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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Christmas Suicides (Single), Bogged Down EP, Cold Comfort (Single), Seems Alien to Me, Give It A Rest, Familiar Failure, God Knows What, So Long, Calm EP, and 4 more.
1. |
Soup Stone
05:07
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You say that you wanna melt my heart.
You say, “It’s a tender heart.”
You say that I must have a soft side.
You say “and it can’t always hide inside.” (you crycrycry, melt your eye)
You say that you wanna swim in my blood.
You better be careful, it would be a flood.
You say, “It will be a pool of peaceful stillness.”
You say that it will cure all your illness.
I don’t trust you in word or deed
When you say a spoonful’s all you need
Well, how do you know?
How do you know
I’m not some fearsome beast
that feeds on mystery?
How do you know
I won’t turn on you
Like a smiley pet chimpanzee?
There’s wild irrationality
and implacable machines
How do you know that’s not me?
How do you know
I’m not a lion in it’s cage
Pacing in power, masking it’s rage
How do you know
I’m not completely empty?
I can flash my eyes at you
& You’d know what I can do
You only know what I let you know
You can’t be sure of what you infer
Still you say that you wanna melt my heart
O you say, “Sure it’s a delicate art.”
You say you’ve got such sympathy
Can’t you see it is useless to me?
And how can you melt a stone?
Especially when it is all on it’s own
If you won’t stop trying to melt my heart,
Well first you’ve got to make it start.
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2. |
"Second Order Vanity"
03:36
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I’ll never see the point in button-fly jeans
Don’t look at me that way again
If you ask me what it all means
I won’t tell you if I am your friend
Does obsolete technology always become luxury?
It’s not for me
I used to ask all the pretty girls at the party
What was their favorite time of the day.
To appeal to women you have to use trickery
Is that OK?
I don’t want to be that way
I still want you to hear what I say
Do they think I’m vain?
Do you think I’m vain?
I’m a proud man, not insane
Still I’m worried and I don’t have anyone to whisper to
Is my gravestone gonna read,
“Only ever loved by his parents truly”?
Is this failure for me?
True humility is a stranger to itself
It’s stupid, ignorant
I strive and deny learning jokes in the middle of the night
I’ll never be comfortable in a scarf
And I can’t stand to wear a hat too long
Sunglasses on stage might make me barf
I’m not sure how I stand singing my own songs
Accessories are only good for crime
I avoid them all the time
When you’re easy going, you’re easily got
We’re not supposed to care about how we appear
Still I’ve got to look casual quite a lot
We have to jump through strange hoops my dear
Should all these things be meaningless to me?
Is that how I’m supposed to be?
Isn't that real vanity?
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3. |
Common Impressions
04:23
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To think of how you think of me
Is embarrassing
To think of what you think of me
Is befuddling, confusing
To think of if you think of me
Is frightening
To think of you thinking of me
Is still enticing
To see exactly how someone else sees
Seems to be more difficult than living in the sea
But what if everyone thinks exactly the same?
What if those walls are only in our brains
What an awful, convoluted game.
What a shame to feel the same
only in the dark of our heart.
I am afraid of how I appear,
And I don’t trust the mirror.
In the end what you think of me
Is what I am, how belittling, how befitting
But how can I trust your faulty memory?
Then again how do I know my memory is trustworthy?
Is it as strange and rare as it seems
to admit to our thoughts and our dreams?
I don’t want to admit it.
I know expressed affection is an exception
It’s in the dark of our perception.
And there’s no limit to our capacity for lying.
It doesn’t even take trying.
Is it strange to be the reason
for another person’s living?
It must be, but did you ever know?
How often do we know?
I keep seeing so many people that I could be
And maybe some of them you are, I am
O you can define me, it’s fine, yes you can
Define me, please make me a man.
I think of you, I want you to know
I don’t want to be ashamed
I want to know your real name.
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4. |
Pleas
04:28
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We are at your mercy
I thought you should know
But you already see
That’s the way power grows:
Self-consciously
So we know that you know,
sometimes we’re equal and so
Once in a blue moon, you are at our mercy, too.
Singing is useless when I beg you to hear
Singing is power when you give me your ear
If it is a choice, can it be reversed?
Is it a choice if it has been rehearsed?
Is there a place where no one is worse?
And if there could be, would our ideas burst?
