1. |
Brakes Cut
04:25
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Brakes Cut
These cement legs / spent all their nights just blacking out the days / with warehouse sex / where the echoes moaned and the shadows dripped with sweat / till the confetti drops / like fireworks in vacant parking lots, / so when we lit the wick, / my whiplash blood was begging me to quit. // But it starts slow / with a kiss outside the hospital, / the lip-gloss, the neck, and the undertow, / the fresh proud bruise art show. // Then you got me. I’m glad, but you got me. / The knots in my body all tell me you got me. / The fire’s out in my matchstick mouth / and you got me reeling. // So the brakes are cut now / from my armored car doubt, / from all the years / that you weren’t here. / So I spit the taste out / of every ghost town / and all the years / that I was barely here. // But our bad machines / are rusting out in sleepless violent sheets / and freezer-burn / where we used to ride those cold chemical cures, / and we’re bloodshot, / weighing sins against the years that they could cost / to pay off / and hide behind our two-way mirror thoughts. // And who we were / is coming back to you, / and who we were / is coming back to me, too. // So I am coming back to you. // And all at once, / oh, you got me. You got me. I’m glad, but you got me. / The knots in my body all tell me you got me. / I’m caving in around your skin / and you’ve got me reeling. // So the brakes are cut now / from my armored car doubt, / from all the years / that you weren’t here. / So I spit the taste out / of every ghost town, / yeah, I lost some years, / but I’m finally here, oh, / with my brakes cut / and my hands cuffed / to my bad thoughts / and to yours and your wars, / and with our brakes cut / and our hands cuffed / to my bad thoughts / and to yours and our wars.
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2. |
Mouths Still Work
01:08
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Mouths Still Work
The bad luck season’s over, / there’s no more black wave thirst. / All our gods are ashes, / and our hands and our mouths still work. / Our mouths still work.
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3. |
Past Lives
04:06
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Past Lives
So when you dream, / it’s neon streets / and game-show crowds / that won’t stop clapping. / It’s hotel skies, / collapsing minds, / that heavy penance / for past lives, / the nights on fire, / the drunken slurs, / and the morning hits you / like a dirty word. // Oh, so you make enough money for your cigarettes, / but you can’t implode without an audience / and your lungs try to tell you that you’re going soft / while your woman coughs. / So you finally got bored of the tourist traps / and of drinking with the girls for the full collapse, / so you stopped disagreeing with the acid thoughts, / “Yeah, I’m going soft.” // But when you sing to me, / I don’t feel their teeth. / Ah, when you sing to me, / well, I don’t hear anything / at all. // And she was singing, “Does it eat at you? / Baby, ‘cause it eats at me, / but if they’re getting sick of you, / then maybe they’ll get sick of me. // But you make enough money for your cigarettes, / so there’s no real reason for an audience. / Well, they came, they came, they stayed a bit, and they just left. // So we’ll domesticate our fears, / baby, we’ll domesticate our vices, / and if you leave me, just don’t leave me here / in this silence. // So will you sing to me? / ‘Cause I still feel their teeth. / Oh, will you sing to me? / ‘Cause I can’t hear anything / at all // but our past lives, / just our past lives.”
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4. |
Stop, Just Stop
04:22
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Stop, Just Stop
You read big books. / I feel so small. / Why aren’t you small, / my love? / You’ve got big hooks. / They make me hurt. / Why don’t mine hurt, / my love? // You are my automatic writing, / the red tattoos behind my eyelids, / but I’m tired of firing squads, / of your bored, indifferent gods. // So when you feel brave, / I’ll be your stutter, / and when you wake, / I’ll be your hangover, / and when you try to get straight, / I’ll be your drug dealer. / So when you get paid, / I’ll gladly sell you // the wrong words, / the whiskey cures, / the last real hurt, / the one that craves / the wrong words, / the whiskey cures, / the last real hurt, / the one you hate. // My god, it’s gonna hurt… / oh my god, it’s gonna hurt / when I’m your modern American fuck, / the modern American love that fucks you up, / the one you can’t love enough. // I’ll have you screaming, / “Stop, stop, I’m gonna be sick. / Just stop, just stop, I’m gonna be sick. / Just stop, just stop, I’m gonna be sick. / Just stop, just stop. Well, I give up.” // While you’re sleeping off / our nighttime madness, / I’ll be your slow dance, / your dime-store romance. / In the morning bed, / I’ll start again. / When you say when, / I’ll fuck you up and fill your head // with the wrong words, / the whiskey cures, / the last real hurt, / the one that craves / the wrong words, / the whiskey cures, / the last real hurt. // Oh, if I keep loving you, / we’ll both be ruled / by cosmic fears. / If this is loving you, / yeah, if it’s this cruel, / the worst of it is here. / Yeah, my best hooks are here. / The worst of it is here. / Yeah, my best hooks are here. / Oh, I hope they hurt.
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5. |
Hunted for Sport
01:05
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Hunted For Sport
All I want is to be hunted for sport. / All you want is to be professionally mourned. // All we want is to be aimlessly rutting / for eternity, self-immolating and gutting. // And in the folds of our art, / we want our minds to fall apart.
