Titanfish

by Robinson Lee Earle

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credits

released 19 June 2010
All songs written, performed and © 2010 Robinson Lee Earle. Lyrics at www.RobinsonLeeEarle.com. All solo songs were recorded in a single take.
*Featuring Sad Bastards: Zach Oden: Guitar, Banjo & Vocals, Jake Evans: Bass, Larissa Fedoryka: Cello, Aaron Heindel: Drums.
Musical Producer & Engineer: David Frush. Sad Bastards Musical Producer & Engineer: Neil Turry. Accomplice & Sensei: Eddie Ashworth.
Executive Producer, Photographer, Designer & Vocals: Sara Mosher. Recorded at MDIA Sound, Athens OH.
Special thanks to: Families, Friends, and the School of Media Arts & Studies at Ohio University.
All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.

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tags: acoustic alternative finger picking fuck folk fuzz-folk lyric centric pagan blues post folk rock Chapel Hill

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Track Name: Burning Face
Burning Face

I see you, baby, with your face on fire.
Maybe, lately, you’ve been struck by desire,
but I ain’t got the time to tune no one’s lyre, no, no.
I gotta’ keep runnin’ from those guns you hired.

I see your yearnin’ by the sweat on your brow.
You see me comin’ and you deck yourself out,
but I don’t gamble, I just came in for a stout.
So you can go ahead and button up that blouse,

‘cause I can see their shadows branch out over that mountain range,
and don’t you know it makes me shutter to think that each one’s stood in my place.
Yeah, we’re a colony of rivals that exists in your brain,
and it’s just a matter of time, girl, before we drive you insane.

She said,
“Come on lovely, I’ve got money to burn.
Let’s do a line out of my granddaddy’s urn.
You can take my little turbo for a turn!
Say you’ll love me and I promise not to stir…

Suck out the worry-
grows so cold my bones.
Be like the miner who’s designed to strike gold.
I swarm like vulture to the heartbreak foretold.

I’ll take your silence, and I’ll make a plaster mold.”
And she wags it in front of my face like a question
that demands a reply,
and I’ll I can do is intuit which face would be the better face to hide,

for she is not my bride,
and I’ve got so much to lose.

Why these girls gotta’ come around here,
and try to take away my blues?
Track Name: Woke Up This Morning
Woke up this Morning

Well I woke up this morning-
floating ‘round like the fly in my cup,
and there were people all around me
looking down on me,
wondering if I was gonna’ stand back up,
but I played it cool,
as I crawled around the room,
looking for another womb
to crawl up into.

Goddamn that sunlight,
it poisons my eyes.
The man inside the mirror’s
wearing an ugly disguise,
and I won’t know what I’ve been doing,
or who I’ve held between my thighs,
until I’m dry,
until I’m dry.

I woke up this afternoon-
my eyelids waning like crescent moons,
and I must admit I felt a deep elation,
as I left that gas station carrying
two unmarked bottles of moon,
‘cause I knew it was happening here:
a young magician making devils disappear,
and I can feel the wound growing bigger
like a flower on my liver,
and it is taking all I’ve got to stay in tune.

Goddamn those bright lights,
they sizzle my eyes.
My mind’s a corporation
I’ve been trying to downsize,
but the people just aren’t buying my maniacal designs,
and I must get by,
I must get high.

I woke up this evening
to the realization that my head was bleeding,
and with the utmost attention to my well-being,
I elected to stay in bed.
‘Cause shit was happening out there,
and I ain’t gonna’ say I wasn’t scared,
and furthermore, I ain’t trying to put my neck out on the line,
when said neck is some kinda’ canned sand dry.


Goddamn that moonlight,
it troubles my eyes.
I’m a hunk a’ meat wandering
in a gallery of knives.
My shadow curves slowly
over deadly inclines.

