1. |
Coquihalla
03:40
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Lyrics:
It started with a buzzing feeling
that turned into a ringing sound.
So, I fired up the head bolt heater
and headed on into town.
There was snow burning up in the headlights
and a cross on the side of the hill,
looked as cold as the steel in my right leg
that I keep be- neath the windowsill.
I still get letters from some friends in the army
forwarded from my last address.
Sometimes when I’m out feeding the horses
I feel something rising up in my chest.
I could drive through the night to see you,
I could fly to England or France,
or just slow down as I’m passing the schoolhouse
if you’re finished teaching your night class.
I keep my one glass eye in a bottle,
it’s always staring at me from the shelf.
Talk about seeing your own reflection
reflecting back on yourself.
I’m not sorry I saw you but I’m going back down
that Coquihalla highway alone
‘cause the horses will be needing their oats soon,
and I’m sensing you’ve got places to go.
Lately I’ve been having the same dream,
I’m falling out of the sky.
I pull you up into my saddle
and we ride on through the night.
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2. |
First Draft
03:26
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So many scenes to write, this coffee stained paper curls. We won’t be this poor for long. I’m tired of being last, lagging like a desperate dog under the shaky moon howling tunes. The water keeps backing up, up through the sink and the tub, so I’ll call the landlord soon and if he don’t come, well, then I’ll call the plumber. The worse thing is the bed at night, it’s like sleeping in a block of ice.
Cuz everything was easier with you here, that’s when the days don’t falter and they don’t stutter. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe, damn these trucks and their diesel engines. And I’m still trying to write my play, once I get the first draft done, I’ll be working on a second one.
You can’t make the plot turn back or the third act just won’t seem real. How’s life on the Upper West Side? Someday I’ll move there with you, yeah, someday I promise. By then I’ll have my own marquee and golden lights will blink at me.
Cuz everything was easier with you here, that’s when the days don’t falter and they don’t stutter. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe, damn these trucks and their diesel engines. And I’m still trying to write my play, once I get the first draft done, I’ll be working on a second one.
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3. |
Last Chord
02:55
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If I write you a song would you sing it? Something with something like four chords in it.
Up to the five and down to the four and maybe a minor chord, I sure like the sound of that chord.
I wiped the frost from my nose on the sleeve of my coat, drank an old cup-a-soup with the package torn open that nobody wanted to drink, watched feathers that looked like snow, snow floating, feathers that looked like snow.
She said: I sleep on the floor at the punk rock house, and everything I own fits in this case from an old typewriter.
Then she took my hand and she laid me down while our boots by the door passed their secrets around. Whispering tongues and slippery sad words, and fell asleep to the sound of the rain pouring down, fell asleep to that sound.
And later on at the poetry slam we sat on a three legged stool holding hands while somebody dropped my guitar out of tune and said: Hey man, it sounds better like that, don’t you think? It sounds much better like that.
And we were drunk as we tore through department stores, and rode their revolving doors, and counted the revolutions—one, two, three.
If I write you a song would you sing it? Something with something like four chords in it. Up to the five and down to the four and maybe a minor chord, I sure like the sound of that chord, yeah, I sure like the sound of that last chord.
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4. |
Walking Dead
02:56
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Old love, carries me around. Takes me out on the town. Gets me drunk and gets me high. Old love can’t say goodbye. Old love can’t say goodbye.
Old love is always late so I always hang around and wait just to burn down the minutes on my cigarette in this parking lot when there’s no one left to sing to. Old love, no one left to sing to.
Old love, old love I’m a wreck without you. People keep on asking what’s new and I don’t know what to do with questions I don’t have the answers to.
Old love there’s nothing under the bed, so don’t be afraid of the walking dead. I saved your movies on old cassettes called VHS so I won’t forget you. Old love, so I won’t forget you.
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5. |
Heart Shaped Necklace
03:12
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Now the night’s burning off like a candle while we’re out here collecting stars. You keep calling out, Oh, I saw another one fall, but I haven’t seen anything falling so far. But when I do I’ll be certain to tell you, until then I am keeping your name safe behind this cracked bull’s eye window, sometimes at night it lets in the rain, sometimes it lets in the rain.
While your mother recites from her prayer book I learned of your mysteries there on a blanket of leaves in a forest as pieces of sunlight fell out of your hair. Then you took out your smoking tobacco, said, This kind’s not so bad for your health as I studied the arc of your fingers rolling paper up into the shape of a barrel, paper in the shape of a barrel.
So long you fake heart shaped necklace, you said as you blew in your hands before you threw it into the ocean you said I could be your man.
