1. |
||||
|
I wrote this song on your guitar while you were sleeping. Before the chaos swallowed me whole. I left my good intentions in Rhode Island. I used some words I didn’t mean for your bed, for your arms. I was cold, I was lonely and I couldn’t write a song and the sun was coming up in freezing Omaha. I watched the trucks pull away from the back of the van. Three pair of pants and a torn sweatshirt hanging in there. I called up Jeannie in a bad, bad state. I was flat broke with no emotions left. Trying to make you feel like I felt. Falling asleep on the carpet, another whisky dream. I had some where I was dying. I had some where I woke up in your bed. And that’s why I wrote this song on your guitar while you were sleeping.
|
||||
2. |
Ocean City, MD
03:31
|
|||
|
Yesterday I talked to you as if nothing happened. Now you’re seeing someone new, I knew that would happen. Keep it steady at eighty miles an hour. You can get away with that on the Turnpike. Last night’s liquor seeping through your skin and your friend keeps putting on songs that you don’t like. So you drown it out. Don’t think too much about what you’re gonna do. Even though you’re bad news, I still wanna kiss you. Now you’re picking up the art of riding the subway. The balance, the composure, the timing. Is this just a crowded car romance, where we only lock eyes and I’ll never know what you were like on the outside. Would you still look the same in the light? Will it be real? Even though you’re bad news, I still wanna kiss you. Where is the glue that keeps us together? Is it inside of you, can you keep it together?
|
||||
3. |
Brohemian Rhapsody
02:37
|
|||
|
When I’m nervous I can’t think. My brain it just shuts off. I can’t get out of bed and I cannot stay asleep long enough to gain the strength in my limbs to navigate through this meaningless day. Where the conversations are forced and the words come out all wrong. But it’s a bullshit, when I crack a yellow-toothed smile and I stain my teeth with white lies, with half-truths. Cause every time I drink, I don’t get drunk enough to dance next to you at that party. I don’t let things go so easily. I hold on to everything, for a least a couple of years. It’s like I got an anvil strapped to my chest and I’ve been dropped in some horrible ocean where I keep sinking deeper and deeper in self-doubt and regret. I can’t let go of anything. Hell is only what we create. If only I could engage and close my eyes when I kiss you instead of being afraid if this is gonna matter when you move back to Chicago. Oh baby, please don’t go. Cause if I want it to matter, I’ve gotta stop thinking about how much I want it to matter. The lights are on, nobody’s home, I can’t find the words to this song. I’m overcome with apathy, I’m only in love with what’s in front of me. Just know that I’ll never be what you need. But I lie like I’m on fire just to get you to stay and I’ll kick and scream when you decide to leave. Just know the truth is that I’m better off alone.
|
||||
4. |
Calamity Jane
03:06
|
|||
|
I always fall for Calamity Jane. Over and over, it’s always the same. With ribbons in her hair and acid on her tongue. All the songs sound better when your heart was broken. But no one would wish for the kind of pain. I spend the winter on anti-depressants, with a pen in my hand writing it down. The color of your hair and the chips on your nails. Your blood is black but I still swallow your words. And I wash it down with Makers Mark and wait for the snow to settle on the ground and reflect the night as you tell me over the phone under amphetamines you’re sorry for everything, you never meant it. Hang up, you’re fucked up. I tried endlessly to forget you all the time. Act natural, keep to yourself. You’re not at the party, you’re inside your head. You should say something if you still want her. Maybe it’s over, but it’s not over until I decided that I have given up. I won’t, I won’t apologize, cause I am too tired to try. Self-centered and bored by your actions, I’m high and my head is vacant. So typical of you to let me down like this.
|
||||
5. |
I-95
00:57
|
|||
|
Lost in thought, driving down 95. Thinking of you, and what it means to be alive. Lost in thought, driving down 95, thinking of leaving, and what it means to be alive. We’ve got so much time, and no way to waste it all. We’ve got so much time, and no one to waste it with.
|
||||
6. |
We Still Got All Summer
03:05
|
|||
|
Hey, do you wanna come over? We still got all summer. Tell me everything you wanna say. It’s not too late for us. Time has a way of numbing the pain until you forget how bad it hurt to begin with. You keep on making the same old mistakes, and you keep reliving the same heart breaks. There is still hope for us in the warmer weather. There are no preconceived notions, I just want to see you again. When I walk in the room, I don’t have any motives, I’m just scared to fall back into your bed again. Would that be such a bad thing? Don’t make love so hard on me, we can still be friends. Hey do you want to come over? We’ve still got all summer. There is still hope for us in the warmer weather.
