1. |
Guns and Drums
03:07
|
|
||
|
I’m fighting an age that will come with or without me. I’m wanting to stay or just go back in time. Silent in rage; it’s no fun to be around me. Live in a cage, escape is worth a try
With a knife in my back and a tongue in my mouth, I can only take back the things I’ve said.
All of the love I feel’s obligatory; all of the trust I’ve known is without spine. All of the guns that fire in purgatory are banging the drums and singing songs divine.
With a knife in my back and a tongue in my mouth, I can only take back the things I’ve said. Hands in the air and feet on the ground; a word or two for things inside your head.
Am I a gun or a drum? Either way, I know I’m making noise. Am I staying old or getting young?
I don’t think that I have a choice.
|
||||
2. |
Perennials
03:50
|
|
||
|
Well I’m not the one you thought I was and this isn’t the message you expected. I’m not the kind to just give up on all of you when you feel so neglected.
But the way that the fire burns in my mind doesn’t allow for me to rationalize time. Without an alarm to wake you from your dream, what will happen to the sound?
Oh I’m still subsisting; taking this land for what it’s worth, pulling life out of this dirt I will heal.
Oh, you’re still resisting; without a place to put your soul, you fall into this hole, it is real.
Well now I’m everything you want. Too bad I’m just so uninteresting. You never said what you meant by that, and I see this as a testing, one, two
I can’t explain how I feel; it’s all bottled up, canned in and sealed. Even with meaning conferred, the limitation of words destroys my identity and there’s nothing else that I can do.
|
||||
3. |
Bones
03:26
|
|
||
|
Wanting to learn all the things I need to know; all the things I need to show to the world. Haunting the word of the wings I used to own, all the time I’ve wasted on all these words.
I am a sham, a rake, a charlatan, and you should not begin to accept. All of this air, in the space above your head; in the tattered self-reflection where it’s kept.
Put some life into these dry, dry bones, and hold me underneath your wing. Put some life to these dry, dry bones, because I can’t give you anything.
It is a race, it’s a contest to the top, and the weight you have to drop is your time. But in my brain, when I learn the feeling stops and my wisdom dulls just like wit after wine.
The sun hasn’t shone here in years, and we have not taken a chance. These promises fall on deaf ears, but the dead now awaken to dance.
The sun’s coming up over wreckage of a town and the rain keeps falling down on the dead. Bombs may have fallen on this hallowed ground, but sun and seeds and water turn to bread.
|
||||
4. |
Medicine
04:37
|
|
||
|
Chemicals form remedial ghosts when the wolves come hunting for hosts. In their growl they have studied the most of in the now and somewhere down the road.
In the haze of the maze of the days that are lost at a cost unknown to me; burning rays from the greys in the place on the canvas where I know I should be; I appraise my estate with the ways of a race that intends to set me free, but their grace in the face of my station is wasted and fallow sympathy.
Medicine, Medicine from the North and from the South. Medicine, medicine in my veins and in my mouth. Medicine, Medicine guest of honor in my house. Medicine, Medicine brings me in and takes me out.
Living mass passing through time from the past makes the future align. Engineer preserver and risk; simple fear just help us subsist.
And the men in the white coats arraign me of breaking my temple in two. This medicine sustains me; these chemicals teach me what is true.
|
||||
5. |
Save Me Now
03:08
|
|
||
|
I am what you are, we’re one and the same; without a benchmark and without our shame. In the beginning we all had our names depending on whose back you place all the blame.
Your mouth is a faucet, sorry I lost it, out of which again I have crossed it. Shit in your teeth okay now I flossed it, ignorance and my tolerance paused it. Taking it back was never an option and wisdom comes complete with the nonsense. Bringing reality back to the topic, over and over my apathy bought it.
There’s nothing you can do, nothing you can say to save me now.
I’m only a prophet ‘cause you said so; If there’s a problem with that then Ill just have to go. Crying out in the wilderness voices unknown sing sweet melodies of the city one day we’ll all call home.
Well we don’t opine on everything, but that is not the reason I sing, over the top, a message to bring, and under the floor another new thing. Weakness shackles into the spring, new life appearing, snow melting, over your shoulder encouraging, go be the greatest thing of your dreams.
Without a conversation making a dam for procreation ratification of all of the man’s standing ovations, sanctification of all of the fans, exoneration, decoration of the idol they stand…
On the whole I’m standing on sinking sand, no foundation, opportunity slipping through your hands, no good vibrations, I just want to be a half of a man and awaken, but the limitation of law and land…
Isn’t something I can stand with, the prioritization of information I ain’t chasing, catalyst for aggravation. And I don’t know what I’ll stand for when all is said and done.
|
||||
6. |
When I'm Dead
04:00
|
|
||
|
A friend and I went downtown to see the sidewalk preachers, and they said: “Have you thought about what would happen if you were to die tonight? Do you know that down in hell there ain’t nobody that can reach you?” He asked me and my friend: “what is it that you would trust in for all your life?”
