1. |
Midnight Directives
03:35
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Cross her off the shortlist
My blood is a red-winged bird
The way will be lit by the bridges we burn, oh
And come, tornado!
Carry me away from the croft
Ruffle my hair, bear my body aloft, oh
As the cutlass came down on a Saturday night
Left an un-planted field, left my daughter and wife
Called away into service for a clerical life
Left an un-planted field, left my daughter and wife
Thought I was a sad boy
Now I know, I know, I know I was wrong
Since you came along, I can see how content I had been
It'll drive a man crazy
To age from the outside in
But I have a plan, it's a trick with a prick of a pin
And as the cutlass came down on a Saturday night
Left an un-planted field, left my daughter and wife
Called away into service for a clerical life
Left an un-planted field, left my daughter and wife
For a man can be bought, and a man can be sold
And the price of a hundred thousand unwatered souls
Is a bit of meat and a bit of coal
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2. |
Keep the Dog Quiet
03:10
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My body is a cage
This union is a cage about a cage about a cage
And this, and this town too
I'll see you once in a while but I can't be seen with you
This place is a narrative mess
The floor a tangle of bedsheets and battered sundress
The ink has dried in the well
The journey once was consequential
Now: sequential, sequential, sequential, sequential
When will you silence your hounds?
The eldest sons to the altar of the Eternal Sound
Their blood is spilled at the dawn
A nation bound to your will, still, the violin plays on
Plays its devotional song
Once it was, once it was so essential
Now: sequential, sequential, sequential, sequential
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3. |
Mount Alpentine
00:49
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Lead on, oh horse of mine
We will climb the side of Alpentine
Lead on, oh horse of mine
We will voice our satisfaction
Karma is the concatenation of your actions
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4. |
Red Sun No. 5
03:40
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I'd been living through days
Carrying no burden
But the shit of cattle
And my resignation
Until the sun rose crimson
Crept across my limbs and
I saw that they were earthen
That they decay and worsen
And from my ginger chest
There came the sound of thunder
I am not a father
I am not a farmer
I tremble to speak of it
Held her in my arms and
Pressed her to my heart, and
Pressed my hand o'er her lips
I murmured words of his love
I will be his baron
With him I have an ending
With him I have completion
And the cover of night
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5. |
Lewis Takes Action
02:54
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I got a message for the acolytes
I am your man for a wifey fight
I got a third for liquid gold
I'll bludgeon 'til the body's cold
The stony hiss of cockatrice
Has cast us into serfdom
I close my eyes and spur Imelda down the mountainside
For a liberated Spectrum
I took No-Face by the beak
And broke his jaw, he'll never speak again
I took No-Face by the beak
And broke his jaw, he'll never speak again
My every move is guided by the bidding of the singer
The night is split by the whistle of my amber whip
And the fire from my fingers
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6. |
The Great Elsewhere
05:49
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Talking, what's it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Wrestle, let's wrestle
You can pin me to anything
Thought I saw you in my tea leaves
Thought I saw you in a forest flame
I'll fill up the silence
With the sound of your holy name
Knowledge of the sea-ways, knowledge of how the water flows
Whoever coined the phrase has never had to brave the snow
I climbed the shroud to the topsail and I peeked through the glass
The curvature bisected by the wintry mizzen mast
The scar upon my stomach, I call it my Flying V
And every time I show it, I can feel your eyes on me
How many islands will surrender to the blunderbuss?
And, how long must we sail before you show your face to us?
Followed him out to the end of the pier
"Don't come any closer," he cried
"I am afraid of the man I'll become if I lay my
"Life down for a people that I don't even care for."
Face to his face, I put my hand into his
And I tried to tell him, "No,
"I've seen his work upon the panes of cathedrals
"In the sweat of the workers and the flight of the seagulls."
My words were drowned out by the sound
Of the motors and rowers, the ship as it ran aground
And from the trees came a thousand soldiers
I went down on my knees with a spear in my shoulder
About face, about face, I swam back
To the Victoria. I shiver with the
Memory, memory of the island dwellers
And the indifferences of the Storyteller
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7. |
Oh Heartland, Up Yours!
04:06
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The stars collected
Each world accounted for
Freed all the children
Seems there is nothing more
If I only had a rowboat, I would row it up to heaven
And if heaven would not have me, I would take the other option
I will seek out my own satisfaction
From the wight lying in the barrow
To the priest with his broken arrows
There's a method to the madness
They will feign an expression of sadness
A concatenation of locusts
And the farmers are losing their focus
On the pitch of the Avenroe grasses
I will sing, sing, sing to the masses:
Oh Heartland, up yours!
The hollow voice of our 14th century
Too much assumption to be taken seriously
Oh, you wrote me like a Disney kid in cut-offs and a 'beater
With a feathered fringe, it doesn't suit a simoniac breeder
Doesn't work, doesn't fly, doesn't handle
From the wight lying in the barrow
To the priest with his broken arrows
There's a method to the madness
They will feign an expression of sadness
A concatenation of locusts
And the farmers are losing their focus
On the pitch of the Avenroe grasses
I will sing, sing, sing to the masses:
Oh Heartland, up yours!
