1. |
The Sirrush
03:33
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Your were there on the wall
Your outline losing focus
As the sun swallows colors, swallows time
You were there in the past
Taking physical form
Your skin enfolding bones and existential flaws
Does it matter
If the evidence was lost?
If the body was never found?
The image on the bricks
Is proof enough to show
That someone cared enough
To run their fingers on your scales
Tongue and teeth and skin
Simple, flawless
There's still monsters in the depths
I am there at the wall
Staring at the pictures
Of the missing and the lost, hoping you'll be found
And you were there on the wall
Forgotten in the shadows
If you'd ever been at all
Maybe you only existed
In far-off eastern China
Maybe the man who put your picture up
Had never even seen you
Maybe the color of your skin had been
Every color ever seen
Maybe your name was whispered out
In long forgotten tongues
Maybe your face would have been worshipped
By the ancient Babylonians
And maybe you're only standing
A dozen feet behind me
Looking up at the wall
Forgetting your own face
Like the water washing down the walls outside the Ishtar Gate
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2. |
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Months of sailing with a ragtag crew
Guns and cannons at the fore
Sunk the pirates of of Barbary
Sent the bastards to the cold sea floor
And we're in our cups now
We know what cutlasses are for
There's cold, hard reality
That steel will always buy you more and more
Homecoming on the Jersey coast
Heard a screeching in the night
Whispered tales jump from post to post
About the Devil taking flight
And Captain Decatur
Blood of pirates on his hands
He leaps to the forecastle
Lifts his fist up and commands:
"We've all heard the tales of the old Jersey Devil
"Wind of Satan at his sails
"But once you've stared down the muzzle of the Barbary pirates
"You've no use for childish tales"
Hear the call out in the morning sun
As they're drifting into port
Wings of leather flying in the spray
With fiery head just like a horse
The crew is all trembling
Falling completely out of sorts
And Captain Decatur
lifts his rifle and retorts:
"We've all heard the story of the old Jersey Devil
"Ripping terror from the sky
"Now watch me, my comrades, as I fashion my sights
"And you can see how legends die"
Still, still the Devil keeps flying
Did you just see what I thought I saw, and I swear to my God I'm not making this up
Every man out on the deck that morn
Has a terrific tale to tell
Not a shot from the Captain's gun
Could send that demon back to Hell
And Captain Decatur
Drops his rifle to the floor
The Devil of Jersey
Lets out a splitting roar
The Captain swung a might sword
And received a hero's grave
But now the crew has finally passed
And no one else recalls his name
But the Devil of Jersey
Lives as long as whispers will
And Stephen Decatur
You'll never kill the Jersey Devil
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3. |
Rods
03:34
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There was a day
Contained within a frame of tape
Waiting to exist again
Waiting to be watched
There was a light
Inviting me to film it right
Waiting for the shot to take
Waiting for the shot
And there were some forms
Darting through the dark above
Waiting to reveal themselves
Waiting to reveal
You can call them rods, you can call them gods
You can swear they're bigger than the odds
Waiting for the evidence
Waiting for the evidence
They're not real
They are merely tricks of light
No one believes
They were here at all
Trying hard to get a grip on this thing
Do you mind if I just ask you one thing?
If there was Heaven and the tape was reeling
Would I then record the angels singing?
Or are we picking patterns up from nothing?
Making matter out of static buzzing?
Still the rods are flying 'round you
On the videotape
And I could swear
The light that leaked from out your eyes
Was drowning out entire worlds
Drowning out the world
You can call them rods, you can call them gods
You can swear they're bigger than the odds
Waiting for the evidence
Waiting for the tape
Don't you move
You might blur the shot
They must believe
We were here at all
Trying hard to get a grip on this thing
Do you mind if I just ask you one thing?
If there was Heaven and the tape was reeling
Would I then record the angels singing?
Or are we picking patterns up from nothing?
Making matter out of static buzzing?
