1. |
Urban Soul
03:08
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I need to know:
where’d you go?
Did you need more time to draw a line through your love,
Did he give you the world, then tell you “Oh no”?
I’ve got to say ten more things,
but I can’t get through one when I’m all red and dumb.
Help me home--
oh, it gets you the worst
when she’s filling you with hope.
I need a new--
Anita, love, wrap me up--
I just can’t move on when I’m this alone.
My oh my, does she give you a twirl,
and then tell you “Oh, no”?
I need a new urban soul!
I’m a moonrise king
with an “Oh-I-don’t-know”
sometimes queen.
It’s the end of the world, and she fills me with hope.
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2. |
California Widow
03:32
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My eyes cannot see far.
My eyes already are way down
from taking on the lies that youth can hold.
And I’m by the phone
for way too long,
But you wouldn’t know,
and I won’t say a word.
My eyes already are good liars
before he’s gone.
I can hear the sound of wasted fools--
I’ll wait, I’ll wait, I’ll wait ‘til he gets home.
But I’m by the phone
for way too long,
but you wouldn’t know,
and I won’t say a word.
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3. |
Tunnel Song
03:17
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I was hanging on by the strings that you already cut.
See me danglin’ dear, down here where the weather’s rough?
It’s easy: you lie, I lie
right down this mine all night--
I try, you try--
I was hanging on, time-worn, then I let it go.
You would never say It’s too dry
when I pray for rain.
You were full of luck
while my failures added up,
but I just wanted to sing
tunnel songs for what you believe.
It’s easy: you lie, I lie
right down this mine all night.
I try, you try,
but it’s easier to know
how I’d lie to you,
right down this mine all night.
And I try, you try,
to hide it well.
I was hanging on by the strings that you already cut.
Slowly stirred from bed by the calls that were echoing,
begging for a soul with the heart that we grew up on
like I never meet anymore.
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4. |
Summer Noir
03:36
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I get by, I move on,
l leave when the wording’s wrong.
If it gets any worse, tell my mom I had to go
down to Duquesne to find my friends for the seventh time.
In the night, in the cold, with a mouthful of better words--
I’m restored.
What do you take me for?
Nevermind, I don’t want to know.
Heaven’s sake let me go--
should I be the only one
shuffling back down the road,
in a town that I barely know,
where I take what you say
too far in a loveless way,
and tell it to the ghosts.
Is it fair if I doubt?
By now I thought I’d work it out,
with a drink, on the phone--
no, we’re taught to let it go;
better not to impose
on lives better left alone
when there’s more than enough
back home--
I’ll remember us,
and tell it to the ghosts.
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5. |
The Roaring Twenties
03:48
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I would hope
nobody needs to know what I’ve been through,
and keeping from you.
Wide awake in bed at ten-to-eight,
I’m good for now,
while the summer’s loud
(and) just beyond my room.
Had I said, “I need to rest my head,
and you will too,”
would we both come through?
Love to find that one thing on your mind,
maybe that’s one thing I can’t see through.
You were meant to know when I’m alone,
but you’ll never know when I am --
and we’re laughing at all our time.
Made to break in twenty different ways,
and one more time to read your pretty mind.
Half asleep when you’re still asking me
what I think--
I think I should leave.
You were meant to know when I’m alone,
but you never know where I am --
and we’re laughing it off this time.
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6. |
The Bright Ones
03:26
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It’s easy to be so dumb
when I’m looking for the words to call you home.
Yelling at the top of my lungs is not as fun
without you here.
I don’t pretend to know what to do
with all I’ve harmed--I’m not that bright.
Where did you get that thought:
that you were never smart
enough to leave?
I’m so bright.
It’s easy to be so dumb
when I know what you’ll say anyway.
It’s easy enough to ask
what you mean when you don’t laugh--
I’m keeping track.
I’m so bright.
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7. |
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Would you know it,
I could leave now,
with the youth I want to play out
in the best room with my old friends, at a party
we’re all dragged out (to)
by our lovers,
with the promise of a new chance.
That won’t help me sleep
and tell you about it all,
what I have been dreaming up:
how I hate feeling like I was
closer when I left you alone--
a life well-known.
Would you know it,
I’m now bored of
all the fire I need to blow out
on the front porch
with a clearer head,
with the hope I’d want you to have,
with the strength I wrote on my hand:
your old number--
That won’t help me sleep,
and tell you about it all,
what I have been dreaming of:
how I hate feeling like I was
closer when I left you alone--
a life well-known.
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8. |
Supermoon
03:51
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My mind is lost,
never to be found.
My mind is lost--
I won’t level out.
I’m half in-love,
then I’m let down when I’ve been good.
All blackened gold around her neck,
(it) suits her eyes and my regrets.
It’s been a guilt-tripping luck,
in a maze that I use to know.
I was there,
and I was scared--
maybe I belong out here.
My mind is lost,
never to be found.
Fires on the lawn
bought us time and kept me warm.
I heard it’s poor for my health,
(but) good enough to feel like help.
And then you had to go
as I choked up on the smoke.
Well, I have somewhere close
that I hid a long time ago.
My mind is lost,
never to be found.
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9. |
Little Boston
04:07
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I was lost in the fog and mirrors,
cause giving you up was all trial and error;
I meet you on time, you’d be somewhere else--
I leave you tonight, you’d reach for my hand.
But I can’t come home to you
when I’m feeling like I do
and I can’t say “I love you”
without looking at the floor.
So I’ll learn to like being alone
when there’s nowhere else to go.
I will foul or fuck this up,
‘cause I can’t keep a moment too good.
All night long, were you wondering
if right at dawn is when I’d be leaving?
That was us, in the front yard where
we burnt what we had
on a tired land.
But I can’t come home to you
when I’m looking like I do
and I can’t say “I love you”
without looking at the floor.
So I’ll learn to like being alone
when there’s nowhere else to go.
I will foul or fuck this up,
‘cause I can’t keep a moment too good.
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10. |
Mabel
03:37
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My regards to the animal I was,
a lion awake--
you dragging sticks along my cage.
But I should’ve known
we tease each other when we’re fond,
just because.
I recall our shadows on the sidewalk,
as tall as we made our Goliaths out to be--
and I’m losing hold
of all the people that I knew
years before.
Mabel, wait--
if you don’t have a thing to say,
it’s better that we keep a little distance
when I’m already told,
“Don’t be so eager
when she goes, ‘Dear, I’m lost.’”
It was my mistake
and wasn’t me to leave this way,
so overwhelmed,
but keeping on that, “Hope you’re well”.
When it’s hard to say
what’s keeping us alive and safe,
please, calm me down
if every word is a roar too loud.
But would you carry me,
with the things that you don’t need
if I’m not getting any lighter all this time?
And if it leaves me uptight,
when my friends leave me behind,
I’d sing, “We have all got a lot of work to do.”
You’d sing, “We have all got a lot of work to do.”
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The Commonwealth Cleveland, Ohio
We are The Commonwealth (™), a group of young men and women with a Protestant work ethic and a winning smile. We are also grass-fed and cage-free.
(Photograph by Hilary Bovay)
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