--------------- | the letter e.p. (2002 - out of print)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

back

track listing

1. from arkansas, with love | mp3
2. paternize | mp3
3. heal
4. plaza of the cats
5. a song no one likes
6. posing for stills


lyrics

from arkansas, with love
i might stay in tonight
and write you a letter
about my day, my week,
and the fickle tennessee weather…
and i'll tell you all about
how i think about new england
when i need to think
about home
and this dying time has frozen in the air
and it will certainly deaden my face
if i wander too far beyond
the only door that leads from this place
but i feel an out-of-season fever
and its catching hold
like a greying face in a mirror, dying to know,
"god, when did i get so old?"
but it's not what you think
i'll get over it soon
it's not what you think
i still love you
and it took two years
to dig this soft, deep gully in the ground
but we packed our shit, we walked away from it,
and now just look at me, i'm cowering back down
so tonight i don't feel like sitting in this room
tonight i won't feel like feeling lost without you
with the moonlight shining its television glare
on the girl with the drowning eyes and the golden hair
and it's not what you think
i'll get over her soon
and its not what you think
i still love you
and it's not what you think
i'll get over her soon
and it's not what you think i still love you…
you're just being a girl.

paternize
these patterns are born
and patterns repeat
patterns divide and rejoin
and they leave the
past at your feet
so step and be safe
your father is right by your side
he'll take you for all of your money
your health, your kids, and your bride
replace my name with your own,
i'll soon be gone
i'll leave my trespasses at home,
and you leave your own
these patterns are born
and they will repeat
he's there in the sight of yourself in the mirror,
haven't you seen?
and you will deny,
you think your lover won't crack the disguise…
until he comes riding the waves
down her face from out of her eyes
replace my name with your own,
i'll soon be gone
i'll leave my trespasses at home
and you leave your own

a song no one likes
the boy with the spotlight eyes
makes his way out to the field
to peer across the bending earth
he puts on his eyeglasses
so he can see the liquid breeze
as it fingers through the skyline's hair
and he just about loses his mind
in all this magnificence…,
there's just one thing he still needs to find
will he find it?
who really ever finds it?
the girl with oblivious joy
flutters 'round the leaves on the trees
and lands upon the freshest bloom
she takes out her kaleidoscope
and points it toward the halogen sky
and twirls away the colors of her freedom
and she just about loses her mind
in this neverending easel
there's one color she still can't find
will she find it?
does anybody find it?
you're the star of the picture
you're the writer of this song
you're the method to the madness
won't you call me home
but you're a needle in a haystack
you're water in the desert
you're a body in the sea
where can you be?
you're the star of the picture
you're the writer of this song
if there's a method to this madness
won't you call me home.

posing for stills
i've got nearly all i could want
wish i could say the same for you
but you're missing something that you just can't pin down
and on the days you try and find it
i'm best out of town…
i've got a toaster, a tv, and you
but i'm here scattered and blistered and blue
damn that silencer on your gun
if it were loud and rowdy
i might have known this shot would come
you don't like diamonds, i won't get you none
you don't like republicans, i'll be damned if i'm one
but i live a life that you sometimes despise
i'm broke as a joke, but i won't tell you no lies
if you're without me at christmas next year
will you cry at the thought of these fears?
will "have you forgotten" leave you dancing alone,
or will the kiss of another just swallow my own?
and i love you baby, it doesn't bother me to say
even when i'm saying it in the most embarrassing of ways
but today's not enough to kill this lump in my throat
so let me dream of tomorrow and of the things we once spoke...
i see lights, food, and family, and everyone's there
there's elaine, there's nathan, there's mother and there,
down by the tree, we're posing for stills
with lydia judith and mason mills.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

back