1. |
Melancholy
01:46
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1.MELANCHOLY
Her bare feet left the wooden porch and landed softly amongst the crisp indigo grass. The air was sweet and still; as she made her way across the meadow like a whisper in the warm summer night. The iridescent skies gleamed onto a sleeping river, where an old oak was watching over a dock peacefully. She stepped onto it. The floorboards creaked gently under her toes. The only witness to this scene was a rusty kerosene lamp, hung from one of the dock's crooked poles. Casting ochre beams of light into the night's blue kingdom, it enveloped her slender body in angular shapes made of shadows and gold. Her eyes remained soaked in darkness as she looked back one last time to the house he had built for her. In the schoolyard, they used to call her Melancholy, but he just knew her as Sandy.
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2. |
Sandy Lee
05:13
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2.SANDY LEE
Down bellow
The surface of her skin,
Laid a heart in snow
Who'd seen its share of second spins.
And all the way down, down to the riverbed stones,
She sank her bones.
Up above
Memories in dust,
Laid a heart in love
Who kept them from the rust.
And all the way down, down to this bed of stone, It was one of their own.
Somewhile ago she went astray,
In an army of trees at night.
And all their paths narrowed
In the blackness of their mind.
She thought she lost control
As the leaves strangled the light.
Sandy Lee,
What, in the darkness, did you see?
Oh Sandy Lee,
What darkness did you flee?
Down bellow
The surface of her skin,
Slept a daemon in snow
Who wore a frozen grin.
And all the way down, down to this bed of stone,
He became his own.
It's so sad to watch such a young thing die,
Under the weight of a misunderstood sigh.
As he woke up, she was swept up by a current, and floated downstream.
It was all part of his wicked dream.
Sandy Lee,
What, in the darkness, did you see?
Oh Sandy Lee,
What darkness did you flee?
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3. |
Let The River Flow
03:05
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3.LET THE RIVER FLOW
How many stories, untold,
Under the stars unfold?
Let the river flow,
Only the forest will know.
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4. |
Migration
06:21
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4.MIGRATION
I woke up one morning all was red
and the sun was dead
My eyes opened from a beautiful dream Into this worldʼs new saffron skin
Across the gloom at the end of the room
Laid a not inked in last moon
It said she said sheʼd rather be dead
Than hear the flutter of wings in her head
CHORUS
(And that)
There are so many places to see
So many people to be
She wrote that all my stories were written in the palm of my hands
And that all the answers slept beneath the desert sands
Past the never lands
Of a quiet place
That only I could face
I woke up next morning all alone
And her smell was gone
From the walls cracks bled led and spread
As vermin in agony fled
Across the river a feast of flame
Was eager to defeat its bane
Under the choking beat of a ceiling fan I put on yesterdayʼs clothes and ran
CHORUS
(And itʼs true)
There are so many places to see
So many people to be
I crossed the fields and plains Under the hash-flake rain
To the edge of a town
Our sanctuary slain
People were boarding the last train
Easterly bound
Past the nowhere lands
Of a forsaken place
That only steel could face
Not a sound
Only the clicks of lonely tracks below
And the land running away
Through the coal stained window
Leaving the orange glow
Only our eyes would show
Our silent sorrow
And a thousand thoughts with no space to flow
The conductor came in and softly said
Do not fret, go to sleep
Itʼs a well oiled machine
And it wonʼt run out of steam
Unless the stoker runs out of dreams
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5. |
The Conductor
04:29
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5.THE CONDUCTOR
Have you ever felt lost
Have you ever felt alone
Well hark to my voice
Listen to what we have to say
That you have a choice
That there is a way
The wise say to pay no heed to stories of elder and bone
That a true path should be seeded all on oneʼs own
But a life off the tracks will lead you to the unknown
A life in which youʼll live in fear of being stoned
Every time youʼll seek counsel, youʼll find it best
To keep your own or let it rest
Every time youʼll reach out, Every time youʼll share
Youʼll find that expectations will lead to despair
That the world is cruel and unfair
And that validation of your ways are at best very rare
But why the bother?
