1. |
Hail Bohemia
04:25
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2. |
Sound Museum
03:55
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Summer came along like a kick in the teeth
Janey’s busted Camry took us all to the beach
For twenty-one years I’d been learning to speak
Suddenly I found that I couldn’t stop singing.
I used to think I was a hopeless case
Barely a member of the human race
But when we met up down at Tommy’s place
It lit me up like a church bell ringing.
We were laughing on the rocky coast
With a mason jar of whiskey and a city of ghosts behind us
It wasn’t much but we were making the most
It wasn’t much but I’ll remember it forever
Oh, take me to the Sound Museum
Where the furniture is dirty but the feeling is clean
Oh, we could go until the morning
Wake up in the afternoon and do it again
I used to feel like I was wasting my life away
Working at the Lizard Lounge just trying to get paid
There was something that I needed to say
But I didn’t know the words, yeah I just couldn’t name it
So I kept it like a secret inside,
Until the fire that was burning there had practically died
But Janey’s voice on the other line
Pulled me right out of my misery and into the night
Oh, take me to the Sound Museum
Where the furniture is dirty but the feeling is clean
Oh, we could go until the morning
Wake up in the afternoon and do it again.
Oh, it’s not easy but we’re trying,
I wonder if we’re busy being born or if we’re dying.
No, I didn’t write that line,
but I heard it on the radio a long, long time ago (2x)
and sang it to myself until I felt at home.
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3. |
Janey and I
05:11
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Janey left a lit cigarette in the sink
In the morning when she headed out to work
I called her on my lunch break and I said “Janey, what the hell?”
She said, “I’m sorry I can be such a stupid jerk.”
But Janey knew that I’d forgive her anything she did
After all, we’d known each other since we were kids
And I’d always been a little bit in love with her I guess
I never told her, but she knew it anyway
Which was just one of the many ways
in which my life back then was a cliché.
I still believed it was true
That someday we’d see this thing through.
Janey says you only get a couple of chances
A few slow dances, a couple days in June
So you better not fuck this up
You know it’s over too soon
But Janey’s not in love with me,
She’s in love with you
Janey and I, we’ve been living together
For just about seven months
Or maybe it was eight, I wasn’t counting
Wasn’t the best idea that either of us had ever had
But then again it was exactly what I wanted
We lived in this big house up on the hill
and all our friends thought it was haunted
oooooooooooh
So when Janey came home late one night with Tommy on her arm,
I nearly threw up in my coffee cup and pulled the fire alarm,
But I just swallowed up my pride and I said hey, how was your night
And Janey laughed and she said wonderful, and Tommy caught my eye
And he said “man, you’re my two best friends and I hope this never ends”
Even then I believed it was true
That someday we’d see this thing through
Janey says we only get a couple of chances
A few slow dances, a couple days in June
So you better not fuck this up
You know it’s over too soon
But Janey’s not in love with me,
She’s in love with you
Janey’s not in love with me
So what can I do
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4. |
Birds Have Flown
02:18
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In the dream that I had that night
Janey hatched a plan
If we drive all through the night
Fast as we can
We could be in Montreal before they understand
How far from home these birds have flown
From their master’s hand
The neon lights, another life
The cherry trees in bloom
I’ll see you there by the subway stairs
Not a day too soon
Not a day too soon
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5. |
Borderline
03:50
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Friday night at the Firelight
Janey says it’s been a while.
Do you ever think about the time we drove out to the borderline
If I said I thought I about it, would you mind?
And I said, I don’t mind if you don’t mind
The air gets thin near the borderline
Changed my mind so many times
that I don’t know if it’s mine no more
I don’t mind if you don’t mind
The air gets thin near the borderline
I almost called a million times
I almost called a million times but now
Janey sighs, she says “it’s just not right,
Tommy’s sleeping in my bed tonight.
I’m the one he thinks he loves
And honey, you’re his only friend.”
“But do you ever think about the light that weekend on the borderline?”
“Janey I still think about it all the time.”
