1. |
Traffic Beats
04:03
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i went down to the streets
dancing to the traffic beats
i put away my life of dreams
for a town that never goes to sleep
it’s better now, it seems,
than a girl that likes to creep up on me
can you hear the noise?
you like to blame it all on the boys
can you here me screaming,
just so i can feel anything
you used to lay next to me on the cold ground;
now the air dries your tears when you feel down
are you hurt when you think of someone else
lying next to me?
and does it hurt when i say,
“go and mess with someone else’s dreams”?
its better now, it seems,
now that i can finally be
anything
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2. |
Perks
04:54
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i’m staring at the ceiling fan
as the smoke goes ‘round the kitchen
and my feet say i might be drunk,
but the smalltalk’s running on and on and on….
float on, friendly faces,
the laughs i know, but not the names
so down the drinks and turn up the songs —
we all know this one.
the sick shirtless cabaret is jumping off the balcony,
and the world tilts, and she says ‘show me’.
now yellow curls all around
and no one sees us sneaking out…
slam the door, throw secrets to the floor.
every day she wakes up knowing,
and every day i’m lost.
i swear myself to her and she just smiles,
and says, “try not to get sick.
i was born too late, and grew too fast.”
so this is what an earthquake’s like,
all dizzy screams and bodies everywhere.
“if you ever need me…”
no!
we’re only honest right before we’re gone.
so let’s hear it for all our friends
and all of their dead souls,
turning the youth into what we’re not.
i will die for sure if i stay and watch
all of our dreams as they turn to dust.
so i won’t sing hymns about being happy only one hour a day
or sinking like quicksand we can’t shake.
she lights one up, smiles through the smoke…
and she don’t choke.
what’s there left to talk about?
i’m finding words to say.
i’m not moving
i won’t make a sound
i’m finding the words to say
hey!
who do you think you are?
we don’t have to prove ourselves to this place anymore.
get out, sit down or get burned.
nothing stays buried underneath the floor.
don’t look so stressed!
it’s just planets colliding ‘round bleeding bricks.
tell me a story.
tune me out.
all you know is what you see.
this is the last year,
and there’s no piece of this place that will be safe from me.
so let that apathetic smoke in, baby,
you just have to talk first.
i’ll conquer this town and free my friends
even if they don’t stay.
and if we played, would you remember
all the kids and loves you used to be before?
this isn’t the place for that,
‘cause now everyone’s talking
and no one’s looking back.
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3. |
We Both Know
04:14
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i can’t say i haven’t been up in arms,
or that i haven’t had time to grow,
because what you see is what you get
when it comes down to everything about me.
and i still believe in everything you say, like
“you’re more than what you think you are,
like a supernova that forgot it was a star.”
but i already think that you’re a liar.
so here i sit with this lamp and guitar,
pouring out every inch of my tongue —
words i wish i could have said,
but always found a home in being sung.
and i still believe everything you say, like
“nothing is ever quite what it seems,
when you’re living in the reality of daydreams.”
but i still think that you’re fast asleep.
now i think it’s about time i got the record straight,
after all the years that i wasted away,
about how i can trade this ocean for mountains out west,
while the thought of coming back is too much to digest
and i’ll run and run when given the chance
and i’ll rip down the rear view without a second glance.
so i guess i’ll just pack my bags
and wait on your front porch
for the perfect season to come
and take me away to something more
where i can be what i long to be,
where i can finally get some sleep,
but we both know that wouldn’t be me, yeah,
we both know that wouldn’t be me.
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4. |
Autumn Queen
05:15
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say you don’t need me,
and i’ll say i don’t need you
and i’ll lie about the awful things
that we used to brand ourselves with
(you’re cynical, you’re ruined, you’re acid rain)
but before, deep in our own heads,
we shared a common hallucination —
a combination to counter our curse.
this is how we survive
in this breakneck world of love through landlines
and you can’t sing, so i’d sing it loud:
“oh, let me leave without a doubt”
the hand is shoving forward,
and we can never sleep again.
oh, always: we can’t ever sleep again.
she’s here!
drink up!
drink till she stops speaking to you.
but you won’t stop. it’ll bottle up and burst.
you never ever said i’d be a piece of the past
that you don’t want.
now slip down shirts,
let’s touch each other like we used to.
it’s all the same to me.
you’ve got your skirt cut up so high
and it gets worse by the hour.
“oh, someone notice” —
you’re the reason we have bars on our windows…
you’re the reason we have padded walls…
you’re the reason that i find to try.
dragged along the edge of black plastic glasses,
and pints,
and walks of shame.
show them what you’re standing for.
just one word and out come the death threats,
secrets cocked,
ready to let loose.
“just one more, one more, one more”,
until she gets thrown out.
now the men on the street are screaming
“broken hearts can’t save you,
but broken bones might be alright”
she tried to stab me in the back in a record store ,
so i kicked her teeth in,
in front of the astronaut on the album sleeve.
the first part was your fault; the last part was mine
it’s fractured love.
you’re a downward spiral, and it’s just so easy
to get sucked in again and again
i don’t want to remember anything; i just want to survive you.
in the end we just switched places —
i’m tripping out on lights while you stare into the dark.
autumn, don’t you miss me?
on second street the boys’ll chase our years away.
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5. |
Mexico
03:47
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i was born as my father’s son
and when i fell for a girl who hid from it all
he said
“you’re going to grow up and be someone,
you just can’t let that bloody love destroy you.
oh, it’s so much easier to wait than chase the day,
to chase those skirts as often as you can
and leave a trail of broken hearts everywhere you go
until you become a man.”
so i left san francisco
i left to find the sun
crossed the desert with a match and a guitar,
singing, “darling, i can’t be blind anymore”
then in el paso i jumped from an overpass,
hung a left under the old electric fence
when someone shouts “¡camino equivocado!”
“oh, senorita, you can have it all.”
i met maria in a car crash in a border town,
then again on a train heading south.
when i met three at a bar, i realized, down here,
the girls are all named the same.
but if my father was right, it was about one thing:
the tequila will make you forget
all the ways they tore you apart,
and left you bleeding alone,
without even the way back home.
i went down to mexico and i drank the water.
i went down to mexico just to feel the weather.
i went down to mexico and i drank the water.
i went down to mexico and forgot all about her.
wherever i go in mexico,
her name’s on all the street signs.
wherever i go in mexico, her name is everywhere.
my heroes break through the radio
and if they’re not coming home,
then neither am i — i’ll stay,
and haunt these mexican towns for a change.
i went down to mexico and i drank the water.
i went down to mexico just to feel the weather.
i went down to mexico and i drank the water.
but all of the tequila made me forget all about her.
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The Ground is Dancing Daytona Beach, Florida
The Ground is Dancing are four manly men who have a thirst for alcohol and beards. Just think if Taking Back Sunday, Blink- 182, Modest Mouse, Brand New, Incubus, your local classic rock radio station, and Olivia Newton-John got together and had a love child…and then aborted it eight months into the pregnancy. ... more
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