Why the strife?
Take a step back, stop rolling the dice
Now witness here a garden of delights
We have palpable rewards and tangible goals
Chairs of high standing and acceptable roles
Happiness in boxes, happiness in pills,
True measures of worth stamped in steel and on wheels
Lets bury your past, that ungrateful wraith
End the torments at last, all you need is a little leap of faith
No need to loose face,
We all gave it a fair try
We too have watched our due wander awry
We have antidotes from smoke and rye
To sooth the tall, the small,
The fat, the fit and the average overall
Approved by everyone and all
We have all sorts of stories that will make your heart tug and pull, Dopamine packed formulas proven by science and many a fool
A wonderland of pixelated dreams,
Epic tales from the silver screen
Follow the hero and its foe
Sit back, relax, in mound of chocolate chips and soda pop topped with Chantilly ice cream
Have you ever felt lost
Have you ever felt alone
Well listen to my voice
Listen to what we have to say
That you have a choice
That there is a way
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6. |
The Sorcerer
05:16
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6.THE SORCERERʼS PLEA
My spirit beseeches thee amidst dreaming,
I am your ally in thy quest to seeing.
Until thou has lived the tale which is yours,
My words will fall short, drown by reason's roars
But when the ruckus loses its fervor,
And silence sends thee seeking an answer,
Dig deep below your feet into the sands, With feverish anger.
And out of thy hands all scorched, black and bloody, Laying solitary amidst the golden pit,
will emerge thy story out of the grit.
Along the lines of their peaks and crevices will echo an innate memory,
My words, ressurging, thee will remember assiduously.
Yet, many a season may pass for them to resonate full and profound,
But thou will waken under a ruby ether in a fury as they resound.
I will be waiting passed the ancient ruins of younger years, passed the sixth gate, at the edge of a somnolent glade.
For there is my temple.
On its step, we shall rest in its shade,
Whilst talk is made of the times kept secret in the ancestral chest.
At dusk, I will send thee forth a dirt path through a majestic forest.
What will be seen during the tenebrous night is thine to keep.
But I will say, pay no homage to the darkest hours within her depth, bounce, and leap,
Do not fall prey.
As the mighty trunks clear and the nocturnal beasts let out their dying barks at morn's gate, you will reach its end.
Dawn will rise over a boundless prairie, and she will shine to greet thee with the most tender of smiles in the warmth of your immaculate land.
And now I will leave thee, for this is all I have to state, This is all I will to relay of thy fate.
CHORUS
Reality is but a wall of steam,
Brewed and groomed by this machine.
Dreams fair light against its armored plates,
Burn in fears till iron belly satiates.
Stuck between the rails of the road,
Waiting on the Sandman to pick up our load.
Many a shadow lost to the mist,
Less and less names show on his list.
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7. |
Black Chrome
05:30
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7.BLACK CHROME
Strange words from another age lingered in my mind as I awoke to the barren dunes of a desert. They succeeded one another like waves wiping the windowpane. The wagon was fast asleep, and the stars still tinseled the sky. A glow crowned the horizon and intensified as our convoy traversed rocky outcrops on its ascent towards it. As the train rolled over the hump, a metropolis blossomed from the valley below. Orbs flowed on roads that spread like veins between twinkling monolithic beasts. They were breathing, alive in light and color. I was mesmerized by the glimmering spectacle until it all came into focus as we approached the station. Under the mighty spires laid an eclectic mix of architecture. It was beautiful in its archaic and precarious nature but forewarned of a ruthless hierarchy at play. Dirty rags ornated the windows of ghostly facades that lined and trapped the last bits of track. Finally, the pull of the crying brakes clasped onto our chests and met an abrupt clunk. After a few seconds soaked in stillness, a screeching roll resonated throughout the car, and I was overwhelmed by a sea of men. A sea of tight fists, sharp elbows, grasping nails, and cutting words, which had drowned all traces of humanity. We pushed and tugged until we spewed out the shaken doors like sheep out of a pen. The maddened herd rushed through the station in a wild rumpus and dissipated.
