1. |
The Best I've Ever Found
02:25
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I've got half a tank of gas in the gut of this metal casket
And I don't know where it's rolling but I'm never looking back
This city is a graveyard
There's nothing here but rotting buildings
I think I died in that apartment, just too dumb to know I'm done for
Still taste the cheap vodka, think it's buried in my gums
I covered all the windows up
And drowned myself for a year
Maybe that's the best I could do, but I just can't anymore
But we could just drive south forever; glue the pedal to the floor
I've got a lousy fucking temper and I'm angry at the world
But I think I'm doing better this year
So maybe I could pull through it
I guess that what I'm saying is I know I'm damaged goods
But with you I feel less broken, and I'm hoping that you would
Stick around with me and drive this car
Into the ugly ground
Maybe that's the best we can do, but it's the best I've ever found
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2. |
Human Resources
02:49
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Sold my soul to the devil for a bottle of wine
And he told me I came up short
Guess the life that I lead's been killing me
Stripping me of my worth
You and me, honey, have been working our fingers
Down to bare white bone
For a pittance of pay, a struggle everyday
Through the sun and the mud and the dirt
Sold body to industry; plan set since birth
To toil for the tyrants who hostaged the earth
Skin and bone poised to feed the machine:
Make human resources of human beings
Keep on pumping the oil from the dirt
Stark, hollow suits seek to hollow the earth
Fill hollow hands up with silver and gold
Til our blood boileth over and into our throats
Gave my heart to a movement to end in my death
In hopes of removing the boot from my neck
Like a comrade shot down in the street
A failed revolution, a violent regime
It's been painted in red on the wall
That the grave comes a-callin' someday on us all
But if everything dies then this nation will too
Let's just hope that it bites it before me and you
'Cause every ruined kingdom's tantamount to a blank slate
A massive empty canvas or a blank cassette tape
There's so much lost potential inside an abandoned building
When it's boarded up, 'cause god forbid we use the space for something
So break out all your crowbars, if we wait til we're allowed
All these empty buildings will just sit nailed shut all over town
When I'm saying "fuck the government" I really mean my dear
That we could do much better, so let's build something new here
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3. |
Rest in Peace
02:34
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I wonder how many turtles I'll save
I wonder how many more days I'll wait
I'll wait up with you
I'm not tired enough to sleep
Our manic optimism and desire for destruction
Leads us to drown our prudency til our self-control can't function
Those nights when you get mad and leave
It's not you I'm afraid of leaving me
When I found you I though I found the rubric for what love is
With your head on my chest and my face in your breast
We slept like little babies
Your terrors stopped, my insomnia gone, we both could rest in peace
It's been so long is the magic gone/dying
'Cause once again I find it hard to sleep
I don't have much occasion to drink all that much these days
I built these inhibitions, I don't want them to fade away
They're the only thing that's keeping me
From saying what's got me sad
There's no deeper understanding in this constant discontent,
Depressed and drunken rambling
There's only more self-loathing and
Isolation down that path
I lost my train of thought, forgot the damage that I wrought
Do we have to stay up and drink all those beers we got?
It's not the type of night for orphans anyway, so
What say you stay?
