Get all 7 Jersey Water releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Thirty Two Short Songs About Frankenstein on the Beach, A Blanket from My Room, Last of the War Novels, Motor Works, Old Judgments, The Crowd' Train Takes the Form, and Masco: Come On Along.
1. |
Long Branch Public
02:54
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I was born in Long Branch
I was raised where they’d sleep in shifts
And I grew up with the doors closed
And where the hearts beat
Oh, owl here
Oh, owl there
All we knew was our own despair
And the place where I first learned to swim
Was named and never named again
My dreams were wet then
I could count all the notes till the end of a song
An ode to my little gay boner for staying true
And an ode to the walk between here and Warner
It’s far
I’ll say a prayer now even though I don’t believe
A prayer you can see from the bridge
A prayer for my friend, a prayer for my dog
And for the rain
I remember pouring my heart out
To my favorite lifeguard
While he twirled that whistle round
And I shared with him my dreams
And all the monster movies I made up
Singing ode to my little gay boner for staying true
An ode to my Harmony II professor
You’re an asshole
We want the angel
We want the angel
And the robot said
We want the angel
We want the angel
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2. |
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So we’d talk about the weight of every passing year
Like cutting ribbons all 5th period
I remember standing in the Sam Sacristy doorway
And all our friends were here
And we’d roll up our skirts past the knee
We didn’t care what Sister Carmelisa said
We were outta there in June
C'est la vie
And we defined words like apathy
And we defined words like intimacy
And walked through the halls and through the world
The only way we knew how to be
Said I could dance, I could sing
Counting 1, 2, 3
And see a blanket from my room if I tried
Ashes left unclaimed
Portraits from memory
Then after graduation we were crazy from the heat
No more shouting ‘cross the river
No more lying in the street
And the kids said
Pick up the beat, pick up the beat
Hide your sadness and tap your feet
So we’d sing sing for our supper
And pass the hat around
Oh, baby don’t you leave me
Don’t leave me now
I was lonely when I was lost
And just as lonely when I was found
And I could dream of you in Garden City
And I could swear by old Saint Jude
Who asked Jesus why he revealed himself to him
And not to a lover in a different room
Once I had his body
Now there’s just his face
In a folder hidden on a hard drive
Frozen in a dozen shapes
And when the recession hit
We’d go out on weeknights cause we could
I met a dancer called Honey Child
She told me I’d never lose a soul
As long as I’m alive
But by the third month I spent all my combat pay
And called out to you into that Bedstuy night
And just like that, after vespers
I returned to my mistakes
And then I sold my body and my Gibson SG
Then my Hot Rod Deluxe
It was too heavy carrying it from gig to gig anyway
But there were blackberries on the hood
And on the roof of my love
Said I’ll keep my hands to myself this time
There’s not a star in Suffolk County
And nothing to wish for if there was
Now the ferry leaves every half hour
I said all that I had to say
I don’t have a place on Shelter Island
I’m just here for the day
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3. |
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They caught the boy who pulled the alarm today
Coach grabbed him by his shirt
Threw him on the stairs
Kim says he lives with his uncle in Bradley Beach
His favorite band's Metallica and at lunch he never eats
His brown eyes hidden behind his hair
Reading The Left Hand is Darkest
He sits with the black kids
The way he walks he gives himself away
Look at the way he talks, he gives himself away
And in the last stall a sophomore sang
Down the river we will float
Down the river we will float
Come bibble with the boo-shy lorry
And he smokes his Marlboro Reds
And hangs out with the skaters down in the park
Oh, I could never go down there
They'd beat me up
If I were cast I'd play the part
And if his body's smooth
Oh, can't I wonder if his body's smooth
I have your cassette on now
Was just talking to you in my mind
About the Electric Company
And about the spit in your mouth
And how I wanna spit in your mouth
And about Sam Manzie
And how he smashed the machine
And hugged a boy till he died
And on the bus
His windows wide
Our windows wide
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4. |
Notes on Dark Victory
04:09
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Well I once wrote letters with my nails painted black
Addressed to my inside center prince
Don’t you feel so strange living inside your body
Haunting you as it changes its shape
And I once wrote poems in the style of my peers
A year of stolen couplets walking in their sleep
Don’t you feel so alone at the bottom of the river
Hanging in challenger deep
Hanging in the quad
Hanging down the hall
Hanging for once and for all
Oh, I've seen that movie
Where Bette Davis falls to her feet
And cries out, What we have can't be destroyed
I should know you by now
Well I once wrote short stories about a past I never lived
Now I’m trying to make a living in the day time
Don’t you feel like that leaf at the mercy of the wind
Dancing with no one to lead
Dancing to my bed
Dancing down the hall
