1. |
Radio Silence
03:26
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I fell asleep with the television on.
I know my mind,
And how it loves to run
And I thought that I might try to nip it in the bud.
See, I was freaking out at the party downstairs.
I was speaking in tongues,
And I was pulling out my hair.
I was wailing 'bout the worst that's yet to come.
And they said:
"Maybe Radio Silence would do you some good tonight."
But I don't know why
When every time I try it, it just feels wrong
And I can't fall asleep without the television on.
So, I was half awake and I was having a dream
Fed direct to my head via satellite beam.
Oh, it feels so real, but it's too far to touch.
And when I was standing in your line
I swear it was almost like I could look you in the eye
If the back and forth would ever stop.
And I could take a seat in the silence,
It might do us some good tonight.
But I don't know why,
Or what it means that we've forgotten
How to sleep, and how to dream without the television on.
I fell asleep with a phone in my hand.
I was all alone, and I was feeling pretty bad.
It's like nothing I can do will ever be enough.
Oh, and every day I'm feeling more and more
Like I'm stuck in the stands of a spectator sport,
Like there's no point now, and there never ever was.
So, how can I spit, and how can I sing.
If I don't believe in anything?
And the television is always on, I need:
Radio Silence.
Give me Radio Silence.
I need Radio Silence.
Give me Radio
Silence.
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2. |
Taking My Time
04:55
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As a youth
I was poured into
A recalcitrant mold
Never still
I would squirm until
You relinquished your hold
I'm gonna take what I want from it all
And I'd leave this planet behind
I have been
Slipping in and
Out of it all of the time
When I left the warp and the weft of it all
I was paper thin, and interdimensional
Oh, I have had it up to here
With the rental, the ornamental
Oh, I would let it all disappear
Like a dream in my wake
Bathed in radiation
Born under a sour sign
All that I'm left with is this meaningless existence
Being made to work and wait around to die
And in truth, I treated it like fiction
A reaction that the action can't deny
And with way more force than when they split the atom
I'll be coming from the future
I'll be taking back what's mine
I'll be coming for my future
I'll be taking back my time
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3. |
From The Outside
04:41
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I don't like my place on the factory line
I wanna see the shape of the whole damn thing
From The Outside
Is it to any ends that this operation has stopped making sense?
Oh, tell me when did this world which I'm forced to keep finding myself in
Get so alien?
And it's:
As above, so below
But where I'm at with it all, hell, I'll never know
I'm just an itty bitty piece
Of an infinite whole
I can't read the languages of history
But I still find my name scratched in on the bottom line
And it's:
As beyond, so behind
I'm in the midst of it all and I wouldn't mind, but
It's a beautiful cake,
And I get such a small, ugly slice.
I'm gonna be
At the end of everything
I'm gonna be closer to the root
Than I've ever been
And I'm gonna know
How it all relates to the whole
It's gonna be tough
But I'm gonna be strong
And I'm gonna see.
(From The Outside)
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4. |
Work! (Future Perfect)
03:39
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Life is Work!
That's what they say
I scribbled all over the back
Of the proof of my pay
I was singin' it's work
And that's work til you die
Go on, make that dollar for somebody else
Maybe they'll hand you a dime
Oh, it's an endless degradation
It's a hundred thousand little lacerations
The payoff of which couldn't fit
On any check that anyone could conceivably cut
Oh, and you bleed, and you bleed and you bleed
And the earth just laps it up
Oh Work!
You're why I still smoke!
And I gotta drink beer at the end of the day
Cos I gotta cope
Oh, with all of the Work!
That I suffer through
What they say is the Truth
And that I should be thankful to do
Oh but they will mock us and they will mistreat us
Til they can replace us all with an app or a kiosk
And apathy is the natural byproduct
Of being exhausted and sick all the time
So don't tell me that working like this
Is the meaning of life
So yeah, I Work!
But I try not to be defined
By what gets me paid
For an hour of my time
Cos it's just a means to an ending
And all of the energy that I end up expending
I will get it back in spades
When the systems that necessitate
All of this Work!
Fall apart
And we can work for ourselves for a change!
So we gotta Work!
Cos none of our visions
Of a better tomorrow
Will come to fruition
Without a whole lot of Work!
And that's all there is to it
So, God Dammit
I guess that we gotta do it!
