The Weirdest Trophy

I landed on your golf course late last night

I camped up in a tree, sharpening my knives and aim.

I came to hunt the strangest game.

Rest assured, big man,

I only wanna bring you fame. 

And when the sun came up I was primed for the kill

I waited in a sand trap, armed to the gills

but no,

you never made it to the second hole.

Now I know that we should only hunt the best of a species

and everything about this dude is definitely feces

but none of us have ever seen a skull as thick as his! 

Let me take that big weight off your shoulders!

Let me help you out of all that old loose skin— 

we can make you something great again

(It’s a rare thing to see)

Now your head could be the most peculiar trophy that I’ll ever win.  

I climbed to the window of your penthouse suite and

saw you dancing in your bathrobe, hookers at your feet

but no gun;

nothing you could shoot but crack.

I try to play by the rule: only kill what could kill you back.

But then you walked to the window, dripping in wealth.

Were you looking at me or were you staring at yourself? 

Who knows… 

until you go and drop that robe :(

Now I know you thought that you were simply humping your reflection,

but where I come from that’s a textbook gesture of aggression.

You left me with no other choice but to destroy you from the neck down!

Let me take that big weight off your shoulders!

Let me help you out of all that old loose skin— 

You’ll be more human than you’ve ever been. Please!

Let me take that big weight off your shoulders!

Let me help you out of all that old loose skin— 

We can make you something great again

(It’s a rare thing to see)

Now your head could be the most peculiar trophy that I’ll ever win.  

I smash through the window

and I knock you on your back.

To show you my respects

I disconnect and drop my mask.

Then suddenly I lose you in the room without a trace— 

you blend into the background with your fire-colored face!

Let me take that big weight off your shoulders!

Let me help you out of all that old loose skin!

I’ve hunted everything from Xenomorphs to Carl Weathers…

Special Forces, Tarzan, fuckers with their shit together.

No one ever pulled a spineless stunt like this before—

Cowardice on par with Killers in the Three World War!

By the time I get my mask back on this gorgeous face,

the Orange One is gone and I’ve become a big disgrace!

I don’t care who you are back in the world—

you ghost me again… I’ll bleed you… real quiet

The Man Who Knows Best

Come tell me my fortune, old prophets and priests! 

Come teach from the book that’s so often revised!

Explain how I look from my savior’s eyes!

Ain’t it miraculous how you can preach from your knees?

No food for the beggar, no love for the thief…

No room for the other in the company you keep.

And who is my Lord now: is it father or son? 

Well the old gods are dead and there’s only one left 

to the man who know’s best for everyone.

When will the punchline come?

Come make my life easier, young technologists!

Just outsource and automate all of my needs…

improve the design of my final disease   

and fix all my problems before they exist.

The hand that you build may be used as a fist,

but you’ll define “progress” however you wish

and what kind of world will we have when you’re done? 

Destiny’s manifested—a virtual success

for the man who knows best for everyone.

When will the punchline come? 

You gotta make my hometown safe, brave Mr. Politician!

Who’s gonna save my kids from terrorist commie heathens?

Who’s gonna make them pay the ultimate price for freedom?

Everybody outside’s trying to pop the bubble we live in.

What if their truth isn’t self-evident?

And if they can’t live without what is broken within?

“Well there’s no eye to eye so don’t even try,”   

says the man who knows why for everyone.

  

When will the punchline come?

Come sing me a soundtrack, my artist and friend!

Come make my life feel much more real than it’s been.

You used to sing all that I couldn’t explain

and now you just buy those you can’t entertain,

So march to the drum of the numb and the young…

you’re the man who knows best for everyone.

When will the punchline come?

Team Love

Maybe it’s semantics but I don’t believe in love….

as a noun

I think it’s only a verb

because I know I can’t run out of it,

I know I can’t hold onto it,

but I can own the conduits

and make sure they work.

