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You’re walking around the same town as me
in this place that you like to call home:
on an island formed from debris.
Well I think it's a great analogy
for you and me.
And you spend your days
singing "Come All Ye Faithful,"
trying to find the best in man,
the best in your man.
So now I wanna try
to stick around here.
Can I? Can I? Can I?
'Cause I've gotta try
to stick around here,
don't I? Don't I? Don't I?
Well you've got your problems
and an arsenal of songs
spinning lyrics so damn poignant
about how he's done ya wrong.
So when your makeup makes a track
down your pretty cheek,
well don't you count me in the race to
wipe it clean.
'Cause now I've gotta fight
the urge to stick around here,
don't I? Don't I? Don't I?
'Cause you know he's right,
you can see it in his eyes,
but not in mine, not in mine.
Not in mine, not in mine, not in mine.
And maybe there's a chance I missed,
but I don't miss it one bit.
And I spent the last few weeks just trying to
get myself to believe that.
Because I know that you're not magic,
you can't turn my life around.
But, baby, I'm only human,
and I make bad decisions:
like living with this delusion
that I've gotta try
to stick around here.
Can I? Can I? Can I?
But, no, I've gotta fight
the urge to stick around here,
don't I? Don't I? Don't I?
Yeah, 'cause you know he's right,
you can see it in his eyes
and not in mine, oh not in mine.
Not in mine, not in mine.
Nevermind.
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When you're not by my side
I tangle up my sheets,
trying to sculpt my comforter
into a mold of you that'll suit my needs.
And it may be soft just like your lovely skin,
but this cotton and polyester,
well, it just won't do in the end.
And this experience has taught me a lot about
what we're really made of,
and how we don't got it all figured out.
Like until I met you, I never knew
I'm made of mostly wet cement.
But when you ran your fingers up my naked back,
well those marks were permanent.
And I've kept them with me
this whole time.
But I don't treat 'em like scars,
no, more like cartography:
they map out something beautiful
that you have given me.
Because we've been lovelorn pirates,
searching for that "x,"
and there's a chance it's scratched right here
on our rib-cages.
So meet me as the light shines on my bed,
and put that metal detector
you call your hand on my chest.
And you don't need to tell me
if it starts ot beep,
'cause there's always enough treasure
just in finding you next to me
in the morning.
So baby please stay
until the morning.
Well baby don't, don't leave until
the morning.
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Every once in a while in this big city
a boy like me starts to dream
of the short days, of the cold,
of our favorite winter coats
buttoned up to keep us from these freezing streets.
And we'd have pockets-upon-pockets
we could hide ourselves in:
safely keep our naiveté.
Then I'd have an excuse
for this feeling I've got lately
to wanna be wrapped up and held
so tightly.
But in this summer's sweltering heat,
I've got no real way of saying
that inside, all I feel is a cold
winter's night.
And I've been trying to fight
these drifts of thoughtlessness--
this malicious outlook that I have got on life.
But in the same breath as that
amelioration, well, I've been wishing
for someone to just come
and take my mind
off all of this stress
that's been keeping me awake.
So late at night as you shimmer yourself to sleep,
I've been trying so hard
to keep you outta songs like these--
out of my hope.
'Cause you'll just keep me singing alone.
You've got me singing alone.
If only I were welcomed
anywhere near you're heart.
But i'm just gonna loiter
for a little while longer.
Did you know that the parking regulations
are all null and void when a blizzard has arrived?
So when it covers all these stagnant cars
like brand new coat, well, baby,
let's go outside
and pretend we're one of them,
with brand new lives.
Like maybe just for tonight
you can stop me
from singing alone.
From all this singing alone.
If only I were welcome into your heart,
but no.
You've got me singing alone,
wondering where I belong.
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4. |
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You told me that I'd probably never get the chance
to hear you sing out loud.
You said you wish that you could,
but you're just too nervous
to ever let it out.
Well I can just from looking at you
that you're the prettiest hummingbird I ever met.
And even if you're quiet as a mouse,
I can see you've got beautiful songs
locked in your head.
You told me that I'd probably never get the chance
to see you cry.
