1. |
146th Street
03:58
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Catch me if you can
I will not be beaten down
Though the A is running local
And it takes an hour to get uptown
Another 60 hour week
On aching legs and tired feet
The subway grumbles in
All hung over and baggy-eyed
We pack it to the brim
And it pulls away with a heavy sigh
Another day without a break
On creaking rails and rusty grates
It never waits
The tunnel spits me out
I make my way up from below
I'm a ten minute walk from home
The summer sun is hanging low
I feel it creeping in
I fight the bite away from skin
The doubt and fear attack
Both from outside and from within
Will I ever feel whole
How do you feed a hungry soul
Then I’m in the bedroom where you’re
eating takeout on the floor
In all my life, my darling,
I’ve never loved a person more
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2. |
Words and Images
03:08
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In the secret things I think about with no one else around
there are lots of insecurities and things that make me frown
I am awkward meeting people and I'm often tightly wound
There's some stuff about flamingos which I think are really weird
and if I'm on the subway I'll admire a bushy beard
and yes, I'm planning out our wedding, just like you probably feared
We will build a forest cabin and we'll fill it up with books
there'll be several comfy armchairs and a couple secret nooks
and we'll kiss a lot in public and receive some dirty looks
We will have a favourite restaurant we'll visit once a week
where the waiters know our names and so the bill is always cheap
we'll be making love at midnight when the children are asleep
I get stuck in words and images
and finding ways to say I'm in love with you
I try so hard to be original
The pictures get hidden in frames
I will write a song with G and C and sing it all the time
I won't focus on the metaphor or try to make it rhyme
nor will I shy from the cliche that I am yours and you are mine
I will age like a whiskey in the cellar of your grace
with our love digging ditches in the lines of my face
and my heart forever fuller, never running out of space
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3. |
Bird Flies South
03:55
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The tang of old coffee is the only thing I'm tasting these days
I'm watching TV and the interviewee is describing the migratory ways
of some bird I'm never gonna see
I'm tired of choices with none of the voices
saying anything I can use
in a world where a bird flies south
and it's news
I'm a mailbox to send to; I'm searching for something to feel
It's like looking through menus, allergic to all of the meals
allergic to anything real
There's a bird in the air and I hope while he's there
he's admiring the views
of a world where a bird flies south
and it's news
I wake up forgetting why I bother at all
there's nothing I'm dying to do
There's a hole in my soul with a shovel inside
and it's you
So I walk through the night and when I start to see light
the birds come and sit on the tree
and I wonder why they stay when they can fly anywhere
then I wonder the same about me
Now I'm seeing the sky and remembering why
it's sometimes rewarding to lose
in a world where a bird flies south
and it's news
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4. |
Cumulonimbus
04:25
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When we met you were wearing a leotard tucked into high-waisted shorts
What you wore underneath, what was tucked into that, was a recurring thought
We got caught in the rain with the blood against my veins and my heart under strain
And my pulse was keeping time with the wind’s whispered rhyme, barely
contained
That evening in the rainstorm I was born again to find you
And in the deepest depths of secrecy I longed to be behind you
I guess our souls had been expanded to feel things they weren’t designed to
But to prevent potential pain I closed my mind and reassigned you
So the days drifted by with your image in my eye; it was always worse at night
I got invited to a party on the fourth of july and I went just to get you off my mind
I drank til I was drunk and called your eyes a constellation
Mixing whiskey and tequila til my fingers lost sensation
And I stumbled down the avenues in drunken jubilation
And waited for the train so long I blacked out at the station
The morning came
Tremulous and shameful
I opened my eyes like a creaking door
My head was loud
Furious and painful
A message from you said “call me now”
So I called you now
In between the seams of where our lives are stitched together
The glue of me and you is even stronger now than ever
Nothing’s really different since that night of heavy weather
Though our clothes have long been dry, there will be rain in me forever
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5. |
I Feel It
01:49
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I feel it
There is something in the air
I feel it drag its fingers down my spine
Breathing closely right behind
I feel it
Something coming up for air
I feel it scratching at the doorway and pacing around
Whispering and sighing and clawing at the ground
When I am alone staring into the dark
I can see its shape, I can hear it
barking at the window, begging to be let in
I feel it
Spilling poison in the air
I feel it rustle through the curtains like a late November breeze
The gust before the downpour or the chill before the freeze
When I am alone staring into the dark
I can see its shape, I can hear it
barking at the window, begging to be let in
I feel it
There is something in the air
I feel it
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6. |
Hate Me the Most
02:00
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Cute little girl
Dancing on tabletops
Told me to dance and I told her to fuck herself
Ponytail guy
Just wanted to talk to me
Frankly I would’ve preferred a vasectomy
Grouchy or crazy or possibly both
On a quest to make everyone hate me the most
Eyes on the ground
People standing too close to me
Out at a party just like I’m supposed to be
Everyone’s there
And I’m desperate to try and hide
To go find a beer or a book or some cyanide
Grouchy or crazy or possibly both
On a quest to make everyone hate me the most
One day I’ll wake up with no one around me
Yeah one day I'll wake up with no one around me
No one around me
Am I grouchy or crazy or possibly both
On a quest to make everyone hate me the most
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7. |
My Irish Cleopatra
03:46
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I woke up in Boston
Late and hungover
I crawled through Allston
as it began to stir
I crept down Harvard Avenue
blinking fast and sweating beer
The T came rolling past me
wicked pissah to my ear
We shared a pizza
sat there for a while
the sun was shining
you had pesto in your smile
til I get back to Harlem
over land or over sea
