The Very Soul of Me II

This record is a sequel to "The Very Soul of Me," which can be found here.

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The Very Soul of Me

You shut the door
You turned the key
Never looked back into that darkened room
Never looked back at me
You left a note
You left it blank
No explanation given, no final words
Not even, I have you to thank
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Breathe

Do you feel a certain pressure at night
Like something big pushing down on you
What do you think that it could be
Is it just this old wandering Jew
Oh I whisper in your ear
All the words you long to hear
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Stations of the Elevated

I wish there were some crazy cure
But all I can offer are these words
Write it all down, every detail
'Cause it will fly away like birds
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Higgledy Piggledy

The world it is a frightening place
Gettin' scarier by the second
Hate is blown' up all around
More than anyone could have reckoned
Who can understand it, yeah
Don't wanna participate
Rather live in my tiny bubble of love
Than to live in a world of hate
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Quartet

An all-instro album based on "The Alexandria Quartet" tetralogy by Lawrence Durrell. Best heard in a single sitting with the lights off and the headphones cranked.

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Witness

The key to life
Or so I've found
Is being wide awake and at the ready
Pulling your head
Out of your ass
So your vision's clear
And your hands are steady
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The Devil You Know

And the bleached sun it does not flatter
All them babies getting fatter
And the moms and the dads
They waltz around grotesque
As they dance this strange burlesque
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Heart

Twelve instrumentals aimed at the heart.
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What a Way to Go!

I saw you fall into a black hole
When I reached out to you
You let go
After such a long trip
You simply lost your grip
And now I can't find you
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Mercy

The quality of mercy is not strained
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath
It is twice blest
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes

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Incidentally Yours

Angry words in an angry time
What will we remember
What will we forget
When the story is written
Just how will it look
Will it be a future of regret
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The Man With the Glass Head

The infection was spread so easily
From one clammy hand to the next
It'd gone viral all around the world
Just like some scandalous text
And we were astonished and we were amazed
And we were perplexed
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Harpo's Blues

This girl of mine
Has blue-y blue eyes
She pulls at my heart
Each time she cries
I never knew
I wouldn’t have guessed
She holds my hand
And I feel blessed

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Crashing

He was saving his best lines for last
Just like money in the bank
He stood before us in his Sunday best
And said, I have you to thank
We took pictures
Of the people taking pictures
And posted them on the internet
And we believed like we always believed
But mostly we were all wet

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Bandcamp

I've spent the better part of a year remixing and remastering my entire catalog. Now's your chance to catch up. Here, then, is the whole shebang (so far).

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Younger Than Today

When I look back on my 60 years
It all seems like a blur
It all seems like it was here and now it's gone
And when I think about all the stuff I've done
And the stuff I've yet to do
I can't believe that my time ain't that long

Cover boy: Larry Kusnitt, whereabouts unknown
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Tomorrow

To the lonely and invincible of the earth
To endure and then endure
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Dear God

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Los Feliz

Consider time
It comes and goes
And you're left wondering just where it went
You're its slave
You're its prisoner
It leaves you in forever torment

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Low Down

I can laugh and I can cry
I can ask myself why, why, why
I can live a life that's as real as it gets
Pick myself up when I'm blown to bits
I can be good as good as can be
But will that be better
Better for me

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Beautiful People

There goes the past Receding and not always redeemable And here comes the future Waiting to churn us up
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Ghosting

I am not here
And you are not there
Nobody is anywhere, anywhere
I thought that I knew you
A humble boast
I thought that I knew you
But you're a ghost

Cover girl: Susan Gil, whereabouts unknown
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Wolves

I stand accused
Of a wrong I did not do
And I sound nervous in my deposition
You see, innocence's a trick of paperwork
Whereas guilt is the human condition
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Western Daylight

That summer by the lake
There was a boat house and a pier
We sat around a fire
Told some stories and drank some beer
One day you swam too far
We didn't hear you scream
I still wonder if it was real
Or something from a dream

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Eastern Standard

I scream at you but you don't hear
You flash an evil grin
"I am Henry the Eighth," you say
"And you're my Anne Boleyn"
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Something Strange

Never fit in here
Never fit in there
No matter how I tried
I never fit in anywhere
Did what I could
To accomodate
But all of my efforts were in vain
And that's how it always will remain
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Trouble

Poor old Fred
He passed so young
No more pearls
Will fall from his tongue
Woe is him
But more woe is me
I gotta a big ol' hole
Where my heart used to be

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Westphalia

Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.

