1. |
Marijuana Grow
02:01
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To the face in the mirror I say “nice to meet you”
Yeah, it’s a been a long time since I’ve seen you around
I was digging my love out of a hole in the ground he fell into
When I come home I cannot be sure my body
Is the same one I had in the morning
I’m kicking my feet up one at a time underwater
Oh, wherever you’d go I’d have followed
Wherever your marijuana grows
Losing each part of the friend I’d known
I’d still love you when you’re not you
Oh, wherever you’d go I’d have followed
Wherever your marijuana grows
Changing in shape, ever-ending though
I won't see you til we leave this world
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2. |
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No one wants to be without a
No one wants to be without a
No one wants to be without a person to love
Lost in this illusion of the truth, you
Thought it had something to do with you
Or the bitter night sky
When you don’t come back
In the darkness there is something close to evidence
Memory, stay where you were
Walk it back down, can’t have you staying around
I was on a version of a journey I was doing
When I came upon a version of a person like you
She was somehow blurry, as if moving in a hurry
But it couldn’t be mistaken, she looked something like you
Lost in this illusion like a bad dream
I forgot to keep myself a version of me
In a Hannaford aisle
Where you turn to me
In the supermarket I remember constantly
And the cruel old sun
When it rose that day
When I realized you had truly finally gone into a
Memory, stay where you were
Walk it back down, can’t have you staying around
I couldn’t deal by myself
Cannot calm down whenever you come around
Talking to you, my best friend
Turning your head whenever I reach for your hand
Memory stay where you were
Walk it back down, whenever you come around
Memory stay where you were
Walk it back down, whenever you come around
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3. |
My Best Friend
03:06
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Trinkets on string that you’d tied to a twig
Still hanging on the wall of our house, couldn’t really figure it out
Why would you leave just that one little piece?
Better it’s now I let you know
Better it’s now I let you know
Sometimes I’d feel there’s a secret you keep
Like you never thought I would notice
Never thought I would notice
Comes up in pauses in sentences, raw
Better it’s now I let you know
Better it’s now I let you know
No matter the need, or the distance between us
--Thought you would find me speechless and writhing?--
I’d say it’s all good cuz you know that I would
Do anything to defend my best friend
Do anything to defend my best friend
Nippin’ at toes on the gravelly road
Gotta watch out for ticks, ya know
Gotta check Frankie’s paws at home
In passing reminders I grasp at our life
Better it’s now we keep it quiet, but I can’t let go
Better it’s now we keep it quiet, but I can’t let go
No matter the need — I couldn’t burn down this house alone
No leaf in the breeze — I couldn’t sweep my own floor alone
Not sick with disease — I couldn’t tend to myself in bed
Not any of these:
No matter the need, or the distance between us
--Thought you would find me speechless and writhing?--
--Thought I would cave?--
--Thought I’d wither and rage?--
--That I’d rot and decay?--
It’s been always this way:
I would do anything to defend you, my friend
Do anything to defend you, my friend
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4. |
Rancher's Pride
02:35
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Rancher’s pride, how the rest of us deal with our lives
I was up heating my cattle prod, branding my cows in the night
Each one marked, the little ones squeal when I walk
The bigger ones plaintively take my heat, eating up grass as I leave
East road line, where the country meets the sky
Tops of the cedars and stars collide
Bleed into one in the sky
Country pride, the things I would do for my wife
I see through the window her car pull out
She’s coming back home in a while
She’s my friend, yeah the word gets around
Out in the country our fingers grasp
Meeting our own in the grass
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5. |
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Like leaves in autumn he suddenly fades after bright life blaze
Instead of falling he clings to the twigs
Slow rain, storm’s end
Forever after, remembering life away, I say:
I’m not its master, I give up the fight, I want no claim
I still remember my dog’s howl
Still feel like a child when I’m in this house
Though I get older I hold less and less
Still feel like a child, like I’m innocent
Greens change to orange in autumn, they see nothing changing at all
It’s 7UP and the smell of the frozen fries you made
And Anne’s excited, she’s taking the bus downtown with me
I’d never tell her before she upped and went away
How I loved the autumns we’d meet in the park
And talk about how it’s strange life goes on when we leave
I still remember the books that you left
Still feel like a child when I’m in this house
Though I get older I hold it less
Turned away from suffering of innocents
I still remember when Loubie died, felt just like a child when I cried
I couldn’t face it, the blow was too hard
My parents had him buried in the yard
Plants grow light leaves in the springtime
They cling to the body below
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6. |
McNally Jackson
03:41
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And we looked so ugly
And the stupid skyline
How it towered over
Brought a thought to my mind
Did you want to get really far?
