1. |
Look Who's There
04:50
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Like to be here,
I’d hate to be nowhere.
I’d like to see clear,
as above, can I go there?
Why am I stuck in the wrinkles of my own bed?
Why is the new start I need laid so deep in a mess?
Songs that strike me,
fate pressed into my eardrum.
Things that hold me tightly
aren’t so great. Do you need some?
I’m just saying what’s on the tip of my tongue.
I’m just breathing the dead air on the tip of my lung.
No surprise I’m feeling
things I can’t hold back.
There’s a time for cold restraint,
but I already lived that.
No one has really caught my heart or my feet.
I’m electric with joy, you think I’m pretty neat.
But my words are idle,
my mind can’t move fast.
You think your word is final,
then finality zooms past.
I’m not gonna wait for your perfect crime.
I’ve got a damn good sense about it, and I know time.
Like a friend who’s in danger
but won’t even need luck,
I’m right there in the shadows,
I’m there with fifteen bucks.
Now I’m playing with the future on a spending spree.
You’ve got a mind to play me too, but look who’s there for me.
Look who’s there for me
Look who’s there for me
The Michelin Man on the White House lawn
in his car with his boots and his best-laid plans.
Wide open arms ending in strange hands.
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2. |
Maze
02:04
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in a maze in a small town,
paper made into a small crown.
Under thunder, naked beasts crawl.
Rich men plunder, fall asleep in sprawl.
In your shed, things in your head resound.
Looking down the fast lane, you can’t see the town.
When I’m living inside, I’m living inside
and you live out your time the same as I.
But now I’m shrinking the world to fill my shoe.
Assuming the fear in me is like the fear in you.
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3. |
Come Sit With Me
02:21
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Come sit with me
and help me wait it out
Years are piling up
here on my old brown couch
I’m waiting for the taste to hit me,
the sound to fill my brain.
Waiting for new friends to hate me,
And my unskillful game.
I’m waiting for a spray of citrus
that makes it Christmas to me.
Can’t really explain in English
what I want to hear or see.
So just come sit with me
and help me wait it out.
Hopes have piled high
up on my old brown couch.
I’m appearing in ultraviolet
like a breadcrumb on the seat.
Vibrating on silent,
asking you to answer me.
It’s neither here nor there where I am,
I’m just right in-between.
Lined up in the queue for delight
like it’s a show I’ve never seen.
So just come sit with me.
Rest your head and stretch your feet
where so many identical moments
pass and never will repeat.
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4. |
Back From The Cool
03:25
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To restyle and retool my daydreams,
Step to the left of my life
into the cool of the outside.
But it works on the logic of a ceaseless fire.
It’s the end of the road,
better watch your pockets.
Beginning of a hologram,
get-rich-quick scam.
For all the billionaires in their rockets,
It won’t matter to you who I am
You are entering a tiny, backward world
filled with privateers, racketeers.
It may seem like this fortune is bogus
after meditating fifteen years.
To restyle and retool your daydreams,
step to the left of your life
down into the cool of the outside.
But it works on the logic of a ceaseless fire.
Illumination is the kindest lover.
You can’t remember when to call.
I can’t remember what dress she desired,
backed in the corner at the mall.
Stand up and say that I’m not crazy
for what I’m tryin’ to do!
What was it that I was trying
before I met you?
To restyle and retool my daydreams,
Step to the left of my life
into the cool of the outside.
It works on the logic of a ceaseless fire.
I can’t remember what she desired.
This is my only outlet,
I’ve got to tell you something quick.
It’s a long way to here
From coolness
Just give me a big old break.
Or stand up and tell me
As you come back from the cool.
Stand up and tell me I’m not crazy
For what I’m tryin’ to do.
Tell me I'm not crazy
For what I’m tryin’ to do.
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5. |
Summer Is
02:19
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Summer is sand
A makeshift desert
Sleep just a wink away
Summer is heat
Increased for no reason
Sun and earth
Agreed to play.
Summer is failing
Summer is strain,
the worst and best of times,
stuck in frozen lanes.
Summer is silly,
shorts and misery
Sat side by side
as it starts to rain.
Summer is thrilling--
Instant surrender,
A pure biological exchange.
We molt like a cobra,
we’re sad when it’s over.