I seek a sign,
I seek my wine,

I seek
what is mine.
Track Name: Way Back Home
The Way back Home

Well, the moments that I like the best
are the ones I spend watching you undress, baby.
In the morning bright and evening dim,
I lay in wait to see your skin plainly,
oh, and then,
to hear your voice-
makes me feel as if I was born without a choice,
with your picture on a flag I was meant to hoist up high,
and sail on behind
with an image of our island in my mind,

and though at times unsure,
let it not seem a chore,
let the stars keep score,
on our way back home,
way back home,
way back home.

I trace the silence of the afternoon
To an empty where you’ll be soon, maybe.
I sent a ring of smoke to call
from a prehistoric bathroom stall,
vainly.

Ah, but you,
you know the way.
So, if we just learn to keep our demons at bay,
then the rivers and the kings will come to know our names,
and concede our grace,
and forever we’ll lay waste to their pain,

and we’ll be born anew,
set loose from a zoo,
left our captors run through.
They stood in our way back home,
way back home,
way back home.
Track Name: Pussythumper
Pussy Thumper

Well my fair lady,
she’s as warm as a pocket,
she’s as warm as a pocket in June,
and each new day, I open her locket,
I open her locket cased in dew.

And I prove my love
with a series of thrusts
that relieves the beast in me,
and I relive the times that I marched behind
your Georgian ass swinging free.

I went a’ pussy-thumping, that cat started jumping
when I stroked him hard on the yard,
then I fell from my knees, I was shivering with disease.
There were broken vials in the garden.

And all I could see
was the sky, but I sensed a sea,
rising up behind my eyes, you learn to swim, or you learn to die,
but I know why I, I’ll take my time, I’ll take the break, I’ll learn to fly.

And then I’ll lift off your thorny crown,
and place it on my virgin brow
and then I will come again,
I’ll take on all the sins,
I’ll learn to make amends,
ends, ends.

I went a pussy-thumping, those cats started jumping
when I ground it down on the lawn.
Then they gathered all around,
holding idols that they’d found,
that’d been scattered all about the garden.

And I know its cold,
But you mustn’t hold those coals.
No, you gotta’ stoke ‘em low,
yeah, ya’ gotta’ get down and blow.
Track Name: Shenendoah
Shenandoah

O, Shenandoah,
I long to hear you.
So far away,
you lonesome river.
In my dreams,
I swim the water
out to the isle
of your dark daughter.

O, Shenandoah,
she never greets me,
just sets a place beneath
the table in the morning,
makes a bed by the window
in the evening,
but come the dawn,
she’ll have crawled into my arms.

O, Shenandoah,
You are her father,
but in her womb grow my children.
I watch her swell-
her belly glistening.
She bathes in pails
of your boiled water.

O, Shenandoah,
I love your daughter.
We’re set to wed
this spring in dreaming,
beneath a sky
of red bells ringing,
and we both request that you attend.
Track Name: Orange Grove
The Orange Grove

All alone in the orange grove, she did
waste away until the dawn.
They found her there,
hanging by her hair.
She’d gone through
great pains to
wear it long.

The sisters wept
as they bore her down the steps
towards the
musty crypt
where she’d been laid…
by a man who could hardly even stand.
It was by this same love
that he was saved.

But who are you
to place the blame?

Broken down in a bad part of town, we did
stroke our guns to make us brave-
walked around,
the night was full of sounds
that filled our
tiny hearts
all up with hate.

Then suddenly,
I heard somebody breathe,
and it wasn’t him, and wasn’t me.
So, we opened fire,
but the darkness was a liar.
A child’s blood
lay on our feet

But who are we
to take the blame?

And you can try and run so far away,
but you’ll only be a fool bolting for the shade.
Hold strong, stare hard into the sun, let it wash your brain.
Keep on if they say you’re wrong, and don’t ever feel ashamed,

‘cause there ain’t no shame,
no, There ain’t no shame,
no, There ain’t no shame,
no, There ain’t no shame.

I broke his nose,
and we tumbled through the snow-
he should have known, he was my friend.
But it wasn’t clear, with our hormones in fourth gear,
whether she was mine, or she was his…

And while we wept,
my brother called from the steps
that we looked like a couple of dumb queers,
“Maybe we are,” I shouted from the yard.
His bloody face looked like a mirror.

