Flashy Python

This night now finds me on glass,
Broken ‘neath car keys
It is the winter I guess,
There are no leaves upon the trees
I think I’m on vacation.
The waves crash in the distance.
There is a man at the bar,
Who fixes his eyes on me
He says, “Son, let us hallucinate together.”

The land is rising above ocean water
I could walk to Paris or Japan
If I don’t let my eyes close
I know I could save my life
By never going to sleep again,
I’ll never sleep again

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Hammond organ, Wurlitzer
Matt Sutton – Baritone Guitar
Matt Barrick – Drums
Scott McMicken – Guitar
Toby Leaman – Bass
Billy Dufala – Saxophone
Emily Ounsworth – Trumpet

Why the painted face?
You’ve not joined the circus
There’s a line on that map,
I drew that line
Does she want me to stand with my hands on my head?
The pastor read the sermon
And I frankly perspired,
Will Jesus love me? Hug me?
While she waits behind stained glass with her one good eye?
Have her blood stains revealed
What is in her troubled mind?

Bring me a grown man,
crying like an orphan

Here comes the ghost,
That’s trailing me
With her long hair, short hair, senseless, dumb, and creepy,
Mama, why do you hold me so close?

So she wrote a letter
And she packed some wine
Does anyone out there love me still?
Will I arrive on time?
I see,
Would stronger men kneel, as she is robbing them blind?

You might lose taste for your God,
You might find nothing to do,
All of her face is torn off,
Now we have nothing to prove,
Look at the trouble I’m in
By virtue of once admitting a stranger
I will not wait for no plain-clothed apparition
Who from California touched down
On a Pennsylvania runway as a Ghost

So I’ll meet her for dinner,
We will talk about the weather,
I’ll have no way of quite knowing
If she’s coming or she’s going,
It’s so hard to make engagements with yourself.
As the doctor spreads the instruments upon the shelf,
And the self-made man collects his undue wealth,
And the Roman Emperor just kills himself,
Muttering,
“She’s in love with all the animals and so she feeds the animals.”
“She’s in love with all the animals and so she feeds the animals.”

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Bass, Piano, Guitar
Matt Sutton – Baritone Guitar
Matt Barrick – Drums
Quentin Stoltzfus – Bongos

One
Ticket to Tokyo on a boat,
Wood on a wave
I hear that Steven sleeps with the stingrays now,
So I fashioned a history book into a sail as the Japanese wind seemed to blow these words in

I
Came to Kyoto where now he
Is on display,
Plated glass, no one dare ask him
If his life is a picnic it’s clear as he points to the headphones that howl the words the wind sang upon arrival

Itchy
Ichiban blue son
Itchy
Ichiban blue son

Why does he need to come out here?
There are museums in Oklahoma.

Could the lines in his hand have proposed this plan?
I measured the footsteps outside temple walls, and then juggled some sand ‘til I saw him again

He
Keeps a white candle in his hair
And now works with clay,
Wax drips down upon the panda cow that he has made

Itchy
Ichiban blue son
Itchy
Ichiban blue son

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Bass, Percussion, Gong, Mud Guitar
Matt Sutton – Baritone Guitar
Scott McMicken – Piano, Drums, Guitar

Skin and Bones
And a broken nose,
What happened last night here?
Why do I sit now staring at a wall half-naked on a table of metal?

What a tightrope joke!
What a pretty prostitute!
In a saintly Italian film
She makes me want to lie down, makes me want to want to feel better

So, you left the racetrack with your wedding ring tucked away between your thighs,
Saying that, “I want to be destroyed with the furniture and the mice, destroyed in the fire, destroyed in the fire.”
Considering how wrong it can all go, it is not important,
Nothing’s wrong,
The spaceship comes from inside!
It’s time to collect yourself,
Why not collect yourself?
Why not forget?

Oh, Emily, is it time now to go home?
Fare-thee-well to the crutch and to the broken bone

Touch, Touch, Touch,

Meet me just outside of town
At a diner that never closes,
Take this trash bag
Filled with half-finished songs and the hole in my sweater

When sometimes it gets so that I cannot think,
Christ, cigarette, be still!
Is it time to grow a beard and address myself in the mirror as though addressing a stranger?

See the stars above us are telling us nothing, no mystery, no order,
The fish net broke above the water,
Let us let them escape, we should let them escape, let us let them escape,
And as the hours go swimming to new terror,
And another fair-weather friend disintegrates like all the others,
Oh, what can I do?
Oh, what can I say?
Oh, how should I feel when I don’t want to go home?

Oh, Emily, is it time now to go home?
Fare-thee-well to the crutch and to the broken bone

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals
Scott McMicken – Guitars, Hammond Organ, Bass, Percussion
Matt Barrick – Drums
Matt Sutton – Baritone Guitar
David Cope – Piano

Cigarettes,
Choking pets,
How you gonna pay the rent
Now that all of your money’s gone?

