1. |
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It's something you just read into
The thinness of the light
The autumn is coming on
I'm seeing it all around
And if I've come to like the quiet,
There's not much in asking why
It's enough to know, and
Listen up for the slightest sound
Who could ever say, the way it comes to be
That a little of the mystery goes out of everything?
All the same, I feel the strangest kind of still
Come over me
If “forgive” is too strong a word,
Let it stand as the life I lived,
As much as honesty would allow
Times we talked right past each other,
Times I felt a fool to bother
It's all right
It's all in the distance now
In what I did or didn't mean in the things I used to say,
When the meanness of the day had taken hold in me
You make the peace you can
With all those parts
You cannot wish away
Everything is moving
Ever slightly more apart
And I don't resist it now
The slights that I remember,
I don't take them much to heart
If I seem so distant now
I feel no different now
And all those thoughts
That defied the words,
They belong to another time
When words were all that I'd hung upon
To clarify what, in the end,
Was mine and only mine
I let them go,
Carried off on the wind and gone
There's nothing much to grieve
I've done enough of that
Those things ever out of reach
Go drifting out of sight
As clear as some things have become
Here at the onset of the night
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2. |
That Other Life
03:54
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Something's always reappearing in this light
I get to seeing things every now and then
Standing backward to the wind
Whatever my imaginings,
I turn and face back into it again
But something in the affect's changed
Beyond what I can say
But then I never was quite able to explain
There always seemed a reason not to, after all
Now the after-alls are all that still remain
The after-alls are all that will remain
Dismissed it with a sideward glance
And lost it in the day
But there's something else
That's harder to deny
A glimpse of that
If all those years were better spent
And so it went
That other life gone by
It rolls off the tongue
To say, “What's done is done”
I'm long beyond
Expecting something rarefied
I get my own piece in
The little ways I can
As I go, and so
Against became outside
Getting this for wanting that
The story you imagine
Always plays out better than reality
To live like there's still something coming after that,
Even when the aftermath was nothing much to see
If the aftermath was ever much to see
Missed it while I had the chance
I looked on as it passed
And took it as the last,
Whatever that implied
Some things linger on my mind,
Bite my tongue to say it
Any other way
That other life outside
That other life gone by
And so it went
That other life gone by
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3. |
Channels
03:10
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Headache set behind my eyes
Run on not much more than muscle memory
If it seems there's not much left to me
The gulls circle over Main Avenue Bridge,
Circling every day in a sky that I can't read,
That could go either way
It's a channel I can't seem to change
I can't seem to change
The further I get gone
The less I've got to say to anyone
To spin it all as some goodbye
To be that overdone
Bitter, sweet or otherwise
Explain became defend too many times
When there was nothing there to justify
We never did see eye to eye
I wish things could have been different
But here we are
Any kind of meeting seemed
Too far a reach for you or me
Engage, disengage
So we went on through our years, until
No one had much heart for it anymore
Seems we'd always circled around
We never did have all that much to say
It's a channel I can't seem to change
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4. |
Wrong
02:03
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If I needed anything to make it clear
Losing all the numbers
I would never think to call now
How people slip into the past
And disappear
We were wrong for each other,
That was all
Forced the conversations
There was nothing to be said
Feeling diminished
Should have known it once again
What that was telling of
What was still ahead
We were wrong for each other
In the end
If there's anything to mourn,
It's all those sad, frustrated years gone by
It's nothing either you or I could take back now
Just leave it alone
Those I'm wishing well,
I will do that from afar
You know who you are
There's not much more to tell
It's been explained away
Misread or just misunderstood
If it seems it's turned me off for good,
Here's hoping that I'm wrong
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5. |
Januar
04:02
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You catch a glimpse of something else
And all perspective is gone
The way that some things could be, against
The way you could say they could have been
The rain has begun to freeze
I ride alongside the memories of
The times they came close enough to touch
And fell away again
Crosstown Traffic fades away
And you're still on my mind
With a wish that, as hard as your days had been,
Something on your way would let you find
A passage on to the spring
It cast so much of everything
In the light that I tried to keep lit for you
As the sky up north kept darkening
On came the snow
From a place where only you could go
I stood off somehere far away
It wrapped around
And you were gone
Knowing that,
What else could I do?
