1. |
All Towns Are Temporary
03:13
|
|||
|
I’m driving around in my little car
No need to speed I’m not going far
When a realization slips into view
A way of seeing these streets like new
You could run a train through
the atoms that make up my body
just like you steer your vehicle
You could claim a neighborhood
all well and good until it’s party
to claims from climate and time
until intermittent demands on land
irrevocably change a trusted brand
Well I pulled over and cut the ignition
considered the outcome of cognition
or perhaps perceptions along my path
before letting out a bemused belly laugh
|
||||
2. |
Anywhere I Float
04:28
|
|||
|
Thought my heart was a compass
Swinging around within its housing
Toward directions I found arousing
Toward love that could be astounding
Thought my hands held the wheel
Navigating to seek safe passage
But storms and rocks have savaged
Left my vessel sinking and ravaged
Until I’m lost on a salty sea
Without a destination to roam
nowhere to go nothing to be
anywhere I float is home
Ancient sailors used to steer by stars
Peering into night skies overhead
Afraid to fall off earth and wind up dead
These days I steer by my tears instead
|
||||
3. |
Comfortable Silence
03:06
|
|||
|
A comfortable silence
calls you out
Either you like the noise
you’re making or you can live without
A comfortable silence
is premised on noise
How can I live with my sadness
in the face of your joys?
A comfortable silence
requires equals
It cannot stand up to more sequels
Gotta have more one-offs
and fewer cash grabs
If you think that’s how it works
you’d better head back to those labs
|
||||
4. |
Conspiracy
04:39
|
|||
|
We used to breathe together
That was before we knew better
we knew the law of the land
we thought we had it in hand
back when we knew better
back when there was better weather
now there’s smoke coming down
now we’re checking the sky out
now we’re wondering if we
better consider flying out
I remember spring
back when that was a thing
now we’re approaching the fall
and I had high hopes for you all
I won’t say they’re finished
let’s just say they’ve diminished
We used to breathe together
now we breathe apart
No mind no soul no body no heart
A space that you can’t write down on any chart
Once whole wholly separated in parts
|
||||
5. |
Convertibles
05:31
|
|||
|
Warm weather means miniskirts and jeans
Tight T-shirts that cling closer to bodies
Movie dates and waits for restaurant seats
Barbecues and picnics and rooftop parties
Boundaries protect you
Surround you circumspect
Stay inside long enough
Your world gets wrecked
No way to auto-negotiate
a way back to greatness
What are you hiding from?
Trying to breathe through a pinhole
Trying to walk with a feather footstep
Add it up, what’s the sum?
Trying not to lose your self-control
Trying not to mess up your own rep
Hips and thighs everybody gets exercise
But baby I’m too tired to even roll my eyes
All the commotion, it just wears me out
All the distraction’s not what you’re about
Red lights are for rule followers
Double yellow lines are for cars
Green means go for everyone we know
Except convertibles looking up at the stars
|
||||
6. |
Easy Sleep
03:51
|
|||
|
I seem to open my eyes as soon as I close them
Afraid of my thoughts, afraid of wasting time
No clock can comfort my poor attention span
in this never-ending now, triggered and primed
Before you speak to me of easy sleep,
tell me where you lay your head and with whom
Riptide restless or dreamless and deep
full of fitful feeling or silent as a tomb
I chase my peace of mind in hours of screens
meant to distract my trembling hands and feet
but the mind I pay reveals those empty schemes
as unworthy of my love, unkind in my defeat
|
||||
7. |
Find It
04:58
|
|||
|
You tear up the territories
mess up and mutilate the map
trying to escape the landscape
you swear feels like a trap
Are you still dreaming of
a love that’s steadfast
One that puts you first
even if it doesn’t last
One that fits as if you designed it
Here’s hoping you find it
You lose so many things
Beyond all hope of location
Less common more natural
Less spring and more fall
Are you still dreaming of
a love that’s steadfast
One unafraid of your worst
Who just laughs at the past
One that sails with breeze behind it
I might know where to find it
You can force it but it won’t fit
You simply have to let it be it
It won’t come in front or behind it
long as you’re kind and don’t mind
|
||||
8. |
Ghost Map
03:27
|
|||
|
