1. |
Fireman
05:09
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FIREMAN
For one last time I played "The Jitterbug Waltz", until my fingers grew numb.
(A long farewell recital to the bare walls.)
I sold my last possession, held onto it for as long as I could, and traded my piano for a tape deck.
(So nothing could hold me back anymore.)
For one whole year I did nothing but drive, back & forth across the country,
waiting for the money to run out. The speed was the essence, and I was constantly rushing forward through space.
A hunger to be fed at any price,
I closed my eyes and jumped.
Without the slightest tremor of fear.
The miles pile up just like the hours.
A peculiar way to make amends, yes, not considering the consequence,
I paid off all my debts, held a toast in my own honour and left.
Spent seven years a fireman, only two a father, I understood how little it mattered what choices i made:
I've been nothing but a voice to her. So let her have all she possibly wants, even a swingset in the backyard.
Too many things had been set in motion, so as long as i don't turn back, I could just as well be invisible.
Not far from Millbrook, I had already been lost for a while.
A young man covered with welts and bruises, hardly keeping up.
He heard me coming from the sound of the shifting gears, and for better or worse,
that was how the whole business started,
one fine morning at the end of summer.
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2. |
Primes
04:30
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PRIMES
There was nothing to catch hold of,
only a letter with blurred ink and clues on it.
Guard down, sit down and make plans
for a disappearing act, and always take the roads less travelled.
I threw that stone and hit the tree, I'm covering the finders fee.
Because you better be prepared for the worst than being caught by surprise.
The world around me suddenly lost its reality.
All feelings used up, losing balance.
Feels like falling asleep with both eyes open,
on the last drive to the far end.
A plan of action, the odds always the same.
As all hearts fail, no IOUs.
Circling like boxers, in the first round of a fight.
You lack compassion, I the bliss.
We become fragments, this is no longer in our hands.
I am a detail, the inner component
to a larger context of these mens voyage
through the city of the world, and everything happens at once.
We're figures within a model,
both feet glued fast to the earth.
A counterpart just as erratic as primes are.
It's in the beauty of the act to study gestures, flaws, defects,
and to pin down patterns, swinging fortunes in your favour.
So sure the situation was so safe in the palm of these hands
but the distance we span still might not be far enough.
Like lifting weights, honest work for honest wage,
and we're crossing out the past to start all over again.
Not making threats, it is presenting facts.
So i knew, just as i knew my name, we lost all odds in this game.
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3. |
The Wailing Wall
05:23
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THE WAILING WALL
We're hauling stone by stone into the trenches,
no use in making monsters pretty.
Ten rows, no twists or turns, no arcs or arches.
A monument to nothingness.
Don't worry about the things that might never happen.
Just be glad that you're alive.
They say faith can move a mountain,
maybe muscles can, too.
Coast all the way to the end, the world falls into place,
a switch turns on inside of me and my whole body starts to hum.
We had everything in harmony, but you had to break our rhythm.
We know nothing!
We're nesting in routines for a palmful of days,
been chained to the oars, never cutting to the chase.
Aching muscles, clouded minds, our bodies call for sleep.
It takes more than just a contract for a promise to keep.
You know that all this is a dark and dirty thing,
I’m asking for trouble as the panic kicks in.
It looks like we've come to a parting of ways.
So i bring this to an end, you curse as loud as you can:
Take me out!
Take me at my word and I'll catch up with you when I get there.
"By the time you count to a hundred, you won’t even remember who I am."
There's no escape from where you came from.
There's no escape from home.
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4. |
Headlights
04:18
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HEADLIGHTS
The sound of the meadow washes over me.
It starts and it stops, it starts and it stops.
Chance has brought me here,
but it won't take me back home, it won't take me back home.
I have witnessed death in its purest form.
I'm different now from who I was.
I'm throwing myself in.
I'm onto you, I found you out.
If it ain't broke, why fix it?
Only a message in code.
And back behind the wheel
with my hands trembling,
still a light and steady grip.
We still take curves and hills like they're nobodies business.
Right into the headlights,
voices howling in the distance,
being drowned by blood that's
rushing to my head. They are so close, so close.
And after all these months,
I now find myself on this parking lot,
at the edge of a small deserted town.
In the first snow of the year, I sometimes forgot
where I once had lived,
but I knew where I needed to go – on.
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