1. |
Ground 0:00
00:51
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And if I spend my life wandering in circles
Conjuring better things and dreaming of home
Speaking of dreams though, weren't you just beside me?
How did I get here
Blinking in sunlight,
Saguaro and sand?
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2. |
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Ludlow 6:18
One last look out the rear window
At the daylight kissing night
Red and blue and white
But I only left behind the things that seemed already gone
Double six my miles per hour
And the highway I drive on
Maybe just to heat and dust or to a brighter dawn
Switch headlights on, dashboard digits flashing green
Reveal I passed through Ludlow at 6:18
Passing my own ghost
I came unto the ocean
Not eleven years ago
Drunk on what I didn't know,
You know that I loved that first surfer girl
Who kissed me on the sand
I loved the glorious futility of playing in a band
But did you know those hillside letters used to spell "Hollywoodland?"
I guess the city drops what it don't need
Especially if at last you don't succeed
Ludlow 6:18
A light off in the distance
We find our home in the strangest places
Experiences, faces
Ebb and flow
Are those the only things to which I can belong?
I can capture them in moments
But I can't stay there too long
All that lies behind me now or ahead, or I could be wrong
Maybe in the end that's all my life will mean
The mise en scene of Ludlow 6:18
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3. |
Ginna Ling
04:39
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I met her on the 13th day of Spring
A beautiful woman named Ginna Ling
I came to sing and she stood there
Laughing and clapping
I lost it for her in a half-heartbeat
Talked and told her I hoped we'd meet again
And then I kissed her on the cheek
And she seemed happy
Now my heart will burst
If my brain won't first
Because I met someone
Nothing I can do
So I'm telling you
I have to tell someone
Mysteries inscribed on a perfect face
Diode letters that gracefully self-effaced
"Hi how are you, this is Ginna.
I bet you don't remember me."
I answered the letters on the same day
Asked her if she'd make it to L.A.
And I might be back out her way again in
August or September
Now my heart will burst
If my brain won't first
Because I met someone
Nothing I can do
So I'm telling you
I have to tell someone
Thoughts of future tenses and picket fences
Naive and senseless filled the back of my mind
Dumb enough to believe there was nothing but time
Meanwhile, Ginna's real world was far more bleak
And these were the things of which she would not speak
And three weeks before I came back to town
This is exactly what went down:
The things Ginna cared about, was scared about
Closed in on her from within and without
And for reasons I don't fully understand
Ginna Ling died by her own hand
This is a song for someone I barely knew
Someone I guess it's strange for me to miss or mourn
Like the sister who died before I was born
Her name was Gina too.
But sometimes I have this crazy cream
I break down the door, yank out the keys
Drag her out of the car and scream
"Ginna, someone loves you!"
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4. |
Karma Frog
04:09
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Early morning rain
The street stinks of oil
I'm one with my city:
Dawn finds us both despoiled
Block out where I've been
Drive away in my waiting friend
One stubborn question though:
Why did I do that again?
I couldn't think of a good reason
Not even before the fact
No spontaneous combustion
Just a slouch around the sack
And now I mull the implications
Of the things I can't take back
This is what you had
This is what you did
This is what you'll get
She used to love me once
She used to love me still
Forever disappointed in the whole I can't full-fill
She sees in me everything that I could be
And that's a bigger betrayal than the infidelity
And then it all becomes too real
This grand ideal that I have failed
Watching every grand resolution
Go swirling 'round the pail
And now I draw a little closer to the final gnash and wail
This is what you had
This is what you did
This is what you'll get
"Got away with it" --
Smug little words
The underlying concept now strikes me as absurd
From every hidden seed
Ugly flowers grow
Dig deep to uproot them for you will reap just what you mow
And maybe on the day you die you'll find a million blades of grass
And every careless thought or deed will kick you in the ass
While I choir of your ex-lovers sweetly sings to you en masse:
"This is what you had
This is what you did
This is what you'll get."
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5. |
December
04:14
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I might just explode with cold
It's raining again today
The inside and outside of my head
Turning grey
Four pathetic weeks
The death of an era
Suicidal and bleak
Hope I didn't depress you
Ten shopping days 'til Christmas
And what a horrible way to die
Lying face up in a snowbank
Letting epithets fly
Brown sky
Why I?
This is what they call a crush
When the inside of your rubbers
Fill with slush
And the crushee blubbers
Now I curse the rain
It's heaven spitting on me
Emblematic of pain
Watching idiots suffer
Ten shopping days 'til Christmas
And what a horrible day to live
While the stupid happy world doth play
What I wouldn't give
For a sleigh
On the way
to January
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6. |
How Can You Stand It
05:00
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Ever since I opened the taps and let what I felt fly free
I don't know what's become of me
Buried in feelings
I love all these people I can see through
And I wish they could see through me
Though there's no guarantee
They'd find it appealing
Last night I woke up
walked around in the dark
weighed down by a sadness
I could barely believe
This is the first time
I've ever looked back
To see the beautiful things
I can never retrieve
Does everyone feel this lonely?
Does everyone get this bored?
And if so, and if so
How can you stand it?
