Casualties of the Times: Cut Your Teeth

Cut Your Teeth


A man of principle once told me
That all principles must die
By a hand of humanity
And not the paper weight of time

Said throw him to the wolves
Throw him to the wolves
Throw him to the wolves…
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth

Oh, this slipping through our fingers
This feeling of borrowed, we pine
Alien, our souls disfigured
Mere casualties of the times

Said throw him to the wolves
Throw him to the wolves
Throw him to the wolves…
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth


March 16, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Reflections

Reflections


I am nothing
But a color unraveled
From a rope once called a life
Tied to a posse branch
My burden cut free
Riding to the sun from the ever stalking night

We’ll you meet me at the tower?
Where all mankind once spoke alike
We’ll you be dressed in rhyme or reason?
I’ve come to learn they’re not alike

Last star alight
Seems appropriate, my dear
To say our goodbyes from the tower heaven feared
Blind is the light to the darkness that it spears
And all we are… our reflections

Kiss me slowly
I still hear the hounds hunting
The fugitive who fathered doubt
Words they fail me
I’m not free from ambition
But I’m too tired to leave your mouth

As we stand before the ruins
Broken bricks from broken stairs
The great fallacy of wondering
Has left us in need of repair

Blessed, this night
I’m a vagrant and a fool
Crestfallen, I’ve drank the silence of the moon
Within your eyes lies the Mecca I’ve pursued
For all we are… our reflections

There is something
To you that is more than escape
Something I can’t quite touch upon
In another lifetime
When prophets chose their cages
Were you the lotus I fell from?

Said to love is revolution
Said to exist is to rebel
And serving in cloaked confusion
Was the machine that built Hell
As we stand before this night sky
Hues bled from the same image
Beating illusions like folded steel
We’re only cut by their fine edge

Last star alight
Seems appropriate, my dear
To say our goodbyes from the tower heaven feared
Blind is the light to the darkness that it spears
And all we are… our reflections


January 27, 2008

Casualties of the Times: The Quiet

The Quiet


Remember when we used to sleep?
That seems such a long time ago
Run my fingers down your lines
Lips to kiss ripples cross still water
Remember when we used to dream?
That seems like a lifetime ago…

But there will be no solace here
There will be no solace here
In the quiet…
No, there will be no solace here
There will be no solace here
In the quiet

Questions you reciprocate
Echo’s shape the dark and give it form
A taste of hope, the cruelest bait
Give me shelter, give me faith, swallow me whole
Concepts conversed make contraception
But so fertile is this doubt when tongue is worn…

And there will be no solace here
There will be no solace here
In the quiet… oh…
There will be no solace here
There will be no solace here
In the quiet

It’s getting cold down here
It’s getting cold…
It’s getting cold down here
So very cold…

Remember when we used to sleep?
That seems such a long time ago
Run my fingers down your lines
Lips to kiss ripples cross still water
Remember when we used to dream?
That seems like a lifetime ago…


January 12, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Lost In The Applause

Lost In The Applause


You are a son of gun from a drunken game of Russian roulette
Blew your mother’s head off and you crawled out like a Pegasus
You just want to be forgiven
Even if it’s not your fault
Don’t have to ask for permission
Nobody made you drive or halt

Maybe time you took to trailblazing
There’s got to be a better rout
Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying
This one’s down to you to figure out

You’re daddy’s girl soft, looking for a world to rub against
Lying naked in bed waiting for your Clyde to climb the fence
You know that he is broken
But you think you have his piece
See the chorus amused and smoking
You try to hide him underneath

Think it’s time you took to trailblazing
There’s got to be a better rout
Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying
This one’s down to you to figure out

As the tragedy ends the curtain falls to applause, applause
Told again and again the lesson falls on applause, applause
The chorus is still smoking
I saw the motion of her cough
But there was no sound but another round of applause, applause

Maybe time we took to trailblazing
This old road, it is giving out
Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying
This one’s down to you to figure out


January 13, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Washing Machine

Washing Machine


You get home
Peeling the smell off
A hot shower will be needed
But you can’t quite climb the stairs
And you don’t think they heard you enter
Oh, that’s right, nobody’s here
Well, perhaps it’s for the better
You’ve been strong for a whole year

Good as new
Just like it never happened…

Listening
Listening to the washing machine
Listening
Listening to the washing machine
To the washing machine

