Lyrics

Perennial Fae.

1 – Fairy Circle:

Slept inside a fairy circle hoping for the best / Though I’d never been one for believing
Ended up with only moss covering every inch / Of the bedroll I’d brought
But the dialogue had shifted from that point / Little did I know
My words were tinged / With a deep green

The kind of green that you see / when the sun doesn’t
Make it through the leaves and trees above your head
The leaves and trees above your head

Laying on the Jutland peninsula I spread my body out / To take the earth in
The wild grass grows between the cracks I leave / Between the toes and into the small of my back
And I feel, it, a connection / Stronger than any I’d felt before
As my skin / turns a deep green

(chorus repeats)

And I’ll say my farewells / to all of my loved ones
The fae have taken me away / But I’m a willing host, and they’ll be kind
Know that I’ll still be there every time / You look up and see it
You look up and see it
You look up and see it

2 – Drowning in Pastels:

Were you drowning in pastels/as I walked out your back door?
Painted in your bed/a noble work of art
In retrospect, in hindsight/I should’ve turned around
Tiptoed up your stairs/And made a new start

It should’ve been/so much more than an end / for us
I should’ve known you’d be the one to feel some sympathy for me
Even when I didn’t deserve any / from you

Oh what could’ve been / oh we’ll never know / Oh how it felt so slow / but it was

Quick as a caricature / but less mature / But still somehow less insulting

I’ll sketch you again / with inkwell and pen / Draw the outline of your body / then fill it in

In a beautiful pose / with bluebeads on your nose / Color you in pastel gold and blue

And draw myself anew

It should’ve been / so much more than an end / for us

I should’ve known you’d be the one to feel some sympathy for me

Even when I didn’t deserve any

3 – Ornamental Sand (Song for Corliss)

Build it tall / so tall that you can’t see the top / Plate it in silver / whatever you want, don’t stop

See it how you will / Not how it is or will be / It’s ornamental sand / shifting to your whims

But when you skin it alive and stare at its guts / The entrails’ll answer your ifs and your whats

When you stare at its eyes and it stares back at you / Will you see it for what it is?

Cuz you’ve built up / what it is and what it should be

Based on what you’d learned and what you figured would be good to see

You built up / a veneer of admiration / And placed it all upon their head

But the weight is gonna snap their neck.

4 – Prairie Fire:

It’s overdue by a year and some change / Dead life all around the range

Hidden the roots, blocked out the sun / No light for the lively ones

Burn away the dead rot / Sweat away the sickness / Cry away the sadness

It’s all better for it now, it is all better now

Don’t call the fire trucks to service / Let it burn til it scars the surface

Cremate the remains of the annuals / The perennials will rise again

(chorus repeats)

Set the prairie ablaze for days and days and days and days
Watch with pride as the flames blaze and blaze and blaze and blaze

(chorus repeats)

5 – Autumn:

And in a single second / in a heart’s beat / The seasons seem / to have shifted again

If you’d just stop for a moment / a pause, a rest / every leaf’s vein / you would ascertain

It’s easiest to trudge through and not examine autumn / Pick the sweetest apple off the branch and break it

But the season’s truth hides itself from prying eyes / Spread yourself on dampened leaves to feel alive

The season’s rife with many / warm experiences

They’re hard to love if you’re not / ready to embrace them

Your perfect day of the season won’t appear / You’ll only ever get the days that are here

But there is beauty to be found in crannies and in nooks / Check the shadows of the trees for days you read in books

Clear the aspersions / you cast on the days / ask the crows and jays / how to feel

Rebuild what you hope for / clear out your dreams / let these damp days / fulfill them

6 – The Skier:

Dawn’s break thru futile curtains / Morning light in our eyes

Drowned in thoughts thru the night / You wept soundlessly by my side

No need to feel so poor, so down / I’ve done enough to meet our quota

Twisted and snapped to find some meaning / Flew from New York to South Dakota

I knew, how I knew, someday, somehow I’d make some sense / To someone, without compromise

Surely it was you, surely it was you / But I couldn’t stabilize

The skier sped down the slope / They’d found a groove, they were certain

The path that led the skier / As futile to follow as to close the curtain

The skier crested the ridge / Morning light blinds their eyeso

The skis snap and twist in time / As the skier lands on their side

(chorus repeats)

I saw ‘em on their hospital bed / you were with me in spirit

I told the skier how I loved you / Even if they couldn’t hear it

Left a photo of us in their hand / Cuz I wanted ’em to see

What they’d left as their legacy / They’d die knowing I was happy

And they’d haunt me knowing I couldn’t make it last

7 – Helsinki Moon:

And I am waking in silence / thru the echoes of our dreams

Walking by the coast / where nothing’s what it seems

The days are shorter now / but they’ll grow longer soon

Trapped in darkness / with nothing but the light of the Helsinki Moon

There in that harbor / when no one is around

The darkest night of winter / when snow won’t carry sound

Drown me in whispers / knowing they’ll never be heard

Drown me in layers / surrounded and warmed by your word

Can I understand your words and your thoughts? If I stare backwards at your mistakes and ink blots?

Will it crystallize it? An errant hope or fear?