Well, well, well

well sometimes they do

and sometimes they don’t

and sometimes you have to fix the come and go

I’m just a bit addicted to the tops and tails of loving 

it starts just like a sudden rain

on fields of baked and brittle crop

and ends just like a housing market crash

when delusions finally stop

Ahhhh

I love those twin peaks

that help suspend that thin bridge 

which spans across the most impossible love

But everything between I seem to struggle with

when everything is calm I feel inadequate

I get passive.

Loving’s never passive.

No, no, no, no

I never really learned to love effectively

I only seem to love in ways I want to be

I don’t aim right.

Loving should be precise. 

When love was just a noun I could run up a tab lying down

coasting on the fallacy of constant love

but in reality I think we love in fits and starts

and everything between is just a promised heart. Hey!

I know it’s not romantic but sometimes I think we never truly love another being so much as the sensation of loving 

Perhaps the height of happiness is nothing more miraculous than optimized giving and receiving in perfect rhythm

and it’s hard to find…

it’s so hard to find…

it’s hard to find someone with rhythm like mine.

If I want to be a great man, (if I wanna be a great man)

I will be forever working, (I will be forever working)

and I’ll be fixing up my inputs and my outputs

I will learn to love and be loved from any direction

If I could do that 

I would never be lonely

If I could do that 

I would be so patient

If I could do that  

I would never withhold loving

If I could do that 

I would never concern myself with reciprocation

I’d never let someone be a bottleneck of my loving.

I’d learn to feed the world and by the world be fed.

If I could fix the stitching of our broken language,

I could be sewn into the soil rather than hanging by a thread.

We have one word for so many different relations…

from child love to inanimate objects 

Now is this because we don’t value love?

or because we know it’s a concept so simple and binary

it’s easy to confuse it with the memory or the promise of 

impossible love.

Expensive Love

There's a drip in the tub that I just can't fix

and I can't find a rug to cover up the skidmarks from where your feet kept losing ground.

You were carving up a tomb from the home I found.

I could afford the surgery,

and I could absorb the cost of drugs,

but I just needed some sort of guarantee

that you'd see me through

Dear Lu

Loving you is so expensive

Loving you is so expensive, darling 

Loving you is so expensive, Lumey,

I knew you had to go but didn't know it'd be so costly 

You got a little bit sicker when you came on tour

but still you stood right by me 'til your legs were sore

and it was hard to leave you out in the van some nights…

sometimes you gotta do wrong to make the long term right.

But then you got much worse when I took the job -

I had to leave work late and get up at ungodly hours to get out of all the debts I owed.

Maybe you couldn't see the man for the brand new clothes, 

but everything else was much improved.

We ate our weight in brand-name foods.

I became the father you never knew 

but it was too late

Dear Lu

Loving you is so expensive

Loving you is so expensive, darling 

Loving you is so expensive, Lumey,

I knew you had to go but didn't know how much it’d cost me

Loving you… 

Loving you… 

Loving you…

I knew you had to go, 

but didn’t know

I didn’t know

didn’t know

I didn’t know

I didn’t know

Where is the Fire?

Everyone says to forgive myself first,

but my heart is as dark as the dirt 

in your black fur 

in the deep hole

in the dark night outside

I don't want forgiveness I just wanna see you again

and I would burn in hell just to hold my friend.

If I'd got there a little bit sooner…

If I'd shut my fucking computer…

You'd still be here 

painting our house with your dander and calm.

Maybe I was trying to keep from feeling out of control

but now I would burn in hell just to feel at all.

I’m so numb I can’t resolve.

So where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Bring me the fire.

Will you remember the middle of things?

Or will I be judged by my butcherous endings,

all clumsy and wrong?

My book-ending shame

I’d sell for a song

to sing in your name.

Where’s my heart in all this?

Is it speaking?

I’ve not heard a thing…

Am I just holding on too tight?

Or letting go too easy?

Nothing feels quite right…

my everything is freezing.

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Bring me the fire.

Bring me the fire.

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Where is the fire?

Watering the Soil

Water the Soil

On the stone I carved your name

on my heart, the chiseled flame-like 

permanence 

but there's no permanence

that’s just some shit we say in fear

to help us pass the years

I was lost and couldn't sleep

with you distant from my feet,

my perfect son,

what have I done?