Turn on the water
Steam’s thick cause it’s a cold night
And you left the window open
A moth circles overhead
Like a dying tattered halo
Damp, it falls to your bare beast
And you catch it at your navel
Its weak legs kick in your hand
Like the corners of your mouth when he said to smile

Good as new
Just like it never happened…

Listening
Listening to the washing machine
Listening
Listening to the washing machine
The washing machine
The spinning
The trembling of the washing machine
The washing machine
The pounding
The kicking of the washing machine
The washing machine

Sitting on the cold white metal lid
Crumpled like a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon
Your guts feel hollow, like they’re rotting out
And your head feels like it’s full of cotton balls
White never seemed such a dirty color before
Now it screams of stain, like iodine yellow
Needing Nina Simone all over your living soundtrack
Saying it’s all right
Saying you’ve got life
A cigarette butt
Cigarette burn
Your mouth is dry
The room slowly turns
With the second hand
With the minute hand
With the hour hand
And the celestial hands
But never our hands to meet through the fourth wall
So the scene complete
The canvas hangs, displaying your defeat
In a menagerie of humanity…

Spectators leave your suffering
Feeling more alive, twice as saintly
And cleansed, exit the gallery
Back to their lives for what they be
For what they be!


February 9, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Slow Train Night

Slow Train Night


Outside the Lucky Seven
Just across the tracks
You light your next cigarette… with the one that you just had
Two big styrofoam cups for one
Black as a skillet and twice as hot
Well it’s not exactly coffee
But it will do the job

Bag of beef jerky and a vampire jockey on the radio
Somebody’s always playing Credence but Proud Mary lately ain’t been acting so
She hasn’t been talking
But people are talking
You’ve been thinking of walking
And now you’re ready to go

But it’s a slow… train… night…
Coming down on this town
Coming down on this town
It’s a slow… train… night…
Coming down on this town
Coming down on this town
99 cars of coal can’t melt a dry ice heart
No tears are going to fall…
No tears… are going to fall

Rolling down your truck’s window
Sitting at the tracks
You hear the clunk click a-clankity-clack… of South Virginia passing by
Against the wheel you lay your head
Like the victim of an accident
Thinking of that scene
How she just walked out of the bath

Silver dollar in the cotton – you can barley see Orion but he’s always there
It never did make much sense to you but now you’d welcome company from anywhere
You just feel like talking
But nobody’s stopping
It’s nice to feel somebody watching
When all the angels have earned their wings

And it’s a slow… train… night…
Coming down on this town
Coming down on this town
It’s a slow… train… night…
Coming down on this town
Coming down on this town
99 cars of coal can’t melt a dry ice heart
No tears are going to fall
But it’s hard to find your way
Out in all this fog
You’re getting smaller… against it all


November 2, 2007

Casualties of the Times: What You Need

What You Need


Painted in a corner
Well acquainted with the coroner
Coming back
Coming back’s one perspective on dying
Trying to put it all together
Could our pieces come together?
In a pretty dream
Then there’s that thing about dreaming dreams

(Chorus)
You said to me:
I don’t want to be the one who won’t do what she needs…
You said to me:
I don’t want to be the one who won’t do what she needs… to do

Paying the piper
Wreathing ribbons with the vipers
Victimizing every gesture you’ve received
Innocence comes – riving it’s gone
You wanted more but you took so long
His pillow talk becomes suffocating
Start to get a little closer now
Should cut him loose before he drags you out
There’s nothing worse than really being seen

(Chorus)

Start to get a little closer now
Should cut him loose before he drags you out
There’s nothing worse than really being seen

Painted in a corner
Well acquainted with the coroner
Coming back
Coming back’s one perspective on dying
Trying to put it all together
Could our pieces come together?
In a pretty dream
Then there’s that thing about dreaming dreams

(Chorus)


December 4, 2007

Casualties of the Times: Hypergraphia

Hypergraphia


Entertain me
Enter and tame me
A play on words
A Freudian slip
Thoughts you shouldn’t ever say out loud
Thoughts that you should have kept to yourself

Lend me your ears
Said the headhunter
A tasteless pun
A Rorschach cunt
Thoughts you shouldn’t ever say out loud
Thoughts that you should have kept to yourself

Everyone’s looking at you now
They think they’ve got you figured out
This is why you always kept things to yourself

