we’ve got a job to do
I don’t want to think that much
I don’t think I’m strong enough
‘Cause when we drop her, I don’t want to see the flames
I’d turn around if I could
But we’ve got no choice, we’ve got to see it through
This is my first run, how about you?
You’d turn it around if you could, wouldn’t you?
How long have you been doing this, hey
Got a wife, got kids?
We pierce the clouds as we barrel down
And return to our home safe and sound, but
She’s in the clouds
We see her shape and features all around us
She’s part of everything now
We fly away without her
We leave it all behind us in the sunbeams, the vapor
And the clouds
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4. |
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Me and my sweetheart
Were havin’ us a ball
When we saw that light in the sky
It was yellow at first, but then there was a burst
Of red as it zoomed by
It looked like a saucer or maybe a cigar
But it was kind of hard to see
But life won’t be the same
Since me and my dame
Saw that light in the sky
Never said I’d be your Sasquatch
Never said I’d star In your Super 8
Never said I’d be your Yowie
And scare the heck out of you, mate
Why you think, why you think that way?
Why you think, oh why you think that way?
Never said I’d build you pyramids
Never said I’d shlep all those bricks
Never said I’d make them line up
With all those other pyramids
Never said I’d carve you petroglyphs
Of strange men in ancient ships
Never said I’d spend the time to glyph
Those picturesque petroglyphs
Why you think, why you think that way?
Oh, why you think the way?
Never wanted to be your EVP
Never wanted to speak unclearly
Never wanted to be a mystery
Never wanted you to interpret me
I never wanted to be your gray
Abduct you and probe you
In the early hours of the day, no way!
I’ll never be your gray.
Never wanted to be a phantom
Never wanted to rule Atlantis
Never wanted to be a djinn
Never wanted to be a nephilim
Why you think that way?
Ooh pretty baby, baby don’t make a tulpa
Beggin’ pretty baby, baby don’t make a tulpa
Tua tua culpa if baby makes a tulpa
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5. |
Carmel and Carol
06:37
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Uniform glasses, uniform dread
She dances to Spector/spectre and ghosts in her head
They beg her for kindness
They ask about shame
They cry out in sadness
And ask for her name
Who made you this way?
You weren’t always this way
She looked different in photographs
Not everyone did
A stiffness inhabited
Everywhere she lived
And the dust never settled in the house she bought
And the house never settled in the ground.
Was she always this way?
Who would endeavor
To put in the labor
When every transgression
Is a declaration of war?
Broken on faultlines
Crow’s feet of all kinds
And a scowl that drops to the floor
It’s the mission of cynics
To sail above criticism
And dismiss all comers outright
When you’re pacing at home alone
Safe in the frozen zone
Killing off another night
Were you always this way?
Were we always this way?
She sets out the pots and casually fills them
Absorbing the taunts of the neighborhood children
She lashed out at loneliness, now she’s a villain
She didn’t have too far to fall, after all
She didn’t have too far to fall, after all
Who made you this way?
I’d know you anywhere
Your hair or the sound of your cough
It’s insincere and just a little bit off
I’m glad I found you
Because there’s something I wanted to say
If I’d let you know by now, what good would it do?
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6. |
Archaeopteryx
04:09
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Thought I’d rise from the ashes
But I wasn’t the one to do that
I get no push no liftoff
My feet are flat
So I gotta run out of the darkness
Without being fast
(A race I can’t afford to lose)
I’m not a roadrunner but I live and die in the same shoes.
There was no one to save me
No one to let me go
And I drew the short stick
Like an archaeopteryx
They call me a middleman
A coelacanth in bike pants
A Lilliputian dino-sort of
The strangest duck you ever saw
I lived my life with my nose to the grindstone
Then buried in limestone or stuck in tar
Another fossil ossified
You philosophize about why I died
There was no one to save me
No one to let me go
And I drew the short stick
Like an archaeopteryx
I never migrated (I hesitated)
I never flew to the sun
They made me obsolete
Can’t compete, can’t work and can’t speak
Could you predict my predicament?
Mister, I don’t think so.
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7. |
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When last we saw Geronimo, he was on the Ferris Wheel
He was having second thoughts, his surroundings were so surreal
But as he climbed into the skyline, he was smilin’ bright as some pyrite
I even saw him high fivin’ the soldiers sent to guide him
Came in fighting trim, open the gates let the mystery commence.
Geronimo saw a woman sawn in twain
I’m sure he’d testify on her behalf
But he saw her restored before man and God
He was floored and unmoored, shook to the core, he really couldn’t be sure
What was Geronimo was thinking when reality snapped like a twig?
“You find it so amusing, but it’s a confusing place for me”
Maybe he never had these thoughts in war
“Some things can be easily understood, like grudges, vendettas
Survival, the drive to conquer, and settle scores
But to wander around in any of this idle luxury
It’s for you, not me, or could it be?”
When last we saw Geronimo, he was eating an Indian taco
When last we saw Geronimo, signing autographs (spondulicks)
Well he slowly raised an arm to gesture at the line that formed and said,
“Look at me, I find myself playing your games.”
Chained by changing times, led by the arm by a Ft. Sill gendarme
They took him to St. Louie, and left him with a headful of hmmmm….
(Open your gates, swing wide ye portals and join us in the house of mirth.)
What was Geronimo thinking when he saw the Apache Village?
