albums Put Your Ghost to Rest Buried by the Buzzzz Split the Country, Split the Street Make the Clocks Move Travelling the Eu Circle Gets the Square	Put Your Ghost to Rest Click on song title for lyrics 1. Brooklyn Boy 2. You're Trailing Yourself 3. Just Stay 4. You'll Only End Up Joining Them 5. A Billion Bees 6. Less Yesterday, More Today 7. Like Cursing Kids 8. Go Haunt Someone Else 9. The Burning City Smoking 10. Me & My Friends 11. Trouble 12. Heaven Bound and Glory Be Album Info Released by Capitol Records - October 17, 2006 Lyrics 1. Brooklyn Boy Brooklyn boy born and raised Choppin' lines, hey hey It's my birthday It's a toy I torched, a tar pit flame A lock-jaw night, hey hey It's my birthday Deadened (deadend) friends, that make your stomach shake While you're hissin' head, barrels down that blackened lane Alone at last to figure how you got this way Alone at last to figure how you got this way Charcoal clouds spot and spray They kill the sun, hey hey Hear it's back break So I can never tell night from day Or right from wrong, hey hey Hear my headache And your silver tongue It masks your hungry hate While your haggard heart Whispers through it's cracking cage You still can change, you have to know you still can change I know, I know, for now I want to be this way This was a choice this was never a mistake This was never a mistake ^ top of page 2. You're Trailing Yourself The sputter and blink, a streetlamp Makes you taller then shrinks you then splits you in half So you're trailing yourself On the walk to the pay phone Your pocket's weighted down with quarters in the hope that no ones home You spray paint cinnamon on vines And key the cars you pass by Your ears burn and your voice don't sound right So you spend the next week playing weekend Rollin' three men alone in the dark in your kitchen Your apartment can't talk, so it's safe for your secrets All the stories you've invested with a masochist menacing meaning Those tired tricks that you play To graft a life to your name And you know It's not yours but for now it's okay You wake and cut your initials in cheap glass To mark a space for yourself when you're time here is passed And you're drifted and done, trading danger for distance And all those rocks that rope your neck are finally nameless and weightless and faceless And you'll strip the sting from those stains That bleed the life from your face And your cheeks will burn red on that pure perfect day ^ top of page 3. Just Stay I found my fickle friend out in the alley way He said, "You don't look so good" I said, "Hey Doc, that's great. You started practicing, I never got the note" So let's shake and trade and be on our way It's go go go So here we are again inside your neon shrine Sharing a chopping block beneath embarrassed light That tries to hide from us, it tucks itself away So we both grab hold and say no you don't Just stay, just stay The morning's hot and harsh, my notebook fills itself The words come thick with sweat, but it feels like someone else Is writing all of this, someone I just can't believe When I mop my brow, set my pen back down Still me, still me And I'm grabbing at a feeling now that I can't ever name Some signpost to remind me how I wanted things this way And she say's "it's pretty but you hate yourself, I can hear it clear as day" And I say I sing like this, it sounds worse than it is I'm ok, ok I'm ok, ok I'm ok, ok I'm ok, okay? So just stay, just stay So just stay, just stay I'm ok, okay? So just stay, just stay, just stay, just stay ^ top of page 4. You'll Only End Up Joining Them Tonight I'm posed and popping like a peacock I'm pressing flesh, I'm smiling big, my spinning head sings "Stop, just stop" Cause what used to calm me down Just rips my life to ribbons now So I keep smiling, I find my window and quick cut out These days my hangman's hunger makes my gut kick My sleeping mind, could map it blind A flask, a key, a bag, a fifth I try to will myself away While shouting habits plead their case So when the sun sears through my eyes My beggar's brain can't compromise I splash cold water, I draw the curtains, I stay inside And I can't say that it's a sickness, more like a stranger I ask in And later realize, was a strangler Slipping nooses in my den But I was lonely so I asked him, "Would you tie that one on me?" It wasn't his fault, I was eager, and I was weak So as I inch towards resolution Yea I'm not sure which life feels right A narrow noose or the wading water The hanging head, sore open eyes I know my brother he went one way And at the fork I heard him say "Don't you follow, don't go making my mistakes" And I realized what he meant Don't kill yourself to raise the dead It never works you'll only end up joining them ^ top of page 5. A Billion Bees I found you grieving in the grass Sky bled water colored blue You seemed so simple sure and sad So I sat down to grieve with you You raised your hand to shield your eyes I shifted left to block the sun You crossed your legs and cleared your throat I waited for your words to come But they slept soundly in your chest They never made it past your tongue So we sat silently and still And thought about the things we'd done And all the people that we'd loved And all the people that we'd wronged I watched the years flash through your face And I locked my anger in my lungs So every breath stung more and more A wave of whips across my spine A billion bees trapped in my chest Nails on a chalkboard every time Till