1. |
Wake Up Cold
03:31
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I explode out of my doorway every morning on my bike
There’s a conversation we’ve been having every single fucking night
About how the way it used to be, it used to be the way it used to
It’s gonna be so much better when we sleep it off, come to terms with this
I wake up cold, and I know that you’re not here because
The light streams through an open window
And you always liked to keep the curtains shut
There’s a piece of your soul in everything you’ve ever owned
There is a material part of all of us that keeps us grounded to the earth
So I fixate on the things you left
Couple of pint glasses full of old paintbrush water and
About a hundred and twenty candles, and your hair
On every surface, every floorboard, every carpet, every stair
And every book you’ll ever read has got your eyeballs printed on the pages
Every jumper that you ever wore will probably smell like you forever
Your fingerprints live in the dust between the furniture
Like the tiny footprints of hungry scuttling rodents
There’s a big black hole at the centre of our home
There is something dark and desperate festering beneath the floorboards
I will not be afraid and I will feel much better one day
And deep in the hollows of my blood I know that someone’s gonna have revenge on me someday
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2. |
Solitary or So It Seems
03:30
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Let’s just come clean with one another
As clear and transparent as a settled body of water
And we could just be friends, watch the movie until the end,
Without interruption for pointless conversation we’ve been having every night
I talk slowly and you say I’m fine
And I’ll go outside and all the surfaces come back to me and I fall
Every single morning and every single night
You said I will force you over it and I’ll come back to haunt you
It’s a cold conversation you have every single time
You say that I come walking over walls and every thought that you own
Will come back to haunt you in its own way, before we set ourselves on fire
And I’ll go outside and all the surfaces come back to me and I fall
Every single morning and every single night
You said I will force you over it and I’ll come back to haunt you
And I drive my teeth into the dry skin around my fingernails
Pull a chunk of flesh out, taste blood in my mouth
And remind myself that I am not some of my bad habits
I can quit when I wanna
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3. |
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Neither wolf nor man, neither blood nor water
Never see your face look like this before
You say we are cattle being driven to the slaughter
And I go out to see my friends, I am not really going anywhere
Taste blood on my lips and a clammy feeling in the air
You look like this every morning and every night
You say I am ok, I say I am feeling all right
And I’ve been having these strange, obscure, intricately plotted dreams
Where you’re still with me but I’m sure you’re just at the periphery of the scene
You are pregnant but it’s with insects, blood pours from my eye sockets
My heart falls out from chest, a cavity I’ll never address
And I am very very very very pure - I am pure
So many people and places that I would rather see than here
‘Cause I want you near me
Cast your mind forward a couple of years to when this will probably all blow over
Hold my head a bit higher, stop sitting down in the shower
Neither dead nor sleeping, neither wide awake nor dreaming
I am just waiting, just waiting for you to leave me
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4. |
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Cycling at night, the city looks so different under sodium light
I mistook your allotment for the eerie tranquillity of a graveyard
I don’t recognise the roads here, so lost in a place once familiar
Travelling at a strange angle, across the world on a cosmic conveyor belt
And I am a roving camera following the branches
That reach to the sky like they are summoning the afterlife
The cycle path of good and plenty is there for those whose gears are worthy
I’ll replace my earthly body, ride my bike into the world that is waiting for me
I read your tarot in my dream last night, can’t remember what it said
But I think we are going to be all right
Feel my tyres slip on the leaves, I see faces in the trees
But it feels like we’ve been sleeping/speaking all night
And there’s a million dreaming miles in the liminal space of the cycle path
I send psychic morse code messages all the while
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5. |
Pedestrian Baby Pt 1
03:07
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I am a fire hydrant, you are the water flow
Be my fireman, baby - take a wrench to me, watch me explode
I am the roof of the building near your house
Tiles fall to the street and I need help
Don’t notice me bumming round town
All that I ever wanted was to make you proud
I am the cracks in the pavement filled with gum
Be my pedestrian, baby, I am used to being stepped on
Don’t say morning to me as you leave the house
Without your keys or a jacket and it’s freezing out
There’s a train in the station like an unstruck match
Be my runaway, baby, if you go then look back
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6. |
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I wanna be kissed so hard that I no longer feel your tongue in my mouth
So that my lips go numb and all I can taste is blood
I feel fine as long as you do too
I will freak out about it when I’m suffering alone in my room
Push down hard ‘til it stops bleeding
You say you’re sick of people leaving
They are just ripples on the water before the tide starts to come back in
In this brief little life, just a cycle of suffering