But who am I
to feel ashamed?
Track Name: Modern Age
The Modern Age

Give me the modern age any day,
‘cause at least them workers gettin’ paid,
and at least us sinners gettin’ laid
without worryin’ ‘bout what the priest would say.

And though I love the U.S.A,
I know it was built on fear and hate,
and I know some you boys can’t relate,
but that’s okay, ‘cause I can wait…

O, but you gotta’ tell me,

does it hurt a little less when it’s a song?
And doesn’t it feel good to sing along?
Ya’ think we can admit our dads were wrong?
Think on it a while, but not to long.

‘Cause they’ll be ‘a comin’ ‘round that mountain ridge,
trimming down brain like garden hedge,
and ya’ better be quick or you’ll catch their edge,
and you need every bit, can’t spare a wedge.

And though I love the U.S.A,
I know it was built on fear and hate
and I know some you boys can’t relate,
but that’s okay. I can wait.

O, but you gotta’ tell me,

does it hurt a little less when it’s a song?
And doesn’t it feel good to sing along?
Ya’ think we can admit our dads were wrong?
Think on it a while, but not to long.

‘Cause they got a file growing on you, kid,
and it’s got everything you said, and everything you did,
and it’s got a little black box with everything you’ve hid,
and it wouldn’t phase ‘em a bit to peel back the lid

And though I love the U.S.A
I know that it was built on fear and hate
And I know some your boys can’t relate
But that’s okay. We can wait.

You go on and tell ‘em,

does it hurt a little less when it’s a song?
And doesn’t it feel good to sing along?
Ya’ think we can admit our dads were wrong?
Think on it a while, but not to long.
Track Name: Old Bold
Old, Bold Enemy

There goes the old, bold Virginny,
softy toe through the palace grounds.
Below cold star he wanders drunken,
Pulling close his ragged shroud.
Lord above, he gives no comfort,
way up high his throne of clouds.
There goes the old, bold enemy,
softy toe through the palace grounds.

Well, the chamber maid is changing my bed sheets,
as I float like a bloated toadfish
in a tub with porcelain paws.
Her name is Anna,
mine is Benjamin.
She grew lean in the Philippines,
while I stuffed the family’s prescription drugs into Easter eggs
for a night of slumming with the cook’s son.
He swore to me those hoes loved M80s,
so we stuffed a couple of duct numbers into a blue egg,
and hit up a place called the “Triple X Keg”.
When I came, it was like watching a distant explosion
on an interstellar plane,
followed by the void of four AM,
dreaming of the world’s longest piss.
I awoke soaked in 40 proof,
and yeah, I considered changing the sheets,
but decided to drown my sorrows instead.
I’ve been known to bathe for days, and days, and days…

In the blood of the tender girls,
I’ve raised and raped their mind’s eye,
reflected in their sighs when the pain subsides,
and they realize they gotta’ chip ivory to survive,
absorb the falling cries of the brethren with the miracle leaven,
feed a nation in a second if we let ‘em,
but a simple oppression dissection lacks economic discretion,
and so we hit ‘em with that capitalist message,
and then we bury ‘em down,
deep in the ground,
until some oil comes out.

I am reading “Hamlet”, and he’s going on about stars shedding light,
but giving no warmth, and before long I start thinking about last night,
and I’ve got a hard-on,
and in walks Anna for fresh linen.
I calmly gesture to my erection,
which she proceeds to relieve with her callused hand,
and when she is finished I stand and am taken in a towel out to the lawn,
where I watch my pride of feral Velociraptors rip apart a chained antelope,
just like in Jurrasic Park,
“O, but what’s next? What to do?”
I say with a vision of a light-bulb halo,
“I know, I will write a brand new Blues!”
So I part the leaves of the weeping willow tree,
like the dress of a southern belle, and this is what I sing,
this is what I sing,
what I sing.

