James Rabbit’s ‘Picasso’
Recorded the first week of December 2001 at the Estate Audio Tracks recording studio in sunny Fresno, CA.
Tyler- singing, guitar, keyboards, horns
Conner- samples, drumming
All songs written by Tyler Martin
The Shadow
Went back in time and stole my line,
Now there’s this pressure to do better
You would have lost a lot of blood,
I’d bet my whole life savings
Couldn’t work this week, blood pressure’s low
Lived on a drip I.V.
Couldn’t move at all
I was as tired as I’d ever been
Couldn’t walk it off
I’m a shadow.
Locked up at night and stayed in line
Now there’s this crushing feeling I can’t fail
Agreed to fight without a medic
And bet my whole life’s savings
Couldn’t walk this week with both legs broke
I have this allergy to modern medication
I’ll be fine in a minute, maybe a coupla days
I’m a shadow
1993 Dream
Instead of feeling wicked, he went ahead and felt bad
A culture trap, if there was one, he hadn’t seen it that fast
In spite of all that training…
And in addition to the coma, he received thirty years
Lost his job and took a lawyer out for gasoline beers
They sailed and sold insurance.
When they reached Costa Rica, they took a backseat to the fog
Love and labor pulled a fast one;
Soon they were surrounded by a mob who took out all their fillings
So here we have the product of greed and artistic neglect
A scarecrow of a teenager with a furnace of a friend
Without a health provider
Classical Figure
Solemn portraits line these halls
Gentle butlers dust them off
Call the family in for tea
Upset stomachs, let them be
You let them be
Frustrated with all that tripe
He bids the family goodnight
Grabs the opener from the den
And he puts himself to bed
Arthurian Variations
This rudiment innocence, called to arms in present tense
Lake-jumping heroes delve deeper towards the west
And similar characters heal open arms to share victors
Scream through the rafters though we wish you both the best.
Common, so you know
You’re self’s been disconnected
Likely to devote
A tone to this direction
Torchbearer without a song, called police to say she’s wrong
We’d light the fire to incinerate that guilt
Burned until the paint wears off, that feeling when your mind goes soft
Handle with sorrow till you find something else to burn
Lost at work…
Late term, your sitting there, an officer without regrets
Swing from the chandelier to your damsel in distress
Finally, you’ve got across the sitting duck has come to box
Ears to the ground boy, you must resolve this mess.
Surviving the Blue
Didn’t look at the plain truth, sort of systems uncouth, active trouble remedies and synechdoches; while copper wire cables turn the tables, you pay for your problems with the Dublin-style handheld drama.
We’re behind the times, shell-shocked Wednesday hears me, ignores me, the clones bequeath me to find a niche not unlike the one I’m in right now (and how)
The powers all evaporate laminate cool pogroms across the weeklong massacre where art is art and that is dirt, and if you don’t wear a shirt, you’re not allowed in.
Grins scrape around the time-worn canvas, parallel the madness perpetrate the meaning of it all caught on tape, and the sure bet’s that you never saw it at all.
La Musee
Hold, that’s the place where the towns cursed deli’s lie
Along the western side of the mall,
Where our docents wait to carry them all over the front of the mantle,
To the left soul master’s neck
As we watch the aftermath from space
The librarian grins with a ticker-tape face
Lo, lies the concept awakened by the page
The floor’s off, all the generals fight, we bid our subjects a sick goodnight
And gale the passing morning, cross the umpteenth tattered robe
Lengthwise, streetwise, confirmed by fire
What’s rend in the end has no time to conspire.
*Bravado*
The petrol government sputters out,
They give to fix oppression
A flame from the past ignites the soul
Explodes without direction
She had a kamikaze spirit
And a penchant for the plain
I’m hit like a bar fly
And falling like a statue again
I’m falling down on the subway again
That law and order mania
Has turned her away from me
I’m an uncomfortable sailor
Heading towards Anxiety Sea
She was a shotgun-wielding lighthouse
Most welcome sight in the morning fog
I was a picture of indecency
Whatever’s right, could’ve made it wrong
I know you’re right, but I’d rather be wrong
Complaining of that regression, or the lack of open sessions
I’ve got a great idea, why don’t you just go over there?
