1. |
Passenger Seat
03:15
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I was only looking for someone
To pull on the end of my sleeve
And help me out of my coat
While I was driving
I’d almost stopped hoping it would ever be true love
In the passenger seat
I was trying to get free of my fantasies
I was holding off holding out hope
For long gone, long odds girls like you
Who would tie up the phone
While someone more like me
Was trying to get through
And then you fell out of the bottom of the stairs
Unmistakably warm in the eye
Looking at me like we’d both agreed
The time was finally right
I swear I never saw it coming
If I had, I would’ve messed it up already
But you got me good with a left hook
Swole my good eye up in love
Again
Enough years go by loveless
I start planning my life alone
With a dog I’ll name Ramona
In a house that doesn’t have a phone
It’ll be good to put this behind me
All this straining, desperate hope
But the odds all change in the instant it takes
A gaze to fly across the room
I could tell by the way you held my eye
I could tell by the way you moved
Walking up to me in a straight line
Blazing with a warmth unknown
I guess I’d always dreamed it would be like this
But it’s so dangerous to hope
That you’d fall in love with me
Again
I was only looking for someone
To pull on the end of my sleeve
And help me out of my coat
While I was driving
I’d almost stopped hoping it would ever be true love
In the passenger seat
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2. |
Chinook Wind
02:56
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We started arguing on the on-ramp
Of Interstate 90 West
As the engine strained to recollect fifth gear
And I struggled to keep my head
For the last month, I’d been scratching your name
With my fingernail in the frost
Of the windowpane in the attic of a friend’s
I’d been staying since you broke it off
Then out of the blue, you asked me on a date
To a hot springs out of town
And on Valentine’s Day, no less, I knew I should
But I could never turn you down
Now I’m sitting in the steam with a cold gin & tonic
Sweating in a plastic cup
Trying to make sense of your sudden change of heart
If that’s what it really was
You swept in like a Chinook wind
Blowing warm through the woods
A pulse of June in the middle of the winter
Can do more harm than good
You thawed out my resistance
And I let you back in
You were unseasonably warm
As a Chinook wind
Watching the snow crying off the pine trees
Standing around the edge of the pool
Their bare green needles naked in the cold
I started to feel like a fool
Maybe I was dying in the high Himalaya
In the final stages of undress
Just then I felt you swim up behind me like a reaper
And softly kiss the back of my neck
You swept in like a Chinook wind
Blowing warm through the woods
A pulse of June in the middle of the winter
Can do more harm than good
You thawed out my resistance
And I let you back in
You were unseasonably warm
As a Chinook wind
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3. |
Handholder
03:30
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I always knew you were a little bit bloodless
And you could turn unsentimental as a mannequin
Leaving fools like me, reasoning with plastic
Fools like me, rereading your last letter
Fools like me, thinking I should’ve known better than this
I always knew you had a catacombs in you
And when times got tough, that’s where you’d descend to
Leaving fools like me, up here on the surface
Kicking myself, knowing I deserved it
I’d seen it before, and still I couldn’t resist
I always knew you had a heart with a trapdoor
Any moment, at your word, I could fall through the floorboards
Because I liked you just a little too much
And I had too much time, and you didn’t have enough
And you just changed your mind, all that’s fair in war and love
But it was what I didn’t know that got me
Your warm, tender love that shocked me
This isn’t what I expected
Didn’t think you would kiss like this
I never took you for a handholder
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4. |
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As we plunged through the potholes of West Philadelphia
I thought I might’ve bent my frame
The truck was fine but after you got out
You and I never drove the same
You kept to your side of the room at the party
I wish I’d just gone to bed
At the end of the night, I put soy sauce on your rice
You looked so tired and unimpressed
I drove 2000 miles in an old rusted truck
Just because it had a bed in the back
I hung up fairy lights and curtains and I packed it with expectations
Til the leaf springs sagged
I’d been all winter daydreaming a rendezvous
I never bothered to fact check
In the first five minutes after getting there
I saw you with your arm around his neck
You don’t look at me the same
As you did in Colorado
Before I drove all this way
I should’ve known what I already knew
Because I can tell that he’s on your mind
And now I’m just in your way
