Lyrics

Starting with Song 11, Hold Over Me, we’ve been embedding lyrics in the song file. So if you do “get info” on the track in iTunes, and check the lyrics tab, you’ll see the lyrics right there! But we’ll still post ‘em here, too. HooRAY!

Little Houses
little houses accompanied by
mouths for windows, never opening wide
is it a trap? I don’t know
little houses refuse to grow

all I wanna do is steal you

I’ve got a fire to dance by
burn black feathers to smudge the sky
every night I watch for tears in the road
little chasms where solid things won’t go
(I wait for you there)

all I wanna do is steal you

Vanishing Point
standing between a thought and an unforgivable action
did you find your ultimate distraction?

watching the figures and plotting out their positions
did you find your vanishing point?

how can you disappear when every step closer makes you more real?

you told me your plan to reach the horizon
abseil the nearest mountain to nothingness

what I’ve got to ask you now is have you found your goal?
your vanishing vanishing point?

how can you disappear when every step closer makes you more real?
you’ll run, but perspective drags you back
it draws you back, it draws you into corners you can’t stand,
confined by their design darken my doorway with a cheshire smile even the cat himself cannot match

Caught in a Frame
the subjects are falling down
caught in a frame where they can’t hurt you now
like an actress fixed in a frown
the marquis is blank as a portrait
with two eyes that can’t see you

the ticker tape is wet on the ground
the song ringing past is slowly drowned out
the silent girl standing here on the ground
holding a pose for a photo
with two arms that can’t reach you

this deceptive artistry captured you there, left for me
replacing memories with something terrible

Locked Piano
locked piano, long locked piano
behind its wooden doors
locked piano, key’s done its dance
locked piano

the key’s to blame, I know

I’m so safe here where I can think clear
behind my wooden doors
locked piano, key’s done its dance
stayed my hand ’til I lost my chance

the key’s to blame, I know

king doubt throws his hand down, turns me all around,
the moon creeps by with no sound
the ghost of the soul who walks the patrol for the one who’ll let you know

the key’s to blame, I know

Something’s burning hot, deep down and forgot
molten strings won’t let you go
jealously guarding what you lost here behind your wooden doors

hollow, hollow wood who wishes I could stop the brain’s feast on the soul
quiet in the hall, bleed into the wall
why can’t I let you know?

the key’s to blame, I know

Variations
things to do today, I haven’t started yet
people i haven’t met, I write them down in pen
noon it comes and goes and i’m still not out of bed
it’s quiet in my head, I think in black and red

variations on a series of unreal
expectations of a hollow ideal

sometimes i see you on the other side of the street,
a smile on your face. you haven’t met me yet
i see the snow falling, each one a person pointing down,
it’s all i know. the only places I go.

variations on a series of unreal
expectations of a hollow ideal

so tired of defending my position
a weakened structure falling into the arms of the opposition

Outlier
The silhouette of the order is all I can see now
Stomping, shouting, kicking through this town
And I know that it wants me to agree

The master’s eye is a judgemental one
Asking why his still life has to run
And I know he just wants me to go

Outlier, do what you gotta do
Outlier, what are you gonna do?

The spotlight finds its shaking prey
It’s got nothing left to say
And I know it’s too late to fold away

Propped up for the day
While they find an excuse to back away
And I know this is how it’s gonna stay

Outlier, do what you gotta do
Outlier, what are you gonna do?

Happy Go Lucky
There were times, I know, I didn’t respond at all
I think you were trying to draw me in past my own great wall
But I know leaves that blow before they resolve
Dodging this way and that, before your call

So sick of the hopeful thoughts you can’t see
They follow me around, bite at me,
When your careless hand yanks me back in
And wipes me away again, wipes me clean again

You’ve got Happy-Go-Lucky,
and I’ve got dirty streets emptied of all coherent thought
You’ve got Happy-Go-Lucky,
and I’ve got a pretty painting I’ve hung on the far wall

So we sent the files through the foreign wires
Across the sea, a giant might turn his back on me
I’m holding softly here, waiting for my release
But it’s really a fool’s gold-plated vapor hanging there