Steam and fog sprawled back onto the empty platform,
and a balmy drizzle fell soft and steady. I saw a face appear from the shadows in the flash of a matchstickʼs glow. The lone silhouette was leaning against an automobile and gave me a cold look. A crimson crackle pierced through the smoke. “Iʼll take you where the night never sleeps” he spurted, almost mechanically, and walked around the lustrous chunk of metal. Although he was just another cabbie, I could not shake the feeling that he had been waiting for me, but what else was I to do?
The door closed with a muffled thump. With it, all the sounds of the world were sucked out. All the sounds but a morose bellow, surfacing from the asphalt ocean below, and the heavy beat of my heart sinking into the backseat of the midnight interior. All around, scattered glints of chrome shone amidst black felt and leather. The machine ran at a steady pace, and streaks of light cut through the still darkness in front of me, chasing shadows along the panels of the car. As we progressed toward the center of the city, the dirty monotone streetlight beams turned into a dance of candy-colored neon daggers. I caught a few licking his pale, stern face. His eyes were glazed in reflections of the rainy street, one which he must have seen countless times before. His gaze remained impenetrable, a mask painted by too many lonely nights behind the wheel. He had heard all the tales a city pavement could recount and didnʼt want to hear any more. I could tell and did not utter a single word, leaving the silence be. At the end of a string of empty sidewalks, an oasis of life came in sight. I had arrived.
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8. |
Blood Moon Romp
03:05
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8.BLOODMOON ROMP
Behind doors guarded by a phantomatic automaticon, Chandelier sparkles pierced towers of smoke,
And rained onto elated creatures spinning furiously in the pit of a sonic coliseum.
Out of the swirl of steamy exultation,
The manic clamor and clinking of elixirs Suckled and resuscitated primal agitations.
At the heart of this madness resides an oracle.
Only the chosen roam its halls,
Those who seek its truth yonder the walls of morals
And taunt darkness in search of its wonder and spectacle.
In a backroom, a ceremony. Against back-walls, a shadow-play. A cult of the carnal body,
Chasing away
it's charnel destiny.
Out of the penumbra of Ero's sanctuary, A witch rose and fed on ecstasy.
et flos de gemmis eruperant obumbratio All around, they gathered, to love her so.
All their shadows mingled to form one,
As they beat their skin to the sound of drums,
Till all the limbs of the newborn brute were good and done.
Its moans and groans dissipated in a flutter of stomp, Until they were no more,
And silence sang its ode to the death of this blood moon romp.
Out of silk and velvet,
Escaped a whisper:
You Are Next.
