For those interested, besides listening to music, I occasionally write some as well. Some of my songs are below - streamed through Last.fm. If you're intrigued, feel free to contact me for more!
New: Lyrics are now below!
New: Lyrics are now below!
Interested in downloading? Visit my page on official.fm here! (Or click that little down arrow on the player...!)
~
"Streetlights”
(written March-May 2009)
Streetlights glow in the dark
so we don’t have to be afraid.
Why do you think they’re there anyway?
Can’t you see I’m insane
sitting here singing to you?
So who’s your streetlamp
singing to you in the dark?
Of all the open fields
to choose from and this one you chose.
I only ask you why
don’t you turn and look to the sky?
At the start we’re in the dark
and the roads traveled by day
and we lie there by the night.
Imagine you all alone in your room,
record playing in the dark
and the notes, they fall like stars
in the dark, in the dark.
Streetlights flicker gold
and sometimes flicker off.
These shoes I put on
if only to understand.
Streetlights glow in the dark
so we don’t have to be afraid.
This is a lullaby
for the streetlights of the night.
Say goodnight, streetlights,
say goodnight,
say goodnight.
Imagine you, all alone in your room,
record playing in the dark
and the notes, they fall like stars
in the dark, in the dark.
Imagine them, all alone and shy
Flickering on and off in the night
Imagine them, all alone and shy
Flickering on and off in the night.
This is a lullaby
for the streetlights of the night.
~
"Liquor and Ash"
(written May - June 2011)
Singing this song is all just a waste of time, I once told
her.
You hiss and spit in the fire and that’s just it—
it doesn’t go out—it only gets higher.
Alcohol breath, my muse left me cold and alone
with only a heap of worthless ash.
I traveled nine states with a guitar case
and a taste of an emptier life.
Busking the corners of the old cattle towns
with streets as wide as rivers and no one around.
That was the life:
Dollar menu dinners
and the butts of cigarettes;
stave off the dreams,
keep me panting for breath,
I forget, I forget.
I forget, I forget.
Making myself into the kind of a man she’d love, not leave
me again.
Mine’s a helpless heart, needing new parts
and better brakes that don’t skid, better brakes that don’t
skid.
Stuck in Dakota, the mechanic all liquored up,
lying in the sun, a wrench falling from his hand.
If he gets to it soon, I’ll be making it through
the Midwest states by tomorrow.
And if he doesn’t, I’ll be stuck here with him
and a bottle of gin for a little while.
This is the life:
Oil-soaked rags
and mechanical debts;
stave off the dreams,
keep me panting for breath,
I forget, I forget.
I forget…
…I forget the ways she let me know I was right.
Pick out a tune, but I can’t hear it true,
my mind as cold as night,
my mind as cold as night.
Singing this song is all just a waste of time, I told my
mechanic.
Swoop in and out of the tune and never know what it means.
You’re free to admit if you think it’s a bit overdone—
a piece of selfish trash.
He laughed and said, shaking his head,
“It’s not much good, if you’re already broke ‘neath the
hood.
If a song makes it hurt, then what’s the worth of a heart
too weak to live?”
I sit quiet now, remembering how a muse once taught me to
give.
A muse once taught me to give.
A muse once taught me to give.
~
"Telephone Wire"
(written January 2010 - May 2011)
Cry for the people she thought she told the truth to.
Telephone wires are single strands,flickering blonde hair given to the wind.
Holding hands, the backseats of cars,
shifting lanes on the FDR.
It felt like a fall, but I might be wrong for you.
Sleep beneath the prairie grass.
The mountains rise, an underpass
to mine between this mountains life I lead.
It felt like a fall, but I might be right for you.
This is a sad song for you.
Sometimes I don’t know the words to say.
But it helps just getting something onto the page.
Drawn down through the open road,
Telephone wires cut me to the bone;
exposed, it shows that skin doesn’t know
how much light it takes to get burned.
It felt like a fall, it felt like a fall,
But I might be right for you.
"Morning Rose"
(written May 2011)
Early morning light:
I watch her paint her room,
light in the windows,
her face, lit up
Like a morning rose.
Cans of paint and her brushes
to fill in all the cracks,
paints herself in a corner,
but doesn’t look back.
Sleeps in her room at night,
dreams of a better life,
without ruses of roses
or men with long noses
and people who never tell lies.
So she paints her room
and tries to make it new,
smoothes out the cracks
and glides over the spots,
so that no one can ever see through.
Early morning light:
I watch her paint her room,
light in the windows
her face, lit up
Like a morning rose.
~
"The Box In The Attic"
(written October - November 2011)
My grandparents kept a box in the attic
full off their children’s toys:
the playthings of my mother, her sister, and her brother
never to play with them again.
In winter, the attic’s cold, only warm
through the thin skin of the floorboards,
heat from the body of the house down below,
the house of my mother’s home.
