Fevers and Mirrors (Japanese Import)

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Track Listing

Lyrics

A Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, and a Necklace

You turn on a spindle
You're so much looser now
But you're not explaining how
You gained such new repose
I touch the clasp of your locket
With its picture held
Some secret you wouldn't tell
But let it choke your neck
So imagine a darkness
Where all shapes divide
Solids changing into light
With a burst of heat so bright
Well fine, don't you do what I want you to
Don't degrade yourself the way that I do
Because you don't depend upon all the shit that I use
To make my moods improve
Near a sea of pianos
There were waves of chords
That crashed against the shore
In one huge and useless roar
And there were girls bringing water
Like a dream they came
To cool the fever of my brain
And soothe my burning throat
And they made me a necklace
Ganging beads of sweat
On a string of my regrets
And placed it round my neck
And they were singing
"Don't you do what you've wanted to
Yeah, don't destroy yourself like those cowards do
And maybe the sun keeps coming up
Cause it has gotten used to you
And your constant need for proof"

A scale, A Mirror and those Indifferent Clocks

Here's a scale, weigh it out and you'll find, easily
More than sufficient doubt that these colors you see
were picked in advance by some careful hand
With an absolute concept of beauty
They are smeared and these blurs come in random order
And they color the eyes of your former lovers
Hers were green like July,
Except when she cried they were red
Now I know a disease that these doctors can't treat
You contract on the day you accept all you see
Is a mirror, and a mirror is all it can be
A reflection of something we're missing
And language just happened, it was never planned
And it's inadequate to describe where I am
In the room of my house where the light's never been
Waiting for this day to end
And these clocks keep unwinding and completely ignore
Everything that we hate or adore
Once the page of a calendar is turned it's no more
So tell me then, what was it for?
Oh tell me, what was it for?

The Calendar Hung Itself

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning
When you start to raise your head?
And does he sing to you incessantly
From the place between your bed and wall?
Does he walk around all day at school
With his feet inside your shoes?
Looking down every few steps
To pretend he walks with you?
Oh, does he know that place below your neck
That is your favorite to be touched?
And does he cry through broken sentences,
Like "I love you far too much"?
Does he lay awake listening to your breath?
Worried you smoke too many cigarettes?
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there's a thousand more
That you won't ever see
But most hold inside yourself eternally
Well, I drug your ghost across the country
And we plotted out my death
In every city, memories would whisper,
"Here is where you rest"
I was determined in Chicago
But I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone
Sang into your machine
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine"
And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw
That her father gave to her
She had eyes bright enough to burn me,
They reminded me of yours
In a story told she was a little girl
In a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
And there were rows of ripe tomatoes
Where a secret was concealed
And it rose like thunder,
Clapped under our hands
And it stretched for centuries
To a diary entry's end
where I wrote,
"You make me happy, oh, when skies are gray
You make me happy, oh, when skies are gray and gray and gray"
Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest
With hands stretched towards the calendar hanging itself
But I will not weep for those dying days
For all the ones who've left there's a few that've stayed
And they found me here
And pulled me from the grass where I was laid

Something Vague

Now and again it seems worse than it is
But mostly the view is accurate
You see your breath in the air
As you climb up the stairs
To that coffin you call your apartment
And you sink in the chair
Brush the snow from your hair
And drink the cold away
And you're not really sure
What you're doing this for
But you need something to fill up the days
A few more hours
There's a dream in my brain
That just won't go away
It's been stuck there since it came
A few nights ago
And I'm standing on a bridge
In the town where I lived
As a kid with my mom and my brothers
And then the bridge disappears
And I'm standing on air
With nothing holding me
And I hang like a star
Fucking glow in the dark
For all those starving eyes to see
Like the ones we've wished on
But now I'm confused
Is this death really you?
And Do these dreams have any meaning?
No, no, I think it's more like a ghost
That's been following us both
Something vague that we're not seeing
Something more like a feeling