Had a hard on
I got off soft
With Occam’s razor
Don’t cross the tracks
Thoughts you shouldn’t ever say out loud
Thoughts that you should have kept to yourself

Hormonal
It’s normal
Whores moan on all fours
How awful? I’m all full!
Full of aw and remorse
Porous is my membrane
Like turrets, can’t contain
My hypergraphia
Gracias seniorita
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in

My digressions
Die with aggression
A confession?
“I would prefer not to”

Guilty by association
That’s the price for free thinking
Another paranoid sci-fi writer
Deteriorating
Just when he’s on to something

Hypergraphia
Gracias seniorita
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll… I’ll…
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
I’ll meet you where the walls are closing in
Thoughts you shouldn’t ever say out loud
Thoughts that you should have kept to yourself

Everyone’s looking at you now
They think they’ve got you figured out
This is why you always kept things to yourself


February 11, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Matchbook Collector

Matchbook Collector


Matchbook collector
Someday – but will you ever?
With your Joe Strummer hair

I’m nothing like you
I’m nothing like you
You are everything they say someday I’ll be

Rub across invisible highway
With your little finger
Where’s he going?
There is an order to these things

Stop on red
Go on green
Speed up on yellow… cautiously
We hope you all will drink responsibly

I’m nothing like you
I’m nothing like you
You are everything they say someday I’ll be

Matchbook collector
Someday – but will you ever?
Will you prove them wrong about something?


October 23, 2007

Casualties of the Times: The Shaman

The Shaman


(Refrain)
There’s no coincidence
Bones never lie
So says the shaman
While reaching for the sky
Throwing confetti
When he cannot see the stars
Bones never lie
But the heart often does

The compass is spinning
Like the bottle, like the knife
Like the cylinder
In the revolver
That we play with tonight
Round off the edges
Round to the decimal
So smooth, so baby smooth
Then what did you snag upon?

(Refrain)

Play it again Sam
Roll the footage one more time
Relive the incident
Through a document
Censored in scope of frame
Point of view
Grade of resolution
Play it again, play it again
Someday I’ll see more than the picture shows
This trauma… this trauma…
I can’t make any sense of it

(Refrain)


December 10, 2007

Casualties of the Times: Cool

Cool


Well another night
Up go the lights
And it’s gonna be tight
Alright! It’s gonna be cool…
Cool…

Kevin’s over there smokin’
Christy’s over there smokin’
Just leaning and smokin’
My god! They look so cool…
Cool…

Jakes talkin’ ‘bout nothing
And Kevin’s saying nothing
Christy never says a thing
Silence is golden… and gold is cool…
(Bling, bling baby!)

(Chorus)
But I’m
I’m so tired
Of cool
Of cool
I’m
So fuckin’ tired
Of cool
Cool…

Jake looks dead
50-dollar bed-head
Hasn’t eaten in weeks
So he said as he bled to be cool…
Cool…

Kevin gender bends
For keychain girlfriends
Christy on weekends
She’s not cold; she’s just too cool…
Cool…

Hot Topic panties
A Sailor Moon skirt
She flirts with dirt
A dirt nap gonna make her cool?
(Yeah, you betcha!)

(Repeat chorus)

Out of touch with the numb
I’m in a different fishbowl
Swimming in a Michelangelo Antoine frame of mind
Purge me of regurgitations
Purge me of regurgitations
I’m just as tired of lamenting the passing of better times


March 21, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Distracted (By You)

Distracted (By You)


It’s almost nighttime
All the cars are pouring out
Of factories and office buildings
A golden chain of headlights climbing up the hill
And I’m at the playground
(Watching from the monkey bars)
The world’s so wounded but it still feels numb
Time is slipping with each grain fallen
Impotent heart
My eyes won’t tear

I don’t see why you don’t go
Though its not that I don’t want you here
Lord knows, I’d be an addict in the attic adding up the ticks of the clock
That’s what I would do… but….
I get so distracted…
I get so distracted…
I get so distracted… by you…
By you…
By you…
By you…

A broken skyline
Army blanket under cold July
I feel your pale arms over your head
Peeling your shirt off as I cry, “this world’s all wrong!
And I’m not right!”
(I’m in quicksand, flailing)
Cause all of my dreams have turned on me
My childhood sense of security
Cynical laugh
Shield my sincerity