Oh but that looks like
So many things
That these economics
They could never conceive
Of all of our value
Or measure our worth
No, I will not let them tell me
What it means to do Work!
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5. |
The Solid Wall Of Stuff
03:26
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I been wasting all my time
And this house is burning down
Guess I thought that I could wait it out
I can feel this separation
Penetrate my mind
Guess I thought that it would be alright
And we're sharing the feeling
We both know enough is enough
Just staring at The Solid Wall Of Stuff
Between the two of us
I was wasted half my life
And my time just slipped away
Guess I thought that I could make it all up someday
NOW we're in a brand new simulation
And everything has changed
And every day we get a bit further away
And we're sharing the feeling
Like we don't know what tomorrow will bring
Just adding to the unspoken wall of things
Between you and me
And we can't locate the fault lines
And neither of us are even to blame
Sad to say, we just don't want the same way
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6. |
Next Time...
05:06
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How did I get here?
I am an autopiloted machine
Preset destination
And no control over anything
It's incidental
But I'd like the record to reflect that I tried
But I fucked it up again
And I passively watched it happen from the outside
But, Next Time...
I'm gonna get it right
Next Time
I'm gonna get it right
I'm gonna get it right
And the electricity fills up my circuits
Completing many strange connections in my mind
And the path that power takes shapes me in microscopic ways
That I have only just begun to recognize
And when, true to form, I float above the current
I become its conduit, and through me it is maintained
So, am I really gonna spend my life in this cryostatic state
And when it's over, just shrug it off and say
Next Time
I'm gonna get it right?
Next Time
I'm gonna get it right
My location cannot be triangulated by any means
If I am less a point, and more of an in-between
So I'll be picking up the pieces of a new type of machine
And fitting two and two together how I please
Singing Next Time
I'm gonna get it right
And the Next Time
I'm gonna get it right
And the Next Time
I'm gonna get it right
And the Next Time...
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7. |
Redline (Dérive)
05:11
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Drunk on the sunlight
I was floating through
All the streets on the other side
Of the neighborhood
Over the dirt roads
That still survive
As the rest of the wide, wide world
Was asphaltified
Oh, and the living here's gotten less easy
The backdrop and the scenery
Have gotten a whole lot harder to look at
Ever since
They put up the fence
And they built 496
I got lost on my way home
I got all turned around
If you let the streets take you where they want
Sometimes they'll run you right out of town
And ruination, new development
One in the same in the sunset
As asleep on my feet I went
Under the overpass
Where the workers come
And the capital
Neatly flows through the city
To the capitol
And the shadows beneath
Never seem to see the light of day
Well that shadow keeps growing
And God help you if you get in the way
Now the highway chokes like a tourniquet
Too tight
And necrosis has spread to the flesh and this limb has been
Left to die
And on the avenue, the
New streetlights shine for the very first time.
My spirit
Re enters
My body
As I cross the Redline
But in more and more of the vacant lots
There've been growing more and more
Little garden plots
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8. |
GBRO
02:19
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Show's over. It's too late
I've got nothing to say for myself
On the eve of the Great Big Running Out
And I'm so far away, at the end of the day
I guess we had a good run, but
I won't feel a thing til it's long gone
NOW I'm sobering up
I'm rubbing my eyes
I stayed up too late, NOW I gotta
Watch the sun rise
So who's hand is on the switch anyways?
And who's getting stuck with the cost
In the event of a great big shutting off?
And how many of us can honestly say
We'd stand even a chance alone
In the aftermath of the inevitable crash?
NOW I've come to expect
Just more of the same
But in the absolute worst possible way
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9. |
Time + Decay
04:13
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My computer keeps getting older
But it feels like I'm staying the same age
When up to the minute
My whole history's in it
And I'm floating somewhere in space
I guess that we all make our own little ways
Into planned obsolescence someday
So my computer keeps getting older, and slower
And darling, I guess I'm doing the same
We're all becoming our parents
Little by little, the traits we've inherited
And are programmed inside our genetics
Float up from the bottom and into our head
So if we're not going back to the bottle
We're gonna have to learn to adapt on the fly
While our roles undergo a reversal
Or at the very least, they become redefined
This whole wide world is on fire
And everything's gonna die
I know that the future can feel far away
But it's only a matter of Time
Meanwhile... The world's gonna keep getting smaller
And I've been feeling a bit too big to fit
It happens a lot, and this claustrophobic response
Is a bug that I'm trying to fix
I know that I seem like a simple machine
But I can "just" get my head around it
If the world keeps getting smaller, and smaller
And weirder the older I get
Your old ways are out the window
Your old lives are dead and gone
Nobody knows where we're going
But we'll be there before too long
Let now be the age of invention
If now is the time right before it all starts going wrong
Are we gonna keep playing along?
