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1. |
Kill the Fatted Calf
03:10
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We meet again, after nearly a year
So much, yet so little, has changed here
A year starts to feel just like an eternity
Cut the fanfare, it's just me
I just wanted to say hi and touch base
Amongst many, nary a smile on a face
And who can blame them? I can do the math
We're just traversing that same path
No need to kill the fatted calf
Please forgive me, my small-talk skills are lax
I either want to keep my mouth shut or get down to brass tacks
In every room we enter, an elephant resides
And on its back, despair bestrides
"How ya doin'?", a loaded question nowadays
"How the hell do you think I am?!" seems like the perfect phrase
The writing's on the wall, in the form of every graph
It feels like it's tearing us in half
No need to kill the fatted calf
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2. |
Expiration Date
03:46
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Enough with your verbal disease
Your slander knows no bounds
The only storms you'll see weaponized
Are the very ones you've been throwing around
Your whole gig is a catastrophe
And yet you carry on so laughably
Your mad delusion just baffles me
Give it up, get down off the shelf
I don't know where you get your accolades
But I grow tired of your escapades
I think it's high time for your star to fade
Give it up, get down off the shelf
You're just an irate powder keg
Making not only mine, but your own blood boil
Prattling on about homosexual poison?!
Hey, bud - you might wanna fix that foil!
There's a difference between freedom of speech
And freedom of pollution
With your apologies falling on deaf ears
Your termination's the only solution
I wholly wash my hands of your kind
I've got nothing else to say
I'd much rather wave a white flag
Than a false one any damn day
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3. |
Sweeping a Dirt Floor
03:26
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Don't try to school those who can't be schooled
Don't seek to enlighten, for they seek to slander
Don't try to fool those who've already been fooled
You waste both your time and your candor
Don't think you can ever hope to win today
Sticking to your guns just gives them fodder
You may firmly believe, in time, they'll see your way
Come what may, but not today, so sad to say, you shouldn't even bother
Don't show 'em what's really happening
Don't make them listen to reason
Don't beg for their involvement
Revolution is so last season
Don't push the issue, just save your breath
Don't offer any words of caution
Don't think that they'll succumb to facts
It seems a ceasefire's your best option
Don't try to squeeze the blood from their stones
Don't bring them water in a sieve
Don't mind the clichés, we can hear your groans
But we've got plenty of our own to give
Don't underestimate their immunity to the truth
Don't turn molehills into the Caucusus
We may strive to be Athena, and tread her path
But they bring Hades' wrath and we take a bath, just do the math,
there's a Sisyphus in all of us
They don't care, and as far as they're concerned
They've never the need for such an intention
They'd play with fire and find honor in being burned
You can't circumstantiate to those who favor circumvention
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4. |
Staunch
03:13
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And here
I am
Awake
Again
Yet far
From here
Ennui
Takes hold
Cliché
I know
And with
Good cause
My hands
They shake
My legs
They twitch
My teeth
On edge
Sucked in
Tuned out
The road
Shall coax
Me out
To roam
I feel
Its pull
So loud
So close
Away
I go
By now
It must
Be time
To say
So long
To this
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5. |
Apnea
05:15
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6. |
1994
03:20
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He can't help but look back to the time he broke free
Isolated for so long, he could start to just be
Nostalgia may be the most seductive of liars
But until then, he'd been dead for many years prior
Communication was ill, but despite these errata
The world burst open like a rotting piñata
It came running towards him in a old pair of sneakers
With mistuned guitars and blown-out speakers
"Why's he pining for 1994?"
With the superunknown no longer going astray
And though the view there seemed long, he could come out and play
As the bell rang aloud, with paths no longer divided
This loser had found his place, by hope he was guided
"I swear I'll let love in and live through this derision"
He said, as love blew a hole through a vision
He rejoiced as he witnessed his first fallen dictator
Whose replacement would join him there 17 years later
Cut to the present day, interior, at home:
The downward spiral persists, not hard to tell from his phone
The once-funkdafied outlook now tainted and diced
Current times make the old times look like paradise
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7. |
FFS
05:17
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This is what comes of their months of seclusion
Hallucinations do not friends make
They think they've got it made it the shade in their delusion
Most likely borne on their poison intake
The jig is up, man, their goose is overcooked
Their dialogue's become vile and demanding
They've left their sense of enjoyment overlooked
All the hours binging the tube notwithstanding
One could cut the tension between them with a chainsaw
They'll either be statistics or a charity case
All this back-and-forth's enough to cause one naupathia
"An endless wind doth tear the sail apace"
(Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1503-1542)
(Just get down, FFS...)