Ever since I pulled off the blinders
And gave my heart full reign
Okay, so this is pain
This is something you deal with
And it presses on me
This feeling of ennui
And the persistent face of dread
I think I'm drowning in my own head
And that organ I feel with
It's said that one day
We'll all die alone
But in the meantime
We'll do fine
We'll take care of our own
But I've just realized we're each grains of sand
That comprises a desert
of misunderstanding
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7. |
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I was in a rock band
We got a record deal
I said "somebody pinch me,
'cos this can't be real."
And on the day of release
I drove to the record store
I bought one for my mother
Then I bought ten more
And now it's three years older
And I'm extremely poor
But now our label say it's the big one,
the one we've waited for
and now we gotta tour
And on the day of departure
We performed in a record store
And asked "where's our money?"
They said "We're not sure."
And when we asked them why
They said you gotta call this other guy
And that's the first time we were told
That the label had just been sold
Now they're burning me out of the record store
We won't return your phone calls
We won't support your tours
From San Diego to Boston
We slept on floors
And I'm not sure I wanna do this anymore
Now all we wanted to know
Is do we go or stay?
They say, "we're not able to speak for the label.
Call back in three days."
And then we met an attorney
Her name was Nancy J.
She said it's time to split, and so she filed a writ
And she made them pay
And so they gave us back our rights
But here's the part that really bites
They said before we do,
We're gonna have to clear the racks of you
And now they're burning me out of the record store
Because nobody loves you, not any more
This is supposed to be music, but it feels like war
And I'm not sure I wanna do this anymore
(guitar solo)
Lying in the lamplight's green iridescent glow
Tried to remember the last time I ever felt this low
I was a sad teenager with a Fender bass
And that's what made me happy, that's my place
Now we've got a new album
We think it's pretty good
Maybe this time it'll go better
Knock on wood
I may never be famous, but what does it matter
If it just makes you lame-ass, meaner and fatter
And kills the only thing you care about
So if you like this song, I'm flattered but
Please remember what you love
The rest you can do without
Heed the lesson that I've learned
Or you just might get burned out
But now they're putting me back in the record store
We're gonna do promotion, I think we're gonna tour
As for the future, well, that remains obscure
But here's the record of my story
And maybe I'll see you 'round in the record store
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8. |
The Foghorn
05:23
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I hear they saved the foghorn down by the bay
It fits the mood of these salty towns
It fits my mood this day
I kicked a pebble across the pavement
I heard it clatter in the mist
And I felt the blood rush to my cheek
As I clenched and unclenched my fists
Why, why I keep asking why
If we're just born to die
Then why did we even bother
Why cry, when in a hundred years
All of this disappears
Like the memories of our fathers
I hear he walked this same road
When it was wet with morning dew
I never walked here with him
Now I'm standing in his shoes
I wonder is he disappointed in me
Is he looking out my eyes
Because I never really grew up
I got older but I never got wise
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9. |
Tears Of Joy
04:35
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There's a singing girl
Who hails from Australia
And she'd be well known to you
If fame were failure
Now we've barely met
But I owe her a debt
Because the blood she let
Made me whole
Blissed out on clouds in a baby blue sky
Wished out and wistful lullaby
This song of rain, was never sung in vain
Because you tickled my ears and trickled out tears of joy
Behold another broke, unemployed musician
To you a joke, his subtle mission
Pennies in the street
Words of defeat
Poignant, bittersweet
Filled my soul
Blissed out and mist on a baby blue eye
Wished out and wistful, walk on by
This song of rain, was never sung in vain
Because you tickled my ears and trickled out tears of joy
A far lonesome voice
Breaking through the noise
Left me elated, dazed and awed
Now I'm a closed up guy
Difficult to cry
But in these moments I feel the presence of God
This is the sound I remember you by
This is the song to bring you back
The kiss of rain on a dusty plain
That tickled my ears
And trickled as tears of joy
Tickled my ears
And trickled down tears of joy
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10. |
Theme From Ludlow 6:18
02:53
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INSTRUMENTAL
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11. |
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Let me tell you brother
Something you don't know
This was the mother of the Mother Road
And to Baltimore and back
People drove over this dirt track
And in 1926
It became the first Route 66
Roosevelt's blacktops
Eisenhower's interstates
But off in the dust
A forgotten trail awaits
Across an Arizona canyon
There yet stands a bridge
60 years abandoned
And hidden by a ridge
One lane wide, a hundred feet high
And if you cross it you could die
But when we raced across that berm
The big old arch held firm
Now all my life I've searched for mysteries
But now I know there's more than forest
Behind those trees
This is all that remains of National Old Trails
And foundations will crumble, and memories will fail
And just like us, the road will return to dust
Leaving only mysterious traces
Others will trace them if they must
In this I'll trust
Thank you friend, it's been good talking to you
Now I must take your leave, there's other old trails to pursue.
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Cockeyed Ghost Los Angeles, California
Formed in L.A. in 1994, Cockeyed Ghost was a prime mover in the mid '90s L.A. Pop Underground movement. Starting out with two high energy punk-pop albums, after a change in membership the band broadened its sound for two more critically-acclaimed albums. The group morphed (with singer Evie Sands) into Adam Marsland's Chaos Band (2003-18); guitarist Severo Jornacion joined the Smithereens in 2005. ... more
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