a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 #

the microphones - microphones in 2020 lyrics

[snippet]
i remember where i was…

when i got back to olympia from the ocean
i woke up early before dawn to start recording

the things i wanted to communicate had to do
with finding out how to break out from seeing
only the inside of reflected ocean on the sky

it was early 2001 and i was almost 23
i’d finished recording the glow pt. 2
and i was always on tour or setting up a tour
always running, voracious, thirsty

i’d go out to the lake with friends
swim out to the middle and dive as far as i could
down to where the water gets cold, with open eyes

we’d go up on the roof at night and actually contemplate the moon
my friends and i just trying to blow each others’ minds
just lying there gazing, young and ridiculous
and we meant it, our eyes watering

the moon without abstraction
then became a floating ball of a rock in outer sp+ce
not a sticker or a light or a hole through black paper
we were making food and records and paintings
and walking around beneath a real infinity
i felt my size
that brief dissipating shock of looking into outer sp+ce
and seeing for just a second the bottomless distance pressed against my face
my little mind trying to write it down, zooming out
a faint yelp lost in a thunderstorm
sufficiently small, thinking on the geologic scale
making the voice of mountains

reaching beyond my old concerns from when i was 17 in 1995
all the layers of life glint in my flashing eye simultaneously
and at any moment we could die
so with i urgency i keep a candle by my side
and watch it disappear and glow at the same time

the weather moves across the land and doesn’t have a reason
this rippling uncertainty beneath our bones is still the true state of all things

it was at a truck stop in northern italy
i was on tour playing drums and always wandering off alone
squinting into the setting sun, my notebook filling

i was touring, living on an alternate plane set within but apart from this life
where people wake and work and don’t self uproot each day
instead we passed through the towns like criminals
i was so gladly included in this rare world
this moving cult of groundlessness
roomless, moving, awake
across that parking lot, recognition of the same
another touring american band, bonnie ‘prince’ billy
all dressed in matching track suits and sunglasses, grizzled and silly
a kind of italian tour costume, blending in but not really
and their playfulness with persona liberated me with permeability

i thought, “who is it even that sings
and who comes to life
between the ears of the hearers in the rooms at night
and how can we all get deep?”

the packaging distracts from the nourishment it wraps
fixation on the singer’s face or on the band’s name
keeps us groveling and blind at the edge of a sea
unsubmerged in the singing waterfall
looking for a door into the mansion
taking this weird art project out into public
indulging in cultivated ambiguity about partic+p+nts’ identities
letting misperceptions hand because nothing’s really true

with this imagined collective called the microphones
i wrote about climbing up and dying and flying off as vultures
and a universe beyond
innocent of the real air of death that awaited down the path

at the very end of 2002, i took the microphones name
and crumpled it up and burned it in a cave
on the frozen edge of northern norway
i made a boundary between two eras of my life
a feeble gesture at making chaos seem organized

the roaring river carves on, laughing at my efforts
while the idea of something called “mount eerie” engulfed me
and time refuses to stop

many, many years later, i heard “freezing moon” by mayhem
and these words jumped out: “the cemetery lights up again”, “eternity opens”
and i say, “nothing stays the same, no one knows anything”

someone else lives in the house i used to live in
and soon it will be torn down or burn
and who would even want to live in a prolonged stagnation?
i am older now and i no longer feel the same way that i did even five seconds ago
watch me thrash around and try to gracefully allow the past to hang like “no big deal”

bands that break up and then reunite for money can do whatever they want
but it makes me glad that i am only this one contrary grump, impossible to reunite
live, the present moment burns

i will never stop singing this song
it goes on forever

i started when i was a kid and i still want to hold it lightly
this luxurious privilege to sit around frowning and wondering what it means
playing with words and trying to prove that names mean nothing

a finger pointed at the moon
mistaken for something shining and true

i never used to think i’d still be sitting here at 41
trying to breathe calmly through the waves
but nothing’s really changed in this effort that never ends

when i took my shirt off in the yard i meant it, and it’s still off
i’m still standing in the weather looking for meaning
in the giant meaningless days of love and loss repeatedly waterfalling down
and the sun relentlessly rises still

it seems like i’ll never not lose wisdom
constantly re+learning all the basics
never recognizing any faces
crawling out from under living layers
squinting in the light of the earth
bathing, shaking off the weight of expectation
plus all this nostalgia is embarrassing
so i walk into an unknown room without a name

so what if i label this song “microphones in 2020”?
i hope the absurdity that permeates everything joyfully rushes out
and floods the room like water from the ceiling
undermining all of our delicate stabilities
admitting that each moment is a new collapsing building

nothing is true but this trembling, laughing in the wind
anyway, every song i’ve ever sung is about the same thing
standing on the ground looking around, basically
if there have to be words, they could just be “now only” and “there’s no end”

- the microphones lyrics

Random Lyrics

HOT LYRICS