1. |
the Nutritionist
02:58
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persuade her to remember every little instance of abuse
don’t think I know or care- I just look for other lovers to accuse
I tell you what you need, I tell you how to take it if you can
you fly above everything, your precious little arms like rubber bands
I’ve got another way to show you this nutritionist’s for you
another touch or just a little kiss and I will be the one
a sandal drops, a single cough, another glance aimed towards the land
you can back to the earth or you can smile and take my hand
I tell you what your body needs, and how to fake it if you can
the things you put into your mouth can cure you, they can help you understand
I’ve got another way to show you this nutritionist’s for you
another touch or just a little kiss and I will be the one
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2. |
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Alice is singing in the garden
a host of wild flowers at her feet
and when she dances they are trampled
as her sisters start in with the harmony
Alice is reading in the schoolyard
her ringlets taken by the breeze
she sees the words, she sees the pictures
she sees him watching from the boundary of trees
one day Alice noticed she was older
in the looks of all the people in the street
she knew for sure her world was of a transitory nature
built on brittle smiles and dirty dreams
Alice is standing in her garden
her image captured by machine
now on a hundred thousand postcards
she’s staring out from glossy magazines
and if she’s tired she don’t show it
down in the hole she never has to dream
the bottle whispers, “Drink, honey, let's get smaller"
then she fades till just her smile remains
another night of bad intentions,
another night of syncopated sleep
and Alice still the same, pressed between the pages
suffocating you can't hear her plea
burn the book and let her have some peace .
you can break the glass and end this misery.
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3. |
Sisters Again
02:39
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your Hitler eyes and Anne Frank smile
drawn and erased
you helped them all to help themselves
I needed a taste
I’ve never know anyone like you
we trace the bleeding kiss, the velvet bruise
both of us are satisfied,
goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
mirror love, inverted twin
we’ve been tied up for days
my skin raw where your mouth had been
I made a mistake
I’ve never known anyone like you
you bind my hands, you cut me loose
everyone is satisfied,
goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
a sad book to while away the hours
I can only read when we’ve satisfied all other possibilities
lay me down here amongst the flowers
can we pretend a little sweetness if it’s just for the afternoon?
let’s be sisters again
let’s just be sisters again
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4. |
Elephant Painter
02:49
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I'm just an elephant painter--you show me the moves
till I'm good and I'm trained and I know what to do
you taught me so perfectly in my pen in your zoo
but I made all these paintings for the peanuts you threw
brushing white canvas will never be stroking your hair
too caught in the thought of who else had been there
but these words are just symbols we launch into the air
my paints are all laid out, the canvas prepared
red desire's naked light
the lamp-black blot of another wasted night
we clean till the paint runs away
we drink till there's nothing but gray
I'm not the beast you've mistaken me for
but the sting of your hand has a certain allure
bound to obey with slow silent consent
but don't dare turn your back, cause I never forget
cause I'm an elephant painter--you showed me the moves
till I'm good and I'm trained and I know what to do
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5. |
Smoking in Reverse
04:29
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please, don’t pass me by
please, don’t pass me by
this is better than right
and what does marriage mean
but a triple-tiered cake and some new things to break?
there’s a world of twinkling lights
and I want my share- all my body can bear
like smoking in reverse, you're twirling with me in the street
I turn away from you in sleep
and how can it be that third person has made me so weak?
I didn’t mean her to
I wanna share her with you
I need to touch your face
and examine your scars
to see where you’ve been
to know where you are
I know you’ve loved before
and I want them to watch us
as you yell out her name
it's your paper thin skin
and fresh perspiration
and your freckles like stars burn with
new inspiration
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6. |
NYC Refugees
03:36
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I could tolerate the silence if the people round me breathed
would you rather take the subway then stumble home with me?
