From the Cutting Room Floor, Pt. 1
Here at Paperbacks Central, many songs are prepared and nurtured over periods of months or years only to be buried in the constant, crashing waves of progress, indifference, or general forgetfulness. These are the songs that don’t get performed or recorded until, like, 2 years later we find an old set list in the back of an amp or something, see the title, and are suddenly overcome with nostalgia for something that we initially didn’t really care much about. Anyway, I thought that instead of waiting for that set list/amp/future thing to happen, I could put the lyrics to those songs up here, and it could serve the same purpose. You know, we all get together and gather around the blog and…hey! Old song! In the meantime, gentle blog reader, you can come up with your own melodies to these in your head and then be disappointed in us when yours turn out to be superior. Everybody wins! Here’s the first one:
Retreat Into Genius.
Deaf to the ironies that engage you
and muted when it’s time to explain.
A weak faith is taken
that’s easily shaken,
but also effortlessly regained
As you retreat into genius
to analyze the motivation behind each breath.
Retreat into genius
and fall back refreshed into death.
Yours is the sort of flawed effort
only truly gifted artists can make:
marred by ambition,
marked by obsession
and delivered over three years late.
As you retreat into genius
to analyze the motivation behind each breath.
Retreat into genius
and fall back refreshed into death.
When the architecture of your gallery
competes with your art,
it defeats your art.
The funding gets slim,
the lighting gets dim,
and there’s just one way left to depart with grace
and leave no trace.
Chorus.
I'll have some more lyrics to songs from the new album posted later in the week. Thanks for bothering to read this stuff.
Sincerely,
Doug.
Retreat Into Genius.
Deaf to the ironies that engage you
and muted when it’s time to explain.
A weak faith is taken
that’s easily shaken,
but also effortlessly regained
As you retreat into genius
to analyze the motivation behind each breath.
Retreat into genius
and fall back refreshed into death.
Yours is the sort of flawed effort
only truly gifted artists can make:
marred by ambition,
marked by obsession
and delivered over three years late.
As you retreat into genius
to analyze the motivation behind each breath.
Retreat into genius
and fall back refreshed into death.
When the architecture of your gallery
competes with your art,
it defeats your art.
The funding gets slim,
the lighting gets dim,
and there’s just one way left to depart with grace
and leave no trace.
Chorus.
I'll have some more lyrics to songs from the new album posted later in the week. Thanks for bothering to read this stuff.
Sincerely,
Doug.
posted by Doug at 12:36 PM
2 Comments:
Remember Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror? I was totally in love with that song for about half a year. It was somewhat like that Pepper Ann episode, wherein she was completely taken with this guy, until he shaved his head and she found it was all lumpy and mishapen.. she learned to look past it, but it was never quite the same again.
For your next blog, I suggest you take on a Songfight! and provide a descriptive poem (possibly a series of limericks) on the process of songfighting. I suggest Man Speaking German (if you do in fact read this before the week's end), as it makes me think of the Eels' Woman Driving, Man Sleeping. Perhaps your lyrics can center around Woman Shopping, Man Speaking German; which provides an epic tale of a woman shopping in a foreign country with no clue of what the shopkeep is trying to tell her and the frustration that then arises from that.
I have just given you gold; now go!
I mean this in all seriousness...I completely love the quasi-limerick-y aspect of the verses.
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