|
||||
7. |
Statuesque Memories
02:15
|
|||
|
Statuesque memories, frozen in time. Awake with the promise of unchanging eyes. I’ll never forget you for most of my life, if you never remember last night’s goodbye. But I won’t remember it either cause my memory works in reverse. You’ve built up fences and walls to keep your heart safe and I will never infiltrate you. Cause I am having a one-sided affair with you. I’ll never know you. Don’t think I want to. Cause this is perfect. From where I’m standing.
|
||||
8. |
My Fragile Mental State
03:09
|
|||
|
It starts with a picture of you, saved on my phone, to remind myself that I loved you before. And it spirals from there to a vacant stare, all the buildings start toppling over my head. All the work I put in, just to wake up, trying so hard to be a human being. So I call out sick, lay in bed all day, the radio blaring a talk show. How did I end up here, lost and confused. I always end up back where I started. So I stack the cans in the recycling bin, slow down my brain, numb all these thoughts of all the last years, failing relationships I always end up back where I started. Keep starting over, over again, keep starting over without all my friends. Oh my fragile mental state, collapsing in my own head. I won’t take these pills, they’re only making it worse. Six months without an incident, and I’m back in the waiting room. Filling out a questionnaire on a scale of 1-10, how much do you think about suicide?
|
||||
9. |
Frame of Reference
02:26
|
|||
|
Oh well at first it might seem strange. A stranger’s room without the lights on and we kiss and then I feel discouraged. This is so different than it was the last time. I am not afraid of change. It’s just the fear of the unknown that keeps me this way. It still feels strange the second time around. Your hands are cold while I try to play along. Taking my time, pay attention to detail. But in the dark, we’re all the same. I am not afraid of change, it’s just the fear of the unknown that keeps me this way.
|
||||
10. |
The Walk To The Bar
03:58
|
|||
|
It gets so cold up here this time of year. And the walk to the bar never seemed so important. You were there and I was there, but your girlfriend wasn’t there. Undefined silhouette’s and broken bar stools, drunk and eating fast food. It almost felt like the beginning. You didn’t mean for me to hear when you said that you loved her. But I did. And now I know it’s too late for us. You made your bed, now you sleep in it alone. And you pull the covers up over your head, and you tell yourself you’re gonna come clean tomorrow. Maybe it was the dark and all of its temptation. Your wandering eyes see the things they missed before. And you almost say what you’ve been thinking, but you’re afraid the words will come out wrong. So would you stop me if I go? Can we leave the past behind? I spent four months in a row, consumed with all the things that I’d do if I could go back. I fell into a great big hole, the sky is falling on my head. And I crawled my way out, there’s still hope for us yet. I remember the fork in the road, I fell into the wrong man’s bed. I wish it was you instead.
|
||||
11. |
||||
|
You were only a dream, you were only a dream, that I couldn’t wake up from, couldn’t wake up. Tossing and turning, my stomach’s burning, but I am still learning, how to be alone. Now there’s a page of old metaphors, unfinished business, in black and blue ink. There’s a half empty beer can in front of me. I am trying to recapture the glory days of my youth. There is this bar, where I like to go. It’s just down the street, it’s never crowded. Sometime while I’m there I forget it all. The endless summer I waited to see, where no one else could see. If you hang in long enough, it’ll come back around. You, you’ll get yours, everything you deserve. That apartment in the city, with your new boyfriend. Me, I’ll get mine, everything I thought I always wanted. A life sentence in the back of a van singing. You were only a dream.
|
||||
The Tin Can Collective New York, New York
We are
John Warren
Jess Warren
Cass Kadow
Paul Motisi
We would love to hear from you!
johnwarrenandttcc@gmail.com
If you like The Tin Can Collective, you may also like:
We'll Hide Away: Complete Recordings 1993-1995
by Grain
In the early ’90s, the Ohio band were champions of boundary-crossing Midwestern hardcore.
go to album
Коли ми були разом
by Я стану краще
Great, gutsy rock & roll from Kyiv, where radiant guitars surround triumphant vocal melodies.
go to album
Heartfelt, driving pop-punk with a real mid-'90s sound, the perfect balance between melody and distortion.
go to album
Excellent emo with a noise pop twist from a new Cambridge label.
go to album
Always Foreign
by The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die
Epitaph Records will be matching all pre-orders of “Always Foreign” with a donation to The Immigrant Defense Project.
go to album
Another perfect release from contemporary emo powerhouse Run for Cover records.
go to album
Harmlessness
by The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die
Grab your copy here of their second album, in all its epic, atmospheric, indie glory - before it's available anywhere else.
go to album
