1. |
Latecomers
03:22
|
|||
|
Oh latecomers
come on in
you’ve found yourselves a place to be with me
Where you’ve been
I’ve been there too
There is a name for me and you
Latecomers
How I love you
set me free
There is a name for you and me
Latecomers
Whether it’s now or then
there isn’t any when that’s really real
Whether it’s then or now
Forever I’ll tell you how I feel
I love you
|
||||
2. |
New Quarantine
03:10
|
|||
|
Our citizens are calling you
we all have something in our hands
Come in from your nameless lands
to Super Avenue
The candy that we chose to bring
was made down in the catacombs
beneath our old historic homes
It’s normal for your lips to sting
just eat a piece and then you’ll know
exactly what to sing
Our city streets are wide and bright
our city fathers make us proud
We see them and we clap so loud
we can’t tell wrong from right
We smash whatever’s close at hand
and smell the bitter almond scent
Chemical accelerant
we’re choking in the stands
parties to the Covenant
of the Swollen Glands
Our engineers have worked it out
we make our food from mud
We fill our yards up til they flood
and we can eat whatever sprouts
Our darling babies never wail
they just have too much self esteem
We always have blood in the cream
and droppings in the pail
But then again, New Quarantine is
known to be upscale
We people of New Quarantine
we want to say hello to you
We want this message to get through
delivered like a magazine
Thank you for your selflessness
the work you didn’t ask for
Thank you for being poor
and living life with less
Believe us when we say
the more you have the more you stress
|
||||
3. |
Seafaring
05:04
|
|||
|
We wake up at dawn when the lookouts start
to sing about the sea and the Captain’s sailor’s heart
We swab decks in the morning and then we polish things
we work and whistle the song the caged bird sings
I’m always dreaming my dream that I’m incredibly free
I’ve finally opened up my place, my bistro called Chez Me
You are watering some plants we keep down in the hold
nursing them along to a new world from an old
Seafaring
Do you remember when we weren’t sure we were gonna go seafaring?
It wasn’t much to look at, our SS Awkward Caring
But we still went down to the docks every single dawn
to look out at the pier and watch the seaweed growing on
that little porch in Berkeley where you gave me your eyes
big and dark and circley, my lifetime in disguise
And then that house in Maryland got cancer in its walls
and we made all those long and sad phone calls
Yeah, and we were gone seafaring
And you know that part of me that loves to think it’s so wild
That lives behind the center for the 40-year-old child
By the M. Zapruder Archives of Screen Memories
where it drinks from the Fountains of Take Care of Me Please
And it yowls all day its favorite tune
the National Anthem of the Wasted Afternoon
By the Clearinghouse of Cosmic Light
where they truck in the moonbeams and cut em up at night?
Well he’s gone seafaring
And it’s true that things were different when I used to be alone
And that everything still kind of bores me unless it’s my own
But I still signed on to this trip to look after other stuff
and I gave my heart truly to Captain Enough’s Enough
And I really do care how we coil the line
but it really doesn’t matter if it’s your hand or it’s mine
that is shutting out the light when it’s time to go to bed
or charting a course through these oceans in my head
Yeah, cause it’s all seafaring
|
||||
4. |
Hide and Seek
03:27
|
|||
|
Hide and seek I hear you counting numbers
one two three my body sliding under
don’t you peek I’m missing do you wonder
where I’ll be I’m hiding hiding hiding
Look at me…
Ready or not now here I come now
here I come now I am coming now
Do you know where I am can you find me
where I am hid?
Look at me…
[Hide and seek / Ready or not now / Do you know where I am…]
|
||||
5. |
Chinese Cruiser
04:08
|
|||
|
Where did you want to be by now
When the first act was over where did you think you’d be?
Did you want to be alone?
Did you want to be overthrown?
What did you want?
Flying away doesn’t solve everything
but it can help
There’s a part of you you always used to miss
It’s always off somewhere looking for a sweeter kiss
Flying away didn’t solve everything
did it help?
