1. |
No Peace
04:38
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The sunlight hits my face like a belt-strap slap from the parents in the olden days, and I wake up into the morning wishing I was an orphan. Why do I get the feeling something awful is about to happen? Why do I get the feeling we need heroes jumping hurdles, Ninja Turtles, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers to save the day? No peace!
But as I rub my eyes and open up my laptop I see "Peace in the Middle East" flash across my browser. I see America signed the treaty, I see Mario and Luigi finally defeated Bowser, and I say "hey, Ariel, wake up and check this out: Ringo was right, it's all peace and love now, love and peace." And she says "You're dreaming. You're just dreaming. Go back to sleep." No peace!
Now is neither the time nor the place for peace, so put away the puppy dogs and rainbows. You can't put a dent in the 1% with hugs, can't smash the fascists with sappiness, no; nor the nazis, whether old-school or neo, so I'll leave you with a line I stole from Leo: "There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness." But no peace.
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2. |
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They’ve all been making plans for Nigel
And by “they” I mean the ornithologists
They live in houses made of bricks and glass
Nigel lives alone at the edge of a cliff
The bird-banders fill binders and books with his biography
They note his habits and record his squawks on dictaphones
Meanwhile Nigel wonders “why don’t they ever ask me?
I could tell them there’s a difference
Between being lonely and being alone.”
The scientists published papers and secured some grants
To repopulate Nigel’s future neighbourhood
With a concrete caster named Carl they concocted a plan
But they couldn’t have predicted Nigel’s commitment to bachelorhood
Called to the concrete colony by a cassette
Nigel noticed the other birds didn’t fly or flap around
He remembered an old French peacock had told him “hell is other birds”
He thought “well, this is just the kind of place I’d like to settle down!”
Nigel, he felt badly for the dumb scientists
Himself, he was no bird-brain, and his heart was huge
So he chose a concrete mate and he built her a nest
He figured it was what they wanted him to do
Nigel did most of the talking, but he was used to that
Usually they just sat there and stared out to sea
When he died, they gathered, and Carl carved his tiny tombstone’s epitaph:
Here lies Nigel the Gannet: alone but never lonely
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3. |
Birdwatching
02:05
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Tragedy minus glory equals just another story
Like the prisoners that stayed behind in Plato’s allegory
Or the poor forgotten second-last passenger pigeon
Anyone can fail but truly losing takes ambition
I’m suspicious of ambitious folks, but I’ll race you to the bottom
Where the clocks don’t tick or tock and you can smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
Carpe-ing every diem’s no achievement, it’s exhausting
If you need me I’ll be sitting over here, birdwatching
I’ve read the The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective People
I know I’m probably the liver, not Prometheus or the eagle
But I’d rather be a giver than a taker or a faker
everybody’s just another paycheque to the undertaker
I have an allergy to strategy and inspirational quotations
My reaction’s anaphylactic to vocations or to nations
I’m digging moats and burning flags and bridges just as a precaution
If you need me I’ll be sitting on this island, birdwatching
There’s a flower in the compost and a beach below the pavement
We’ll outlive the rich and famous if we remain aimless and patient
We’re neither rising like a phoenix nor are we dying like the dodos
So let’s leave the endless questing to the Sams and and to the Frodos
Anthems are anathema, enough with rousing choruses
And achieving is as torturous as tickling slow lorises
The search for more and better gives us worse and fewer options
So let’s quit while we’re behind, and do some birdwatching
Entrepreneurship is capsizing and it will surely sink
Jump and swim to Garbage Island and just sit and have a drink
While everybody else is busy polishing their coffins
We’ll be mixing cosmopolitans, and birdwatching
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4. |
Dirty Microphones
03:54
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Sharing dirty microphones
With ska bands from the outer zones
Dancing in our plastic skirts
Trading kerosene for merch
Sleeping in your solar van
We had no worries and no plans
Driving through the night to play
A house show on the coast of Ohio
Oh no, no no, don’t think about it
It’s not like we can’t live without it
It’s just music
We used to play music
Showcased for five or six drunk kids
At South by Southwest ’56
In an abandoned Taco Bell
Got paid in chips and cowrie shells
Your mom gave me her old guitar
The one she bought before the war
The pickguard still had bits of blood dried on it
Your mom was the coolest
These days, mostly, I don’t think about it, she says
It’s not like I can’t live without it
It’s just music
We used to play music
God knows we never got anywhere
Although we went everywhere
It’s past curfew but the neighbours are away
Come down to the bunker I’ll set up the PA
Sharing dirty microphones
With ska bands from the outer zones
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5. |
The Last Normal Day
02:48
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The summertime Santa