In the flickering theater light, one story begins and another ends
Just like I thought it might
The silver screen smiles back at me, losing something in the dark
You can’t see

There were times, I know, I didn’t stop you at all
I let you lead me down the road, through ruined halls
But you know the green that grows in the cracks in the wall
Autumnal corrosives for the coming fall

Impossibly Steep
Blowing through the December air, you’re dried smoke
It’s enough to make you wish you weren’t here.
Entering stage left, restless eyes forward, watching you fake
Not enough, not enough, no, not ever enough

Inevitably broken ethos, I lie within

Failed believer searching for relief in rhetorical grief
It’s too steep, too steep, too impossibly steep
She’s not me, but I want her to be, I’m not ever enough
Not enough, not enough, no, not ever enough

John Darnielle Is Being Slowly Crushed By The Weight Of His Fans’ Adulation
broken clocks, these heads and hearts
overcome by moving parts
eyes watching you sonically unveil your calling
oh, what you must see from up there

adulation is a weight
they won’t lift from you
the gifts they are to bring, so very great
never withheld from you

confusion’s got a brand new place
a measure from the deaf contributor
he only wants to hide his face
shaping defenses with a walk away pace

57 Photographers
shifting zeroes, carrying ones
the math never works but the numbers have won
wasted so much time, but anyway I
wouldn’t have been ready

checked depression at the door
with a tag that says certainly, sure
this will be returned at the end of the night
remember your number, alright?

oh, these simple sounds, sewed to the spot,
face down, overwhelmed and underground

when pressed again just give it a try
nominated to tell a responsible lie
prepared with care, hoping to provoke
some stupid reaction

we struggled to find the actual you
modified but with nothing to lose
57 photographers couldn’t
capture your likeness

Hold Over Me
one and two and a three and a four
and the past is an entity that sleeps on my floor
and I don’t know when it will move
got two sons and i won’t give ‘em a name
and i don’t know if i can avoid them again
and i move to the left and i move to the right
but it’s still the same sad game
i’ve got to, i’ve got to be
on the side refusing me

when i move inside it’s a slow retreat
and i can’t remember if i can cut my own teeth
and i’m lost in a maze that might as well be myth
swimming past the trench that’s the great divide
he’s drowning the girl so he can learn to get by
and i’m not watching from the water’s edge
they are the damper that’s clamped down on the strings
and they don’t hear the effect that it’s had
on people like me, oh like me

each day i wake up and i wonder inside
if it’s about survival or a compromise
and i don’t know what to think
oh what to think
i’ve got to, i’ve got to be
on the side refusing me

ah ah ah, hold over me

Lost And Unsettled
there’s a man walking down the median strip
careful to make every footstep stick
watching the cracks and the dirt he knows well

the night is a cloak for the lost and unsettled

faces in cars that pass by
come inches away and they stare right by
lead-lined thoughts that never drift off

the night is a cloak for the lost and unsettled

I’m on a track which I can’t turn back
roads running parallel to the attack
lost on a wave of a voiceless refrain

the night is a cloak for the lost and unsettled
falling softly as our aimlessness tests our mettle

An Inch From Giving Up
reading “the amnesiac”
in an isolated room
with eleven other strangers
telling stories about their kids

strangely unaffected
by the task at hand
the night time nurse calls into work
before we’re escorted back

looking at your face,
I wondered if you were
an inch from giving up?
time to rest, short recess,
relax while we deliberate your fate

we were interrupted when
a crow flew into the window
they say it’s not a bad sign,
and it happens all the time

we strangers all agree
we don’t yet know where you will go,
but we’ll figure it out, split up
and then drive back to our lives

looking at your face,
I wondered if you were
an inch from giving up?
time to rest, short recess,
relax while we deliberate your fate

eventually, I couldn’t look you in the eye
our lives crossed briefly and that’s when
i realized no one really wins

Shadows Intersecting
You got me on a short walk
c’mon sign me up you know I’m so fucking good for it
And all those people you know turn me on
shadows intersecting dancing by and fade away

Contrails, they’re fading white in the sky
where do they go when they’re gone?

