Get all 9 Matt Oleksa releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Bella-Bella Mystic, Clutch, Dig, Gotcha, Nodding Flowers, Ice Eaters, Honeymoon After a Rain, Every Bug Wants To Live, and 1 more.
1. |
Blue Ridge Incident
03:51
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Battered, tattered
The night shattered
Moonbeams scattered around
The ruins of ivory town
Was watchin’ the river
Swollen, bitter
Slitherin’ through splinterin’ pine
Becomin’ claws clutchin’ for time
When June showed up
In her beat-up pick-up truck
And set it all on fire
A thousand trains pulled
Against the hour ice-cold
Rattled the cage
Tore the page
And leaned against my soul
The dream’s a sparrow
It rides the arrow
Shadows opened space
Then falls back into place
Nothin’ delivered
Wisteria shivered
Dew quivered on the vine
The mongrel growled down the line
When June showed up
With a coin and a cup
And kissed the backs of my ears
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2. |
Terra, Forgive Me
03:17
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Well, I never crossed the man
I never crossed myself
I'm just a star-crossed lover-man
At the crossroads by himself
Well, you ain’t supposed to cross the bridge
Until you come to it
But I was on the run
So I jumped the gun
Got caught on my way through it
Whoa, since been stranglin', danglin’ over the blue pit
Terra, forgive me for what I’m about to do
Terra, forgive me before the six o’clock news
Down in Arkansas
Up a bare gum tree
Over a kid with a razor blade
He says he wants a piece of me
Well, you ain’t supposed to kick a kid
No matter how big or mean
But one sure gets sick
Of arithmetic
By the tenth punch to the spleen
Whoa, since been slippin’, drippin’ through the in between
Terra, forgive me for what I’m about to do
Terra, forgive me before the six o’clock news
Poor boy, Matty O (that's me)
Wanderin’ around his song
As harmless as the last dodo
At the prom for design gone wrong
Well, you ain’t supposed to leave a song
Unless it’s got a moral code
So eat your fruit
And wear a suit
And beware of the holes in the road
Whoa, since been drinkin’, sinkin’ with Tom Joad
Terra, forgive me for what I’m about to do
Terra, forgive me before the six o’clock news
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3. |
Obadiah
02:58
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Like his father before him, there came a day
When no man could stop him from slippin’ away
He’s off to East Texas in a calico Chevrolet
Obadiah, Obadiah and the Bear
The mules at the roadhouse nearly spilled their wine
When his face like a mask gazed down the line
An’ fixed on the hills in East Texas where whisper the pine
Obadiah, Obadiah and the Bear
Meanwhile Linda in her finest golden gown
She is leanin’ on a lamppost on the outskirts of town
She's got a thumb out for East Texas, the sun meltin’ down
Obadiah, Obadiah and the Bear
Some people were born to roam
A thousand miles from their home
There’s a devil in you
There’s a devil in me baby, too
Between the banks of the Brazos, Spanish moonbeams gleam
On currents pullin’ postcards of the Rockies downstream
A stone falls through East Texas, sinks in Flannery’s dream
Obadiah, Obadiah and the Bear
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4. |
Miss Ohio
05:36
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Come midnight, she’s sufferin’ in her silk
Rags stitched with gold
Lace and stirrin’ a whiskey and milk
With a cigarillo well-rolled
Castin’ her last smoke ring
Unto a gypsy who walks her track
A circus lion who don’t look back
Even though she prepared her cold, blue eyes for him
The weight of the train
Snaps the chain
Shakes the rain
On her windowpane
And whoa, there it goes
The thought-dream train of Miss Ohio
Once upon a pointin’ out
A sparrow sinkin’ in the sun
A shadow puffed a bit about
A self-ordained chosen one
Well-trained in explanation
Backed by an abstract code
Traced down an ancient road
To some hickory palace now wet with gasoline
The strike of a match
Peels the patch
Reveals the catch
In a blazin’ collapse
And whoa, somewhere in the smoke
The notes and quotes of Miss Ohio
Got caught again by a kiss in the wind
He said she’d never fall
From a lover to a friend to a branch in the wind
Tremblin’ as the coyotes call
For some flesh, some bone to rise from the ashes of a dream
A lantern in the distance glows
And a heart beats, too, I suppose
As the dusk presses its weight against the pearl in her throat
Catches her gown
On its way down
Spins her around
Over opened ground
And whoa, like spider hangin’ over the valley below
Poor, pitiful Miss Ohio
When sweet summer mornin’ light
Pours upon your fate
And shapes your shattered sounds of night
When it’s clear you are what you hate
The princess poundin’ her little tin cup
Come hither young, hungry waitress
Crawl over broken glass
Fill it with the notes and quotes and smokes...
