1. |
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What are you gonna do this weekend?
What are you gonna do with your life?
Standing next to a bookcase
Standing next to a mirror
Standing over the balcony at night
Saved up
Change for a whole year
Clothes in the dryer
Bed in the elevator
Hands are cold
Your breath is cold
Is it coming tomorrow?
Sleeping in to keep us grounded here
Is it over tomorrow?
Cause you couldn’t believe it’s still going
Said it’s coming tomorrow
Said you wouldn’t believe in anything
Said it’s over tomorrow
What you came to believe in anyway
Stayed up late
To celebrate we’re still awake
Mom found out
She grounded us
Pen smeared across your palm
Showed up naked to class
Tossing, turning back and forth
Fence you climbed over last fall
They put a wire frame
Your feet won’t fit inside the holes
Now you’d better leave it running
You’d better hold it in
You’d better swing it back and forth
Space, a stray meteoroid
Caught the corner of your eye
So insignificant, the whole
You never felt so small
Scribbled down your name to apply
Sulked inside
Kissed her in the car
And she tore you to pieces
When she left you, she left you
Store we visited downtown
Put up a dozen signs
We saw them taking them back down
Dove into the stereo
And cracked your head open
Are your ears still ringing now?
Spring, you took the jar from the shelf
The living room table
Was covered up all afternoon
When you took it to the bank,
You’d saved two hundred bucks
You’d never held so much at once before
And you bought something nice
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2. |
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How tall can we stand
Lean back up on our heels to go
Where we aren’t allowed
Speak sophisticate, trochee and iamb
Honestly, it was our mistake
Mutter apologies under a borrowed sigh
Read out on our face
Waiting for someone to pick you up outside
Hidden back behind the row of dimming lights
Obscuring half your face, you watch but don’t speak up
After all, you’d rather let them be, pursuing fleeting things
Squeezing onto hands that don’t squeeze back
(Kurai raito ushiro kaoga kakure
Kimiha sakebu warera nozoki kiita)
Honest, it wasn’t our intention
Bending lines and blurring lights, you feel faster
If you can keep your eyes from closing now
Our faculties as such withstand
The will we’ve lost, the wherewithal to let them be now
Go ahead, I don’t mind
Go on ahead, I don’t mind
Lost on the idea of some cinematic close
We thought that it would build to something meaningful
But dragging through the leads and giving up the ghost
Didn’t really leave us much to take home
Maybe the lesson was just to be mindful
The nothing was ever what we were expecting
Maybe the timing would work out if we would just wait
And let it work out
Gathering up our things away from where they belong
Gathering up the courage to leave them flustered in disarray
To beat in the back roads, to fit in a better role
What we couldn’t see at first, though we struggled
That if we’d stayed until the end, everything’s explained, and it was simple
It isn’t deeper than we thought, just our approach was wrong, thinking too hard
In truth, there was nothing to get, there was nothing to know, it’s just in how it’s told
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3. |
Diastole
04:30
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In time we learned to wait
To gather all the leaves
Until the last one fell
Away from the tree
Over my shoulder I saw
You looking back over yours
How easy would it be now
That we know what we know?
All this time we spent waiting around
Putting off all the issues too big to face
In favor of the smallest of things that we could actually do
To feel as though we tried something
At least we know we did something
Hushed by the sound
Of your diastole
Tenuous the grasp
Til we were asked to leave
It’s not keeping it so you won’t forget
It’s letting yourself believe you won’t
It’s not welcoming sunlight through the shades
It’s getting yourself up out of bed
It’s not realizing just how bad it was
It’s realizing just how bad it gets
We last spoke about the future
And doesn’t it seem naive
All the things we thought we’d see?
In time we learned to let
The closest ones see
What we’d been hiding
Underneath the fallen leaves
Outside my window I saw
No one was looking out yours
The best that I could explain
You finally packed your things and moved away
All this time wondering who’d be there
If we’d just gone and knocked on the door
But we just rationalized that probably you weren’t home
At least you know we thought of you
At least we know we did something
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4. |
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The best of us believed
If we hadn’t stumbled
we’d still have a chance
To pick up the pieces
But just as we’ve seen
The gust came too strong and it blew it away
And we know it’s not coming back
Now we’ve got to behave
Now you’ve got to rely on your own arms to drag you across
(can we forgive ourselves?)
