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1. |
News
03:42
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By the tyranny of science, I will stake my claim. In the economy of time, by its currency. In the currents of the sea, I will leave your arms. By the echo of your breath, by your jaw bone hands, by the quarters of your heart, by the halves of your head. On the highways of your veins, I will leave your arms. In the dark foreboding deep, I will make my way. On the crest of a great wave. On the fins of a blue whale. As a ship setting sail, I will leave your arms.
In a tower to the skies, built by blasphemy. By this fire in the night, leading us to the Red Sea. In this sweet familiar way, I will leave your arms.
In the haze of a fire, you rose again, hemmed in the robes of a government. God was hidden in a poor man. God was living in the bone you snapped. Either way, you’ve got to deal with the truth.
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2. |
Sailors
03:33
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I fell in love, as if for the first time. And love is blind to all the darkness in its blood. See the stars, they were bought at a high price off the night. My only love, a great white city. With its skyline getting cut up piece by piece. And its eyes glowing like an old TV repeating history. Hang your head, my oldest soldier. Hang your head, weep and gnash your teeth in shame. In the end all that’s left is to divide the blame as enemies. So let’s set sail into the city, with its skyline making peaks out of the sea. In our dream, filled with doves as white as teeth, we’ll be set free
Oh my dove, the flood has gone, and all it leaves is a song. We’ll sing it alone.
Oh my dove the flood has gone and on your face I’ll trace a path back to our home. A path back to our soil. A path back to our bones bending round the haunted place where we were born. Born out of the soil. Born out of these bones. Born out of the waves that crashed upon us both.
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3. |
Newfoundland
04:01
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Fire on the radio in your hotel, where you send broken letters back to your hometown. Where a red river runs its winding path through the sand. But you’re sounding like a message from that pine pulpit. Like your father’s voice as it hissed and spat and headed down the highway to the city streets where you’ve gone. Where nobody knows your dirty little lies
For all the glowing copper in the shops outside and the hyena smiles in the downtown bars. In the autumn rain there’s a black parade down your face.
And in the passing of an instant you could burn it all down. So nobody knows your dirty little lies. So nobody knows you.
Put your back down on the garden. Wait for the bells to ring. Wait for the dust to settle. Wait for the birds to sing
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4. |
Second Skin
02:38
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I tried to shake you off but you were like a second skin. I tried to break your back but your spine grows back and sings. So let the streetlight light the stage set for your military band. Let the words rise to your lips and scatter them like sand. When I hear you I believe.
In the false white light you were looking like a queen, with a hard luck story where your halo should have been. So take your corrugated words, cut them into your hands. Let the sunrise like a surgeon, cut the darkness from your head. When I see you I believe
I will see you light up, all the colours will burn through the sheets and I’ll run.
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5. |
Night
03:56
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My back against the wall. Singing to the sound of rumbling guns. You were music to my tired and trembling bones. Glowing like livewire. Rolling with the blows. Taking up the bets. You set fire to the whisperers by my bed. I held you in my arms in reverent fear. Singing every line. Signing every cheque.
I was lying to the gun. A cold shiver in my guts as they bayed for blood. You looked straight into my eyes and told me to run. Holding all the cards. Adding up the sums.
A trapdoor opening up. Our first child gasping in the morning frost. There he was, our God, on a three stranded rope. No perfumed rich man’s grave. No stone to roll away.
On a westbound cattle cart we brokered with the night for a little more time. I counted the rise and fall of your heart against mine. The weak will carry me. The least will hold the least. The strong will write the lines.
I will go, I will go, chariot swing low.
I will go, I will go, with my father’s ghost.
I will go, I will go, turn the stage lights off.
I will go, I will go, let the curtain fall.
Burn the books. Break the dams. Black out history. At the end. At the night. We begin again
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6. |
I Feel Alive
04:16
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I recall when the wall came down. You were lying in the gutter, said we’d leave this town behind. We toughened up, used our skin like walls, our time like loose change, our words like morse code.
And so we waged a holy war.
The blackest wave, the darkest night. White knuckles on the wheel as I turned the car around.
You flying at me like a wrecking ball. Coal in the garden, salt in the soil.
And so we wrote a holy law.
God held me up over your veins. I watched your body as the water drained away.
You whirling through me like a hurricane. Gold in the gutter. Silver in the rain
We’re washed away. But it’s your ghost in every street. It’s your words in every speech. I feel alive, in this fiery breathing heat, in this icy creeping sleet. All the dead will rise and speak. I feel alive.
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7. |
Hands
02:42
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You ran straight cross the river
Into the Promised Land
As the wise men came bearing bullets
And medicine in their outstretched hands.
On the wings of plane you ascended
Sold your last breath to the western wind.
In the height of the evening
You were walking in your sleep
Fires taking hold in the valley beneath
They were rising angrily
Every road you ran took you further from me.
You said "that’s the way I am and that’s the way I’m going to be."
But it’s not blood that’s coursing in your veins
And it’s not water that’s pouring down your face
Darling, it’s the rain
And it’s come to wash both of us away
So what was once hidden will be held to the light of day
Hold me in your hands
Now you’re calling like wolves in the water.
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8. |
Whales
03:41
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You would be the darkness. You would be the lion and the lamb. You would be the word that stirs the dust to breath. You would bring your father down.
The wine was our last shot. The wine was our father’s blood. The wine was making us drunk in an alleyway.
And the ground was the garden where I shot soil down your spine. And your breath was lightning, setting dry bones on fire.
We sailed to a new world, where we tore the laws of science down and together made enough smoke to burn out of the belly of a whale. You would bring your father down.
All the stage erupts in light and opens up your naïve eyes that only serve to take my breath away.
Darling, please call me up tonight. We could stay until the morning dies.You would be the darkest thing in sight, once again.
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9. |
All Eyes
06:14
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I heard you so loud, in the vacuum of the scream was a city on fire - its streets as white as teeth. Our car had broken down so we took the taxi into town. The neon burning your kiss into my mouth. All my seeds had been sown. All my cards had been dealt.
At your bedside, morning’s yellow cotton rags stained the bed sheets on the empty bed. So say it out loud - say it once more for old times. Your lips burning with those cotton candy lines. Either way you’ve sold out and you’re suddenly all eyes to see it coming.
The seas will rise. God will take her place, and the singers - all bad liars - will heave to bass that blows your eardrums out and leaves without a trace, in the midst of your biggest doubt. Now you’re so loud
You’ve got lots to say now, as his hands run up your thighs, and this golden idol cow runs off into the night. So take the stage, girl. See if you can make me believe, with your lips dyed red and your chattering white teeth. You’ve been long gone for a long time
And you’re suddenly all eyes. Deep and singing eyes opening up like a gate to the seething skies, and as the words come out, your head is heaving like the sea. The waves break on me. The waves break on me. So see it coming.
The seas will rise. God will take her place, and the singers - all bad liars - will heave to bass that blows your eardrums out and leaves without a trace, in the midst of your biggest doubt you see your paper skin cut clean again.
And the waves are rising up. You’re finally on your knees. The waves are rising up and it sounds like harmony. When we’re burned to a single cell, the air has room to breath, in the midst of your biggest doubt. Now you’re all eyes.
Now you’re all eyes.
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