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My Pious Friends and Drunken CompanionsCD : May 2003
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CREDITS Recorded: Aug 2002-Mar 2003, Powers Street house, Baltimore; Details: This, the second "official" Private Eleanor album, features a bit of branching out musically into some new directions, and several other musicians playing on the songs -- though it's still 90% Austin. Though it was recorded in the same house as Deciduous, on the same equipment (a Tascam 4-track tape recorder), the sound is a bit cleaner and richer, and the sense of experimentation is pushed to the fore. Austin was named "Best Singer/Songwriter 2003" by the Baltimore City Paper largely on the strength of this record (they also named it one of the top 20 local records of the year). It has an almost kaleidoscopic, patchwork feel, with all these disparate sounds and ideas running into one another without stopping to take a breath. This was the first PE album to be professionally jewelcased and shrinkwrapped and barcoded and such. It is still available for purchase, directly from us.
LYRICSWritten by Austin Stahl, ©2002-2003. 1 A contemporary male. I'll need to find a faster car. I'll need a manual transmission. I'll need to eat a lot of meat. I'll need to shout at women. I'll need to find a louder car. I'll need to attract attention. I'll need to spew four-letter words. I'll need to cause some tension. I'll need to read men's magazines. I'll need to be offensive. I'll need to prove that I am straight. I'll need to get defensive. (If you were a real man, you'd know.) I'll need to drink a lot of beer. I'll need to lose my senses. I'll need to get someone in bed. I'll need whoever's defenseless. I'll need to buy an expensive car. I'll need to drive it at 90. I'll need to do all these things. I'll need to make you like me. 2 I think I've heard this one before. No thanks, please spare me the latest. Repetition's such a bore. There's no reason to be alarmed. Just calm down, you know you've seen all of this before. They got another by the heart again. Yet another, caught off guard again. I think I've heard this one before. Heard about a brand-new philosophy where you reject the ones that are doing the rejecting. So there's no need to feel alone. You can't be disappointed if that's what you're expecting. I could take a pill or talk it through, but I'll keep searching under stones for you. I think I've heard this one before. 3 The synesthete. I swear I see colors when you speak. But I can't see why you look at me that way. You think I'm crazy. No, no, no, no, I'm not crazy. Your name, for example, is the orange of a city sunset. I know you don't believe a word I say. You're not the type to notice things like sunsets anyway. 4 Selfless favors. You are elusive. You are a drying well. We are exclusive, as far as I can tell. I don't care who drives you home tonight. You are your judgments. You are your trends. You are your substances. You are your friends. Nothing more. What could be less? So warn me when you're coming round for me again. Maybe convictions will have softened, it doesn't happen often, but I'm trying to reconcile with me. Unfilled prescriptions and unsmoked cigarettes. I granted wishes, I made them forget that they're worth less than all of that. 5 Isidore spares the Big Easy. So listen: This one's about you. And you can tell your mother that all of them are. But the truth is, I just needed something, something to listen to, to drown out the rain. I woke up yesterday and prayed for clouds. I guess we got what I deserved. Twenty-five inches in two days. But you should have heard what they were calling for. It's been too long since we had a day I could sit inside, safe away from a storm that rages out there. And contemplate the things we didn't do, and the things I could still lose, and the people we adore. So thank you, Isidore. I think it might just be the rain that makes me miss you. It might just be the shades of gray. You know, it could have been much worse. She could have been the kind of hurricane that blows souls away. The waters rise and the winds they blow, but I thought that you might like to know that I'm doing fine here on my own. And everyone in the streets, they ran for cover when the rains began, but I think I'll stick it out here, in the hopes that you might hear me, Isidore. Hear me, Isidore. So listen: This one's about you. And you can tell yourself that all of them are. But the truth is, I just thought that you might need something to listen to, if it stats to rain. 6 So go on. All her words are signs, and all her poems have stolen lines. Doesn't want to have to ask to be taken for a ride, so go on. So go on. 7 Things I'll never do. There's a fear I have that keeps me up at night, and it's nothing more than myself in my sight, telling my story when I'm old. But I look back and find there's nothing to be told. It's second nature making every second count. The clocks keep moving and the sun keeps going down. And I would slow down for you, but I keep thinking about the things I'll never do. No we can't stop to rest our eyes. We mean to breathe but we can't ever find the time. The biggest sin in this world we're in's an uncomplicated life. We're just trying to make a dent before we die. I've been keeping busy, ain't hat what you're supposed to say? There's no telling if I'm compelled to live this way. There's a dream that I have every other night. I'm waiting in the wings, just staring at the lights. And I can't tell which role is mine. Don't even know what play I'm in, much less my lines. 8 Song for hi-tech lovers. Lives lived on the phone. You're afraid to leave yourself alone. And tell apart wires from your heart. Redefined my need to a fast connection and a credit-card receipt. And I shortened my lines, for these fast-paced times. When did I become so tied? I don't want to be that satisfied. I want to live the life I set out for me. Do without and let it be. 9 Photocopy of a photocopy of a photograph. Don't believe your eyes and don't believe what you recall. Don't believe your mind, I wouldn't trust a thing so small. "How many car lengths, did you see brake lights, which way'd you swerve?" Just tell me, just tell me, just tell me, just tell me. Symbol of luxury as instrument of death. He would have lied through broken teeth with his last breath. "Look at the photograph, I could have been paralyzed." He should have, he should have, he should have, he should have. I hope you both are eating well off everything you stole. Better save that bonus now, you know you can't insure your soul. 10 The Dead (after Joyce). Unhook your waist, show your weary face evening's end. Come to me now, I do not know how to begin. I want to see you run away with me, like we were young, with those words I wrote like distant notes on your tongue. Yield to my arm, I think I know what's wrong. Do I know? (I am thinking of that song.) Your tears fill ths room. What about that tune makes them flow? (A person long ago) Someone you loved (used to sing that song.) perhaps you're still in love. (He died at seventeen.) Please turn away (Such expression in his eyes.) lest you might see this shame. (He died for me.) And there's hardly pain now when I think how poor a part I've played. I never made her feel that way again. We're not the same now. I know that's no longer the face that drew that boy to find her in the rain. He's better off having gone boldly to that world than to fade and wither dismally with age. I feel it close now. Very soon we'll fade to gray. One by one we're all becoming... 11 I want you (to let me down). I want you to let me down. Don't come through, don't make a sound. I may go and find a higher ledge, so do your pushing now. I want you to force my hand. Don't try to understand. If I go and say I love you, please tell me that I can't. You know I'll probably just keep holding on until you pry my fingers free. So come on, won't you let me down, please? I want you to do me wrong. You're free to string me along, but when you go and find another man, I'll just write another song. You know I'll probably just keep holding on until you pry my fingers free. So come on, won't you let me down, please? 12 On the tides. I know you've got nothing more to say. I want it that way. Leaves go and turn from yellow to gray, disintegrate. But what good are metaphors now, when my words fall like stones to the ground, before I can speak them aloud? I'm more than the man I used to be, the man you won't see. But two chords and a gorgeous melody are all that I need. And I'll write of the stars and the sun, and of birds that maneuver as one, and of love that I've fought for and won. I'm not asking for anything you can't give. I don't want you here, I don't need to see you again. All that I ask for is time, and a moon that'll bring in the tides, and that someday you'll hear this and cry. |
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