1. |
I am the Cause
03:44
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No wants to hear it, no wants to have it said:
all this self-analysis makes a blind spot
that’s as big as my head.
Closer than a hairsbreadth
it fits me like my skin.
This cultivated ignorance
that I’ve worn both on and in.
It’s not the stars, it’s not my genes
I am the cause
I can’t see the forest or the trees
I am the cause
I see them in the mirror:
The searcher and the sought.
And within the act the act of seeking
is the ever-present thought:
that whichever of them I arraign –
the seer or the seen –
it’s far easier to lay the blame
on anyone but me.
My mind colludes with itself once more
I am the cause
Effects will follow from this I’m sure
I am the cause
So that Delphic admonition
appears at first so wise,
until you see the cunning written
deep in your eyes.
All the affliction and the pain
I am the cause
My life’s a fiction and a frame
I am the cause
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2. |
I Sympathize
03:05
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LYRICS:
2. I Sympathize
You say that no understands
and I sympathize.
So many likes but not love its true:
I sympathize with you.
Listen to that top ten hit,
it sounds like it was made to fit
only your ears, your hopes and fears,
the artist knows just how you feel
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking
to harmonize, your views and mine.
Everyone likes what everyone likes,
so why not advertise?
Remember when our love was real?
I held you at the borderline.
Today I kill for your ideals,
expressed so finely, I think they’re mine.
A sympathetic feeling
can be a bright, bright mirror,
or it can canonize, mythologize,
until our good taste blinds our eyes.
I sympathize with you
The light is on, it’s time to try
and shine, you shine, you shine, you shine.
So many lies/minds, so little time;
just listen, “one more time.”
I sympathize with you
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3. |
What do you think about?
01:42
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Why do we seek a cause
for the heavy weather we’re living under?
It’s surely our common flaws
and so I really don’t have to wonder:
What do you think about?
Whaddya think about tuning in more to me?
Turn it around to see anything can be
Whaddya think about tuning in more to me?
You haven’t gone away, I see.
The crowd’s untruth it’s true
and yet we are all here together
each with our certain view
which is why I’m moved to ask you whether:
when you hear me I speak out,
do you leave room for doubt,
about those views you tout?
What is the benefit of saying it’s this or that?
It ruins everything playing this tit-for-tat.
Whaddya think about tuning in more to me?
We are the same frequency
If you claim to know my mind
is it really just self-defined?
Without a fair accounting
your clarity’s astounding.
What do you think about?
No amount of force
can get you into my mind.
Let’s find the halfway point
and here is the starting line:
whaddya think about tuning in more to me?
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4. |
Frightened Bus Stop
04:03
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LYRICS:
That morning the light so strange
The sky was tinted so white and clear
I walked as through a haze:
a heavy atmosphere
Waiting for our way to somewhere
I saw on faces unlike my own
worry and trepidation
at what the world had become
Those mad deciders
The frightened bus riders
The smoke from burning fires
Kindled by what divides(defines) us.
Throughout day I wondered
how my fellow riders felt about
the pall hanging like violence
those other people were finding out
Each stop is a moral crisis
and every one leaves us so stunned.
But stopping is our basic function
they’ll keep stopping ‘til we’re all gone.
Those mad deciders
rode quietly right beside us, but
what they told us last November
some of us will long remember
That evening the muted journey
took longer than the weight of men.
The squeeking of the bus questioned
if I’d seen myself and I guess I had.
Those mad deciders
The news it was so dire that, ‘though
we thought we could rise higher,
maybe we need more fighters?
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5. |
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LYRICS:
How many “how many” songs
will they play,
asking “how many more?”
“how many before?”
No more are killed just because we say:
“How many before, how many more.”
I’m only asking what there is to gain
in counting on a day
when numbers alone will
prove an end to man’s wicked ways,
By showing on a graph where evil can be contained.
How many, how many more,
how many before?
How long will we let our prophets die?
I prophesize until they finish the task.
“Won’t you help me to sing these songs”
it’s all I ever ask.
“How many people more must die?”
Killing’s most willing to turn a blind eye.
As the numbers rise higher and higher.
The wind is blowing but it’s hard to feel
through all the cannon balls and the National Guard.
We keep on singing, and we even kneel (Neil)
amid the bodies that litter the yard.
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6. |
Palladio No. 2
01:18
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Hello, hello
the time has come to say.
No, OK.
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7. |
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Planetary Nebula, burning like jam in a jar
my mind it is the mold
glowing under glass it spreads like hot gas.
This orbit occludes the centre of me.
The girls, the wine, the mist,
are too hard to resist
Particles assembling, mind resembling
The moons, stars & stuff are never enough
to amplify my whims out from within.
As Fafhrd dozes off,
the Mouser weighs the cost.
Planetary Nebula,
preserves of light from near and far;
an urchin slipping in
Ophelia tends the vines under a golden sky.
A ghost in the new meme, tried to nudge me.
Swords and sorcery, a letter from H.P.
The ghost on the train, is all that remains.
A shivery reminder
that something is behind us
Beyond the goings on, a spider and a pawn
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8. |
Shooting in the Dark
02:36
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LYRICS:
Well, I’m shooting in the dark, hark!
There’s no target is in sight
But I know my aim is right.
I can’t justify a reason
for this aimless hunting season
it’s fear of the black that I can’t get past.
So, I’m guessing every stranger
is a blank kind of danger
it’s a scattershot approach
but it’s hard to know what’s really going
on out there beyond
so I cast around in the murk.
Oh, I’m shooting in the dark, hark!
There’s no target is in view
But I’m sure my aim is true.
With the enemy so clear I don’t need to see
The whites of their eyes, the darkness is fine
With no light anywhere
on all of those dark faces
is that a friend or foe? I don’t know.
So I’ll draw a bead on anyone unseen
and pow pow they’re dead.
Well I’m shooting in the dark, hark!
And there’s so much dark
to shoot.
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Monumental Folly Atlanta, Georgia
Monumental Folly rather speaks for itself, yes? Monumental Folly also embraces a sheer willingness to leave things rough at the edges and to carry through improvisation from start to an often much-attenuated finish. Also singing, for which I apologize.
Monumental Folly recommends:
Halocline
by Frank Schultz / Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
Continuing to find new ideas in a style all their own.
go to album
Joy Through Amplification
by Bill Nelson
"Joy" is a keyword for Bill Nelson's music-making.
go to album
New ideas through old jars.
go to albumIf you like Monumental Folly, you may also like:
Radar Keroxen Vol.1
by Various artists
Four bands from Spain join forces for this expansive art rock album, writing songs rich in texture and atmosphere.
go to album
majorsequence:THEWORLD
by local spells.
This Nashville act writes frantic songs that fuse electronic tones and textures to overdriven, shoegazey guitars.
go to album
The mix of shoegaze, punk, and noise from this Seattle band is notable for its urgency and bright, foregrounded vocals.
go to album
