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1. |
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I roll up to the club looking dressed for the scene
Got my button-down shirt and my skinniest jeans
I walk through the door, all eyes on me as I enter
Make my way to the stage, find the spot at the center
The lights go down, the crowd starts clapping
When suddenly from behind me I feel this persistent tapping
As a voice originating somewhere around my knee
says “Could you please move back so that I can see?”
Well, it wouldn’t make a difference to my own line of sight
I could be standing anywhere and I’d still be alright
But I don’t even turn around as I say “hell no”
I’m the super-tall guy at the front of the show
I know what you’re hoping and I know what you’re wishing
But I’d be giving in if I gave up my position
‘Cause if we traded places, you wouldn’t appreciate this
close-up look at the setlist, or the sweat on the bassist
You think that you get their discography better than me? I doubt it
You’re probably only here because your boyfriend told you ‘bout it
If you sit on his shoulders, then I bet you could manage
But you won’t get special treatment just ‘cause you’re disadvantaged
I don’t know why suddenly I’m the asshole
with you shorties always whining, always causing me hassle
It’s not like as a child I decided to grow
I’m the super-tall guy at the front of the show
...and I mean, seriously, you think it’s that advantageous
To reach things up on shelves or see musicians on stages?
If you were this height, you’d hardly find it appealing
getting leg cramps on planes, hitting your head on low ceilings
But you’ll never ever hear the mainstream media addressing
the inconvenient narrative of tall-guy oppression
Those diminutive bitches’re only preaching to the choir
Have you ever seen a journalist who’s six feet or higher?
So enough with back-row exile and forced decorum
I’m gonna take my grievances to an internet forum
‘Cause if we band together, the world can’t ignore us
At shows we’ll stand together just like trees in a forest
I know that it’s a stretch but try to see it from my point of view:
What’s the point of having stuff if everyone else can have it too?
Hey, with that attitude I’d be a great CEO
I’m the super-tall guy at the front of the show
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2. |
Inner Perfectionist
03:44
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You know I tried to kill my inner perfectionist
But my inner perfectionist said:
“If you want your inner perfectionist dead, you’ll have to do it right”
So I stayed in my room from dawn till dusk
It really was a daunting task
I studied charts, I drew a bar graph, I couldn’t win the fight
‘Cause every time I’m on the brink of new creation
I get hung up on the proper punctuation
It’s no good when your brain rules your body
Makes you want to be anybody but yourself
And they say art should be more like Instagram
#nofilter between us and them
Wait till you feel the urge and then effortlessly spill your guts
But I’ve never been good at vomiting
Most of the time, I hold it in or
Discreetly find a rubbish bin, throw it out or cover it up
Because I’d rather spend five hours feeling nauseous
Than experience five seconds of catharsis
It’s no good when your brain rules your body
Makes you want to have any body but your own
I used to teach disadvantaged kids
I said “It doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you keep writing it.”
I was a hypocrite, I went home and banged my head against the wall
And I compared their work unfavorably to mine
Did I mention they were eight years old?
And when I tried to kill my inner perfectionist
I just wound up with songs like this one
Inconsequential, meta and fun, clever but insincere
Because my heart is like the ark of the covenant
Melts Nazis if I open it, and
In case it falls into the wrong hands, I better keep it sealed
So I’ll go and write another work of fiction
Hoping no one ever guesses my affliction
It’s no good when your brain rules your body
Makes you want to be anybody
It’s no good when your brain rules your body
Makes you want to be anybody
But yourself
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3. |
Window People
04:48
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The window people coming through my door
They don’t seem to understand what the doorbell’s for
And without any explanation, they begin their renovation
They unroll their plastic covers on my floor
The window people drilling through my wall
They ignore the plasterboard disaster in the hall
And under some unknown directive, they accomplish their objective
They don’t register my presence here at all
They can’t be stopped, or fought, or reasoned with
They can’t be slowed, controlled or bargained with
They can’t be trained, contained, explained away
They just move forward
The window people swarming down my street
Showing businessmen where they can shop, work, play and eat
Can’t you picture yourself in those flats with insulated windows?
City living with less noise and better heat
Now there’s a new tenant moving in
There’s a new designer shelf where my old shelf had been
But I’m still sleeping in the corner, eat my cornflakes in the morning
Tell my stories with nobody listening
The window people knocking down my door
Susting off a skeleton they found beneath the floor
And with advanced archaeology, try to expand their knowledge
About life before the third and fourth world wars
But when they blow it up, they leave those bones behind
After all, there wasn’t much of use that they could find
It was just another hot mess in the name of urban progress
Just a casualty of entropy and time...