I still can’t see what keeps you here
Fighting the ocean of my disparity
Lord knows, I’m just an addict in an attic adding up the ticks of the clock
‘Til I can diffuse… all thoughts…
‘Cause lord knows that I have had it with this pageant of imaginary applause
Life has no excuse… but…
I get so distracted…
So distracted…
I get so distracted… by you…
By you…
By you…
By you…


February 29, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Real Doll Delivery

Real Doll Delivery


Nothing left to say but desperate praise
Smiling awkward
You show the dog your teeth
Accidentally
Poor boy, you try too hard to please
Inevitably…

Lending all your favorite books to friends
Knowing that they’ll never be returned
‘Til unhidden now are all your Easter eggs
So you play the host – the host with desperate praise

I don’t think she’s gonna quit smoking
The things she says
Before her next idea
Then stranded by the chain-link fence
That the autumn leaves are blowin’ against
The beetle-scraping sounds – they tense you
The party’s over but she’ll say that she meant to
Inevitably…

No one to tell something they already know
Smiling awkward
Pretend you’ve somewhere to go
Consequentially
Poor boy, no one to make believe
Inevitably…

Lending all your favorite books to friends
Knowing that they’ll never be returned
Your guest arrives – glass eyes, her endless gaze
And you play the host – the host with desperate praise


December 9, 2007

Casualties of the Times: I Don't Know (I Just Know)

I Don’t Know (I Just Know)


Hey…
Are you as crazy as me?
You put on one hell of a show
With your mad cow mints and your rose oil
So babe…
Oh, can I call you Baby?
See, our friends say we should get together
And they’re not going to give us any peace
But hey…
Lord knows there are fates far worse than you
A couple dates should suffice to prove
That what we already know
That it is the truth

I’m in love with the idea of loving you
But that’s not the same as loving you
I know it won’t last, so just pass me by
Like the warm summer wind, like the pull of the tide
Before the wave that’s gonna crush us both
A big, big wave…
Yeah, it’s going to crush us both
We’re going to get what’s coming

Don’t… ask me why…
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I just know
I just know
I just know

Hey…
Did I come off flirting yesterday?
Seems I give a cocktail of signals
Running through a dense crowd, waving razor blades
Some days…
Feel disembodied eyes all over me
And for all my bad mouthing religion
There’s nothing quite like some Christ to help you sleep
So I pray…
For all the wrong reasons that you could pray
Eating my tail with each word I say
I untangle myself
Eating tangles away

So in love with the idea of loving you
But that’s not the same as loving you
I know it won’t last, so just pass me by
Like the warm summer wind, like the pull of the tide
Before the wave that’s gonna crush us both
A big, big wave…
Yeah, it’s going to crush us both
We’re going to get what’s coming

Don’t… ask me why…
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I just know
I just know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
I just know
I just know
I just know


February 21, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Media Medium

Media Medium


The dead record new records
The dead star in new films
The dead are voting and are running for office
The dead lead wars to reproduce
And long live the reenactment
Who will play you in the film?
We’ll live forever in portraits inaccurately
Via the…
Media medium
Media medium…
Media medium

Time creates this magic
The trigger pulled, the body falls
Never showed the bullet fly through the air
Between the frames it had traveled
Time creates this magic
And we manufacture time
To exorcise specters of contingency
Via the…
Media medium
Media medium…
Media medium

Define for me a moment
Show me its borders and its frame
Twenty-four replicants a second
Each with the subtlest change
But moments are inviscid
Like tears fleeing yours eyes
Less than a blink, there is a universe between each frame
Lost to the…
Media medium
Media medium…
Media medium

Channeling…
Channeling…
Wave by wave, it all feels like commercials

The past dies in a barrel
The drippings of its viscera
Ferment into fondest memories
A mere shade of that which was
The dead we make good use of
How the taxidermist smiles
As the lights go down on sweet approximation
Via the…
Media medium
Media medium…
Media medium


January 15, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Pirate Song

Pirate Song


Don’t waste my precious time
Like the rain, you’re already gone
We still can’t play outside
Sing me a pirate song

Everything’s free again
Everything’s free again
We are everywhere
And everything’s free again

You cannot stop us now
There’s no head to cut off
No roof to drop your bomb
No wall to be whitewashed
You cannot survive now
Without our love
All of your riches
They’re just light and sound to us

And everything’s free again
Everything’s free again
We are everywhere
And everything’s free again