Layered dreams / won’t be echoes when we wake up here

Meet me / in the depths of our dreams

The Helsinki Moon / directly above / and it is

A compass to bathe us in light

Illuminate the words that we’ll discover

---

The Bell Fountain

1 – The Bell Fountain:

I have a penny / made out of tin / The base elements are contained within

Placed it atop / a curled index finger / With the thumb in tow, to strike

Flipping it into the bell fountain / making another foolish wish

Never could I have imagined / it’d end up coming true like this

I chose the penny / with careful hope In a daze of desperation to cope

To cope with a brain / that put me in pain I thought I knew the one thing to cure it all

Flipping it into the bell fountain / making another foolish wish

Never could I have imagined / it’d end up coming true like this

But I never thought it could go as well as it did

The spirit of the fountain smiled down, and I was rid

For some sweet moments of the hurt and the ache

The bells pealed throughout my head instead

2 – Olympic Days (A Song for the Other, Other Kurt):

(we’re not) (we’re not)

Miles away, but we’re miles apart / I said I’d keep you in my heart

But these days I can’t realize / What goes on behind your bliss-struck eyes

It’s not me / and I’ll never be

I’ll always be wrong / by design

But there’s no need for searchin’, my love / You found the urchin in the touching tank

At the museum you went to as girls / Back when you still wore your hair in curls

Found me / but you didn’t touch me

Not carnal, not loving / just lonely

But the through the consuming haze / The pattern is poignant

Thru these olympic days / That you only care when there’s consequences

It shouldn’t be this tough / to get affection without a lie or a bluff

So from here on, I will say this from my starts:

“Let’s love each other with all of our hearts”

“Never more complex, if you please

Intertwine and leave it to deities”

Now I’ll swear to myself almost every day / I will not give all of my love away

Cuz although that gets you quite far / I’ll save it for someone as special as you

...

Were

As you were

As you were

As you were

(we’re not)

3 – Water/Falls:

The water falls onto the branches and drips down on you and you

Think you’re happy for the first time in a long time

The water floods into the valley and the creek below and you

Don’t feel as bad as you did, before.

The water drips down from your eyebrows and into your eyes and you

Still feel better than you would’ve today

Now the water’s flooding everything you thought you want and you

Don’t think you’ll bury it this time

Cause the aquifer’s replenished! The wells of your mind are full!

The aquifer’s replenished! The gates won’t hold!

The aquifer… The aquifer…

---

Windswept:

I asked all the questions I needed to ask / And I found the answers laying bare

I wasn’t there ‘cuz I had nowhere better / I was there because you were there

Did I get swept off the mountain peak?

Standing sleek, but oh so meek?

In the summer’s gust

Did I get swept into the field?

Freshly healed, even keeled?

But covered in rust

Everything I was, it was in love / With the mere idea of you

You were always in my sight line / The blind spot in my field of view

Now I don’t fall asleep like I used to / And I can’t stand to watch the seasons change

But in spite of all of my misgivings / I still seek comfort in that mountain range

(chorus repeats)

Please / promise me you will:

Live your life, fall in love

With someone much better than me (please)

This is a monument / to all that I will never be

This is a pilgrimage / to what you swore you saw in me

Built out of necessity / from calcite and sandstone

Built with my hands / worked my fingers to the bone

And it breaks / all the waves / on my back

But can I stay afloat?

Built by the ocean/made it worth your while to see

Visit in summer/the storms won’t bother you or me

With my body / glistening in the sun

Would you think that / all my battles had been won?

And it breaks / all the waves / on my back

But can I stay afloat?

Black, black hole, back in place / Backtrack more, make some space

Gold, gold sun, always new / Rising til it sets, over you

Was it gold? Or was it black?

As we’re out / adrift in the evening sea

Dawn won’t break / for you and me

My eyes adjust / to the Spanish moon

As we worry / it’ll be too soon

Was it gold? Or was it black?

Now it’s gone / And I don’t see it coming back

I see every molecule there is to see

Of solar radiation / cast down on me

And in those 8 short minutes / I waited to see

Whichever color you’d wanted to be

I’m watching creeks / Waiting for the right time of the day

The time when the sun / Hits the water just right and illuminates

And all I see / Is crystals in the crystal clear creek

And anyone / Knows they stumbled onto what they seek

I’m setting up lights / Getting the angles just right

I’ve got a generator / They can’t hide from me now

And I will trawl / Trawl it ‘til the creek bed’s dry

And I will mine / Every crystal that you can see

And keep them all for me

Guess I should be mad / but somehow I’m calm

And what I was told / Labor Day Weekend

Is still inside my bones / but you’ll never know

And my oldest friend / still sees you from time to time and I

I don’t believe in God / but I pray he never tells you

Tells you that I can’t be / happy

No, no one tell you / tell you ’bout my love for you

‘Cos you weren’t there / for me at noon

I haven’t felt this ambivalent before

What I had found wasn’t true for sure

But I believed everything I had no choice

I’ll never ask you I’d just be destroyed

The wind sweeps the peaks we just walked

In my head the thousand times we’ve talked

Have all been better than the last

I promised I’d be just as I say

Painted you pictures and threw them away

‘Cause now the paint’s all gone black

And I have neither the muse nor the creativity

But we’ll both hedge our bets that I do

Can’t tell if I’m a lover or an enemy so I

I guess I’ll be nothing to you

You’ll hope for an outlying miracle / Pray that all the signs you have seen

Were naught but inconsistencies / And I will be there for you to preen

But I am not here, and I’m not sure if I ever was / I can only hope to not offend you because

I’ve been having questions, you see

Was I only there ‘cos I had nowhere better to be?