About The Album
This collection originally began under the name "Patients."
I chose the name because I enjoy homophones. Whenever I said the word aloud, people heard "Patience." So it's a bit like naming yourself "Share", or "Prints." But I have always chosen to work under silly names. It's easy to get carried away when you're constantly mining your emotions, so I think goofy titles are a good way to guarantee you never take yourself too seriously.
I originally released Patients in 2009 as a small social experiment. I handmade one hundred CDs, mostly using stencils and spray paint. The only way to get one was to send me something in the mail other than money. I wanted to see what would happen if people had to barter for an album. It was fascinating.
The items sent ranged from the absurd to the deeply thoughtful. An example that stands out was when someone sent me a dirty shoe with a note attached. The note explained that they'd spent the better part of a year backpacking through Europe and, at the end of their trip, went skydiving for the first time. The shoe was what they wore throughout that journey; they kept the other. I think that's a far more interesting story than money. I was really happy with the whole experiment.
But the reason this compilation goes on to 2011 is that I wanted to include a couple songs I recorded shortly after putting out Patients that had never found a home. For details about each track, see below.
Tall Tale No. 5
This song was partially recorded in a traditional studio, which is rare for me.
I was asked to produce an album, back in 2006, and I was paid in studio-time. So I tracked the drums and guitars during that week, and I later added the vocals and other instruments when I got back home. I was already finished with “Ghost” at this point, but hadn’t started writing for “The Roots” yet. So this fell somewhere in between.
Lyrically, this one is autobiographical, but some of the events are out of order.
Tall Tale No. 5
I was born on a Sunday with blood on my hands
In a room full of phonographs and old electric fans
And I slept in a graveyard for bicycles and cars
And I dreamed of distant scenery but never strayed too far
'Cause I do what they ask me
I never run my mouth
And by the time you turn against me
I'll have you figured out
And I learned to lie by watching you turn to your enemies
And the apple you've got in your eye
Has become a stain you don't want
So I left for the city as soon as I could walk
But the buildings loomed like sentinels
It wasn't what I thought
So I slept in your bathtub while you put your makeup on
And I daydreamed about your lungs 'til your cigarettes were gone
Now I roam 'cause I have to
I'm never welcome long
And though this road leads to disaster
I've always got my songs
And I learned to laugh
By watching you burn all your photographs
And you're right that the good stuff won't last
But these wars are never won by our twiddling thumbs
Well I did what they asked me
I never ran my mouth
And by the time they turned against me
I had them figured out
And now I roam 'cause I have to
I'm never welcome long
And though this road leads to disaster
I've always got my songs
And I learned to die by watching you choke on your misery
And if the apple is torn from my eye
Well, I won't be alone because I'm going home
Mind Ur Manners
This song came about while writing for “The Family Tree” series.
I wrote most of those songs in a two-year window, between 2007 and 2009.
The track started as something for piano, but once I started chopping up the drums it took a very different, and far more hectic, turn. The end result landed somewhere between the Electric President and Radical Face sound pallets of the time, and I had no idea what to do with it. The song sat on the sidelines until the “Patients” experiment.
Mind Ur Manners
So it starts with some blood and a picture frame
Got our teeth, got our mouths, got our hearts, got our backbones
"Broken legs never wander" is what I heard you say
Smash the knees, break the feet, break the feet, smash the toes in
String 'em up, cut 'em down, oh, it's all the same
Call it hell, call it life, call it luck, call it nothing
But you know we're not that stupid; we won't wait
So call it off
Close my eyes and come lay me down
Patch the teeth marks along my bones
Close your eyes and come lay you down
I'll count the scars along your knuckles
And we might be missed then, or we might be forgotten
But it's okay, it's okay
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, or it's what they say
But you've done well by sitting idle
There is no fixing you this time
Some lines crossed are not forgiven
String 'em up, cut 'em down, oh it's all the same
Call it hell, call it life, call it luck, call it nothing
But you know we're not that stupid; we won't wait
So call it off
Home
This song was a B-Side from Ghost. I found it again after I had already released the Anniversary edition, which was unfortunate.
I uploaded it to YouTube instead, after the O’Shea Brothers used it in their “Happy Medium” skate video series. I kept getting emails and notes from people asking me to upload it to streaming services, which is a large part of what inspired this release.
Home
The blood runs down my legs
I'm soaked through and through, but it makes no difference
There's thunder in my head
I can't hear a thing, but it makes no difference
Because now the empire will fall
And we'll be blamed for it all
And I wouldn't have it any other way
The house went up in flames
And I sat and watched it from a distance
The wood creaked and complained
The walls folded in and took the roof with them
Now the empire will fall
And we'll be blamed for it all
And I wouldn't have it any other way
Lost along the way
Quiet nights, grassy roads, abandoned homes
And the smell of bones
But I don't mind
As long as you are along for the ride
Because you feel like home
You feel like home
Yeah, you feel like home
'Cause you feel like home
'Cause you feel like ...
