Do Work
Lyrics: Do Work
Sugafootin'
did you get what you needed? did you get what you asked for? put static in the past tense, conjugated imperfection (out of the picture). now the answer's crystal clear as fm signal. paid the rent before the dues, that same old song. all sweat without the blood and tears. stretched these ideas so far, they've lost all their meaning. they lost it. did you get what you needed? did you get what you deserved? payment in full for pay for play, another verse (in the eulogy). now that the crackle and hum have fallen off the dial, did they forget your name, or did they forget what you made?
Oh, so this is what air feels like
breathing just to get air. reaching just to know i'm there. trying's just been a waste of my time. lying on the floor and to myself. what moves through the air, it also moves the airwaves. the sound takes a shape; shapes the sound. what moves through the air, it becomes the airwave, becomes the message, in sound or silence. breathing but not getting air. clawing at whatever's near. doing's just been a waste of my time. call on me now, call for me now, the weight of the wait has been so intense.
Gotta let the swamps be the swamps
take me almost anywhere, but into the arms of something like a feeling slow and sweet and growing every night. it's easier to forget about anything that means a thing than to admit i'm too afraid of heights to let it sink in so deep. and i've been looking for an answer that's not hard to swallow, but it's hard with a raw throat and a chest that feels so hollow. i can't explain, but when you haven't felt a thing in so long, it feels so good because it hurts. take this out into the town; the city streets will seem even more alone, but asphalt breathes easier than the clutch of arms and the radio hum. and i breathe easier knowing i'm a part of nothing bigger than myself. "and i'm afraid, of being afraid," truer words, truer words.
Why i wear this hat
the hours bled through me today. counted the minutes as i watched them fall away. these days are barely moving, silence barely subsuming. somewhere it got lost in these days. the hours slipped right through today. felt them bleed out as they left me where I lay. these days i’m barely moving this moment all consuming somewhere it got lost in these days. this is the gravity that holds my arms right down to my sides the fear that fills my lungs each time this is the glue that keeps my eyes staring straight down through the floor fills me up as it divides but not this time (i can barely breathe it in, before it turns me right back out)
I recommend being sweet
feel the dial tone just beneath my lungs (i've counted it back so many times) hands tight, knuckles bright white on the crosstown ride (cars piled up in the driveway) a house full of stares you just can't catch (i can't reconcile this new math) the angle of your eyes away from mine (i've counted it back so many times) as the hours snowball into days (each erasing the one that came before) looking downhill into another fall (i start to feel the rise and fall) and i can't give back the things it took (can't make this fit what i now know) familiar circles surface and spiral out (familiar cause for alarm) what if i don't get better? what if i keep on slipping back? watch the hours come, watch the hours pass (i wait it out to wind it back) sucks all the air out of the room (and you can't keep going) to be strong enough to support (what's always held us up) it keeps slipping through my hands each time (as it count it back time over again) what if we don't get better? what if we keep on slipping back? what if we don't get better? what if we can't stand on our own? What it we keep on sliding back?
Jumpkicks and back flips
so much of this is forced and strained through needles' eyes; so much for an honest handshake. but i'd like to believe that there are places to find, empty-handed frequencies that resonate to a conduit and nothing more. waves bouncing from sender to source. moving now in syncopated time, imperfect ryhtyhm; waiting with the fullest lungs and empty hands. it's here and it's gone, true and then wrong, time and meter disguised as a song. we're here to unlearn everything we know and kill this magic bullet.
We love the samba
it runs through my head one thousand times. (and i'm moving just like lead.) that it's the same way out as in. (i'm more and more like an anchor.) and wherever i look, it seems so dim (stable but slowly sinking.) drowned out by the way things have been (i am desperate for an) open ending, abreaction. zero hour for an exit. months and years slowly slip through my aching fingers cracked and bleeding one hundred tears wash away the tiredness from my face. christmas and post cards and letters from old friends, they're blocking out the light from underneath the door. and i can't remember the last time it was so hard to get up off the floor. (runs through my head one thousand times.) (i'll build it up; i'll tear it down.)
Bring in the cougar
i miss the smell of salt water and swimming pools, do you too? endless days of nothing, and the freest nights and weekends did you really think that you could make that on your own? well, we did (well we did try anyway). if you could turn that around; if you could get loose from our same ground, don't forget it holds you up just as it pulls you down. cuz' there's a magnet in me for unchanging seasons and scenery; we don't have much here except for gravity. air so thick it could crush anything, anyone, any hope of ever dissapearing.
Off the meatrack
i want to see you beside yourself. lately we're moving barely parallel. along the same lines, but in all the wrong circles. i'd like to try, but it's barely the surface. and i can wait patiently while you work on yourself. but i can't wait to see you realize just how distant you're being. and i mean to close this when you're closer to real. and i don't mean close like horseshoes and hand grenades, or like bombs that are dropped, just as long as they're near. i'm shaking in my shoes. i think i've seen a ghost. i've tried to make the most out of a well-worn situation. i'm calling this out. i'm calling us out. (we've both been there before, but one of us left the other behind) it's been said so many times that all you need is yourself to get by, so everything is just fine as long as i know that my heart is still beating. but i wish you'd come around some day and look at what's been going on. you've been around here, but you've been somewhere else entirely.
Clums
we drove to the coast and then kept on going. stripped down to the sandbar and the swells of moonlight. dead dinosaurs and hours underfoot, planes and insects humming overhead, and it was over our heads. pushed past the strip malls & diecut homes. you said, 'i don't think i've had enough of these days,' as we felt them running through our fingers; there are some things that you can't get back. because it's over our heads, and out of our hands. i don't know anything at all except this: accept this. as the minutes disappeared between the sandbars, so did the inches in between us.
Lyrics: Four Songs
Reptile Show
you opened up to me, expressed things you could never say. where are those feelings now, when i talk to you today? and if you live in a world where being mean justifies our end, then we wasted all our time and there's nothing to defend. whatever happened to saying what you mean and meaning what you say? everyone is thinking about it, but no one says a word.
You know you're living life on the edge when you start filling in crossword puzzles with a pen
days go by and quietly empty into our veins. grind us into who we are. we have no choice. we make no decisions. except for the ones that mold us into what we've become. we are our words. we are our choice.
The other two songs included on the Four Songs EP also appear on Do Work, so the lyrics are listed there.