dressing to undress

hey—it’s the only cd of mine you don’t need to turn up louder than every other cd you own. rejoice!

this is quasi-electronic in the same way NUDGE YOU ALIVE was, but the songs don’t really have much else in common. one of the big differences is the appearance of the korg triton le, which was a new synthesizer that made my fingers feel like they were in a persistent orgasmic state. i was never able to make sounds or loops like this before with a synth. there are a few brief flashes of electric guitar and one brief appearance of real bass, but the rest is all synth and voice. at twenty songs, i thought the cd was in danger of becoming a bit bloated, but i put a lot of thought into sequencing the tracks in a way that made sense, and the end result seems to hang together better than a lot of my other less crowded cds. there were another five or six songs recorded that i decided not to include, not because i didn’t like them, but because they didn’t feel like they fit in with the others. it was a far cry from the days of throwing songs onto a cd in the order they were recorded and leaving it at that. i was also a long way from the days of improvising twenty-minute-long songs; though there’s a lot of improvisation going on, especially in the music, i think there’s only one song that’s much longer than four minutes (don’t set fire to the house you grew up in, which has to be one of my best-ever song titles), and the rest tend to shut up once they’ve said what they have to say. some of the lyrics are improvised as well, which wasn’t something i had allowed myself to do much of in a while.

it was during this time that i accidentally resurrected my social life to some extent. the plan had been just to go out drinking alone on friday nights so i could write and think (and, of course, drink), but i soon ended up falling in with a whole new circle of people, and suddenly i wasn’t such a recluse anymore. i brought a pen and a little pad of paper that fit in my coat pocket with me most nights, and though i never got to take down the numbers of any girls who wanted to get naked with me (they always ran off after blurting out, “i want to get naked with you!”), i wrote quite a few lyrics that ended up on this album while in various states of inebriation. occasionally i would record the vocals the next day while somewhat hung-over, and i still liked that ragged sound…but i also had a much better idea of what my limit was by this time and wasn’t so interested in drinking to excess anymore. i bought a pack of cigarettes, mostly so i could offer them to other people when they asked me if i had a smoke; i’ve been asked that question most of my life and always had to say no, and finally i thought i would take the plunge and start carrying a pack around explicitly for the purpose of sharing with others. suddenly almost no one was asking me if they could bum a smoke, so i smoked a few of my own. i never really got anything out of smoking cigarettes, though, and ultimately ended up sacrificing my pack for a girl who was one of my best female friends for a while before she disappeared in a cloud of dust. she was doing me a favour, really; it would have taken me a year to finish the pack myself.

it was an interesting time. i met a girl one friday night and ended up hanging out with her and some of her friends. i got the impression that she was interested in me, and started thinking that maybe things with the opposite sex were about to start going my way. as it turned out, i should never have gotten my hopes up; when i gave her a white rose on what i thought was our first date, she got an uncomfortable look on her face and said, “uh…i think you got the wrong idea,” which is code for, “you will never get laid, kill yourself.” i enjoyed having some female friends for a change, anyway, though i got some weird mixed signals. it was better than what i usually got, even if it was also torturous in its own special way. to that end, skeleton blues is sort of a love song, and it’s an oddity in that it’s one of the only songs i’ve ever written about a girl that isn’t shot through with any amount of pain or venom. then, of course, things turned to shit. this led to some songs that weren’t so nice (my funeral face, to be livid, people are starting to move in there, and others).

what’s interesting to me about all of this is how differently i dealt with the bullshit than i had in the past. a few years earlier, i would have churned out a set of angry, self-hating songs, full of screaming, profanity and sex talk, much as i did back in the GWD days. but while there was indeed pain and anger in these new songs, they were also catchy and danceable. i was attracted to the idea of doing something more interesting with words than just screaming, “fuck you! fuck me! fuck the world!” don’t get me wrong; “fuck” is a great word in all of its various permutations, and my affection for it has never faltered. but here i wanted to be a little more subtle and cryptic about telling the girl she was flaky and careless, and so i went about it in a more subversive way. she heard these songs eventually, and i don’t think she had any idea that any of them were about her, though i could be wrong.

this was what i had been striving for all along; jerky, unconventionally structured non-pop that didn’t fill me with an urge to vomit when i listened to it. and still, without much in the way of bass-lines, with lyrics that rarely rhymed, and without a single chorus in sight, it was some of my most accessible work. these were the kind of songs i should have been writing during the OH YOU THIS period, or so i told myself. even when it was finished, i still felt that the cd was one of the best things i had done in a long time, which is unusual because i tend to lose interest in my cds pretty quickly once they’re finished. i decided it was worth it to shell out a little extra cash and let someone else master my music for a change, so i made the trek to toronto and had the cd mastered at umbrella sound, hence the increase in volume and low end thump. it’s always been difficult for me to pick highlights from this album because i think the whole thing is pretty consistent. as with BRAND NEW SHINY LIE, i threw in a number of short, mostly improvised fragments to shake things up a bit (nothing’s ever gonna be alright again, gravel heart, feckless, strings). feckless has always been a favourite of mine for some reason, maybe because it sounds like it could be a cool little song, but it’s over before very much can happen.

this cd seemed to get more people than usual interested in my noise and led to a surprising amount of airplay on CJAM (seeing my name on a radio station’s charts was one of the most surreal experiences of my life). but that’s another story. the important thing is that my face appearing on the cover surely gave several children countless nights of restless sleep and disturbing dreams.