I put you in the ground tonight

out beside the house 

by the window light

I laid out there in our blanket

and imagined you were kicking in your sleep

just three feet below

where your father weeps

In the morning I came to

Did you hear me calling you

I listened then

with pressing ear, 

"You're not alone - I'm here,

watering the soil

just above you, dear"

Underestimate Me

I felt you leaving

in November

after I drove up to see you

I read between your thinning lines of texts

and busy weekends

I knew the truth but I asked you to give it to me straight

but you underestimated me

I know that boy

is so pretty

with his New York sensibilities

I know you float

on a tide of lusting users

so you don’t see how I could feed you like all of those youthful things

but you underestimated me

‘cause I would provide for you

(maybe not in the fiscal sense)

but I would provide for you

(uh, baby no more than just two kids)

I mean… I’d make a space for you to be 

the wonder you are to me

the wonder you are for me

the rare thing you are to see

the best person you can be

Now that you’ve blazed me

once again 

I won’t be running back to Washington

I won’t be hoping that you’ll understand

I won’t be begging you to choose…

My throat is tight, my heart is loose.

So I’ll just remember how you made me forget the world all around me

while the world still reminds me of you.

A Letter to a Young Lyricist

Hi Matt, 

Thanks for taking an interest in my work! Congrats on your decision to pursue music. As I'm sure you're aware, it's a long painful journey with lots of sacrifices but more fulfillment than the average career, I'd bet. 

I suspect that my lyrical proclivities are a bit abnormal, so I'm not sure my approach is worth replicating, but I'm happy to tell you my personal philosophy and opinion in regard to prose/lyrics:

1) Read everything. A writer without a thorough grasp of the english language and the myriad of ways brilliant people have been exploiting it for centuries is like a drummer without rudiments... she might hit a few nice pockets, but she won't have the means to get acrobatic and will work much harder at phrasing than one with a diverse vocabulary and historical knowledge. Watch people like Van Dyke Parks, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan speak in interviews. It’s not a coincidence that they are some of the greatest lyricists of all time.

2) Listen to everything. Dissect the lyrics that really impact you. Figure out why they were so effective. Early in my development I was impacted by the lyrics of Rufus Wainwright, Joanna Newsom, Perry Farrell, Black Thought, Thom Yorke, Pharaoh Monch, Mos Def, Bjork, MF Doom, etc., but it took me too long to understand why. As someone that wants to increase my lyrical arsenal, it would be wise for me to listen both as an average listener and as a word engineer, and articulate why a phrase impacts me the way it does, so I can apply it to my work.

3) Live through everything. A lyricist is just a journalist in a poet’s jacket. Even fiction writing is based on first hand experience. Every few years I run out of stories. When that happens, I have to accept that I've lost my input/output balance; I'm writing more than I'm experiencing. This is a very common rut for artists, but seldom do they address it for fear of losing momentum. Stop writing, go out and have a breakup, or a car accident, or a crappy job, or a baby, or a protest... to "refill the coffers" with life stories that you can translate and relate to other people. The world doesn’t need more songs about how enjoyable dancing is. 

4) Be curious about everything. The most important and effective lyrics are those that tell the listener something they already know, but do so in a way they could not previously articulate. When you do that you are doing the listener a big service, and thereby creating value. Essentially, you are just drawing lines between things that other people had not connected before. This is the essence of good poetry. If I tell you that “love is like a burning flame in the chest” your response is most likely, “Yeah. Thanks for the incredible perspective.” If I tell you that “love is like having a bakery follow you around” you will stop and consider this, and may think, “Huh, it is kind of like that… walking near a bakery lifts my spirits with the smell of comfort. If a bakery were to follow me around, I would constantly feel like that. What a strange but accurate comparison that I had not thought of. Here is my money, GavCaz.” 

The way to train yourself to make these connections between disparate experiences easily is to learn about as many different worlds as possible, and take note of everything, especially how an experience makes you feel, so that you can find the parallels and intersections. Be curious about all things and people. Read, read, read. If you get good at it, you shouldn’t have to turn on your poetry cap… it will always be on. The goal is to live poetically. If you achieve that, lyrics will come easily. I’m not there yet, but I’m closer than I was five years ago.

