1. |
Zelda and the Burnout
03:04
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Ric Starling, stranded on a distant desert world, ponders an old key that used to pilot the Chariot Zelda -- before he left her, and his car refused to drive him around anymore. But that's why starlings have wings, right?
This key I keep will never start
Will never kick ignition
For it was me who lost the heart
Subtracting the remainder of my division
I found you in the deadest ice and snow
I found you and delivered you right home
I found you when I'd lost all I once knew
I found when I had nothing I might find you
So right away we went road-trippin
Brooklyn to Chicago
Nashville's saccharine, I found sickening
But it was worth the drive, tho
Still habits come and calcify
What seems so certain turns out
To leave you like you left her too
It peels away and leaves a burnout
Who left you in the summer's promised glow
Who left you when the future was unknown
Who left you after coming all that way
Who left you and who threw the rest away
Now all I have left's a paper trail
That gives me no more options
Just time to pay off this betrayal
With forgiveness from the forgotten
So this key I keep will never start
Will never kick ignition
For it was me who lost the heart
Stalled the engine's revolution
Choked the clutch
Snapped the belt
That timed all these decisions
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2. |
Present, Tense
03:31
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B A D B A D
I keep losing days and losing faces
Imaginary traces in a haze
I keep catalogued old names and data
Secondary records in a cache I retain
E D G E D G
No path, no answer, no destination
Avoiding the void, what an abysmal occupation
F# E A F# E A
Stuck in the present tense
Stuck in the present, tense
B A D B A D
This deep in the span, there’s no way but forward
Pull toward the nearest orbit point and try to make land
[Solo in E; recording ends in F#, but maybe go back to B live?]
B A D B A D
Inside the caption, I can’t help espying
The year-to-year, the little span bookending our claim
Now I keep track of days and missing faces
So imaginary traces don’t get lost in the haze
B
Stuck in the present tense
Stuck in the present tense
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3. |
Wince and Flinch
03:58
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Now humans can't perceive the panopticons or evade their effect [without chemical enhancement] but the magnetically charged Avians can. Jonas churns between waves of awareness and judgment, snapping from crest to trough and losing track of where up used to be.
But a beacon -- maybe a pair of them? he can't tell -- calls out to him. His name is Winston Finch -- or are they Wince and Flinch? -- and the message is clear: give yourself up
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4. |
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After wandering off from the construction job, Alber happens upon a glen containing an old shuttle from the Roost -- Jonas' ticket out of this swamp! He tries to shut out the sound of Ric Starling serenading his lifemate, Dove Mourning.
Fm C G Bb
C G Bb
I never bothered planting seeds
I let my garden fill with weeds
Whatever green things should succeed
Who am I to say what life should stay?
My side's littered with debris
Broken lamps that have no key
Novels wrinkled at the leaves
Who am I to say what's vile and gray?
Your half's bursting with new air
Herbs in planters everywhere
It's really that much greener there
And who are we to say what life should wait?
I can't tell what to scatter here
Upon the toxic atmosphere
Leaching through the rooted years
But who am I to say what life's okay?
A starling and a mourning dove
Migrants from the world that was
Share a line, then flutter off
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5. |
Signals Through Subspace
02:46
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Bursting out from between branes and into a new dimension come Alber Tross and Chick Dee. Their Nest Egg maintains them as they slowly adjust, feel out their new life.
Their all-purpose droid Tin Lizzy ought to radio back to the Roost, but only wants to hear back from the old next-door Eggcase neighbor, Rozy Rozetta. Her psychometric antennae helped Lizzy make sense of what these crazy airbreathers want. Tin can get on without the best translatrix in the galaxy, but doesn't yet know how.
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6. |
Subtract the Difference
02:37
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Wise words from a paranoid source beamed straight into SETI-VI's processor from somewhere in the Cosmos.
A
A F G
What you are and what you try to be
What you declare and what you actually
What you aspire, but for now are accepting
C
If there’s a difference don’t mention it
The names you know and names you know you ought to
The where you go and where you’re only brought to
The lives that grow round the times that you forgot to
If there’s a difference, don’t mention it
F G A
The force it takes to overcome somebody else
The strength it takes to teach you to control yourself
Between the both of these we seek to wind a way in stealth
Instead of just keeping up with every hand we’re dealt
You bind your self up in some high ideal
You wrap your soul up in some fleshy feel
But will you accept what you cannot conceal?
If It makes no difference, don’t mention it
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7. |
Drive the Past Away
02:21
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F#m
C#m E A
In this indigenous red clay, we dig for future tenses
That that which dries may not dry up
We carve accumulate away and drive the posts for fences
And say goodbye to that old day
Bm D F#m
And where it went
And what we spent
And every cent we lent tomorrow today
Another shovel on the pile of what could once prevent us
Another foot entrenched in decay
Bm D A
It's how we drive the past away
We trust the tools that we designed to aid us in our searching
For what may well be springing up
For what is chosen to diving while we the hands keep working
Wile we keep digging for the cup
Of what we'd lost
From what we crossed
By every cost we foster every living day
D B
Am I a fool for dredging up whatever here lies lurking
To try and cleanse by sweat of day?
It's how we drive the past away
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8. |
Panopticons
03:42
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On this world, a secret unifying force binds all the consciousnesses of its sentient beings so that each of billions of pairs of eyes link at once to that underlying self. Thus is the world able to observe itself observing itself.
Alber Tross receives this information from the new voice in his head, whom he refers to as Winston Finch. Ever since Jonas Sulk took over Alber's old body, the Trossbrain has quietly submitted to the Sulk. But now, he receives the same disturbing signals that first sent Jonas scattering across the multiverse...
Dm Am Dm C
They're gonna watch you
Everybody wants to watch you
Dm G Dm G
Everybody sees everyone at once every day
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9. |
Long Gone, Now
04:26
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Having captured the captain and obtained his physical form for his own escape plans, Jonas Sulk struggles to control his golden ticket out of this joint.
A A7 Bm
A A7 Bm D
Whoever held this body last has lost his grip
Whatever say he had has said its peace
The pieces of what prearrangement grasped and slipped
Resists this muscle memory's sweet release
But he is long gone, now
He can't seem to hold nobody on his own
But he don't have to feel left out
Never lonely, sad or cold
'Cause he's long gone, now
All along, was he gone before we made our way?
Are we only missing what we threw away?
Whatever held this mind intact is now just not
Whoever was the one take to task
But perhaps it's just the newness leaves us both in shock
That we took to borrow, but never thought to ask
But that is long gone, now
I can give this brand-new body a brand new home
And I can't regret it no more
I'll just stake this claim alone
And be long gone, now
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10. |
Away and Through the Sun
03:18
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epochrypha Indianapolis, Indiana
In the future, interstellar travel advances too rapidly for us to resist.
Our intrepid
voyagers will face the 7 Hermetic Soul Powers:
1. Darkness
2. Desire
3. Ignorance
4. Call of the Void
5. Kingdom of Flesh
6. Wisdom of Flesh
7. Wrathful Wisdom
So spake St. Magdalene, Discordian priestess. Alber Tross would bring down a whole ship for thee, O Mother of Madness! #haileris
... more
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