1. |
When Will You Die
02:28
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I'm so tired
Of your lies
And the evil things
You're doing behind my back
Are there crimes
That you have never committed?
I doubt it, sometimes I wonder
When will you die?
You're insane
You are bad
You wreck everything you touch
And you're a sociopath
There's just one thing
That everyone's wondering
When will you die?
Schoolchildren stay at home (yeah)
And all the banks will close (yeah)
Each year we'll mark the date (yeah)
On which we celebrate (yeaah)
I know how
I know why
I can picture every part
Of your comeuppance, except
For the one remaining
Piece of the puzzle
Which is when you'll die
This is Dan
And that's Dan
And there's Marty on the drums
To complete the band
And I'm John
And he is also John
And all of us are wondering
When you're gonna die
Still you live
You go on
But you're running out the clock
And if we knew how long
I'd be counting down the days
Until the lovely one
On which you're gone
On that promised morning
We will wake and greet the dawn
Knowing that your wicked life is over
And that we will carry on
We'll exhale
We'll high five
We will know at last
How great it is to be alive
We'll be lining up
And buying tickets
And then we'll be jumping
Up and down on your grave
You're insane
You are bad
You wreck everything you touch
And you're a sociopath
And the only way to mitigate
Would be to know the date
You're scheduled to vacate
When are you going to die?
Look me in the eye
Tell me when you'll die
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2. |
The Mesopotamians
03:00
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We've been driving around
From one end of this town to the other and back
But no one's ever seen us (No one's ever seen us)
Driving our Econoline van (And no one's ever heard of our band)
And no one's ever heard of our band
We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
Then they wouldn't understand a word we say
So we'll scratch it all down into the clay
Half believing there will sometime come a day
Someone gives a damn
Maybe when the concrete has crumbled to sand
We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
The Mesopotamish sun is beating down
It's making cracks in the ground
But there's nowhere else to stand
In Mesopotamia (No one's ever seen us)
The kingdom where we secretly reign (And no one's ever heard of our band)
The land where we invisibly rule
As the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
This is my last stick of gum
I'm going to cut it up so everybody else gets some
Except for Ashurbanipal, who says that my haircut
Makes me look like a Mohenjo-Daroan
Hey, Ashurbanipal
I'm a Mesopotamian
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
"Hey, man, I thought that you were dead
I thought you crashed your car"
"No, man, I've been right here this whole time playing bass guitar
For the Mesopotamians"
We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
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3. |
||||
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The sun is a miasma
Of incandescent plasma
The sun's not simply made out of gas
No, no, no
The sun is a quagmire
It's not made of fire
Forget what you've been told in the past
(Plasma!) Electrons are free
(Plasma!) A fourth state of matter
Not gas, not liquid, not solid
Ooh!
The sun is no red dwarf
I hope it never morphs
Into some supernova'd collapsed orb
Orb, orb, orb
The sun is a plasma
Of incandescent plasma
I forget what I was told by myself
Elf, elf, elf
(Plasma!) Electrons are free
(Plasma!) A fourth state of matter
Not gas, not liquid, not solid
(Plasma!) Forget that song
(Plasma!) They got it wrong
That thesis has been rendered invalid
People!
Forget that song
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4. |
Cloisonné
04:04
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One, two, three, four
Mind your business
Mind your business
Mind your never-shut, Quonset hut business
My craft is exploding
It's like I'm making cloisonné
Choking on my dust
With my three blind cats
You've got a friend in law enforcement
Don't go calling law enforcement
Business
Mind your business
Got too busy explaining
Now it's just raining pain
Pain in the form of a rain drop
Yes, a rain drop made of pain
Tell 'em the story, rain drop
"I don't want to tell 'em, mister!"
Tell 'em the story, rain drop
"I don't want to tell 'em!"
Keep your voice down
Keep your voice down
Keep your window-shaking, godforsaken voice down
I'm sick of this beeswax
I'm sick of these second-story Sleestaks
Breathing on my dice
Giving me back rubs
When I'm deep in concentration
You start getting all conversatin'
Sleestak
What's a Sleestak?
That's your heart attack
Towel rack
Fallback
You got no doctors
All your doctors have gone home
What's a Sleestak?
What's a Sleestak?
You've got a friend in law enforcement
Don't go calling law enforcement
Cloisonné
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5. |
Apes vs. People
05:53
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Move!