The lucky throws of propriety, the echelons of society
Without the guise the night, your just a talentless joke.
The Scene
Don’t have the courage to say, ‘outstanding warranties await’
I’ll shout, the blood runs out of my face
There go this season’s tithings
And so you’ll spark, a scenic scream in this indifferent dark
We’ll walk on down that road of gold
Your just searching for an undead hand to hold
And we’ll walk
A hypothetical disgrace, you have that coldness to your frame
I’ll flood, the news has just reached the brain
Walk home across the desert
And that coral, an indicative season sheds tears for the gals
They cautioned blindly and suffered soulfully,
Release from the sea is deepened and dull
And we’ll walk
Les Demoiselles
The times’ informant is obviously mad,
For all the cards have been mocked before
It doesn’t help that I’ll soon be dead
Not that your anybody
I’ll light the fire that saves your life
A flaming tree then your almost there
It doesn’t help that I don’t care
But we’re still nobody
Almost photographic man, this mnemonic lapse
Instead of the road, you gave me dust
And I’m a worthless bum
It shows in the stitches of my clothes.
I’m just so tired of breaking bread
And this chivalry’s getting old
Not that I’ve tried it much before
I’d push you over the threshold
At home the party starts,
And I’m ignoring everyone
If anyone’s having fun, you’re all great actors
Wrote that wrong
Say that you’re a saint, cross state lines but your late to your own funeral, we put the ‘fun’ in Hasbro. I looked up ‘righteousness’ it says you’re a jerk, so call me any day but Friday (I’ve lost it all).
I’ll fall through the floor down the ceiling, it’s not stealing if the dramaturge at Harvard says its okay. Your paying for the bread that you ate years ago, storekeepers dance around, lock you down, and heavens.
It seems that prophecy; the one about you and your tribulations won’t ever come true. If you are buried in cement without creative intent, don’t ever come back kid, your thinking days are through.
I’m thinking about your monopoly,
Your intellectual property
And it seems that if I don’t copy
I’d be doing me a favor
I’d thank myself surely
But, defensive strategies intact
They’d have to be a maniac,
You’d pat yourself right on the back
But you’d still be a giant jerk.
Vernon
Vernon, what’s the matter? You don’t complicate enough
I know that synesthesia’s tough and knocking down trees isn’t your cup of tea
And spitting on bystanders is a concept well explored
And though you haven’t found the lord an alleyway could make a home someday
Don’t cave to the public’s standards
Would you behave in an open field?
Perhaps you’ll open that record store someday
Take a look, the grocery’s a block away
Coffee shops in trouble, it’s all that music that they play
Schoenberg and Zorn are going to keep those beglassed posers away
Until that Friday night in august when the mayor tears it down
Bulldozers come in and now the disco’s all the rave about town
Don’t apologize for your existence
It’s not your fault that everyone else is wrong
For sure, your method of thinking is superior to theirs
Zinn’s the only one besides you, who ain’t got it wrong.
No time to analyze opinions or your compare your transcendental flaws
Things are not as bad as you think, and you don’t do much of that
So go ahead and tell me I’m wrong
I hope I am.
After Ten
The beginning of the boredom starts intrinsically at ten.
Separation after screaming, preparation before dreaming
The demise of popular culture starts with kicking in the head
Jump a building in the evening; punch a theory in the meaning
One two three me when I’m scheming (one two three four)
Separation after screaming
Stun a runner, a solo gunner
A metal needle in the rough
The beginning of her existentialist phase started when she was nineteen
Punk rock had lost all it’s meaning, fear of boredom was appearing.
Guernica
The stars and clan infighting clad in guiltless robes
Pick me up in your sports car and we’ll go
As long as road exists somewhere
We’ll waste our pocked money
Because no one’s dropping bombs down on us
Honor’s just a fake away
The road, the ridge that sits in place above our simple town
Kill the scene while it’s a sick dog as we drown
As long as breath is left in us, we’ll smile until the fire comes
Because no one bothers to laugh anymore
Fill the air with hopeful sounds
Our brains are boiling in our skulls
Our brothers dying on the ground
The birds above us shooting down
The love we have is spilling out
The blood we have is spilling out
The blood we had is spilling out