1. |
Bones and Skin 2016
03:02
|
|||
|
Floods and fires and bones and skin
City meets catastrophe all over again
It catches people’s lives in single frames of film
Where they sit and where they stand
And all their favorite sins
So where is it that you’d be caught?
The day the other shoe is dropped
And what is it that’s worth your time
On the day disaster knocks?
And what is it that’s worth so much
That you hate to say goodbye
The things you’d never trust to luck
The day that god is rolling dice
And what is worth the sacrifice
Of your health, yourself, your life?
It’s your life.
Sticks and stones and skin and bones
Which is your house and which is your home?
Through rain and snow, you are not alone
We will build a nest
Where we can rest our weary bones
Cash and fights and cards and dice
These are the vices of children and mice
They think these things give meaning to life
Whether they do or they don’t
Your wallet’s feeling light
Floods and fires and bones and blood
City is rebuilt in the wake of the flood
New relationships are carved out of mud
The new and old, silver and gold
Without a way to judge
|
||||
2. |
Make It Do Or Do Without
02:14
|
|||
|
I once drank for a very long time
Weeks and months just flew right by
My memory was handicapped
I can’t blame my genetics, did not have an accident
I just melted my steel trap
I misplaced everything that mattered
Conversations and my tattered
Notebooks in the street
The folks I love I barely know
When I forget it leaves me low
I’ve lost my memories
So use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
Use it up, wear it out
Got my coffee and cigarettes
My blood rises and I start to sweat
But they treat me just fine
In the morning I can’t breathe
I still light up like a machine
I swear I’ll quite sometime
Whiskey left me sleeping on the floor
Getting lit doesn’t do it anymore
So I’m done, I do without
But once a month the notion moves me
The same motion that I’m doomed to repeat
Will I learn my lesson now?
|
||||
3. |
Measure Me
02:19
|
|||
|
So don’t measure me by practices
That I abstain from in paradoxes
Because I know you know you know
It’s none of your goddamn business
And don’t measure me by efforts
That I exert to never
Crumble under pressure
From the swiftly changing weather
Don’t ya see darlin’?
I am slowly getting better
I am slowly putting
My sense of humor back together
Measure me by laughter
By a lightness in my step
That’s got me walkin’ in the rafters
With no worries in my head
Measure me by irony
By my subtle grin that shows
That I am silently
Just laughing at my woes
I might be the master adapter
The faster gun in face of disaster
Assessing all the factors
When the situation shatters
But at the end of the chapter
None of that really matters
If I don’t got that laughter
|
||||
4. |
The Helpful Spell
01:08
|
|||
|
My potions are an ocean, there is sickness in this motion
Mechanical actions seek compaction of time and
Emotion, my feet trip
Up on humanity’s secrets that feed us
And our chaos
That makes it interesting to be a human being
Mechanical attraction, I lie to myself
About original action and I catch
Flak from fractional selves that crack
Up and yell that I am catching hell
Like a super-virus whenever I feel this
Tired? Ground yourself!
Please get off the shelf
Please stop feeling so goddamn sorry for yourself
Breathe and wait.
Is the helpful spell when a storm is on the swell
Then changes came down like rain
Fertilizing where they fell
|
||||
5. |
Daydreamer
03:23
|
|||
|
This is the day all the dreamers need
Open your eyes don’t fall asleep
Daylight charges with electricity
Midnight creations in sunshine city
You can’t reserve dreams for the sleepers
For them it’s small change they just sleep deeper
Trade dreams for beers and tip your barkeeper
Just save some of them for your grim reaper
Hey I can see where the grass is greener
Where the sun shines and the air is cleaner
I like to think that I’m a believer
But dreaming is so far from believing
So I’m a seeker, forever repeater
A heavy drinker and a hash-eater
And a chimney smoker until I’m either
A death cheater or devoured by a fever
But the truth is I’m a cheaper Peter
Pandemic eager to unleash this creature
On all the teachers, pirates, and preachers
That I might compare to Julius Caesar
Ya’ll ain’t leaders, you’re population pleasers
There’s people in the street with violent seizures
Paramedics down the block are just a teaser
Sent down to sleep in the lonely morgue freezers
We all die alone, but I’m still a dreamer
We all die all alone, and I am coming home
|
||||
6. |
Comfort Control
02:41
|
|||
|
Comfort control, are you comfortable?
Is that a reliable way to relate to the world?
Is that feasible fiction the reason you’re wishin’
The future would keep to the threshold?
But when it’s provoked, the future explodes
And your blindfold won’t help when your story’s revoked
Are you unbreakable or are you an animal?