My homeland!
I will not sing your praises here
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8. |
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As soon as I got on the horse, I forgot about the math
Forgot about the odds against an adolescent
Standing up to all of Owen's wrath
The heat of prairie summer is impossible to take
I grab the hem and lift the fabric over my sweet head
I know what you're looking for, and I'm never gonna give it to you
I'm never gonna give it to you
Government rule established by a dazzling light show
A hegemony armoured with a thousand-watt head
And seven inches of echo
I keep up my velocity, my spurs are in her sides
I don't know what I'm doing, and it is the only way
Toward the range I'll ride, singing, I'm never gonna give it to you
I'm never gonna give it to you
"I am overrated," said the sculptress to the sea
"I've been praised for all the ways the marble leaves the man
"But I was wrong to try and free him."
And as for me, I am a vector, I am muscle, I am bone
The sun upon my shoulders and the horse between my legs
This is all I know
My senses are bedazzled by the parallax of the road
I concentrate to keep contained the overflow
My knuckles grip so tightly, my fingers start to bleed
If I what I have is what you need
I'm never gonna give it to you
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9. |
Flare Gun
02:20
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The wella woods of Belvedere
The peat and moss of Avenroe
St. Germain's canaries
The fortress of Alpentine
Oh, my soul, my loyalty
Is to the East, and Spectral man, and bird, and beast
Red soil for the taking
Ruddy women for your brides
All good men of valourous heart
Consider a new start and sail today for the Heartland
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10. |
E Is For Estranged
05:25
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Boys run like water from the barrel to the trough
They'll never stop their running, gunning for their brothers
This house is a hostel, it is always emptying
Boys all want to be someone
Haven't you heard? I am a flightless bird
I am a liar, feeding facts to a false fire
If pathos is borne, borne out of bullshit in formal attire
I'll score you a string ensemble
I saw my son at seventeen
The shutters made projections on his naked frame
And now at twenty-five
He simply cannot stay away from the ketamine
With make-up on his sores
He spends an hour a day composing little eulogies
Sometimes he sends me letters
But they're mostly garbled phrases and apologies
Haven't you heard? I am a flightless bird
I am a liar, feeding facts to a false fire
If pathos is borne, borne out of bullshit in formal attire
Cue the Bulgarian men's choir
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11. |
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I stumbled on the summit's path
Clumsy, clumsy, no paragon am I
And I can't even keep my shoes tied
I've been in love with Owen ever since
I heard the strains of Psalm 21
Standing between the choirs
As they sang, "Laudate Dominum, Laudate Dominum."
Damn, I wrote it down but I left it in the pocket of my other jeans
Scrawled out on the foolscap:
"I don't know what your devotion means,
"I don't know what your devotion means."
And up, upon the summit I can see
The one I worshipped as a boy
The Creator, the Great White Noise
The Great White Noise
Charged and charging up the ridge
The chests are empty, the coffers too
They'll float in the flood, and so will you, I swear
So will you
"Your light is spent, your light is spent," I cried
As I drove the iron spike into Owen's eyes
The sun sped cross the plains like that cinematic moment
Where humanity and nature collide
Just when you think, "Everything's gonna be all right,"
Just before the hero gets a bullet in the side
Whizzing off the clifftop
Listening for the spatter, thirty floors below
Down, down come the vultures
I will not be your fuel anymore
Now the author has been silenced
How will they ever decipher me?
I hope they hear these words and are convinced
They never even knew me
I draw a bruise on your brawny shoulder
Scratch my fingers over your tattoos
The author has been removed
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12. |
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The difficulties of my story:
Despite discomforts, despite myself, I
I reaffirm my endless devotion
To the belief that we're all of value
We're all of virtue, and so inclined, we
Fill up our cups and toast to each other
And though I listen to the arguments
That most divergent systems employ to
Debilitate us, delineate us
Repackage our words, demystify us
I unceasingly affirm my love
Cannot be measured, cannot be altered
I know I know it, I do affirm it
With overzealous obscurantism
With every word and every gesture
I must express it. I can't define it
But all the same I know I can describe it:
I walk o'er bridges and see the river
A marble statue the sun has weather'd
The stubbornness of the overgrowth and
The old memorials covered in snow, we've
Written the way the universe will go
A righteous white horse, a man with a bow
A sharpened bit of the mistletoe
Scissors of fate or the fire of Sirtur
Though we're divided, the force of nature
Will put us all in the ground together
This morning I must get up
To see the world around me
Right away, what I forgot
In seeing ourselves as words upon a paper
The sun is up
My arms are wide
I am a good man
I am yours
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Owen Pallett Toronto, Ontario
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