On his dog a bandana
Patterned with reindeer
They made a good team
He would sit with his legs crossed
Beside the old kiosk
People gave him their quarters
After buying ice cream
The sun on the mountains
The pigeons in fountains
The gulls in the garbage
Just doing their thing
The kids in the courtyard
Burning their report cards
I remember the chorus
Of the song they would sing
It was the end of the internet
And the things people make
Back when we didn’t quite get it yet
On the last normal day
Making dollar store coffee
Brains fuzzy and foggy
The glare of the sunrise
Set fire to our screens
Watching things get destroyed, a
Brand new schadenfreude
Crept into our conversations
And our dreams
At first entertaining
Like the Monkey Christ painting
Then far more alarming
Than a new Jesus face
Like watching a model
Ship sink in a bottle
It’s just like an earthquake
Seen from outer space
It was the end of the internet
And the things people make
Back when we didn’t quite get it yet
On the last normal day
Not everybody gets a raft or boat, ask Jack and Rose
Let’s rearrange these deck chairs before we go
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6. |
Empty World
02:33
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I wish I could hear the B52s for the very first time again
Ricky and Fred, Kate, Cindy and Keith, forever and ever, amen
I wish I could remember all the names of the trees that used to grow at the back of the yard
And listen to the sound of the rain on the leaves, and see a raccoon’s eyes light up in the dark
But it’s an empty world
I wish I would’ve learned karate or at least thought about learning karate
If I could’ve trained my body not to laugh at my brain I could’ve maybe trained my brain to control my body
I wish I could see the lights come on one by one in a block of flats
Each little square, there’s a person in there, and I’d just sit around and think about that
But it’s an empty world
I miss the sound of karaoke cowboys trying to sing Sweet Caroline
I miss the rides I never rode on and I even miss the lines
I miss the screaming of the kids on the tilt-a-whirl
Don’t want to be in an empty world
I miss the sound of strangers lecturing other strangers about their children
I miss the different smells on every floor of my apartment building
I miss the kiss of summer beaches and the filthy taste of soft-serve swirl
Don’t want to be in an empty world
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7. |
Minor Characters
02:39
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Our work is almost done here
We’re down to the very last cop
Cop can’t stand up
Not with all of us on top
What about the militia?
Good question, I’m glad you asked
They can’t shoot us
When we’re dancing so fast
Let’s make like a tree and leave
Let’s make like stockings and run
Cue the little drummer boy playing us out
A-rum-ba-bum-bum
Leave the city and hit the beach
Trade doom for danger
All the radio stations are static
But your car has a six-disc changer
Tide’s coming in
Tide never goes out
Birds chatter on the dock
Who knows what they’re talking about
This one looks friendly
That one looks mean
But this old pedal-boat swan
She’ll be the bird queen
You got the cooler
I got the deck chairs
Snorkel, fins, and goggles
There’s a lot of water out there
Little boat big ocean
Just look at these whitecaps
When the moon comes out
Bar’s open, time for a nightcap
Precious little corkscrew
So glad you thought of it
The wine is not good
But there’s a lot of it
A toast to the patron saint
Of amateur mariners
Insignificant others
And minor characters
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8. |
All I Need
04:10
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Nobody cried when the last radio DJ died
He might have been a decent guy, with a great collection of 45s
But there was no one left to hear them, to hear his strong opinions,
To listen to his stories about the band he used to be in
And he looked like he was sleeping, slumped on the mixer in Studio B and
You and I searched the station for provisions and supplies
I took some novelty sunglasses they’d once given as a prize
Which I still wear all these years later on the other side of the equator
These mirrored aviators reflect the whitecaps and the breakers
Yes I am quite a stylish sailor
All that I need is just you and the sea
And some food and fresh water and something to read,
An endless vista, the fancy pen I got for my bar mitzvah
And a semi-decent pair of water skis:
That’s all I need
The beach of broken glass is turning back into the sand it was made with
Is this what the Mariner meant when he said dry land is a myth?
I know I once proclaimed I loved the things that people make
But come on, for heaven’s sake, everybody makes mistakes
I miss the trees I miss the lakes, I hate the things that people break
Down at the edge of this churning shifting floating raft of flotsam
There’s a colony of concrete gannets the ornithologist has forgotten
We set them all up in a row, and we put on an epic show
You play an improvised banjo, strings made out of nylon rope
Stretched on a mannequin torso, look how wild the gannets go
There’s some magic here I know, this pelagic archipelago
All that I need is just you and the sea
And this souvenir shirt and this old DVD
Of the Jerk (it doesn’t work), and this toy Star Trek phaser,
And my blazer with the patches and the tweed:
That’s all I need
All that I need is you and the sea
And this picture of us recording ‘No Peace’
A few moments of glory I’ll exaggerate in stories
That I’ll scrawl on scraps and ask you to proofread:
That’s all I need.
