Get all 11 Tawni Marshall releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Deadnamed on Santa's Shitlist, Skeleton Woman, The Perfect Time For Christmas (feat. Jacob Marley), What Were My Bones, You Built the Room 'round the Elephant, The Workingtrans Blues, Queerantine, Aries Moon, and 3 more.
1. |
I Woke up Slowly
02:37
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I woke up slowly and I looked outside.
Things looked so still,
but still, they're real and feel alive.
My body twitched
and I scratched an itch
that pricked at my hide.
My limbs were stemmed
from skin that was hemmed
to a lens that spies from inside myself.
And I never move,
but I'm moved
by the movement around me,
It rolls like a wave
that drags me toward my grave.
I know I can't stay.
There were times
that I swore to myself
you were reading my mind.
Things got so clear, my dear,
I was here and I'm still on your side.
And the delicate bloom
of the room
that we share from inside ourselves
shelters my faith;
keeps it in one place so it won't float away.
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2. |
Narrowing Hall
03:06
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You woke up
in the middle of a terrible sound,
with the sunlight bent
from beating on a higher ground.
And the words you said
were already in your head
as you made your eyes
try to sympathize
and then went back to bed.
I get down.
I get down in the ground.
When the going gets tough
I get the Hell out of town.
Childhood crumbles as you're fortified
by the sound of tomorrow
as it comes alive.
Whirring with the motion of uncertain time,
everyone's a gambler with a worried mind.
The painter is crazy
looking for the beautiful flaw.
"Life is amazing!"
she screams down a narrowing hall.
You're moving far away
as soon as time allows it.
But where in the world could the world fit
if your mind never loses it's idea of it?
I get down.
I get down in the ground.
When the going gets tough
I get the hell out of town.
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3. |
Slight Reprise
02:59
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Down in the gutter with tempo and flair
I make my money like everyone else.
I make my living
in the service of a vending machine.
Solitude, silence, they're not really there.
You can't have nothing
if you're something, dear.
You'll be connected
in spite of your reckless affection.
Well, casting my shadow,
it's shallow and clear.
It cuts through the light,
a night carried by me.
I'm amazed by it's shapes
as they change
with a different perspective.
But sometimes
my shadow gets inside my skin
and it flails in my body
like a flag in the wind,
and I change my shape
at the mercy of its misdirection.
When I was much younger,
much younger than now.
I was amazed by the world all around.
I spent my time
listening to how my life sounded.
But now that I'm older,
much older than then,
I can't seem to keep time
or to hang on to friends.
And I'm figuring out
just how much
all my dreams are unfounded.
Sometimes I space out
for hours end on end
and the hours keep on coming,
though I don't let them in.
When I come to my senses I'm changed
without changing a thing.
And everything's relative,
so it's been said.
Though I don't think
that thought could quite fit in my head;
the absolute certainty
of a relative life without limit.
Down in the gutter with tempo and flair
I make my money like everyone else.
I make my living
in the service of a vending machine.
Solitude, silence, they're not really there.
You can't have nothing
if you're something, dear.
You'll be connected
in spite of your reckless affection.
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4. |
Photogenic Memory
04:30
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I saw you then I saw you.
Then I didn't see you again.
The you became a her,
and the here a there,
the now a then.
Lost in the conversion,
an entirely different version
of every little ray from the sun.
It's just the same.
It's so much different now.
I was in and out of love
and slowly out of hopes and dreams.
I was nailed against the way
and I cried for you to come to me.
You waited and you watched
and you saw how real my blood was.
You painted all your walls with me.
You left me hanging;
a monument to me.
A bat in a cathedral,
beating in the dusty mouth
of God that's wrapped in stillness.
There's no one here.
I can't get out.
An entirely different version's
been lost in the conversion,
so this bat is headed south.
It's just the same.
You're so much different now.
I saw you then I saw you.
Then I'd never see you again.
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5. |
What Were My Bones
04:27
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I got a feeling
I lost my belief in a lot.
