guns they wait to be stuck by
(c. bell/a. chilton)

seems so hard in times like now to hold on, but they'll get theirs and we'll get ours if we can just hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on; years ago my heart was set to live, but i've been trying hard against strong odds; seems so hard in times like now to just hold on.


everybody
(b. berry/p. buck/m. mills/m. stipe)

when the day is long and the night is yours alone, and when you sure you've had too much of this life to hang on; when your day is night alone and you feel like letting go, and when you think you've had too much of this life to hang on; don't let yourself go 'cos everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes; if you're on your own (hold on), if the days and nights are long (hold on), and when you think you've had too much of this life to hang on; don't let yourself go (hold on), 'cos everybody cries (hold on), and everybody hurts sometimes.


my brother and i

my brother and i never worked a day 'til we went to college, we drove in cars that our parents bought us and didn't give a damn; my brother and i, smoking cigarettes while home from college a day before our mother caught us, she didn't give a damn to my surprise; she said, "you are respectively twenty-one and nineteen; i just hope quitting is as easy for you as it was for me."


how to fight homeliness

he picks up the sound and the fury and he sighs, "who am i kidding?" and grabs the remote, "i bet gilmore girls is on"; he says, "i have a lot of borderline health disorders that limit me politically when it comes to eating"; but half of us have to be below average; fuck this shit.


song for balbir singh sodhi

the dogs won't hunt my dear, they've got nothing to fear but fear, and the deer are nowhere to be seen this year; i heard his pickup truck, i turned my head and said, "what the fuck," he drove into a mosque to bag a buck; so grab your rifle, grab your hat, but know that i won't have your back this time; i didn't vote for this prime minister; vicious mob reprisal's gone too far and though the deer do start to fall you won't hear anything at all except skyscrapers that were tall and hunters blowing on their calls.


i am a poseur and i care

i played guitar in a punk rock band, i called myself "owen no," the drummer, he changed his last name to "zero"; the singer's real last name was "downer," i watched the short-haired girls surround her; just like me they longed to be, believe me they did; we said that we were nihilists, we didn't talk but how the kids would listen to every word we didn't say, like "i love you to this day"; a heroine fit for belle and sebastian, oh if she heard the words i thought, she would kick me in the crotch; it's not poetic, i admit; what do you want from punk rock kids?


talking seattle activist blues

in may of nineteen sixty-eight my mother used her maiden name, she was only thirteen at the time; my mother lost her maiden name, she weighed the loss with what she'd gain: she gave birth to a son in nineteen eighty-one; i missed out in nineteen ninety-nine, my classmates went to march in line in seattle no more w.t.o.; i felt bad about it at the time, eighteen in nineteen ninety-nine, i wasn't sure of just what we were fighting for; activism has a cost, for words we gained was thought we lost, in seattle no more w.t.o.; my mother said to question why before you speak or trust your eyes, especially before you lose your name; but i was told, "if it's all the same, could you join the movement that we named 'no w.t.o.'", but i just couldn't go; i thought back to my mother and the indignity of speaking for others; and political economy won't reform itself no, hear you me that you can't write an essay on a brick and i think that it's more complicated than shattering the window of a store.


la danse, c'est moi

how can we know the dancer from the dance and what is past, passing, or to pass? and when i woke up from that dream my irish lass had fled the scene; i asked out loud, "do i wake or sleep?" i read about what happens when i read; and have you seen the irish lass my unremembering nights hold fast? we danced for everyone to see; meanwhile i read allegories of reading, i believed in deconstruction, meaning come undone; how can we know the dancer from the dance? i knew that i had seen, had seen at last, and all the children on the scene in schoolboys' pants ask what i mean; oh, little did they care who danced between, and little she by whom her dance was seen; my hour come round at last, why did she flee, my irish lass?


