1. |
Bones
05:49
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There are seven places to hide your bones upstairs
Should I ever luck out and catch you unawares
I haven’t worked out the specifics, the logistics of the act
I’ve simply stiffened my resolve while putting a few jars back
My alibi is still just a punchline to my love
But I’m betting water can be thicker when push comes to shove
There are seven places; at first I only counted six
The laundry chute, the wall behind the crucifix
Beneath the planks of each of the three bedroom floors
There’s a pocket in the chimney that could hold ribs galore
I searched, and despite the whiskey, was still stuck at six
Until I noticed the cracks in the mantle bricks
There are seven places to hide your bones upstairs
Although I doubt anyone would notice or even really care
I’ve seen the best of men swallowed by the ground
I’ve known better women; they’re not with me now
So it makes no sense that we’re sharing the same air
When there are exactly seven places to hide your bones upstairs
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2. |
Suspect
04:48
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They say it’s always the one you never suspect
The worst hit’s the first hit you didn’t expect
I never guessed loneliness could infect you
With your beautiful smile and your six-gun tattoos
We fought in the sun like lions and hyenas
When the whiskey was gone, there was little between us
The blue gingham dress, the butterfly clip
They are ghosts to me now; they are dead, packed, and shipped
The photographs smile, where did those days take us
Look, here we are laughing at the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas
When night settles in and the room has grown cold
You come to me, somehow, not your flesh, not your bones
Your lipstick is smeared on the glass of my broken front door
And there it will die
Each fingerprint seems as though in a crime scene
Every love letter reads like a sad eulogy
The sheets hold the shape of your last silhouette
A phantom now haunts the cold side of the bed
I’m sorry, and I miss you, and my love, I regret
That you deserved a good man, but found me, instead
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3. |
Stealth
05:20
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I’ve been trailing that thing about a quarter of a mile
Crawling through the tall grass, on my belly
I’ve been trailing that creature a quarter of a mile
Creeping through marsh and shit-field on my belly
It kind of looks like a shadow from here
It climbs up on the rocks
Mother fucker, don’t trip, shit
I’m a skilled fuckin hunter and shit
I got a crossbow and arrows with poisoned tips and
I am stealth and I am secret
I got a cover and I’m gonna keep it now
It’s got a powerful sense of smell
I’ve got to keep down-wind as hell
If the wind should switch direction that thing will summon chains
Fuckin’ shoot from nowhere hook my eyeball, or belly button or some crazy thing
It kinda’ looks like a monster from here, it’s got these pointy horns and hanging tail I know I should be sweating but I’ve had bit to drink and I just feel
I am stealth and I am secret
I got a cover and I’m gonna keep it that
Fuckin’ demon don’t know who it’s fucking with, I’m a fucking demon hunter and shit, don’t trip
I am stealth - I am secret
I got a cover and I’m gonna’ keep it now
I think that it knows I am near
I’m pretty sure that it heard me crack my beer
I don’t care, I’m sick of creeping, quiet things are patient but fearful hardly qualifies as patient or anything but cowardly
It kind of looks like me from here, it’s got a handsome face and perfect hair, it’s dressed so dashingly, just like a gentleman should be, and I am
I am stealth and I am secret
I got a cover and I’m going to keep it
I hunt by moonlight and candelabra, I hunt E.T.s and chupacabres.
I am stealth; yeah, I am secret
I got a cover and I’m going to keep it
Wrestle babies out of werewolves’ fangs and guard my guts from demon chains
One shot of...
