1. |
Two Magnets
03:21
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I still have dreams about that house, in black and white and green, and the big backyard. Glad I remembered how to dream, but there’s static ‘round the edges now. Just trying to get through. All fuzzy on the corners as the image comes into view. We were two magnets pointed north in corresponding force. Magnets pointed north. Sleeping there with four or five of us. Concrete steps down to the lake. Slipping hands down a wrought-iron railing. Wet by foam on the wake. Climbing out on the roof in December, both nursing our wounds. Gave me your jacket, said, “I want you to have it. It looks better on you.” We were two magnets pointed north on coinciding course. Magnets pointed north.
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2. |
Milkcrate
02:28
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In a corner in a basement of an old house, there's a speaker that I left there, spitting static to a neighborhood that I grew up in. I still live there but it's different now, now that we've moved out of the place I loved. In the beds we made and the clothes we wore, there are traces of a former love and a long-lost friend we can't wash out. Some will gravitate towards other towns with a different set of streets on grids. How I wish that I could have known back then what I know right now, but we were only kids. Though hindsight offers clearer eyes, what the future holds is twice as bright, and I'm old enough to realize that the past ain't always left behind.
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3. |
Stale Air
03:22
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Reception crackles on a lonely interstate and I can't settle my stomach. I'm fortunate enough to get to see what lies beyond these four walls and a lonely apartment. I still wanna get home. I'll drive all night to get back to you. Closing the distance as fast as possible. But it's distance I created and it's fucking harrowing. I'll never tell you anything I don't mean. And I can almost feel it but my senses leave me cold. I tried my best to escape it but it won't let me go. I need a breather. I've been inhaling stale air for way too long. Closing the distance as fast as possible. Through the pains and the pacing there's a semblance of a purpose. Sift through the scribble. You can decipher me. I'm not that hard to read. Silver-white light, rain down acceptance on me and when I wake I'll be renewed.
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4. |
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You can’t hide what you can’t hold. It’s there in the creases of your smile and the bed frame you spray-painted gold. You know, your words carry such weight. They make me turn inwards on myself and I become something that I hate. I can’t pretend that I’m not affected. How can I clear my head when you occupy whatever space that’s left there? So I’ll shut my brain off and stay suspended in space in case you want to talk to me. Caricature, I can’t exaggerate your features anymore. I’ve been hiding in a cold and quiet place so I can contemplate the coming days and catalog the messes that we made. I’ll be waiting to hear back from you while you’re choking on nicotine fumes. When you’re aching for your phone to ring, I’ll be sinking in my surroundings. I’ll get swallowed up and I’ll be gone. I’ll get swallowed up like a feeling that leaves when you wake. You’ll swear it was so real and then it fades. And you’re left to feel hollow with half the conviction that you used to have.
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5. |
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Dear Samuel, I’m wide awake. I’ve been barely treading water in the greatest lakes, but I’ll scratch and I’ll claw and I’ll climb every wall and I’ll move on. So many friends, so many futures. So much time spent sewing sutures. We build and repair, formulate and create and we move on to the safest place we know. I’m sorry for starting. I never meant to put you through this. But when I am with you, I am a tourist in my own hometown. Dear Sophia, I’m wide awake. I’ve been pondering the mistakes I’ve made, and I know that I’m bad at returning your calls and I’m sorry. I guess our lives got pulled apart and I know it makes it harder so just write me a letter whenever you find yourself thinking about me. I will keep holding on until every ounce of strength is gone. But when those words leave my lips, they never transfer my meanings the way that I intend. I’m sorry for starting. I never meant to put you through this. But when I am with you, I can’t decide if I am whole or half.
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6. |
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Good times sneak and fleet. Your friends wanna spend some time with you tonight. Meet up at a bar where someone knows about your sign. They said when you were born the stars smiled. Calm down. Put your phone down.