Still the rods are flying 'round you
On the videotape
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4. |
The Hodag
03:16
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Well, I've been slumping through the jungle
Of ragged leaves and biting thorns
Where they got every fearsome critter
That ever had the nerve to get itself born
They got hawks and bears and wolves
And things that twitch and creep and crawl
They got every disincorporated soul that had to fall
Well, they're hungry for your blood, my son
But they're staying in their place
'Cause they all can sense my scent, my friends
And not a one of 'em has seen my face
But if your mother finds you missing and hears that grizzled, faithless roar
She'll know the Hodag comes for more
The Hodag got his ass shot off
That's what the paper said
Ten men with guns were standing 'round
The corpse's grinning head
A bullet's just a dire wish you've
Written out in lead
It can never cross the space between
What's in your fears and in your head
I sharpen my teeth on your nightmares
Drink a hundred gallons of tears
But to hear those liars tell it
My blood's as red as theirs
But look inside that shredded hide
You're sure as hell to find
That the Hodag never was there
I thank 'em for the lies
That still contribute to my fame
'Cause I never drew a breath
Until they whispered out my name
You can't untell a story
Once it's infected in your brain
And you can't call back the monster
Once you've set it on its legs
I was born the second they said
That they had laid me on a slab
But step inside this shadowed grove
You'll know better than that
Search inside your fevered dreams
You know that you will find
That the Hodag always is there
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5. |
The Coelacanth
03:28
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In this old hat box
The sediment of memories compressed in pictures
The last known imprint
Of the one you used to know
You can brush the dust and name them all so knowingly
You can catalog the bones, display them lovingly
And all the while the beast you seek is swimming in the sea
This living fossil
Preserved in all the letters never thrown away
Even if you've forgotten
That won't erase the blood that's flowing in the veins
You can analyze the past, evolving all the way
You can grow your lungs and legs and try to run away
But you'll never grow a heat until you sink below the sea
In this old bedroom
Digging through the layers strewn across the floor
The last living remnant
Has left a trail that's tracing straight out of the door
But if the breeze should steal the breath from out of me
And if the seas should cut my knees from under me
I'll be the swimming coelacanth beneath the surface of this love
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6. |
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Judy, my love
Our world's contained in Riverside Park
And in this car
Beneath this humid, steamy sky
The moon condenses into
Iridescent crescents
On the surface of the muddy river
We are alone when midnight comes
From hand to hand, to skin to skin
Your lips are parted, pour me in
I'm burning for you more
Than any other boy could ever
What divine design could shoot this down?
The last two dreamers in this dead river town
Could be so perfect if we could collide
You know you want this night
Down by the banks we see the unearthly figure rise
Seven foot tall, his matted hair blots out the night
We try to dress ourselves, still trembling at the scene
The creature lets his moan go drowning in the reeds
We were too young to know what we were supposed to do
We did whatever our poor bodies told us to
We left the beast out there still shaking in the sand
And thirty years from now we still won't understand
Judy, you're gone
I never saw you after summer
That thing that found us
I'm sure it's out there somewhere
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7. |
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Marie-Jeanne
The Maid of Gevaudan
Such a tiny thing, La Pucelle
Still you stand so strong
La Bête still haunts
The dreams of Gevaudan
But you took it to task at the River Desges
And there you brandished the spear that would send it away
Though just a wisp of a girl, how you burn like a fire
Where other blushing young sweets would just lay down and die
Marie-Jeanne
Fille de la pauvreté
And then there's moi, Francois Antoine, Lieutenant of the Hunt
Sent by Louis the King
I have stared in the eyes of the hordes of the East
And I've commanded the field in the name of Louis
But the fire in your eyes now has burned into me
Just as sure as your blade pierced the heart of the Beast
Marie-Jeanne
You have no need of me
For I would only chance La Bête with an army of huntsmen
Riding at my heels
Elle était une fille courageuse
De vingt ans, non effrayé
Ilya un penurie de heroine jolies
Les autres, hélas, se terminant généralement par morir
Mon ami
The maid of Gevaudan
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8. |
The Beast of Bodmin Moor
03:39
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Always a bit of movement
As silent as the stones
The towering tors that guard the tops of the hills
Surrounding Bodmin Moor
What are you searching for?
You shouldn't go there, but you know that you will
Their recollections change
Can't keep their stories straight
On what it is that haunts the bogs and the mires
Is it poor Charlotte Diamond?
Murdered out on the roughtor
Or crippled Matthew who was hanged for the crime
Or kobolds underneath
Working with murderous glee
To undermine everything that you have worked for
Is it the Beast of Bodmin?
That you're now grasping for
They shouldn't be here but you know that they are now
The Beast of Bodmin Moor
The feline in the shadows
Patiently hunting over bones of old stories
Prowling 'round your boundaries
Never quite surfacing
You'd sacrifice yourself for things that won't form
And still I'd follow you
Down into Bodmin Moor
Into the darkest cauldron that you can seek out
And though I don't believe
Have faith in anything
I'll be the cloak that hides you when the Beast leaps out
Once I lost sight of you
Outside of Dozmary Pool
The River Fowey must have swept you away
The Lady in the Water
Cries 'cause the world forgot her
Once Arthur's sword could not be found in the waves
The Beast of Bodmin Moor
Never reveals itself
To doubting Thomases and men without trust
When we forget the past
We stumble on the tracks
It shouldn't be there, but I know that it must
Always a bit of movement
As silent as the stones
The towering tors that guard the tops of the hills
Surrounding Bodmin Moor
What are you searching for?
