1. |
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A mosaic life
Each day’s a tessera
Interstice, the silent web
That holds us in one piece
The stars sparkle light dither as night develops
Somewhere far away a sun has just come up
If I pushed us to the nearest star
When could we call it our sun
In a collage of mornings
Under quilted sheets and ceramic coffee mugs
The stars sparkle light dither as night develops
Somewhere far away a sun has just come up
The sun’s distant light tapers, and blinks at their eyes
Somewhere far away in someone else’s sky
“If I spun myself around
I’d use you as my center
And if I fell into a black hole
I’d want to see your face before the fall”
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2. |
Gold Teeth
04:28
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Stuck like an hourglass
Completely full
Never ending outer glance
A constant peripheral
Fixation period
Jolt to saccades
It’s not a myriad
Of choices
Just a hamster wheel slo-mo replay parade
And I hear people say the strangest things
Like how the hours
Can’t keep with the pace
Of years gone
Like reading a blank page
And I hear people say the strangest things
Like how what’s ours
Is actually theirs
How living
Just means your life was spared
Expert on the future
Always speaking
With a vast mixture
Of rules all disagreeing
The present re-balances
It shifts its weight
Is that what the process is?
Erasing collections of all those yesterdays
If everything’s easier now
Then what’s the problem
I wish I could just pay
I wish I could just play
I wish I could just pray
If everything’s perfect
Now what’s the problem
I gave you gold teeth
Now why aren’t you smiling
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3. |
Medium Fish, Medium Pond
03:16
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I could describe
My whole life
With a single number
Encyclopedia on a toothpick
Well I was something like
Everyone’s smallest problem
You said you saw symmetry
When you stepped away
Repeating mountain range
But inside it is constant change
But we never break the bond
Medium fish, medium pond
Skipping stones thinking
If I could just do that with my feet
Skimming the top of
A life with infinite corners
Thinking you’ve got it
All squared away
A world with infinite corners
A perfect circle
A stone, a ripple
You said you lost symmetry
When you set your gaze
Under clear soft waves
Still inside it is constant change
Swarming colored fish
Other things that live
And if my life is rich with time
Oh that would be so nice
And if the world’s a perfect size
Then I won’t think twice
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4. |
Black Tea
03:16
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Your mother said black tea bags
Could heal a burn wound
And when you put them on my red hands
It felt like cushioned seats
It felt like I lived at a beach house
Tending to a jellyfish sting
I steeped in the backroom
A gentle infuse
Sitting there like I’m seeping colors
It felt like time in bloom
I felt you like a stream of honey
Sweetening in arabesque swirls
Black Tea
Surgeon,
Book OR 3
Doctor,
I’m overreacting
Jennifer,
Let me buy you a coffee
Romay,
I think I see the future
I’m 23
Looking back at me
Right now in hindsight
I’m sure that in another world
I tried hard
You weren’t just looking
For somewhere to go
You liked connecting things
With their shadows
Well I was good at being
Alone back then
My shadow copied
All I did
And this isn’t that song
That fixes everything
But it’s the one
I can finally sing
Cause even with the gold rush
On a Saturday morning
You slowed down for me
Calling this breath more important
Now we’re striking gold
Without touching the land
Eureka, I found the sunrise
It’s pouring over our hands
The one thing that stuck to the plan
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5. |
Auxiliary Police
02:17
|
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(Instrumental)
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6. |
Spot
03:33
|
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I told someone to watch my spot
The world turned and I got lost
Couldn’t get back to that spot
Yeah that’s a tough one to spot
You’ve lived everyday
Since your birth date
You’ve lived as a sleeping baby
You’ve spent everyday
In the universe
Was that a decision that you made?
I didn’t
I didn’t remember
Remember
Going outside
Of the hospital
Or anything prior
I must have
Waved goodbye
To something
Or someone
I live today
I take part in
What the universe plans it shall do
I go to sleep
As a grown adult
And wake up just like a baby would
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7. |
The Problem Is
02:58
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Reset everything to its factory default
And if nothing else
You can crack open my head
Because that is where
That’s where the problem is
That’s where the problem lives
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8. |
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And if i sang the first line of this song
It would’ve had a different start
I am sure it exists somewhere
Though I did not write it down
Even with a missing piece
Does it even matter now
2000 ways
How not to make...
That feeling like you’re waiting
That feeling of aging
I could read in a book
But I could never right it down
I could say the same thing over
But this time not as loud
How does your life fit into the way you
And would you be more trenchant
If you were someone different
Things change
Entropy
Leaving the white walls empty
They still get dirty
Things change
(Learn about it)
(And then write something clever)
You're life already started
But that’s no cause for alarm
This song already started
And everything else is still going on
How would you describe the thought you're having now?
