1. |
Bad Faith
02:40
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My peace is a storm that rages in my mind
Trapped in a manufactured maze of society's design
We must take heed of the call that dwells within
The clarion that beckons us toward seeking true enlightenment
The search for answers in a world that offers none
Eschew society's pressures and confusions
Your gut is an apostle; listen to the gospel
We all know what's inside
The candle of veracity, the true path of our lives
We all know it can't be ignored
The drive to live as our best selves, to search for something pure
In our hearts the only scripture; the obstacle is our mind
The lighthouse of our souls signals our exaltations
Buried beneath the hubris of others' expectations
To finally get some semblance of peace is merely to decide
Negative ecstasy demands that we
acknowledge in epiphanic moments of anxious clarity:
Existence precedes essence
Take control of your happiness
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2. |
Sepia Heroes
02:55
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This vitriol is cyclical
The streets are rife with enmity
This archaic philosophical disease
Still present in this century
Shepherds have gone away, 'been taken from their sheep
In their wake pious wolves prey(pray)
Waiting as they lull them to sleep
These sepia heroes don't have to be a page to turn in history
Be the change you wanna see, don't hide behind verbosity
Don't focus on the difference find the similarity
June 12, 1963 on a summer night down in Jackson, Mississippi
A courageous martyr, he fell
Fallen prey to a coward's bullet shell
Painting passionate hues into a stoic concrete
You were a beacon of hope in a weary world
In an arid desert wasteland, a shimmering ocean pearl
These sepia heroes don't have to be a page to turn in history
Be the change you wanna see, don't hide behind verbosity
Don't focus on the difference find the similarity
We seek change, but we won't put the weight of burden on our backs
Just sanctimonious, paperback prophets preaching from the
Comforts of cul-de-sacs
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3. |
Genesis
02:23
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I'm spinning cotton into thread
Weaving tapestries in my head
Searching for the patterns within to make this all make sense
But what comes out is a mess
of knotted twist and frayed edges
That look nothing like the starting conceptual image
Feelings of futility flood my frontal lobe
And pave this labyrinthian path I can't see
Obstacles obtrude my thoughts
Is this even worth pursuing?
Fight this feeling
Push through
Don't let your self-doubt disturb or dissuade you
Don't acquiesce
We can't cave in
Or let our negative inclinations win
Again drawing blood from this stone
A problem perpetually posed
Reaching the recesses of my reason
Importance overblown
I see a spark deep down within
Embarking to keep it lit
The chaos of my mind determined to extinguish it
Here we fucking go again
Another exercise of indecision
Obstacles obtrude my thoughts and I...
Damn it.
Genesis is the end of nearly every fucking thing that I attempt to rend
Genesis, stumped again; the moment of birth, frustration sets in
Genesis is the end; right from the start I can't impart these cliched perspectives
Genesis, can't comprehend: what's the point?
Ain't got no choice in how this brain stifles my voice
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4. |
Enemy Complacency
03:48
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Another fleeting day, spent isolated in this plaster cage
Comforted by a lonely humming, a vagabond's sweet self-serenade
Sprawled and idle, I peer up thinking
Of vast expanse of blue skies, but vacant eyes only navigate
Fissured ceiling fault lines
Will it lead to California?
Or will it just simply crumble and decay?
I guess everything crumbles in the end anyway
Enemy(enemy), Enemy(enemy), submerged in toxic apathy
Enemy(enemy) Enemy(enemy) complacency
'Cause all my body's chemistry is a slave to all this reverie
But I've got to wake up, cause time won't wait for me
I'm sick and tired of all these excuses I've been selling
Employed more than a nautical metaphor in verses of rebellion
Self-imposed resignation to comforts of routine
Ideals lay somewhere buried, still in possession of their sheen
Will time and pressure forge the best in me?
Or will I be left a shell of good intentions
Marred and brittled by defeat?
Enemy(enemy), Enemy(enemy), submerged in toxic apathy
Enemy(enemy) Enemy(enemy) complacency
'Cause all my body's chemistry is a slave to all this reverie
But I've got to wake up, cause time won't wait for me
And I know I cannot hold on to this forever
Progressive footsteps haunted by yesterday's endeavors
Perhaps some things are best left to rose-colored hues of the past
Preserved in ideal form, we'll always have
But we can never go back
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5. |
Cheer Up, Billy Pilgrim!