5) Don’t worry about rhyming so much. Rhyming has ruined more lyrics than it’s improved. First learn how to write great poetry, and then worry about making it rhyme. Rhyming is easy when you have a dense vocabulary. Effective messaging is hard. Effective messaging with tasteful rhyming is the final step. 

That’s about all I got. Good luck - recognizing that your lyrics are a weak spot already puts you ahead of 98% of the artists out there, so stay at it and keep the long view.

Gavin

One Steel Door

Maybe there's just one last door between your lover and your heart
Maybe it was forged from the most impervious steel
and hinged on the most expensive parts

Maybe you will wait your whole life for someone to unlock it
And maybe they will,
maybe they won't

Maybe you're wrong about which side of the door the keyhole is on
and that's the most important part.

Average Man

Now when I was a young boy,
‘bout the age of five
my teachers told me
I could be the greatest man alive

they told me I could change the world

be whatever I wanted to be

there was no one in the world like me

every one of us was so unique

I’d not be an average man

no sir, I’d be no average man  

so I had those big dreams

and I had those big skills

had a reason to live

and I had some time to kill

but the world got louder still

yeah the world got louder still

it tried to drown me out

it tried to break down my will

“Get out my way, I ain’t no average man”

I was thinking so much bigger than the average man 

they flood my feed with all these useless lists

while I was curing cancer with these nonstop hits

so I was bitter towards the average man

then I hit my thirties like a bird against a window

I couldn’t reconcile the two disparate versions of me:

on the one hand was this man in search of comfort

and on the other was this meta-superhero I could be 

maybe my eyes were never big

maybe my head was small

the man who knows his place

may be the greatest man of all 

I found freedom in obscurity

and purity in poverty

why try to be amazing in a world so saturated with amazingness? 

it’s blazing us

exhausting me, 

I wonder what it’s costed me,

the price I’ve paid for baby boomers 

propping up my self-esteem,

I should let go of all these scripted, movie-lifted dreams

and seek solace in my species 

as an average man

I’ll pay admission like an average man

I’ll raise a family like an average man

I’ll rock the hairline of an average man

I’ll binge on Netflix like an average man

I drop a remix like an average man

I crowd-source it like an average man

I’m hyperbolic like an average man

I only iterate like an

Doom

They say depression is a weight that pulls you down
but to be honest I've not found that to be true
it grabs me by the lungs, it tries to lift me off this planet
chewing up the final threads that connect me to you

and I've been running out of things to keep me grounded
I'm having trouble finding love that makes me stick
with every song I try to run it down  
before it runs me through
everybody's talking ‘bout progress
but all I see is
         
Doom
it follows me around
it drips into my shoes
I feel like I'm the only one who sees the future as a noose
I got them future blues, Satan

If you don’t know what I’m going through
I can try to spell it out for you:

Sometimes the sinking starts just thinking ‘bout my cel phone
I wonder how I have so many friends but feel alone
I notice how I feel so weightless when it’s left at home
and how I fill up every space with content that doesn’t leave me content

I start to spiral down through thoughts of population boom
perhaps the cancer starts the second that we leave the womb
it seems the more we’re extricated from the food chain,
the more creative time we have
but the less we have to say
it’s all

Doom
it follows me around
it drips into my shoes
I feel like I'm the only one who sees the future as a noose
I got them future blues

I understand it now
how a man finds himself on a water tower
raining down helter skelter
sell the whole house for the underground shelter
feel the storm comin
I can’t stand still enough to
stop my mind running
I see it play out
this song is a bread crumb, a toast to the empire
enjoy the smell of meat while my feet in the fire
I know I’m not preaching to the choir
whatever

I know you’d rather dance than understand the wiring
truth is overrated, reality is tiresome
cling to the twos and the fours
dance like I’m talking about how young we are
sounding like Fun.-loving folklore
ignore what I’m saying while I desecrate the #blessed dance floor
hard to articulate the great white fate
the end coming nearer
the writing on the mirror
says