I used to know where so many things belonged
This street stays deserted, that’s one always thronged
Now I’m upended and struggling to regain my balance
Unaware of how and where to use remaining talents
I’m a portrait against a landscape
I wish I could somehow escape
Fighting though my need for a dirt nap
And an update on this ghost map
I see the sun but it doesn’t rise or set as expected
Streets and avenues I choose meander undirected
Signs hang in languages I can’t make head or tail
Haunted less by familiarity and more by how I fail
|
||||
9. |
Hocus Pocus
03:53
|
|||
|
Sunshine is still pretty faint
but the forecast says it's coming on
You need the patience of a saint
to see it through until it's gone
You look new every time light hits there
every time my eyes open and focus
and find you over there breath skin hair
A magic act some holy hocus pocus
You see no point in high clouds
enjoy them while they're around
You need the wisdom of crowds
if you're ever going to turn that wisdom down
Someday you’ll look old
with a little time and luck
But you’ll still be as beautiful
as a springtime crocus
|
||||
10. |
OK Karaoke
03:35
|
|||
|
The tremor in my leg reminds me life is risk
Even if it’s only somebody else’s song on a list
in a room with other people waiting their turn
to wrap hands around a microphone and learn
What makes you breathe
Dig into the fuel of feeling
Stand still instead of leave
Aim your voice at the ceiling
The quiver in my spine tells me what I’ve missed
Time performing time after and time in between
Listening to others lyrics recited intoned and hissed
homage to song, devotion to art, allegiance to a scene
Mistakes are high and the stakes are low
Nobody’s gonna catch you stealing, you know
If you don’t sing, you won’t die
but neither option is appealing
|
||||
11. |
Reminded
03:39
|
|||
|
Somebody made me mad
and you tried to rush to my defense
I said I didn’t want to respond
and when I said that you took offense
I said I only want to do right
You said you preferred to choose violence
I said no good deed goes unpunished
So we sat in uncomfortable silence
reminded of how differently we approach
getting to be the nuclear blast or the roach
reminded of how far apart love between us
travels to be visible in time to rebuild trust
Then I opened up my mouth
said you only ever ask what you look like
You said oh, are you attacking me,
is that a question or a missile strike
I said I wasn’t trying to harm you
we already know who’s made me mad
I just see how you’re questioning me
underneath your engine like a launchpad
reminded of how sturdily we support
going all out but somehow coming up short
reminded of how close together love exists
still imperceptible in instants just like this
|
||||
12. |
Talk To Me
04:57
|
|||
|
No we can’t move ahead
If you insist on playing dead
Yes you make a pretty corpse
You’ll get there in due course
This head is bigger on the inside
So I need you to talk to me
Words will fit without trying to force it
Open up and let your feelings free
Maybe you’ve been burned before
Flame shy, smoke detector poor
But prior problems can’t predict
A situation you ain’t yet licked
This heart is bigger on the inside [...]
Salt is sweat and sweet is life
I’ve got a fork a spoon and knife
To serve my hunger and appetite
So satisfy my curiosity tonight
This stomach’s bigger on the inside [...]
|
||||
13. |
The Life Of The Mind
03:44
|
|||
|
Your life is a paperback whose pages you turn
Your time is a candle you're content to burn
You continue on where others say stop or go blind
That's where I'll show you the life of the mind
Be careful what you read
Be careful what you're mistaken for
Be careful about what you need
When you're in these streets and poor
Be careful where you aim
And even note where you shoot
Making jam out of all that windfall fruit
While radicals stay focused on getting root
My life is a case endlessly contended in courts
Written about in local news or business or sports
Penned in by impending fears I can't leave behind
That's where I'll show you the life of the mind
Be careful how you define
Be careful about what's yours or mine
Be careful about codes you utter
If you can't correct for color
|
||||
14. |
The Noise
03:01
|
|||
|
The noise was always there
A front row pupil overly present
hand in the air like it always cared
Always attentive, never hesitant
Until a day came it didn’t show
Leaving silence no joke could fill
No one in the room seemed to know
Do we thank our luck or our will?