Just plain old physical and prone to traditional means
Of decomposition, stagnation and decay
But now you’re wasting away
And you fall to your knees when you realize there’d be
A whole lot less pain
If you only welcomed the future on the day that it came
Can you signify what that whiskey lullaby
Actually means when you’re falling asleep
In the grand scheme of things that’s a pretty
Mean way to treat your memories
Maybe that’s the point, maybe it’s escape
Running from your past, or running from your fate
But whiskey’s really just a way to ignore the nameless shade
That haunts your day to day choice to disengage
But now you’re breaking glass
When you realized that the catch 22
That’s been haunting you
Is just a dead-end path and it’s time to go searching for your truth
|
||||
7. |
Cheers
01:47
|
|||
|
I raise a glass of whiskey in a toast
To all the folks that offer me some hope
So fill your cup and raise it up
And join me while we boast
About our love and how we are
Each other’s skipping stones
Cheers we yell and cheers we cry
Cheers to death and cheers to life
Cheers we shout and cheers we scream
Cheers to you and cheers to me
I been rememberin’ all my fallen friends
And how what they have met isn’t quite the end
No regrets, no apologies
No need to make amends
Just keep them near in heart and mind
We’ll see them round the bend
|
||||
8. |
Fat Cats
02:37
|
|||
|
So I don’t know what I’ve got to say
But it’s about how we’ve been these days
We’ve been restless, ready for change
But there is confusion
No direction to take
Children have been playing with matches in the yard
Things have started burning, it only took a spark
Fat Cats show up, with their evil hearts
Threw in the kids’ things
Burned their books and guitars
With nothing to do the young’uns take naps
And while they are sleeping
Things are dropped in their laps
Student loans and leases, and a car crash
If they ever wake, they’re owned by Fat Cats
They let them do it, they had the choice
They went to sleep through all that noise
Those cats had it easy, just burned some toys
Without a finger lifted
Kids had thrown away their voice
Kids feelin beat on the corner of the block
Smokin cigarettes, talkin shit on their boss
One looks up and shouts we haven’t lost
This world is bleeding, and we are the blood clot
Get off your ass we need to start a fire
Make that folk punk DIY style
Get your boots out of that single file
No one here will sleep walk another mile
Put down your bottles, put down your drugs
Pick up a weapon and start it all up
Tear down the constructs
Tear down the walls
Let’s build a new world
And cut down these thugs
Most are on board but the skeptics all rant
Everything is fine, we shouldn’t and can’t
Fight that fight with a riot and chant
Just cast a ballot, just pick a man
Someone speaks up, let’s think this all through
This isn’t us, this isn’t our move
Don’t kick, don’t cry
No violence, don’t shoot
Let’s turn away and create something new
So one builds guitars and another writes songs
A few have looked up, set down their bongs
Our ranks are growing, this shouldn’t take long
Let’s build a new world and right these wrongs
We can write them on paper and silicon chips
Record them to save and keep on our lips
Mothers tell children while they’re still on their hips
If this repeats, we’ll design for a fix
So more coffee, more plannin and dreamin
We’ve got a plan so we start schemin
Get a piece of land, some trees and a stream
If we live with the Earth, we will be so free
So the artists and muses pick up some tools
Started building houses, even some shoes
With their own two hands made everything new
And stopped doing business with the capitalist fools
They still live there over their hill
In their cities that are built to spill
To sleep on your feet, it ain’t a skill
And these people, they make me ill
You see,
We bought out of values they instill
That voids in life can all be filled
With sex and pills and dollar bills
That money is power for which to kill
They still live there, over their hill
In their cities that are built to spill
To sleep on your feet is not a skill
We only get one Earth, they haven’t had their fill
Don’t test our patience, don’t test our will
We’ll take this struggle right to the kill
|
||||
9. |
Metronome
01:49
|
|||
|
When I was a child my mother would come say
Listen to your heartbeat, it will help to guide your way
But when I would listen to the rhythm in my chest
The only answer I ever get is I’m “just a little stressed”
Sorry that I can’t quite keep time
But you know that I’m just one beat behind
And I still pump all the blood
That’s been keeping you alive
When I was a bit lost my mother would come say
Listen to your heartbeat it will help to guide your way
When I would give pause to give my heart an ear
I would strain so hard, but there was nothing to hear
I would strain so hard but there was nothing to fucking hear
|
||||
10. |
Life Is A Death Party!