Doom
it follows me around
it drips into my shoes
I feel like I'm the only one who sees the future as a noose
I got them future blues

[repeat ad nauseam]

Liquid Truth

Don't you wonder how you got stuck in this loop -
working for the paycheck that you use to buy the suit
you say, "Well, I just got paid and my money's all gone…
fuck the rent, tonight I'm buying liquid truth"
Heyeyey

Don't you wanna go back to life before the job?
Yeah, you were broke but at least you weren't choking on the fog
and the older I get, the less I remember the plan
It's easy to lose track of time when you're putting in time for the man

Don't you wonder how you got stuck in this loop -
working for the paycheck that you use to buy the suit
you say, "Well, I just got paid and my money's all gone…
fuck the rent, tonight I'm buying liquid truth"
Heyeyey

Don't you find yourself taking work home… to the bar
and don't you ask yourself, “How the fuck I get home with no car?”
and don't tell her your musician, just because you're looking to score.
And you look deep in the drink and speak the truth, "Yo, bottle: I shoulda spilled my life on the keyboard like dadadadaaaaa…”

Don't you wonder how you got stuck in this loop -
working for the paycheck that you use to buy the suit
you say, "Well, I just got paid and my money's all gone…
fuck the rent, tonight I'm buying liquid truth"
Heyeyey

you gotta get up
you gotta get up
you gotta get up
you gotta get up

Don’t you ever ask yourself, "Did I take this job or did this job take me?"
Don’t you ever ask yourself, "Did I take this job or did this job take me?"
Don't you ever answer, "I'm a piece of shit”

Don't you wonder how you got stuck in this loop -
working for the paycheck that you use to buy the suit
you say, "Well, I just got paid and my money's all gone…
fuck the rent, tonight I'm buying liquid truth" Heyeyey

[repeat ad nauseam]

The Easy Life

I'm barely here

I'm barely here

my skin's so thin 

the fluorescents shine right through it 

Can they see how close I am?

like an abscess leaking fluid 

How many people in this store

are just about to lose it?

I ran up to the counter

like a man who's on fire

crying out to the pharmacist,

"Give me something to make the world smaller,

something to make the world smaller,

I need something to make the world smaller for me.” 

‘Cause I just can't handle this easy life

gotta find something wrong just to feel alright

I just can't stand this easy life

am I afraid of love, or just love a fight?

Oh no

Lately it seems so easy 

to get paralyzed by the size of things

(oh no, no no)

my soul’s agoraphobic,

I can't find a light to shine in the night of things

(oh no, no no)

I need a motorbike or a puppy,

some gravity to turn the tide of things

(oh no, no no)

it's so easy to lose your narrative 

when you question the wrong and right of things

When I think about

all that pain I caused

to the girls I’ve loved

and the friends I lost

I wonder how I ever sleep at night…

    

I guess I just can't handle this easy life

gotta find something wrong just to feel alright

I just can’t stand this easy life

am I afraid of love, or just love a fight?

[repeat ad nauseam]

Free Download - Holiday Hit Song "Tangerines"

It's that time of year when I suddenly get gooey-eyed thinking about how a bunch of people I don't even know support me and help me do what makes me happy. Here is a free hit song I offer as "thanks" to you - it's guaranteed to cheer you up this holiday season:



Lyrics:
We gather at my sister's house on Christmas Eve
I tip toe through the snowflakes shaped like nephews and nieces
and I wish I had my son with me, but he died last year
It's only he knows what I went through just to still be here

and everything has changed
the only thing constant is

Tangerines
in my stocking again
Tangerines
something I can depend on

And the older I get, the more I miss the pulse of an old religion
as it becomes harder and harder for me to identify my breadcrumbs,
and I start to see the value of traditions like

Tangerines
like my mother used to give us
Tangerines
like my sister has continued
Tangerines
a fruit that bookends my years
Tangerines
they come as steady as the tears

And I used to brush off this stuff
when Lu was just a pup
but now I know

if you anchor yourself to the biggest things
they will pull you down when they start to sink
when drifting off to sea it's best to cling to simple things like

Tangerines
in my stocking again
Tangerines
one thing I can depend on

Tangerines
like my mother used to give us
Tangerines
like my sister has continued...