I can feel it coming closer- the end of history
you will know me by the shaking, and by the company I keep
a small adjustment of the brain to make me happy
just one spike, another night of unchecked energy
and did you mean it at the time? a life without connections
we loose the tether from the dock and cast off to the deep
in the cold one-room apartment, another Dixie cup of gin
it’s not enough to make us warm, but it just might keep us in
I see your face, I sit and wait for fission to begin
and too late I postulate just what we’re swimming in
I saw the pulsing of the grid on the ground below us
for each spark another life, a thousand fantasies
for all the ones that failed to thrive, we keep on living
and stumbling, strive to stem the tide of vicious doubling
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7. |
Darken Yer Eyes
03:18
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I want my first time with somebody I don’t care about at all
my breath is coming quickly, my back against the wall
who said there’d be a difference as the summer turned to fall?
in the darkness as the cars passed, I didn’t see his face at all
you see, my legs are scraped up from the fences that I’ve climbed
I was chasing half the summer- if I’d caught him he’d be mine
he’s just my size and look, besides, he helped me with the car
if you’re strong from walking everywhere it don’t seem that far at all
dirty your face, cut back your hair
darken your eyes- I’ll still be here
how many thousand born in a year?
darken your eyes. I’ll still be here
well it was your house girl, I was looking for the place
with hot lines of tears and charcoal running down my cheeks
you weren’t much to hold on to, but there wasn’t much to say
the friendly pose abandoned, our clothes in disarray
dirty your face, cut back your hair
darken your eyes- I’ll still be here
how many thousand born in a year?
darken your eyes. I’ll still be here
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8. |
Second Best
03:03
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if you don’t know the things I want, then fake it
I’ve always been the easiest to please
when we were young we played the Allied Powers
now you just wanna be the Japanese
who knows the words that always bring me down?
And the vows we break won’t always make a sound
the girls I knew before you were all losers
but I cared about them just the same
and kept score in my flashy Trapper Keeper
filled with many variations of our names
who finds his failures live in simulcast?
who’s been assured he’s always second best?
it’s my narrow writing crawling down the wall
should’ve never told you “I need you like a spider needs to feed again”
but it doesn’t mean a thing- you know that
I will clean the house up if you promise not to leave
it’s not in your blue-eyed cool compassion
it’s not the way you fill your favorite jeans
it’s cause after all this time you still believe me
I love you for your gullibility
so grab your Starfleet boots and your studded leather vest
and let’s put my double dealing to the test
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9. |
In the Park
03:51
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a plague of perfumed things
all the niceties that monies bring
"ours” turns to “yours”, you sleeping within
my hair hanging greasy and glittered again
you said I'd always been the reckless one
someone else might call it fearless
out of the window into the yellow sun
living in the park beneath the lightning-blackened Cyprus trees
the motors in the distance like the ocean breaking on the sand
drinking from the stinking water basin, if you push you will
get pulled apart by the machine, the heavy consequence of gravity
I can’t forget that no one new is warm these days
a harem populated by memories
drawn to distraction and self-satisfaction
how bout all this talking in code?
how bout I just say that I want you?
they said that they knew you
but I see right through you
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10. |
the Failures of Sarah
03:51
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11. |
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the skyline is bright and hazy
haven't seen the stars for days
I get all excited but you say it’s an airplane
with its light on to show me the way
cool calm fine disappointments
expectations mean being let down
don’t try to pretend you ain’t done this before-
I promise you I've been around
salt and sand, we emerge hand in hand from the sea
I gave it my best- I guess shame is just safer
than all of the other transmitted diseases
butt here now I linger, still so reluctant to leave
we are collections of parts, we are skin, we are the wintering weeds
maybe I was too tall, too skinny, too cynical
to be someone you’d publicly like
but the things that arose from just pressing against you
kept my hands and my feelings well occupied
you were always my itch, you were my one lotto ticket
now the vice I can’t cast to the side
in this torrent of words I’ve only just scratched the surface
of the things that you gave me, and the things you denied
sure I knew you before her
but the night is too bright for the darkness to cover this
our coy ministrations, our coded goodbyes
but if I go back now I'm done for
taken by teeth or by tongue, but not taken alive
salt and sand, our impressions can't stand to the sea
I gave it my best- I guess shame is just safer than all of the other transmitted diseases
but here now I linger, still so reluctant to leave
we are collections of parts, we are skin, we are the wintering weeds
the skyline is bright and hazy
haven't seen the stars for days
I get all excited but you say it’s an airplane
with its light on to show me the way
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12. |