answering the question

i think i've finally found the answer to the one hundred and twenty-thousand dollar question; neo-conservatism vs. post-structuralism, isn't anyone as sick of these "isms" as me? it's a need for a synchronic totality and we're not happy 'til we have an ideology; when we were undergraduates we'd clutch course readers and suggest we'd answer the question in round-table sessions; when we'd read lyotard and then argue twice as hard, because sometimes words can have more than one meaning; what we didn't know is that these days some words don't really mean anything; we are the sons of no one, they've got no words to name us and we're still wasting our time defining terms and i'm surprised we haven't learned; so i'll teach you a lesson: don't question the answers examine the question.


this is not a test
(k. davidson)

people get different the more they change and if i stay here i'll stay the same; what i need is to get myself away; everything needs to come back again, yeah, you're my best friend, do you remember when we climbed to the top of the highest rock that day? it doesn't seem easy to get along and it feels so wrong when it should be right; let's turn around and face the other way; so tell me if you want me to, i've got the knack to give everyone here a heart attack; this is not what i thought i'd get back from where i once belonged; so tell me if you want me to, i've got the style to turn a frown into a big fat smile.


hopey glasses

we both went to catholic girls schools, i played field hockey, you turned boys' heads at the pool, but i was out in the outfield i never knew; a pretty young thing smiled at me from across the schoolyard, i would have smiled back but i minded the school marm, she knew well what teenage girls do; i saw you smoking cigarettes out by the parking lot from my desk by the window inside of the school across the alley from your school; star crossed, we went to rival girls schools; i made sure one night to set my alarm clock, at dawn i walked half a mile to your bus stop so i could ask for a cigarette; we took a bus out of town and i missed all my classes, you said you didn't know who hopey glass is, then i kissed you on the top of your head; it's been ten years but i still can hardly believe it, you said you knew a boy we both could sleep with, i got suspended for missing my classes, i couldn't see through my rose-coloured glasses; you went to school on alexandra street, you wrapped your arms around clichés riding motorcycles i heard after school on west king edward; everyday i'd hear the wheels go round, wondering what nice girls were thinking when they heard the same sound from the other side of the playground; i keep kissing girls like hopey glass, high on school glue but low on romance; i wear my hair short but i can admit that i want all that stupid old shit.


the pen is mightier than the words

it's saturday night, don't push me around, i could be downtown, but i don't mind if it's out of sight; listening to petula clark could only do me harm; i am here with you tonight; if you don't listen to my music, then you won't hear any lies; if anything could ever be this real again (my friend); i forgot what i was going to say now, lyrics to songs take the place of my words, how did we ever talk, it's only rock and roll, but i like it a lot; if you don't listen to my music, then you won't hear any lies; everytime i try to tell you the words just come out wrong (galang galang); if you don't listen to my music, then you won't hear any lies; i wound up being so wrong to my surprise (silence).


everything you t.o.u.c.h. (medley)
(f. palmer/p. sharits/m. aroyo/d. hunt/h. marnie/r. wu)

my baby takes the morning train, he works from nine to five and then he takes another home again to find me waiting for him, my baby, he finds me waiting for him, he finds me, my baby; destroy destroy destroy destroy everything you touch.


two-headed boy, pt. 2
(j. mangum)

daddy please hear the song that i sing, in my heart there's a spark that just screams for a lover to bring a tongue to its teeth in a struggle to find secret songs that you keep, wrapped in boxes so tight, sounding only at night as you sleep; brother see we are one in the same and you left with your head filled with flames and you watched as your brains fell out through your teeth, push the pieces in place, make your smile sweet to see, don't you take this away, i'm still wanting my face on your cheek; in my dreams you're alive and you're crying as your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet; rings of flowers round your eyes and i'll love you for the rest of your life (when you're ready).