I crawled through the night to a patch of light and a black cat stared into my soul and out past the farm to a burned out barn the babies cried out from their satellite burrows. And the last thing you said resembled a prayer, then you took off your clothes and cut off your hair and I’m still not sure what’s really up there but sometimes I like to pretend like I know. Sometimes we pretend like we know.
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6. |
Radio Song
03:19
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The radio song slips into my ears. The same one I heard so long ago. It plays through the flight as they dim those cabin lights and we cross the line of darkness into the morning.
Now the radio song is always coming in strong. It helps me find my way back home to you. I hear it outside my hotel on a street in San Miguel. It goes across the alley, and up through a trumpet bell.
Let me be your radio, let me play your song, while the signal’s strong, whisper in my ear, tell me what you want to hear. I’m your radio.
‘Cause the radio song is leading the way. Some people say it’s Jesus some people say it ain’t. Maybe what they’re hearing’s not the same thing that I hear in this barroom in Oaxaca when I think of you my dear.
I think, let me be your radio, let me play your song, while the signal’s strong, whisper in my ear, tell me what you want to hear. I’m your radio.
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7. |
Crooked Mouth
03:28
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It’s last call for the moon, so we crawl towards the edges of the light to stand in your apartment and wait to fill our glasses at the sink. You run the water for a minute over your fingers pointing downwards at the drain and in that minute I’m afraid that you might disappear like shadows in light rays.
I think this radio is broken, can’t find a signal or a sound. Forgot the letters to the password, I guess I should have wrote it down. So, bring on the sharp teeth of the morning, let’s crawl inside its crooked mouth while the flames shoot down the wires to circuits shorting underground.
It’s last call for the moon, too soon to be returning to the place where your shadows meets the light rays in a perfect chiaroscuro in a frame.
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8. |
Two Hands
03:44
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In a one horse town with no horses around, in a Motel 6 by the highway I sit and wait for the daylight to return. Step outside light a smoke, throw the burning match up to the paper sky, sit and watch the fiery lights burn the sky to black ashes.
On a bed laid out everything a man needs for one last night on earth: leather boots and cowboy shirt and wings of lotus flower feathers. Some nights I curse these idle hands, ‘cause that woman still needs a song to fill the space when I am gone, to fill the space when I am gone.
If I had two hands to add to my two hands, I’d play guitar for you with two and I’d keep time with the other two hands, two hands, two hands too slow on the draw, letting go with two hands.
A man makes choices and sometimes the bad ones are the ones he makes the most. Next I’m standing at my post. Next I pull the trigger. That shot still burns my fingers as I reach for the daylight in the east, I raise my hands and go in peace.
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9. |
Lanterns
03:03
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Teach me how to sing it. Decode all the notes. Read the restaurant fortune cookie you keep in your coat. Play me songs that always end in minor chords on the night before the darkness crucifies my words.
Hang your lanterns in the sky, sweep away the ashes of a burned out August moon. Hang your lanterns in the sky and help me to remember my way back home to you.
Through the alleys past garages with peeling paint I hear the subway through the sidewalk screaming through the grates.There’s nothing on TV, I guess I’ll go to bed and pray I recognize the ceiling when I raise my head.
Hang your lanterns in the sky, sweep away the ashes of a burned out August moon. Hang your lanterns in the sky and help me to remember my way back home to you.
In the dead of night hold up a candle to your face. Let the liquid light pour into every last embrace. And as I blow into my hands then role the dice, it’s the final question if I’m going to get it right.
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10. |
Light of the Moon
03:47
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Oh bride of the summer come and meet me outside. In this precious moment there is nowhere to hide and your mama won’t like it but she’s fast asleep in her room. Let’s drive for a while without headlights by the light of the moon.
We’ll drive through the shadows, we’ll drive to the sea. Slide over baby, it was meant to be with the wind in your hair, we go flying down Garrison Road. Your hands are like wings when you hold me, you lighten my load.
I once was a soldier and I travelled to shores. But I fought more battles inside me than wars. And when I was a child heaven always seemed so much higher. Now the eyes of an angel are birds on telephone wires.
I see the signs of the night turning day, the sky is on fire and I see Saint Christopher rolling and rolling away. So bride of the summer come and meet me outside. In this precious moment there’s nowhere to hide and your mama won’t like it but she’s fast asleep in her room. Let’s drive for awhile without headlights by the light of the moon.
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Tariq Vancouver, British Columbia
Tariq is a Juno nominated singer/songwriter & recording artist. He releases music as himself and w/ the critically acclaimed band, Brasstronaut.
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