When brought to the house they sent me up there
to play with the toys I didn’t know.
I was only eight, I was all alone
in the house of my mother’s home.
My grandparents forgot that box in the attic
so did I till months ago.
By then the toys were gone and mice had made them home
in the house of my mother’s home.
By then the toys were gone and mice had made them home
in the house of my mother’s home,
in the house of my mother’s home.
~
"11"
(written October 2011 - February 2012)
to pigeons in the fall,
to winter's ghosts and summer's laughter,
echoing down the halls.
The kids in the town drink their whiskey,
break their bottles on the walls,
dream of leaving the country,
dropping out of high school.
The ghosts of cows
stand in abandoned stalls
they low at night and
wonder where they are.
In the dark, they say,
"We're on our own now."
Eleventh grade he brought a girl there
and a bottle of daddy's gin.
They made love on the piles of old hay
and he never thought of her again.
Ten years later she saw him at the store.
He's with his wife and five year-old kid.
She stayed away and offered just a smile;
he didn't know her but she thought that he did.
The ghosts of cows
stand in abandoned stalls
they low at night and
wonder where they are.
In the dark, they say,
"We're on our own now."
She drove out where the farm used to be -
Nothing but a front yard filled with snow.
Some developer bought out all the land,
turned it into a bunch of cookie cutter homes.
She saw a girl make a snowman,
dressed him in his winter clothes.
She approached and gave a little laugh.
You don't know me
but I think I know you.
I see so far,
and you, not at all.
It's a lonely life -
just between us two.
You, me, and a man built from the cold.
~
"Don't Ask Questions"
(written February 2012)
Don’t ask questions too hard to answer:
of midnight wrestles, of awkward dances,
of fumblings in close-walled stairways.
Let us keep those things quiet,
tucked away in diaries and respectful silence.
Let me in, let me in.
Let me into your life.
Little bit, a little bit.
Little bit at a time.
We might converse in slipped notes,
by phone calls or by slow post,
anything but face to face.
That way it’s no more than an errant word,
a passing phrase that you barely heard,
a few fallen syllables underneath my breath.
Let me in, let me in.
Let me into your life.
Little bit, a little bit.
Little bit at a time.
Let me in, let me in.
Let me into your life.
Little bit, a little bit.
Little bit at a time.
Who’d have known it’d be so hard this time
to let a piece of me out into the light,
dust off the skeletons, polish them white.
Let me in, let me in.
Let me into your life.
Little bit, a little bit.
Little bit at a time.
Let me in, let me in.
Let me into your life.
Little bit, a little bit.
Little bit at a time.
Don’t ask questions too hard to answer:
of midnight wrestles, of awkward dances,
of fumblings in close-walled stairways.
~
~
“Flagstaff, AZ”
(written July 2009 - March 2012)
(written July 2009 - March 2012)
Driving along the highway,
it’s four in the morning.
There’s a big rig just passed me by,
no lights on, no warning.
I’ve never seen the sunrise—
it’s enough to see your eyes.
No idea where we’re going,
but we’re going somewhere,
somewhere.
Pink lights up the sky,
only an hour morning ‘til the rising
You tilt your head,
look out at the horizon and
“Somewhere,” you say,
“Somewhere is so far away from here,
somewhere is so far away from here.”
Flagstaff, Arizona,
Santa Fe, New Mexico:
Where will we go?
(I don’t know)
And if dreams could be colors,
they’d be smothered by this light.
Goodnight, night.
Hello, day.
~
~
“Bonnie & Clyde”
(written June 2012)
Meet me at the crossroads tonight—
if you want, we’ll pull a Bonnie & Clyde:
I’ll shoot ‘em up and you can wait outside,
point that steering wheel into the night.
You said you’d always wanted to be on the run!
(So this is what it feels like to be in love…)
(So this is what it feels like to be hurtin’ someone—
a heavy weight falling through my gut.)
They never did us right, only wrong;
told me you were too pretty, I was too young,
but they never saw this one coming, did they?
Did you think I’d be a better man?
Did you think I’d be a better man?
You said you’d wanted to see the coast—
Santa Barbara, San Francisco,
with its big red gate and its houses all in rows,
we’ll waltz right in and pick out a home.
Whaddya mean you’re not cut from this cloth?
Whaddya mean you don’t think that you’re tough?
And why’d you faint at the sight of your blood?
And how many miles away is enough?
Home? You’d think you’d like to go back?
To tip off your dad, put him on my track
I look at you and I wink, I laugh, and I ask
Did you think I’d be a better man?
Did you think I’d be a better man?
(Take that last breath of air,
flip the world a middle finger,
let ‘em know how much I care,
tell ‘em all: I don’t give a fuck!,
and behind my back,
I cross the other for good luck.)
Meet me at the crossroads tonight—
if you want, we’ll pull a Bonnie & Clyde…