Dancing the tour jete most of all
Oh, I’ve seen that movie
The one where I’m chained to your tree
And I sing, Falling in love’s just a waste of time
Won’t you know me by now
The dogs of Mount Charleston are howling in this guardian night
To this guardian moon
Shirtless, hungover, a pale blue Gatorade
A skull necklace where there once hung a cross
You knew me last summer
Our sweat sweet from liquor
We danced at the rave
And to all we’d lost
Baby blue
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5. |
Song for the Quiet Car
03:22
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I miss you in the wintertime
When our words turn to smoke
Whatever happened to the boy that I once knew
If only I’d taken the same train with you home
I miss you in the springtime
But not as much as I do in the fall
When I was young I’d hang out in the woods
And worship the devil
But these days he don’t do much for me at all
At the mall you got an autograph
Of Pete from Pete & Pete
And you let me braid your hair
And taught me how to inhale
The first night of the Firemen’s Fair
I think of you in the summertime
And the holes your feet made in the sand
And the songs heard in the waves and in the jetty
All the songs you’ll never understand
Still my belly sings for you
In the quiet car of the LIRR
A car you know so well
There’s Ms. Fitzgerald
Can’t you see her kerchief
Tumbling toward the ground
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6. |
Fag Outside Dunkin'
03:01
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Of beasts, aspirants
Called me a fag outside Dunkin'
Nobody'll write a book about us
Of straight boys, cabana boys
In their straight boy shoes
Who lean against the tide and the moon
Of a ‘97 Altima in the driveway of your parents' house
Where we smoked a bowl before homecoming
Of Stila Stay All Day stolen in the afternoon
Heard your name over the PA
And thought of the undertow pulling me downward
Into a new darkness
That stupid darkness
Of AIDS blood
Faggot blood
Bruises by the swings
Of dancing and dying and dancing again
Of a diamond found in a dumpster behind Nobody Beats the Wiz
Nobody Beats the Wiz
Of beasts, aspirants
Called me a fag outside Dunkin'
Nobody'll write a book about us
Of straight boys, cabana boys
In their straight boy shoes
Who lean against the tide and the moon
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7. |
Teenage Wing
03:39
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Gone past Carriage House
Gone to Winding Way
I'll meet you at the Dunes
Got the wind knocked out of me
In the backyard of my youth
Born on the cusp ain't that the truth
Out of time, my hotel buddy showed me
You're this year's teenage wing
It's only when nobody's home
Do I feel his quiet
Dive, Sliver, Stain, Been a Son, Turnaround
Was on the tape you made me
Got the wind knocked out of me
In the backyard of my youth
Born on the cusp ain't that the truth
Out of time, my hotel buddy showed me
You're this year's teenage wing
It's only when nobody's home
Do I feel inspired
Sometimes I think about a world where I'm not here
Don't want to think about a world where you're not here
It'd be lonesome
It'd be hard
A rift and undertow
Who’d be my belly, my king, my star
It's only when my baby's home
Do I feel his quiet
Tan boys
Beach club blues
Drug rug wearin' on the radio tugboat
Out of time, my hotel buddy showed me
You're this year's teenage wing
It's only when my baby’s home
Do I feel inspired
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8. |
Alex in the Surf
02:06
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I saw you wandering down the beach
With your head bowed
And beside me in the car
I flexed my arm so you'd think I was strong
In the back of the Charlton's
And in the back of my mind
And I was moved by a bush of sun
So low and bright
And you, a naked Jew
You like to see me with my beauty starved
And a rosary of boys
On the surface of morn
A scar from a torn ACL
And you, a naked Jew
You like to see you with your beauty starved
You like to see me with my beauty starved
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9. |
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I dreamed I was back in school before the war
With my negative self
And my overbite and my rugby stripes
And I was on the bleachers then
With Alex from Middletown North
Wished I could’ve woken up in his dirty bed
Drank his dip and worn his t-shirt home
Stained with Manic Panic
And chocolate from a Charleston Chew
He dyed his hair in his mother’s sink
Said the color of rain would do him good
Turn his blues
Make him dance if he wanted to
Said where you running to with that broken heart
And a cashier’s income
Then I walked home half alone
With a fifth of gin in my backpack
And an unswallowed pill in my pocket
That I’ll lose in the wash with everything else
And I thought about the nighttime parties
And the laugh you could hear to the racetrack
It doesn’t make sense at all to miss him like I do
But I do
I wanna see him in the streetlight
I wanna see him in this pool light
I wanna wake up in his dirty bed
In his sobered kindness
If you see him, look at him good
Tell him, baby, I hope someday I can find you
Like the moon and the stars I will find you
Like the moon and the stars
I will always find you
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Jersey Water
I started out
on Chips Ahoy
But soon hit the Double Stuf
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