until I see you darling
I will clutch that memory
Load out from the show
pack up the car
pick up the phone
til the lonely leaves my bones
your voice alone can guide me
Here I go now
I'm on my way back home
I'm like Julius Caesar
within sight of Rome
My Irish Cleopatra
sitting in your golden throne
a battered thrift shop armchair
I carried on the subway home
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8. |
One Thing
04:20
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I write down one thing every day you make me grateful for
The hard part’s sometimes settling for one
Now I’m halfway through a notebook and I’m coming up with more
Racing pages against phrases until one of them’s gone
I notice one thing every day I couldn’t see before
The lunette of treetops circling the sun
Or the way I wait for rainstorms, how I’m happy when it pours
When we have to stay inside together, safe until it’s done
If there’s one thing I could tell you, I would tell you
I hate telling you goodbye
And if there’s one thing I could show you,
I would blow you every kiss you’ve redefined
There’s a hundred thousand praises
I could sing to you in unsurprising rhyme
But for now I’ll keep to one thing at a time
I feel one thing every day I couldn’t feel before
Like discovering a limb I’ve never used
You’re pointing out the parts about me worth being adored
And you’re nourishing the traces left from places I abused
If there’s one thing I could tell you, I would tell you
I hate telling you goodbye
And if there’s one thing I could show you,
I would blow you every kiss you’ve redefined
There’s a hundred thousand praises
I could sing to you in unsurprising rhyme
But for now I’ll keep to one thing at a time
If there’s one thing I could tell you, I would tell you
I hate telling you goodbye
And if there’s one thing I could show you,
I would blow you every kiss you’ve redefined
There’s a hundred thousand praises
I could sing to you in unsurprising rhyme
But for now I’ll keep to one thing at a time
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9. |
Get Along
01:43
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Get along little joe you’re a song to be sung
Seems like all you wanna do these days is worship at the feet of your baby
Well she’s not home
So be someone who aspires to do more than sit and drink alone
Get along little joe you’re a song to be song
Stop holding it inside your throat and let it out as loud as you can
Annoy your neighbors
Serves em right for rolling cinderblocks and jumping up and down on the floor
Get along little joe you’re a song to be sung
And the lyrics might be not thought out but neither is the stuff by Courtney
Barnett
And she got famous
They called it “stream of consciousness” and then Obama put her on his playlist
Barack n’ roll!
Get along little joe you’re a song to be sung
Seems like all you wanna do these days is worship at the feet of your baby
Well she’s not home
So be someone who aspires to do more than sit and drink alone
Don't drink alone
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10. |
This Is
04:20
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This is the room that we'll remember
when we look back on this time
the curtain rod I stepped on, taped back together
is bent but proudly holding on
These are the sheets we bought together
after dating for a year
you picked out the colour, you picked out the pattern
I picked out the girl who picked them out
This is the childhood home
where our love grew up
it's full of dirty cups
These are the fights that never matter
and these are words we shouldn't use
you slammed the door, the picture fell,
its frame was cracked in two
This is our love in its teenage years
full of fire and doubt
just needs to let it out
This is our love growing up too fast
god I need more time
Don't let this pass me by
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11. |
Hiraeth
05:11
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In the woods behind the house
we ran around while waving wooden swords
All trampolines and sour grapes
the summers gave us all they could afford
We stayed up until three and went outside to look at the stars
with nobody there to protest if we said they were ours
We grew apart all through our teens
by college we had sold the trampoline
The swords grew dusty on the shelves
and we grew old all by ourselves
We did up my old room, moved the bed, had an office installed
Though the furniture’s new, there are memories of you in the walls
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12. |
My Little Fight
05:06
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I didn't ever think that I was good so I would blame it all on luck
and I didn't ever feel like I was worth somebody's love, and so it stuck
I didn't ever practice and I didn't ever try or see the point
and I never really gave my very best - I would detest to disappoint
and I tell myself I'm not the same as I was then
and I'm full of faith in love, in me and you, in us,
contrarily I don't believe in souls or ghosts or God
or even, usually, in me
oh, hypocrisy
and I'm working every day to find a way inside the person I
aspire to be; eventually, the person I admire will be me
I am not the same as then
My parents wouldn't praise me if I couldn't do the things they say I can
My friends wouldn't support me if I wasn't worth the effort of a hand
and you would never love me if my image of myself was who I am
Does all that mean I'm not the same as I was then?
and I don't save lives or work in mines so that my family survives
I don't donate to charity, I don't even recycle with any
regularity
and I place more value in a single freckle on your back than in the whole of me
and constantly, I love you so intensely I can't see
that I am not the same as then
am I real?
I will give myself the glory that I give to you and give to love
the kind that men from southern Tennessee give to guns and God above
Make America Great Again
I will move along and fight my little fight to be a better man
and every night I'll grow a bit more bright and gather evidence to cite
I am not the same as then
No I am not the same as then
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Joe Holt New York, New York
Joe is a folk singer/songwriter originally from England, whose music was praised by Obscure Sound as "stirring, eloquent songwriting," and by Ear to the Ground as "the real deal when it comes to folk songwriting." His music has been featured twice on NPR. He lives in New York City. ... more
Joe Holt recommends:
You Can Call Me Legs (Demos)
by Legs Akimbo
the writing, the voice, the production - I literally cannot get enough
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such bad things happen
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Turbulent indie rock from Levi Fuller & the Library that has the snarl of hardcore and the knotty meter of math rock.
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