04:00
|
|||
|
Life is a death party, pay attention
Life is a lovely death celebration
I know this might escape comprehension
So I’ll attempt a little explanation
Every single thing you eat and all those drinks you drink
Were made from the remains of something that once had to breathe
So when you go out at night to have fun and consume
Raise a toast to your friends
Just raise one for the dead folks too
Life is a death party, pay attention
Life is a lovely death celebration
Some folks fixate on death prevention
It’s a fact of life so here’s a little consolation
There is a great book that Kurt Vonnegut wrote
It’s full of folks dying and lots of great quotes
I only hope that anyone grieving might read it
Or that they already know
That when someone dies he says simply so it goes
It might seem callous on your first read
Or that I shouldn’t say insensitive things like these
But the whole point of that book by K.V.
Is that these people still live
In their own time and in our memories
So when I die please remember me
And that I made no mockeries
Of the pain of loss or things that rot
Just that life moves forward
Because of things like these
Life is a death party, pay attention
Life is lovely death celebration
I know we all live in apprehension
Of all our impending expirations
But it is an essential tension
That fuels every single innovation
And don’t let me forget to mention
The cathartic veneration
That joins us at every death celebration
To understand Kurt’s Slaughterhouse tome
The thing to know is that time is a joke
A trick we play to separate
Friends from foes and skin from bones
It just keeps us from coming home
This too shall pass and so it goes
And fuck the time lapse and so it goes
I have an empty glass and so it goes
Life is a death party don’tcha fucking know?
|
||||
11. |
The Most
03:12
|
|||
|
Someone once said that love is cool it is not hot
Most folks mistake lust for love more oft than not
Some nights I wonder if my cool love will be enough
And sometimes I think that I just love a little too much
Either way I think that I’m just losing touch
Either way I just keep on spreading the most love
So when you are way down in a rut
With all that rust and dust and love and lust
And you are feeling pretty rough
Just remember that I’ve got
The most love
And I’ll be there when you feel like giving up
We’ll take your worries, take your crutch
Throw ‘em on the porch, lock the door
And keep it shut
We’ll sit and eat, laugh out our guts
Remember the days we’d pose and strut?
Remember the days spent on the cuff
We never used to worry that we’d go bust
But things got real and I’ll tell you what
We’re still here, have no fear, let’s give a fuck
Tuck and roll down to the rutted road
Clean your boots, wipe off the muck
And mud and blood and crust
Stick out your thumb
Let’s go catch a truck
And leave behind this fucking town
Full of assholes, fools, and junk (schmucks)
You’ve finally come unstuck
This is the cusp, this is the crux
This is my love, y’all should take it
Or leave it in the dust
It’s up to you, I’ve said enough
|
||||
12. |
Bones and Skin
02:49
|
|||
|
Floods and fires and bones and skin
City meets catastrophe all over again
It catches people’s lives in single frames of film
Where they sit and where they stand
And all their favorite sins
So where is it that you’d be caught?
The day the other shoe is dropped
And what is it that’s worth your time
On the day disaster knocks?
And what is it that’s worth so much
That you hate to say goodbye
The things you’d never trust to luck
The day that god is rolling dice
And what is worth the sacrifice
Of your health, yourself, your life?
It’s your life.
Sticks and stones and skin and bones
Which is your house and which is your home?
Through rain and snow, you are not alone
We will build a nest
Where we can rest our weary bones
Cash and fights and cards and dice
These are the vices of children and mice
They think these things give meaning to life
Whether they do or they don’t
Your wallet’s feeling light
Floods and fires and bones and blood
City is rebuilt in the wake of the flood
New relationships are carved out of mud
The new and old, silver and gold
Without a way to judge
|
||||
If you like The Real Lying Rohr, you may also like:
Forever Only Idaho
by Harrison Lemke
Big, strummy songs that recall the heart-on-sleeve earnestness and lo-fi glory of early Mountain Goats.
go to album
Beautifully played and full of moving vocal performances, the Bay Area singer/songwriter's latest is a stellar work of art.
go to album
Sweet and honest bedroom pop made with the sparest of instrumentation and topped with poetically melancholy lyrics.
go to album
Mind, Man, Medicine
by The Secret Sisters
The Alabama duo's fifth album exults in dusty Americana, showcasing rich vocal harmonies alongside blissful folk instrumentation.
go to album
All New
by Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
The sound of classic country music abounds on the latest from Grammy-winners Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer.
go to album
A vibrant vision of "Central Americana" from the Costa Rica-based artist, blending heartland devotionals with playful Tropicália grooves.
go to album
Old Habits
by Kat Wallace and David Sasso
This New Haven duo write bright and emotionally resonant folk music where sweeping strings elevate gorgeous melodies.
go to album
