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Sweetest One (2004)

by Thunderegg

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1.
The Scheduled Show (free) 03:40
I've seen the dreams come true of friends who knew that two by two they'd say "I do" on some day. It seems that they've got more than me. It seems that they've got everything. I've also seen the magazines the dude who's opposite me's reading on the subway. They seem to come in packs of three. He's sheepishly avoiding me. Is there a star who says, It's possible my standards are impossibly high, while shining down its light to us below? You can speed your car through all the hospital signs, plow into the OR without waiting in line, but there's other places I think I'd rather go. So let's get on with the scheduled show. We bothered with a chorus, the Man's still choosing to ignore us, this will never sell. An outro and an intro: Do you know where a bridge goes? But the ones that stand before us are the ones that do adore us, who needs anything else? It's a banishment of limbo. It's like opening a window. Is there a star who says, It's possible my standards are impossibly high, while shining down its light to us below? You can speed your car through all the hospital signs, plow into the OR without waiting in line, but there's other places I think I'd rather go. So let's get on with the scheduled show. Let's get on with being blissfully unknown.
2.
I'm a Fool Again (free) 05:03
Do you recall what it felt like to write real small and lay the letters on the paper without having it all planned out? Pretty pictures made manifest on the wall that stood between you and the overnight guest. The binding on your Bible looks pretty tight, do you know I'm in the next room with a dirty mind? I know what's in your kitchen but I wonder about the oven with the pilot that keeps blowing out. I have the feeling that we're staring at the same ceiling, and I know we're feeling the same dark against our skin. I can taste your words in the air that I'm breathing. In the morning I'll still be on the futon, a glass of water by my head and my boots on. I'm a fool again, I'm a fool again. Can I close my eyes, remind myself I've always been? Did you find the list of finalists was pretty slight? Are they masters of the wireless but absent when the lights go down? I wanna know if there's a vacancy, I wanna know if there's a chance that you will wait for me with a bottle of red and a bottle of white, I got lost in Boston right after I'd gotten high, I drove round and round on those crooked streets, I just know they were laid out that way to fuck with me. I've been meaning to let you in on what I've been dreaming. I forgot that you're the one that'll do the letting in. On the journey up I wouldn't let myself stop believin'. And on the way home I won't let my faith quit, cause I won't remember much that could shake it. I'm a fool again, I'm a fool again. Can I close my eyes, remind myself I've always been?
3.
Long Way from Home (free) 05:28
Solace bleeds within me on waking up in Chinle. They got speakers in the pine trees, pan flute music gently winding through the dawn. That's my cue to be moving on. If LA's a disaster, Santa Cruz comes after, then I don't know where I'll clear to, one more city in my rearview catacomb. I was a long way from home. And if you wake me up at six a.m. again, your voice still ringing in my head, remembering something warm you said before I let this trip begin, I'll roll my sleeping bag real tight, wrap up your words till tomorrow night. I'll make believe that I am gone, but you'll be with me moving on. From Marathon to Marfa down to Mexico and farther west than I have cared to venture, it seems I've been indentured to make me strong, to keep me moving on. In Okaton the ghost town whispers tales of untold drifters who would gladly take their blisters for a callus on their hearts, their voices moan, I was a long way from home. And if you wake me up at six a.m. again, your voice still ringing in my head, remembering something warm you said before I let this trip begin, I'll roll my sleeping bag real tight, wrap up your words till tomorrow night. I'll make believe that I am gone, but you'll be with me moving on. From Mitchell to Chicago I took roads you could not follow, let Ohio night come swallow me on farmer's fields the fireflies aglow, the peepers calling low. When my eyes next opened, the sky above had broken, and you were drowned out by the rain on the tent's words so clearly spoken: Welcome home. Welcome home. And if you wake me up at six a.m. again, your voice still ringing in my head, remembering something warm you said before I let this trip begin, I'll roll my sleeping bag real tight, wrap up your words till tomorrow night. Then toss it all into a pond, get on the road and keep moving on.
4.
If You Knew Me So Well (free) 05:21
So, my love, has your patience dissolved, grown complacent and stalled, curled up into a ball? Has your conscience said, He won't get over again, won't find me at the end of his terrible fall? Can you soon forgive being played like a sieve, after all that you did, left with nothing at all? Soon you'll realize you got out just in time, got the next one in line, got past all of the walls. If you knew me so well, then I'd think that you'd know better than to turn to someone else when I'd just told myself that she knows me so well. So, my dear, it's been almost a year. Has new love persevered? Have true paths remained clear? Has he been the man who complies with demands, no improvising of plans, devoted, faithful, sincere? Leaving you alone unless you telephone, unless you make it known he's allowed to be near? When you can't fall asleep, do you still think of me? And whose face do you see when you look in the mirror? If you knew me so well, then I'd think that you'd know better than to turn to someone else when I'd just told myself that she knows me so well.
5.
Daybreak, and no one's strolling on the Brooklyn Promenade. As I slowly walk my dog, it seems there's no one in the world except her and me, I got deeply sabotaged, by what I don't recall, but it happened before this dawn I see, chasing last night's shady memories to Sunday on the Promenade. On Montague the shutters creak at the waking restaurants. Sunday on the Promenade, and beneath my feet the BQE sings a song that's just for me and Velvet morning softly creeps and birds stir in the trees. It's time to drop the blinds and sleep. Close my eyes and I will dream of Sunday on the Promenade. On Montague the shutters creak at the waking restaurants. Sunday on the Promenade, and beneath my feet the BQE sings a song that's just for me as I walk my dog.
