1. |
Patti in the Dining Car
00:18
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2. |
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Pursuing plans at
different scales along
parallel rails to get to
the ways that I like to feel
Well I want to sit in the same damn chair
with the same cup of coffee in the same hand
do the same exercises in the morning
to stave off the lower back pain (yeah!)
You could say I'm doing
pretty much identically to how I've been doing
for a minute
the machine of My Life is set up and operating
But somehow this is still moving forward
Yeah, somehow this is still called moving forward
Yeah, weirdly this is still forward motion
Yeah, we read this in progressive time
It's linear progress x7
Because all of the numbers on my CV go up by one every year
Another year teaching; another album; another degree
All of the numbers on my CV go up by one every year
Another year teaching; another album; another degree
Another degree
So I'll eat a spoonful of peanut butter
so I have the energy to sit on the couch
and write the same song
I'll watch the news and I'll think about it
so I have the content to sit on the couch
and write the same song
I'll sit along and
I'll hum a little tune
and do all the little things I feel compelled to do
and when the time is right
I'll write the song I always do
And I'll play it for you
if you want me to.
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3. |
Because of Winn Dixie
03:12
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Recently teaching
don't feel very good
The students are sleeping
or totally rude
My colleagues are quitting
in droves they depart
replaced by newcomers
broken down from the start
But this is my calling
and I'll answer again
until it destroys me
and my spirit caves in
For now I'm just boxed up
unable to move
Constricted, hemmed in,
no way out but through
Like 2005
plane to Japan
fourteen hours in flight
Gotta sit 'til we land
Middle seat
friend on the one side, but left of me
in the magazine rack this guy puts his feet
and for the whole cabin just one TV
positioned up front so you squint to see
broke for ten hours then only one movie
...Because of Winn Dixie...
The one with the dog who dies
I know I'm a lifer
I'm not gonna quit
But some days it's harder than others
to remember it
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4. |
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On the day of our tentative agreement
I'd never smiled so big
Got off the phone
and walked back in the classroom
and looked at all the kids
And I felt the weight lifting
Yeah I felt the weight lifting
When we fight we start winning
Yeah I felt the weight lifting
On the day of our tentative agreement
we stood among our peers
Out on the (Hancock-Adams) Common we saw one another
We clapped and howled and cheered
'Cause our union resisted
Yeah our union resisted
When we fight we start winning
Yeah our union resisted
On the day of our tentative agreement
We thought ahead three years
to our next contract and all the things we still need
to do the best we can for our students
So it's time for us to dream big
Yeah it's time for us to dream big
'Cause we fought and we won, now we'll keep on winning
Yeah it's time for us to dream big
'Cause our union resisted
Yeah our union resisted
So I felt the weight lifting
I felt the weight lifting
Yeah we fought and we won, now we'll keep on winning
So it's time for us to dream big
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5. |
33
03:22
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I'm gasoline-driving on into a future we may or may not see
Keep the dial steady on an unsustainable teleology
I don't know how to write a black-pilled song and
I never want to mow our goddamn lawn
but clover and native plants
are never gonna hold the shoreline back, okay
Will we be okay?
Modern millenarian
waiting on The Big End
two degrees Celsius
whole world in the deep end
but the truth is the Tragedy
is never distributed equally
the End of the World happens everyday
depending where you're looking
depending where you're looking
Will we be okay?
Walter Benjamin's 'Angel of History'
moonwalking forward
staring back at
the sea of defeat
the fragments of losing
the failures repeated
the self-same refusal of All (hope & doubt)
the piling wreckage of All (hope & doubt)
the endless catastrophe of (hope & doubt)
This thing will not collapse in a day
it'll gradually decay
rotting from the inside
as things just stop working
We'll privatize our public goods away
and gig-ify the labor that we do to get paid
bureaucratize all functions of the state
make a thousand-year waiting list to get into the country
'No chicken for any pot!'
but for every engineering student; two dozen jobs
making a new way to harass and surveil
or maybe make a smarter bomb
'No chicken for any pot!'
but for nine of ten people; a shitty lot
a desperate sequence of desperate days
from here until eternity
And even the people for whom the burden is light
will find that in time their lives will destabilize
But always there will be the belief
that fate is fair
and you get what you've got coming
As long as we're okay
As long as it doesn't catch up with you,
catch up with me (yeah!)
