1. |
Lost In Translation
05:08
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We're livin' in a cave
Watching shadows in projection
Like laboratory rats
And Penfield's hacked all our connections
Nothing is for certain
It's all interpreted sensation
Any effort at ontology
Lost in translation
Well we don't know what comprises
Most of the universe’s matter
But we might not see the answer
If it was served up on a platter
Things get weird down in the regime of
Loop quantum gravitation
Our notions of what is, are
Lost in translation
Fish aren't aware of water
Nor humans of perception
Any time we say we know
Is an act of self-deception
There's no way outside of
Our egocentric situation
Even phenomenology is
Lost in translation
Chorus
Well we’ve been down this road before
And we’ve studied all the rules
We see the charlatans and quacks
Treating us like fools
Enlightenment don’t come easy
If it comes at all
But the royal road to knowledge
Won’t be stopped by any wall
The Fox is in the henhouse
The tools are on the Hill
There's Russians in our Facebook
Waving hundred-dollar bills
And the mango Mussolini
Twitters out his fabrications
The promise of America
Lost in Translation
Well I went to ask the Bishop
For a couple words of wisdom
But they'd put him in the big house
For abusing little children
All former moral centers
Vanished to evaporation
Our core institutions
Lost in translation
The acolytes of Heston
Demand their guns be buttered
So the schools are all installing
Heavy metal roll down shutters
Any moderate position
Branded an abomination
Any middle ground at all
Lost in translation
Veterans living on the streets
And children locked in cages
Walkin' wounded in the cubicles
Of Kübler-Ross's stages
And we have no response
That is not mute capitulation
The children of the sixties
Lost in Translation
Chorus
Anti-vaxxers on the left
Climate deniers on the right
And a botnet in the middle
Looking for a fight
You got college prices going up
Wages trending down
We all are Number 6 now
And the circus is in town
There are no easy answers
But the question's still worth asking
Though it's hard to pay attention
And we suck at multi tasking
We are easily distracted
By random information...
Hey, look, a squirrel!
Lost in Translation
It’s a Prisoner’s Dilemma
It’s a comic book adventure
And we shamble down the sidewalk
Picking brains out of our dentures
We’ve been sold light anesthetic
When what we need is deep sedation
We’re zombies on the half-shell
Lost in Translation
We amused ourselves to death
Squeezin' reason through a funnel
We precessed our simulacra
In a Disney-themed dark tunnel
We are nomads on the rhizome
Apres nou, le conflagration
All of Western culture
Lost in translation
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2. |
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Onscreen, offscreen
On the printed page
Everybody’s talkin'
Bout the problem of the age
It’s the death of wisdom
The debuff of expertise
The triumph of deception
That has us on our knees
Chorus
Buy the ticket, take the ride
Nothing really matters but the ending of the show
Buy the ticket, take the ride
And you’d better look out below
Heads up, heads off
It’s all a grim display
No one's even watching
It doesn’t matter anyway
It’s a slow train comin'
The return of the repressed
The final disposition
Of the gently dispossessed
Chorus
Nail gun, rail gun
Needle in your eye
Everybody’s runnin'
From what’s fallin' from the sky
It’s the Sixth Extinction
The Anthropocene
Forcing us to look at
All the things we wish we hadn't seen
Chorus
Fulbright, half-bright
Be as clever as you like
Everybody ends up
With their head on a spike
It’s the Dolce Vita
The Angst und Schrecken Tag
Dancing through Gehenna
In a bloody epilogue
Chorus
(spoken)
Gardyloo!