Up in the sky
A flock of birds, some scattered clouds, an idle wind
And the sounds of life
Down in these fields
We don't have much beyond the clothes on our backs
But it feels like home
Yeah, it feels like home
And it feels like home
It feels like home
And it feels like ...
Off the tracks
Another train has crashed
The smoke runs from it sides
And I just push the remains aside
Now the pile's a mile high
I might lose these hands, there's never a guarantee
But if I fall to pieces, I would like to choose where I will land
Body Song
This was originally part of an experimental side project called ‘Mother’s Basement.”
I built the project with two other local musicians. The idea was to do assignment-based songwriting and document it on a website.
How it worked: we each wrote down three different songwriting challenges on scraps of paper, then we drew them out of a hat. This song came from the assignment to record a song only using sounds you can make with your body. No actual instruments.
Lyrically, the track is about a nightmare I once had (I used to keep a nightmare journal) where I was in a morgue and had to reach inside a stranger’s dead body, and something unknown licked my palm.
Body Song
In my dream you're on the table with an incision in your belly
I reached my hands inside you, but in there you were empty
I searched through your body while I watched you blink up at me
I almost asked you a question 'til I felt something scraping at my palm
Was it your soul, or some kind of creature?
Oh, lord, I don't know, I don't know
I didn't wait to find out
Yeah, I tucked tail and ran
Mathematics
This was originally an Electric President song, intended for “The Violent Blue”, but there was an issue with the recording.
Some of the files were corrupted so I only had an early version of the recording. So I wound up rerecording everything myself for the “Patients” project. I remember attempting to make something that sounded, and felt, like a mental disorder – something manic and chaotic and twisted. In many ways, that feels more relevant now than it did at the time.
Mathematics
Get, get, gotta get it off my chest
There's no chest
(Hahaha)
Get, get, gotta get it out my mouth
It's turning sour, so ...
(No, no, no, no, no, no)
Get, get, gotta get it off my head
There's no head
I lost it
Get, get, gotta get in my lungs
My cold lungs
(Oh, they're built like engines)
We got minds (yeah!)
We smear them all around this town
This dead town (yeah!)
We gotta, gotta get in
We got bones, we got a lot to burn
They won't burn
Gotta bury them
We've got thumbs (yeah!)
We strap to our wrists
Our cold (-----), but ...
We do good
Yeah, we save things when we can
There's no chance now
Oh, but now? How'd you lose me?
I was in the dark just like everyone
Then all that violence poured out of my mouth
So get, get, gotta get a place to sleep
But don't sleep
'Cause they're coming
Black eyes, gotta get 'em off my skin
They're just dirt, but ...
(No, no, no, no, no, no, no)
Don't blink, 'cause there's never time to think
And close your mouth
They can smell you
I need sleep, gotta sleep it off, I'm fine
I'm not fine now
(No, no, no, no, no, no, no)
Not now, gotta keep myself in line
There's no line
Just follow, follow, follow
I'm alright (yeah!)
I found a scrap to eat
I can't eat
(Hahahahaha)
Long nails, they all have such long nails
Call 'em claws
'Cause they don't have no fingers
There's no time
There's never any time
There's no time
Just go back to sleep
Strange Organism
One of my many instrumental experiments. I do these all the time, but I often move on before fully developing them.
But occasionally I’ll go through old harddrives and see what they sound like. Listening to this one many years later, something about the mood stood out to me so I decided to include it as a sort of intermission.
The Voice of Our Age
This is the earliest song in the collection.
The original demo dates back to 2002, and I wound up re-recording it in 2005.
This is one of the first songs I wrote when I first circled back to making music in late 2001. I had just lost both of my novels in a hard drive crash, and the idea of writing fiction at the time made me feel ill. To fill my time, I started writing songs again. It was yet another track that slipped through the cracks until I came up with the “Patients” project.
The Voice of Our Age
The voice of our age is singing sad, sad songs
And I'm doing my best to keep from adding yet another one
I heard it said that the writing's on the wall
Well, I must need some glasses 'cause the words are out of focus
Pick it all apart until there's nothing left but pieces
Makes it easy to forget just what it looked like when it was whole
And drink is not a band-aid for your saddle sore brain
And time is not a doctor, so get out of the rain
Smudge the sun across the sky, your thumb will do the trick
Then paint your face with UV rays 'til cancer makes you sick
The words become art when the meaning fades away
So speak your mind and dig your grave
And then decide to die another day
The villains turn to heroes and spiders turn to flies
The cats and dogs all eat themselves
It's time we closed our eyes
The days all fade away and we're still rotting in our skin
Don't pick a fight with time, my friend
I guarantee you'll never win
The voice of our age is singing sad, sad songs
The voice of our age is singing sad, sad songs
The voice of our age is singing sad, sad songs
And I'm doing my best to keep from adding yet another one
The voice of our age is singing sad, sad songs
The voice of our age is singing sad, sad songs
The voice of our age
The voice of our age
The Coldest Hands
This song was written during the “Sleep Well” period of Electric President, but I wound up finishing it on my own.
