Get all 16 The frost heaves and hales. releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Welcome To My Haunted Heart, Someone Who Doesn't Love You (But Used To), You Double-Crossed My Mind, Harry Lime, Of Moths And Men, Rosebud, Unstable Oscillators, Answering Machines EP, and 8 more.
1. |
Bridges Freeze First
03:34
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Bridges freeze first
It's an ancient curse
Should you swerve
at that fateful curve
pray your undertaker
put snow tires on his hearse
Bridges freeze first
Frozen pipes may burst
Should things go from bad to worse
pray your undertaker
put snow tires on his hearse
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2. |
Distance To Mars
02:54
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She walked up to me in an Orono bar
I was half drunk, she wasn't far
We talked about Rilke and the distance to Mars
As asked if I'd been to Burlington, Vermont
where everyone smiles and laughs like her aunt
and the mountains have all of the trees they could want
She said I don't want to die in my sleep
so if you're an ax killer you can finish me now
We had a breakfast of burnt toast and beer
We talked about love, loathing and fear
We watched the sunrise from the end of a pier
She said I don't want to die in my sleep
so if you're an ax killer you can finish me now
and I'll go quietly
just like a bedsheet drifting over New England streets
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3. |
Loose Thread
03:02
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This loose thread that I'm twisting 'round my finger
gives me gooseflesh, cause with each twist
I'm recalling - no, reliving - last time we made love
like it's still happening, and I re-hear in my mind's ear
oh, each gasp, and I re-feel each shiver
This loose thread from your sweater fits me better
than my own skin, than any robe
in the emperor's new wardrobe
and just one nip on your earlobe and I'd grown new lips
But this loose thread is a fetter cause it binds me
it reminds me of the gold ring you're now wearing
and it rips me, and I'm unraveling
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4. |
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I'm the shepherd of lost shopping carts
pushing my flock across the lot
a pasture of dreaming and long-distance thoughts
I'm the rector of the salvage lot
a congregation up on cinder blocks
no more need for their struts or their shocks
All descended from grandfather clocks
breeding dust and minding our ticks and our tocks
and dong our time in the school of hard knocks
I'm the shepherd of lost shopping carts ...
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5. |
Vacationland
04:07
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10 hours in the station wagon, northbound
and all the road signs right where I left them
seem to say I was lost and found
cut the bud off at the stem
I wonder why I come and go
why I come and go
out of season in vacationland
Three days of rain before I saw the sun shine
I saw her through the window drinking red wine
She heard I was in town, said she couldn't stop by
but she sends her regards and another goodbye
I wonder why I come and go
How'd I get so empty and so full
How did I bottom out my hull
How can I chart a course not knowing
whether my tide's coming in or going
We got a hole in the ozone, Bush Sr.'s vacation home
Plastic lobsters, small town mobsters
a cruise of the islands, a chain of outlet malls
the pine trees sway, the pine needles fall
I wonder why I come and go
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6. |
Tel Aviv Waltz
03:53
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All the stray cats of Tel Aviv
know things I wish they'd purr to me
the ring-tailed, dreadlocked quarter-breeds
sniffing the trash on Masaryk
Tell me the difference between a raven and a crow
rain, sleet, freezing rain and snow
the point where fast first becomes slow
a shaky yes becomes a shaky no
Hebrew, Arabic, Lebanese
the cryptic muttering of the drug casualties
the palm's reply to the promenade's breeze
the mutt to the summons of his fleas
What is the difference between a thick soup and a stew
What is the different between a bad cold and a flu
What is the different between a Muslim and a Jew
Which prays on a rug and which prays in a pew
All the stray cats of Tel Aviv
know things I wish they'd purr to me
I kneel before their mystery
their eyes go wide and then they flee
What is the difference between a raven and a crow
rain, sleet, freezing rain and snow
the point where fast first becomes slow
a shaky yes becomes a solid no
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7. |
Wrong Meter
03:45
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Hey what did you say last Monday?
Say can you explain
You pray to something you wish that you could name
Got a broken zipper on my coat
and a burning tickle in my throat
I put my change in the wrong meter
Put my change in the wrong meter again
I lock my keys in my Eldorado
Hey anybody got a cellphone I can borrow?
I put my change in the wrong meter
Hey you were in my dream last Monday
What did you say was your name?
I pray were praying to something that remains
Got a broken tickle in my throat
and a burning zipper on my coat
I put my change in the wrong meter
Locked my keys in my Eldorado
Wait till I retrace the silhouette
you etched in my brain
Dreams are songs with an incomplete refrain
Wait till I erase the data
today poured into my brain
Dreams are prayers to a goddess with no name
Got a rusty wicket in my throat
and town out lining in my coat
I put my change in the wrong meter
The ratio of my joys to my sorrow
the odds today will become tomorrow
that you could make my life sweeter
be the dream I could keep dreaming
be the dream I could keep dreaming again
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8. |
When The Sun
03:48
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Misty lights along the highway
naked silos in the rain
through the dusk of central PA
the ochre fields fade to gray
City, city, town to town
Who's to say, who's to say
When the sun comes for me tomorrow
It may show me somewhere I can stay
Spent one month drunk in Grantham
three in Philly looking for a friend
fished all summer in the Juniata
but now I'm headed north again
City, city, town to town ...
Weaving along a thin white line
drifting into the passing lane
each town tells a different story
but all the exits look the same
City, city, town to town ...
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9. |
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Now how and why did you steal a twelve-year-old Century
with two bald tires in the middle of the night?
And who taught you the fine arts of lock picking and hotwiring?
Why don't you stop by for coffee and tell me how you pulled it off sometime
Well are you taking my baby for a junkie joyride?
Did you stash the plates and sell her for a line?
Did you like the tune I had cued up on the tape deck?
Will you ditch her in a snowbank come inspection time?
Now why didn't you jack her before I fixed the muffler?
That way I'd hear you every time you drove along Route 5
Only one last question before I go and try to hitch a ride
What scum-sucking lowlife is driving my white-bodied, blue interior, American-made baby tonight?
And are you taking my baby for a junkie joyride?
Did you stash the plates and sell her for a vial?
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10. |
Northpole in July
03:44
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My mother always said
you gotta eat a peck a dirt before you die
Now I know why ...
Late to bed and hate to rise
cause you can't read what's written behind your eyes
Behind your eyes
No matter how many stairs you climb
you ain't never gonna fly
cause the coal in your stocking
is piling up to the sky ...
There's no more reasons why ...
Avacado on rye
cigarette and a chai
god doesn't know why
maybe his cousin knows why
northpole in july
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11. |
Discontinued Road
06:13
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Oh hello dear discontinued road
I'll walk real slow in the memory's fold
The rusted hull of a '47 Ford
A baby stroller cradling pinecones
A sled that stalled, dissolved into the hillside
A leash corrodes, collar tagged Shadow
Oh hello ...
Bottles, bowls, an ancient pile of compost
A kiln of stone, a crippled lamp post
A cellar hole, a cold well dry beside it
The mossy skull of a doe's long silence
Oh hello ...
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12. |
Wrong Meter Reprise
00:37
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13. |
Frost Heaves
02:02
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Frost heaves
brittle leaves
snow drifts town
labrynthine
Pleasantries
crack and freeze
small talk's squeezed
to slush debris
When frost heaves
flesh grieves for spring
breeze sings
breeze sings through rustling swings
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14. |
Dreamsong
01:51
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