The noise never made it back
The rest of us trained eyes ahead
as ears heard rattles and cracks
where we’d never heard a word said
|
||||
15. |
Unrequited
04:00
|
|||
|
You don’t know the way I feel about you
In pain I remain because I still doubt you
Are you aware of how I reel in your vicinity
even as I know you don’t share my affinity?
Even though I don’t yet dare reveal my heart
Days are on the way when our love must start
I shouldn’t be so excited about love unrequited
A stand-alone episode that could be a two-parter
Your sweet innocence is totally turning me tarter
Imagining infatuation is so exquisitely unfair
Teasing me about how I’m alone in how I care
|
||||
16. |
Useless Doom
03:16
|
|||
|
All things wind down
Gadgets and clocks
Put a battery in your heart
and watch it keep time
So goes the world
you and me occupy
so use your head before
you leave it all behind
No useless doom over demise
It shouldn’t come as a surprise
when you know everybody dies
then you know that you will too
Someone just born
new to how things work
might could reap a benefit
of perspectives you perspect
So here’s your chance
to sing and to dance
entertainment aids memory
lessons ain’t gotta be object
I know you’d rather live
by forgetting to stop breathing
but the space you take
was once taken up by others
who only wanted to see you succeed
and offer opportunities to those in need
Is life generosity or is it greed?
|
||||
17. |
Wednesday's Child
04:43
|
|||
|
Too often mistaken
for Wednesday’s child
Not happy as in dreams
but happier than I seem
Perhaps it’s in my face
or how I carry my style
Perhaps a trick of the light
the day or the week
You think you know who I am
You weigh my soul to the milligram
Catalog my character flaws and flecks
from my birth like a diamond unearthed
You think you know where I belong
your coordinates right and never wrong
as if I’m not something more than free,
in motion with emotions you’ll never see
Too often mistaken
for Wednesday’s child
Not sad about how I turn
or how I’m turned out
Perhaps it’s about how
I clean up for your file
Perhaps a trick of the data
garbage in garbage out
|
||||
Saint and Kings San Pablo, California
I’m a singer-songwriter using guitars and keyboards to craft distinctive dispatches from intimate interiors, vast exteriors and all points in between. Drawing on years of pop, soul, indie, folk and dance-music fandom, I try to turn observations and narratives into succinct sonic snapshots. ... more
If you like Saint and Kings, you may also like:
That Bridge Washed Away In The Storm (EP)
by Lowpines
Avi Buffalo had a hand in producing this cassette of Lowpines' serene, self-described "Lo-fi-Anglo-Americana pop songs."
go to album
featured on Bandcamp Radio Aug 6, 2013
go to album
This project from the Spanish indie-pop singer explores nostalgia and joy.
go to album
The Convincer (20th Anniversary Edition)
by Nick Lowe
Released in 2001, “The Convincer” is a gentle gem in the Nick Lowe catalog; an anniversary edition provides opportunity for rediscovery.
go to album
The Woman You Want
by Eliza Shaddad
Haddad returns with cinematic soundscapes that include introspective folk, post-grunge, and indie-pop influences.
go to album
The Dizzying Parade
by Good Good Blood
The British lo-fi artist's latest album includes additional vocals by his family.
go to album
Keep My Powder Dry / When It All Wakes Up
by Good Good Blood
From UK group Good Good Blood, a pair of tracks that surround hypnotic repeating phrases with barren, folky guitar.
go to album
