1. |
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Somewhere there's a photograph, its amber has us caught
embracing in the summertime, our smiles are tall and taut
You're turned and you're not turning 'round; if not now, then when?
I'd sacrifice most anything to see my friend again
It's okay!
Somewhere there's a video, you're golfing at the grass
Your hair was blonde and spiking up, your face was Sunday mass
I only become sadder when the video is through
I'll sit with it in front of me, and that'll be my You
It's okay!
Somewhere there's a microphone that wants to be a wand
You've only held it far from me, I listen from beyond,
a world where we can laugh again, and show a person how
We'll never laugh that way again; I realize that now
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2. |
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The rope is taut
All bells unrung
We're not the same, we don't want the same thing
Every moment is fraught
in the court of my king
We're not the same, we don't want the same thing
See, I just woke up
and the sun was gone
I just choked up
at the NothingDawn
I've been altered since
in the song I sing,
and I say again: we don't want the same thing
You don't know a note of music that can make me dance
You don't know the kind of terror that can make me lie
You were always so sure that you held my hand
I don't want your guidance; I'm not your guy
I just stepped in the same river twice
I'm about to put Heraclitus on ice
I just walked a great big circle; I'm a stone wanting out of the ring
We don't want the same thing
I can hear you assume from all points of the room,
a panauricon in a petulant circle
You could be anyone at all, but you picked licking statehead boots
We don't both want truth
You don't really want light, you don't really like life
in the age of the hyperborean
You wanna get so tucked in; you want rules and a fool's nostalgia
I can smell it on ya
I'm measuring the full width of the cage with a bullwhip,
won't engage on the school trip, permanently pleading the fifth
on all affairs of the heart, to one line I cling:
we don't love the same thing
You will never have sight of the slight you suckle
You will never hear the horn, you will not be warned
You won't smell smoke, you won't taste regret,
because you are not touched; it's a sense I get
You're not abstract, I can fucking see you
I see you from the middle of the mass we're in
When Heaven on Earth is an empty vessel,
let the demiurge grin; let the best man win
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3. |
Someone Else's Song
04:39
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Woke up angrier at God
Woke up in the iditarod
Snow was all across the ground
and dogs were sledding me around
Got lost halfway through the race
Forgot my name and birthplace
Before the dogs could bark and bray,
I smiled, and said I'd like to stay
I wanna feel like somebody else
I wanna feel like somebody else
I'm in the tall grass, in the tall grass; squint your eyes and see
I'll feel like anything, anything, just not like me
A pulpit bare without a priest
If anything, the fear's increased
A spiritual solar flare
What if God was standing there,
propelling your desirous legs,
invisible to irises?
A Joan Osborne parable;
He sings to you a hymn this time:
"I wanna feel like somebody else
I wanna feel like somebody else
I'm in the tall grass, in the tall grass; squint your eyes and see
I'll feel like anything, anything, just not like me"
In eating my own words, I can't acquire the taste
In never being batted in, I'm sleeping at 3rd base
I'm praying that my soul was drawn on dry-erase
So someone else's song,
someone else's song,
is sung into my pillowcase
The lines this chorus tries to hold
were from a dream I could control
I woke and searched for them online
hoping that the words were mine
The top result each time I tried
was a hotline stopping suicide
Even at my most rational,
I still wonder, was it purposeful?
I've gotta know if it was helpful
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4. |
Hauntology
03:34
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Every day is like I just spilled
It's a half-empty glass I won't fill
I float around with a mouthful of krill
I live to kill in this awful ocean
Empty Heaven is a set; I'm not playing
I think I see the air in front of me decaying
I wave in front me, it's like I'm underwater
Every particle's a ghost of my life in slow motion
Some are every potential story that i wouldn't allow
Some I hurt for glory, and they're laughing now
Some are players with countless lines
I won't cast next time for the reboot
The heart wants it wants: for nothing
I swear the gods think I'm fucking bluffing
But when I thought that I cleared the level,
I start to tremble; I swear, I see you
You look so old at the stoplight
Crooked and cold, no, it's not right
Emaciated zombie, keep my body from your body now
I don't know much, but something I know:
whenever they go, they never really go away
Whatever I'm looking at,
I don't want a life like that
I don't know much, but something I know:
whenever they come, I never know what to say
Whatever I'm looking at,
I don't want a life like that
The house is all haunted
The garden's a grave
the demons all dance
at the mouth of the cave
With a big lead step,
I slam on the gas
I need to hurry, need to hurry to the ending!
This can't last
It's no one's home
It's not sustainable pain
Forgive, or just give me up!
You look so old at the stoplight
Crooked and cold, no, it's not right
You stand in the back while I'm singing
You yell when it gets quiet:
"I don't buy it! I don't buy it!"