Yeah, you wanted to make a mark
But you had to stop
And I felt so precious
Like a pearl necklace
Wanna give you something
But the gift was in this:
My friend did not want a pearl
She wanted for me to turn around and for me to just stop
Take a chance and stop
Take a chance and break, take a chance and stop
Take a chance and break with what little you got
Take a chance and break, take a chance and stop
Take a chance and break with what little you got
With what little you got
At McNally Jackson
At the coffee parlor
The aloof barista that I tipped a fiver
Said you’d be five minutes late
And then when you never came
Said your train had got stuck
In a Soho bathroom, burning out my tears there
Brought me back to High School when we brought six-packs here
You’d text me and we’d skip school
And 1st and Houston our love had grew
Til it just stopped
Til it just breaks
Til it just breaks, til it just stops
Til it just breaks with what little had stuck
Til it just breaks, til it just stops
Til it just breaks with what little had stuck
With what little had stuck
My friend did not want a pearl
My friend did not want a pearl
Take a chance and stop
Take a chance and stop
Take a chance and break, take a chance and stop
Take a chance and break with what little you got
Take a chance and break, take a chance and stop
Take a chance and break with what little you got
With what little you got
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7. |
Such a Secret
01:39
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I can’t imagine not being your friend
Not sitting on your patio ever again
Was it selfish or just having foresight?
When you said “I need to get away from here, pack up my whole life”
Who are these people?
Who are these people I know?
Living up the block from here, each one alone
Hoping that somebody’s home
I couldn’t tell from the things you said
Cuz you kept it really close to you, such a secret
Who are these people?
Who are these people I know?
Living up the block from here, each one alone
Hoping that somebody’s home
I was hoping that somebody’s home
Hoping that somebody’s home
I was hoping that somebody’s home
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8. |
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Gleaming white quartz
Buried deep beneath the mountain
Can you feel its force?
Shift away, then toward
If you listen close
You can feel its slow ascension
In an Asheville store
Where your band had toured
2013
The first Florist / Told Slant tour
In an Asheville downtown kava bar, the barista had told you
“Asheville is built on a quartz deposit, lies
Biggest deposit of white quartz”
Barista said to you solemnly that night
“The quartz had activated,” she warned
“Ladies Night at the Kava Bar” — Emily thought that was funny
But we were two weeks into tour that day
So you went just with you three
Susannah and you and Emily hit that, the Ladies Night at the Kava Bar
And when you left you had told us all brightly
What she had said to you about the quartz
2016
Bellows’ Fist & Palm tour
At The Bat Cave in Arcata we watched the election results turn
I left the show and I cried that night with my dad on the phone
In the night sky, thought I heard drones overhead
Demon horn blasts
I repositioned the knife in my back
But misfortune just kept happening
One after another
Lost one friend to fentanyl
One in San Francisco on a skateboard
Until in things like the La La Land mixup, watching the ‘17 Oscars
Or in the Patriots / Falcons game comeback
I started thinking about the quartz
People who believe in things
Like that crystals perform charms
Believe that you can activate a quartz and can do harm
She said that people behave a bit strangely, in ways you never predicted
So try applying geology to that, tectonics shifting and things of that sort
As if a whole paradigm had just shifted the whole earth
The whole axis on which actions build
On all people and their works
So what if somewhere an answer for this lies in this deposit of white quartz?
That something shifted so deep in the planet
Things will be fucked up forever more
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9. |
Dawn at Central Park
03:52
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96th Street and Lex as the sun begins to rise
It’s a long way home, but I do not mind
Sun is peeking past the pond and the trees of Central Park
In the restlessness of the morning mist
Met Museum day, it’s a memory linked to you
In a deep down part of my brain, it’s true
The love we formed in those halls, it’s still there in the armor room
16 with you, I guess we both knew
You cannot go on the path you’re on, you cannot
You cannot go
You cannot go on the path you’re on, you cannot
You cannot go
There is this notion of me
Beside a seat on a park bench
I feel your absence there
Yeah it lingers in the air
Losing love, lost a friend, lost the person I was with you
And I mourn its loss every time I cross this street
But I could not go on the path we trod, I could not
I could not go
And I cannot go on the path I’m on, I cannot
I cannot go
Now that I’m older I have known time collapsing and time misleading
The space between our lives gets broad
Wider, wider, wider, wider
None the wiser, I know I know nothing nothing nothing nothing
Except:
You cannot go on the path you’re on, you cannot
You cannot go
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10. |
Beautiful Spring Day
02:13
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Beautiful Spring Day with a morning glory
Beautiful pattern of blossoms upon the tree
I couldn’t tell if it matters or not
Being alone and so angry I lost
Beautiful love
Kept as a secret the depth of my loss of selfhood
Kept as a secret the depth that I sunk at sea
I couldn’t keep holding breath for so long
Knowing how it feels to push head above water
Beautiful sky
Beautiful Spring Day with a morning glory
Deeper than anger the wanting I keep inside
I couldn’t tell if it matters or not
Believing your absence a treasure I lost
Beautiful loss
Beautiful loss
Beautiful loss
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11. |
In a Ballet
02:48
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There was a crispness in the air that night
Street lights leaking through the window
Like as a child getting off a plane
Strange sense of newness to the family place
You cross the room like you’re in a ballet
Took my hand, it’s nice to meet you
I hold this strangeness in my memory
Abstract bodies, did we kiss that day?