What was Geronimo thinking when he saw the educated horse?
What was Geronimo thinking when he saw them dance with swords?
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8. |
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With a dollar as a collar
the only piece of jewelry he owns
the sad sack lost track of his knack
to make it on his charm alone
And he’ll hang out hours straight at the lake
if he can find flat skipping stones
And he talks to himself until 12
confident he’s never been alone.
He’s mad for the shadows
and he doesn’t know where he’ll go
cuts his white hair right with a knife
and leaves it there to blow with the snow
And he’d like to wander the streets sometime
but he’s afraid of UFOs
And he tells himself they’ll forget him
but he knows they can’t let it go
And he’d like to go
(Ain’t gonna sit and wait for things to get better)
Where? He don’t know
And he’d like to go
(Ain’t gonna sit and wait for things to get better)
Where he ain’t known
He throws another stone in
Pins a picture up in his tent
Looks for falling stars
In the folds of his coat
He keeps them rolled up for hope
Even memorized some cities
Even memorized the cities
He looks at them by fire at night
He’ll take them out from time to time.
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9. |
Never Fall on Your Face
04:12
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In another world be happy
In another world go dancing
In another world you’re laughing
‘Cause all the bad things there don’t matter
You’re on your way to far off places
You’ll climb volcanoes and walk on glaciers
Learn to read faces, make friends of strangers
Don’t bet against it, it’s another world
I closed my eyes and saw the place
A place to succeed, find happiness and grace
And you never fall on your face
In another world you never fell apart
You even had a pop song on the charts
You didn’t break any innocent hearts
Everybody’s favorite one-hit wonder.
In another world you have second sight
Gifted in perception, you’re an Adonis in this light
People treat you like they always should
And your best friend didn’t betray you
I closed my eyes and saw the place
A place to succeed, find happiness and grace
And you never fall on your face
It’s a bit like here
But it’s hard to find
Some say it ain’t real, it only exists in the mind
But everything changes when you cross the line
You might find you have more time
Who knows?
You might finally teach yourself piano
In another world you stand much taller
Your eyes are bright and your smile is broader
In another world you found your niche
Don’t make you rich but it’s such a perfect fit
Ooh……. piano
I closed my eyes and saw the place
A place to succeed, find happiness and grace
And you never fall on your face
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10. |
Class Dismissed
03:47
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She was hanging on to the past
It was pretty vivid, let me tell ya
Jokes about her pituitary
Living for posterity
All of us there, frozen in time
Name tags, book bags
Single-file lines
You can see their faces,
They still exist
Put away your pencils
Class dismissed.
Gave him a nickname
Never knew why
I feel so bad
He was an ordinary guy
And I tried to let him know
But the damage was done
And I saw the wound in his eyes
Kennedy hair, freckles and a Polish name
I wonder what ever became of him
What ever became, became, became…
All of us there, frozen in time
Name tags, book bags
Single-file lines
You can see their faces,
They still exist
Put away your pencils
Class dismissed
Popular boy with gel in his hair
A future farmer with an earring to wear
Well aware he was making waves
But five years went by, he was in a sty
Dishing out the slop
And he remembers the counselor’s daughter
As he sends another pig off to the slaughter
Junior high crush
Embarrassed himself
Embellished himself for one bad reason
To try and pick fruit that wasn’t in season
And to swallow sugar he couldn’t digest
And he wished she’d hand him a shiny knife
He could gladly thrust in his chest
The wounds stop bleeding over time
But he never shook the cringe from his bed
All of us there, frozen in time
Name tags, book bags
Single-file lines
You can see their faces,
They still exist
Put away your pencils
Class dismissed
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11. |
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At some point admit it, it becomes a race to the finish
One last sprint or you do it limping and whimpering
You reach for the tape or collapse on the line
Some friends will cheer and other ones are sighing and crying
Looking back too much will haunt you and you’ll find the past doesn’t want you
There are too many things to hold onto
And you did your best with what you were given
The fingerprints of the family
The footprints left from qa way of living
But I hope all this was worth it
Why don’t you have a seat?
An old friend said to me
“10 years in the slammer under lock and key
A bit of solace because I copped a plea
Three squares in a roof and the sunlight comes right in
It’s not as bad as I thought that it would be
It never is.”
She looked forward to her wedding day
10 months in the planning
For the man, the ring, the cake and the church catering
And she looked in the honeymoon mirror
For the glow within she couldn’t summon
And it wasn’t as good as she thought it would be
It never is.
I went to the boss to have a talk
He was in my head and dreading every word I said to that man
He complained a lot
I lost my job that morning
But I rebounded like a seven footer
And I nailed it like a sharp shooter
The next day I couldn’t remember his name
And it wasn’t as bad as I thought that it would be
It never is.
He said, “The interview is over, thank you for coming
Good luck from here on out.
Any questions you’d like to ask me?”
I said, “I might have two or three.
Hey, was it as good as it was supposed to be?
I wonder that.”
“Why?
We’d like to thank you for coming
Thank you for spending time with us
We’ll miss you when you’re gone
And there’s no need to worry
There are some things you can’t change
Vaya con dios, namaste, gabba gabba hey,
Have a nice day!”
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Smoky Ghosts of Big Trees South Korea
The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a cut bank with SMOKY GHOSTS OF BIG TREES on it, and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the current was tearing by them so swift. - Mark Twain “Huckleberry Finn” ... more
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