1. |
negative space
03:04
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|
Staring through you into space
I realize I don’t know your name
And I don’t know what you’re saying
I guess I had something on my brain
It started the hour I crossed the street
The minute I saw folks I had yet to meet
The second I heard sounds so sweet and pained
and thought I don’t even know their names
We can fill the negative space
Between the two of us and say
That we’re afraid to change
But we can do it anyways
There’s so much tension between us
So much distrust and privilege
It pains me but i will tell you plain
That I don’t even know your name
But i could learn it all the same
And you could learn mine and we could say
That neither of us are very brave
But we could do it anyways
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2. |
the girl from capilano
03:34
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Short and loud and young and lovely
The Girl from Capilano caught my eye
She wraps her hair before she goes to bed
Tells me all that’s in her head
And every time she’s all alone
She calls her sister on the phone
She bears the weight of the new world
and sheds a tear for the old one
Sometimes we go to cocktail bars downtown
She says she’s boujee, I say I know
When we go home because we’re tired
I rest my head on hers
It seems we have our whole lives to be happy together
But tonight we’ll have an hour if we meet soon by the stairs
If you’re ever free
girl from capilano, run with me
We’ll have our backs to the breeze
We’ll jump and touch the shorter trees
Without a care that we could know - me and the girl from capilano
By the flowers at the leg we go walking
I smile at her and she smiles back at me
Later we’ll talk about me and you
and argue ‘bout meat and tofu
you’ll feel bad about what we spend
and I’ll feel bad about carbon
In the end we’ll know we’re lucky
In the end we’re only two in love
after all the cares that we have spared
We’ll care again tomorrow
we’ll go rest our weary heads
you’ll wrap your hair again
...
It seems we have our whole lives to be happy together
Tonight we’ll dream of all that we can at our leisure
Thinking about all tomorrow’s pains and pleasures
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3. |
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When I fall behind I hate myself
When I say an awkward line I hate myself
When I’m doing fine I still hate myself
hate myself, hate my
I know that you don’t mind, but I hate myself
I know that I’m refined but I hate myself
I remember many times when I hate myself
hate myself, hate my
I’m too much like the dusty suburbs
I grew up in as a boy
Trying to be perfect
But really isolated and plain
I’m too much like this stupid city
Folks give me up-and-coming pity
And so I’ll lean into my flaws and
Say that I hate myself
I hate myseeeeeelf
What if I didn’t hate myself?
Maybe if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be myself
Maybe if I didn’t then I couldn’t love myself
love myself, love my
I’m too much like the glassy condos
I covet as a man
Trying to be perfect
But really isolated and vain
I hate me for this song that I’m writing
For all this performative self-slighting
I hate me for responding to texts late and
For forgetting acquaintances names
I hate me for always daydreaming and
never being that great at reading
i hate myself when i'm at the gym
*i hate that - i hate that too*
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4. |
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having cake, eating it too
beneath an Elm on 99
Got a place on Whyte Avenue
therein my life could be defined
(I drink with friends too much, I call my family not enough)
Met you while calling a truce
between what is and isn’t mine
(You said you’re here until you’re not, I said I’d save you a spot)
Said that we were paying our dues
pounding pavement for a time
If we stay, then we may
never leave this place again
if we go, we don’t know
what we really want in the end
What’s to lose? What’s to gain?
Is there any joy we haven’t claimed?
Even keel, local game...
Is there anything I’d like to change?
you and I would kill for a view
and we would die to turn the page
all of us are grasping for truth
or contentment if it’s all the same
(I’ve thought about an awful lot, about what is and is not)
you and i are just one and two,
but i think we may be one through ten
(if i didn’t have your hand, I’d have to hold my tongue instead)
Walking home from dive bars with you
We know we’ll be back again
Well if it makes you feel so good
Then maybe you really should
The world is full of what could
be and what would be
if we tried
then maybe we won’t be denied
and all this time we were just waiting to find it
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5. |
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this is a song about sundays
that brief pause before the week begins, when I wonder
if there’s anything I should be doing different, or better, or just plain doing
this is a song about backroads. the old backroads I drive in my head
and the canola fields i pass along the way
that must’ve been there the last time, but i can’t remember
this is a song about the funeral of an old friend I barely knew
a friend whom i have little more right to write about than you
a friend who always used my full name
This is a song about what you can learn at such funerals
Learn about how they never stopped wearing their hair long
About their zeal, about how they didn’t share your fear of small talk
And about how it feels...
...it feels like i’m finally waking up after a long sleep
This is a song about new friends
The young, hopeful, gushing Canadiana.
Who remind you of a prince you once met on a November train to St Petersburg
This is a song about the Idiots
Who have had their day of grief
and whose tears have turned to paint on mural walls
this is a song about sundays
About the people you meet on them
About what you can learn from them
And about how...
...it feels like i’m finally waking up after a long sleep
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6. |
happy birthday, mom
02:07
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NICE BOI Alberta
songs you can ride the bus to.
Background photo by Summer Midkiff: (bit.ly/2RvBQQj)
Avatar by Molly Little (bit.ly/34VmYic)
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