1. |
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She's got something to say and the whole room stops and listens.
A little girl, a set of eyes.
She crushes doubt and sets aside your notions, your small emotions.
She is here, where are you?
She was here, where were you?
Half the size of her guitar. Twice the size of your expectations.
Nearly five feet all, almost nothing at all.
I see her teeth and her fillings. I see some father's hard-earned money spent.
This is your daughter, I hope you're proud
She's getting press and top billings and soon she'll pay her own rent.
You raised her up good, nice and loud.
Pushing and pulling, striking and strumming.
She understands the true beauty of her words because she's beautiful.
And she'll tell it to you softly and you'll listen
like it was spoken loudly.
As if you needed her permission
to see her naked soul, to hear her thoughts and hopes,
to share any connection.
Forget your learned role
and tell your friends that oh
you were lucky to be there.
To hear her mouth let go. To feel her eyelids close.
You were lucky to be there.
She was here, where were you?
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2. |
I Couldn't Make Stairs
03:37
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I am a man and I work as hard as any other man
and I'm worth what a day's worth of work is worth.
I have no plans so different from any other man
Just to own my very own patch of dirt.
But it's the "ins" that weed me out.
It's society's filth that plants the deepest doubt.
This sick consensus. Public mood
is the worm that's twisting through my food.
I had a spare to spare at an earlier time
but I gave it to the next kid in line.
I had five wooden squares but I couldn't make stairs.
And when they bribed me I respectfully declined.
I had trouble getting air and I couldn't stand square
With a faulty build and twisted little spine.
I flinched when they threw the book at my eyes.
How could you tell I would have just as soon have died?
I was a boy just like any other boy
but they couldn't shape me into their employ.
I was as sweet as I felt i could afford to be
in an environment with nothing to enjoy.
Conjuring up soon forced me down.
And built a hunched and broken feeling
into the tallest kid in town.
I learned to whisper suppressing any speech
of value lurking underneath.
Unaware of the glaring social hierarchy
I appeared to be the jester of the keep.
They'd all just stop and stare at the boy who didn't care.
Drifting end to end til out of reach.
I learned to misdirect their hateful speech
and use it all to fuel a clever retreat.
I laughed when they threw the book at me.
I smiled when I should have shown no teeth.
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3. |
Luck
03:13
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I’m getting to know my way around the hospital real well.
You’re sweating off the days in your own personal hell.
Tell me are you fine hiding in there,
It’s really hard to know from just your vacuous stare.
Maybe soon they’ll find the time and the MRI’s will prove that you’re just fine
And hiding up there.
You taught me all about luck.
You told me that there is nothing that’s fair.
You learned me that there is such a thing as being right and also dead
And it’s your own damn business what’s up inside your head.
Words are all I have to give to you.
If everybody lies then so can you.
Honesty’s an awful thing but I would never spare you.
I’m gonna learn you the truth.
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4. |
Sickly Honest
03:53
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You get sickly honest
Right before you get sick
You miss moment
If you're thinking past it
You'll never know why I can't be tamed
You'll never know how I rarely feel safe
But she knows the twisted way to my heart
Is better left alone after dark.
She knows me well enough not to believe me.
I'm never strong enough to not deceive you, you see.
We've known for long enough it's too god-damned easy.
Now I'm sickly honest. Put me to sleep. Now I'm sickly honest put me to sleep.
You get waves of nausea.
Right before it gets deep.
This sinking ship was capsized by speech.
Sour winds of temperance rip through my soul.
Be my compass rose, tell me which way to go.
And even as I wade to find you trembling in the dark.
I'm afraid that it's still fear I'm holding closer to my heart
Swim an ocean of emotion, speak to my soul
Through these frosty wicked winds that force me to compose.
Give so gladly to this madly narcissistic, cold, persistent child you love to know.
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5. |
You're Doing Fine
05:09
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The sun is peeking through the basement windows.
The morning birds force a smile across your face.
It’s time for you to go to bed among the snoring, sleeping dead
And pretend for five hours you’re resting just fine.
The self abuse is free, riddled in dreams.
With a heart like mine nothing is fine.
The feelings inside are disrupting the lines of reality
You frequently fight to define.
Just act like you’re doing fine.
The new buildings of the ‘80’s are growing gay with age.
Soon you’ll start doing the same.
You’re bordering the gutters, falling from the others,
Soon you’ll be outside the frame.
From the far off feeling of dread to the pulse pounding fear in your head
You can’t even hide when you can’t decide
Between the gray-green sickness of doubt and the black and red circles about
The lines on your face that suggest you know what age is about.
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6. |
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There are many things that I never got to talk to Paul about.
Namely the war, his old cars.
We never got to sit and drink a beer, not really.
Never had a chance to come together, ultimately.
But here and there we'd find a common thread.
"Is that how people do things now?" he'd said.
The past, it wasn't like that. Not so simple or unkind.
But men behaved like men and boys never cried.
You did the work you had to do to get your family by.
Growing old and aching all the time.
It's a tragedy; a god damned shame.