Talk to me
Talk to me – I can hear you
I can see you
But I can’t feel a thing
Still the distance is the same


October 21, 2007

Casualties of the Times: Electric Snow

Electric Snow


This is beyond us now
This is no longer ours
To take
Back and say
That isn’t what we meant

This isn’t funny now
Hey, whatever helps you sleep
Through
The cries
Outside of your window

This isn’t what I wanted
But my desires have no weight
In
The shape
Of things… oh

The bodies are
Buried in electric snow

Can we talk about something else?
Everyone – quiet for the season final
I wonder
Who he’ll pick
Well, of course it must be love

Turn off the lights; I can’t hear myself
That taped voice must be someone else
I’d never
In my life
Now it’s all over the web

This isn’t what I wanted
I thought the ends outweighed the means
In
The shape
Of things… oh

The bodies are
Buried in electric snow…
The bodies are
Buried in electric snow

* * *

Constellations…
Cultist promise…
Oh, your grander…
Pocket fluff
A fractured thought
Hold that... hang on…
Cell phone priority
Metabolic dislocation

How should I react to this?
Is what it is… if ‘is’ is this
We’re so far off course
We’re so far off course
I’m so far off course
I’m so far off course
This… is… beyond us now


January 12, 2008

Casualties of the Times: Cub

Cub

Do you know what happened to the special boy?
He was here, painting just the other day
Painting horses… in a barren field
Not far from a burning city

He hasn’t been the same
He hasn’t been the same
Remember when he came?
And I don’t think the wolves will take him back

All is quiet… in the open field
Golden grains sway gently in a subtle wind
We can hear… only the golden note
He’s hiding from thunderous tanks

He hasn’t been the same
He hasn’t been the same
Remember when he came?
And I don’t think the wolves can take him back

He hasn’t spoken now for seven days
We found him sleeping in a dry stream bed
In a year, he’ll be too old to keep
Then we’ll have to call him a man

But he hasn’t been the same
He hasn’t been the same
Remember when he came?
But now there are no wolves to take him back
Now there are no wolves to take him

Said throw him to the wolves
Throw him to the wolves
Throw him to the wolves…
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth
Cut your teeth


March 16, 2008

Casualties of the Times

Casualties of the Times

1. Cub
2. Electric Snow
3. Pirate Song
4. Media Medium
5. I Don’t Know (I Just Know)
6. Real Doll Delivery
7. Distracted (By You)
8. Cool
9. The Shaman

10. Matchbook Collector
11. Hypergraphia
12. What You Need
13. Slow Train Night
14. Washing Machine
15. Lost in the Applause
16. The Quiet
17. Reflections
18. Cut Your Teeth


I started out trying to write a Year Zero style work, then it turned into a sorta sprawl decadent work, then existential/religious pondering that almost returned full circle, but didn't. I almost broke this off into two projects, then decided not to, and the result is what stands. Songs were written after saying I was done song writing, that the chapter of my life that they best suited chronicling and converting into art was over. Beyond philosophical pondering it draws very little from life. Like Ruin Bound and Wall of Sound, it came at a transitory period where I found my creativity running in different directions, trying to find a new voice and reason to pursue this when prose writing continued to prove more desirable and practical (seeing as I was doubtful then and certain now that at this point I have no interest in forming another band in the foreseeable future). I was drawing on a lot of different influences on this one. Albums like In Rainbows left me paying a lot more attention to singing and different structural forms that lyrics can take. Older works from artists like Gary Numan, NIN, Tool, and Sonic Youth (particularly Sister) also inspired the material in a lot of ways. In the process of drawing from those artists however it did become one of the more explicit works I've written. I decided to not go work safe on this one and include a range of words I previously wouldn't use in lyrics; it's a very uncensored work, reflective of the subject matters it addresses and characters it follows.

This sat on the shelf for a bit because its so different from what I'd done before while also painfully being the same. To Make My Peace With You felt like such a good place to stop writing lyrics. It felt like in order for me to write anything else, it would have to one-up it, or at the very least be a kind of upbeat epilogue to that. So... writing something new that had so many bitter songs felt regressive and utterly disappointing. However, coming up with title helped significantly in rationalizing the work. It is an afterthought. It's about a series of characters that didn't make it to the happy ending I felt some of the characters in the previous two works finally had. They aren't all doomed characters (but some are), though they are all wounded characters.