Get all 10 C Alexander releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Sometimes Quickly, Sometimes Slowly, Untitled, Unfinished, Unwritten, Unconceived, Girlfriend is Better - Forty Years of Life in America, Side B, Forty Years of Life in America Side A, 3 Old Songs, The Meaning of Feeling Good, The Final Recordings, An Overhaul, and 2 more.
1. |
Slang for Alone
04:07
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YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING I WANT I think you know it. Something that's heavy and charged on the tip of your tongue. Another smaller hole to throw down the canyon: you go in blind and come up behind it again. Another step to the right, and then you're off again. Arrivals and departures behind your eyes. The grass is growing green on the lawns of your lovers. You never give them the chance to grow dry underfoot. You keep your hands to yourself and you say that you're ALL OUT OF LOVE. You keep your arms to your sides and you tell me it's the wrong kind of love. You press your lips into the speakers and tell me there's a secret: IF YOU WANT LESS OF IT YOU GET MORE OF IT. But waiting's just slang for "alone." So rip me up into shreds and build me up again. Tear my clothes off, let them fade in the sun. A broken egg that rots and runs in the gutter. A yellow mess that's better left underground. She closes the door: "don't come any closer. There's someone listening behind the shades. There's blood all over your back like an army of razorblades had tried to find another way in, had set up a camp underneath your skin. So thread this film in the reel and play it to the end. I'll be waiting alone in the lobby again. Waiting's just hiding. Who are you fooling?
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2. |
Hidden in Plainfield
02:52
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I had this picture in my head, I think that's why I'm nervous now. I didn't see the crib, the mobile, or the teddy in your bed. Just a crimson river running down the hall. Thirty seconds then a leap into auntie's arms again, and then you'll sing: CHRISTOPHER YOU'RE A PERFECT LITTLE ANGEL, OH AREN'TCHA BABE? I'll cut you up and eat you, cut you into pieces, cut you up and eat you. One day you'll be too big to carry. (I guess I got big too early, growing heavy from the candies and the cookies and the sweets the women gave me til I'm screaming like you're you.) (But when you're screaming like you're you, you'll get lifted into someone's arms.) Mommy gave me this piano that is smaller than my head and when I play it I feel fine, and safe, and warmer than a bath. But half the notes don't play at all; I've been punching it too hard. OH MARGARET, YOU'D NEVER SEE IT COMING. You were lying face down, looking like you caught the disease of our family. I knew it when I saw you: Mommy's chin; Daddy's eyes; Grandma's nose; who even knows our dad's father and what it is he gave us (a heavy gut? Light feet? Switches that are set to explode in our circuits?)? And where the hell is Jesus? And who would leave us out here, fighting over nothing and all.
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3. |
Sarah Could Have Died
06:38
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It was a typical November, drunk and depressed. I was overtired and underdressed. SHE ASKED ME IF I EVER FELT COLD. She had vintage outfits and crushing debt, a high regard for her intellect. She asked me why everything gold loses its luster with a little rain. How statues once mighty turn a shallow green. She asked me if I ever felt old. I took her hostage when I took her hand. She had legitimate prescriptions on her doctor's plan. She warned me that they weren't that strong, but if you take two or three then they'll be good enough, and if you take six or seven they'll be good enough, and if you take ten or twenty then they're never enough. The wind blew in from the arctic shelf. I was inside with somebody else. I KNEW IT BUT I DIDN'T FEEL WRONG. Sarah could've DIED in Connecticut with her Japanese dress turning white and wet. She asked me if I ever felt cold.
You have games like a child, you know how to win them. You have wheels like a car, you know how to spin them. You have teeth like a shark, you know how to shine them. I have blood on my hands, you know how to bind them.
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4. |
Three Cheers: Perfume
01:21
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I WANTED TO BE SO MUCH LIKE PERFUME. You'd step inside me and wear me all day. I wanted to be SO MUCH like perfume: a mist you would let fall on your skin. But I came on like the rain, with a blustering wind, and you shut your door to stay dry.
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5. |
Three Cheers: Hiding
05:53
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I AM NOT AFRAID OF LOVE, I AM TERRIFIED that history repeats itself as its wont to. And I am not a child of God, I am rent, cast aside, and thrown into this world like everybody is whether or not they want to. THEY CAN SEE ME HIDING at any time at all. She takes a pill and then she leads me to her room. AM I A MAN NOW? She sleeps contently while I'm putting on my clothes. AM I A MAN NOW? She buys my tears and then she gives me what I need. AM I A MAN NOW? She is the seventh one in just as many days. AM I A MAN NOW? There is a tree near my house where I learned what a monster could do to a target like me. And there's a building nearby where I learned how much blood I can spill just by hitting a wall all over again. I've tried so hard to keep my distance from that day. I crave consent like a drug, or leave my hands to myself. It's only "Yes"es and "Please"s and "Come On"s and "Why?"s. "Why don't you want it? WHY DON'T YOU WANT ME?"