TRACKS:

don’t set fire to the house you grew up in
comb-over hard on
katy, nj
an elegant insult
protocol is protocol
shadows & corners
touch me to death
accidentally second place
people are starting to move in there
incidentals
nothing’s ever gonna be alright again
it isn’t about you unless you think it is
to be livid
you go away
oven head
feckless
my funeral face
gravel heart
skeleton blues
strings

STUFF TO LISTEN TO:

Katy, NJ

People Are Starting to Move in There

To Be Livid

LYRICS:

(some were improvised, so they don’t appear here)

DON’T SET FIRE TO THE HOUSE YOU GREW UP IN

there are no tears to explain you
i can’t count all the things that are wrong with me
but believe me, i’ve tried

KATY, NJ

when you’re kissing someone
with your eyes closed
just the side of your face
the way you hold a fork
says a lot about the way you’d hold a gun
ballyhoo
you can paint yourself however you like

you drink to change who you are
but the change that occurs is a temporary thing
it does nothing to kill your disgusting love for everything
gut spill time
i do it on my own time
you disrespect me on my time

i got hair to burn
& time to waste
you’re crazy about me
’cause you got no taste

(you fucked up your organ there)
i know—i made it happen
(you fucked up your organ there)
how could i let this happen?

AN ELEGANT INSULT

i have seventeen reasons to die
i need another one to make it an even number

PROTOCOL IS PROTOCOL

i am your second chance
use me while you can
you will wake up new
first thing tomorrow

those dark things
under your eyes
fill the space
that anxious lips refuse to

you’re older than you are
it’s in the words you use
& the way you carry yourself
when you’ve had too much to drink

i am a clumsy whore
you like the way i spill
& wipe myself up

SHADOWS & CORNERS

i bought a baggy of coke from a twelve-year-old
she had the longest nails i’d ever seen
we skipped stones in oversized puddles
she pulled my hair & showed me her fangs

ring around the heart valve & it’s
better by the window there are
far too many people but the
drinks don’t cost a thing

i will meet you in the bathroom
we can read the stall graffiti
i will call you in the morning
when tonight bleeds out of my ears

ACCIDENTALLY SECOND PLACE

peel away your skin
to reveal
burgeoning sex appeal

peel away your sex
to unfold
wrinkled middle-aged clothes

what do you do with a sickness
that won’t dissipate?

[subsection 5.8 expressly prohibits the development of...]
pretty little datum in my hand
have you ever seen anything quite like this?
[...feelings of inadequacy due to the predominance of...]
electrical tape stave off the screams
of tortured jelly face
but now there is no vindicate
no sublimate contaminate
[...stratagem in any & all conversation you will ever engage in]

PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO MOVE IN THERE

this is your decrepit house
your love makes it cry
the tears fall in your mouth
it’s just like licking metal

i would have done anything for you
i probably still would
how pathetic is that?

(the rest of the lyrics were improvised)

IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU UNLESS YOU THINK IT IS

i love this four a.m. apartment smell
when you’re asleep & i’m half-awake
smiling like an idiot
i imagined you this way
& the sleeping noises you might make
if i could catch them somehow
i’d keep them somewhere no one would ever think to look

in hell, we can be together
you & me & all our baggage
baby
won’t you sing for me baby?
i’d sing for you, baby
don’t you hate it, baby
when i keep calling you “baby”?

every once in a while
something happens the way it’s supposed to

TO BE LIVID

i recycled little bits of you
made myself a new you
it takes a little practice
to master the assembly

your emotional hedonism
is the most poetic part of you
you let the love asphyxiate itself

i’m just a piece of beer-stained napkin to you
but you’ll call when you forget yourself
& the words you like to throw around
in the spirit of manipulation
you talk a good line

i don’t regret a thing
i gave you most of me
as much as i could give
in the time we had

YOU GO AWAY

conformity will probably kill you
your forehead is hotter than it needs to be
you stay away from the usual trappings
run away once you get what you need

the heart is dragging behind you & collecting leaves
the hungry ones stare with a tired kind of envy
though there’s nothing to distinguish their thoughts from their faces

all this useless vanity
could make your head explode
all the things we claim to feel
could clog a swimming pool

OVEN HEAD

how frequently do you feel the need to lie to yourself?
place an x in the applicable box
then cross your fingers
(but not your toes)
& jump the way you feel
you can jump the way you feel

fall the way you talk
in halting little bursts
& dance the way you are
with everything you are
& sing the way it hurts

blindfold taste test
whatchya stickin’ in my mouth?
red satin blindfold
oven-headed dance

home is where the tonsils are
it isn’t where you live;
it’s where you stay

MY FUNERAL FACE

you have to align it
precisely
i wonder
about you
but i don’t think of you

with random precision
i’d kill you, my darling
to walk on the ocean
with seagulls
crustaceans

i’m going to
are you going, too?

GRAVEL HEART

it’s the narcissist in me
that loves the poet in you
’cause it’s so easy to be vulgar
but you’re after something pure

i gave you words
they didn’t mean a thing
you gave me yours
with careless spelling
but when you edit yourself
you start chipping away
at discursive thought
& what you really meant to say

cover me with kisses
the frozen kind

it’s your heart on the pavement
& we’re all gonna step on it

SKELETON BLUES

i want soft, muted colours
i want a smooth, clear line
i want a picture of you on a tire swing
there are dangerous sharks in your teeth

i am an onion, but i don’t make you cry
because you need to feel something irrevocable to cry
when i’m involved

my lips are chapped
you wouldn’t kiss them anyway
just ask me something
say something stupid

STRINGS

confrontation can be quite amusing
if you know how to manipulate things just right
with your face a parasitic, twisted blur
& a run-on sentence no one needs to hear

your ass is grass
you’re a glossy postcard
we make a pretty picture
if the flame does what it should