1. |
It's Not Your Fault
04:27
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A warm light, I found somewhere. If I held out my hand, would you meet me there? Through our broken thoughts that grew in us, I’ll signal back to forgotten friends and tell them that I’ll make it back again, but they’ll be gone like you and I’ll have no place to come back to when our homes all get sold and walls become worn and old. So if I seem like something is missing now, it’s not your fault, you know.
Ship us back to where we awoke, during cloudy days on a bitter coast, where there was geography in knowing that we could be happy. A door we found back there that night, broke in to see it before it died, before we left the beach and stripped those memories when she said,
“Don’t you go anywhere, no, please don’t, you don’t disappear. Make sure you board that train someday, though I may not remember your name”, when she said, “don’t you go anywhere, don’t you dare disappear. I knew I’d meet you somewhere, sometime when our homes all get sold and days become grey and cold. So if I seem like something is missing now, it’s not your fault, you know.”
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2. |
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I left my basement to the sound of the leaves and a distant roar of a thousand cars putting cracks in the street on the city’s floor. Stomp my ignorance to an orchestra of life then bury it with the tuneless noise that fills up my insides.
I followed the street lines back to some place I can barely call home on a sorrowed retreat where you might have stayed to prolong my false hope. I would miss my home if I knew where it was, but there’s a knowing now and it’s not enough. It can never be enough.
It keeps happening. I knot the rope and cut it loose, establish ties to a lack of proof, for I knew it’d be dark down this road. I walk a path I can’t turn back and let it ring through the pitch black. Through everything.
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3. |
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It’s cold in this house with the snow piled to the roof. We’ve been frozen inside for years, we still sleep in our separate rooms. I hope your bed stays full with the indent that I left way back when I stopped giving everything I had just to keeping you in the past. Can you give me that and let me step outside? So now if we don’t speak, my love, please don’t you miss me? We were wrong from the beginning. If you want me to, I can drain out the water that floods our basement windows and that pours into our gutters, but it can’t, and it won’t, change anything. My head rolls back and forth, again, back and forth.
Now through the walls, I hear lullabies sung in their bedrooms, but they’re drowned out by the sound of this homesick dirge I can’t stop singing. Pass out by 6 o’clock and just wake up well past noon. No one knows if I’m leaving tonight or where it is I’ll be going to. Does that upset you? It does for me. So give my clothes to our sons, pack the house and then move on. Just know when all this is done, I tried and tried and tried to be good for you, but it’s calmer now. I am calmer now.
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4. |
The Phone Is Ringing
04:38
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On and off, there’s a light that’s still dim on the sidewalk outside your place. I still want to stay but it’s getting dark. The garbage keeps piling up, the street light’s just a fixture of rust. It’s colder than hell but I’m still here. So listen in, your ears are ringing. Listen again, I can hear it clearly. It’ll lead you home. Walk to it, wander outside and put down your light. There’s no moon shining. Now you can’t see. My darling, the phone is ringing but you’re not waking up. Now I’m alright, hell, I’m just worried that it’s going to stop.
Pools of this beneath the staircase, down the hall. An old man sings, stand and listen before he’s gone. Keep quiet, keep it to yourself. Don’t you tell me, ‘cause I don’t want to know what can’t be seen. Well, it can’t be seen. My darling, the phone is ringing now...
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5. |
You're Too Kind
05:30
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...And I’m locking the door to a place where I feel okay. If you’re worried about the thought, why won’t you say? But this time, it’s not so rough since you ran away and I know I’ll forget your name with enough silence. I’d say it’s all I need.
I should have gone back to where they know me best, I know they would’ve done the same. This cold never quits and the rain doesn’t stop until my ears start ringing or until I black out again on the couch of my friend, where my eyes start to blur and I can’t hear my own words. Just keep losing those friends until someone pretends again. She said,
“Where’d you go? We don’t talk the same. I know that something’s wrong so why won’t you say that you’re locking the door to a place where you feel okay?” I guess I can if there’s someone you love, as long as you can be happy.
I’ll sing, “This winter won’t end,” until this winter just goes away. I guess you’re too kind. Hell, I know that you are, but I don’t have to tell you that. I know you won’t forget.
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6. |
Hospital Rooms
04:01
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We’ve been sitting here, in this room, for far too long and it’s been days since you last talked to me. With all our styrofoam cups still painted around our mouths, I guess somehow now, there’s a sunlight that seems so far away. When you asked if we could drive you home, you fell back asleep before we could leave. No matter what, you could never know where you were.
I close the door behind me, put a smile on my face. I wish I had stayed that day but how could I have known? Now through the walls I hear those chimes just screaming at me, waiting for a moment when every note becomes monotone. I remember the day we thought you might make it out, but I guess that can be a little naive to think you would just walk out of this place, through the front door. I wish I’d stayed, but where’d you go? It’s over now, the sun is up so I’ll say goodnight.
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7. |
Are You Okay?
05:55
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I found you last night on an acreage of concrete, both eyes hiding something we both knew was missing. If we don’t find it, we can never be free. Each building enclosed in a valley of longing, with each footprint buried in the glow of our dampened city. I’ll keep on this way, you can go if you need to leave. If I had told you everything, would I still feel this lonely? I try my hardest, dear, just to let you be, but you and I both know, it’s never that easy. Are you okay? I think you kind of always knew that we don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I know you’re lost but what can I do? I’ve written enough songs for you.
Could you please let me stay for just a little longer now? I can’t go home without knowing where we fell off. I can give you some time to try and figure yourself out. If you finally got away, boxed up everything that you had found, forgot the past and ran off back to your hometown, would you still call us friends or would I still let you down? Are you okay now that you’ve found your way through? You didn’t have to go ‘cause I didn’t want you to. I know you were lost but what could I do? So all at once, please, all at once, my friends, scream until your voice has lost its innocence, “I know there’s nothing I can do ‘cause I’ve written enough songs for you.”
Now every morning train becomes a life boat, swarmed by people stuck searching for their homes. This isn’t mine, but where else can I go? Instead, I retreat into black and burrow into memories. I tell myself that you never meant anything, but we know I’m fucking lying. I am lying with everything that I say so I plant the tree lines outside, build this barricade to keep you out, dig a hole and crawl far into the ground, then lay the branches so I never see you around. I’ll find some dry place and sit down on my knees, scratch the dirt until my fingers start aching, keep searching for something I think I can use and tell myself I’ve written enough songs for you.
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8. |
The Station
03:38
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Well I’m lost out here, in the cold in-between. There’s no one, darling and it’s darker than the sea and I can’t talk to you so I stare at my feet. I pass my days, prelude sounds of a train, the chimes that’ll take me to some place far away. I hope when I’m there, I still know your name.
“Why won’t you stay here, just one more day? One day, please.”
This motel is old, the wallpaper’s wet. There’s an empty bottle on the stand beside my bed where someone tried to purge their sorrowed head. I can hear them now, I know they’re getting close. Quick, send me your voice, anything to follow. I don’t want to stay here but I don’t want to go.
“Why won’t you stay here, just one more day? One day, please.”
I can’t, my train is leaving.
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Written Years Vancouver, British Columbia
We are band from Vancouver, BC. We like trying different things and making music with some feeling.
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