And I said, I don’t mind if you don’t mind
The air gets thin near the borderline
Changed my mind so many times
that I don’t know if it’s mine no more
I don’t mind if you don’t mind
The air gets thin near the borderline
When Janey put her hand in mine,
I took a breath and closed my eyes
If someone told you could have it all,
the only thing you ever wanted,
what would you say, would you throw it away?
If someone said I know a place where we could go
between the mountains and the oceans,
and we could be alone there?
If someone told you could have it all,
the only thing you ever wanted,
what would you say, would you throw it away?
would you throw it away, would you throw it
I don’t mind if you don’t mind
The air gets thin near the borderline
Changed my mind so many times
that I don’t care if it’s mine no more
I don’t mind if you don’t mind
The air gets thin near the borderline
When Janey put her hand in mine
I took a breath and I closed my eyes
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6. |
INFP
03:11
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7. |
Hey!
03:30
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After work, when Tommy calls
I’m waiting on the subway car.
Say Tommy, how you doing?
Is there anything you’re getting into?
Tommy says it’s been a day,
and he’s wondering if there’s any way
a body could just float away tonight.
And I say, Tommy, I can think of one or two,
and I’ll be at your place in 5.
So Tommy calls up Janey too
and Janey calls up Cindy Xu
and Cindy’s older brother
buys us liquor from the corner store.
Soon the snow is falling
and we’re all in Tom’s apartment
And the world is a distant place
that we don’t have to go today
Tommy’s singing “oh, hey hey, my my
Better to burn out, then to fade
my my dear friends”
Must have been past two or three
when Tom had his epiphany
“You know there’s nothing that we need
except the ones we love”
And Janey laughed and she said Tom,
you’re really on to something man
Well you should probably write a book,
but Tom just laughed it off and
started singing “oh, hey hey, my my,
oh I’ve got nothing to do today but smile”
Everybody fell asleep after dawn,
Tommy’s head on my knees, Janey’s head on my shoulder
I was thinking about the snow on the lawn,
I was thinking about the songs we used to sing
“Hey, you’ve to hide your love away
Hey, you’ve got to hide your…”
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8. |
Summer Thing
04:24
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At the end of the day, we were walking on the outer bank
Down at Pickerel Lake, where the water looks like glass
You told me a story about this boy you used to know
He wanted to be an astronaut, well we all know how that goes
The last time you saw him, he was waiting in line at the Interpol show
Waving from the bleachers, the beauty of his features faded away in the spotlight’s glow
It was only a summer thing,
cinnamon and kerosene
We don’t have to make a scene
It’s only the beach
You could meet me down at Tommy’s place
watching The Amazing Race
Honey, who’s your favorite team?
It don’t really have to mean a thing
At the bend in the path, I was thinking maybe we should turn back
When you pulled me down into the grass, well the sky overhead was the color of glass
And the hem of her dress and my Catholic urge to confess
Fell into the water, god I never thought we’d swim out quite as far as this
It was only a summer thing
cinnamon and kerosene
We don’t have to make a scene
It’s only the beach
You could meet me down at Tommy’s place
watching The Amazing Race
Honey, who’s your favorite team?