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9. |
Thought Experiment
04:19
|
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Your parents look at you
For the first time
Echoes off her body
Display on the ultrasound
The second that I started dividing
Set on automatic
In separate wombs (rooms)
In attached houses
Underground
When I of tried
To be 100 different people
Did I become myself?
Or was it something more like Grendel?
Your organs sit in the dark
Surgeon saves the heart a spot
Did I put myself together?
Your thoughts perched there like a lark
You haven’t erased what you claim you forgot
Am I taking it all apart?
And I know each breath
Is followed then by the next
Echoes off the wall
Hear the answer I wanted
And when our eyes meet
There is that strange greeting
We’ll show each other parts
We’ve personally never seen
Your organs sit in the dark
Surgeon saves the heart a spot
Did I put myself together?
Your thoughts perched there like a lark
You haven’t erased what you claim you forgot
Am I taking it all apart?
Playing God doesn’t make you sound smart
And if you give an answer or not
You’ve still spoken
“Well if everyone saw it
And everyone thought it
And everyone bought it
And everyone says that it’s true
Why isn’t it clear till it happens to you?”
Anything that you say
Anything you do
You can latch onto
And dance dance dance dance
Cause your life is over
No more Saturday’s waiting
In rain in the afternoon
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10. |
Vietnam
04:52
|
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Wherever you go
Wherever you get to
There’s this person
You share
Direct contact
If it doesn’t feel like
Your eyes see mine
And vice versa
The other side
Is the one you're not on
Two places at once
Isn’t harder than
One place at a
Full Stop
Then, go
Full Stop
Then, go
“Well don’t you go away”
When I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I
Can’t take the credit
It is more like
The book wrote itself
The city’s already finished
And I'm stuck on the F train
So I get off and
Walk down your street
Feeling less brainy
Cause even if I thought I moved
This whole time
I’ve been sitting sitting
Waiting waiting sitting in the waiting room
Wherever you go
Wherever you get to
There’s this pattern
Of good advise
Like moral letters
Or a reading from Dr. Seuss
Fictional silence
The past and future
Halting at a
Full Stop
Then, Go
Full Stop
Then, Go
“Well don’t you go away”
When I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I
Can’t take the credit
It is more like
The years lived themselves
And I don’t know what I’m seeing
When you tell me to look
It’s like flipping my eyes
To see thoughts form
It’s like I already know
This is not how I’ll feel
When I’m old
No matter which story’s told
I’ve got 80 years
Peering out the window
The tape speeds and slows
Till it snaps
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11. |
Summer's Gone
02:46
|
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Summer’s gone
But I still feel it
Burning on the back of my neck
Like a wave is coming
But I don’t want to get wet
I can see it like the sun touching the sea
Slanting shadows move on the beach till they’re short, then long
Till eventually they’re gone
Summer’s gone
But I still feel it
Peeling off the front of my chest
Like the sand in the house
You track in with flaky footsteps
You can see it as annoyance or a pest
Or be reminded every foot placement
Have you’ve forgotten your days off
Summer’s gone
But I still need it
Baking red into
My closed eyelids
Till I open them and squint at
Where the times went
I can feel the seasons moving to the coldest
Dim light purview at the solstice sunset
You might have 60 summers left
You might have less
Til it’s gone
It’s gone, yeah it’s gone away
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12. |
Hours
04:28
|
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I feel my neighborhood
When I walk barefoot around my block
Landing on the twigs and the rocks
My neighbors they write out their address
With a similar likeness to mine
I hit a wrong digit when I dial
And get someone different
I apologize in Spanish
Maybe you’ve already been to the place where you’ll die
I’ll be barefoot in a suit
With my necktie set loose
And everything still on queue
Crop circle fingerprints
Look different from the aeroplane
My voice sounds strange
When I give “personal” information away
To view these hours as ours
They’re not minute minutes
Unless distraction hits the second second
They’re worth something even before you add them
It’s like a lot of little rain in a plain field
It’s like the smeared lines blurring the windshield
Who is going where?
The number on my social security
Who comes next in the chronology?
Something I’ll never know
I breathe the air you’ve just let go
Outside my window
I’ll be barefoot in a suit
With my necktie set loose
And everything still on queue
Crop circle fingerprints
Look different from the aeroplane
My voice sounds strange
When I give “personal” information away
To view these hours as ours
They’re not minute minutes
Unless distraction hits the second second
They’re worth something even before you add them
And it’s the start of another moment you live
I’ll tag along
And it’s the start of another moment you live
It’s here in the Sol
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Randy's Got a Playdough Face Queens, New York
Having almost always recorded in a full band setting, Randy has allowed every instrument to mature with each release using
influences that lend to the indie rock sweethearts like Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, Modest Mouse, Slint, Sunny Day Real Estate, R.E.M.
Randy has a heavy focus on the “album” format, long chord progressions, and suspending song structures.
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