The Joy in Discovery

Why do you lay in the grass?
Why do you lay there, don't you want to be found?
Why do you lay in the grass?
Why do you lay there, don't you want to be found?
Why do you lay in the grass?
Why do you lay in the grass, don't you want to be found?
Don't you want to be found?
Don't you want that?
Isn't the Sun even gonna to try?
Won't it try to find a hole in the clouds?
Isn't the Sun even gonna to try?
Won't it try to find a hole in the clouds?
Isn't it even gonna to try?
Isn't it even gonna to try to find the hole in the clouds?
Isn't it even gonna try?
Why won't it try that?
Why do you lay in the grass?
Why do you lay there, don't you want to be found?
Why do you lay so low in the grass?
Why do you lay there, don't you want to be found?
Why do you lay in the grass?
Why do you lay in the grass, dont you want to be found?
Don't you want to be found?
I thought that you wanted that?

The Movement of a Hand

You follow the footsteps
echoes leading down a hall
To a room, there's music playing
Tiny bells with moving parts
Here the shadows make things ugly
an effect quite undesirable
And The gold and yellow daylight
Grows like ivy across the wall
And it bounces off of the painted porcelain
A tiny dancing doll
Her body spins as she pirouettes
Again the world suddenly seems small
On an off-white, subtle morning
You stretch your legs in the front seat
The road has made a vacuum
Where our voices used to be
And you lay your head onto my shoulder
Pour like water over me
So if I just exist for the next ten minutes of this drive that would be fine
And all the trees that line this curb would be rejoicing and alive
Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes fountains of your eyes
Because you finally understand the movement of a hand waving good-bye

Arienette

The fragile keep secrets
Gathered in pockets
And they will sell them for nothing
A cheap watch or locket
That kind of gold washes off
And the sad act like lepers
They stick to the shadows
They long to ring bells of warning
To tell of their coming
So that the pure can shut their doors
The angry are animals Senseless and savage
They act without order
In logical lapses
They stain their mouths with blood
So take my hand
This barren land is alive tonight
Oh, the corn has grown stalks
That form a wall to hide
But the wind carries sounds
That I can't see from beyond that line
Then the stalks begin to sway
Oh, stay with me, Arienette
Until the wolves are away
The wicked are vultures
And they bake in the canyons
They circle in sunlight
And wait for their victims
To collapse and call to them
The desperate are water
They'll run down forever
And soak into silence
And end up together
In a dark and distant, dark and distant place
So don't leave me here with only mirrors watching me
This house, it holds nothing but the memories
And the moon, it leaves silver but never sleep
And then the silver turns to gray
Oh stay with me, Arienette
Until the wolves are away

When the Curious Girl Realizes she is Under Glass

Tomorrow when I wake up I'm finding my brother
And I'm making him take me back down to the water
That lake where we sailed and we laughed with our father
I will not desert him, I will not desert him
No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean
Or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me
I put my face in the dirt and then finally I see
The sky that has been avoiding me
I started this letter, I'm gonna send it to Ruba
It will be blessed by her eyes on the gulf coast of Florida
With her feet in the sand and one hand on her swimsuit
She'll recite the prayer of my pen
Saying, "Time take us forward
Relief from this longing
They can land that plane on my heart, I don't care
Just give me November, the warmth of a whisper
In the freezing darkness of my room"
But no matter what I would do in an attempt to replace
All these pills that I take trying to balance my brain
I see the curious girl with that look on her face
So surprised, she stares out from her display case

