Thursday, October 14, 2004

Rule #6 In Music I Love:
A band doesn't need good lyrics, but it helps. A lot.

The Arcade Fire - "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
And if the snow buries my,
my neighborhood.
And if my parents are crying
then I'll dig a tunnel from my window to yours,
yeah a tunnel from my window to yours.
You climb out the chimney
and meet me in the middle,
the middle of town.
And since there's no one else around,
we let our hair grow long and forget all we used to know,
then our skin gets thicker from living out in the snow.

You change all the lead
sleepin' in my head,
as the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn.

Then we tried to name our babies,
but we forgot all the names that,
the names we used to know.
But sometimes, we remember our bedrooms,
and our parent's bedrooms,
and the bedrooms of our friends.
Then we think of our parents,
well what ever happened to them?!

You change all the lead
sleepin' in my head to gold,
as the day grows dim,
I hear you sing a golden hymn,
the song I've been trying to say.

Purify the colors, purify my mind.
Purify the colors, purify my mind,
and spread the ashes of the colors
over this heart of mine!

Death Cab for Cutie - "Styrofoam Plates"

there's a saltwater film on the jar of your
ashes: i threw them to sea but a gust
blew them backwards and the sting in my
eyes that you then inflicted was par for
the course just as when you were living.

it's no stretch to say you were not quite
a father but a donor of seeds to a poor
single mother that would raise us alone,
we'd never see the money that went
down your throat
through the hole in your belly.

thirteen years old in the suburbs of denver
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner at the
catholic chuch. the servers wore crosses
to shield from the sufferance plauging the
others. styrofoam plates, cafateria tables
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
and i'm thinking of you. i do every year
when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we're doing here.

you're a disgrace to the concept of family
the priest won't divulge that fact in his
homily and i'll stand up and scream
if the mourning remain quiet,
you can deck out a lie in a suit but i won't buy it.

i won't join in the procession that's
speaking their peace. using five dollar
words while praising his integrity. and just
cause he's gone it doesn't change the
fact: he was a bastard in life thus a
bastard in death.

--

Two examples.

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