It don’t really have to mean a thing
And the silver covered everything,
we were sleeping ‘neath the skylight
I almost dared to dream that we were kin
we were twinned there in the night
And the sun coming up over that hill every morning
I never saw the warning
I should’ve seen the warning when she said
It was only a summer thing,
cinnamon and kerosene
strike the match and watch the dream
burn up into blue
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9. |
American Time
04:46
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Tommy and I moving slow through the American night
Weaving back and forth under endless streetlights
Summertime sticks to our American skin
When I think about it man, I don’t know where to begin
A cigarette lit in his left hand tracing
Float like a firefly down to the station
Cop a couple seats on the midnight train
Ride it to the edge of the American plains
Oh we used to think that we could live forever
Sipping on the gold in the American weather
But the gold it was stolen from the sacred earth
And no-one really knows what the hell it’s worth
Oh even if we ride all night
We’ll still be living on American time
Tommy and I we got a rock ‘n’ roll band
But I don’t think we’re ever gonna understand
The blood underneath all of these swimming pools
Or the pills Tommy takes for his whitewashed blues
But I can still remember back when we were young
The radio told us maybe we could run
Outrun our demons, outrun our myths
30 miles high on that American bliss
Oh we used to think that we could live forever
Sipping on the gold in the American weather
But the gold it was stolen from the sacred earth
And no-one really knows what the hell it’s worth
Oh even if we ride all night
We’ll still be living on American time
But there’s heroes in the cracks
And lovers in the basement
And everyone I love
is in the backroom getting wasted
Tommy’s in the back screaming hail bohemia
I swear it almost made me a true believer
Early in the summer of our great decline
Well the ship was sinking but the ship was mine
Janey met us down at the local place
And just for a second, we all felt safe
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10. |
Halloween
03:47
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I remember Halloween
Drinking on the roof at Tommy’s mother’s house
He was Kurt Cobain and I was figuring it out
It’s so strange to see it now
I remember seventeen
separate times at his apartment when he smoked me out
And got the fire started while the radio played loud
And there was nothing for us to worry about
I remember happiness, salty on our skin
Early in the morning, the sunlight coming in
And in that far-off season, for a million reasons
It was everywhere I looked
In the traffic, in the skyline,
in the covers of the books we didn’t read
But on the evening when the cops came around
I was at another party on the other side of town
I was dancing in a stranger’s arms,
I was not thinking of you at all
I’m sorry, all those years, I didn’t call—
I remember once you said
If we stick together we’re unstoppable
They’ll never, ever, ever make us bend to their will
And we’ll stay good, and we’ll stay kind,
and we’ll stay free, you and me
But on the evening when they took you away
I was in another city, I was waiting on a train
Now I don’t know exactly what to say,
But lately I’ve been listening to all those old songs
And I’ve been thinking you were right all along
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11. |
Splinter
05:03
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Driving back from the wake
I took the backroads out to the Cape
Don’t know why, it was late
guess I needed to think for a second or two
In the last of the light,
I was watching the birds and the fireflies fly
through the tangerine sky
I felt like a guy in a movie
that I wouldn’t like and you wouldn’t trust
too sentimental, a little too much
Tommy, slow walker tough talker you
showed me something that used to seem true
but that was a long, long time
I tried to bottle it up so it would stay mine
through the long, long winter
take the splinter out of my hand
call me your friend
At the fork in the road
by the dog racing track and the marigolds
it all hit me at once, somehow I almost forgot
the way we lived when we were younger
the alibis and the breathless hunger
We made a chapel of each other
just us three inside the thunder
but that was a long, long time,
I tried to bottle it up so it would stay mine
through the long, long winter,
take the splinter out of my hand
call me your friend
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12. |
Another Life
04:17
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All the zen dads of Cambridge
And the acid aunts of Somerville
And the boy I should’ve stayed with
He was living out in Winter Hill
Oh, at the end of the day, I saw them
From the west and the east they came
Riding the train down to TT the Bear’s
Where nobody cares what you do on your own time
Singing hail, hail bohemia
Hail, hail bohemia, what the
Sure enough, I see you in the morning, love
I see you in the dark above, simple sickle moon
Oh at last, even on the overpass
I see you in the broken glass every afternoon
Oh, don’t worry, the mystery’s alive
The dove is on the balcony still, and time is on our side
Oh, don’t hurry, I’ll see you on the other side
We’ll go walking in another life, we’ll go walking in another life
Oh, don’t worry, the mystery’s alive
The dove is on the balcony still, and time is on our side
Oh, don’t hurry, I’ll see you on the other side
We’ll go walking in another life
we’ll go walking in another life
we’ll go walking
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John Shakespear Brooklyn, New York
John Shakespear writes albums that tell a story from start to finish. The next one, 'Hail Bohemia,' comes out on May 17.
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