02:43
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Your laughter, your smile, a vestige of happier times
But perhaps it was just misery cloaked in a clever disguise
But to ill intentions I have never been inclined,
'Cause there once was a time and place where you were my Clementine
We'll always have these timepieces
Reflections in the amber of who we are and what we used to be
An epidermic collective of experience,
Just well meaning players in this grandiose comedy
Gravity commands urgency as I salvage a single grain(of time)
Infused with anarchy, my greedy claws clasp for anything to remain
I'm a faded hero on a fool's odyssey
Clashing with sirens,
Seeking what can never be retrieved
We'll always have these timepieces
Reflections in the amber of who we are and what we used to be
An epidermic collective of experience,
Another narrative in the scheme of eternity
You'll always be a part of me,
An atom to the molecule
forever bound chemically
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6. |
Dear Julie
02:11
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My heart mutinied against my coldest senses
You tore down the blockades and the formidable trenches
Like a Caesarean conquest of Gaul
You came to take it all
Now i lie in wait to cast the flag at your feet
I willingly capitulate
Julie, you dance so whimsically inside my head
A partial dwelling in fantasy
But some ground has been shared and tread
I sat supplicating at your knees
You whispered to me, breath so sweet
My pride and ego now lay in shambles on the floor
My divine celestial queen, straight from mythology
Dismantled hubristic tendency
With your eyes of green
Julie, you dance so whimsically inside my head
A partial dwelling in fantasy
But some ground has been shared and tread
A light breeze filtered through your window on that summer night
Caressing your hair, danced like ocean waves
Whisking me in with the tide
My soul a weightless feather dancing in flight
Julie, you are a truth that no mystic could provide
Relics and symbols have now been cast aside
Sanctuary's a place, in your warm embrace
Injecting me with life
Julie, you dance so whimsically inside my head
A partial dwelling in fantasy
But some ground has been shared and tread
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7. |
The Abyss
02:56
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Two asteroids collide in an infinite expanse
No predetermined flight; just participants in circumstance
From this innocuous event results a chain of links
Bound together by our essence, despite what we're taught to think
There are those who find value staring into the abyss
And there are those who find nothing but utter emptiness
When we cast our gaze above, we lose sight of our periphery
Seeking only for ourselves, praying selfishly
Fragile dogmatic doctrines all claim to know the path
Just don't ask any questions, and you'd better not talk back
From this disguised disease results a toxicity
That permeates all discourse and obscures our commonality
To those around us who are lost: we are forever tied
Links in a common chain, bound through the accident of life
Set in your gaze
Sublimated emotion
A classic case of erroneously cast devotion
When we cast our gaze above, we lose sight of our periphery
We dispel our humanity
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8. |
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Inhabitants of the first world
I watch you complain all day
Like a petulant child who
Never seems to get his way
You spend your life manufacturing
A false complexion
While you're constantly searching
For your digitized affection
Even instant validity
Could never set you free
From your malignant, narcissistic, self-absorbed personality
You're sitting around waiting
For the red carpet to unfurl
It makes me sick, but these are
The perspectives of the first world
These appetites for vanity and avarice
Have led us to a state of unbridled selfishness
Can't discern between what you want
And what you need
You're wringing your hands
As you line up for the feed
Inhabitants of the first world
You're crawling on your hands and knees
Salivating at the chance to purchase your new identity
You spend your life manufacturing
A false complexion
While you're constantly searching
For your digitized affection
Even instant validity
Could never set you free
From your malignant, narcissistic, self-absorbed personality
You're sitting around waiting
For the red carpet to unfurl
It makes me sick, but these are
The perspectives of the first world
These appetites for vanity and avarice
Have led us to a state of unbridled selfishness
Can't discern between what you want
And what you need
You're wringing your hands
As you line up for the feed
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9. |
Ghosts of the City
03:45
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Combing through the city on a late night drive
Searching for a pulse, for a sign of you
To keep you alive in my mind
Thinking of what once was
And what could have been
A these same old buildings
Glare down at me with a derisive grin
I've soldiered on through the change
The transitions and the pain
Harboring hopeless illusions
That things will stay the same
But reality cannot reconcile with my brain
The city lights they don't burn as bright
Lifting their feeble glow has now become their plight
Since you sought distant horizons
And drove away from sight
Leaving me with these ghosts of the city tonight
Now you're gone from this place for good
Moving forward towards the future
Like I know I should
But I'm clinging to a distant memory
Bringing me short term happiness
But a terminal misery
I've soldiered on through the change
The transitions and the pain
Harboring hopeless illusions
That things will stay the same
But reality cannot reconcile with my brain
The city lights they don't burn as bright
Lifting their feeble glow has now become their plight
Since you sought distant horizons
And drove away from sight
Leaving me with these ghosts of the city tonight
Echoes of voices' past ring out
In the recess of these concrete cracks
Trapped between steel sepulchers
An urban specter constructs this epitaph
The city lights they don't burn as bright
Lifting their feeble glow has now become their plight
Since you sought distant horizons
And drove away from sight
Leaving me with these ghosts of the city tonight
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10. |
What We Do
01:45
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Prosaic armchair politics, it's easy to relent
Assuage popular positions without so much as a sweat
All words cut are nothing but ego and bullshit
When supported on infirm legs unwilling to persist
Buckled at the knees when it's time to hit the street
It's not just what we think; It's what we do
It doesn't start with them; it starts with you
Like a powder keg nestled near an open flame, ready to explode
So clear with what instills this rage with no solutions proposed
"Why bother participating in a broken system?"
When complaining feels so good but challenges nothing
Fuck that
Seize the power you have
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We Scholars Dayton, Ohio
Two dudes writing songs.
Both of them like philosophy and punk rock and literature
and the Reds and being accidentally pretentious by pretending to be pretentious. Brandon also has a fervent distaste for gilded-age mustache core. See Pitchfork for an example.
... more
We Scholars recommends:
Shane's a hell of a dude and a mighty-fine song writer. I once watched him piss himself outside of a Steak n Shake.
go to album
It's about Roseanne; there'es really nothing else to say.
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Taking cues from Midwestern emo and early ’10 pop punk, this Leeds, UK outfit are full of heart— not to mention hooks.
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