Or is it always insane and absurd
For everyone and everything to be heard?
If there’s no equality, what’s the hierarchy?
(It’s not monetary)
I hate zero-sum games
We’ll show mercy to you
In payment for the same
It’s very easy to do
But there’s no point, no aim
It comes out empty, nothing new
O entropy, we’re all at your mercy
Let’s do something we don’t have to do
Before the sun explodes
Give me something for free
Agree without fee, make a key.
I’ll say merci beaucoup,
but I won’t have to.
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5. |
Treatments
04:45
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I can hug your embarrassment right away.
Give me you shame and I’ll hold it in my hand.
I can cure it with the pure light of day.
Even your violence I can withstand,
But your silence, I can’t understand.
Communication is very flawed,
But it’s much better than nothing at all.
So your sadness is too much for words.
If that’s the point, you do communicate.
O your hurt can be heard,
But this way understanding comes too late.
Stop pretending we can’t relate.
Your silence is too meaningful
It leaves too many strings to pull
And maybe I can’t really tell, what you’re trying to tell.
But that can’t keep me from guessing.
Maybe you know where there’s bloody water, I’ll smell.
O I’m blood thirsty so you stopped your polite addressing.
You think you see through my constant yes-ing?
God doesn’t talk out loud anyone more either
Are you trying to make devoted believers?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to speak constantly
I can sit still in quiet comfort.
This ain’t the same, it’s torment repeatedly.
You know you’re leaving me face down in dirt.
But aren’t you supposed to know all about hurt?
I talk to brick walls if I have to.
I refuse to live in a silent vacuum in a crowded room.
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6. |
Three Days of the Candor
05:34
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I am your burden now
I have revealed the wrong things
both before and now.
They never were daring things,
Not unsettling or strong,
Only embarrassing - un-refined, naïve.
I do regret my naked frailty.
You’ve seen my meager hand or will see:
Low numbered hearts and shame,
And still we must remain in the game,
Without any defense against terrible pity.
Then worse still are those things un-said, failed to say
Chances die so fast then grief lasts
Missed gifts remain, remind in memory.
Perfections seen too late
Reveal me to be less than I think.
I do get lucky sometimes
When my words mean more than I meant.
But I don’t admit it.
I am your burden now.
I don’t know any way to carry myself.
I thought I knew.
It wasn’t true.
My humbling should be crippling.
But it hasn’t stopped me yet,
I still call it ‘mine’
And still I keep writing this, singing at your feet.
I don’t admit defeat
I am your burden now.
I don’t think you can let me down.
Some stand firm under weight,
For others the back just breaks.
Silence is an option
I know that very well.
So this means I still have some vanity.
This song was supposed to be pure humility,
But now it’s only easy to forget.
I am your burden now.
I’m strapped to your back.
I hope we don’t collapse.
But I can’t even hear you gasp.
Can we be free of pride
and remain human and alive?
I’m afraid it’s a knot that can’t be untied.
But how come it feels like we all agree
The first and last sin is vanity?
And why do we want to be so dignified?
I used to be sure that living for art,
Devoted enough to starve,
Was the only nobility.
Now I see that it might as well be more vanity.
All of the people on the stage
Have the ambitions of a little child-
It’s our weakness, it’s our shame.
I don’t believe them when they say they need to write or sing.
Maybe fantasy is good enough for me,
And I can get by on dreaming every night
But I don’t want to find out.
I think I’d be fine without those
Beautiful women’s singing voices igniting my desire
(And I don’t want to be just another silly admirer
Which makes me only another silly admirer)
But it doesn’t feel like they’re my burden
It seems they hold themselves
And all our ties are so tenuous.
O! Damn this ever-present tenuousness!
So, I’ll let you carry me,
O what am I saying, it’s not up to me
Thank you for carrying me.
It’s a debt that can’t be repaid.
There’s lots of those today.
You give me gifts
I don’t know what to do
How do you show true gratitude?
I’m really asking you!
Thank You!
You’re giving something great.
You are a gift.
Thank you.
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Conductors Chicago, Illinois
"Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line
She said that all the railroad
men
Just drink up your blood like wine
An’ I said, 'Oh, I didn’t know that
But then again, there’s only one I’ve met
An’ he just smoked my eyelids
An’ punched my cigarette' "
... more
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