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6. |
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There was a light in my dream and it shone like the sun. The dust all over my room sparkled, and your dress came undone. There was a smile on your face that isn't there anymore. There is blood all over my sheets that wasn't there before. There are clouds in the sky that are ready to burst. They are hungry for something, they want me to go first. And that light in my dream? It was only a spark that grew small over my head and dissolved in the dark. Dissolved in the dark. DISSOLVED IN THE DARK. DISSOLVED IN THE DARK. DISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARKDISSOLVEDINTHEDARK
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7. |
Local Anasthetic
04:45
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SOMETIMES I think there is something swimming in my head. Something slithery and poisonous that won't stop until I'm dead. While your arms are wrapped around a broken heart you can't repair I AM VERY SCARED I'm not sure if what I hear is a voice that's EVEN THERE. There is SUCH an awful body wrapped around my bones. There is SUCH a vicious howling void that's wedded to my soul. HALF OF US WILL HAVE A HAPPY ENDING, HALF OF US WILL NOT. Right now: I am caught. I am rendered into knots. I knew better. I forgot.
YOU GRIND YOUR TEETH FOR NO MAN, BABY. NO YOU DON'T.
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8. |
An Overhaul
05:30
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You never really had a chance to be thirteen years old. You always wasted half your afternoons and evenings waiting home, and when he'd come, the jokes he'd tell would meet the icy stares of your mother while your brother cranked his stereo upstairs. BUT YOU'D SMILE knowing all the while there's no point to anything, that there was not anything there to comprehend. OH NOW, DON'T YOU WORRY PRETTY BABY, YOU'RE ALMOST OLD ENOUGH TO MAKE A HELL FOR SOMEONE ELSE. You never gave yourself the chance to be a young fourteen, letting boys with lambent lips to what they want inside your jeans. You'd leave your wireframes at home and bring your padded bra, wearing black, smoking menthols, taking anything and all. OH THAT SMILE, THAT AWFUL FUCKING SMILE that's how you get everything. There's a price on everything others have to pay. But don't you worry pretty darling, you're old enough to make a private hell for someone else. You are a drunken telephone call, you're a number on a wall, you are the last train out of town, you are a worn and weathered doll. You are a guilt that can't atone, you are a name no one recalls. Your body has a body count: it's all you have that isn't dull.
LISTEN: WHAT I'VE LEARNED CAN'T FILL A SKINNY BOOK. I have learned to tell the difference between breath that shows itself in fog and clouds of smoke; the other, filled with refuse, lingers just a moment longer before vanishing into the starless autumn night. People like to say that they don't change, that all their lives are ordered like some TV movie: all adversity and aptitude; a place of birth that's somewhere west of every major road; a soul that's flinted by parades of enemies, systems, fools, and traps. But everybody sleeps somewhere where they never see the sun, and waking up the next day they're never certain what it is they've done.
DON'T FORGET TO BREAK IT WHEN IT WORKS, if it takes work than it takes two, if it takes two there are no sides, if there are no sides then you quit. Don't forget to leave the fireworks inert so when they fly into the summer skyline they don't bloom, they simply fall and die the same. You are a sad and shallow tease, you are a monster when you're drunk, you are incapable of love, you are your father's little girl. Your bedroom has a broken frame: it's all you have to tell the time. YOUR BODY HAS A BODY COUNT: it's all you have to hide behind.
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9. |
Against Choruses
05:33
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We used to touch our smiles to each other like anyone fresh in the throes of trust. A calloused finger softened on freckled arms - skin that can finally heal. A stone from a cage that yielded its precious gem. I COULDN'T BE CLEARER IF I COULD, I COULDN'T BE LESS UNDERSTOOD, I couldn't just make this turn out good. Echoes of screams, a cathedral of tears, shouts, and arguments deep in your mother's room. Horizons darkening. Choked up in every word. Every monstrous thing (of which we knew ourselves to be capable) we heard in each other's breath. A poisonous insect came out into the light. HOW OFTEN I'VE PRAYED FOR DEATH AT YOUR HANDS, a dragon that breathes its fire at both ends. Things disbelieved which I knew to be true. My insides are twisted enough without you. Come to my window, I'm ready now. Come strip me naked, I'm ready now. Come with your weapon, I'm ready now. HOW DO I RID MYSELF OF YOU?
Put my head in between my knees and sob, put my fingers behind my back and pull. My heart is empty, my glass is full, my life is ripped in two. How could I run away from you?
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Who treats love like a vacancy to be filled at the earliest opportunity? Who needs someone to meet each day? WHO KEEPS PUSHING WHO AWAY? Who runs into the nearest bed, via highway or plane? And whose pink skin turns the rawest red after one hour of whose own name? Whose gold ring is too tight a fit and who expects who to pay for it? Who makes promises? Who's untrue? Who keeps secrets away from who? Who has an answer for every charge? Who keeps taking a step too far? Who has a slogan for every fight? Who here is happy and who here is right? Who here speaks of SOME DIVINE GRACE the second that someone else's embrace dissolves to sweat on the poor soul's arm? Who can get out of this unharmed? Who has a mouth full of ash and grime? Who thinks who's been a waste of time? Who doesn't get what they expect? Who thinks the future is worse than death? Who's afraid of the Howlin' Wolf, the Howlin' Wolf, the Howlin' Wolf? WHO'S AFRAID OF THE HOWLIN' WOLF? I AM.
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Go. It's so easy for you to go. You may think that the world may hurt you, but how will you know? Leave. Why don't you ever want to leave? What's the safety in this seclusion when you can't breathe? You have an open door, will you just stay there? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? A SIGN FROM THE SKY? Stay. It's getting harder for you to stay. The foundation is cracked and the building is starting to sway. Choose. Why don't you ever want to choose? How can you look at the world spread before you and still be immune. You have an open line, will you just wait there? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? YOUR OPTIONS TO DRY? You have an outstretched hand. will you just stay here? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Your childhood to die?
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C Alexander Chicago, Illinois
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