It could be worse you see, so don't place blame.
Under a gaslight, beside a frame lies the son of William James.
A baker, a performer, a magician all the same.
An immigrant's son. A boy in a man's frame.
I never got to know you outside a picture frame.
But I bear your face, profession and your name.
Mixing on a barrel in the basement in PA.
What did you “know” about the future?
Did you worry all day?
How did the streets look before there were so many cars?
How peaceful were the skies before there were planes?
You’d quote the grace of God and the catholic way,
The finer points of business.
You sang all day.
From the lawn in Bronxville, captured in super 8.
Did you know you’d raise, four children who'd shine as bright as flames?
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7. |
Lords of the Beach
04:03
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We were eleven and twelve years old.
Jonny was tall but I was still small.
We reigned as lords of the beach,
Ice cream and adventure were well within reach.
We’d yet to learn what desperation was.
We tackled the tides secure in our family’s love.
If we were fifteen and sixteen again,
I’d apologize I did not try
To grasp your parent’s breach.
It seemed that quite quickly you’d lost your speech.
We saw first hand what a panicked man would try
After being sure then suddenly denied.
It happened right here in this god damned house,
A mutiny of love from a tired spouse.
A table full of eyes casts a constant strain
On the very kind of love that will never be whole again.
We try, we try to push aside the fears that bruise and paralyze
The thoughts of dread that won’t disappear
Are spilling out my goddamned ears
Why and for what
Remember six and seven again?
Swore on our lives we’d be best friends,
No matter family ties.
Me and my Jonny, the bravest guys.
We never knew the meaning of despair
What matters more is that we’re both still here.
I’m sorry Jonny, you’ll be strong
Where many men have come and gone.
A half a country’s distance long,
My heart to yours we’ll conquer on.
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8. |
Over and Over
03:09
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Over and over I've been thinking to myself,
With things that I give you you're better off with someone else.
You won't believe the problems I conceive.
In six more months will you belong to me?
Over and over I've been thinking to myself.
The "B" on my hand for band
Will be stuck to my forehead again.
And to the sheets, the bed and the pillow
You'll know where I've been.
It makes me sick to know
That you'd rather have me go
When my head's inside-out with the pressure
Of living my goddamned dreams.
Is it better to say something foul
when you think something foul
Than to lie through your teeth?
You goddamned cheat
and deprive us a night of howling out in the streets.
Over and over I've been thinking to myself...
That we don't want to be on our own for even a moment.
We'll conjure up ghosts to toast to.
These omens are stranger than most. We're thick as a couple of thieves
Who trade jests and boasts to fight desperation.
We'll never come close to feeling alright.
But despite all these flaws, we're within our laws.
So raise your arm off the table, start workin' yer jaw.
We'll never feel anything valuable that we will believe.
We're living our lives at night in hopes that we won't be seen
As such creatures of dread,
Like those stuck in my head.
I guess we've given an awful lot of time to such vanity
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9. |
Find Your Own God
04:05
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Even though we don't know why or which way, we're going there anyway.
Even though I don't where it is right now, I'll meet you there somehow.
You told me that I had to believe in something.
I suppose then, that I believe in your kindness and your beauty.
If I were made to choose for myself a deity,
Then I'd pray to the face that I dream of everyday anyway.
What would be the point of going anywhere, not to see you when I got there?
Not a single sight, closed or open air, can hold a light to you, so fair.
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10. |
Give 'Em Hell, Kid
02:54
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What remained the truth for a certain amount of time
Was that we had spoken for the last time in our lives.
What became so clear in the ER's fluorescent shine
Was that you'd slowly worried yourself blind
So now they say you're depressed
But I'm pretty sure they lied.
If you can't get yourself dressed
You might as well have died.
Why bother giving pills
Unless marked as cyanide?
You can't eat food or crack a smile
You've got no life.
I've been staring down death
Directly in his sunken face
And his name is my name
And his body's the same.
What love of punishment would keep me here with
A ghastly ghost with graying beard
Graying teeth and graying hair
And without an escape
Or someone to reshape
My every tendency
I'm going to end up there
Shrinking from light
And tearing out my hair
I've never been more certain of anything
I'm gonna end up like this sickly person in front of me.
And for what gain?
If this worlds all a game?
The cruelest joke of ‘em all
Is dying across the hall.
Give 'em hell, kid
You used to say
I'm in hell, Dad
Thanks anyway.
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11. |
Me and Mine
02:05
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You are my reason for breathing.
The reason why I try at anything.
My conscience and my hear in one hand.
You’re giving me that look again.
You make me feel better about everything,
The reason why my life’s worth living.
And I’m sorry that you’re sick
And if I could find God we’d have some words
And he’d be sorry because
You don’t fuck with the kindest people on earth unless you want to die.
So please, please stay away from me and mine.
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Worried Well Portland, Maine
Daniel James and Cam Jones are a band called Worried Well.
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new album "Great Appetite, Poor Taste" available on vinyl and CD 7.24.15
Available digitally on Mint 400 Records on 9.7.15
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