I told him: “I trust my folks would be proud of me, and I trust my brother wouldn’t cry. At least not in front of mom and dad because I don’t know what’ll happen when I die.”
I asked him back: “what does it mean to trust? I’ve never heard that phrasing…There’s a God and he is good to me but I don’t see what you mean when you yell. Do you think that any salvation comes out here from all of your hellraising? Whatever happens when I die I’m not that worried; I know time will tell.”
I told him: “I trust my folks would be proud of me and the short, short life that I lived. And I hope my God will take care of me because I don’t know what’ll happen when I’m dead.”
Well I sure hope what I get is as beautiful as what I leave behind. Well I know that it isn’t fair for me to go early, but I hope I won’t leave tears for those alive.
Well I hope my brother will be proud of me, and if I have kids I wish them well. I hope I leave a worthy legacy because I don’t know what’ll happen when I’m dead.
|
||||
7. |
Wind and Water
03:41
|
|
||
|
Speak to me like wind and water. Speak to me like the sky. Hold me up now as a martyr, and take me to a chair to fry.
I am, I am a body, and I am, I am a man. I have been here before and you know that I’ll be here again.
Feast and famine come in season and all good things come to die. I persist past thought and reason and you can see the end is nigh.
I’ve been here before; I’ll be here again. I’ve been here before; I’ll be here again.
|
||||
8. |
The Truth In These Lies
03:44
|
|
||
|
Upon the realization that all my heroes are villains I have come to no conclusion. The rationalization my creations undergo is antithetical at best to a solution. My shining lack of patience undergoes a transformation, the order of philosophical pollution. Without the crushing weight of this excruciating hate there wouldn’t be a barrier to resolution.
When they sing it’s not words, their suffering is a song.
Well you know that I’m just another one of them; It’s a fine line and to cross it means you’re dead. Don’t tell me a lie, the lies that you show could have more truth than any of us know.
To be counted among them is a curse and it’s a blessing but impiety and angst they aren’t diseases. Without a tempered sense of historicity and place the denial of the best is in the season. All of the creations of my heroes are useless unless you want a free injection of demeaning. The meaning we create is all and well and fine and great but it’s the infinite that lends you its conceding.
Well seeing the future is harder than it sounds, and looking for new turf is the operations’ grounds. Well living away from the tribe is what we’ve found. To be a diaspora is practically a crown.
|
||||
9. |
Family Homes
04:00
|
|
||
|
I’ve been kept awake by beating drums. I’ve been kept awake by distant loves. Funny that adventure lies where we don’t have friends. We all move away from family homes.
I aspire to walk this journey alone. I aspire to have my surface in stone. Living life is different than history can show. Of all that can compete there only is one.
I will do what they will not for it. I will give what they refuse to give. I will live so I can conquer it I will die so I know I can live.
You’re along a path that history proves. You’re along a path of trials and news. Funny that what you were sold had a different glow. Various and cheap, the trials of youth.
I will do what they will not for you. I will give what they refuse to give. I will live so you can know the truth. I will die so I know you can live.
I know that you pine for whispering pines. I know that you’re wrapped in whistle and rhyme. Know that if you needed me, I would come and die, only with a tear of joy in my eye.
|
||||
10. |
Shivers and Shakes
04:29
|
|
||
|
Dreams uneasy sink from your hands to me. Other plans, other men are for your eyes to see. An idol on a throne looking back at me; mirror, mirror, on the wall with secrets to set free.
All the time you spend becoming who you want to be is time that you have missed being you.
Tie my shoes for me; vacant but awake. Hell is getting what you want and I can’t wait to take.
Shivers and Shakes, old pains and aches; shivers and shakes, old pains and aches bring an old familiar fear, designer and engineer.
|
||||
If you like Mike the Prophet, you may also like:
The Australian band, featuring members of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, pivot to country.
go to album
A slow drip of Tropicália-infused psychedelia from New Orleans rock outfit Blue Basin: balmy one moment, aggressive the next.
go to album
Downey to Lubbock
by Dave Alvin
Soulful guitar interplay form the heart of this lovely Americana collaboration from Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
go to album
An awesome helping of summertime slacker pop from an easy, greasy, Melbourne-based 5 piece. Got beach?
go to album
Soft Sounds (Live Video Series)
by Delta Sleep
The latest album from British indie rock band is filled with pared back tracks recorded in various countries while the band was on tour.
go to album
Stay Inside – Songs from The Great Indoors
by Stay Inside
featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 21, 2020
go to album
Welcome
by Slaughter Beach, Dog
Slaughter Beach, Dog—a.k.a. Modern Baseball’s Jake Ewald—deliver taut, tuneful indie rock, effortlessly melodic and soaring.
go to album
