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O, Little Prince
02:48
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This isn't sexual, it's only beautiful. Your head on my pillow, you ask me to sing you to sleep. These are my hands on your arms as they wrap round my body. My lips to the crown of your head, soft and innocent, sweet.
Oh, little prince, your ambitions unusual, true. All of these fake little tests, they don't matter to you. I feel the same, but I'm tied by obedient tethers. But the world is ours now, we can break all of the rules.
So I'll write you a song that's too quiet to ever perform. A common cute tune meant to hold you and keep your blood warm. It will scratch at my throat like a scarf or a favorite sweater, and the music will fade as we fall back in each other's arms.
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2. |
The Trampoline Song
03:23
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I spent all day on the trampoline with the tapes my lover taped for me. They're full of ladybugs and big beehives and tunes taped off of old 45's.
This is summer and we're almost there.
Did you remember to watch Morrissey when he appeared on late night TV? "I tuned in, but I couldn't see what's so great about that aging queen." Though he's fat and old, he still sings about me.
In our tuxedos with a champagne buzz, we felt like New York, 1921, watching as the trains clanged by in time with the bird calls in the early morning sky.
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3. |
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You may have a shoe instead of a head, but at least you have a soul. And with your cured and leathery tongue, you can laugh and talk and sing, whereas with mine, except for crying, I can't do anything, and between my lungs and esophagus, I've got a little hole.
You may need a wire and a loop tool to succeed in pottery. And you may need a letter press to make records like Phil. But if all you wanted in your whole damn life was to see a bird with an ivory bill, then you'd best forget that letter press and climb the tallest tree.
Oh, Julia, my shoe-headed nearly-true love, I must say, dearie me! Just to sit atop the butte again and glare at Autzen's glow, or to drive out to the Blue River Dam just to see the stars like bitch, you don't even know. Just to sit in the Delta Oaks Wonder Wash, that's where I want to be.
And I don't have a lighter, and I don't have a heart. I've just got this hole between my lungs and esophagus, but I'll beat you at darts.
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4. |
O, Joan!
02:15
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Oh, Joan of Arc, it wasn't fair. You had to cut your sweet brown hair. When you tried to trim it DIY, you swiped the scalp, but didn't cry. You just sheared it off and looked like a guy, but you took it like a martyr.
And I remember that poem of yours about Anton Webern under the stars, and the one about the girl who lost some weight, misplaced it like a china plate. Oh Joan, why did you go and do the same when you lost your temporal body?
Now you're ashes at the stake. I hope they distribute you across some mountain lake. You were the savior of the French, carving their verse on some old park bench with a Sharpie pen. Oh, what a wrench that that awkward laugh you laughed is gone for good. Well, at least you've got your green saint hood. Oh, won't you be my patron saint?
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5. |
Renascence (Millay)
03:04
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6. |
Penis Breath
03:51
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You are exhausted when you finally climb into bed. Small death, you've got penis breath and you smell like teenage boy sweat and you think, maybe you'd be happy if you could get an apartment.
Walking through the halls at school you're a locker flower. It's near May, kids are counting the days. You've been counting hours since the day you first sulked into school in those combat boots exuding girl power.
And oh, how things haven't changed. You're still bent out of shape, just in different ways. And what with shipping off this coming fall, it's such a shame to leave your childhood so unresolved.
Curled up like a garden snail now, you try to write. Brief, frail, and thinly veiled, you're convinced it mostly bites, just like those fairy stories you wrote when you were with Gregg White.
Maintenant le petit prince c'est ton petit ami. Mixed tapes and spinach crepes and that lovely state of reverie. But that reverie alone makes a lonely prairie for you and he.
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7. |
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8. |
Primary Color
02:40
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If you're a primary color, then I'm only tertiary, a red-violet or an orange-red. Pre-schoolers can't name me. Elsworth Kelly would never paint with me. So I know you wouldn't want me, wouldn't take me to bed. At least that's what my color wheel said.
If you are fucking Brooklyn, then I am Sauvie Island, just a few peach orchards and some yelping cranes. No falafel stands or hip galleries, just a bike path and some cherry trees. So I know you would never pick my fruit, and if you did, you wouldn't stay. But fresh air still beats garbage any day.
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9. |
Peter Parker
03:01
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If the air were warmer, I'd lend you my sweatshirt, but I can't get it off because I can't move my shoulders since I fell and bruised and scraped the skin. Let's go behind the music school to the garden where I've never been.
And I'm feeling like Peter Parker before he got his powers. My glasses are busted, books knocked out of my hand. And I'm searching for the best way to impress you, Mary Jane. I can't swing from buildings, so I'll stumble as planned.
These days are warmer than any day should be, but we're out on the highway driving past small towns and evergreens and queen anne's lace, enough to make a new set of white bedroom curtains or a skirt that I could wear to school.
And I'm feeling like Edna Poitillier or Edna St. Vincent Millay. This summer at Grand Isle is burning at both ends. But you're treating me so sweetly that I've forgotten books completely. So won't you tread the garden path, or just bring me a carrot flower so I can stay home and pretend?
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10. |
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Instead of rusted cars, it's old boats in the yard. Why did they bother to fill in the marshes? And this tiny town will slow down till it stops, but I'll keep on. Cos there's only the sound between us, and the long drive north to Anacortes.
Instead of drug addicts, it's just sleepyheads. By ten or eleven, only cats are out. Then by eight AM they're all up again, but we're not, and in my sleep I'll sing. There is only the sound between us, and Mount Olympus up above us.
Now it's i's with hearts and performance art. Now it's only just a show. And I'll drift away as far as Neah Bay, and you'll say, I wish you'd say, and I'll say, I wish I could stay, and we'll try to stay close until I reach the ocean. There'll be only the sound between us, and the great unknown before us.
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Pegasissy recommends:
ADVRB is Andrew Barton, my frequent producer. His stuff is all great earnest jangling wonder, and the new demo has some real kick to it (and is about his and my high school romance.)
go to album
Will and I were pals in college. His songs and playing are so excellent and beautifully composed, and feel to me like going for a foggy walk in a Carhartt jacket.
go to albumIf you like Pegasissy, you may also like:
String Of Pearls
by Annabelle Chvostek
Buoyant songs that summon the spirit of New Orleans, with beautifully bleary brass, light up the latest from Annabelle Chvostek
go to album
So Romantic
by Allie Crow Buckley
L.A.’s Allie Crow Buckley comes to Bandcamp, with moody songs that combine R&B with Laurel Canyon in the ’70s.
go to album
No Branches Without Trees
by Steven van Betten & Andrew Rowan
Tender acoustic songs built on folk & guitar intermingle with field recordings from the small town of Blue Diamond, Nevada.
go to album
Here in the Pitch
by Jessica Pratt
On her fourth album, Jessica Pratt blends up 60s pop and bossa nova into a spooky mix of soft psychedelia.
go to album
