dressing to undress

my aborted follow-up to LIVE AT THE NAKED GIRAFFE THEATER, this was forgotten once MERRY FUCKIN’ CHRISTMAS started to seep out of my brain. the title track is probably the nicest and most accessible thing i’d written in quite a while (the lyrics were written, anyway, while the music was improvised as usual), and the lyrics were uncharacteristically autobiographical, in that my sleep was out of whack at the time, my silly behaviour often led people to mistakenly believe that i was high, and that’s what i was singing about. i recorded it the same night i attempted to salvage an early version of jesse’s song “wade” and ended up adding some of my own stylistic touches that weren’t quite in line with what the song needed, though that didn’t stop me from being in love with it and thinking i had created something brilliant (more on that some other time). i also added some acoustic guitar to another song of his. i was feeling inspired, and the title track here was kind of the culmination of it all. i especially like the instrumental interlude where the two electric guitars harmonize with one another. even though there are a few ugly notes, it almost sounds “pretty”, which was a rarity for me at the time. i hate was recorded a week or so later when i had a cold, but i managed to squeeze out a suitable vocal anyway. it’s got sort of a bitter bluesy thing going for it. i was in a funny mood one day in computer science class, partially because of my mother guilt-tripping me over stupid shit when i would talk to her on the phone, and this was what came out. a nice little love song, even more directly personal than the last. i never even talked to that french exchange student i started out singing about, though i always thought she was painfully beautiful. i was told she had an affinity for theft, so perhaps it’s best she and i never connected. and i’m not sure what kind of full-length album this would have developed into had i stuck with it…i didn’t really have any concept at the time. but the fact that YOU’RE A NATION was being recorded at the same time as these tracks is kind of scary.

TRACKS:

sleep-deprived
i hate

STUFF TO LISTEN TO:

I Hate

LYRICS:

SLEEP-DEPRIVED

all i gotta do is sleep like shit
& everyone thinks i’m high
it beats inhaling garbage that’ll kill me
everyone thinks i’m high
i feel the part & i play it well
everyone thinks i’m high
it’s now reached the point where i never can tell
everyone thinks i’m high

all i want is some sleep
i think it’s a fairly reasonable request
it’s difficult to stay awake
because all i wanna do is sleep

the disorientation is a break from the norm
i don’t even have to try
my brain is on auto-pilot at five thousand feet
i don’t even have to try
here come bad words—better cover your ears
i don’t even have to try
i might say some things you’d rather not hear
cover your ears
cover your ears

all i need is some sleep
a few days straight’ll do me fine
i’ll be back in my bed in no time
because all i wanna do is sleep

i smell something atrocious
the wind wafts it my way
please god, let it knock me out
i need to get some sleep today

sleep…let me sleep
sleep…let me sleep

when i was a baby, i could sleep all day
there was nothing exciting to do during the play
the other kids had to compensate for my absence
acting can be excruciatingly frustrating
sleep is kinder to me

all i wanna do is sleep

I HATE

from france she came
pink ribbon in her hair
she broke my heart & spit it out
i never really knew her
at least not in the traditional sense
but i knew her to see her

the elevation was too much to take
even for a man of my stature
i even tried to end my own life
but it wouldn’t have mattered—
no one would miss me

CHORUS:
i hate everything that’s good in the world
nothing good has ever happened to me
i hate everyone & they hate me back
isn’t that how life’s supposed to be?

some friends were true
to some extent
all they wanted was my money
kindness was my weakness
in more ways than one
i should have been a selfish bastard

in the end, some gave me the shoulder
not even one lousy dance
agnes was no exception to the rule
she would have turned on me the second i got into her pants

(REPEAT CHORUS)

sometimes i cry for the matthew browns in this world
i hope there aren’t too many of those
but you never can be sure…

i hate everything good in the world
nothing good ever happens to me
i hate everyone & the feeling is mutual
i just know that’s the way life should be
my mother makes me feel like shit
every time i talk to her now
at least she tries to make me feel guilty
& it gets to me somehow
everything is my fault
i’m the cause of everything bad in the world
maybe it’s true, but i do what i want
to hell with everyone else

because that’s how life should be
& that’s the way it is