Transcendental Youth

Tracklist + Lyrics:

1. Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1

   Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive
   Do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away
   Let people call you crazy for the choices that you make
   Climb limits past the limits
   Jump in front of trains all day

   And stay alive
   Just stay alive

   Play with matches if you think you need to play with matches
   Seek out the hidden places where the fire burns hot and bright
   Find where the heat's unbearable and stay there if you have to
   Don't hurt anybody on your way up to the light

   And stay alive
   Just stay alive

   People might laugh at your tattoos
   When they do get new ones in completely garish hues
   I hide down in my corner because I like my corner
   I am happy where the vermin play

   Make up magic spells
   We wear them like protective shells
   Land-mines on the battlefield
   Find the one safe way

   And stay alive
   Just stay alive
   Just stay alive 

2. Lakeside View Apartments Suite

   Downtown north past the airport
   A dream in switchgrass and concrete
   Three gray floors of smoky windows
   Facing the street

   Michael pulls the blinds back up
   Stares blankly at the intersection
   Watching for the guy who's got the angel dust
   Crystal clear connection

   Days like dominos
   All in a line
   We cheer for the home team every time
   Lakeside View, Lakeside View
   Lakeside View for my whole crew

   Most nights now sleep in the kitchen
   Keep my face cool on the floor
   And John, John comes by to drop off his envelopes
   Still playing postman after all these years

   Pull down my army surplus jacket
   Dig through some drawers to find the keys
   Emerge transformed in a million years
   From days like these

   Under each eye little greasepaint smudge
   You can't judge us - you're not the judge
   Lakeside View, Lakeside View
   Lakeside View for my whole crew

   And just before I leave
   I throw up in the sink
   One whole life recorded
   In disappearing ink

   And Ray left a message thumbtacked to the door
   I don't even bother trying to read them anymore
   Lakeside View Lakeside View,
   Lakeside View for my whole crew 

3. Cry for Judas

   Some things you do just to see
   How bad they'll make you feel
   Sometimes you try to freeze time
   'Til the slots are a blur of spinning wheels

   But I am just a broken machine
   And I do things that I don't really mean

   Long black night, morning frost
   I'm still here, but all is lost

   Speed up to the precipice
   And then slam on the brakes
   Some people crash two or three times
   And then learn from their mistakes

   But we are the ones who don't slow down at all
   And there's nobody there to catch us when we fall

   Long black night, morning frost
   I'm still here, but all is lost

   Feel the storm every night, hope it passes by
   Hallucinate a shady grove where Judas went to die

   Unfurl the black velvet altar cloth
   Draw a white chalk Baphomet
   Mistreat your altar boys long enough
   And this is what you get

   Sad and angry, can't learn how to behave
   Still won't know how in the darkness of the grave

   Long black night, morning frost
   I'm still here, but all is lost 

4. Harlem Roulette

   Unknown engines underneath the city
   Steam pushing up in billows through the grates
   Frankie Lymon's tracking "Seabreeze" in a studio in Harlem
   Its 1968.
   Just a pair of tunes to hammer out.
   Everybody's off the clock by 10:00.

   The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again.

   Feels so free when I hit the avenue.
   Nothing like a New York summer night.
   Every dream's a good dream,
   Even awful dreams are good dreams,
   If you're doing it right.

   Remember soaring higher than a cloud.
   Get pretty sentimental now and then.

   The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again.

   And four hours north of Portland, a radio flips on.
   And some no one from the future remembers that you're gone.

   Armies massing in the dusky distance.
   Ghosted in the ribbon microphone.
   Leave a little mark on something, maybe,
   Take the secret circuit home.

   Nothing in the shadows but the shadow hands.
   Reaching out to sad, young, frightened men.

   The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again.

   Yeah, the loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again. 

5. White Cedar

   Like a star come down to walk the Earth in radiant array.
   I saw the light of my spirit descend the other day.
   I was standing the bus stop on North East 33rd,
   When I got the word.
   I will be made a new creature,
   One bright day.

   I don't have to be afraid.
   Speed that day on it's way.
   And you can't tell me what my spirit tells me isn't true, can you?

   Woke up on lockdown one more time,
   My visions won't ever learn.
   But I see the light that much clearer,
   Every time I return.
   Forge my armor in the old fire.
   My spirit sings loud and clear,
   Even in here.

   I'll be reborn someday, someday,
   If I wait long enough.

   I don't have to be afraid.
   I don't wanna be afraid.
   And you can't tell me what my spirit tells me isn't true, can you 

6. Until I Am Whole

   Sunset on Snohomish.
   Burn the tree line down.
   Hold my hopes underwater,
   Stand there and watch them drown.
   Fishing out their bodies,
   From the bathroom sink.
   Leave them in a bucket,
   Til they start to stink.

   I think I'll stay here,
   Til I feel whole again.
   I don't know when.

   Trout swim past the fishing lines.
   Sky gets dark and close.
   Cars start up and make,
   Their nightly exodus.
   On a picnic bench alone,
   Watch the sky go dark.
   Dig my nails into my hands,
   Hope it leaves a mark.

   I think I'll stay here,
   Til I feel whole again.
   I don't know when.

7. Night Light

   Pull my mask so tight,
   Til it pinches my skin.
   Nerves strung so high.
   I am a mandolin.
   Jenny calls from Montana.
   She's only passing through.
   Probably never see her again in this life, I guess.
   Not sure what I'm gonna do.

   Plug a night light in.
   Leave the porch light on.
   Because the small dark corners have designs on me.
   Live like an outlaw.
   Clutching gold coins in his claw.