Shook your white hand, chalky from
climbing things you could not possibly ever understand

You’re sorry now, bless your arteries
but much too late never seems to win, it just bleeds away

Contrails, they’re fading white in the sky
where do they go when they’re gone?

Is there a leaf summer won’t save?
pacing thru the earlier days
chalk it up to shit luck and
i don’t know/I don’t care

Big Zeros
one two three four
they’re gonna turn us into blank corridors

one three two four
they’re gonna take us, put us back together in
the wrong order

2 for 7.99
we’re plastic living in the store windows

they’ve earned your dilemma
now they’re gonna turn it into big zeros

five, six, seven, eight
you’ve got a name
they’ve given a you a front row seat

nine, ten, eleven, twelve
a ticket to the place where you can only
blur your face

Acting in Reverse
I should have washed my hands first
I should have taken that drive
I should have stayed up all night
I never should have survived

acting in reverse
days in short supply
it doesn’t matter
they still screamed by

I’m okay, everything’s fine
I just don’t have a way to drop you a line
Don’t let go, don’t let go,
Don’t let go, don’t ever let go, let go

I should have stayed in the band
I should have probably known
I should have saved those tapes
I never should have stayed home

One Whole Piece
drinking the evidence down now
down to a place where it feeds me
all the things I cannot be now
living in a forced valley

marching with the helmet on now
to a song you wrote for me
in stone before we met now
a unjust kind of pre-history

flesh and shadow that won’t connect
you’d think we’d be one whole piece
if we ever met

two halves of the moon
fused but never really seeing
each other’s darkened sides
staring into opposing ends of

space that I need
from the crushing comparisons
that just cut a vein to bleed
an ending is all I’m wanting here

flesh and shadow that won’t connect
you’d think we’d be one whole piece
if we ever met

Sleeping in the Crucible
blood as thin as water
like the blackbird fails the sky
obliterate the blank face
of the figure close behind
failing like the trailing hand
of someone undefined

sleeping in the crucible
back-lit in the ashless dawn
sleeping in the crucible
wake me when this feeling’s gone

darkened honey lying
on the lips of the benign
if you’re being honest
and I am what you say I am
bending toward the ending with
the methods that you described

Wherever You Want To Go
I’ve got half a mind to just let it go
but where I’ll let the other half go to
i don’t know

a visceral image pressed into the snow
that time when i was younger and i watched you fight real slow
real slow

I want you to know, want you to know
where ever you want to go to
I don’t want to know

the playground swings are cold
and broken down
and those people choose the coldest times to not be around

the viewmaster clicks until the scene surrounds
but the loveliest place you see
won’t be found

I want you to know, i want you to know
wherever you want to go to
I don’t want to know

I want you to know, I want you to know
wherever you want to go to
I don’t want to go

I want you to know, i want you to know
I used to believe
the more i gave away
the lighter my escape

I want you to know
I want you know
I let that poor mistaken notion go
I let it go

What Devours Us
Do what you will, I’ll be quite still
follow the path of polished glass
to promises kept below the quieted earth,
we are what devours us

Hello to the ones buried deep in the stable
crowding around to blot the watchful sun
Guarding the entrance, I know their faces
Seen them before,
we are what devours us

Your skin it barely breathes
Your breath it barely moves
A battle for the bastard king, who laid waste to everything

Do what you will, I can’t help but
be the mistake I fought so hard to correct
I’ll follow the shadow man wherever he goes
we are what devours us
Missing Girls
The truth was strangely more commonplace
than they could know
I took her numbers and I took her name
Missing girls don’t come home

I could have a future
but it couldn’t have me

The truth was hiding in the darkened place
where murdered girls go
I couldn’t do it with drugs, no, no

I could have a future
but it couldn’t have me
looking in the mirror
I could stand what I see

One by one, these names they fall down,
get locked down
one by one, I do it again
hope I don’t get found
hope I don’t get found

I’ve been an owner of a total loss,
but it won’t own me
The truth is a glass eye won’t paralyze,
just shatter completely