Hannah Boo - 5th installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 5th collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Kickstarter campaign in which a Backer provides me with lyrics which I then turn into a hit song.  The inspiration for this track was provided by Maya Peart, who gracefully recounted the life and final days of her beloved pure bred Bullmastiff, Hannah. 

Regarding the music: 

I don't know why I return to hymnal harmony when trying to communicate pain, but I do. That being said, I purposefully kept it from following any expected direction, so as to simulate the sea-legs of profound loss. To represent that hourly oscillation between numbness and hysterics, I used a man vs. machine theme throughout the production: authentic snare and ride cymbal paired with electronic kick drum; synth strings and rhodes with acoustic guitar and electric bass; unfettered lead vocal with robotic vocoded harmonies. 

Regarding the lyrics:

It is a heavy thing, paying homage to someone this special. It is a heavier thing still to take on the voice of the grieving. If I weren't still knee-deep in my own grieving over Lumas, I'd venture to say that this sort of emotional co-opting is downright morally reprehensible. But lucky for me, Hannah's parents are dear friends of mine and myLumas, and were wonderful enough to trust me with something this sensitive. I really struggled to marry the subjective snapshots laid out in the verses with the objective rhetorical questions posed in the choruses. I know that the specifics of Hannah's death are not entirely clear to a listener who did not know her, and I grappled with whether or not to remedy that. In the end, I felt that vacillating between the details of injustice and a desperate lunge at gaining a larger context turns out to be a pretty accurate depiction of what coping with a loss of this magnitude looks like. So the song remains a dichotomy, optimized for her parents.

Hannah Boo

Well I suppose you were the silent type

but oh oh oh dear, you made a riot out of my tiny life

and nosed your way into every space

the anti-graceful, full of grace

you stoic bulldozer

why did you leave me with this mess?

And why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts alive?

The way it went down was so hard to take

we'd been through hell and back but things felt ok

when the call came through we were both far away

Darling Hannah Boo, we never abandoned you!

I tried to be still but I'm not built that way

I couldn't take control or make the call - I had no say

Now I can't fill your space

I can dwell on the best, forget the rest but

why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts thrive?

Maybe I'm wrong,

maybe I'm right

maybe my small heart tripled in size

just knowin' you,

just lovin' you,

myHannah Boo...

Expensive Love - live in my pajamas

Here's a new video I shot while experimenting with my new TC-Helicon VoiceLive Play vocal harmonizer/effects processor:

Expensive Love
There's a drip in the tub that I just can't fix
and I can't find a rug to cover up the skidmarks from where your feet kept losing ground.
You were carving up a tomb from the home I found.
And I could afford the surgery,
and I could absorb the cost of drugs,
but I just needed some sort of guarantee that you'd see me through.

Dear Lu,
loving you is so expensive
loving you is so expensive, darling
loving you is so expensive, baby
I knew you had to go but didn't know it'd be so costly

You got a little bit sicker when you came on tour,
but still you stood right by my until your legs were sore,
and it was hard to leave you out in the van some nights.
Sometimes you gotta do wrong to make a longterm right.

But then you got much worse when I took the job;
I had to leave work late and get up at ungodly hours to get out of all the debts I owed.
Maybe you couldn't see the man for the brand new clothes,
but everything else was much improved:
We ate our weight in brand name foods.
I became the father you never knew

But it was too late

Dear Lu,
loving you is so expensive
loving you is so expensive, darling
loving you is so expensive, Lumey
I knew you had to go but didn't know it'd be so costly


loving you is so expensive, baby
loving you is so expensive, darling
loving you is so expensive, Lumey
I knew you had to go but didn't know how much it'd cost me