I don't know much, but something I know:
whenever they go, they never really go away
Whatever I'm looking at,
I don't want a life like that
I don't know much, but something I know:
whenever they come, I never know what to say
Whatever I'm looking at,
I don't want a life like that
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5. |
End Times
03:55
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I tilt my head above, I tilt my head below:
nothing is the way it looked a half an hour ago
The sky is molten, it's cracking open
Terror in the aughts, Satan in the 80s,
nothing is comparing to the scariness of lately
Unearthly forces, and four sick horses
The physical world now seems bizarre
Get in the car, get in the car
Sing to the end of my repertoire
Get in the car, get out of the car, get out of the car
End times, end times,
we're running faster, we're running to
end times, end times
We're running faster, but running out of time
End times
I acted like a king, stood atop a mountain,
convinced I had a kingdom that had somehow reached the 1000s
Now I'm laughing...I'm not laughing
The power was a needle in my arm; I pulled it out too quick
I thought that I felt better, but now everyone is sick
I'm so confused; it's an embarrassing blues
The art in this is lost, the words are counterfeit
I hope a real poet's getting something out of it
'cause I've got nothing
I wanna go deeper, but sleep instead
Stay in bed, stay in bed
But all of the neon signs I've read say:
"Get out of bed! Get out of bed! Get out of bed!"
End times, end times,
we're running faster, we're running to
end times, end times
We're running faster, but running out of time
End times, end times
Close my eyes for 10 seconds while I'm riding my bike;
it's a scary that I like, a scary that I like
You look at me as if you know I spent the day alone
How could you have known? How could you have known?
You thought that the visions would go away!
Ha ha ha! Hey hey hey!
Ha ha ha! Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey!
End times, end times,
we're running faster, we're running to
end times, end times
We're running faster, but running out of time
End times, end times
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6. |
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The closer I get to the zeitgeist, the sicker I feel
Every day's the 7th Seal
I shiver off the tritones
I told you I loved you, and then I told you I'm scared
We were breathing different air
You were present, and I was alone
You don't think it's got to do with the town?
There's a bell jar where I crawl around
To not have, to not hold,
to have no control
is the expectation, it's the alienation that's got me
pounding on glass in an underpass, off medicine
It's got me thinking that I'm better off dead again
I wouldn't think that on my own
But didn't you wonder?
Did you ever wonder how the switch was hit?
If anything is unnatural,
isn't this it?
Did you see me staring at the top of the stairs?
Did you hear me calling when there's no one there?
The pattern is the pattern, and the pattern is everywhere
There's a ghost in my house, there's a body in a hanging suit
There's a dead tree with deep, deep roots
There's a ringwraith riding to find me
There's a hero's journey delusion in this fusion bomb
There's a commercial to turn my confusion on
There's a billboard dancing behind me
All the theology doesn't connect
All the apologies have me erect
in the dark of the ark on the edge of the world
with two of every demon tooth I've loosened up,
drinking bloody cups with my company,
the whole drama dissolving in front of me
It was all my designing
Oh, but didn't you wonder?
Did you ever wonder how the switch was hit?
If anything is unnatural,
isn't this it?
Did you see me staring at the top of the stairs?
Did you hear me calling when there's no one there?
Did you see me writing like the diary is running away?
It's no wonder you didn't stay
The pattern is the pattern, and the pattern is every day
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7. |
The Zero With 1000 Faces
05:03
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The best friend I never had
was Arthurian Galahad
In armor, we would gallop roads,
make every day an episode,
fulfilling every prophecy
When I got tired, he'd stop for me
You want a list of everything we've done?
Just picture me having fun
Now days are like a broken wand
Now days are like a frozen pond
I hope it opens up a crack
so I can have my hero back
Hey, you feel a world away,
but there's no world today;
I woke up, and the sun was gone
I lost you to space and time,
but I think you were a friend of mine,
maybe my favorite one!
But now, you're gone
The best friend I never met
was underground in Somerset
It never minded its confines
deep inside Kentucky mines
At night, it'd come and dance around
the woodchips of the playground,
the palest little alien,
compatriot and citizen
Adulthood takes a kind of toll;
I'm grown, and I can't tell a soul
I'll never know just what I've seen,
but I miss it, and I'm coming clean
Hey, you feel a world away,
but there's no world today;
I woke up, and the sun was gone
I lost you to space and time,
but I think you were a friend of mine,
maybe my favorite one!
But now, you're gone
If I could turn back time,
what could I turn to?
Time will always have you cast
If I could blur the line,
could I see you?