My wants are all I've got.
Tongue-tied and dreaming,
wide-eyed and reeling from a wind,
a wind that's made of thought.
From out of the shadows
of a graveyard
that holds what were my bones,
she walks delicate and alone.
Whispering madly,
the tree limbs reach sadly
just to touch her as she goes.
Caught up in words that
don't seem to add up to much
of anything at all.
The wind tends to drown out
the sounds my heart pounds out,
and it beats
it beats against the wall.
I found a comfort
in something I never found at all.
I hid it somewhere I don't know.
She left me flowers,
to tell me
she knows that something's wrong.
I'll plant them where they belong.
Caught up in words that
don't seem to add up to much
of anything at all.
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6. |
Heart of My Brain
02:26
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The canvass is tightly stretched;
made to fit on its frame.
She throws paint that quietly lands
and forms some meaningful thing;
a collage of indifference,
artistic detachment,
sexual sorrow and rain.
I'm in the kitchen,
hardly worth mentioning,
trying to make a heart of my brain.
The night's in the ashtray
smoldering lifeless,
spilling its smoke through the room,
leaving faint traces
of thoughts without faces;
a faded beautiful tune.
She wrestles in bed
with a sketch in her head,
painted pale by the moon.
And God knows I miss her
as my guitar whispers
"I'll see you soon."
I'm killing this silence
with unspoken violence.
I'm cutting myself to the bone.
I look from each angle
'til my eyes are tangled.
I'm left with an unfinished poem.
And that's where I'll keep you
put away neatly;
a scribbled portrait, alone.
Black lines of darkness
that slip through the canvass
and form the thoughts of a girl.
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7. |
God's Lightning
03:28
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Blind obsession
and raw unnamed desires
are cast into me like wood into a fire.
So God will keep a watchful eye on me.
And God will keep a watchful eye on me.
Thought alone
Thought alone gives life to me.
Did you know
God's lighting is ripping through my brain?
We clouds hang lifeless,
and it always looks like rain.
So God will keep a watchful eye on me.
And God will keep a watchful eye on me.
Thought alone.
Thought alone gives life to me.
God's great gray temple
in the clutches of a bone.
My aching head is God's majestic throne.
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8. |
Living in Myself
03:05
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9. |
Health Will Fade
03:52
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If I knew a doctor,
I would ask him
if he had a cure for my disease.
My ailments rob my body of a soul.
I don't know no doctor,
so I'm off to ask a priest
if maybe he can tell
the answer to the
problems of my dizzy spells.
I don't know no doctor know-how anyway,
but the way that I've been living
it seem there's Hell to pay.
I went to the river
trying to wash myself clean,
but the water burned my skin.
Now it seems I'm allergic to anything holy.
So, I went to the pharmacy,
trying to get a little something for my pain,
but the pills they gave me
took all of my words away.
I don't know no doctor know-how anyway,
but the way that I've been living
it seem there's Hell to pay.
I went to the factory,
trying to work off all my sins
and maybe make some pay,
but the man there said
they shipped all of their jobs away.
So, I went to the office,
trying to get a little help to come my way,
but the man there said
there's no such thing as help these days.
I don't know no doctor know-how anyway,
but the way that I've been living
it seem there's Hell to pay.
I don't know no doctor know-how anyway,
and the only insurance I got
is that my health will fade.
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10. |
Your Tired Eyes
04:23
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Open up your eyes,
your tired eyes.
It's dark outside.
It's dark outside.
And when it's light,
it's too bright to see.
Had a dream
where you were solid as can be,
and all your pieces
disconnected and roamed free.
You scattered yourself
in all directions you could see.
I felt you rushing
through the wind all around me.
But it was light,
and you were bright,
too bright for me.
Open up your eyes,
your lifeless eyes.
Your nameless guise.
Your nameless guise.
It's no surprise that you died because of me.
Had a dream
where you were solid as can be,
and all your pieces
disconnected and roamed free.
You scattered yourself
in all directions you could see.