I look at you like we used to
But you don’t look at me the same
In northeastern North Carolina one night
Everything finally stopped going south
And you crawled into the back of my truck, though
Streptococcus kept me from kissing your mouth
Still, in the morning I was jubilant
Singing “Cecilia” and texting my friends
All the time I bided and the miles I made
Were finally paying dividends
But you saw something in my end zone shuffle
That stank like certainty
I guess the glow between us was only visible in
The midnight of perfidy
You said I took all the fun out of it
When I kicked my feet up on the couch
I should’ve known at your age that the getting there
Is not as fun as the sneaking around
It’s not as fun as the sneaking around
After Philadelphia, the curtains in the windows
Made the truck feel more like a hearse
And that last night in Maine, kissing wine-drunk in the kitchen
Only made me feel worse
Knowing, to you, I didn’t mean as much
As a nightcap of human touch
Sometimes a look says more than words ever can
Sometimes it doesn’t say near enough
And you don’t look at me the same
As you did in Colorado
Before I drove all this way
To mine own guts I should’ve been true
Because I can tell that he’s on your mind
And now I’m just in your way
I look at you like we used to
But you don’t look at me the same
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5. |
Big Sandy
05:28
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We played a show last night
At Pep’s Bar & Lanes
To a rowdy crowd of skateboarders
There from out of state
They all spilled out on the street
When the bar finally closed
Jeremy’s shooting fireworks
Out of the bell of his trombone
As I watched the roman candles
Spit and sizzle through the dark
You drifted into my mind like blood
Across the nose of a shark
I felt a kick of cretin craving
And romance soften my spine
I was as likely to resist you
As a pine needle on the tide
I woke up sweating in my sleeping bag
Mosquitoes pestering my brow
This park was dark and empty
Last night when I laid down
But now the day has overrun me
The tide’s rising and my boot’s stuck
I didn’t mean to still be here
And hungover when the kids showed up
So I packed up my sleeping bag
And pull out the gazetteer
When you wake up in Big Sandy
You’re a long drive from anywhere
You were up in the Mission Mountains
Halfway across the state
It felt crazy to drive that far but far
Worse to go the other way
If I just drove home directly
It’d already be a drive
So maybe I should just push it
Over the Jocko Divide
And chalk it up to Sunday
The price of gas and the Big Sky
When really I’m just giving in
To this wishful heart of mine
The engine light’s on, my stomach’s growling
My back is tired from sleeping on the ground
But my heart wants to go for a drive
Yeah, my heart wants to go for a drive
Montana is an ocean
With a lot of open sea between the towns
And leagues of power lines that slouch and slip
Like waves lapping on a prow
And all that nothing on the radio
All that alfalfa for a view
Gives me plenty of time to wonder if you think of me
The way I think of you
It might just be a waste of time
I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense
It could be a mutiny of romance
For the slim plunder of a kiss
Either way, it’s the summertime
And the day is long and warm
So maybe I’ll keep on driving
Just to feel the sun on my left arm
When I get there, she’s ambivalent
That I made the drive at all
When I tell her how far I’ve come
I get a patronizing nod
I tell myself she’s from the East Coast
And doesn’t grasp the Western scale
Though I know that I’ve misjudged her
And made of her my great white whale
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6. |
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I watched your face in the rear-view mirror
As we drove to Forest Lawn
For any skirmish of misgiving or recognition
Or tell you were putting me on
But you betrayed nothing, your face was untroubled
As fresh dirt over a grave
Smiling out the window, singing to yourself
You covered up what we didn’t say
You’re giving me the wild-eyed George Bailey heebie jeebies
Making me think that maybe
I’ve never been born
All you gotta do is look me in the eyes
Tell me you remember
Last November
When we were in love, we were in love
Just a couple months ago, you came to visit
When we were still head over heels
It’s chilling now to see you pretending like you didn’t
I don’t know what’s real
I don’t know how to
Feels like I’m looking through a two-way mirror
You can’t see me but I can see you
Just praying you’ll corroborate my story for the record
I swear you loved me, too
You’re giving me the wild-eyed George Bailey heebie jeebies
Making me think that maybe
I’ve never been born
All you gotta do is look me in the eyes
Tell me you remember
Last November
When we were in love, we were in love
What good’s a memory
When it’s just a story two people share
And one of those people refuses to acknowledge
That she was even ever there?