There was some evil in the dressing room
Hummus, IPA, band stickers
A sense of threat was in the air that day
So much baggage between the band mates
A little anger as we crossed the stage
Did dontuomo on the family
It’s not so simple, chosen family
Each one bringing some new shit to play
To meet there in a ballet
To meet there in a ballet
Where we dance away
To meet there in a ballet
To meet
To meet there in a ballet
To meet there in a ballet
Where we dance away
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12. |
Admiration
02:21
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When it was just you and me I never had a problem
Knew your sense of beauty and bathed in all you offered
Admiration
Paint a picture blue and green and you can be my love
Trapped in the background, smiling down
Every other one I meet has never quite come near it
I’m looking for admiring so deep in one another
Admiration
Paint a picture blue and green and you can be my love
Trapped in the background, smiling down
Admiration
Paint a picture blue and green and you can be my love
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13. |
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Lost track of time in a grocery line
The checkout kid looks at his phone and smiles
He says I used to smoke weed, it helped with my sleep
But now I don't like how it makes me feel
A friend that we knew asks what happened to you
I said there wasn't a thing then that I could do
I wish her the best, wherever she is
Sometimes I race through the park like I lost my kids
Hey! Nobody knew
No one relates on the streets you're passing
Hey! Nobody knew
Nobody there on the streets with you
At a boulangerie on the Upper West Side
Approaching the glass like it'd been no time
I wanna be mad, wanna curse you and howl
But I lose all my words at the touch of your hand
I say: hey,
hey,
hey,
hey
Hey! Nobody new
Wandering out in the world could match it
Hey — when my life is all through
The closest I'd get to a human was you
When your band was my band
And your dog was my dog
Your paintings and your guitar were there, hanging on my wall
And your room was my room
Your t-shirts and your clothes
Your records and the big mattress and the toothpaste and the soap
And your pain was my pain, every enemy you made
Every fight that I backed you up, the friendships we'd both break
Cuz your love was my love, the only kind that I could show
You yourself had first shown to me, 18 and hollow
I was 18 with no self
Empty, just a shell
A vacant body for you to fill up with your own self
With you-ness that piled up, until I had forgot
That you were who I had made myself, buried down so much
Cuz you were who I was
Your dog was my dog
Yours was all of the pain I felt when your life fell apart
And I miss my best friend
But mostly the person neither of us can be again
And I'll miss our two absences
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14. |
Botticelli's Venus
03:05
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Baby you can come inside me, don’t try to fight it
Baby are you here beside me, or just a puff of smoke?
Veil of seaweed blackening the gulf
Are you good to drive home?
I had spent so long in a daydream that you were not familiar
Stranger than a seaweed algae washed on the shore
Botticelli’s Venus painting
You emerge like smoke
Smoke in nighttime, sirens outside
Violence in my soul
The apartment where this started
Gone into the hole — where another family lives!
Meet you at a Soho apartment, get off at Spring Street
It hits me as a deep down memory, a sense response
Of a Penn State thrift store, Mom bought me a toy
Millenium Falcon
Kept that memory deep within me
Never told a soul
When I kissed you something came through
Back from long ago
Our whole love was in that thrift store
In that reaching back
Animal instinct, deepest in me, the hidden things I know
Kept inside a place within me
Where the armor falls and then I am weak
To the Venus Painting, Botticelli
Kept inside, deep inside me
Where the Venus Painting, Botticelli burns
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Bellows Brooklyn, New York
Bellows is the bedroom recording project of songwriter and producer Oliver Kalb.
booking / emailing me : bellows.mail@gmail.com
press:
will@topshelfrecords.com
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