I felt you rushing
through the wind all around me.
But it was light,
and you were bright,
too bright for me.
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11. |
Midwest Bar 2:47 A.M.
03:43
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You know that this is where I go
to get the proper medicine.
When I need my mind to slow down,
and I'm restless in my skin.
I will sit among my ghosts,
and I will sit among my friends,
counting minutes 'til they close,
because I counted on you again.
The bourbon makes the colors run
and then the night becomes a blur.
I hear laughter in the fog,
but I can't make out any words.
A symphony of voices echoes to the sky;
the steadfast birds
beating wings in rhythm
to the unhinged music I have heard.
Well, I am just another lush
among the lushes at the bar
who thinks that she has drank enough
to figure out just who you are.
Monoliths, lined in a row
with cinemas lit in their heads;
empty pockets, empty eyes,
empty bottles, empty beds.
Take me someplace safe
before I lose myself again.
Show me what my soul is for,
and let me use it, my friend.
He was just a bare-boned man,
that is all that we ever were.
Heartache makes the colors run,
and then the night becomes a blur.
You know that this is where I go
to get the proper medicine.
When I need my mind to slow down,
and I'm restless in my skin.
I will sit among my ghosts,
and I will sit among my friends,
counting minutes 'til they close,
because I counted on you again.
Why did I count on you again?
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12. |
Soluble in Alcohol
03:34
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Marching toward the common goal.
It's soluble in alcohol.
And on the wall, the punch you pulled.
The lovesick child is getting old.
And in the hall, behind the girl,
your childhood bed is comfortable.
"It's in your head," says the world.
You tell yourself it's in your soul.
Empty spaces in your life
and advertisements in your eyes.
They whisper to you every night,
sell you dreams and alibis.
Chase the remnants of a time,
when time was endless, life was right.
They whisper to you every night;
snakes with halos made to shine.
You kiss the lips of ghostly girls
and on their wrists the open sores
are bleeding light that blinds the world.
The time has come to close the door.
It's dark again, you're in yourself.
Hear the ringing of the bell.
She's waiting for you in the hall.
She's soluble in alcohol.
She's soluble in alcohol.
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13. |
It's Night Again
04:22
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I write by your light
in the aimless night.
It keeps me awake.
I don't have what it takes
to run away and tame my heart again,
or say that it's not real,
or turn my back on what I feel,
or make amends with my skeletons,
turn my dreams into dreams again,
and push these nights into the back of my mind
only to wait 'til it's night again.
Where do you keep your light
that burns in all that dark?
Is it pouring from your eyes?
Or do you hide it in your heart?
I see a light and it shines
into the depths of darkest night;
the saddest light I have a ever seen.
What a frail and beautiful beam!
I don't have what it takes
to run away and tame my heart again,
or say that it's not real,
or turn my back on what I feel,
or make amends with my skeletons,
turn my dreams into dreams again,
and push these nights into the back of my mind
only to wait 'til it's night again.
I write by your light in the aimless night.
It keeps me awake.
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14. |
Esmeralda
04:54
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I saw you last night
with my shoelace untied.
It somehow felt right to let part of me die.
I tried to rhyme.
I try all the time.
But I find I get left behind,
'cause you're only alive in my mind.
Esmeralda, you gave me water,
but you could not dress my wounds.
And after they caught you,
they found me in your tomb.
This is your cathedral.
The light bends for you.
My head is ringing,
and the bells are yours, too.
I'm all twisted inside
by your shining eyes.
Why is it so hard not to lie
when you ask if I am alright?
Esmeralda, I know there's no home
that could hold you wholly embraced,
but regardless of wherever you roam,
I still think of you in one place.
I still think of you in one place.
I tried to rhyme.
I try all the time.
But I find I get left behind,
'cause you're only alive in my mind.
Esmeralda, you gave me water,
but you could not dress my wounds.
And after they caught you,
they found me in your tomb.
They found me in your tomb.
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Tawni Marshall Indianapolis, Indiana
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