river
(t. leo)

everything in a world where clocks run forward and the river runs to the sea, pointing to what we've been giving by the fact that we've been living between y.v.r.i.a. and the city; everything they said is coming true, i wish you were here to see; our concern is unaffected, we're concerned that you're connected just to satellite technology; and out there, where you're fooling around and you're free; there's no work to be found and your hair falling into your mouth and your eyes are open wide; everything in a world where clocks run slowly and the river don't know the sea, pointing to what keeps you nodding and away from not a lot and not a lot is really nothing to see; everything they said is coming true, we're kicking it off on the one, but, my god, it makes me shiver, you're still living by the river when baby we were born to run; and out there where you're tooling around and you're free; there are no works to be found and your hair falling into your mouth and your arms are open wide; and the light has gone dull in your eyes, you're seventeen and your friends are your life, come with me, just don't want you to die where the river gets you high; and out there, where you're tooling around if you're free; there are no works to be found and your hair falling into your mouth and your arms are open wide; and the light has gone out of your eyes, you're twenty-three and your friends are your ride, but come with me, just don't want you to die where the river gets you high.


the new generation of deleuzo-guattarians

the new, the new and the radical, the new and post-dialectical, can we call it anti-oedipal or can we even give it a name? we used to speak in binary terms but now that deleuze and guattari have killed marx and killed freud, we'll kill michel foucault; the new generation of deleuzo-guattarians, i don't know what they mean; metaphors of anatomy, no i don't know what they mean, nor i suspect do they; "one or several wolves?" was one of a thousand plateaus, oh what's my name, ticka ticka slim shady what's my name? the new generation of deleuzo-guattarians, i don't know what they mean; metaphors of anatomy, no i don't know what they mean, nor i suspect do they; or the anatomy of a metaphor: après moi, le deluge; or the anatomy of a metaphor: après foucault, deleuze; the new generation of deleuzo-guattarians, i don't know what they mean; metaphors of anatomy, no i don't know what they mean, nor i suspect do they, no i don't think they do and i could really give a fuck.


why i am not a literary critic

in my younger and more arrogant years i hated you; in my younger and more ignorant years i found you too obscure; abstraction was a game i hadn't yet learned how to play; but i'm older now, i'm twenty-one, so, j.a., i'm sorry for calling you a shithead, you're no t. s. eliot for sure, i just didn't know what you were saying; a self-portrait in a convex mirror, i saw myself in you, but when you erased the blackboard in the attic you erased more than i knew; i read marjorie perloff but i didn't understand and though parmigianino's dead he holds to me his hand; i'm sorry for calling you an asshole, you're no charlatan and i believe everything that harold bloom had said, though i don't fully comprehend; j.a. when you tell me everything; could i be so well-read that i could understand every word that you said; at the dia center, sitting on the floor, that you could tell me everything; oh, that you could tell me anything.


why do i call it emma's house?

get over your fratboy antics, it's embarrassing; you're a washed up jock, get a job boy, you're twenty-six years old; "stop wearing your sweatpants around house," i said in a deadpan, i was foaming at the mouth; do you remember when we drove into the city to see superchunk? you're a corporate lawyer now, girl, reminiscing about the days you called yourself a punk; your thirtieth birthday came without joy, you didn't go out, you were at home listening to "my noise"; you spent two years of college trying to understand mille plateaux; for the last four years you've been an adjunct professor, emma hasn't had a home in forty-eight months; you don't live in a college house no more, you get your affection from some cat that sleeps on your porch; when you were young, you used to smile when they'd sing "one of us"; life after forty shouldn't be so rough.


nous ne sommes plus

... mais nous ne sommes plus les jeunes.


ballad
(c. bell/a. chilton)

years ago my heart was set to live; i've been trying hard against unbelievable odds; it gets so hard in times like now to hold on; guns they wait to be stuck by and at my side is... and there ain't no one going to turn me round; people round will tell you that they know; places where they'll send you, and it's easy to go; they'll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row, but you know you don't have to, you could just say no; and there ain't no one going to turn me round; built up and trusted, broke down and busted; but they'll get theirs and we'll get ours if we can just hold on; years ago my heart was set to live; but i've been trying hard against strong odds; seems so hard in times like now to hold on; i'll fall if i don't fight and at my side is... and ain't no one going to turn me round.

in memoriam d.c.h.