There goes the old, bold enemy,
softy toe through the palace grounds.
Below cold star he wanders drunken,
Pulling close his ragged shroud.
Lord above, he gives no comfort,
way up high his throne of cloud.
There goes the old, bold Virginny,
softy toe through the palace grounds.
Track Name: High Class Mother Fucker
High-Class Motherfucker

Look at me.
Do you see tears?
Does it disturb you that they’re not there?

Or am I crying on the inside?
I hear that happens.
I hope it doesn’t happen to you.

‘Cause you’re too slick for strict injunctions, baby,
but the trail’s set for June,

‘cause you’re a high-class motherfucker,
‘cause you’re a high-class motherfucker,
‘cause you’re a high-class motherfucker,
ain’t you?

Yeah, but you found yourself some slack,
you got your own back,
flippin’ that white girl to fatten your sack,
steamin’ down the tracks like werewolf heart attack.
I guess you’re dying to know what I’m getting at…it’s like
grey-eyed Simon, lord of the flies, caught in the rye, real on the sly.
I always tell the truth, but I do it in disguise-
standin’ there laughing when you start to realize

that I’m a high-class motherfucker,
yeah, I’m a high-class motherfucker
yeah, I’m a high-class motherfucker,
and so are you…

but wait a second, I know you.
Yeah, you live down the road.
You were there squatting naked in the bushes
when I sold my soul.
Well, I’m older now,
and I know of your home.
They say your wife lies naked in the garden,
night-long,
gnawing on a bone.

You’re a high-class motherfucker
‘cause you’re a high-class motherfucker,
‘cause you’re a high-class motherfucker,
it’s true.
And you got it all to give, don’t you?
You got it all to give, don’t you?
Yeah, you got more to give, don’t you?
You got it all to give, don’t you?
High-class motherfucker.
Track Name: When My Lady Came
When my Lady came

In the dawn,
when my lady came,
I was asleep in bed,
after a long night of picking at my scars.

She stumbled in,
stank of gin,
another woman’s perfume.
I crawled into her womb.
I licked the residue from another darkened room.

O, and how many nights can I
lay on down beside
a woman
who’s been untrue?

O, but the moon
will see me through,
and I’ll awake encased in dew,
and I will not
remember you…little lovely,
shocks of coke-white hair.

In the dawn,
when my lady came,
I kissed her lips so fair;
so cold, and still, and fair.
Track Name: Come Again
Come Again

Pleased be he who has heard of my passing,
for I’ll return as a child new-born
to shed these reins in the place of my crossing,
to come again as my duty informs me,
to take my time with these women and these weapons,
to let them shine with the skill of the moon,
to hold your head to the skillet of my torso,
to find our child hidden in the stove.

O, but that would be much more
than I can endure.
Yeah, that would be much more
than I bargained for.

There is no end, for we bend as if circles.
To go ahead is to revolve yet again.
The tail-spun are those blinded by the starlight.
They glimpse a point and then receive it as an end-
punching holes in a stiff cloak of absence,
floating grubs for the catfish, our lord,
broken tones in the central nervous system,
the singing suns sound a single, static chord.

O, but that would cost much more
than I can afford,
Yeah, that would risk too much
of what I’m unsure.

The Holy Ghost ground the rhythm with a pestle-
cut it up and bestowed it to the wind.
We plugged the holes in the walls with our attentions.
The foreman lagged as we buzzed about our skins,
but the time has come for our god to grow asunder,
so stake your claim in the face your mother knew:
Clad in plaid and reclining in a cloudscape,
born of flame, we smoke Hashish to know his name.

And he came as voice, he came as pain,
and he restored, restored my soul and explained
his game,
and then he left me all alone, yeah, he left me all aglow, and he left me on my own,
completely insane,
completely insane.

He said,

“Fair thee well young, my golden boy.
To you I grant this road.
It’s just a vein in the pulsing whole,
but I know
that you know
where it goes.
Treat her well, ‘cause you know who I mean.
She’s the closest house around.
She settled here in hopes you’d reappear,
so go ahead, go ahead, hold her now.
She waited here, until your way was clear,
so go ahead, go to her now.”