Jetsabel Removes the Undersirables

My brother finds comfort in calculators
He assigns every number a name
He believes that they add up to certainty
And he's upset with the fractions that remain
So I examine the maps
With my eyes and at best
I can trace with my finger all the way
To that town where she went
In an attempt to forget
The cracks and the lines of my face
So Jetsabel cleaned out the closets for me
And she piled the boxes in the hall
Tomorrow when she wakes
She'll come and take them away
And they will never haunt me again
But it is still hard to sleep
With the moon's heavy beams
I run barefoot to the backyard
Just to freeze in my place
By the wraught-iron gate
Too ashamed and afraid to advance
Today I walked through the snow
And found a field of headstones
They were in rows like the weeks on calendars
Where each box is a day
That you can never escape
Without pills for your poison of sleep
And these memories leak
from the faucets that weep
Hot tears splash against the shower floor
And I stand in the steam
As if inside a dream
I can see her again by the sink
From behind the bathroom mirror
She pulls a thermometer
And placed it underneath my tongue
Said "you are as pale as a sheet
You look awful my sweet
Lay down and wait for the sun"
So I stayed in that bed
She brought me water and read
Each night from a volume out loud
She whispered soft poetry
Her favorite was 'Annabel Lee'
And those words, like these drugs, comforted me
But the clocks kept waving their hands
And she could not understand
Why my temperature would never drop
And although she promised with tears
That she would always be here
I heard truth like the sounding sea
I said, "My Arienette
Oh how soon you forget
This house will never be your home
And you will leave in the fall
When the trees become graves
And their colors lie dead in the grass"
Gold and green
Torture me
Like the lies, like the lies, like the lies
I believe too easily
Oh my Jetsabel
Look at this hell that I have made
If you want maybe drop by sometime
Put some flowers on my grave
So that I will look beautiful
In my silent sepulchre
Yeah, that's fine, give the dresses away
I don't want anything of hers
For the moon never shines
And the stars never rise
Without bringing me dreams
Haunted by the ghosts of those bright eyes

Haligh, Haligh, a Lie, Haligh

The phone slips from a loose grip
Words were missed then, some apology
I didn't want to tell you this
No, it's just some guy she's been hanging out with
I don't know, the past couple weeks I guess
Well, thank you and hang up the phone
Let the funeral start
Hear the casket close
Let's pin split-black ribbon to your overcoat
Well, laughter pours from under doors
In this house, I don't understand that sound no more
It seems artificial, like a T.V. set
Well, haligh, haligh, haligh, haligh
This weight it must be satisfied
You offer only one reply
You know not what you do
But you tear and tear your hair from roots
From that same head you have twice removed now
A lock of hair you said would prove
Our love would never die
Well ha ha ha
I remember everything
The words we spoke on freezing South Street
And all those mornings watching you get ready for school
You combed your hair inside that mirror
The one you painted blue and glued with jewelry tears
Something about those bright colors
would always make you feel better
But now we speak with ruined tongues
And the words we say aren't meant for anyone
It's just a mumbled sentence to a passing acquaintance
But there was once you
You said you hate my suffering
And you understood
And you'd take care of me
You'd always be there
Well where are you now?
Haligh, haligh, haligh, haligh
The plans were never finalized
But left to hang like yarn and twine
Dangling before my eyes
As you tear and tear your hair from roots
From that same head you have twice removed
A lock of hair you said would prove
Our love would never die
And I sing and sing of awful things
The pleasure that my sadness brings
As my fingers press onto the strings
In yet another clumsy chord
Haligh, haligh, an awful lie
This weight will now be satisfied
I'm gonna give you only one reply
I know not who I am
But I talk in the mirror
To the stranger that appears
Our conversations are circles
Always one sided
Nothing is clear
Except we keep coming back
To this meaning that I lack
He says the choices were given
Now I must live them
Or just not live
But do you want that?

The Center of the World

At the center of the world
There's a statue of a girl
She is standing near a well
With a bucket bare and dry
I went and looked her in the eyes
And she turned me into sand
This clumsy form that I despise
It scattered easy in her hand
And came to rest upon a beach
With a million others there
We sat and waited for the sea
To stretch out so that we could disappear
Into the endlessness of blue
Into the horror of the truth
See, we are far less than we knew
Yeah, we are far less than we knew
But we knew what we could take
Girls found honey to drench our hands
Men cut marble to mark our graves
Saying, we'll need something to remind us
Of all the sweetness that has passed through us
(fresh sangria and lemon tea)
The priests dressed children for choir
(white-robed small voices praise Him)
But found no joy in what was sung
The funeral had begun
In the middle of the day
When you drive home to your place
From that job that makes you sleep
Back to the thoughts that keep you awake
Long after night has come to claim
Any light that still remains
In the corner of the frame
That you put around her face
Two pills just weren't enough
The alarm clock's going off
But you're not waking up
This isn't happening, happening, happening, happening, happening

Sunrise, Sunset.