You never really say what you mean
I’ll be the dust and the dirt and the leaves
Mumble quietly as we walk home
“I am tired of being alone”
So I run the water ‘til it’s boiling
I wanna feel like a lobster screaming
Nothing is ever truly clean and I never really say the things I mean
Just wait ‘til the water’s so hot that I can finally feel something
‘Cause if you wanna say goodbye, I’ll be waiting outside
You never really say the things you mean
I’ll be the dust and the dirt and the leaves
Mumble quietly as we walk home “I am tired of being alone”
And I plan my exit, lay a kiss upon your sweaty forehead
And I plan my exit, don’t want anyone to know I’m leaving
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7. |
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I went down to the water every morning after work
Found the faces of drowned fathers, write your name in the dirt
If you are the flotsam and the leaves, then I’ll be the people in the sea
Waiting for it float down to the bottom, waiting for you to notice me
Grieve for the living, fear the dead
Our home is obsolete, and the sky is like a Dresden building crumbling
Spiders search for things to eat, we feel low level guilt about everything
If you are the foliage beneath, then I’ll be the people in the trees
Spores that float up through the branches, infecting everything in between
‘Cause if you had a cottage with perfect visions of the ocean
I’ll be the flat that you eventually move on from
Pots and pans and cardboard boxes,
Dusty rooms, clothes that you forgot you owned
‘Cause you had a vision and visions never change
The certainty you’re striving for, the certainty we’ve waned
Many different people feel the same
‘Cause I hope that the doctors are confused
I hope that they never find a cure for you
Fair exteriors, bloody entrails, deep dark things that you will never tell
I hope you never feel forgiven
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8. |
Emotionally Unclean
02:44
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You can splash water on your face, but you can’t wash the stench of loneliness away
Surfacing somewhere barely north of order,
finally admit that you’re not as whole as you thought you were
A lingering nostalgia living rent free in your soul
‘Cause you don’t respond to people who don’t love you
Every single morning when you realise you’re alone
And I say that I just want someone to admit that they love me
So I can turn around and say “I’m sorry, I am still working on me”
I am emotionally unclean, someone come and disinfect me
Just one exquisite kiss before the fan starts to scatter the shit
We’ve probably been quiet for far too long, maybe I don’t scream enough
I would be better after all with fewer feelings involved
Hang around at the surface of the water: realise you are submerged
‘Cause everything you said to me circles back completely
You’re the last couple of reasons why, the thing I see before I die
‘Cause I’ll be the blood on your lips, if you’ll be the hair on my shoulder
And I will promise I will never grow older:
stay young, pure and perfect forever
and a couple of weeks on the sofa
The things you say will manifest in mysterious ways
What if I told you the plot says you’ll never change, you’ll never change
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9. |
Re Surfacing
04:52
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Heard you moved back home, heard you never felt so alone
Heard you hit rock bottom, heard that there’s so much farther to fall
Take your hand in mine, it is all gonna be fine
There is a dog in an adoption centre somewhere, just waiting for you to be his new mother
And I close my eyes every time we drive across this bridge, hope it finishes us off this time
I’d like to see you there. Touch the bottom and then come back up for air
You pull back on my arm as I walk you around
We are both pretty huge disappointments, but at least I’m better off than you are
The summer air so hot and heavy, feels like we’re gonna drown where we’re standing
And I resurface again, and I breathe out and breathe in
Control my ascent and I’ll never feel this way ever again
You hear the voices breathing through the walls: you’re not alone
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10. |
Pedestrian Baby Pt 2
03:46
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‘Cause I’ve been sleeping on the floor for the past few weeks
I’ve been chewing the gum that comes off your feet
I stare up at the ceiling, pray the roof will blow off
Sucked into the stratosphere, I hope I never move on
So you moved down south, embraced religion
You have a new wife now and different children
And I sleep in a hotel room with perfect views of the ocean
I might never forgive you, but I’m putting the effort in
You called last christmas when the dog was still alive
And I can hear the anxious rustling of your guilty mind
I’m always crying at old photos, I don’t look through them anymore
Barking at the back door forever waiting for you to come back home
I’ll do anything you want
Even though you never text me on the weekend, and you never remember my friends
Always missing in action but never trying to make amends, but I never mind
And I’ll tread lightly by your bedside, watch as the light leaves your eyes
Disappointing fathers are the oxygen that we’re breathing
And I’ve got two big lungs, and a bright cold heart
I don’t do what you want, I am my own man now
I’ll be the last one standing, and I will lower your corpse
Into the unforgiving earth. I won’t be stepped on anymore.
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Toodles & the Hectic Pity Bristol, UK
Folk-punk-emo, three-piece from Bristol, UK. Toodles are Callum, Max and Dom. FFO The Mountain Goats, AJJ, NMH, life.
Get in touch : thehecticpity@gmail.com
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