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3. |
The Bottom Line
03:25
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There's a feeling in the air
That can't be explained
This guy come to town
And the people all just got strange
It's the bottom line
The world you find
When you open the door
It's like the law of the jungle
Or diminishing return
We're standing in Lafayette Park
Watching the Emperor
Cower while America burns
To this new Mason-Dixon Line
Don't you turn that blind eye no more
Its a corporate culture and
We're cultural creatures
I'm just trying to turn all these
Bugs into features
Livin' out on the bottom line
Reading dollar signs
And the Art of War
Ah, the Medium is the Message
Ya gotta understand it
If Moses had an iPhone there'd be
Ten thousand commandments
Workin' on the bottom line
Under the function you find
To make more
Well we heard it all before
But it's for real this time
We're waiting at the station for the 11:59
I can see the signals change
See it comin' down the track
That slow train comin'
To get the rich off our backs
Down on the Bottom Line
Don't you look behind you
No more
Matter makes time
Time makes space
And that's the end of the story
Right on down to the end of the
Human race
It's just Being and Time
That's the bottom line
Matter makes time
Time makes space
And that's the end of the story
Right on down to the end of the
Human race
Nur die Sein und Zeit
Unter dem Stich der Sterblichkeit
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4. |
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We stuffed the evil Rat Man's parts
In the back of his limousine
As we watched the black-light CSI gang
Descending on the scene
He was just in rigor mortis
Not yet cool to touch
We were sure nobody we cared about
Was going to miss him much
He had shit on everyone we knew
From a cruel and distant height
And we yelled as we dumped his head in the Charles
Good luck, and good night
He was sure nobody's hero
He was vicious and he was mean
And we drank champagne as we hurled his brain
From the Rat Man's limousine
Me and Little Hans and the Wolf Man
And Dora, out on bail
Hit the Denny's in Fall River
Once we were sure we'd lost our tail
We laughed like twenty-somethings
As we ate our scrambled eggs
At how his screams had filled the icehouse
When we removed his legs
We riffed on lines from Manos
And Catcher in the Rye
And savored the advice on dismemberment
We got from that Saudi bone-saw guy
He was nasty, short, and brutish
With a mouth like a latrine
And we toasted his pain, like tears in rain
In the Rat Man's limousine
The sun was peeking up over the waves
When we made it to the Cape
Random chatter in the Twittersphere
Told us we'd made good our escape
I sat in the dunes with Dora
And we cuddled and made plans
While the Wolf Man skinny dipped in the surf
Washing the blood off Little Hans
For the first time in this century
It seemed things might turn out okay
And we held hands on the warming sand
With the courage to face the day
He poisoned everything he touched
Too good for the guillotine
And we watched the flames burn his last remains
In the Rat Man's limousine
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5. |
Down To The River
05:13
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I was born down
In a Gadsden County town
So small it barely had a name
My daddy worked nonstop
At my uncle's body shop
Jacking out twisted frames
My momma waited tables
For as long as she was able
Prayin' to get off her feet
My snakebit generation
Crawled through public education
And never saw the county seat
Chorus
I'm goin' down to the river
Down to the river
Down to the river to dream
Now I’m livin' every day
In this world that money made
Lost in a forest of deals
Driftin' in disguise through
This crappy 9 to 5
Where nothing that matters is real
Swinging at the clock
Goin into shock
Wasted on a Saturday night
Every promise that I hear
Is just something else to fear
But I gotta try to keep up the fight
Chorus
Bridge
And I look up at the highway
As the traffic buzzes by
Over the Apalachicola
Against the evening sky
And I wonder if I'd be a happier man
Sipping whiskey in a big beach house down in Port Saint Joe
Or if the people like me who gotta work all day
Have something those rich folks never know...
The people that I meet
In this journey through white heat
Giving up an inch at a time
Losing all we’ve got
As we throw away our shot
Busted at the scene of the crime
We're scrambling for a chance
To make it to the dance
When we know that we won’t get in the door
It’s a tournament of pain
For the desperate that remain
And I'm feeling like I've been here before
So I'm goin'
Chorus
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6. |
Into Thin Air
04:41
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There's people in the streets
And they're all wearing sheets
Each with a pitchfork and torch
All marching together
Out to tar and feather
When they're not pissin' off the end of the porch
It's a fable we despise
A catafalque of lies
Drawn by a TV billionaire
Into thin air
We're in critical condition
It's an impossible mission
But we put up a good front
We do all our own stunts
We been hiding underground for months
Trying to be two places at once
When we're not anywhere; we're gone
Into thin air
We been ambushed by a nation
Where death is a vacation
Hanging by the skin of our teeth
Hopin' for a rain check
Livin' pay to paycheck
In the gray economy underneath
Trying to get to Friday
Sleeping in the doorways
Of a long-ago Times Square vanished
Into thin air
We're in critical condition
It's an impossible mission
But we put up a good front
We do all our own stunts
We're the targets in this witchhunt
Trying to be two places at once
When we're not anywhere; we're gone
Into thin air
There is no contradiction
Between the altar of conviction
And the suck of the memory hole
We're tending our incisions
As we're tortured by these visions
In the dark night of the soul
Watching Cain and Able
At the kitchen table,
Playing double solitaire, off
Into thin air
We're in critical condition
It's an impossible mission
But we put up a good front
We do all our own stunts
Locked in countertransference
Trying to be two places at once
When we're not anywhere; we're gone
Into thin air
Now's the time for cunning
Gotta hit the ground running
With every gadget in our bag of tricks
A better world is waiting
In the future we're creating
But we better make it quick