You said it's not that you're emotionless,
you just don't ever do it
and you don't know why.
Well I can see when you crack a smile
that you're really in love with this world.
But you say "it's only for a little while,
like whenever you're around
all the beauty begins to unfurl."
You told me we should make a list
of all these lovely plans that we think up to do.
You said "I'm afraid some get forgotten,
and they're all so wonderful,
I wanna see 'em all come true."
Well, as for lists you're on the top of mine:
you're the angel high on my tree.
And any doubts, like Christmas lights,
will burn out even before we
get a chance to wrap 'em around our hearts,
just turn on the lights and you'll see:
you make these days like treasure everywhere,
so wrap 'em in your arms,
then wrap 'em like a present
around me.
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I woke up this morning with the sun trying hard
to peek its head through my tiny basement apartment windows
just to tell me it was beautiful out again;
but when he couldn't deliver,
you texted me instead.
And you told me I should leave work
just as I listened to Boy Meets Girl by Ghost Mice,
and the moment seemed surreal.
But, if I leave work, well, you've gotta leave work
so that we could drive around
to a small New England town
with our windows down,
where we could get a late lunch.
Because it's a shame that these day-to-days
have to get in the way
of such important things like these.
But we've gotta make some money to pay our bills & rent,
and we're trying hard to stay afloat
in this world that we live in.
So I sit here in a cubicle, you work in a coffee shop,
and it'd be great if we cared,
but our jobs are outta luck.
So we spend our workdays imagining adventure we'll go on,
and big or small they're wonderful,
each one worthy of song.
And if I could I'd write an album
about how in your eyes, the mirrored world seems wonderful
and always takes me by surprise.
But if I leave work, well, you've gotta leave work
so that we could run away
for a year, a month, an hour,
or even just a day.
Because it's a shame that these day-to-days
have to get in the way
of such important things like these.
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In late August, 2008, I lived in a basement apartment on Long Island. I hadn’t recorded much of my music since Drunken Sailors. This was mostly due to moving around frequently, and having a pretty packed-out schedule between various projects I was undertaking. For a while, I had wanted to put out a more “lo-fi” EP. I missed a bit of that aesthetic, and initially thought it would be fun to record on my old analog 4-track.
Well, I couldn’t record on that because, as I found out when I tried, it apparently no longer worked. So I got out my now-broken digital 8-track, plugged my guitar into it, put a mic up to my face, and recorded 5 new songs.
This recording style was different from the way I had been doing things: dubbing things, recording track-by-track. I wanted to give this more of that “live aura.” So I recorded the acoustic and vocal track simultaneously, and that’s all there is to each song.
It was a bit refreshing to record this way; and while I feel certain songs, like Winter Coats, would better lend itself to a more lush sound, I still just wanted to put out a quick live-styled recording.
Basement Demos EP is just that: these are songs stripped down to their skeletons, and whether or not all these songs eventually get some skin on them (that is, to say, get re-recorded with more instrumentation later), here they stand as they would sound if you heard me play them live.
Winter Coats is the oldest song of the bunch: written in late summer 2007 and initially intended for inclusion on Drunken Sailors. I ended up never recording a final version of it, and dropping it from Drunken Sailors anyway, but I always did like the song. The rest were written at some point during 2008.
The last song, Like These, was actually co-written by my girlfriend, Katie. The song is basically a conversation the two of us had, with parts taken verbatim (such as the chorus, which I stole from a text message she sent me). My love for folk-punk bleeds through a bit on this lil’ diddy.
As I write this, I say the chances are very high that each of these songs would be re-recorded for a later release. I say “re-recorded,” because I would want to keep these versions as they are—their own separate entities—unlike what I did for Terra Firma, where I just remixed versions of songs that were on De(mo)Caffeinated and The Wave EP.
This EP was recorded in under an hour on one day in late August, 2008 in the living area of my old basement apartment. The release date is in January of 2009 because that's when I finally got off my lazy butt and uploaded it to my website.
released January 13, 2009
All tracks performed by Mike Goldense.
Tracks 1-4 written by Mike Goldense.
Track 5 written by Mike Goldense and Katie Elsis.