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6. |
Explosion Sounds
04:06
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Explosion Sounds
So get up and count your teeth / and make love on the loan shark sheets / where your girl got passed around / to help wash down the post-war doubt. / Or have you lost your taste for it? / Those bloodlust boys and girls don’t quit, / so there’s a crowd under your clothes, / between you both and you can’t get close. // So you sleep and she drinks, / and you drink and she sleeps, / and you blink and she blinks… / well, God, ain’t love a fucked-up thing? // When you choke on your riot tongue / and cheap cologne in the vulgar sun, / you’ll write it off and lay in bed / with minefield dread and words to shred, / but now you know your friends are rats, / and now you drink with baseball bats, / and goddamn, you still want her mouth / to drown you out with explosion sounds. // But you sleep and she drinks, / and you drink and she sleeps, / and you blink and she blinks… / well, God, ain’t love a fucked-up thing? // But I love the great obscene, / I love the strip club meat, I love the trophy heat, / and I know I’ll miss your teeth, / but God, I love the fucked-up things. // So if it takes one more time to give this up, / then I’ll wait one more night to give you up, / but now it seems like we both like the noose tight / and you’ve got a cutthroat mind / and we both like the noose tight, / and we both got the rope and we both got the time. // But I sleep and you drink, / and I drink and you sleep, / and I blink and you blink… / well, that is the truly fucked-up thing. // ‘Cause we are the great obscene, / and all those girls are cheap, those boys just can’t compete. / In our hell, the drinks are free, / and we are the greatest fucked-up things. // So come on, let’s barricade the doors. / Yeah, come on, fuck all those rookie whores. / Yeah, come on, let’s have a civil war, / only stop to call the dealer and the liquor store. / Yeah, come on, let’s see what veins are for. / Yeah, come on, let’s fuck with hell some more. / Yeah, come on, we’ll kill each other, sure, / but we won’t die alone and we won’t die bored.
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7. |
American Shame
05:30
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American Shame
It gets old hiding out / in the faceless, godless South, / in this American nuclear town, / inside the devil’s mouth. / It gets old being blessed / with a love so underdressed, / wearing nothing but bulletproof vests, / ‘cause ‘round here, they just aim for the chest. / But we got what we want, / this mirrored house to haunt, / a set of chemical bumper-car thoughts, / the blood that never clots. / And we got what we hate, / that slow sinking parade, / that aching glacial change, / oh, and this impossible wait. // Oh. // If I could fuck my way to the top, I would, / or I think I could if I thought I should, / but we fucked our way to the bottom, and that’s just as good. // So we were screaming at each other to make great art, / or mediocre art, or get jobs selling cars, / but then the screaming stops, and the real hell starts. // Oh. // And before it could catch up to me, it got you, / and before we knew there were three, there were two, oh. // And we were back at the hospital staring at our fists, / back where we started, sleeping in shifts / with the cake-bearing cosmos apologists, // and that’s a goddamn shame. / Shit, I don’t know what to say. / That’s a goddamn shame. // Shit, I don’t know. // Goddamn, it’s colder than hell. I guess we got turned around / ‘cause setting fire to ourselves just set fire to the house / and the fans wanna know as the roof comes down, / “If you weren’t scared of death, how do you feel about it now?” / Well, we can’t look at each other, we can’t look in the mirror / at the crater that’s left of our train wreck year / now that the tracks cut out and the floor disappears. / Well, there's nothing left to say, but there's plenty left to fear. / And it came back to me, when I was seventeen, / when I was ripping out the wires I thought made me weak, / but the best-laid plans get fucked by people like me, / oh, but this time, it’s worse, oh, this atheist grief. / And you were staring at your hands like it was you in your veins, / and I knew, right then, this American shame, / and I knew, right then, this infinite maze, / and I knew there was no one else to blame, // and that’s a goddamn shame. / Shit, I don’t know what to say. / That’s a goddamn shame. / Shit, I don’t know. // No, I can’t stop drinking. / I can’t stop drinking. / I can’t stop thinking about names. // Oh.
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8. |
Only Death
01:54
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Only Death
Through all that frantic summer sex, / well, you could summarize my bones, / and yeah, we probably should’ve guessed / those months were loans. // And it was right when winter peaked / when we were screaming in the streets. / We had no pity for the weak, / but, damn, we’re weak. // So you shot up in bed at night. / I kept my eyes closed while you packed. / I thought you’d lose your appetite / when it bit back. // But you were singing “Wicked Game.” / I’d never felt such brutal flames. / We swore that only death could make us tame, / and now we’re tame.
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9. |
The Abyss and I
03:42
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The Abyss and I
I’m drinking like I can find the finish line. / Can you be outside my place at nine? / Yeah, we can drink till we find a consolation prize, / we can spit at the sky, we can be baptized. // Was I ever wrong about you? / Was I ever wrong about you? / Oh, was I ever wrong about you. // I’m drinking like I might find that hell ran dry, / so now there’s only fire or an endless night. / So I will drink till I find you standing outside / like a busted streetlight, like you were my type. // Well, was I ever wrong about you? / Was I ever wrong about you? / Oh, was I ever wrong about you. // Well, was I ever alone before you? / Well, was I ever alone before you? / Well, was I ever alone before you. // We’re drinking like we can find the finish line, / so when you sin at night, you’ll do it by my side, / and we will drink till we find a consolation prize / while you waste your time with the abyss and I.
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The Ready Aim Fire! Walnut, California
Synth-driven indie rock from Walnut, CA.
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