Margot&the nuclear so and so's

 

I've been trying very hard to describe Margot's songs lately, to myself, to my notebook, to others...
Turns out, I can't seem to do it the way I want to. I don't know why. I'm usually very good at describing feelings, associations, memories. It's my thing, kinda. But to no avail.This band has had an impact on me, a different kind of impact. Their songs have drilled their way inside of me, sticking to some of my memories like raspberry jam, clinging to my paintings, walking my streets(head down, head up, head closed off and completly open), rushing around in my empty corridors, wailing underneath my blankets. They've made a home in my head, my heart, and now it's as if they've always been there. But that's not all. You know the feeling that a story you read or a melody you hear or some lyrics you come across - are about you, and you alone? Different pieces of your life, all blended together in a song? A line here, a line there, events, emotions, people you feel things for, united in something beautiful? Or something complete, something whole, that seems to deal with your exact and profound thoughts and feelings for a situation, as a whole? 

Well. I know that feeling. Happens to me all the time, of course. However. These songs are me. Richard Edward's voice and the way he uses it, the words, the many, many instruments torn apart and put together again, the particular sound of it, it's all... Me. It's as if my heart was put into a kind of translator and all of this pretty music came out on the other side. And I don't know why. And part of me wishes it weren't so, because I've never come across any songs that are sad in the same way as these songs - a sadness that downright depresses me, and I mean that literally, in the real sense of the word "literally". So much darkness. So many city lights and huddled forms. It's as if they're made of past and of too many memories, too many relationships, too many things to look back on, too many things lost, too much beauty, too much observation... I... Damn. I tried really hard this time, but I just can't put any of it into words, I can't explain it at all. I guess you have to be me to feel about Margot&the nuclear so and so's the way that I do. Well. I won't forget. I'll know what it all means, know it without words, until I leave this place. I suppose that's the imporant thing.

I'm cold. And you're not with me anymore.

~

I tell tales tall as cliffs

you've got a lisp

kid, those things are hard to miss

like my crippled cough

all your weekends lost by the lake

well, you said I needen't be afraid

of all those devils on the wall

that make a fella small

when he's feeling brave

they take his wine away

there were posters on the wall

I swear my mother saw

and I've been up all night

up all night

and you came well equipped

with a gun on your hip
and some poison on your lips
but when we wake up
in our make up
we'll be clean
and we won't have nowhere to be

oh, but I can't talk to you
the way I've wanted to
I've been telling lies
but I'll tell you the truth
no, I can't talk to you
the way I've wanted to
I've been telling lies
but I'll tell you the truth

and darling, I'm tired
and I should be leaving, leaving
you know I'm tired
and I should be leaving
leaving tonight

and darling, I'm tired
and I should be leaving, leaving
you know I'm tired
and I should be leaving

and you'll hang like the rest
we'll leave a noose on
the attorney's desk
take to the streets
chant like an army
and doctor up his disease

~

that's no way to live
all tangled up like balls of string
and we woke at dawn
and watched the sun glide over the hill

I just said the first

three words that popped into my head

let me off the bus

I'm tired and sore and should probably change clothes

and the circuits are blown

my woman is cold

our children are stoned and worthless

they're all waiting for you

to tell them the truth

the truth is a line

that you'll never use

and her dignity

shone so bright, like a light on a hill

and she burned for me

and no other man came near her flame

and back country song

the deafening twang of the rich white kid blues

you can own the stage

but the lights and glares will not make you real

she whispers to me

"I was meant to be free,

this life that we've built is deadly..."

and she crawls from my bed

runs a comb 'cross her head

she crawls to the train

and drives herself home

 

~

do what you like

you don't have to be nice

just pour yourself

a cup of coffee

leave anytime

you don't have to be right

you've gotta live

the best you know how

and if you love

well, that should be enough

instead it turns

your joy into sorrow

and I can't breathe

with the dust of retreat

I'm choking on

the fumes of my wayward back

my woman lied

she was a witch in disguise

and she dressed her wounds

in sackcloth and ashes

the children weep

at their dead mother's feet

her husband's drunk

a wolf in a sheepskin coat

and when we kissed

it didn't feel poisonous

and when you cried

I dried off your blue eyes

she smiles at me

as she is falling asleep

says, "we've gotta live

the best we know how to."