You’re giving me the wild-eyed George Bailey heebie jeebies
Making me think that maybe
I’ve never been born
All you gotta do is look me in the eyes
Tell me you remember
Last November
When we were in love, we were in love
Slipping on the grass in my new huaraches
I think to check your feet
Sure enough, you’re not wearing the pair that I bought you
Down on Olvera Street
I start checking the names on the gravestones
I wouldn’t be surprised
To find one that said, Harry Bailey -
He died when he was nine
‘Cause you weren’t there to save him, George
You’re giving me the wild-eyed George Bailey heebie jeebies
Making me think that maybe
I’ve never been born
All you gotta do is look me in the eyes
Tell me you remember
Last November
When we were in love, we were in love
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7. |
Married with Kids
02:51
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Fishing for attention at highway speeds
Desperate to meet my eye
Is a smiling, Photoshopped, bare-shouldered bombshell
Making it hard to drive
I don’t remember anybody asking me
If they could pimp my gaze
With a 50-foot billboard selling Big Macs and Money Back
And Painless Procedures for my Varicose Veins
I wish they’d’ve stayed in the back of the phone book
And just left me well enough alone
But some marketing team made a whole lot of money
Taking my eyes off the road
I don’t want to be convinced anymore
Ashamed or enticed
Made to think I’m falling short
So that someone can make up the difference for a price
Wall ads, bench ads, painted on a bus
Or dragged behind a plane in the sky
It’s everywhere I go and it’s everywhere I look
It’s getting hard to escape my eyes
I mean, what am I doing, watching commercials
At the gas pump on a little TV screen?
I never asked for this, and I can’t turn it off
Like some bad Bradburian dream
I don’t want to be convinced anymore
Ashamed or enticed
Made to think I’m falling short
So that someone can make up the difference for a price
Squatting my unoccupied attention
Selling what I never meant to buy
I don’t know how you got my number
But I’d like to unsubscribe
I wouldn’t know what I didn’t have
Until I saw it in a magazine
Nice shoes, duck face, adolescent hip-to-waist
Big watch, square jaw, hard body, good skin
Prime, Pro, pre-check, air miles credit card
Fast car, stiff cock, married with kids
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8. |
East of Barstow
04:06
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I’ve been grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw
I’ve been chewing on the inside of my cheek the way my sister does
I’ve been holding my breath, changing lanes with my fingers crossed
Wasting my prayers on yellow lights and parking spots
If I can just get east of Barstow, I know I’ll be okay
I don’t really have a reason, I just need to get away
I just need to see the stars again, despite it’s being a cliché
If I can just get east of Barstow, I’ll be okay
I’ve been wincing at crescendos, airplanes out of sight
My overheated heart falls backwards into a bucket of ice
Helicopters stringing overhead, their metronomic spider eyes
Blinking red through the demi-dark, saturated city night sky
Even in the middle of the night, when I’m just lying in bed
I can hear the infinite squall of pavement and tire treads
Madness filling up the blank space, that’s the circular breath of the interstate
It’s the reason and the way I think I want to get away again
If I can just get east of Barstow, I know I’ll be okay
I don’t really have a reason, I just need to get away
I just need to see the stars again, despite it’s being a cliché
If I can just get east of Barstow, I’ll be okay
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9. |
Blue Pilot
04:15
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For Christmas, you gave me a leather-bound journal
And a Blue Pilot G-2 10
As I looked at the innocent ink in the reservoir
I thought I knew what it would spell out, then
Looking at you cross-legged on the carpet
Underneath the Christmas tree
I felt as full of love and hopeful for the New Year
As I’d ever had a right to be
You can take your bearings from the present
Try to guess if she’s in love or just smitten
But there’s no way to know what the next page is gonna say
Until it’s been written
At times, I take my daydreams for the future
Forgetting that time is like a river
You can paddle like crazy
You can swim for safety
But it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference
No, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference
As I fanned through those blank, unlined pages
I could almost see the songs I’d write
Odes, love songs, and sweet dedications
Private entries of tender nights
I’d been so long whining and complaining
About love that fizzled or fled
I filled a lot of Moleskines with discontent
I was gonna fill this one with love instead
At times, I take my daydreams for the future
Forgetting that time is like a river
You can paddle like crazy
You can swim for safety
But it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference
No, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference
Just one week into the New Year
Just a couple happy pages in
You tore me out like a bad idea
I started writing sad songs again
I might never have filled that notebook
If things had stayed the same
Because love can be a little boilerplate
But the heart breaks a thousand ways
At times, I take my daydreams for the future
Forgetting that time is like a river
You can paddle like crazy
You can swim for safety
But it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference
No, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference
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10. |
Mag-Lev Train
03:25
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After all those meals I shared with just a magazine
Egg yolk dripping off my chin, leaning over the sink
Last night talking across a sawhorse table with you was a dream
For the first time in a long time, I knew just where to put my feet
You made marinated portobello mushrooms on the grill
And we just ate them off the tin foil
You made everything happen with an offhand grace
More midwest than California
We tuned into a honky-tonk show from your old hometown
And talked until the wine was gone and the candles burned out
We both liked the same pop-country songs
And taking long road trips on a whim
We went back and forth for over an hour
Playing have you ever heard, have you ever been?