There's no telling what I'ma do
I'm eighty-thousand years of natural selection comin through
You ain't got as much aggression, possessions, weapons
I'll be damned if I get outdone by the next man
If your beliefs are different than mine, then we gonna fight
Who needs peace when you can profit from being right?
I hold picket signs outside abortion clinic doors
Take what I want with force
And my God could kill yours
Involved with a species evolving so slowly
Genetically infantile, violent and holy
We think we're so smart but there's not much to know
Caveman is still alive behind those robot eyes
Fully controlled by ten thousand year old instincts
Hands on the war button, flinch and your world's extinct
This is technology for the barbarian
I see the future: the past, we'll be there again
Remember, the atom bomb came from the same place as poetry
Die dirty hippy commie scum Christian Muslim Buddhist Jew
Democrat factory workin college student youth
My nervous system don't take no bullshit
Been dominating since the day I touched the monolith
I only breed with sex-symbol worthy women
They stay at home and cook while I go out a make a living
Don't challenge my ego, don't step on my shoe
Otherwise the next wake that you attend might be for you
Grinding my teeth as I'm peddling uphill
The fight against ape-hood is fate versus free will
We think we've advanced but there's nowhere to go
Mammals stay captive to animal actions
So slowly we climb up this DNA brick wall
Addicted to emptiness, anger and pitfalls
Desire for space, territory, or lust
We'll eventually turn this whole planet to dust
There can be no peace when man is still a part of it
Purpose, perseverance, wordless amoeba surface
To lead the first coherent paleolithic circus
Specific neuro-circuits link man and Neanderthal
However, recent bio-chemical imprints conflict with primitive urges
It's full blown ontological warfare
Murdering memories in the future two million years
Peace is a word we often say
But it can't exist as long as the ape is here to stay
Report a problem
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6. |
Can't Keep Johnny Down
02:20
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Outnumbered a million to one
All of the dicks in this dick town
Can't keep Johnny down
Men piled up in a towering mound
None of them once has found a way
To keep Johnny down
Spending days by myself
Remembering slights
I'm not a monument to justice
Plus which, I don't forget a face
And they can't (down, down, down)
Can't keep Johnny down (down, down, down)
They haven't yet built the man (down, down, down)
That'll keep old Johnny down (down, down, down)
Some dude
Hitting golf balls on the moon
Bathroom in his pants
And he thinks he's better than me
I'm pointing a finger at my own face
They can't know what's in here
And they can't keep Johnny down
Beneath my dignity
To flip off the guy
When he pulls up alongside
To say my gas cap is unscrewed
And they can't (down, down, down)
Can't keep Johnny down (down, down, down)
They haven't yet built the man (down, down, down)
That'll keep old Johnny down (down, down, down)
And they don't (down, down, down)
Don't know what I've seen (down, down, down)
They can't know what's in here (down, down, down)
And they can't keep Johnny down (down, down, down)
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7. |
We Live In A Dump
01:40
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Hangin' out
While the monkeys type away
Waiting in my room all day
Why be realistic?
Don't wake me from my dream
I was individualistic
They kicked me off the team
We live in a dump
Admit it's a dump
Our friends are all nuts
And half of 'em drunks
And if they're not nuts
Then they're retired nuts
And that might be the hardest nut
Makin' plans
The kind that go awry
Got a full life-time supply
Why be realistic?
Don't wake me from my dream
I was individualistic
They kicked me off the team
We're living with bats
What's good about that?
I hear they lay eggs
And when the eggs hatch
You gotta believe then
There's related madness
From the lead that's in the sealing wax
We live in a dump
Admit, it's a dump
Our friends are all nuts
And half of 'em drunks
And if they're not nuts
Then they're retired nuts
And that might be the hardest nut
We live in a dump
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8. |
Santa's Beard
01:53
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Once a year, my friend puts on a red suit
And hangs around with me and my wife
But lately I've been feeling jealous
Each time she climbs on his knee
And she stands beneath the mistletoe, screaming
For him to stand beneath the mistletoe, screaming
And I can't help but feeling jealous
Each time she climbs on his knee
Why must she climb on his knee?