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4. |
Accident
05:38
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“It was only an accident,” she whispered;
then stood and walked barefoot to the cabinet where I kept the liquor
I wasn’t sure if she expected me to laugh or forgive her
Or maybe just go join her by the booze
I watched her like that, from behind, for a while
Watched her pull down my bottle of Conquistador
I got up and made it as far as the first few cool white tiles
when last night hit the bathroom floor
She took a glass, gave herself a pour
And the pains arrived, as the morning came crashing down, anew
In a city of the dead, a living man must find a private tomb
I got to counting all my trespasses and all my crimes
From the microscopically mischievous to the majestically malign
And unto each, some loathsome burden I’d assign
As though my pain might ease the truth
She lay naked on the bed with a drink in her hand
Turned on the early news
Traffic was backed up all the way to Interstate-90
They were flying in additional emergency crews
Authorities were still looking for clues
And my aches aligned, as the sunshine came tearing through
In this city of the dead, there’s precious little left to lose
And our suffering combined, as daylight flooded the filthy room
In the city of the dead, the corpses, my friend, are not the doomed
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5. |
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It was lovely but spooky that cold night she took me by my frozen fingers and trembling hand | it was the end of October; I was young and still sober, I hadn’t yet read any Brendan Behan | while in only my twelfth year, a scandalous, hell-year, I fought against everything I had become | she invited me by telephone, her father would chaperone
And my childhood would die at the taste of her tongue | she was dressed as the ghost of Marie Antoinette with ribbons for blood tied around her pale neck | and there, in the dungeon, by the laundry machine, we kissed, I the zombie, and she my dead queen | it was lovely, albeit nightmarish, designed by the girls of St. Magdalene’s parish |
with penchants for corsets and porcelain slaughters, the fairest of all the archdiocese’s daughters | horrifying and stinking of sweat, just the Ten Plagues and me and my sweet Antoinette | while desperate lips sealed a host of offenses, we fondled away our doomed adolescence |
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6. |
The Distaff
06:56
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I had just put everything down
On long shot Adelaide’s Bones
3 years old
19 to one
A girl beside me started poking fun
That number eight can’t win at all, let alone win in this slop, she said
As rain turned the track to mud
Desperately
We endured the storm
Until the sun peeked in on our daily racing forms
My last chance came kicking from the paddocks
I’m always proud of an angry beast
Adelaide
Was my grandmother’s name
She was a gambler, but found the races inhumane
The gates fired like cannons at the scream of the bell,
Number eight came up the inside like the hammers of hell
She got four furlongs out and was still building her stride
When her legs snapped beneath her and she tumbled across the finish line
The jockey stumbled for the rail
As the rest of the horses came thundering by
Din of hooves
Like roaring accolades
While the crowd moaned its sullen serenade
The crippled 8 struggled to rise
The girl beside me gasped, and whispered for her god
No god came
Just a man in a yellow coat
Who injected some death into Adelaide’s throat
A truck drove onto the track, and parked at the corpse’s side
There was some nervous applause, like she might still be alright
But they covered her with a tarp, her teeth still locked on the bit
And I took down two thousand, eight-hundred-fifty like it wasn’t shit
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7. |
The Widow Francis Colver
03:10
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The widow Frances Colver had been on the floor for days
In a small room above an abandoned cafe
Surrounded by torn farewell letters and empty bottles
Of cheap cabernet
She lay, weeping, like a stone
Cursed her weak heart, her brittle ankle bones (and)
Her late husband, James Colver
Who, while indulging peculiar cravings (had gone)
And left her on her own
Trapped in the squalor
Of a darkened parlor
Heiress to ashes
And this shell of a home
She was almost all alone
It was just her and that dog
Who hadn’t been fed
For Christ knows how long
And she couldn’t help but picture it burrowing
Through her skull and gorging on her brain
When drool was dripping from its fang
She couldn’t sleep
“Dear Jacob”, she wrote, “just a quick little note
From my death-floor, perched here, above South Quincy Road
I’ve been down for a while, what with the death and the trial
And this silence that’s crept in and stretched out for miles
But somewhere I read ‘Let the dead eat the dead’
And let us broken wrecks dance drunkenly at the edge
At the very end you are my one honest friend
Now I’ve got this reaper scratching at my window
And me, legs akimbo,
Armed only with a bottle and a frayed violin bow
There’s so much I want to say before this dog gets its way
But I’m tired and I’ve only the strength for
I’ve loved you so
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8. |
Suffer the Day
04:45
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Babe, be still where you lay
All curled up tight
I know where you’ve been
and we’ll meet again
I’ll suffer the day
And come to you at night
And I’ll slip silently by your side
The same weakness that made me hate you made me need you…I think the Italians had a word for it…and I normally wouldn’t have cared, but you had a truth about you; an honesty in your posture. You drank like me. You looked comfortable alone, like me. And in the darkness of the room, in the middle of my melancholy leisure, you were the answer to the question I couldn’t scrape from my brain, couldn’t put into syllables, the question that hung like a sadness and wailed like an unhealthy preoccupation. I followed you out the door and shielded my eyes from the afternoon sun.
This is probably the part of the story where I should make my apologies, but the most I can offer is a list of accomplices, like the streetlight through the window, or the shadow beneath the bed. It was there I waited, and there I traced your name along cold springs until your feet, in their soft, white socks appeared, and tip-toed like a child toward the bed, and I could feel the weight of your body in my hands, I could feel your heat and smell your skin and for a brief moment, we were together, but the fire was quick, and the shadow was dark, and this is a sad song.
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Bad Luck City Denver, Colorado
Bad Luck City has been depressing our fans since 2000.
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