So my computer keeps getting older
My time keeps becoming the past
But I'll dream of its plastic
Components fantastic
And the organic life they outlast
Let the sky fall
I could sleep through it all
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10. |
At The Threshold
04:30
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The blade will bite
Like it was made to do
Like a dog is born to chew
And bones
They were made to break
And feelings made to fade
I know the score but I can't explain
Why I keep denying
The inevitable that's contained
within the form
Of everything
Everybody
And everything
And so it goes
We were doomed from the start
These systems can grow no more
And start falling apart
And the damages are
All irreparably done
We wanted too much
We flew too close to the sun
And NOW I
Can see the portions of my paycheck inside
The prison gates and the tanks
As this planet dies
And this alien race
Makes certain nothing
Can ever take its place
NOW I
Have learned to read between the lines
And I have seen beyond the limits of our time
It should come as no surprise
We're At The Threshold
Of something big
At The Threshold
Of something big
At The Threshold
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11. |
NOW (..And Forever!!)
06:05
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So where do we go from here?
The whole wide world hates the police
And we deserve it all
We want everything
But it's kept out of reach
So we're speaking in extremes
But we're sleeping in for way too long
I believed, I believed, I believed
I believed in it all, but
God is dead, and the TV is on
God is dead, and now the TV is on
I fell asleep
I fell asleep with the TV on
And in my dreams
I was on my knees and I was drinking their blood
If I'm still asleep
If I'm still asleep when it finally comes
Just let me be
I don't want to see it, don't wake me up
I don't need you to
Tell me what this little life's been about
It's the same old story
Ain't got no conclusion
No right choice to make
I was crash landed
And living in the distant future
Where the world has ended
And now I'm wide awake
So I'll be getting up early
Or at least I will try
I don't know what I'm gonna find
But I've been getting the feeling that I'm running out of time
So I'm heading south and I'll be hitching my ride
I'm heading south and I'll be hitching my ride
My eyes are open and I'm not gonna wait
I'll chomp at the bit and I'll be rushing the gate
And while the regular people are going out of their minds
I'm heading south and I'm just hitching my ride
It's all heading south and I'm just hitching my ride
So I'll shake off whatever is left of the sleep
Name all of my feelings and know my beliefs
I'll set my intentions with fire to the lease
That I'm on at the time, means nothing to me
I want it all, and it's all in my reach
I'll have sharpened my skills, I'll be armed to the teeth
I'll be ready to kill whatever maker I meet
And all of my friends will be out on the street
Singing, "We want it all, and it's all in our reach!
We want it all, and it's all in our reach!
We want it all, and it's all...
Just a little bit further
Just a little bit further left, we got
Just a little bit further
Just a little bit further left to go
Just a little bit further
Just a little bit further left, we got
Just a little bit further
Just a little bit further left to go
Just a little bit further
Just a little bit further left, we got
Just a little bit further
Just a little bit further left to go
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12. |
A Spectacular Time
03:27
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The last pot of coffee
That we ever had to drink
With a synthetic
Sugar substitute and powdered cream
Our appointments and purchases
In their neat little lines
It didn't always make sense
Wasn't always quite as advertised
And at the markets
You could get it at a bargain all the year
It was grown and flown in
From some place in outer space for all I cared
You and I danced like numbers
On the shimmering screen
I fed a coin to my favorite machine
And I let it sing me to sleep
Oh, in body and soul
We were pieces composed
Of the old, exploded stars
We were part of a whole
That's empty and cold
And drifting apart
And in the morning
Before you'd even opened up your eyes
Our little dream was over
And the Coca Cola reservoirs were dry
And as our little illusions
They lined up to kiss us goodbye
I'll never know if the moment was right
But I had A Spectacular Time
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RENT STRIKE Lansing Charter Township, Michigan
Lore heavy folk punk
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