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The Friendship Ring

The past is filled with peculiar ghosts
It’s best to let them all go
'Cause when you start to really stir things up
You find out stuff that you don’t want to know
Like how much you don’t matter
Or how much your ex got fatter
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Wild Blue Yonder

Putting out the last of the garbage
Sam says, "I'll see you next year"
I'm about to say I won't be back
But Sam went to get a beer
And I'm left here to ponder
Over the wild blue yonder
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Remember Me

So I am a peephole
Into a windowless room
Where the sweat on the tiles
Is the only perfume
On the desk is a diary
And next to it a vase
The rose draws blood
And it drips on the lace
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From Eliot WIth Love

Our conversation moves in circles
And so do the hands of the clock
We sound like we are saying something
But it's all only idle talk
Mel says love is spiritual
But some of us disagree
Some get a kick out of being kicked
Every beater needs a beatee
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Wilderness Years

Days roll along
One into the other
All the time in the world, it seems
The next thing you know
There's one less day
And slightly taller weeds
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Armistice Day

What would it take to end
All this fighting
What could we do to stop
All the war
It's been going on
Since the very first caveman
Since he figured out
What a club was for

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Scary Guy at the End of the Hall

I got a dream in me
That nothing can quite kill
You may try to squash me
I know that's where you get your thrill
And I am gonna get myself up
And shake off these cliches
And I will see myself clear
Living in better days

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Stockholm Syndrome

Out of left field
There came a sudden wind
Blew down our well-built fences
While the devil grinned
We were aghast
The end was here at last

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A Proper Viking Funeral

I bleed real blood
Red as a your lips
It gushes out of me
In Technicolor strips
Can't hold it back
It is out of control
That's the way that it is
When you're a slave to your soul

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Primitive Man

I like the way that the world
Revolves around me
I am at the center
Of my very own galaxy
I get to call the shots
I get to say what's cool
I am no idiot, no
I suffer no fool

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Cattywampus

Now you must face your deepest fears
Or at the very least say
You're not afraid
If you do that
You're not just half way there
You are at the head of the parade
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Walk Away

Featuring Dave Westner, Natalia Beth Cooper, and Chris and Astrid.

Walking Distance

There is nothing
Nothing out in the desert
And no man
No man needs nothing
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Broken Things

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away

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Woebegone

The good and the bad
The happy and the sad
All the living and the dead
It will stay with me
For eternity
My thoughts are a tornado
In my head

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Better

Is this the way to live a life
Never think about the meaning
Then one day you wake up
And the whole world is careening
Well I'm no philosopher
Not Jean Paul Sartre
But it doesn't take a genius to know
You gotta have heart, miles of heart
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Blue Skies Ahead

I look at a faded photo
I don't recall the time or place
There is some girl in blue jeans
I don't recognize the face

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Memoirs of My Nervous Illness

D'où venons nous, que sommes nous, où allons nous.
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Brutal Beauty

We ought to write it down in a book
And put it on our shelves
'Cause the past is just a story
We tell ourselves
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The New World

No none of us are alone in this
One way or other we face the abyss
The bum, the cabbie and the millionaire
Hitler and Ghandi and good ol' Voltaire
One thing's for sure we all grow frail
The electric charge comes off our third rail
And if you fight it then you are a fool
Ain't it a bitch how life is so cruel

If you do download my albums, please consider a donation. My 200 monthly downloads are about to run out, which means Bandcamp will automatically start charging $7.
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Music From Big Beige

A big beige building seated in the shade of the Fenway in Boston, Big Beige bore this music and these songs along its way, It's the first witness of this album that's been thought and composed right there inside its walls.

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Summerville

Let's hang out in hotels
And sneak into their swimming pools
If they ever catch us
We'll say we don't play by their stinkin' rules
We'll go down to the Esplanade
On the Fourth of July
Stay up late for the fireworks
Plastered all over the Summerville sky
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