I know you,
You know me,
We met at the cemetery
Digging ditches and turning up stones

Oh, my, my,
Obscene queen bee
I wish I knew the cure for the disease, which causes you to be so cold

A wet dream,
A magazine,
Fantasies and make-believes,
My headless chicken’s going to get stoned

And Paris it is too full of rage,
Undercover,
Center-stage,
Voulez-vous coucher with this animal

Oh, my, my, . . .

Radiant,
Allowance spent,
Really, I had only meant that
We should never get so sentimental

A broken string,
A wedding ring,
Behind a fence I have no sense
For what the neighbors think of self-control

Oh, my, my, . . .

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Air Organs, Throat Tom, Accordion, Wurlitzer, Harmonica

In the darkness,
No one stops to say,
Hello, hello,
How you going?

Strangers gesture
At big screens,
Hooray for the cripple!
Hooray for the human microscope!

Now are we only carving sheep, taking vitamins, out to lunch with the in-laws, licking stamps, getting headaches?

At the bottom of the sea,
Abstinence needs quiet company,
Is that the tight dress that you wore now all in pieces on the floor?
Come on, let’s get to the bottom of it!

In the darkness, we just seem to slip away . . .

In the darkness,
Sweeping sounds precede the wind
Cutting in and out of children
Yelping in the snow

And now that the soldier is home
And he tags along with all of the others
Do they need him around?
Do they want him around anymore?

Oh, are we only milking beef, letting violins in, weeping beyond sunken buildings?

It’s just a graceful full-body sneeze
and the cable car that’s stuttering ‘neath your knees!

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, 12-string Guitar, Farfisa and Hammond Organs, Percussion, Harmonica
Matt Sutton – Pedal-steel Guitar
Matt Barrick – Drums
Mickey Walker – Bass

As soon as he gives a name
To whatever it is he finds so goddamn frightening,
He’ll empty his crippling pen,
It is not so difficult then

So he fell in with the studs,
Too late now it seems the city’s dry mud
Took his might underground,
Now no more surprises,
No more clowning around

There goes a naked man
Dressed up like an ordinary citizen

Look at him go down with the businessmen cattle,
Let him go

Sometimes I now still call on him
To dip me in the river
But he won’t heal me now
Now that he is lost himself

(Now he just drops into pin me against the wall
Oh, hello, hello, hello!
Now he just drops into see that I surely fall
Oh, hello, hello, hello!)

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Wurlitzer, Acoustic Guitar, Bass
Matt Sutton – Pedal-steel Guitar
Quentin Stoltzfus – Drums
Billy Dufala – Saxophones

(part one: winter on the beach)

Gee, did we sit upon
Gold-plated pillows
As Avalon’s snake breath emerged blood and spittle?

The sky was vermouth,
As our eyes met the green sea,
And I was right there wishing you were there with me below

The officer waited in his car
As if for me to drive 95
With an open scotch-whiskey

Should I sympathize with the moon
That is rising to greet sudden footsteps,
Why do we draw such fine lines in the snow?

The ocean, it purrs and it rubs up against me,
The oil barge sighs,
And the fishing boat steadies

The houses dripped red
As I shook off my head
And I rolled it upon the sand dunes of New Jersey

To my Mother I leave
So much more than I have kept,
The God of small things is in my kitchen cabinet

The D.J. might sigh
And the bills may be upset,
Just tell them I would if I could but I just can’t go on

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Piano, Motu Strings (violin, cello, contrabass)
Matt Sutton – Acoustic Baritone Guitar
Scott McMicken – Wurlitzer

(part two: mercury rising)

I’m stupid,
I’m stupid,
I’m stupid,
No time for the family, work ‘til I’m blind in the both eyes

I’m tripping,
I’m tripping,
I’m tripping on thought that I had when I was young, oh, now where did they come from?

I’m waiting,
I’m waiting,
I’m waiting around for us bus for to take me to wait for another

I’m locking,
I’m locking,
I’m locking wide doors, please don’t knock, I am sleeping inside on the floor

I’m catching,
I’m catching,
I’m catching the worm, just to ask him if he would remember this moment

I’m falling,
I’m falling,
I’m falling below, now to memories’ footprints, a sigh and a photo

I’m asking,
I’m asking,
I’m asking for bread, would you come back to visit me after I’m dead?

Alec Ounsworth – Mud Vocals
Quentin Stoltzfus – Guitar

(part three: yesterday went away)

Yesterday went away
With the fire in the earth
And was smothered with mud from the ocean

Yesterday took a fall
As it was unrehearsed
And today finds itself duly sweating

Yesterday went away
As I tried to recall
Where the doctor had left my emotion

Yesterday skipped along
With its flowery talk
‘til a bullet stopped dead its strict motion

Yesterday did its hair
In the candlestick glare
With the neighborhood champ and miss homely

Yesterday kicked me from
The tallest of horses
And made off with my youth and my cocaine

Alec Ounsworth – Vocals, Farfisa (high)
Matt Sutton – Baritone Guitar
Quentin Stoltzfus – Drums
Tyler Sargent – Bass
Mickey Walker – Farfisa (low)