Thirty-three
feeling comfy
Live the Dream
Get What's Coming
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6. |
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7. |
Song for Kit (and Steve)
02:18
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We were kids when we first met
Band pins ringed our scally caps
and that was that
But we rolled with different crowds
so our friendship grew in the interstitial hours
I don't know what we talked about
But I was more of an arrogant asshole than I am now
But somehow you stuck around
We did goofy things and became ourselves, now
we are older
settled down
two homeowners
in neighboring towns
teaching the same kids
at the same school
like we dreamed about in 2012
On the balcony of our Allston apartment
eating a breakfast scramble that we made
during the brief time you slept behind the couch
before the landlord said otherwise, yeah
New York trips down for Hallomas
Patricia Drive pickups to Billings Street bashes
the Antifa table and our smoking pipes
Chateau lesson planning and Mahjong night
But we rarely make the time anymore
and that's on both of us I guess
but honestly it's really just inertia;
the end point of a natural rhythm nudging folks apart as they get older
and other things come up
So we take the path that many pairs of old friends take
floating in nostalgia when we still take them to hang?
Recycling the content of a friendship that we made
when we were still in incubation
in our long-passed college days?
Well I hope there are still new memories to make
though I still love all the old ones
and the inside jokes we made
I'm stoked to have you in my life
and I love you like a brother
man, I'm honored just to know you
and I'm thankful that we found one another
We met each other at the perfect time
trying to balance young professional lives with DIY
late nights playing shows 'round the metro
and the songs that you wrote
man they blew my mind
You moved to Philly at the height of it
I was sad as shit
but I knew it had to happen
But what's a couple hundred miles for a hang and a treat?
Yeah we can always hit the Wa(wa) and get focaccia pizza
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8. |
Mattie in the Dining Car
04:12
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The scariest possibility for me
is that there is no cohesion to how we think
Our muddled ideologies
an idiosyncratic accretion of things that we believe
Post-revisions historians have shown*
that change and continuity over time
are driven by a lot of things
A non-determinist causality
but embedded in too many layers ever to fully unweave
So to what extent are our ways of thinking
post-rationalizations of what were gonna do anyway?
And to what extent do the ways we think
shape those actions in meaningful ways?
And to what extent do the ways we think
shape the narratives through which we make meaning?
And to what extent are the ways we think
subject to change from material pressures around us?
From contingent context?
From what goes on inside us
as well as what surrounds us?
And what then are the implications for
our capacity for collective political action?
Well the scariest possibility for me
is that there is no cohesion to how we think
Our muddled ideologies
an idiosyncratic accretion of things that we believe
that limit our capacity
to think and act collectively
*This is specifically a reference to the 'post-revisionist' school of US diplomatic history. The 'revisionist' school aka the 'Wisconsin School' included the likes of William Appleman Williams, Walter LaFeber, etc. and causally attributed US foreign policy to the prime mover of economic imperatives (ex: securing new markets). Post-revisionists challenged this with more complex accounts that filled out the interconnected matrix of historical causality. To render this in Marxian terms, for the revisionists, everything besides the economy is superstructural; for the post-revisionists, the superstructure feeds back into the base in complex ways that are difficult to parse.
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The Michael Character Boston, Massachusetts
It's political music, whatever. Based in Boston, MA. Absolutely willing to drive very far to play for you and five of your vaguely alternative friends in your combination kitchen/laundry room. Hit me up. I'm fully serious.
The Michael Character recommends:
The Age of Missing Information
by Thanks
Two great dudes make incredible, experimental (but accessible) piano/drums tunes that will completely blow your mind.
go to albumIf you like The Michael Character, you may also like:
A Split 7" Between Friends
by Dr Sure's Unusual Practice / Bench Press
A four-track bout between two of Australia's most formidable post-punk groups, fueled by wiry guitar riffs and vibrant, timely lyrics.
go to album
Cost of Living
by Downtown Boys
Downtown Boys' Sub Pop debut is as brash, bright, and political as the Providence punk band's ever been, showcasing their songwriting.
go to album
The punk legends return with their first studio album in 35 years, featuring reworked fan favorites as well as all-new material.
go to album
Another perfect release from contemporary emo powerhouse Run for Cover records.
go to album
Sidewalkin'
by the cigarette bums
An album of garage punk stompers that will stick in your ears like bubblegum to your shoes.
go to album