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8. |
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We chase the dreams
We fantasize about the game
Idyllic worlds abound
Rife with money, power and fame
成功とは何ですか？
We missed the island life
We chose instead to find the shade
Throughout these hectic years
We missed the change we never made
If all the world's a stage
It seems we're bound to miss the show
When 9-to-5, dawn-to-dusk,
Hand-to-mouth is all we know
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9. |
Cyclical
04:33
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Break the ice
Kill the calf
Chew the fat
Shoot the shit
Bite the hand
Jump the gun
Drop the ball
Pass the buck
Pay the price
Lose the game
Fuck the world
Buy the farm
Hold the phone
Stop the press
Take the time
Break the mold
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10. |
On Dit Merci Messieurs
03:02
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11. |
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[Bigwigs]
Come one, come all
To our brand new playground - we'll have a ball!
We've got loads of fun here, if you're loaded
Pay no mind to the locals, they've all been goaded
It's a new era! We're the talk of the town!
Don't you let the naysayers get you down
With this new oasis we can fill our cups
Since our previous outlet went belly-up
Fear you not - all the trash will have rode off
To wherever their kind go! Now come take a load off!
These new joints in town will give you a breather
Walk on in - oh no, not there! Wait, no - not there, either!
There's nothing to see there, just move it along!
(Then again, they look like they'd be bought for a song
With which these rolling hills would come alive!)
Just steer clear of the valleys, and see progress thrive!
[Transplants]
We've a good feeling, this is our time
There's enough potential here to blow your mind
All these new ventures seem built to last
They'll surely withstand whatever comes to pass
[Locals]
Progress, my ass!!
Well well, ain't this just swell
All these well-to-dos screwing us "ne'er-do-wells"
They'll all be thanking their lucky stars
That they can line their pockets when they rip from ours
"DIY"? BFD!
They don't care one bit about community!
Will all this renovation ever reach our schools?
Spin it all you want - we're being played for fools!
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12. |
Rhinectomy
03:17
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So, another fine performance
Just barely ushered through
And not a soul was there to see it
They were strewn amongst the slew
You sought to blow them all away
Now you can bask in your success
For your narcissistic song & dance
Leaves you no one to impress
How does it feel now to be in your place?
I bet you wish you'd have saved some face
You've undone integral foundations
From a long-standing fixture
In hopes that your aesthetic vitriol
Became a part of this new mixture
Yet, we can see right through your ruse
Our observations are astute
You crave legion, but it's all in vain
And your quest is rendered moot
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13. |
Scythe Meet Stone
04:03
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Despite defeat, a call for abject adulation
With countless fruitless litanies in heavy circulation
Faith won't spring eternal amongst the shattered system
When it's "Primum non nocere" against "Dominus vobiscum"
If you have a problem with it
If you have a problem with it
If you have a problem with it
Then you can go heal yourself
All have fallen, victims of the forces
Of those whose grace rides upon the motliest of horses
As we survey the beacon that once brightly shone
You're left wondering where the hell you were when the scythe met the stone
Nothing can save us now
Nothing can save us now
Nothing can save us now
Nothing can save us now
Or it can, and it just doesn't care
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14. |
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They'll lay you in the middle of the street
They'll lay you at the government's feet
They'll lay you if they find out you're in town
They'll lay you six feet underground
But I would not feel so dismayed
Everybody must get laid
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15. |
Haphazard Serenade
04:54
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Welcome to the golden age
Welcome to the fête
Where many facts & figures
Are yours to inflate
So much news and information
Bought and sold for songs
With such a wealth of knowledge
You can't go wrong
The line's blurred between truth and lies
All this tension continues to rise
While we cannot help it and take it to extremes
A utopian landscape exists but in our dreams
We're coming apart at the seams
"Pay no mind to the usual channels
Circumvent the brink
There's a guy in a truck with all the answers
No need to think!"