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9. |
Swan Boat
03:07
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Last night I had a dream
Fires gleamed like tiny diamonds
Smoke rising from the cities
A smudge on the horizon
In a relic from a park
Shaped like a swimming swan
We sailed away, we sailed away
Just like an old Enya song
Our feet on the pedals
Our fingers trailing through the blue
I was sailing on a swan boat with you
To starboard there were stars
And port we had enough of
Small waves broke on the wings
Persistent and percussive
Just beneath the waves
We heard sea monkeys calling
Phosphorescent squid
Neon Venetian dolphins
Our feet on the pedals
Our fingers trailing through the blue
I was sailing on a swan boat with you
I woke up to the creaking pedals
And saw it all was true
I’m sailing on a swan boat with you
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10. |
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I dream in oily fluorescent swirls, I speak in plastic
My wardrobe is nylon and PVC, my band is elastic
It’s hard to find decent drumsticks but we’ve got bird bones and bits of buckets
And my drummer can hit she can really raise a ruckus
What’s this crystalline crunching beneath my feet?
It’s just hundreds of fragile skulls of penguins and parakeets
Some died miles away and flotsamed here some expired through violence
And when I say violence I mean I am the Bird Queen of Garbage Island
What’s up with the duck with the plastic quack?
35 North 135 West
Who’s the little girl with the map on her back?
42 North 155 West
Ask the macaque, ask the leatherback:
Polyethylene feathers and a high-vis vest
I am the Bird Queen of Garbage Island
Gannets and gulls, petrels, puffins and pelicans,
Make me a temple of nets and fish skeletons
Next take the buoys, bottles, dongles and ping pong balls
Build a wall all along the horizon and ten times as tall
I lost an eye to an albatross with mischief in his heart
But I replaced it with this ball-bearing painted to look the part
I’m a leader with a singular vision, or if you prefer, a cyclops tyrant
All hail the Bird Queen of Garbage Island
What’s up with the duck with the plastic quack?
35 North 135 West
Who’s the little girl with the map on her back?
42 North 155 West
Ask the macaque, ask the leatherback:
Polyethylene feathers and a high-vis vest
I am the Bird Queen of Garbage Island
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11. |
Speechlessness
04:22
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“Future Home of Open Arms Church”
The sign was old, near a stand of spruce and birch
We used it for a roof, the paint peeled in the rain
The evangelicals won’t be needing it again
The plastic Japanese alarm clock’s hands still glow
We’ll know what time it is until the batteries finally go
A year ago I rolled my eyes when you would say
We should really try to stockpile double-As
We’re losing language to describe these things somehow
(Slurring words, pronouncing things wrong;
Dropping vowels, stumbling over diphthongs)
We’re acquiring an apocalisp now
(Who needs words to describe a future of)
Ceaseless speechlessness
You fold your fingers in the shape of a bird
I kill a chicken for you ‘cause that’s what I thought I heard
You laugh and take its wings and mime them as you say
What I meant was that I’d like to fly away
Life’s a beach now, and that’s no longer an expression
The air above us is filled with wings in every direction
The years go by we watch them emigrate and return
To everything there is a seabird, tern tern tern
We’re losing language to describe these things somehow
(Slurring words, pronouncing things wrong;
Dropping vowels, stumbling over diphthongs)
We’re acquiring an apocalisp now
(Who needs words to describe a future of)
Ceaseless speechlessness
We’re losing language to describe these things somehow
(Slurring words, pronouncing things wrong;
Dropping vowels, stumbling over diphthongs)
We’re acquiring an apocalisp now
(Who needs words to describe a future of)
Ceaseless speechlessness
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12. |
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The end of the world can’t last forever
One day this will all be behind us, you’ll see
We’ll be baby birds in a nest, we’ll be ferns unfurled
At the end of the end of the world
Put away your troubles, shoot a crossbow for a while
Fur hat and pilot goggles, high-vis vest: I like your style
Let’s plant a garden full of things that we can grow and trade for oil
Tap the trees for sap and leave the syrup on to boil
The end of the world can’t last forever
One day this will all be behind us, you’ll see
We’ll be baby birds in a nest, we’ll be ferns unfurled
At the end of the end of the world
The sky is clear tonight and outer space is putting on a show
Each meteor a metaphor in a high school student’s poem
Let’s lay back on the grass and drink this booze we made from weeds
Connect the dots between the stars and any UFOs we see, they spell a message out for you and me, it says
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The Burning Hell
The Burning Hell is the ongoing musical project of songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake
Nicoll, often including additional comrades and collaborators.
Their densely populated genre-shifting songs are packed with an abundance of literary, historical, cultural, and pop-cultural forebears, heroes and villains, subjects and objects, stories and hooks.
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