All we wanted
was some kind of change.
Summer is soda
A crazy proposal
when winter
was deep in our veins.
Hopes were brewing
down in the mortal basin
and the thought,
“Will you come home to stay?”
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6. |
Paper Light
02:27
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Meet you in the courtyard
Or the Wawa at the edge of town
If you want to make it tomorrow,
Today you want to hang around?
1967, 1972
2020: That’s the year I forgot to call you
Wanna go find my bike?
I’m feeling paper-light
Alive beyond all my means
Tennis courts open late
Stage lights on Peter’s gate
Such sights rarely really seen.
I’m sorta losing track of time
Hot summer soda, hint of lime
And a rush of bad AC
You wanna call me first?
You know this town is cursed.
Heaven is you and me.
Now years slip by
Like moments in your room
I think I might sleep over
Or see you soon
It’s hard to remember
To brute force ahead.
Hard to remember
To sustain the gentleness we had.
Thursday, Friday
Mark the calendar full.
Everything I say is empty
Like “sure” and “thanks” and “cool”.
You always did hate to play the violin.
Now tell me straight, is it too late
For me to play the fool?
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7. |
The World I Get
03:57
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Thought I saw the sign for Medford on the Pike
iris caught that eastern light
Still not sure where this local road may lead
But on the superhighway, I don’t feel so freed
I could spend a lifetime
falling through the sky,
Instead I sit so cheaply in regret
For things I didn’t do
and haven’t happened yet.
On top of Pittsburgh’s new Ferris wheel,
in plain view, it is a secret, secret feel
I can’t wrap around my finger
a world that slips out from my arms
but that is the world I get.
That is the world I get
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8. |
Wait So Long
04:38
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Had to wait too long
For my way back home
Became part of the wallpaper
In a place without love
Where the bored and surly
Go toe to toe
A place trapped in time
But time will never know
Where am I going
That I would find myself here?
Just sit and exhale,
Wait for an exit to appear
As soon as you leave the station
It’s clear
That there’s no way to the future
From here
What a familiar feeling
What a familiar place
Out of habit I think
I could live out my life
In its embrace
And lay my head down low
And lay my head down low
Breathalyzer, Polygraph,
Ultrasound, dowsing stone.
Advances don’t mean much,
Things turn to rust.
Wandering into a place like this
You can begin to see
Why the classes interests
Aren’t in synchrony
And don’t know who to trust
We don’t know who to trust
Had to wait so long
We turn to gin
We make our beds
And shake our heads
Say, “That’s what I detest”
Or “That’s just a product of the generation.”
Why we live in such heavy doubt
I can’t really say.
But it’s not cause we’ve grown
Up that way.
We just had to wait so long,
We missed the train,
We missed the train.
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9. |
Third Strike
03:38
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Let’s get away
Lets go someplace
North or south
We’re gonna sweat
The same mistakes
Let’s get out of this torpor
The coin tossed with haste
On a crosstown bus
Or on foot across the interstate
The last laugh of the tour
And was the last laugh
Always what you were
Looking for?
You put on the brakes
Released into a swarm.
At the first red light,
You can’t seem to remember
Her name anymore
Let’s go to sleep
Everyone has to lose the fight
Seems like we’re in the same situation
Every single night.
The match after your third strike
Pull back the curtain on this.
How do you get up knowing
You can’t make it?
Yeah, and you can’t burn bright?
You can't burn bright
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10. |
Again
03:30
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Fox squirrels walking in my walls again,
hot summers flipping into falls again
it won’t be long before we change, sometimes destroyed.
Nights lose out to days, tools become toys.
These meals mashed together from fermented soy,
these wheels and rusty gears that let us ride into our joy.
Hot metal is melted into bells again.
Spices fry, home temples fill with smells again.
The roasted sides of ships are cracking,
help is on the way
and then a worried hand is reaching in the sea again.
Wax has hardened on a wooden floor,
shoes write in rubber as they turn and score.
Earth made a pact with the heart of man.
Life made you act within its span.
At the core of the real,
what you can feel,
and in chaos, we are doing what we can.
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Julian Cartwright New Jersey
Julian Cartwright is a songwriter, instrumentalist, composer and arranger based in the Philadelphia area. Instagram @julian.cartwright.songs
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