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9. |
Winter In Paradise
07:20
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9.WINTER IN PARADISE
As the troughs defining peak and valley
Became too deep
The faith needed in the vivid journey
Was deemed too steep
So the bleak heimal winds were called upon
To cover the world in a gauze of frost
And crystalline flakes descended anon Until all relief was forsaken and lost
It had been a long winter in paradise
But I saw a face peering through the ice
She came with the jacaranda bloom Grew a garden out of cinder and ruin
We chased our shadows down on sidewalks
Imbibed in the ink of night
As they lingered and danced to
The glow of midnight streetlights
Our words intertwined with a tender breeze
Which ruffled the leaves of trees
Breathing the air soaked in dreams
Of a city cloaked in slumber and gleams
Ce soir la, je me suis perdu dans tes grands yeux bruns
Qui me cachaient bien des chagrins
Nous nous tenions par la main apeurés et surpris
Par ce coin de paradis
Dans ce monde et sa cacophonie
Mais pour nos âmes bordées de noire
Il était trop tôt pour y croire
Translation
(On that night, I lost myself in your deep brown eyes Which kept a few sorrows hidden from me
Hand in hand, we were bewildered
By this spot of paradise
In this world and its cacophony But for our souls lined by darkness It was all too early to be trusted)
It has been a long winter in paradise
And I saw your face peering through the ice
I reached in the gelid pool too soon
You left with the jacaranda bloom
I now meander in corridors of cigarette fueled insomnia
Where the memories of your scotch infused lips
And the biting edge of your wit
Distort in echolalia
And I know if you just wouldʼve given it time
I couldʼve brought down the walls around our minds yearning to shine
You know I was dead inside for many years and I was taken by surprise I wish I hadnʼt misread the signs
So if I gazed into your eyes a bit too long It was beyond me
And I didnʼt mean to come on so strong
You know that tests and predictions
Donʼt always amount to the right conclusion
And cutting a story short based on assumptions Isnʼt the right solution
Because life is fond of her little surprises And Iʼm not saying Iʼm the right one for you But weʼre gonna miss out on a few
In front of opened gates the lion froze
While I watched my fantasy drown in the river of time
So it goes...
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10. |
Falling From Grace
02:41
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10.FALLING FROM GRACE
Falling from grace,
I hear an angel crying.
He shot me down,
But missed the girl,
The girl in blue
When the streets are sunk in rain,
And the traffic lights mess with the evening train,
I get lost in reflections of her face
Soaked in velveteen blue.
Falling from grace
Is a feeling I got used to,
When I hear her footsteps go to sleep
into a night made of velveteen blue.
In the dim-lit heart of a dive,
A place where my fantasies run wild,
There dwells, in every shadow,
Stories made of velveteen blue
Falling from grace
Is easy to do,
When a guy like me
Falls for a love as fake as velveteen blue.
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11. |
Temple
05:18
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TEMPLE
Deep green walls lined with Darjeeling Gold,
And red carpets flow through dimly lit corridors,
Like a river of blood, feeding an ancient Forrest,
While its canopy dances to the fury of lightning.
For there stands the stronghold of one man,
Grown out of immaculate stone.
A colossus tearing at his chains;
His feet, never escaping the dirt from which he had spawn.
The ruler of this lore had risen from the deepest pit;
A hole that devoured even the purest ray of light.
Down in this abyss, he forgot of the sun,
Only hearing the faint aviary agitations of dawn,
Echoing through impassive tunnels.
He incessantly pounded the coal clothed rocks,
As a sculptor chisels a block of marble in search of a forsaken goddess.
His hands always smelt of burnt iron,
And the glimmer in his eyes resembled two white isles in an ocean of darkness; Two white flames fueled by a vision,
In which the prize sought would illuminate the crooked galleries of his own heart.
One sacred night, his battered pickaxe struck the vein and bestowed glory onto him.
Judging himself worthy of the light, he crawled out towards the moonglow. Nearing the opening, he passed his ghost staring back into the void,
Just as he had done on the day of his arrival;
A testament to the soul which had been consumed by these hellish bowels,
A beacon which he did not grasp.
He erected a shrine in honor of his achievement,
To impress his prowess onto others and himself.
But when the twilight winds embraced the castle walls,
Their chant was gelid and hollow.
Many a time the ochre colors of summer fields climbed into the trees,
And now he sits awaiting death,
In a temple which ineptly atones for the gash he dug into the bark of the earth.
Cradled by the putrefied flesh of a deceitful Venus,
He withers in memories of the true wilderness which had run strong in his chest.
The one true love he lost,
Eclipsed by the shadows of his pursuits,
As he walked across a valley of primeval pillars supporting nothing but thin air.