My heart would have gone out to anyone
No one more than you
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6. |
Might Just Keep Driving
04:10
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This song feels right
For wet pavement on a rainy night
Wheels turning,
And I'm catching the reflected light
This dark ride going by
Same skyline but a different vibe
Quick flashes in the mind's eye,
And I might
Might just keep driving
I used to live in a world of ghostsSometimes still do, but most days
Pass into the next, and now
They barely cross my mind
Let alone the memory
You come to second-guess
So many things about the best days past
Far enough behindYou get to wonder what it isThat's kept you drivingThat keeps you driving
Days I could will myself to disappear
As much as everything hung on
A ticket out, away from here
You carry that around so long,
You lose track of the years
And somewhere, the fear of silence
Has gone
Something's changed
That I can't quite put my finger on
The still that's come from letting
All that's gone just be gone
In and out of the highway lights
I could disappear into an all-night rain
If it's all the same,
I could just keep driving
All the same,
Might just keep driving
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7. |
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I could hang awhile
Or I could fall and
Let the wind take me along
These streets all empty now
I've got the world
All to myself tonight
Lights are coming on,
Curtains drawn in
All the houses passing by
Blue clouds banked on the afterglow
And the winter's on my mind
In the faintest smell of snow
October's nearly halfway done
Summer's turned the corner and gone
Nowhere much to go,
And where to go
Had been the question all along
The disappointments long gone by,
The how and why had long since quieted
What started as a state
Became a choice
And then a way
I stay out here by myself,
Whatever else had long decided it
These ghosts that linger on
A step or two behind
Let them follow, I don't mind
Enough to turn around
This side of the world
Receding into night
As silence falls on everything
I'm standing at the corner
I'm still listening
Summer's turned the corner and gone
Bare trees and the rooftops set
Against the last faint trace of light
Winding down
This walk is winding down
But I'm not turning back on it
Just yet
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8. |
The Word Is Free
03:09
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This morning,
The sky was the palest blue
It seemed the color of hope,
As much as we're all passing through in the dark
And if I let that go
Against all of my knowing better,
It seemed the only thing that I could do
I've traveled all of these streets before,
There's something still, in knowing
Where you're not anymore
Drive in silence, no place, no identity
I've got a word for this in mind
The word is free
I used to see you in the sunlight's flicker
Through the winter trees,
Sometimes feel you on that side of my face
Facing away,
Whatever I was facing away from
I don't feel a fool for that space I kept,
The place you used to be
For so long, if I was wrong about
How I'd written some things into history
The net sum of loneliness in this world
Was a little less for a little while
Sometimes it still brings a smile to me
I've got a word for this in mind
The word is free
Some I'd set my self against
for being who they'd always been
I should have known and just moved on,
But that's on me
Driving around a town
I no longer recognize
I've got a word for this in mind
The word is free
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9. |
Hello
03:56
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Have you come to tell the time by shadows,
How and where they fall?
And the seasons, by the change of light
In the angle of the sun?
With the rush of passersby,
The smallest things will catch your eye
I feel the crush of life as much as anyone
The autumn leaves are everywhere to see
Then again, it's just like me
To keep an eye out for these things
As they go by
Comes a time when you realize
It's later than you know
I've been saying enough goodbyes
I want to say hello
It seems too simple
With this many moving parts
To write it off as nothing more than loneliness
The hours that life goes by
In the silence of these rooms
I'm thinking that there's something deeper driving this
I'll never be the eternal optimist, still
Maybe somewhere I could make the space
For a little bit of beauty to exist,
Maybe even last
Even with all the pushing past
The things that I let go
The ones that I let go
I've been saying enough goodbyes
I want to say hello
It occurs to me,
I'm hoping that the story
Wasn't finished long ago
It took so long to know
I've let too much life go by
I've been saying enough goodbyes
I want to say hello
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10. |
The Cold Woke Me Up
04:44
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The cold woke me up,
The cars passed with their headlights on
And I could not know who I was
Or where that much of my life had gone
The name returns to me after the longest while
Still, there's that waking to nothing
I can't seem to reconcile
That facing into nothing
I can't seem to reconcile
The cold woke me up
Whatever else, it let me know
Set me off to places yet
Where no one else was going to follow
I didn't want to see, but
The signs were everywhere
In the worst times that had come and gone
Turned around, there was no one there
Some things, they carry you
Until your wish for them
Can carry you no further
For what it's worth, there were those tells
When you consider just what you're losing
How much of that was just an illusion
That just won't sell anymore
I think how long, how much of this
That I'd been sold
As something that I needed
In the end, just to wake up in the cold
Dropped off someplace beyond
The anger, the despair
To walk out in the predawn chill
Turn around, there'll be no one there
All you're left with is the still
Turn around, there'll be no one there
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Disturbances of Spring Cleveland, Ohio
Thoughts and impressions pass in a life. Some linger just a bit longer than others. I try to catch those and write about them before they disappear.
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