1. 24

Breathe, be still, be free
I was too lost in the way that others perceive me
To remember that being oneself, is supposed to be easy
So it resulted in embarrassment mostly
Socially uncomfortable, verbally clumsy
It’s a young man’s farce, slowly, but by and large
Everything would change with the rain in Bang Saray

We are born and raised as cattle to be the same
But we are not the same, we have to change
And if we don’t, we’ll suffocate
Won’t we?

The world has changed
I awaited poise and autonomy
Assured that it would come to me - a matter of chronology
And I guess, looking back on those years
I didn’t know what was wrong with me
Go on and let yourself bruise
We all need to learn how to lose

We are born and raised as cattle to be the same
But we are not the same, we have to change
And if we don’t, we’ll suffocate
Won't we?
You’re not angry cause you’re not listening
We are not the same, we have to change
And if we don’t, we’ll suffocate
Don’t wait

One never reaches home until kind paths intersect
And then the whole entire world will change itself to look like them
For every altruistic, solicitous man and woman that I've met
It was my distinct pleasure to have met you and to have shaken your hand
You will never be forgotten
You’re each part of who I am
Your kindness

Mother, won’t you forgive me?
Father, won’t you listen to me?
Brother, can’t you hear the sound?
The march of time draws closer now

We are born and raised as cattle to be the same
But we are not the same, we have to change
And if we don’t, we’ll suffocate
Won't we?
You’re not angry cause you’re not listening
We are not the same, we have to change
And if we don’t, we’ll suffocate
Don’t wait


2. QUALITY OF LIFE

So if I’ve got your contempt, then know you’ve got mine
Covet a home of trinkets, living supine
So tell me what is real and all that constitutes that
A collared man breathes on your neck, they’re on your back
Intact, fuck that, I pity you

Validation, valediction
What’s the difference now?
Eschew the standard
Turn the paradigm upside down
You could be happy, if you wanted to be
Don’t feel obliged to live a life you never wanted to
The best way out is straight through
Let intuition guide you
You could be happy, if you wanted to be
But you know that you don’t

Don’t you pay no heed to those who take no liberties
The way of the sheep is not for me
(behind your walls, you cannot see)
I’m glad you met the standard
So pleased you met your quota
It’s myopic
Hand in your pocket
Mind on your wallet
Fuck that i pity you
Live for you

(Back) So bring it back to me
(True) So tell me honestly
(When) My friend, don’t lie to me
Did you ever really love everything that you did
And everywhere that you’ve been?
Are you just scared to live?
So don’t accuse me of living a life i’ll regret
I’m not, you’re a hypocrite - another marionette

So hold your hands high
You abide by your strings in the sky
Dancing to a preordained lie
You’re a marionette


3. THRESHER

I hate the radio
Advertisements, morning show hosts
And every cop on the side of the road
Everything outside the windscreen disturbs me
But inside it’s worse
The thresher that we call this world
Reduces me to mere idle talk
I’m slowly but certainly descending

Fuck you for not being strong enough
For letting me bare the weight of both of us
I can’t forever be your crutch
Today I think I’ve had enough

High at the airport, drunk at the beach
I’ve been numb for weeks, I can’t feel a thing
I’ll swill or smoke, I’ll roll a note
If i just swallow, I’ll prevent the choke
So keep me up (keep me out)
Of this house (of this mind)
Cause there a’int no use in worrying all the time
Take me back to where the flowers grow
To the man in the mirror that I used to know

Fuck you for not being strong enough
For letting me bare the weight of both of us
I can’t forever be your crutch
Today I think I’ve had enough

Enough, enough - I’m screaming
Enough, enough - can you hear me now?
Enough, enough - I’m screaming
In mess I should be cleaning, running

The carousel slows, reality starts to set in
My friends are climbing off
How long have the horses been plastic?
Have we been going in circles?
Was I always alone?
Was it their voices I heard, or was it a dial tone?
I think I’ve always known
But I never cared to pay heed
Because I'm not, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not
Ready to up and leave
At least just not like this
Cause this was our abyss
I loved you all, this was our home
We were together and I love it as it is


4. LOTUS EATER

Death is a friend that we serve ’til the end and she’s near
Sink, drown
Can you hear me? Do you feel it?
Right here, watch the Lotus Eater drown
Sink, drown
He’ll never be found

Empty within
Empty without my pentecostal kin
You are the tick of the analogue clock
The hum and rattle that’ll never stop
The spluttering cough of the refrigerator motor
I cannot exist without her, but she won’t let me go