When I found you I though I found the rubric for what love is
With your head on my chest and my face in your breast
We slept like little babies
Your terrors stopped, my insomnia gone, we both could rest in peace
It's been so long is the magic gone/dying
'Cause once again I find it hard to sleep
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4. |
Time Dilations, Pt. 2
03:14
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I've got one foot in next week
And crucial organs stuck three years into
The past is where I go when I can't sleep
And brother I ain't sleeping much these days
These nervous thoughts won't go away
My muscles twitch from the anxiety
The only thing that's living in right now's my empty bank account
Perpetually destined to stay that way
There's gotta be a better way to make it through the day
A way to steal a few short hours of sweet peace
But the world keeps spinning round that stupid star
I wish it would decide that it has finally spun too far
Just give me time enough to sleep
I'm sick of suffocating underneath 23 years of PTSD,
Nightmares, missing friends
And all the fucked up ways
You fucked me and my brain up but it's so hard to make peace
When I see ghosts inside my bedroom
And I'm haunted in the streets
So tell me, why do human beings rage and rage against
The clocks that we created
All that ticking's just the sound of your own cage
Like a sea of flipping calendars is the sound of your grave
Each empty day a drink to drink
To numb your aches and pains
The past will tear your head to fucking shreds
Cram it in a bottle til a bottle's all that's left
And it'll rob you of your sleep
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5. |
Teeth
02:33
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Thirty-two million grinding teeth behind one million crooked mouths
Malicious misanthropy manifested as a sound
The stench of human bodies inbetween these warehouse walls
The haunted, creeping call of your agoraphobia
Well, it's been the kind of year that has you keeping rope under your bed
In case you wake up thinking it might be a decent day to die
And making peace is starting to feel more like swallowing your anger
Til it festers deep within you like a cancer eating you from the inside
What's with the worrying?
Make comfort with the futile notion of staying alive
'Cause its a couple billion beats before you're swallowed by the ground
And each one's a little louder, so you better make it count
A fury on what's caging you, a rattling at the bars
A thrashing at the barricades, a fire to the walls
'Cause all your organs are just engines pumping your blood full of oxygen
And all the other chemicals that you need to survive
And someday they will stop and you will rot just like that 1988
Rusted out chevrolet that sits in your garage
Let's brew some war, ya know
Serenity is boring when you know you're gonna die
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6. |
Small Town and Down
01:33
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Travel these streets on feet so callous
Tryna find some folks who are more like us
I pretend I'm safe behind a pair of sunglasses
My body's still too conspicuous
Good old boys with american values
Hoot and holler til their throats our raw
Morality so fragile they feel threatened and challenged
When confronted by anyone outside of their box
Though the mountains raise their heads
Like whales in the seas of mist out west
The forests close their ranks up on the crest
Though this town ain't got that much
We've got each other and that's enough
The only thing left to fear is loneliness
Growing up here we'd scream and shout
Pretending we hailed from almost anywhere else
Our dreams were all shaped like getting out
With portals to other worlds strewn on our shelves
Wanna tell my friends how it's not their fault
'Cause there was nothing for the kids to do but drink and fuck
The world's so big and your horizon's so small
Is it really any wonder we all felt so stuck?
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7. |
Winter
02:41
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It's been three long years since I
Felt like I could breathe
If this blizzard keeps on falling on our house
It just might bury you and me
And the darkness brings me terror
Like the winter brings the cold
And it sticks inside your head just like the
Snow sticks inside of your bones
I'm spitting venom til my gums
Turn green and bleed
But I can only dream of screaming
Over my anxiety
If I could trade my temper to my
Guitar when I play
Have each chord crack the fret board
Like the fury of Dorian Grey
Dorian Grey (hey hey hey)
The snow keeps piling up behind my stupid window frame
Each flake a poke a prod at the neurosis in my brain until
There's nothing left inside of me but blood and guts and rage
I'm out of hope I'm out of gas my body runs on guilt and shame
I'm just praying if I gotta die this year that I can make it til the spring
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8. |
Trigger Happy
02:39
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Trigger happy psychopaths quick to kick your door down
A pretense of protection to legitimize their violence
Keep you desperate, penniless and locked in your routine
Keep the empty pockets empty and the deepest pockets deep
They monopolized survival when they privatized the world
And in the name of lady liberty filled prisons with the poor
Keep the underclasses servile and the vagrants off the street
A paltry price to pay to keep the upper class's peace
But growing numb ain't growing up, so we'll get dead or we'll get tough
Find or make the things we need; we'll grow some food, we'll steal some things
And if that ain't enough we'll get persistent we'll get rough
Raise the stakes, reclaim the streets to build a home for you and me
The state's a gruesome beast and it lies through gruesome teeth:
For the people, by the people; not the people that it eats
For on its breath hangs heavy wretched stench of rotten rebel meat
A river's worth of blood to grease the gears of the machine
And its teeth make gruesome bars that stretch cold for miles and miles
Gaps filled thick with flesh of those that dare defy its power
A continent of cages toil in shackles yet unfree
Another chapter in this country's age of slavery