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12. |
Train To Orwellia
05:06
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12.TRAIN TO ORWELLIA
Stuck in a grim huffing machine
Trusting the squealer in the blood spangled travel magazine
Our minds got lost to the clicks of the tracks below
Racing through blue midnight snow
The muse left this vessel a long long time ago
Its eroding shell runs on the carrion of sun swelled days
Runs on flashes of opium and heroine dreams
Runs into the ground at full steam
So when the winds turn to the seas
Will you forgo to them your fantasies
Will you remain on this desert island Risen from the dust of memories
Or will you let your sails bulge with the despotʼs barks
As your stern strikes the bleating doused doom
And cuts thru a starless night to meet dawnʼs bloom
Thru the chinks and cracks a faint light shines
And the Pungiʼs tune is growing weak with time
As questions slither thru the meek
To meet the wide open eyes of the freaks
Our faces mirror each other in longing to belong
Cocks crow in fear of what lingers in silence
Cowards give love a bad name
And the mindless always find new things to blame
And the pigs struggle to keep it all the same
So, When the winds turn to the seas
Will you forgo to them your fantasies
Will you remain on this desert island
Risen from the dust of memories
Or will you let your sails bulge with the despotʼs barks
As your stern strikes the bleating doused doom
And cuts thru a starless night to meet dawnʼs bloom?
So when the winds turn to the sea
Will you forgo to them this fantasy
Send it in exile to a forsaken sanctuary
An island risen from the dust of shed memories
And when the bells clamor in your names
Will you even remember me
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13. |
Ten Years
09:49
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13.TEN YEARS
Jousted in a white fever
Opponents who could not bleed
Transpierced their clunking armor
Brought down their screaming steed Only to hear in horror
Hooves charging across the field
Where are the opulent parties
Where are the glistening guts of these victories
I dug down into the soiled sands
Only to find trembling hands
Ten years had cast
Times abating cloak
Ten years passed Before I awoke
Ten thousand miles away, fast Out of fire and smoke
The pale faced daughter of the night
Had made me a luring promise
So I followed her beam of light
Into a dream, a place of bliss
I tried to discern her floating figure
Through the swaying folds of her midnight dress
Hung onto the stars as the blue canvas
Of a circus in which stories never rest
She led me towards a desert inn
Across a giant sunk in slumber
No one could hide on his barren skin
Unveiling any beasts or swindler
The neon oasis sucked them in
Its walls, stained in ruckus, stood paper thin
My pocket was fraught with cold steel sin
A skeleton key in wait within
I stepped over a spilled bucket and broom
Came to a door dressed in dread and gloom
Ten years had cast Times abating cloak
Ten years passed Before I awoke
Ten thousand miles away, fast
Out of fire and smoke
Motionless in an armchair
A stranger wearing my name
Watching the door in a glare
Quietly numb, I felt his shame
The wooden room had no windows
Moaned and creaked as would a shipʼs hull
Braving the maker of widows
Who bites at the waves and wings of gulls
Under the man slept a sullen shadow
A grey ocean needing a moon to lull
Strained oars had given under his dogged row
Currents had beaten him into his skull
Onto the worn floorboards he fell
Crawled towards the exit of his vapid hell
An oil lamp crashed and burst,
The place started to burn
I sat down in his place
This time it was his turn
To wear our face
Ten years passed
And the times, they softly spoke
Ten years passed
Before I awoke
Ten thousand miles away, fast
Out of fire and smoke
The morning breeze sings and runs amongst the resting brush
Through sage and juniper it disappears in a lush
A vermillion horizon has swallowed my home
The people I love have grown old all on their own
In the distance I hear a clarion
And I hope my battles wonʼt weave new lies
Ten years to this day
A new life at stake
Ten thousand miles away
I am awake
The past still nags at the present
And the future never really happens anyway
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Wolf Kroeger Los Angeles, California
Growing up, Wolf was exposed to a diversity of cultures. It transpires in his lyrics, which blend elements from Greek myths to Native American legends with his story-telling. Although rooted in Psychedelia, his music is also eclectic and influenced by various genres and eras. Wolf writes, produces, and plays all the instruments in his songs, except for drums on a few tracks. ... more
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