Right off the bat, it was comfort and common ground
Your breath tasted like water and your skin felt like a memory
Usually, I find some reason to leave but everything kept feeling alright
I slept on a bed outside your window like a dog that night
We both liked the same pop-country songs
And taking long road trips on a whim
We went back and forth for over an hour
Playing have you ever heard, have you ever been?
Before I climbed in my car to drive back to the city, you gave me a sweetgrass braid
And a loose hoop of wire you’d been wearing around your wrist
I floated like a mag-lev train down your washboard road
Thinking, oh, it must be good, a kind of thing that would start like this
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11. |
Shampoo
03:17
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I’ve gotten good in the last few years
At surreptitiously uncapping
The shampoo in the shower so my hosts don’t know
I didn’t bring my own
It probably wouldn’t be a problem
But I’m just so tired of asking
They always say to make myself at home
Home’s just where I leave my stuff
Where the mail goes and my plants dry out
Home’s been sleeping with my ankles dangling over
The end of someone else’s couch
Home’s where I’ve got a full shampoo but
No time to use it
I can’t remember the last time I finished a bottle
And threw it out
I can’t remember the last time
I got to the bottom of anything
Squeezed the sides and rolled up the tube
And tried to get the last drop out
I’m always leaving in the middle
It’s easier to think it probably never would’ve worked out
Easier to pine for something out of reach
Than someone who could let me down
In lieu of finding some reason to be here
I always find some reason to leave
Pour out the rest of the milk and hide a key
I’m never as happy as I am these days
When I’m just on the way
Halfway there and in-between
Using the windshield as a TV screen
I can’t remember the last time
I got to the bottom of anything
Squeezed the sides and pounded on the counter
And tried to get the last drop out
I’m always leaving in the middle
It’s easier to think it probably never would’ve worked out
Easier to pine for something out of reach
Than someone who could let me down
I don’t mind doing the dishes
Stripping the bed or leaving a note
But none of it will ever really make up
For the kind of hospitality I’ve been shown
I’m gonna have to buy a house
Open it up to all my friends
Make sure everybody’s got a place to sleep
And the Wi-Fi’s on the fridge
And in the bathroom, I’ll make sure
There’s a big bottle of shampoo and soap
With pump lids so they’ll never have to worry
That I’ll never need to know
I can’t remember the last time
I got to the bottom of anything
Squeezed the sides and pounded on the counter
And tried to get the last drop out
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12. |
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This city’s not so bad
By the light of a love affair
The way the spring rain will sweep in
And scrub all the dirt out of the air
And suddenly, you can see snow-capped peaks
High above the San Gabriel Valley
And the hills and dales of Eagle Rock
Might as well be Chamonix
And those tall buildings with the bank names on them
They’re almost pretty as the sun sinks down
Peach-lit and gleaming
Monuments to greed and power
From up here, on the edge of Mt. Wilson
Laying in the back of your truck
All that glass and steel downtown’s just ambiance
And atmosphere to us
I was just about to leave when I met you
I thought I had about as much as I could take
But all I needed was someone worth thinking about
While I was pouting on the interstate
Nothing’s as pretty as a taco stand
Strung up with a garland of bare light bulbs
Above a steaming griddle full of corn tortillas
When everywhere else is closed
And the kamikaze clouds of the parakeets
The sweet, sweaty smell of the pepper trees
All of it’s a payoff
If you stick around long enough to see
And that long drive on the 210 East
Through the gauntlet of San Bernardino County
All those faux-adobe shopping malls, tract homes, and big rig stalls
Used to drive me nuts
And these four lanes of brake lights, inching through Azusa
Used to would’ve had me pulling out my hair
But now if I squint, they sort of look like roses
In the light of a love affair
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