I watched your fingers sneak towards mine I heard your breath go thin and short I tucked your hair behinds your ears And I watched your eyes back and forth And I sucked your lip and bit your neck The trees were shaken at their roots My angry arms felt cool and calm And my cotton mouth was well with you So we laid glowing in the grass To watch the sun swap with the moon Trade our future for our past The present tense was all we knew ^ top of page 6. Less Yesterday, More Today Less yesterday and more today I gotta get my head on straight The tree trunks rot and people get caught Buying bullshit we don't need or want Well full forests turn to desert's hot dried dirt The animals dig ditches, they hide and watch our backs get burned And less yesterday, and more today Yea I gotta start livin' that way And less yesterday, and more today Yea I gotta get my head on straight The ground shrinks fast and the spot-lit strips of houses They look like christmas lights she'd hang in her apartment So I turn my head, I try to watch the screen instead But my eyes go fuzzy and start painting shapes all over the movie I'm watching And they mix and match my present with my past But the colors are crisp and I press to hard so ink soaks straight through the back And less yesterday, and more today Yea I gotta start to live, to live that way So less yesterday, and more today Yea I gotta get my head on straight Cause I keep ending up exactly where I start A roller rink I stumble through waiting for the songs to stop And I used to drown it out with empty space I found But I turned my back and my life got too crowded so it's really hard to do that now And less yesterday, and more today Yea I gotta start livin that way And less yesterday, and more today Yea I gotta get my head on straight ^ top of page 7. Like Cursing Kids I saw your freckles on the shoulders of a stranger today And my heart lept, and my heart lept I saw the sickle of a dimple slash the side of her face And my heart lept, my heart lept And then she faced me while we wrestled for our place on the train Her kooky make up of a brat(?) and I kept out of her way And not that actress playing dress up on the subway today So my heart keeps leapin' on I tried to catch you on a cut put on my four-track today But my tongue tied, my tongue tied Couldn't figure how to fit you on the spin of a tape So my tongue tied, my tongue tied The words seemed small and insignificant, confused and cliche You saw my promise and potential, through my guilt and my shame I couldn't catch that in a cut but on my best goddamn day My tied tongue tumbles on I'm shakin. shiver. And laugh like cursing kids And all our fitful failures For every time we kiss So cross your fingers, place your bets and hold that glow in your face Let my big mouth, ramble on I'm shakin. shiver. And laugh like cursing kids And all our fitful failures For every time we kiss So cross your fingers, place your bets and hold that glow in your face Let my big mouth, ramble on ^ top of page 8. Go Haunt Someone Else The Moralist on the mountain top The cap gun cowboy caught playing dress up Patrols his cartoon beat with his costume clothes The damn fool with his 10 ton chip His bouge-wop blues and his heartbreak habit Slings his lightning bolts, his arrows and stones But you could do it forever, it won't make you better Cause you won't find your mark You could use a mirror, to see your target clearer All the bad blood that hijacked your heart But you got what you asked for So don't even start You're never a victim, so own what you did son, admit what you are Dead-weight in a tight-rope trance The pain pill preacher astray in his wasteland Clenched teeth in a canyon he can't close There's me racing right along The jukebox jester stuck on the same song A mouth full of lies, a head full of holes Until I got worried and saw the life I could lead If I backed up off that road And let the ground come to me, steady under my knees Let me anger burn into hope I asked for perspective and it untied my hands I see the role I played, I chose my own way, can't blame me for that So when you're sorry and one day you will be I wish you all the best I hope that you drop softly, and it don't end too badly And your raging head can finally rest And you could be honest and rescue yourself But I walk my own road, I'll go where you won't go You won't put me through hell, nah ah Cause now I see through you, believe what you need to Go haunt someone else ^ top of page 9. The Burning City Smoking 40 million refugees with no place on this earth to call their home One for every aimless graduate with nothing else to show for it but loans And those of us who make a mark using someone else's blood Our western stain won't wash away, won't vanish in the flood It sets deeper with each hurricane and tidal wave and war Oh whoa oh woh We want everything we see and once it's gone we just want more Atlas had those shoulders, we've got Ambien and Jamesons and blow To bind us in a bubble, keep the newsprint nightmare distant and below But when we wake in guillotines and pitch our screaming fits When the Governor strikes up the band and gags our parted lips When the worst case shows up dressed and dazzling ready for the ball Oh whoa oh woh Boy that bubble's bound to burst and what a tragic way to fall The tabloids tell us hate the rat who strikes those subways closed and puts you out Forget those 50-hour tunnel weeks inhaling steel dust poison through his mouth