Sink, drown
Can you hear me? Do you feel it?
Right here, watch the Lotus Eater drown
Sink, drown
He’ll never be found

Raise your glass to the Lotus Eater
As he drifts into the ether
Can you take me to meet her?
She who brings panic and fever

She ate when I ate, she drank when I drank
But she never slept when I slept
She’d terrorise me as I dreamt
Cognitive dissonance reigns supreme in me
As is her will

Sink, drown
Can you hear me? Do you feel it?
Right here, watch the Lotus Eater drown
Sink, drown
He’ll never be found

Raise your glass to the Lotus Eater
As he drifts into the ether
Can you take me to meet her?
She who brings panic and fever, fever

Sink, drown
Can you hear me? Do you feel it?
Right here, watch the Lotus Eater drown
Sink, drown
He’ll never be found

Raise your glass to the Lotus Eater
As he drifts into the ether
Can you take me to meet her?
She who brings panic and fever
Raise your glass to the Lotus Eater
As he drifts into the ether
Can you take me to meet her?
She who brings panic and fever, fever


5. HE WITHOUT SIN - HALATION

Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?
Sanctuary

And so they say; ‘Let he without sin, cast the first stone’
While they pile up their rocks from within their glass homes
And now, no, nothing means much, ’till it’s written in our blood
But oh, the bloodshed that we’ve condoned
If the grief is inexhaustible and the guilt is unendurable
Then how is one to bear their family name?
Oh holy ghost, tell me, where did you go?
All that you left behind is shame

To the priest that steals purity while he whispers holy things
To the pig besmirching the innocent behind the pretence of peace…

Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?
Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?

So here I stand, a sinner of inattention
In this parody of parity
How is this still happening
After we’ve lost so many?
Sanctuary
Sanctuary

To the priest that steals purity while he whispers holy things
To the pig besmirching the innocent behind the pretence of peace…

Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?
Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?

(Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, go)
To He drenched in sin
To the reprehensible limb
Of the Lord’s honest, faithful kin
Those demons clad in sheepskin
Tell me Does it make you feel sick?
Tell-me doesn’t-it make you feel sick?
And isn’t it time we stood up?
And isn’t it time that we sung?

Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?
Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?
Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?
Who put the cross in your hands
The beads around your neck?
The needle in their arms
The hood around their heads?

Does he celebrate his faith
Or does he mourn it?
Absolve the sins of all the wicked
Or absorb them?


6. HE WITHOUT SIN - HEELS OF THE HAND

(instrumental)


7. BAD WAY

Just as the sound of a tin roof expanding in the sun
Differs not from the sound of the rain
Falling in and out of love, sometimes
Can begin to feel the same
But I'm smoking more, I'm eating less
I've lost capacity to excess
And so through a note or blown up in smoke
I relinquish all my control

…and when you talk too much
People start thinking they heard things that you never said
When you’re verbally incontinent
Who could truly understand what you meant?

Excess gave wings - learn to fly
Come sunrise, it took away the sky
But I'm cognisant of the hefty price
How many does it bring back to life?
I'm drinking more and I'm sleeping less
I'm losing all that I possess
I'm happiest, when I'm a mess
But I can’t survive as anything less than this

And if I drink too much
I don’t think that you’ll believe all that I have to say
I’ll be fucking incoherent then
And you’ll have never understood what I meant
When I speak of the end

Articulate, enunciate
“So what the fuck are you trying to say?”
My axiom, my oxygen
Honey rid yourself of me
I'm a fucking disease

In a world contrived, I swore it on my life
That I'd never be the one to leave your side
Time heals and time takes away
But to you, I'll remain a fucking liar

And you were so fucked up
That I don’t know if I can live with all that I have said
I’ve lost all self-respect
And no longer can I sleep with your voice in my head

Articulate, enunciate
“So what the fuck are you trying to say?”
My axiom, my oxygen
Honey rid yourself of me
I'm a fucking disease

So shame, shame, shame on me
I could never have done this without a drink
And so shame, shame, shame on me
Honey rid yourself of me
I'm a fucking disease


8. NIGHTLINER RHAPSODY

This is insulation for the night cold
A cigarette and a drink to lacquer over bones
You either kindle the blood or shiver yourself warm
And the precipice of joyous madness calls in me
Aren’t we ecstatic as we dance along it?
Blunting the time-sharpened edge of neuroses
Nullification, vivification
Tantamount powers at a stalemate in me