Don't let your mind stray towards conjecture
Keep your wits about
Purge the barrel of monkeyshines
Their truth will out
A haphazard serenade played gracelessly loud
By any given tone-deaf maestro to a misguided crowd
"Journalistic integrity", an oxymoron to some
Shouts of "Fire!" in a crowded theater is what too many have become
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16. |
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[returning native]
It's high time that I headed back
There's nothing left for me here anymore
And I know that where I come from leaves a lot to be desired
But there's a certain familiarity I adore
So I call upon my old friends and say I'm coming home
And they tell me that everything has changed
Yet another attempt at a desperate resurgence
Has rendered my old stomping grounds a little strange...
I gotta say, this sounds all too familiar
I feel I've heard this all before
A place I once knew like the back of my hand
Well, now my hand feels a little sore
Where did my favorite dive bar go?
What's happened to my home?
There's so much here that looks so out of place
And the rent is astronomical
And I've still nowhere to park my car
And they've still the gall to show their smiling face
I'll await the new ground with bated breath
I can't put my foot down with baby steps
But I feel this new town will fail the test
We've seen this over and over again
And what's that new monstrosity over there?
Is this why they're all heading for the hills?
This overcompensation for this community's abrasion
Leaves us drowning in a sea of booze and pills
Now just look at all the dirt that they've uncovered
How could they think this choice was right?
This supposed diamond in the rough that they discovered
It's just a fuckin' moissanite
I know you're probably sick of me relaying my dismay
But I've never been alone, and I think I've known it
And we gaze with sight so aquiline upon a plight so asinine
'Cause every chance they've had, boy, have they blown it
By abandoning the true affairs that've truly plagued this place for years
They installed another false sense of esteem
They're all aesthetics and no substance, so forgive us our reluctance
To go ahead and take one for the team!
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17. |
The Long & Short of It
02:46
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18. |
FFS (slight return)
02:34
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19. |
Dénouement
01:27
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Our land is now in ruins
Our people now disjunct
Our selfish ways and disparate goals
Forgotten and debunked
While we tore each other down
Their power was amassed
Now we're counting all our losses
So we can all move on at last
And well, there you have it
What exactly have we done?
All the petty quarrels and stupid fights
In the end, nobody won
The state of affairs is abysmal
And bullshit time has passed
The hatchet must be buried now
So we can all move on at last
You may be asking about the subject
But I really have no clue
It's open to interpretation
With nothing to misconstrue
So ignore this tertiary verse
That I pulled out of my ass
I think I'll end the song right here
So we can all move on at last
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20. |
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It's time that we took
A long, hard look
At what truly makes us tick
At what truly makes us sick
There are people aghast
At being harassed
Just for persisting
Just for existing
And while we bickered en masse
We've suffered many a loss
And we need to get back
And we need to cut slack
But not all hope is gone
For there are those who crack on
In the midst of our throes
In the midst of our woes
Amongst the debris
There's a strong camaraderie
And they venture to dare
And they venture to care
And through their vim and vigor
This city's heart grows bigger
And there's reason to cope
And there's reason to hope
So here's to the selfless
Here's to the kind
Here's to those whose eyes
Will never turn blind
We thank you
We thank you
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21. |
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And so it goes, another crisis come and gone
Regardless of the outcome, we try to carry on
Our apprehension, thought safely in a vault
Is bound to crumble like a fault
I hope one day for this uncertainty to dissolve
And that everyone around us eventually evolve
And when that day comes, this will all seem like a gaffe
We'll all look back on this and laugh
Then we can kill the fatted calf
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Itoarazi Massachusetts
One-man recording project based in New England. Electronic / ambient / noise / shoegaze / doom / post-rock / experimental / synthwave / prog / dub / whatever he damn well feels like.
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