You are always,
but you're always in the past
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8. |
Flood World
02:00
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Dreaming of the flood from forever ago,
I saw both the bodied and spectral
lost in the water
I woke up to no alarm
The sun was gone, and the NothingDawn
made a silence that had a sound
I was blank like a baby then
'til love and language and sight came unintercepted
My body had no organs
They stamped a seal and marked the flow
It was us against the all of it
But I walked outside and found
there was no truck for my imagining
There were only empty boxes
and the eyes of some Big Other
There were empty insurrections
and some laughter from the rafters
and to my own horror,
evidence that I was once a dancer
in this chorus line of ending times,
a soldier in the War of Bad Ideas
I felt nauseous,
and I couldn't stand to stand it all again
I want out
Not built wrong, but in the wrong place
Like a bird before a man,
I am in fear and fall apart before my namer
Anywhere else
Any other way
I am inconsolable and weak in the shifting of the plates
I know the plea is met with absence
In lieu of change
I pray for the sublime
for knowing nothing
pure this time
pure this time
pure this time
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9. |
Pure This Time
04:05
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It's pure this time
no shut door
There's no rewriting,
no rewriting or reward
Indigo and eiderdown
Anonymous Italian town
Pining for a pyramid
Open wide a coffin lid
That's what your compassion did
It's pure this time
no dark mark
It's just the rainfall,
just the rainfall and the ark
Before sunrise, before sunset,
they've always never happened yet
I wonder if you're reaching out
I'm worried that I've spoiled it now
I pray and pray and laugh all day
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10. |
Laughing Again
07:38
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When I first died
I was laughing
then not laughing
Now I'm laughing again
I'd being if I said "I don't remember when"
I don't remember when
I'm lying again
I don't wanna act like I miss anything
I don't wanna court a big remembering
I don't wanna smile, I don't wanna cry
I just wanna laugh, and not wonder why
I used to spin around for a crowd I knew
I spun too fast to keep perception glued
I saw they didn't like it; when I stopped, I thought
I didn't like it either, and I laughed a lot
I saw you dance; you didn't know I saw
You wore a bindi and you danced like a sound at the edge of Heaven
I only laughed; I couldn't interrupt you
I didn't want you to stop, and to me, you are always Heaven
I took all I could take, I was the face of need
I was living like a dog you always had to feed
I wanted love that no one with a brain could ever give
I only have a laugh for the life I live
Now I can see my longing doesn't fall in file
I can't discern between the log and crocodile
I only see water and water and water
and laugh at the love and peace doves and kid gloves
I saw you squirm; you never would remember
You had too much to drink, fell down, and could only slither
I sat and judged, but now, we've gotten closer
I only ask you to laugh at me, your lowly sinner
You wanna see what's left?
I'll show the cut
There's a lot of blade still stuck
You might see a laugh where the corners of my mouth won't make a grin,
but that's what's what
I was self-involved
I still may be, but my world is small,
and it's smaller every day
I cannot laugh in the same way
I'm not him at all,
and I'm not upset
This is as honest as I get
My old honesty was different,
just a sliver of an image I'd project
Lacan is laughing in the words I try to read
It is a blow against my old Ideal "I"
It is a pain,
but I concede
You don't look happy!
You say I've changed!
It doesn't fit into your picture!
CUT ME OUT as any sentimental-wishful-thinking-fixture!
I've been altered by results of aborted cults
I was born in an Empty Heaven 5 years back
I'm what the demiurge could sculpt
I hear old songs;
my voice is right,
but it feels all wrong
It's like a haunting from your Shadowself
who tells you that it's fine to sing along
They are a stranger
When I laugh now, it is solemn
It is laughing without pleasure
It's what I pieced together
At night, atop the Carousel Embarrassment,
I think over and over of what came and went
Where once it would've left me shaken to my core,
now it's river over rocks, nothing more
In the World of Forms (there's no World of Forms,
but pretend for just a second there's a World of Forms),
there's a perfect little picture of my past I represent
Now, forget about the World of Forms for your betterment
You walked inside from the icy Northern rain
You looked for me no matter what the weather was, a selfless Savior
We sat and talked; you made my world so easy
I laughed and I cried and I laughed, now I call you Savior
There are no tears or inspiration at the end
I can't and won't pretend
I've loved in Heaven, sin, and Saviors
Now there's nothing to send
When I first died,
I was laughing,
then not laughing
Now, I'm laughing again
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Empty Heaven San Antonio, Texas
Empty Heaven and related projects go here.
Empty Heaven recommends:
Mother Evergreen
by Mother Evergreen
Best album made by the best guy. Makes you think and feel. Mastered by the same mastering artist.
go to albumIf you like Empty Heaven, you may also like:
New Jersey emo that toggles between intimate acoustics and power chords in the most classic of ways.
go to album
Meandering guitars, laid-back vocals, and catchy choruses make this the perfect end of summer album.
go to album
90s alternative of the Pacific Northwest persuasion is given a lushly lo-fi update on this existential guitar record from Prathloons.
go to album
Red Hot & Holy
by Sarah & the Safe Word
This Atlanta group have a unique take on Americana, bridging queer cabaret culture of the 1920s and '30s with punchy contemporary rock.
go to album
Nature of Things
by Subsonic Eye
Effortlessly juggling mood without slowing down or stopping to question themselves, the Singaporean band give new life to an age-old indie ethos.
go to album