But growing numb ain't growing up, so for the lost we must stay tough
Find or make the things we need; we'll grow some food, we'll steal some things
And if that ain't enough we'll get persistent we'll get rough
Burn whatever's in our way to build a home for you and me
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9. |
College Song
03:18
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You are more than the wheels you keep spinning
Attached to this machine
We're all caught up inside its momentum, if you
If you know what I mean
Vultures and wolves hit the sidewalk
All teeth and crooked beaks
To strip clean the flesh off the bones of each
Place plagued by this industry
And the kids in this town ain't seen much
Outside their university
Where the heavy equipment is constantly
Shredding the street
They live in complexes owned by
The biggest real estate companies
They get drunk off their ass just to drown out
That awful sense of apathy
And the cranes place steal beams in the lot
Where the new dorm's gonna be
A wave of renovations crash down on the shores
Of nearby streets
They ain't gonna stop til the rent's ten times higher
Than it used to be
And the locals abandon their homes and commute
From Tennessee
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10. |
Monsters
01:59
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There's a monster scraping raking at the contours of my brain
Scratches at my skeleton like steady pouring rain
I'm always anxious for the time it rears its ugly head
I curl up and can't get up and wish that I were dead
There's a ghastly, gory furnace in me stealing all my energy
It burns and screams on coffee, cigarettes cocaine and whiskey
I've run away from it before only to find it somewhere else
The smoke stalking the songbird as she sings her way to hell
I'd like some better tenants than these monsters in my organs
They leave me screaming hoarsely and my friends bloody and torn
I wanna say I'm sorry beg forgiveness from the ground
The words are nothing more than smoke and ash, my guts become unwound
There's a monster in my feet, thrashing gnashing all its teeth
The only time its sated is when I'm walking away
I tried to drown that monster in the water by the beach
Held it down with all my strength; it drug me underneath
There's a monster in my heart that doesn't know how to be loved
It's frightened by sympathy and longings for longevity
When it gets scared it claws the walls to the beating of my pulse
Rattles through my veins like trains on sutures in my skull
I'd like some better tenants than these monsters in my organs
They leave me screaming hoarsely and my friends bloody and torn
I wanna say I'm sorry beg forgiveness from the ground
The words are nothing more than smoke and ash, my guts become unwound
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11. |
The Rules
01:34
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you were my best friend and you were the best man
when we made friends back in middle school it kind of felt like i was cool
why else would you talk to me?
we were the exception and not the rule
we had our teenage crushes and we dealt with being jealous
left boxes bags and closets full at each others' houses
made fun of our sisters
we were the exception and not the rule
you were my best friend and you were the best man
we lowered our bodies into shopping carts and propelled ourselves through the empty lot
ditched when we saw the guards because
the rules always applied to someone else
we spent that year in yards and malls
shooting rotten sweet vodka in that crisp fall
turned out that our rebellion was just like everybody else's was
oh well
the rules always applied to someone else
you were my best friend and you were the best man
they told us what to do and we never listened
tried to build a puzzle with the missing pieces
we were surprised to find out they were right
it turned out everybody was like ourselves
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12. |
Louisiana
02:33
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Louisiana is sinking
The gulf's nipping its toes
You better run inland before that impermanence
Eats everything that you know
The wells all turned tepid; the ocean is toxic
So what use is holding your breath
If you're looking for some meaning in how the world's changing
You're gonna have a bitter time, kid
And the world can be horrible
Humans are so full of shit
I know it hurts when the sunset lets
The horizon out of its grip
But if life gave you legs then you
Might as well keep taking steps
You know the world don't owe you
No more shit
And ya know, I've been thinking
How to try and stay strong
In the face of world industry that takes friends and family
And turns them into capital
There's more to this world than the brisk bitter cold
But this winter's got me feeling like death
All we got is each other so we'll make it together
Or we might not make it at all, friends
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13. |
Genetics
04:26
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There's blood staining my tongue
Cause I've been chewing off my lips
Asphyxiating underneath the weight
Of all my anxiousness
I think I got this from my mother
Think she got it from a god
Who thinks it's funny watching people squirm
Inside of their own bodies
A terror takes your fingers
Sending tremors to your toes
A fury in your marrow
Like a ghost rattling your bones
I got this temper from my father
Think he got it from a god
Who likes to see us rage against
The walls of our own bodies
So I keep bruises on my knuckles
From my fights against the wall
You know, I haven't won one yet
But it's cathartic to let go
Throw yourself into a battle that
You know you'll never win
Just for the feeling of a concrete something
To struggle against
So I see corpses in my dreams
'Cause I've been strangling in their sleep
The parts of me inside my head
That I no longer wish to keep
And maybe trembling through the silence
I can find some sort of peace
Work some dirt beneath my nails
Tilling the soil beneath my feet
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14. |
Compost
04:12
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Well, the rent's racing the tension
Wanna bet who's first to break?