As such, it was another “doesn’t quite fit either project right now” sort of song, so it sat idle for a few years.
Lyrically, it’s about watching yourself become the thing you’ve always complained about, and the horror of how easy that can be.
The Coldest Hands
I see you watching
I see your old rusty hands
I see you drawing your lines through the things they do
The talk and the walk and the teeth and the spaces in between
Yeah, I know how to steal 'cause I learned from you
You are the rot, you are the underline
You are the fault beneath the plan
And all you've ever built is with the coldest hands
And I was the fix, I was the anchor
I was the card up your sleeve
And all I ever did was wait and say please
The moon, and the sky, and the blood, and the bones
And the rocks, and the shadows on the walls
They're riddled with the faces, names
And waste of our collective thoughts
When we were young we shaped the world
Like it was clay beneath our hands
And as far as we were concerned it was ours to damn
And now we're older, not quite so bold
And we've got the coldest hands
And we mess things up
So do us all a favor and come wreck our plans
Before we smash you against the walls
Elephant
Originally written during “The Family Tree” series, I recorded this one in between making “The Roots” and “The Branches.”
This is the only track recorded after 2009.
Oftentimes, when I get a new microphone, I will record an entire song with only that mic to get a feel for it. I had just gotten my first fancy one (a used Neumann U87), and this recording was my first time using it. I must have moved on quickly, because I forgot I’d recorded this at all. I only rediscovered it when backing up some hard drives during the pandemic.
Elephant
I'm sitting still but still cannot catch my breath
The blood in my veins is a silent stampede
I see your mouth move, but I don't hear a word you say
And I keep my mouth closed so you'll believe I believe
Here again, in the place where I thought it would end
Just silently feeding the elephant still in the room
My head's down, I'm hoping my heart makes no sound
And history repeats forevermore
I'm most at ease when I am invisible
Feel like their eyes see straight through my skin
But a smile is always good camouflage
If nothing is said then there's nothing to defend
But I'm here again, in the place where I hoped it would end
Still silently feeding the elephant trapped in the room
I keep my eyes down, hoping my chest makes no sound
And then history repeats itself forevermore
The Emperor Has No Bones
Another track that came from that “Mother’s Basement” project.
The assignment for this one was to use Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto (“Emperor”) as a starting point for a new piece. I chose to riff on the second movement, but was actually having trouble with a faulty cable at the time. I decided to lean into all the weird noises and see what might come of something harsh and ugly against such a calm melody. This was the result.
If You Come Back to Haunt Me
This was another track from around the ‘Ghost” period.
Or just before, to be more precise.
A lot of that album is about grief, and being haunted by loved ones. This track is no different, only it has the added angle of acceptance, and how we can even get used to people’s absences, and the holes they leave, after enough time has passed.
If You Come Back to Haunt Me
You might come and you might break me
But I know my place, 'cause I was born into it
You might crash and you might burn up
But you know your place, 'cause you dug yourself into it
And they might win, and they might break me
But I know my place, and I'm getting used to it
And you might live, and you might give up
But you know your place, 'cause you've fallen into it
And I'm falling, too
And if you come back to haunt me
I could probably use the company
Come have a seat
But I've become forgetful
I can't remember why you died
And how all this feels like a daydream
Like some ghostly play
Where everything that is happening
Looks like it's dead and gone
And I won't bend, so you'll have to break me
But I know my place, and I'm pretty used to it
And you might turn, and you might lose face
But you know your place, 'cause you've given into it
And you might laugh, and you might hate me
But I know my name, and I'm pretty used to it
And you might turn, and you might leave me
But I know my place, and I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
And I've gotten used to it
Welcome Home (Early Demo)
When I first released “Ghost,” it wasn’t particularly well-received. Welcome Home became a runaway success over 3 years later, after being picked up by Nikon for an ad campaign in the EU.
It was a surprise to everyone around me at the time (me especially), and I was asked to quickly put together an EP as a follow-up. So I made a couple instrumental versions of the song that could work for the closing of the EP. I chose “Welcome Home (Reprise)” from that set.
But I recently found this recording, which was based on the very first demo I made of the song. I remember thinking it was too slow at the time, but discovering it again while building this release, I liked it more than I thought I would. So here’s yet another version.