Aren’t we ecstatic as we all dance along it?
Our wet precipice
(Pour a drink and take a seat beside me)
To each their own perspective, each their own vice
And I’ve made up my mind
Pour up a drink, take a seat with me
And we’ll flood out everything
You need someone, and I give a fuck
So let’s give those demons wings

And regardless of the way that the pendulum swings
I’ve come to realise that it’s okay to believe
That life is nothing but a vertiginous dream
And that’s all I’ve ever wanted it to be
Breaking my own heart to feel the love
Like the love of one’s youth, that makes you jump and run
You either kindle the blood or shiver yourself warm
So bring it back, raise your voice, put your glass to your lips and drink

Aren’t we ecstatic as we all dance along it?
Our wet precipice
(Pour a drink and take a seat beside me)
To each their own perspective, each their own vice
And I’ve made up my mind
Pour up a drink, take a seat with me
And we’ll flood out everything
You need someone, and I give a fuck
So let’s give those demons wings

You’re stronger than addiction
Stronger than even bereavement
My friend I’ve seen it
And our vigils, pickled in whiskey
Are preserved eternally in my enduring memory

Aren’t we ecstatic as we all dance along it?
Our wet precipice
(Pour a drink and take a seat beside me)
To each their own perspective, each their own vice
And I’ve made up my mind
Pour up a drink, take a seat with me
And we’ll flood out everything
You need someone, and I give a fuck
So let’s give those demons wings


9. NUESTRA CULPA

Sojourner, sojourn on
‘cause we are leaves in the breeze
Devoid of purpose, at ease
And we vilify for validity
With vicious vignettes, so ugly

I am just as guilty and I have been wrong
So you can call me a hypocrite, slander our songs
But you should be as ashamed of yourself as I am of me
For accepting mediocrity and bending your knee
Not quite indefatigable and far from unimpeachable
I am, not. I’m not
As an artist, a musician, a man
I’d much prefer to be hated than pitied
To fall flat on my face trying to innovate
Than to meet an industry-imposed standard and rest on it
I’ll take a propensity for verbosity
Over pontifical duplicity - and primarily
That’s what we have now;
So is this who I am?
So is this who you are?
So is this who we are?
I think we’re better than this


10. 25

No Bogart, no Bergman, no Brando
No more Hemingway, no Hesse - the art ingrained in our marrow
So in retrospect does it not seem, that we lament the grace of greats as we do our youthful dreams?
But in nuance, we are capable of our own renaissance
A respiring anachronism to animate us
And as long as we sing, we can stay young like this
And we can

Reinvent the world, like we used to, screaming
Years will wilt and I will mourn
I will decay until my body fades away
But my kindnesses are eternal (I am infinite, I will remain)
The years will wilt and I will mourn but
You’re as beautiful as the day you were born, and that’s true
(You’re still here)

No Lennon, no Cash or Sinatra
No more Morrison, no Jackson - all with whom we were brought up
…and so it seems I’m here interminably
Like I’m sewing all my stitches in lieu of my seeds
Like I'm grasping to sand in a salubrious sea
Youth slip faster through fingers, the harder I squeeze
And then I doubt if I’ll love anything
The way I loved those songs when I was seventeen

Reinvent the world, like we used to, screaming
Years will wilt and I will mourn
I will decay until my body fades away
But my kindnesses are eternal (I am infinite, I will remain)
The years will wilt and I will mourn but
You’re as beautiful as the day you were born, and that’s true
(You’re still here)

Friends raise you as much as family
(and I believe) this way, youth is sustained eternally
(and I believe) love is the only currency
And I believe, love is all that defines me
I now believe that time will increase your worth
That you’re as beautiful, as the day you were born
The truth is - we’re all scared, we’re all unprepared
But together we stand - look to your right, to your left
And breathe
(Still here with me, still here with me, still here with me)
You’re still here with me

So were we born and raised to be the same?
No, no
We are not the same and there is no one way
We are each unique but we are equal
It’s your brush, your canvas and easel
Everyone must pave their own way
We have to change and if we don’t we’ll suffocate

Reinvent the world, like we used to, screaming
Years will wilt and I will mourn
I will decay until my body fades away
But my kindnesses are eternal (I am infinite, I will remain)
The years will wilt and I will mourn but
You’re as beautiful as the day you were born, and that’s true
(You’re still here)
You’re as beautiful as the day you were born, and that’s true