1. |
Sing Far Your Bones
04:14
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Sing far your bones, far from class and name
The roots defy the harvest until laid bare as the grain
Sing far your bones, far from privilege and far from home
let nothing stir the dust around your ragged, ragged old throne
Sing far your bones, far from the hands of god
They’ll bury your first-born sons, they will bury your first-born sons
Sing far your bones, the cur biting at your heels
A dollar in the teeth he’s growing hungry for what he can’t eat
Sing far your bones, from the propertied men of wealth and grace
But when the streets become the rivers of the scouring flood
How much ground do you give, how much ground do you give
Just enough for the city
Just enough for the city
Just enough for the city
Just enough….to cover your bones
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2. |
Banks of the Río Masacre
04:49
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Wash my rags in dirty water
In the bed named for the slaughter
On the banks
Oh, on the banks
Down on my knees in a church without bells
I take from my cup without faucet without well
On the banks, on the banks, oh on the banks
Well we crossed our stars over a tombstone tree
And we hung ourselves from the mercy string
And we dug our love out of the clay and the heat
On the banks, on the banks, oh on the banks
And then the earth shook
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na
Carry what you need leave what you can’t carry
And we’ll light out for the east, for the east
To bury our bones, bloody our feet
Far from the banks, far from the banks, far from the banks
And then the earth shook
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na (4x)
Wash my rags in dirty water
In the bed named for the slaughter
On the banks, on the banks, oh on the banks
where our poor, dry bones now lay
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3. |
Chimney Swallows
02:55
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There’s a spring welling up in the hollow
It carries ghosts over the polished stones
Call the fire from the hill, the grist to the mill
You know hell isn’t buried in a cavern dark or low
Not a cavern dark or low
Oh the migrant ships and the captain’s hand
Carry us from field to chaff
Captives we set sail
Into the hurricane’s gale, into the hurricane’s gale
Now the wind blows a fever through the cottonwoods
Pressed with the weight that ebbs from the flow
Take the burden from the beast, the spoil from the feast
The hunger from the maw and the city’s teeth
From the maw and the city’s teeth
We built our home out of the mud and branches
Hollow bones and the creosote wings (2x)
Now the moon hangs low, a cardinal red
Oh the wreck and dying that crowns our heads
So bury me with the calloused seeds
Beneath the moss and the leaves, beneath the moss and the leaves
Chorus
Take the fallow ground
Leave it to the brute and the wild
Take the fallow ground
From the thresh and the heel
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4. |
The Horn of Africa
03:38
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Oh somewhere east of the Hennepin line
The streets shine with an animal light
Over the lakes, over the saints and the tide
Oh somewhere east of the Hennepin line
So when my feet are swollen and bare
And my suit is worn to a thread
I’ll remember the blood on my brow
Tied like the workhorse to the plow
Oh Saint Mary of the dead weeds,
Saint Helen of the thorns
Cast off like the dry seeds into the Red Sea (and around the great horn)
And the fat grows lean and my kitchen bare
Well these animal lights will leave you standing there
Just waiting for the rain to fall
All over these pastures of salt
Chorus (3x)
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5. |
Bury the Coals
04:01
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Well the tune of my labor is blood and revival
Where the red mixes with the dirt and the tide
Like a stone from the bow of a sinking vessel
A direction in my bones keeps me drunk on the pace of the world
Well I feel my feet are staked to the ground
Like a soldier and a dog
Oh on the cavalry’s charge
So through the window of American Bedouin eyes
In the swell and the light of the signal fires
We buried the last of the city’s embers
Where the blades grow up around the till
And the hammer struck the bell
And the hammer struck the bell
Well do you bury, bury the coals
And all the fire of your convictions? (3x)
And all the fire of your convictions!
And all the fire of your convictions!
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6. |
To Rebels, To Dogs
03:52
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Oh the savage wheel of old dominions
Could not level the horizon
So we surrender all direction
To the curve of the sea
We’re all rebels, we’re all immigrants
Across this ownerless tract
Tenants and vagrants
In a riotous dance
Oh the shattered wheel of old dominions
My soul nailed to that track
You’ll find me dancing in the wreckage
To an old folk dance
Now the only noise in your head
Is the sound of the skeleton bells
And the only folks who dance
Are the dogs and the rebels (2x)
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7. |
Mackandal's Body
03:10
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Well the crowds ran the streets like rain in a ditch
And we’d leave this town as soon as breath it in
And black gulls made an oil streak across the sky
And the toll from the hill meant a man was about to die
We wore gowns to the death of the old house
Torn to ribbons in the birth of the new
And the smoke of our victories blackened the stars
But the sky still came crashing down hard, hard, hard
The sky still came crashing down hard
They raised an army, we raised a choir
And no hymns were ever sung for the ropes that kept him tied
They raised an army, we raised a choir
And no hymns were ever sung for the rops that kept him tied
And no one watch him go but you and I, but you and I
Just another black gull, just another dark stain
Against the tyranny of the sky (4x)
Well the crowd ran the streets like rain in a ditch
And we’d leave this town as soon as breath it in
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8. |
Drunk at the Oars
05:11
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Stood at the feet of the butcher
Four high walls of coral and stone
And all the creatures of the sea, all the sand on the shore
The noble savage’s bones
Around the feet of the butcher
Bent the rivers flow, bent the rivers flow
I sit and watch through a crack in the sill
Where a cold wind blows through
An empty stomach to fill
As the ocean rose up the eves
And all the builders and masons were drowned
And all that was flesh sunk like a stone, like a stone
I awoke on a funeral tide
Drunk at the oars and the light was dying
I awoke on a funeral tide
Drunk at the oars and barely alive
The city hemorrhaged with the sirens’ swell
The streets now paved with mussels and shells
We held our breath through these dredge water years
Drunk on the brine and up to our ears
There’ll be no refuge of land or lee
For the scavengers of men
We can fight ‘em out on the open sea (2x)
Chorus (2x)
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9. |
Low as Lions
04:05
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So make your heart a balled fist of oak
And trace the knotted lines up to your throat
The storms we’ve weathered have left us bare
Broken limbs cling to the scaffold tree
So Burn the bedsheets, tear up the floors
A famine sleeps like naked bones beneath the boards
A treaty and an oath to these lesser wars
Oh low, we’re low as lions
Set to tear each other apart
Oh low, we’re low as lions
Set to tear each other apart
A sermon in the desert, no perfect sage
A ragged heart that will never be stayed
Keep your ear to the cold ground, the break in a pine bow
This dying house burning to the ground
This dying house burning to the ground
Chorus
We’ve grown older in this skin
As the days turn over
We’ve grown older in this skin
As the days turn over
‘Til the roof comes caving in
‘Til the roof comes caving in
Chorus (4x)
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10. |
Ballast Song
04:54
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May these songs be an offense to our fathers
May they be a promise to the feral sons and daughters
Steadied by whiskey and ballast
A cannon to the sail set fire to the mast
Human constellations fallen from modern maps
So drag your bones down parchment roads, old warehouse walls
And throw your arms around this gunship heart
Buried low inside my chest
And we’ll throw away all we have left
And that’s all we have left
When the world gets heavy as the wind and the tow (3x)
When the world gets heavy as the wind…
Like the air sold from my lungs fishing for pearls at the bottom
Of a renegade sea
I tattooed ballads in your name
Just to hear you sing them back to me
May these songs be an offense to our fathers
May they be a promise to the feral sons and daughters
Chorus
Steady me on my way (4x)
Chorus
As the wind and the tow (4x)
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