She drops the broom
Steps out of the room
Where the orchids bloom
Through the ruins of the moon
And whoa, that’s me in the in the top hat and the coat
What’s it going be Miss Ohio?
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5. |
From a Room
05:34
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Heaven comes in a bag
You get it down at Joe’s
You get it where the ghouls stare
Right through you clothes
The tall one turns her cheek
The second he hears you speak
And turns you in for a swig of gin
And is up and down the street
Now, now don’t you worry
That was out of sight
And I ain’t in no hurry
I’ve got all night
Doctor Stephen’s stumblin’
Toastin’ Roanoke
The queen’s dream’s busted at the seam
Domes of stone to smoke
The bad juice spilled through the valley
About the time the levee broke
When landlady sailed a lily for sale
Under my door as a joke
Now, now don’t you worry
The window’s boarded up
And I ain’t in no hurry
The door’s bolted shut
Your sackcloth and ashes
Your satchel of silver spoons
Two tickets to the desert, mid-June
Ten years in Sam’s platoon
All fall one short of the sum
Of a noose tied to a balloon
And the chance to dance, to rave and prance
Silhouetted by the blue in the moon
Now, now don’t you worry
That was long ago
And I ain’t in no hurry
There’s nowhere to go
The professor’s back from the gutter
She drips up and down the hall
So vaguely she mutters to me
Specifically what to call
The neighbor dog floatin’ by on an armoire
Iron spires in the eye of a perch
The drownin’ man clutchin’ for sand
Blue milk drippin’ from the birch tree blossoms
But ma, don’t you worry
Life's but a dream
And I ain’t in no hurry
Things ain’t what they seem to be
Heaven comes in a bag
You get it down at Joe’s
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6. |
Road Back Home
05:14
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He leans against the window
On a Greyhound bus
Chill of death on the breath
Of a better known as a drunk
Towns passin’ by
Strangers passin’ gin
Stars slippin’ through his grip into
The sweetness of the sin
There’s come a time
Everyone’s alone
Pay the piper
On the road back home
Sky like blood, like brass above
The Bear Mount Motel
Deep in there—orange blossom in her hair
Drink from the well
Something pulls her outside
Her toes touch the ground
Smoke on the wind, comin' ‘round the bend
No one else around
There’s come a time
Everyone’s alone
Pay the piper
On the road back home
There’s a whorehouse near New Orleans
Creoles call the Vine
Many the man—pearl in hand
Beggin’ tide for time
Red-cold emptiness
Steel-cold as the clay
Two doors down, another around
Blue room where she lay
There’s come a time
Everyone’s alone
Pay the piper
On the road back home
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7. |
Ecstasy of St. Teresa
04:48
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Teresa, I know it’s late
And Jack Frost leans against the gate
To the coast you call a Van Gogh
In a note on your hotel window
But a postcard fails to name
The rhythm within the frame
Those are hands clawin’ inside the clock
Milk-cans barkin’ around your block
Come down, Teresa, follow it down
There’s a hole in the wall at the edge of town
And if you lean on in and listen awhile
You might fade in the song of the wild
In the Cornaro you said you’d play the part
Of Bernini—he knew in his heart
The fruit of thy Teresa just ain’t ripe
Until it tumbles down the drainpipe
Well, if you believe that’s true
And the carvings in your crutch would suggest you do
You’d pull your boots over a bloodhound's past
You’d crawl out from under your badge meltin’ fast
Come down, Teresa, follow it down
There’s a hole in the wall at the edge of town
And if you lean on in and listen awhile
You might fade in the song of the wild
Custom dictates the bucket fill
But the bucket caught a stray bullet from the mill
The curator rambles as it leaks
On Ostia, Byzantium, and Mozambique’s
Museum stubs that just don’t do
The cracked bell tolls for you
The clang and clatter of brittle baroque
Howlin’ through your bones down to your coat
Come down, Teresa, follow it down
There’s a hole in the wall at the edge of town
And if you lean on in and listen awhile
You might fade in the song of the wild
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