The last straw to break your back
The last shock to break your gaze
The secret to break your legs
How long can we hold it
Above our heads?
How long could you used to?
We’ve all followed someone close to find
A reason to have followed
We’ve all hollowed out the tile floor
To keep safe what we couldn’t bear to lose
Take comfort in what no one else knew
And when you had stood barefoot
You noticed that it had come loose
And I said
It’s been a few days
Since I have seen you
And you said
Sorry but I’ve
Got too much on my mind
It got to be too much
We did our best to help
But our hands stuttered and slipped
And all that we could do
Was say we’re sorry
We hoped things would change
We’ve all spent the last year standing still
Balance and swallow
The lump in your throat
All your loose teeth
We lie awake
To see who’s coming
When we die
The rest of us believed
We would remember exactly how her face
Reflected the moonlight
But as we began to recall the details
The hair was a match, but the eyes, we couldn’t quite get them right
How the lashes were shaped
How they curved to the sky and arced away ashamed
(and the difference it made)
Is it better just to wait
If you’re coming back again?
Will we see it then?
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5. |
School Social
03:51
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Dragged me up
Cummerbund
I tried taking you out
Showed up on my bike
You look lovely tonight
And we chased the daylight
Guess it got away
And I found you looking at the floor
Shut out
Leaning closest to the door
You carry yourself
You know all our shoes are leaving marks
On the gym floor
It takes three days to clean them off
I would know, my summer job
We carried ourselves well
I took you back home under the street lights
Waited up all night
Asked if you had a good time
But you couldn’t lie
And you just smiled
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6. |
Ursine Valor
06:19
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Remember when the hurricane blew against your door?
And the next morning everything was out of place?
Remember when you had your back up against a wall?
All the blocks you couldn’t break down, you’re breaking up
We built it up, waited for nothing
But it began to fall, put the pieces in place
But it wasn’t the same
Said to us
“oh, you wouldn’t know the difference”
Straining sight
Stepping back to stay in focus
Still to us
Even though we never listened
Guess we just
Want so much to prove it right
All the things we said
With no doubt would come true
Is it clearer now?
On the windows
Written in the dust
Washed but never went away
All of the words carved
In the base of trees
It burned down
But still can read
The last letter
She ever sent
You threw it out
But still can’t sleep
Hold back
Every breath you take
Hold your head
Up above the lake
You’ll tire your arms out
Hold your quivered voice
Having trouble breathing cause your
Tongue got in the way
When’d you start believing saying out loud
Will really change your fate
Even though all the lights are on
Everybody knows you’re gone
And every night we want you back
Maybe next time
But next time never comes
Left out in the sun
And the road was freshly paved
To escape your feet, despite the asphalt
When you lie down
It’s there that you shall stay
Remember she said
It’s there that you shall stay
Wake up now
Remember the wind shook the shutters and howled against the door
And I was knocking but you couldn’t tell the difference
Remember the wall towered unscalable but after all
The softened stone, you dug a tunnel through it
Spent half a day putting it all back in place
And by the time it was complete you said you like it this way better
Even though you hadn’t planned it and you
Spent so much time working how it
All fit together, you became so thankful
For all the destruction of everything you cared about
And we finally realized that what matters most is not
The outcome of the requests we submit to be receiving
Head on your shoulders and lungs full of air
But our hearts need something that our blood cannot supply
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7. |
Far Away Cranes
05:38
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Timed it with the pulse
Coming up again
The time you knew you couldn’t shake it
Still rest to watch it now,
Still chest, and it comes out
This is the sound you couldn’t save
Is it perspective? Is it just knowing where to run?
From far away, cranes look like carnival games
We’ve been behind, been inside
Wanted for nothing but the cold
We let it go, it would come back,
Waited but nothing ever came
And it was uphill, yeah it was uphill all the way home
And I walked the outside, memories we tried to place
Coming back to your house, your younger brother, he wasn’t home yet
Eyes on the floor, heartbeats,
Finding ourselves somewhere we should never have been found
Keep in touch, let me know how you’re doing
From far away, clouds look just like anything
I wrote down all the answers
Just ordered them wrong
I offered to come with you
But you refused
So hard to explain its entirety
So now what’s important, so now how could we do nothing?