You'll never come back, but I hope that you will
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9. |
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Make an appearance, I swear that
I won't let anyone know that
You're hiding here in the swamp
So safe and serene
Preening your feathers
You wait for breaks in the weather
But they never thought you clever enough
To escape from their sight
Others want to have you,
But they'll never understand you
And they'll pull your wings apart
To put some feathers in their caps
They can never know the wanting
For some graceful thing that's haunting
Only focusing on flaunting
Their rack of sacrificial lambs
You should be hidden
You should be secret
You should be mine now
You should prefer it
They are the ones who pulled out your feathers
Declared you extinct and said that you'd never
Save your own skin. It's all for the best.
You're too beautiful to live in this world
I have you now. I can't help but think how
You always destroy these things that you love
Your face is graced by the trace of
Sunlight and sorrow
And your ivory lips
Conceal a devastated kiss
They will never love you
Like the way that I could love you
And I swear that I could hold you
Without crushing your ribs
You should be hidden
You should be secret
You should be mine now
You should prefer it
They are the ones who pulled out your feathers
Declared you extinct and said that you'd never
Save your own skin. It's all for the best.
You're too beautiful to live in this world
I have you now. I can't help but think how
You always destroy these things that you love
Why would you hide from the one man who knows you?
Revealing your splendor to strangers who don't care
That you were born dying. This world is unhinged
And you owe me. You owe me. You owe me.
You should be hidden
You should be secret
You should be mine now
You should prefer it
They are the ones who pulled out your feathers
Declared you extinct and said that you'd never
Save your own skin. It's all for the best.
You're too beautiful to live in this world
I have you now. I can't help but think how
You always destroy these things that you love
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10. |
Rougarou
03:45
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This is not me you're seeing
This could not be the shape of my bones
And that howl that you're hearing
Emanates from your very own throat
But in the deepest dark
Out in the blackest swamp
My limbs will twist into tales that you have told
All I could ask of you
Get out your sharpened knife
Cut this hand and see blood just like your own
So they tell all the children
"Rougarou wants to snatch you away"
Though I find off the urges
I slip a little bit further each day
Behind these gnashing teeth
Beneath this shambling form
My pulse will quicken until my heart is torn
I try to wrest control
Undo the knotted thread
But I forget where it ends and I begin
I'll push the door down tight
I'll keep the wolf at bay
You shouldn't tremble so
No, you should run away
I cannot stop myself
I cannot stop myself
I cannot stop myself
I cannot stop myself
I did not ask to be this
It's my body that's carried me off
Where those damn birds are chirping
And I'm scared that they never will stop
Out in the thickest wood
Where I could hide myself
I will not take the bite, even if it's offered me
So just forget you saw
And don't recall the sound
The sinews stretching, the bones cracking underneath
I'll push the door down tight
I'll keep the wolf at bay
You shouldn't tremble so
No, you should run away
I cannot stop myself
I cannot stop myself
I cannot stop myself
I cannot stop myself
Rougarou...
Rougarou...
You shouldn't tremble so
No, you should run away
Rougarou...
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11. |
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Scan the sky for signs of life
Lift your head up and recite
Your list of birds that you have never yet to sight
I flick a cigarette and sneer
At the myths that steered us here
Into the desert, where there's nothing left to find
The local people tell the story
Unfold the passing of the glory
Of the giant bird that careened from peak to peak
There was a man who shot a bird
That brought the thunder to the world
And when it fell to earth, the skies refused to weep
And we can laugh, 'cause we are tourists
This will never happen to us
Take our photographs and climb back in our cars
The ground is crack with thirsty mouths
Dusty voices calling out
For the bird to fly again beneath this bowl of stars
And we are never coming back
And it is never coming back
Keep searching skies for signs of rain
In vain you grapple with the weight
Just like the Thunderbird that pulled the whale
From off the ocean floor
Keep searching for that missing picture
The evidence that it was ever
Spread your arms and take the measure
Contain the skies and hold together
Retell the stories that won't die
And keep your head stuck in the sky
And way up high
The birds will chase the storm to ground
In the valleys, in the town
They all are wishing they could drown
Beneath the torrents that the Thunderbird could bring
But in the sky there are no feathers
No screaming shadows bringing weather
Just the stories that never seem to end
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Derek Lee Miller Minneapolis, Minnesota
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