Diamonds

Once I got this fancy job

I can't lie, I got fat

Once you get a backyard to maintain

it gets hard to go back

I try to pull the pain from the most mundane of places

but it all feels weak:

a wrinkle on my face

a cold sore in the cheek

but if you stack the world on my back,

if you squeeze the eyes from my head

I'll still make those diamonds, diamonds, diamonds

diamonds 'til I'm dead

Call it what you will:

a changing of the tune

a pepper in the mill

a salting of the wound

so now it takes a week to write a song about writer's block

and all I do is watch the clock

but if you take the soup from my bowl,

ya, if you take the love from my bed, 

if you take the hope from my soul

well I'll still give you diamonds, diamonds, 

diamonds 'til I'm dead

diamonds 'til I'm dead 

I still make those diamonds, diamonds, diamonds 

diamonds 'til I'm dead

[blazing solo]

Is it wrong that there's nothing wrong?

Without conflict is it still a song?

Should I take the money and stand still?

Should I trade the wind for the trees? 

Or can I bear the weight with my will?

Can I break the world on my knees?

all for  those diamonds, diamonds, diamonds,

diamonds 'til I'm dead

I still make those diamonds, diamonds, diamonds,

diamonds 'til I'm dead

I make those diamonds, diamonds, diamonds,

diamonds 'til I'm dead

Still make those diamonds, diamonds, diamonds 

diamonds 'til I'm dead

Since 1968 (Overclock Orchestra remix) lyrics

Since 1968

I'm a four-legged zombie on a two-step dance floor
I'd double down your money, honey, if you know what's good for... you.

Vampire won't go far
sucking the life out of the party
and Werewolf has no chance
cause Mr. Werewolf has no pants

Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the monster Dance Party
Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the monster Dance Party
Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the monster Dance Party
Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the Monster Dance Partay

lurch left
neck spasm
dead stare
right at 'em
drag leg
nash teeth
on flesh
we feed

I can never lose
while I wear four shoes

I'm the undead quadruped - I could paint the town blood
ready, set, better step back or you could lose your
headstart you need it, clumsy mummy pokes you in the
I could cut a rug until it's bleeding through the ceiling

Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the monster Dance Party
Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the monster Dance Party
Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the monster Dance Party
Since 1968 I've been the number one champ at the Monster Dance Partay

Bombs overhead, put your face on, ladies,
they'll take you home tonight.
Bombs overhead, paint your face by number,
they'll never run away.
We got a wallet here, anyone lose a wallet?

Notre Fils Tombé

Here is a live video of the third track from Travelight, my perpetually-postponed children's album, featuring my incredibly talented cousin Seth Castleton on cello.



NOTRE FILS TOMBÉ
We flew into the stratosphere
and landed on the moon at last
It wasn't like the photographs,
it wasn't quite a wild frontier

We lay inside a crater bed
with rockets blasting overhead
the planets sang a lullaby
as all the stars began to cry,

"Oooooooooooooooooooh,
Our star is home at last, notre fils tombé!
Our sorrows have now passed, notre fils tombé!"
But my star had seen how blue a blue can be...
he said, "I really need my space, ma petite famille!"

They said, "Wait for the sun to set,
don't try to be so brave!
You've got to stop and rest
under celestial shade!

You're made of rock and ice
you'll simply melt away...
this moon is paradise
forget the light and stay
forget the light and stay
forget the light and stay
forget the light and stay...

A Light Like Yours

Here's another video from my Utah shoot with Richard Busath. This is the second track from Travelight, my upcoming children's album, and it features my incredibly talented cousin Seth Castleton on cello.



A LIGHT LIKE YOURS
There was a star caught down in the drain
caught up in the hair and the slime and muck
it tried to shoot out but its tail got stuck
I tried not to hear, but it was screaming my name

So I got a hammer and I shattered the tub
smiled down on my star from a few feet above
I reached out my hand but the star was afraid
it hadn't seen light like the light of the day...
a light like mine.

Then inch by inch,
up the pipe
it moved.
Up and out,
above my house
we flew.

All around my little town we flew,
my star amazed by this new shade of blue.
We headed towards the moon.

Look for your star
wherever you are
it's calling your name
way down in a drain
and you've got to help this star by yourself.
It's not that hard to help a star:
up the spout
you can shine it out
with a light like yours.