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4. |
Finanzamt
04:09
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Dear tax official,
Enclosed please find my revisions to last year’s returns
I’ve scrupulously documented every cent I earned
And I added in that decimal in paragraph B
Of page 79 on form W3
I hope you’ll go easy on me
Dear tax official,
Enclosed please find the requested addendum to my revisions
I have used nothing but the utmost of precision
In providing you the proof I never bought a canoe
Between 1995-2002
Oh tax official, I’m counting on you
Dear tax official,
Enclosed please find the requested corrections to my addendum
If there’s anyone nicer up there, feel free to recommend ‘em
But I’m sending off the necessary five different forms
To track the money that I didn’t make before I was born
Am I at least getting warm?
Dear tax official,
Enclosed please find the requested revisions to my corrections
This time I’m positive they’ll pass your most rigorous inspection
‘Cause I quit my job in pursuit of this task
Signed everything in blood even though you didn’t ask
And as I noticed that your offices are just down the street
I guess I’ll visit you in person to confirm your receipt…
Dear tax official,
I hereby apologize for yesterday’s events
Our confrontation got just a little bit too intense
And we both said some stuff we’d like to take back
Like when I snapped and called you a faceless bureaucrat
And you literally peeled off your face
To reveal a void from which no light or warmth could escape
And for the first time in life, I truly grasped my position
As a hack writer and part-time musician in an infinitely indifferent existence
I got down on my knees and I begged for assistance
And my skull still echoes with your inhuman laughter
As you said, “That’s what happens when you don’t hire a Steuerberater”
Dear tax official,
I regret to inform you I must end our correspondence
They’re taking my pens away along with all the other pointy objects
And they tell me I’m a ward of the state
Yes, I appreciate the irony of my fate
My debt to you grows greater and greater each day
Enough about me, what about you, your life, your problems?
Do you have children, hellspawn, whatever it is you call them?
And despite our differences I wish you good cheer
And productivity in the new year
Signing off now ‘cause the nurses are here
But in conclusion,
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5. |
Thirties
04:21
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Girl, you’re in your thirties now; you’ve gone and had your fun
In case you haven’t worked it out, your carefree youth is done
You’ve got new healthy habits to form, unhealthy ones to swear off
Above all this, girl, you need something to take care of
I got a plant, just a common household cactus
Such an undemanding plant, just for fun, just for practice
I was kind to the plant, kept it green, kept it growing
Gave it soil, gave it light, played it Mozart and Beethoven
But it died very slowly, like a pincushion imploding
It had needs I wasn’t previously aware of
When I needed something to take care of
I got a cat, a little furball who loved to play
Very photogenic cat, slightly deformed but in a cute way
I fed it treats, I taught it tricks, ran a social media page just for that cat
I printed merch, hired it managers and agents
But despite all my labors, it ran off to the neighbors’
To this day, they will not say what it was scared of
When I needed something to take care of
Girl, you’re in your thirties now; the end is close at hand
Young people are using slang words you don’t understand
But before you call death to the chessboard for that final stare-off
Remember this, girl, you need something to take care of
I got a child from the black market in Russia
Her mom and dad were both on meth, it didn’t take too much discussion
I told my friends she was mine, named her Kim like Deal and Gordon
Read her books, bought her drums and all the best obscure recordings
At the mall is where I lost her; the next morning, the cops were at my door
Asking, “is this yours?” as if I was some kind of monster
“But I’m not,” I tried to say as they were dragging me away
“You see, biology has programmed me to share love
And I needed something to take care of”
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6. |
Code Won't Write Itself
04:02
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My grandpa was a miner, my father was a miner
I followed right behind them like a dutiful son
Down in the Appalachians, I worked for subpar wages
For blisters on my fingers and for black dust in my lungs
Until the day our foreman, he gathered up his core men
Said, “hell, I hate to tell you but your mining days are through
But no need for complaining, you’ll undergo retraining
It’s time to join the modern world, it’s time to start anew”
And that code won’t write itself, boys, that code won’t write itself
Fast forward five years later, I’m at an incubator
My desk is ergonomic and my boss could be my kid
I’ve developed an efficient new mining algorithm
That tells a robot arm to do the tasks that I once did
My palms are getting soft now, I hardly ever cough now
Those years down in the mines are just a blip on my CV
“Full stack is my new bedrock”’s the title of my TED talk
Old colleagues call from hospitals to say they’re proud of me
And that code won’t write itself, boys, that code won’t write itself
I’ve got this Marxist cousin, campaigns for basic income
He’ll never know the feeling of a chisel hitting stone
And though I’ve tried explaining, I can’t say that I blame him
For busting up the windows of my new vacation home
Because yesterday, that boss kid, he called me to his office
Said “thank you for your service, sir, I hope you understand
That this new script we’re running makes personnel redundant
Why don’t you try a hobby, maybe something with your hands?”
And that code will write itself, boys, that code will write itself
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7. |
Current Times
05:42
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My first novel was an unqualified success
The next eviscerated by the assholes in the press
The changing literary climate made a fossil out of me
They laughed at my pretension and my privileged ennui
Two or three coke benders later, I was the scourge of the white middle class
I needed out and I needed out fast
I spun the globe and landed on a tiny island nation
With which my country’d once engaged in some colonial relations
Where political unrest had messed their best attempts to fix
A flailing economy with cruise ship trips and selfie sticks
Piles of bricks resembling resort homes lining the beach like old hermit crab shells
What better place for a hermit to dwell?