If we wanna dodge disaster
This has to happen faster
Before it's all fucked beyond repair, lost
Into thin air
We're in critical condition
It's an impossible mission
But we put up a good front
We do all our own stunts
We been hiding underground for months
Locked in countertransference
Targets of this witchhunt
Fuck it. Let's just roll up a blunt
Trying to be two places at once
When we're not anywhere; we're gone
Into thin air
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7. |
Gioconda Smile
04:06
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Living out on Chaos Street
Under layers of plastic sheets
Watching a wasted world
That's lost its nerve
In a huddled heap we're waiting
As underneath the grating
Subway wheels
Go shrieking round the curve
At the wrong end of the rainbow
In fear and panic's shadow
Shaking a coffee can of change
While a flood of corporate paper
Whispers through this old theater
Passed by robot hands kept
Safely out of range
Chorus
It's a midnight dose of bile
With a Mona Lisa|Gioconda smile
It's a Russian nesting doll of coverups
It's a jagged little treat
With the taste of self deceit
Where the concrete meets the luckless Page of Cups
We're canaries in a coal mine
Every pocket that we find's
Been picked clean by an
Invisible Hand
Nothing gained for all we've ventured
We spend our time indentured
To the elites of this
Hallucinated land
While we're hissing on the griddle
The dolt dictator fiddles
And the clock runs out for those
Down on their luck
It's all magic smoke and mirrors
Spin the facts, deny the errors
Stack the losers in
Refrigerated trucks
Chorus
It's the ending of our revel
No sympathy for this devil
Early on we learned to not expect
Too much
There's no method to this madness
But there's a science in the sadness
Dispensed like iron death
By Midas' touch
We were given the assurance
It's a matter of endurance
That effort gets you to
The Other Side
But it's the twilight of the idols
A daily grim recital
As the market yields
Slow motion genocide
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8. |
Virus (A Heresy)
03:52
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I bring the gospel
Of the inanimate world
The world before you came
I seek communion
A Gnostic union
But you see only blame
I am time's ghost
A dread Pentecost
You angrily dismiss
But I am the voice
Of the void below
And all that does not exist
Chorus
Stabat parens dolorosa
The pierced parent, lying
Juxta helix lacrimosa
By the helix, crying
Retexo sacramentum
As the mystery is unwound
Praepararent cellas
All the cells make preparations
Satis omnibus instructis
To obey this invocation
Dum emisit spiritum
As my spirit is unbound
I am the Angel
And the burning bush
That lays golden idols to waste
I am the Stone
That guides your hajj
All normal life erased
I am the Truth
A Tetragrammaton
That controls all life on Earth
Each strand encodes
New flesh that flows
Toward our virgin birth
Chorus
I am a brick
Hurled through your wall
To let our lives take root
We stand as one
You fall apart
From Eden's poisoned fruit
You speak in tongues
To spread our Word
The prophecy remains:
We are the Alpha
And Omega
Without end. Amen.
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9. |
Trail Of Mars
04:17
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Well we knew there was no hope
But must pretend there is a chance
In a maelstrom spun of lies
And whirling hostile circumstance
Lost, double-crossed in a forest of fear
We live out on the frontier
Of a land no longer ours
On the trail of Mars
In the ceaseless gaze of robot eyes
Joined by the lost who dare to dare
Stripped of all we ever loved
With no relief from mute despair
Broken, on this darkening liminal plain
With his master's voice in our brain
Hiding in our avatars
On the trail of Mars
At a task no human mind could see
Trapped in a spot whose sere terrain
Had left us hopeless by degrees
With no way home again
We wheeled, kneeled and inverted
the flag
Tore down the mutinous rag
As we contemplate our scars
On the trail of Mars
The hand that rocks may rule the world (for now)
But the hand that holds the hand rules the heart
Though they say without Control
These things would quickly fall apart
But here at the edge of the sea and the sky
With the world at the back of our eyes
We watch for falling stars
On the trail of Mars
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10. |
Walking Off The Earth
04:42
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Standing on the beach
Waiting for the black rain to come down
Lost your badge and your gun
Helpless as they run you to ground
Now you got your hand in your pocket
Watching the rocket's
Red glare
Ain't got a clue what it's about
But you don't think you
Really care
Chorus
You ain't guessing you know
Who's behind it or what it's all worth
You're just busy right now
Getting ready for
Walkin' off the earth
You followed the footprints of
Noah's Raven
Scribbled in the sand
Caught the whiff of hypocrisy
In the theocracy slathered on the land
You ain't goin' nowhere
Got nothing you care about
At all
You're just watchin' vapor trails
And waitin' for the hammer
To fall
Chorus
Now it's the end of the movie
And you ain't the hero, that's for sure
So you're here with all the other losers
On the cutting room floor
You ain't got nothing that you're owed
You been livin' on the road
Of dead dreams
And you long ago gave up
That childish hope of a
Post-credit scene
Chorus
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John McDaid Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Award-winning science fiction writer, freelance journalist, folk/filk singer-songwriter.
John McDaid recommends:
Sky Full of Phoenix
by Rhiannon's Lark
Clever, geeky writing and beautiful performance
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Powerful, lyrical songwriting with gorgeous production
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Debut album by a wondrous Rhode Island singer-songwriter
go to albumIf you like John McDaid, you may also like:
Our Kind of Strange
by The Faithful Sidekicks
supported by 19 fans who also own “Trail Of Mars”
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Reset To Factory Specs
by Leslie Hudson
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We are only Sound
by Lucy Farrell
The long-time composer's debut folk album has exuberant and meditative moments.
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