And the crooked politicians are
All on the fucking take
And the keepers of the peace
Well they shoot people in the street
The civilized don't seem so civilized
To me
They're out there killing kids
'Cause of the color of their skin
And maybe you ain't raised the stakes
'Cause of the neighborhood you're in
But ain't you heard the word my friend
That what is right now happening
Inside the ghettos happens next
To me and you?
So bring it down, bring it down
Tear it to the fucking ground
Rock every prison, courthouse, jail
And DMV
We'll bulldoze every state building
And in the rubble we'll plant seeds
And fertilize the ground
With reactionaries
The constitution that you worship's
Just a dirty useless rag
Ya know it's drenched in blood and violence
Like your ugly fucking flag
A right's not something that you've gained
It's just a tiny list of things
The state hasn't yet deigned
To take away
And it was drafted up by men
Who sought to undermine the peace
They overfished, they overhunted
With intent they spread disease
Wherever natives took a stand
They went and called the army in
The PC term for that's
"Manifest Destiny"
So bring it down, bring it down
Tear it to the fucking ground
Rock every prison, courthouse, jail
And DMV
We'll bulldoze every state building
And in the rubble we'll plant seeds
And fertilize the ground
With reactionaries
With the last local drove away
They went to hammering in stakes
Built walls and fences
And they called it property
And though those dickheads are long dead
We must obey the rules they set
Says countless boxes of
Government ammunition
But when the lastest low-wage worker
Is replaced by a machine
And no one's left to buy the products
That they're manufacturing
When the people hit the streets
For bread or blood, oh, they will scream
Who will the national guard
Be protecting?
So bring it down, bring it down
Tear it to the fucking ground
Rock every prison, courthouse, jail
And DMV
We'll bulldoze every state building
And in the rubble we'll plant seeds
And fertilize the ground
With reactionaries
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15. |
Goddamn This World
03:30
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We're running out of space to waste, we're running out of fossil
We'll run this world into the ground, yeah, anything is possible
The shares we bought in shell will soon save our sorry souls
Houses lined with heirlooms, cash and other shit we stole
The arsonist and the architect are running neck and neck
Good goddamn, when will you people learn?
There's only so much time left on this dispassionate speck
Goddamn this world's taking a long time to burn
Humans won't stop pouring gas til everything's on fire
Corporate greed has turned this place into a funeral pyre
Converts the time of the working class to products to consume
Or hoard them in your house until you run out of room
You violent pack of fascists better watch your fucking backs
Good goddamn, when will you people learn?
The people/folks that you're exploiting will soon rise and attack
Goddamn this world's taking a long time to burn
The bosses and their cronies are amassing greater fortunes
They're cutting checks for record profits while we're cutting portions
The CEOs and pundits screaming "burn, burn, burn"
The water boils around us while we're waiting for our turn
The arsonist and the architect are running neck and neck
Good goddamn, when will you people learn?
There's only so much time left on this dispassionate speck
Goddamn this world's taking a long time to burn
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