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
Swiftly go the days
Sunrise, sunset, you wake up then you undress
It always is the same
The sunrise and a sun sets
You are lying while you confess
Keep trying to explain
The sunrise and the sun sets
You realize and then you forget
What you have been trying to retain
But everybody knows it's all about the things
That get stuck inside of your head
Like the songs your roommate sings
Or a vision of her body as she stretches out on your bed
She raises her hands in the air
Asks you "When was the last time you looked in the mirror?
Cause you've changed, yeah, you've changed"
The sunrise, the sunset, you're hopeful and then you regret
The circle never breaks
With a sunrise and sunset, there's a change of heart or address
Is there nothing that remains?
For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you're depressed
Will you ever feel ok?
For a sunrise or a sunset, your lover is an actress
Did you really think she'd stay?
For a sunrise or a sunset, you're either coming or you just left
But you're always on the way
Towards a sunrise or a sunset, a scribble or a sonnet
They are really just the same
To the sunrise or the sunset, the master and his servant
Have exactly the same fate
It's a sunrise and a sunset, from a cradle to a casket
There is no way to escape
The sunrise or the sunset, hold your sadness like a puppet
Keep putting on the play
But everything you do is leading to the point
Where you just won't know what to do
And the moment that you're laughing
There is someone there who will be laughing louder than you
So it's true, the trick is complete
You've become everything you said you never would be
You're a fool, you're a fool
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
The sunrise and the sun sets
Sunrise, sunset, the sunrise, the sun sets
The sunrise, the sun sets
Sunrise, sunset, go home to your apartment
Put the cassette in the tape
Deck and let that fever play
Sunrise, sunset, where are you, Arienette?
Where are you, Arienette?

An Attempt to Tip the Scales

Did you expect it all to stop
At the wave of your hand?
Like the sun's just gonna drop
If it's night you demand
Well, in the dark we are just air
So the house might dissolve
But once we're gone, who's gonna care
If we were ever here at all?
Well, summer's gonna come
It's gonna cloud our eyes again
No need to focus
When there's nothing that's worth seeing
So we trade liquor for blood
In an attempt to tip the scales
I think you lost what you loved
In that mess of details
They seemed so important at the time
But now you can't even recall
Any of the names, faces, or lines
It's more the feeling of it all
Well, winter's gonna end
I'm gonna clean these veins again
So close to dying that i finally can start living

A Song to Pass the Time

There's a middle-aged woman, she's dragging her feet
She carries baskets of clothes to a laundromat
While the Mexican children, kick rocks into the street
And they laugh in a language I don't understand
But I love them, why do I love them?
So the neighborhood's dimming, I smoke on the porch
Watch the people as they pass enclosed inside their cars
On their faces just anger or disappointment
I start wishing there was something I could offer them
A consolation, what could I offer them?
Well, they are sad in their suburbs, robots water the lawn
and everything they touch gets dusted spotless
And so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all
And the cars in the driveway only multiply
Well, They are lost in their houses
I've heard them sing in the shower
Making speeches to their sister on the telephone
Saying, "You come home, woman, you come here
Don't stay so far away from me"
This weather has me wanting love more tangible
Something I can hold
cause it's getting cold
Let's hold up our fists to the flame in the sky
To block out the light that's reaching for our eyes
Cause it, cause it would blind us
Yeah it will blind us
Well, I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine
So I may never be free of this apathy
But I wait for a letter that's coming to me
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope
So there still is hope, yes, I can be healed
There is someone looking for what I've concealed
In my secret drawer, in my pockets deep
You will find the reasons that I can't sleep
And you will still want me
But will you still want me?
Will you still want me?
Well i said "Come for the week, you can sleep in my bed
And pass through my life like a dream through my head
It will be easy
I'll make it easy"
But, all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time
And a melody to keep me from worrying
Some simple progression to keep my fingers busy
And words that are sure to come back to me
And they'll be laughing
And they'll be laughing
My mediocrity, my mediocrity
Yeah they'll be laughing
Yeah they'll be laughing
They will be laughing