There you go…
riding a Chinese cruiser in a faraway place
mmm / ooh
There you go…
riding a Chinese cruiser in a faraway place
|
||||
6. |
Salad, Fish and Corn
05:21
|
|||
|
This isn’t my song but it’s very familiar
I think it began on the day I was born
But it could’ve been when we sat by an ocean somewhere
Eating salad, fish and corn
Do you remember me on a typical evening
I’d have been dreaming of rowboats, of manning my oar
Watching some rain drip down onto some sand
While you stood behind me in the doorway
A house by a shore where the waves sang and sang
“come on, come out here” but you stood between
the warmth of life and that cold calling sea
as we all sang Goodnight Irene
And when you’d sit down and play your guitar
You’d play songs in a meter that is measured in days
and in months and years so it takes a whole life
to hear the whole song someone plays
Oh my darling oh my darling oh my darling you sang
and you meant it when you looked each one of us in the eye
There is a difference between living and drowning
that I’ve learned to recognize as time goes by
And sometimes I’ve thought in the moment I die
I’m gonna see that my body was just our old Sharp turntable
it’s been spinning that same one song all along
and when I look down at the label
it won’t say a thing I’ll just hear that familiar
movement of air through the tweeter and the horn
just a song about some people by an ocean somewhere
eating salad fish and corn
|
||||
7. |
Hide in Plain Sight
04:24
|
|||
|
Twelve middle schoolers chewing gum
in each one’s body a beating drum
going two at a time into the gas station
messing around on summer vacation
hide hide hide hide hide hide in plain sight
potato chips and stinging lips
chicken nuggets on freighter ships
organic farm up on the moon
oh Great Spirit come down soon
hide hide hide hide hide hide in plain sight
plastic knives inscribing signs
please accept this Sprite and these Red Vines
ritual tree that rules this place
come on and show us your invisible face
hide hide hide hide hide hide in plain sight…
|
||||
8. |
||||
|
Eden was a bad place to unwind
Adam used to lie on peacock feathers
peel another perfect orange rind
and curse another day of perfect weather
He would look around at God’s idea of wilds
and say to Eve there are some things we should demand
her voice was small she was just a child and she’d say
Adam, I don’t think you understand
All through the night you can’t sleep
your body is a lost mountain climber
your mind goes beep beep beep
all the way up to the uncountable numbers
So you crawl down to the base of your awareness
you are searching for a cable or a strand
and you shout living this way is careless and it echoes
I don’t think you understand
We were all standing at the crotch of the bay
where some steps made out of stone were sinking in the grass
we were all up at Death’s vacation house to play
we were thinking he’d give most of us a pass
and so I grabbed him by his musty-smelling cloak
and I asked him why he bought that piece of land
I said how can you live this way when some are broke
and he said Michael I don’t think you understand
then he said to me
the trees are in the forest side by side
the rocks are on that mountain with the snow
the sun is in the heavens far and wide
and something always has to go below
there’s salt in the water of the sea
there’s sugar in the fruit of the land
but if you think there’s an answer in me
I don’t think you understand
There’s malice in the eyeballs of every day
in the apple vitamin and grocery cart
Courageous is your sunny breakfast tray
and that crossword you are never gonna start
the puzzle you are never gonna solve
and everything that’s in somebody else’s hand
if the world did sing a song while it revolved it might be
I don’t think you understand
|
||||
Michael Zapruder Austin, Texas
“Michael Zapruder makes beautiful folk-pop ballads resonant of the voice of Rufus Wainwright and wordplay of Andrew Bird" – Pitchfork
If you like Michael Zapruder, you may also like:
Garland of Hours
by Garland of Hours
Cellist Amy Domingues' Garland of Hours project combines indie rock, chamber music, and medieval modalities for a uniquely mystical sound.
go to album
Echo Dancing
by Alejandro Escovedo
The legendary Alejandro Escovedo returns with another country-rock scorcher.
go to album
Turn My Radio Up
by The Coffis Brothers
Big, sunny country songs from this Santa Cruz duo summon the spirit of late-period Byrds.
go to album
The latest from NY’s David Nagler is a stirring chamber-folk record with rich instrumentation and vivid, evocative lyrics.
go to album
A surprisingly tender and intimate concept record about long distance love from Cody Votolato of The Blood Brothers/Head Wound City.
go to album
Parque México
by Kevin Dickerson
Spoken word storytelling spun into a delicate web of acoustic guitar, from the Bay Area.
go to album
Songs of timeless beauty and power in the mold of Vashti Bunyan and Nick Drake from enigmatic Los Angeles artist Shannon Lay.
go to album