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7. |
Wait For Hours
03:19
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Yeah, maybe I was missing for a minute. Fake flowers by the sliding doors. You're dancing to the crackle of the PA, off-hours in the grocery store. I always wanna pressure-test it. You illuminate what I don’t see, sayin’, “Nobody does it all themselves, so you can lean a little further on me.” Lean in. These minor moments of transcendence. Logistics on an endless screen. Don’t you let 'em steal your presence, or the sweetness of the in-between. Some days are nothing more than survival, all wrapped up and wired shut. You caught me staring in the frozen aisle:
“I know you’re feeling helpless, but you can lean a little further on me.” We do what we all gotta do to get through it. I’ll wait for hours for you. Wait all night if I have to. When skylines buckle and skew. I’ll wait for hours for you.
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8. |
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When I first heard that song, I wanted to sing along. I wanted to learn every word that I heard 'til I'm sick of it. Thank you for the bug in my ear. I can hear you loud and clear. Nudging me to find my own little space and create something. Throw jealousy in the equation, ‘cause I'd like to complicate the situation. Take it from me: You walk with nothing if envy is what keeps your heart thumping. Why am I so hard on myself? What am I trying to prove? And what's it gotta do with you? I'm searching for something I already know.
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9. |
Call The Amberlamps
03:29
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Where are those comforting words now? Where are those omniscient eyes that used to burn so brightly? Now the fire has died, but the embers still glow and the smoke is beginning to rise. I can’t do this. Someone please get me through this night. I need soft ground to fall back on, shelter and help in making decisions. I’ve gone and built this all up in my head. I can relate to you, brother, because I’ve been there before. Everyone is projecting. Everyone’s fuckin’ scared as all hell. So I’ve just learned to accept it and carry it with me wherever I go, like the security blankets we wrapped ourselves in even though they had dozens of holes. I think I might be able to do this. Ball up my fists and fight my way through this night. And if and when I make it to sunrise, open my hands and grasp the new daylight. I made it through this night alive.
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10. |
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Never surrender your time to breathe. So many unexpected leave. Spinning in circles. Growing old. Life is short, we're told. Spinning in circles. Toss and turn. Over and over. We tried to build this perfect life inside our minds when we were kids. Said we'd grow up to be something big, like an astronaut from outer space. Purposely out of place. Definitely.
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11. |
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I felt the water in my soul rise. Squinted at the light with both eyes. Half-refracting a reflection of a name I’m scared to mention. I felt my conscience bend in segments. Salty skin and pale complexion. Eyes that strain for something more than some callow, cryptic kind of shorthand. I just called to shoot the shit, come on, pick up, so I can rant on all the ways that I feel fucked. Let our legs bend in right angles over rooftop ledges. Gave notes on how we would rewrite a whole half-century and saw the floodlights bearing down on the incoming traffic. If you were here, then I’d be home. It doesn’t have to be this way. I thought it would. It doesn’t change. Perched atop abandoned steel. A monument to better days. “This house is a machine that I don’t understand, I just live inside it.” It doesn’t have to be this way. I thought it would but it doesn’t change.
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12. |
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I was wasted out west. Exhaling smoke between breaking waves. Slight pain in my chest. Heavy with hunger and hope for days spent so content in attempts to document it, but I could never get it all down. The summer found me barefoot in a public bathroom, scraping salt from my skin in whispered half-truths, like “I don’t think about you except when I want to, and sometimes when I don’t.” So let the dishes pile up in the sink. Let those collections collect dust. Let that distracted, derivative drivel all just fall right out of us. When midwestern skies reflect the roads that run beneath, find me out on the water spitting little streams through my two front teeth. And I’m halfway between nearly home and almost there. You could spend a decade, spend a life just trying to get somewhere (else). You’re such a strange familiar. A part of speech I can’t define. A pattern I can’t quite place. Pick any point and I’ll get there, and I’ll let my location locate me. I’ll locate me. So tunnel straight down past the foundations of former homes. Let knowing hearts pound to the beat of the turn signal metronome. And rest cause you’ve earned it. Every perfect flaw out there on display. In our alchemy hour, we will not wash away. In our golden hour, we will not wash away.
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Signals Midwest Cleveland, Ohio
we are a punk/indie band from Cleveland, now spread throughout OH and PA. we've been doing this together since 2008. we have been lucky enough to see the world together but will still play in your kitchen or anywhere really.
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