   Room full of ambitious young policemen.
   Everybody trying to make his mark.
   I was a red dot blinking on a screen up overhead,
   And then the room went dark.
   Dream of maybe waking up someday,
   And wanting you less than I do.
   This is a dream though,
   It's never gonna come true.

   Plug a night light in.
   Leave the porch light on.
   Because the small dark corners are establishing a colony.
   Live like an outlaw.
   Clutching gold coins in his claw.

   Can't ever set aside the sweetness,
   Of the days before the crews put up the border.
   Fields full of wet rain.
   Cling tight to their memory forever.
   Think about Montana when I close my eyes,
   Possibly Jenny's headed east.
   Count a couple of stray hopes outloud,
   May their numbers one day be increased.

   Plug a night light in.
   Leave the porch light on.
   Because the small dark corners breathe like heavy animals.
   Live like an outlaw.
   Clutching gold coins in his claw.

8. The Diaz Brothers

   Cops and robbers; Strictly bargain line.
   Spent the wet night tracking visions through the pines.
   Draw my arms into my hospital gown.
   See the sky open up and rain down,
   Rain down.

   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.
   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.

   Hear my rivals on the western wind.
   Hard to know who might or might not be your friend.
   Work by the Plutonian light.
   Forbidden rosary prayers all night,
   All night.

   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.
   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.

   Beam of a flashlight,
   All night in the woods.
   Hunt us like dogs,
   And then string us up for good.

   Keep one step ahead of enemies.
   Foretell worse things than such frightful nights as these.
   Lead us to the beach by our hands,
   And bury us there in the sand.

   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.
   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.
   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.
   Mercy for the Diaz brothers.

9. Counterfeit Florida Plates

   Steal some sunscreen,
   From the CVS.
   Use too much,
   And make a great big mess.
   Wait where shadows mask or hide my scent.
   So many so-called friends,
   Working for the government.

   Dig through the trash.
   Sleep on the grates.
   And watch for the cars,
   With the counterfeit Florida plates.

   Scribble cyphers on the library bathroom wall.
   Map a path from here to home.
   Can't quite catch em all.
   Calculate magnetic north,
   And turn the other way.
   Wait for the coming disaster,
   I could do this all day.

   Dig through the trash.
   Sleep on the grates.
   And watch for the cars,
   With the counterfeit Florida plates.

   It seems like everyone's cut me free,
   And left me to the tender cares of my faceless enemy.

   Feel so hungry,
   Probably pass out soon.
   Look for a tree to lean up against,
   Whistle a tune-less tune.
   This may be the night my point-men finally come.
   Wait for the fog to catch up with me,
   So I can at least feel numb.

   Dig through the trash.
   Sleep on the grates.
   And watch for the cars,
   With the counterfeit Florida plates.
   With the counterfeit Florida plates.
   With the counterfeit Florida plates.

10. In Memory Of Satan

    Got my paintbox out last night
    Stayed up late and wrecked this place
    Woke up on the floor again
    Cellphone stuck to the side of my face

    Dead space on the other end
    Perfect howl of emptiness
    Cast my gaze around the room
    Someone needs to clean up this mess

    Tape up the windows
    Call in a favor from an old friend

    Make some scratches on my floor
    Crawl down on my hands and knees
    In old movies people scream
    Choking on their fists when they see shadows like these
    But not one screams cuz it's just me
    Locked up in myself
    Never gonna get free

    Something sacred something blue
    Cannons in the harbor dawn
    Crawled down here to dig for bones
    One more season then I'm gone

    Black drapes over the crosses
    Call in a favor from an old friend 

11. Spent Gladiator 2

    Like a spent gladiator,
    Crawling in the coliseum dust.
    Who can count on his remaining limbs,
    All the people he can trust.
    Like the one who stands behind him,
    Cheering him on.
    Ecstatic when he stands defiant,
    Wild with abandon when he's gone.

    Just stay alive.
    Keep your eyes on the pay line.

    Like a village on the step,
    About to get collectivized.
    When the men emerge with rifles from the haystack,
    Everybody looks surprised.
    Like the mice in the forgotten grain,
    Way up on the top shelf.
    Like someone who's found a small town to escape to,
    Keeps one eye on his abandoned, former self.

    Stay in the game.
    Just try to play through the pain.
    Like a fighter who's been told its finally time for him to quit.
    Show up in shining colors,
    And then stand there and get hit.

    Like the clock that ticks in Dresden,
    When the whole town's been destroyed.
    Like the nagging flash of insight,
    You're always desperate to avoid.
    Like the bloody-knuckled gunman,
    Still stationed at the breach.
    Like that board game with the sliders,
    And the children on the beach.

    Stay alive.
    Maybe spit some blood at the camera.
    Just stay alive.
    Stay forever alive. 

12. Transcendental Youth

    Cold through broken baseboards.
    I despise this town.
    Snow on the sunroof,
    Two stories down.
    Hold hands,
    Wish the snow away.
    Rise in the darkness,
    Of the gathering day.

    Sing.
    Sing for ourselves alone.
    Speak into,
    The microphone.

    Cedar smudge our headbands,
    And take to the skies.
    Soar ever-upwards,
    On air gone black with flies.
    Shroud ourselves in the cosmos.
    Let the music play.
    Bright star of the morning,
    Shine on his rising way.

    Sing.
    In the night.
    In the nameless dark.
    Father long gone,
    But we bear his mark.

    Learn some secrets,
    Never tell.
    Stay sick,
    Don't get well.

    Clutch those broken headboards.
    Ride the highest wave.
    Dusky diamonds shining in the far depths of the cave.
    Try to explain ourselves,
    Babble on and on.
    By the time you receive this, we'll be gone.

    Sing.
    Sing high.
    While the fire climbs.
    Sing one for the old times.