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Your handprints in the applesauce
a little bit of glass
a clue, some fraction of a grand design
that broke and disappeared with all the rest
your handprints in the applesauce
a sign, a sin or something less
the things we leave are left to us
as we push about this complicated mess
as we learn to leave the ones we love the best
the sky is clear and uncomplicated
your lips are chapped and dry
the swarm of strings just punctuation
for the understated, oversold goodbye
your hand prints in the applesauce
once buttressed by the jar
I could not clean it up or put it back together
cause it's flecked with dirt and filled with tiny shards
I do not mean this figuratively
it used to have a shape
a single blow has turned it over
now all that's left is implicating space
now all that's left is implicating space
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13. |
Ovals
05:31
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you haven't felt this way since you last rollerskated
stepped into rentals and staggered out onto the floor
while the others were streaming on by
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14. |
the Passengers
05:51
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when I was born I don’t remember much
but greed and pain and milk for lunch
I would go out into the day
I would play in the abandoned lots
they were cleared for me
they were clearly for my pleasure,
for whatever little project I had started
and then my brother came;
my brother,
and then all of these things they changed
I would fly from feeling squeezed out and abandoned straight to guilt
then to these things in tandem, simultaneously sickened and enraged
When I was a child I was a loser, I was a whimper, I was a product of the praise parade
an over-privileged undeveloped strain of second grader brain
of outsized expectation, best in the nation, in the estimation of
those who loved me, those who taught me that every act of love it is transactional
in the arms of my mother, from a distance with my father
on a bike ride with my brother. with the dog through an electric fence
and when I lived there in the trailer, I was her lover, I was her dedicated Minstrel,
doing time with all the narcissistic men
who had spurned her, who put her back to bed
without dinner, never shaking her awake
even now I am creating, I am fabricating
every living thing I need
from your headache, from her stomachache,
from the pulsing beating body of her flesh
the precious temple of your flesh
and when I traveled cross the country
it was torture
it was glory
it was light upon my face
but the loneliness it comes in waves
and what I learned then from the grasses,
from writing one song every day,
was nothing to the truth extracted from every cultural collision
con’t take rides from strangers
don’t take nothing you can’t handle,
you can’t separate from your own piece of mind
from your prick
from the groping educating hands
that show you how it is among the primates
zmong the people that you love
and those that loving’s always done to
once we shared a couch
I used it for sleep
you for pleasure
you for pleasure every Sunday
every Sunday you would meet them at the same time
they were your friends
they were your cathode ray companions beamed from space
they taught you science
I taught you love and other automated things
once we sang together
at first we weren’t very good
then you weren’t very good
then we both felt pretty awkward
as I pushed for always more improvement,
always forward movement on the fronts that meant the most to me
with my nose to every titty that I’d see
I am a loving sex machine
in the sense that it would take a specialist to repair me, to repair me
but I can’t stand this being fixed
I’d rather if you’d knock me about
then I could be mad-- instead, despairing
instead, despairing
instead of laying in the ditch
with all the refuse of the roadside refugees
those that travel on in search of many-colored dreams
instead of all this hardcore stuff
photography.
you wanna put me in your book
under plastic
with all the men and women lost to time
with all the other memories
another piece of refuse is refusing to come to your attention
it's hardly worth a mention that this garbage has a name
I cannot win
I lay here on the floor
not in the middle of the floor
but to the side
where you can choose now to ignore me
to ignore me
until it is time to pack your things and then to go
to the seashore
to the ocean
to the place where we were born
once before we were humans
we could live there
we could swim and we could breath
znd at the bottom of the ocean
zre all the things you’ve left behind
they’d been waiting
anticipating the time that you’d arrive
here’s a quarter
here’s a penny
here’s that sweater that you loved
here’s your dance shoes
here’s an apple core
znd way down at the bottom there is me
I’ve been a martyr
I’ve been a diver
I was your grumpy greyhound driver
I was the bangle on your wrist
I was the chocolate you couldn’t resist
now just a piece of this
rusted ruddy edifice
this crayon-ready
assemblage of the still-unsteady
tribute to the weak and wary
passengers
here’s to the passengers
to the passengers
the passengers
here’s to the passengers
to the passengers
to the passengers of love
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Landlord's Daughter Seattle, Washington
"The violin and guitar work on the album are impeccable..."
"The Passengers isn't a rock musical, per se, but the album
certainly strikes that chord. In the vein of the Decemberists' The Hazards Of Love (though a little less gruesome), Landlord's Daughter are melodious, theatrical storytellers."
—Line Out, The Stranger
... more
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