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Mantennae

by David P. Smith

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1.
Daily Agenda 04:15
The sun comes up the sun goes down the world spins round and round and round I get up in the morning get out of bed rub my eyes and scratch my head pull on my pants button up my shirt drink a cup of coffee and go to work I do the things that are the things that have to be done and then I go home and down goes the sun The sun goes down here comes the night I go to bed and hold my darling tight I dream I'm crowned the Fool of the Town dogs are barking birds are flapping round a fat black fly's lazy buzz rattles the shutters of my unconsciousness And I get up in the morning get out of bed rub my eyes and scratch my head pull on my pants button up my shirt drink a cup of coffee and go to work I don't get too low I don't get too high sometimes I laugh but I almost never cry at the end of the day I say good-bye The sun goes down here comes the night I go to bed and hold my darling tight I dream the sky falls down to the ground and it's so thick you cut it with a knife to walk five miles takes your whole life The sun comes up the sun goes down the world spins round and round and round and round and round and round and round
2.
My hands appear melted to the steering wheel as morning sun angles through the windshield driving to work down Bay Street and the rain-soaked air smells so sweet I feel like I might puke Must be some kind of gag reflex but it's no joke my friends Events compress days stampede by destroying everything in their path The question ain't is the cup half full or half empty when rivers of blood erupt from the plasma TV and Jesus is shivering in the icebox he's crouching there turning blue you don't know what to do his robes are smelling funky he's chattering like a rhesus monkey who just came back on a satellite from Mars You dug the pit you wallow in you shit the shit you're swallowing if your days have a hollow ring ask yourself who constructed them The weeping woman in the sky blue tracksuit strides purposefully without purpose past crappy boutiques shoppers pharmacy circuit city the house of knives people leave a trail of sadness like a slug leaves its slime Complicated people with their complicated lives complicated people with their complicated lives complicated people with their complicated lives And it's kind of like a Roger Miller song nothing wacky one of the serious ones only much much sadder and a whole lot less beautiful It's kind of like a Roger Miller song nothing wacky one of the serious ones only much much sadder and a whole lot less beautiful yes it's much much sadder and a whole lot less beautiful
3.
When you're a lifeless old toad the romance of the liquor-soaked road will start to become quite faded When your sick tired soul oh so deformed and so old has gone way past the point of being jaded Then the half remembered nights drunken argument and fights maudlin sentiment so-called friends that came and went things you said but never meant will come raining like hail upon your memory CHORUS And there ain't no lie any thicker than the one about the romance of liquor and there ain't no road to ruin any quicker than one of inebriation darkness and degradation one paved with sorrow one they call the liquor soaked road There will be nobody grieving won't matter what you do or don't believe in at the end of your dark drunken trail There will be no church bells ringing won't be no angel choirs singing when your life light flickers and fails. And all the people you let down with your drunken running around every lie that you told to weasel one more for the road every bottle you drank 'til you were pissed and you stank will come raining like hail upon your memory CHORUS
4.
I come from the land where the cotton wool sky meets the bristling trees Where the morning sun is a rising rocket then plummets like a comet into twilight's inferno Where our dreams swim and squirm in the night's thick ink like blind black eels gnashing their silver teeth The stumbling bumbling mumbling drunken cowboy waves his willow wisp fist at the moon His untanned arm a pale incoherent antennae It's like waving the remote at a big round yellow TV When this rotten old world has got you in a rage When this rotten old world has got you in a rage
5.
Ghost 04:31
I'm a ghost I'm a ghost I'm an old old bone And I'm floating in the seas of forgotten memories Where I go down I go down but I never ever drown I'm a ghost I'm a ghost I'm an old old bone I'm a ghost I'm a ghost Nobody can see me as I move through the room most invisibly And all the little boys and all the little girls will never walk in my world I'm a ghost I'm a ghost I'm an old old bone Instrumental I'm a ghost I'm a ghost I'm an old old bone And I'm floating in the seas of my bloated memories Where I go down I go down but I never ever drown I'm a ghost I'm a ghost I'm an old old bone
6.
Random Rules 04:23
7.
If the songs that we sing all blow away in the wind if our tongues lie on our teeth heaving like great dying beasts Drawing their last breath while the wind smells like Death The wind that blows from our lungs the wind from the songs we have sung the songs we have sung If the songs that we sing all blow away in the wind If our tongues lie on our teeth silent like great dying beasts Then we’ll hobble through the streets on stumps not feet and our poor sad ears will no longer hear And our eyeballs will hang on muscular stands from empty sockets dangling like lockets The blood and the bombs must not defeat The poems and the songs must not defeat Nor shatter our hearts must not defeat Our battered hearts You see Men drunk with power find the vomit is sour on the morning of their reckoning when Death’s icy finger is beckoning And so we must sing We must let our voices ring In this darkest hour We will find the power The blood and the bombs must not defeat The poems and the songs must not defeat Nor shatter our hearts must not defeat Our battered hearts must not defeat And so we must sing must not defeat We must let our voices ring must not defeat In this darkest hour must not defeat We will find the power We will find the power We will find the power
8.

about

MANTENNAE marks a change and transition from earlier work in mood, personnel, instrumentation and songwriting. Atmospheric pedal steel snakes through a couple of almost straight C&W numbers, cabaret meets funeral parade in the horn and ukelele ensemble, the piano makes its debut, a cameo vocal performance by B.A. Lampman… a gently eclectic, subtly addictive journey.

credits

released September 3, 2009

All songs written by David P. Smith and arranged collectively by the musicians involved except Random Rules by David Berman (Civil Jar Music)
Recorded in the Lap of Luxury by Scott Bennett, Scott Henderson, and Glen Ramage.
Except:
Daily Agenda recorded at The Fort in Ladysmith by Scott Bennett.
Liquor Soaked Road and Random Rules recorded in the living room at 1441 Walnut Street by Scott Bennett, Scott Henderson, and Mike Irwin

Mixed and Mastered by Herr Wolf at the Palace of the Golden Dragon
Back up vocals for tracks 6 and 8, percussion for track 6 recorded at The Palace of The Golden Dragon by Herr Wolf.

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David P. Smith Victoria, British Columbia

David P. Smith is a songwriter accordionist and multidisciplinary artist who in the past 18 years has released six full length recordings, numerous ep’s, and led a variety of musical projects that have consistently defied convenient genre classifications. ... more

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