I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard
She kissed him once and whispered in his ear
I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard
I wish he would go
He's breaking up my home
She always had this twisted side to her
But she'd never drag my name around town
But lately she's been humming cheating songs
And I don't like that fat guy around
No, I don't like that fat guy around
I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard
She kissed him once and whispered in his ear
I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard
I wish he would go
He's breaking up my home
I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard
Thrilling (thrilling)
Christmas (Christmas)
Trembling fear
I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard
I wish he would go
He's breaking up my home
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9. |
Ana Ng
04:10
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Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
To the name of this town in a desktop globe
Exit wound in a foreign nation
Showing the home of the one this was written for
My apartment looks upside down from there
Water spirals the wrong way out the sink
And her voice is a backwards record
It's like a whirlpool, and it never ends
(Ann)
Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow
Of each other's majestic presence
(Listen Ann)
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you
All alone at the '64 World's Fair
Eighty dolls yelling "Small girl after all"
Who was at the DuPont Pavilion?
Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?
Or the time when the storm tangled up the wire
To the horn on the pole at the bus depot
And in back of the edge of hearing
These are the words that the voice was repeating:
(Ann)
Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow
Of each other's majestic presence
(Listen Ann)
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you
When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:
"I don't want the world, I just want your half"
They don't need me here and I know you're there
Where the world goes by like the humid air
And it sticks like a broken record
Everything sticks like a broken record
Everything sticks until it goes away
And the truth is we don't know anything
(Ann)
Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow
Of each other's majestic presence
(Listen Ann)
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you
(Ann)
Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow
Of each other's majestic presence
(Listen Ann)
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you
Ann
Listen Ann
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10. |
Careful What You Pack
02:42
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2,3,4
The known, the unknown, and the under-known
Look at what she found
Digging underground by the goldfish pond
She's going to get in trouble now
Shaking up the bees, swinging from the trees
Doesn't understand
She's in trouble now
It's a new year
Careful what you pack
There's no going back
She's lost from the beginning
She's the new girl
She thinks she's smart; she's just curious
She thinks she's alone
Doesn't even know someone's watching her
She's going to get in trouble now
Waving from the shore, never knew before
Doesn't understand
She's in trouble now
It's a new year
Careful what you pack
There's no going back
She's lost from the beginning
She's the new girl
Careful what you pack
There's no going back
She's lost from the beginning
She's the new girl
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11. |
Withered Hope
03:16
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Very Sad Sack is a sad bag
Very, very sad
Very Sad Sack
Withered Hope says she is his friend to the end,
But she doesn't like Very Sad Sack
Today Withered Hope saw the Very Sad Sack
And she tried not to meet his eyes
As he cut out a paper heart, pinned it to his arm
Told her everything he was holding in his head
This is what he said:
Withered Hope, I'm in love with you
Want to live with you, Withered Hope
Are you going to say to me this can never be?
Are you going to say to me, Withered Hope?
Sad Sack
Sad Sack
Withered Hope says she has a soul mate
Living in a city in another state
But the soul mate thinks about a picture in a book of a beautiful crook
But the picture in the book of the crook is in love with the brand new motorbike
But the motorbike doesn't like crooks,
It's in love with the Very Sad Sack
Sad Sack, I'm in love with you
Want to live with you, Sad Sack
Are you going to say to me this can never be?
Are you going to say to me, Sad Sack?
Sad Sack
Sad Sack
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12. |
Judy Is Your Viet Nam
01:31
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You met Judy in the 90s
She threw parties for magazines
For a while she had a roommate
But that roommate was never seen
Who knew she could be so reckless? (boughs of holly)
Who knew you could be so wrong? (multiplying)
Dancing in her kitchen for so long (Christmas time is here)
Ten years on and something's shifted
Same apartment, roommate's gone
Putting down that torch you lifted
Back to portraits poorly drawn
JF: Go Dan!
Judy lies but you believe her
She's the storm before the calm
Judy is the Great Deceiver
Judy is your Viet Nam
Judy is your Viet Nam
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13. |
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Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night
Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul
Even old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way
So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks'
Boo!
Oh, oh oh
Oh oh, oh oh
Istanbul (Istanbul)
Oh, oh oh
Oh oh, oh oh
Istanbul (Istanbul)
Even old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way
So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks'
Istanbul
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14. |
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Birds are calling to sing along
But my window's painted shut
And all that year of chorus taught me
Is out of style and long forgot
How can I sing like a girl
And not be stigmatized
By the rest of the world?
Tell me, how can I sing like a girl
And not be objectified
As if I were a girl?
I want to raise my freak flag
Higher and higher and
I want to raise my freak flag
And never be alone
Never be alone
From the watchtowers I've been spotted
Fingers pointing at my mouth
Spotlights turn and pivot towards me
But I dare not make a sound
How can I sing like a girl
And not be stigmatized
By the rest of the world?
Tell me, how can I sing like a girl
And not be objectified
As if I were a girl?
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