Well if he don't deserve a pension that makes his family feel secure If we're now so disconnected it's our relfections we ignore And if our constant choice is skimming past the writing on the wall Oh whoa oh woh Then I'm sad to say we're lost and I'm embarrassed for us all So most days I can't put to rest the burning city smoking in my mind And I play pretend the principals are nothing more than actors running lines And I stumble through a movie set where torture victims laugh An abandoned journalist who juggled knives and daggered glass While they entertain the marble Heads of State and CEO's Oh whoa oh woh I stagger past anarchist extras through saloon doors painted gold So I turn and I see Uncle Sam all tied in wardrobe ready for the shoot So I walk right up and talk to him, I tell him that I'm scared and I'm confused While they test the cameras out and get the lighting right, while catering fills coffee cups and carves up apple pie And while the stylists trim his beard and straighten those lapels Oh whoa oh woh I ask his thin eyes(?) what made him drive us straight to hell and as my daydream ends he stands there shamed, a shocked and shattered shell But there's never any answer for my sorry tongue to tell Oh whoa oh woh oh oh Cause the director's shouting action and from off set it's just as well ^ top of page 10. Me & My Friends Me and my friends, we don't encourage discipline Or really much of anything We do our drugs to wheel it up and tell ourselves that this is love But it's never added up And it'll never be enough, no it'll never be enough The same corner booth The same Smith Street bar The same sour mouths The same empty arms Forever and ever, our lives on a loop It's the same dollar drafts The same whiskey words The same hanging hearts The same old scorched earth Further and further, away from the truth I wanna stop it I wanna stop it I wanna stop it But it's the only life I know how to live Make a mess of what matters, give our good grace away We try to drink the clock backwards, and pretend like nothing's changed But you think I'm a liar and you think I'm a fake And I think you're a coward, but that's not what I say I call you my brother And you call me the same I wanna stop it I wanna stop it I wanna stop it But it's the only life I know how to live I wanna stop it I wanna stop it I wanna stop it Let the smeared words spill out of the sides of our mouths Go be my ghost and I'll go be yours But tonight, brother pour me one more But tonight, brother pour me one more Yea tonight, I'll just cut you one more Yea tonight, I'll just cut you one more One more, one more ^ top of page 11. Trouble Trouble tracks me down It's been draggin me around Since my feet first touched the ground And I'm kickin like a kid Cause I can't get rid of it And it's never going nowhere now I duck-dodge to my left I slide-step to my right But it nails me every time And I'm finished throwin fits Yea, I've learned to live with it Marching steady, straight, and by my side And trouble makes no seam Just sweeps in surgical and clean Leaves me begging on my hands and knees And she's always on the clock But she doesn't only watch Cause she wrecks me straight into my sleep When I drift into a dream And I'm sailing on some sea Shootin' whiskey with my Irish bride Til evening, Goodman wakes me up I'm alone in Brooklyn broke as fuck Splitting headache and some bloodshot eyes And I've known trouble all my life And I'm sick of asking why It's like screaming at a set of dice They're gonna roll the way they roll And man you're never gonna know So gettin' crazy's just a waste of time I just see trouble track me down It keeps pushin' me around Til I'm deep inside the ground And then I'll smile in sleep Cause in that box I'm finally free And ain't no trouble gonna find me now No oh oh, ain't no trouble gonna find me now Ain't no trouble gonna find me now ^ top of page 12. Heaven Bound and Glory Be A reporter in a jailroom, whispering her source to a dying bulb While the prince is in a fable, peaceful in his cradle, convinced of the impossible: All those wicked words I used to build my wild Western truth! I was just following the rules. Yeah, I did what I had to do. So now its later than it needs to be And in the dulcet tones of dream The prince atop his chariot, Heaven bound & glory be. A mother in a market chases after children that she barely knows While the father on the barstool, dropped off by his carpool, is playing a familiar role: I used to be a conquering king. I watched the slow stars shoot & swing. When I'd wake, the world would sing. Now, I can't hear anything. So now its later than it needs to be And while his stranger family sleeps The king looks for his castle, Heaven bound & glory be. There's a myth we must've made One we're spreading every day In every dying dream we grieve The humming hole we fight & feed It's the loving lives we long for Heaven bound & glory be A man in a hotel room, tangled to his teeth by the telephone He's waiting on a woman, wondering what she's doing, And pacing so his pulse won't slow. He drums his legs and pulls his hair; he carves her dimples in the air. The raging world has spooked him scared, and he don't want her lost out there. So now it's later than it needs to be And though his aching eyes want sleep Against all rationality Against everything he believes He prays for her protection, Heaven bound & glory be. I pray for your protection, Heaven bound & glory be. ^ top of page