I live alone in a fortress by the sea
I’m worth a fortune in the local currency
I see the currents fall and rise
I don’t keep up with current times
My day to day routine there was modest, so to speak
I had my groceries delivered in a basket once a week
I put up a chain-link fence and I got rid of all my shoes
Never bothered with the language, well, except the word for booze
So the news of the natives’ latest coup filled me with only distant curiosity
Like a boxing match on a barroom TV...
They came for me at midnight; I’d already gone to bed
They made me button up my pants, then put a bag over my head
When the leader pulled it off, I was surprised to see her smiling
She said, “It must be fate that brought you to this godforsaken island”
She had something in her coat; I thought it was a gun
Till she slapped it on the table and she turned to chapter one
She said: “I’ve read every word of your sordid first-world tale
About your daddy issues, Ivy League rejection, fear of kale
And I’ve come to the conclusion that it all only makes sense
As an unforgiving satire of Western decadence
If that was your intent, then you should take a bow for having penned it.”
I said, “Come to think about it, that’s exactly how I meant it.”
“In this crisis we can’t be content to emulate the West, though
Our country’s young and struggling; man, we need a manifesto!
Will you channel your frustrations, will you be our chosen one?”
This time I saw she actually was holding a gun
And I thought about my critics, every zero-star review
My ex-agents, my ex-publishers, and all my exes too
And I thought about this island and my unencumbered life here
And I heard myself cry out for a typewriter
Now I’m the figurehead of some kind of people’s uprising, I guess
They’ve kept me hazy on the details in case of my arrest
But what matters is this manuscript that shows my worldview’s shifted
I’ll ship it off to Brooklyn when the trade embargo’s lifted
And the world will finally see me as more than some blue-blooded flash in the pan
They’ll see the genius that I truly am
But until then...
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8. |
Streetview
03:54
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The day the street view van drove by our house
I was lying on the couch, the one she’s lying on right now
We’d hung our laundry up to dry, colored towels on the line
From the beach the day before, shirts I don’t wear anymore
Through the shirts, you see the shades; through the shades you see a shape
You see me lying on the couch, the one she’s lying on right now
Zoom out just a little father, you can almost see my car there
Back before it started rusting, now it’s waiting for the dustheap
And it seems somehow unfair to exist both here and there
Forever lying on the couch, the one she’s lying on right now
I called up Mountain View and said, “This map is far from accurate
All these stores have long since closed, that old guy there long decomposed
Folks might get the wrong impression when they’re searching for directions
And see me lying on the couch, the one she’s lying on right now”
But they told me, “It’s no use, no one’s gonna get confused
Why would there be any danger when you’re the only one who’s changed here?
We can’t send a van around every time someone leaves town
We don’t stay that up-to-date; what are we, the NSA?”
And you’re changing every day, old skin peels, old cells replace
Till there’s no common cells between you today and you onscreen
Still you’re more or less the same, mechanisms in your brain
Are recording every instant, keep your sense of self consistent
Instants layer as you grow, like sand turning into stone
Like a composite mosaic, you’re the sum of all your data
And the data that’s archived is obsolete but will not die
It lies there waiting to be tapped, like a photo on a map
Yesterday that van drove down my street – I ran and ducked behind a tree
Before their digital cameras trapped me in digital amber
And then I went back through the trail of pictures, messages and mail
And made sure each one was deleted, but in the end I was defeated
‘Cause when I’m dead and Earth explodes, aliens with a telescope
Will point it at the sky and scan it, and they’ll find our long-gone planet
And because light travels slow, they’ll see the scene from long ago
They’ll see me lying on the couch, the one she’s lying on right now
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9. |
Sharknado!
04:58
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Like a tornado
A tornado made of sharks
Like an avalanche
An avalanche made of bears
Like a tsunami
Filled with electric eels
Like a volcano
Of flesh-eating microbacteria
Things might suck right now
But rest assured
Someday they’re gonna suck a whole lot more
You’re never safe, at sea or on dry land
Sharknado will get you in the end
You’ve got pneumonia
As a side effect of cancer
And your dog got run over
Because your dad was driving drunk
All your money was stolen
By your fiancé who’s leaving you
And your company fired you
Because no one buys shark repellent spray anymore
Can’t say you didn’t warn them…
I turn my phone off
When my mother calls at 3am
When I read the paper
I always start in back
I lock the windows
Of my fourth-floor apartment
And I never leave home
Without clearing my internet history
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Lousy Moon Records Frankfurt, Germany
Lousy Moon Records is an independent record label based in Frankfurt/Germany. It releases limited vinyl editions and digital only albums and eps. All genres are welcome.
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