We used to think that magic things could really happen
And when we stepped out of the tree
We knew we couldn’t fly, but still we’d set to prove it with our blood
Focused to fall to somehow regain some control
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8. |
Steinborgium
05:53
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Once we admitted we knew nothing
There was a place back home
We all went to find what we’d lost
Let the table and its chairs
All lean the way they will
We lean the way we
Will most easily
Let ourselves fall
Headlong, it showed to us there
Long over the ground
Cracks in the windows
Cracks in the street
The line in the sand
Last night you dreamt you were holding something
But it wasn’t holding back
Last night you would ever let something like it
Fool you ever again
Wanted separate eyes for the little things you could barely see
Wanted separate strength cause your tired set of lungs could barely breathe
Drifting off to sleep
And when you timed how long it takes for it to finally make a difference
And it’s not your fault (did you see the ending?)
It was faster just to learn you wasted your time
(coming by now)
When you waited for the net below to save you
And it’s not your fault (it’s completely empty)
Cause we held it high but didn’t pull tight enough
And by that time you couldn’t raise your arms to brace yourself the right way
You’re right, it was all our fault
And you may have lost the war, but still fight losing battles
When we felt the room was burning down around us
You’re right, it was all our fault
Swollen heads and muscles
We let it fill our lungs without a struggle
Could you write us all about it
Still knowing how it sounded?
We admitted we knew nothing
Fell headlong, the ground was closer than we knew
We treated a separate set of palms
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9. |
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Come downstairs
Your dad won’t be there
Drive by her house
Emptied out the back
All the times you ran your mouth
Now suddenly you’re quiet
The broken yellow lines
Swallowed by the headlights
Done pushing around
Talking behind (y)our back
Dug up the ground
Asked you to lay down
No other sound
Asked you to lay down
Whatever it was, whatever I’ve done
I swear I take it all back
When it was done, when it was done
It never really went back
----------------------------------------------------
Showed up early for the train
Jerking into motion
And you jumped across the cars
Rushing towards the back
And you can’t work it out
On your own
And now you've got to work so hard
To stay in the same place
The engine and the iron rails
Will win it either way
All that’s left behind
Its only saving grace
There’s nothing close enough to tell
Just how fast you really go
Take the early evening flight
Packed your bags so long ago
You don’t know if you got it right
What you need and what you left behind
How bad is it?
How bad can it get?
You wash your hands
In holy water
They’re stained with blood
Done with digging holes
To just burry your shovel
Done with tying rope
So high that you can’t reach it
How bad is it?
How bad can it get?
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10. |
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When you say it back in reverse
Do you hear your own voice
Or the Devil’s?
Sit down, keep your feet on the ground
Keep your eyes on the clock hung on the wall
Tongue against your teeth
Cold air, it gets dark sooner now
You knew that if we found out
You sat with a cloud above your head
The oak tree outside the window
It bothered you how long the leaves stayed green
Even though we insist
It’s deciduous
You wouldn’t wait for it
To fall down
Honest health bred honest hands
A dull circuit repeating
Just the same your heart was settled
A full subset depleting
Tried to walk down the shore
Tried to swim overhead
But the tide wouldn’t take us anywhere
Tried to close both our eyes
Tried to focus to divert
Our senses so it would sound better this time
When you scream it out
As hard as you can
Do you feel your own chest
Heave beneath you?
An ironed shirt
And I studied all night
It came time to recite
And I couldn’t stand still
We fall down
We suck young blood
Our deceptive cadence
And we raised it well
But we couldn’t name it
And when it finally went to sleep
It just went to sleep
Leaning up against the open door
It’s all empty now, we moved it out
And our reluctance to shut it once more
And leave it shut, and leave it, we left it
And the swollen boards rose up from the floor
And tripped you when you tried to walk away
Stop blaming yourself
It means well, but we can never give it back
We can reach the ladder to climb back down, take it step by step,
Or we can reach the precipice but we don’t know which is the better one
The ache, the toll, the loss, the secret,
The choke, the flinch, the cast, the scar,
The steps, the porch, the flowers, the time bomb,
The sound logic not to, the urges that got through,
The lines in our palms and the lines in our foreheads,
What we let go last time so this time we’d save it,
Resisting motion and holding to slow it
Did we miss the last bus or is one still coming?
I think it’s coming
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Invalids New Jersey
Invalids started as the bedroom project of Pete Davis (with remote internet-based collaboration with other musicians). As of March 2015, it has grown to a proper four-piece band with the addition of Joe Scala, Raymond Bonanno, and Blair Benzel.
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