6.
It first came up when tuning one night down in Vera Rubin, sliding down the scale to match the E. Woodfin rocked a break under the Scorpion of Jake and Justin took the mic, surprisingly. I was only twenty-one but the way that our band swung, I was sure that we were gonna be huge. In exchange for my commitment, started acquiring equipment, and bought a four-track when I turned twenty-two. I taped a couple versions, had mixed results with the dispersion, but was still positioned well at twenty-three. One thing that I did know was that rock radio did blow and that there had to be an opening for me. Deliverance from crack rock, deliverance from crack rock. When I was twenty-four I was the Man, when I was twenty-five I was the mack. When I was twenty-six I had the bitterest existence trip, I didn't know if I would ever come back. At twenty-seven I had to regroup, at twenty-eight I had to pay some dues. Now I just turned twenty-nine, had the same list at twenty-five, but I'm not dumb enough anymore to follow through. Deliverance from crack rock, deliverance from crack rock. You can postulate forever why you are no longer clever or why you can't seem to get up the nerve. What that accomplishes is never gonna serve you any better than if you just sat down and did your work. Time cannot be recaptured, but the past's a total bastard, who wants to hang out with him anyway? Better to focus on what's lasted and whatever's coming after and to count our blessings while we pray for a Deliverance from crack rock, deliverance from crack rock.
7.
Up on the Deck (free) 02:55
Why I smoked up on the deck if it would leave this night bereft? Forsake the cabin for the weather, tear my mind right off its tether, while I smoked out on the deck. I was alone there in the misting and the harbor lights' soft yellow glistening. On that August night, the heatwave broke, the water shined, the stars, they spoke, while I stood up on the deck and smoked.
8.
When the Cables Break (free) 04:23
Maybe tabling the arrangement couldn't save me from a face-off with the way that I've always been. Probably better if I'd let her have her way and started settling in. I thought our record of discretion would have only led to questions far too hard for me to tell the truth. But they're still easier to answer than if you've got no one to answer to. Sometimes you are the occupied, with your pretty countryside carved up in some room. But the underground will thrive as the citizens defy the order of the troops. When the cables break and what was stable quakes, and the subway trains start to fly, will the hand of fate, built of all our faith, catch us falling out of the sky? I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. As I remember I was nothing but a fortress that September so I'm glad you clarified that I was trembling in the corner with my hands over my eyes. And now that it's all started over, can I offer you my shoulder, can I offer you the proof that I never wanted anybody more than I needed you? Sometimes you are the afterlife, while those around you testify they'll join up with you soon. And all along you wonder why someone would choose to stand in line when no one told them to. When the cables break and what was stable quakes, as we knew that they would all along, will it be too late for men like me to pray, and for me to say that I was wrong? I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid.
9.
Plaza Song (free) 05:16
The call to cut down on reflection and get some direction was not borne from an entirely ungenerous mind, but I just sat there hurtin', overburdening the wording, till I finally just had to give it up to the rhyme. Guess everybody has one, but I've had me a bad run, it's been riding my ass for such a long time. The pages I'm turning, I ought to be burning, and listening to the music that plays deep inside. You look like you saw me yesterday, you look like you saw who I might be. You didn't have to look so disappointed. You could have tried to look past the past that wasn't me. The one thing he produces is tons of excuses, but he sat by the fountain because he promised someone he wouldn't try to get up till the soldiers were set up, he wouldn't pause from the plaza till the battle had begun. When I had no suspicion that anyone would listen, there was only one person that I had to please. But he became a hard-on with a great big star on his breast and I knew that it'd be best if I'd leave. Where do things go that might have been? So strange how they don't just cease to be, but take what is, and plot to destroy it. Hold fast, outlast it, one day we all will be free. Thanks a lot for taking off and leaving me to talk to the cops, you'd think you'd treat someone more generously. But you gave me everything, even what I avoided, so I could look back and get past the past and start making peace.
10.
On summer nights, what do they call that song that drifts through my window, that whispers of the truest love of all? What do they call that song? My bedroom light will burn till the dawn silences the trees, and I will still be dreaming of you and me. Baby, what will you call this song? Sadie, what will you call this song? She says even we have angels, I say speak for yourself. I think you have me mixed up with someone else because I haven't seen an angel since I don't know when, and I'm starting to get scared I'll never see one again. I looked down, I saw the light, I looked up, I saw the ground. And I saw legions of demons circling round and round, eating up your angels like they're made of cake, and clawing at the walls to get every last scrape of your angels. To hell with your angels. The angels you believed in when you don't believe in me. The angels you see sadly that I will never see. Your angels, your pretty little angels. Your angels, your pretty little angels.
11.
Little Yellow Candy (free) 01:14
Little yellow candy rolling up and down the subway car, I wanna know what kind of candy you are. You could be a jellybean, or a Lemonhead. You might be a Skittle, or maybe an M&M instead. I may not know what you are but I know what you gotta do: You better roll away right away from under that passenger's boot. Roll away, little candy!
12.
Sweetest One (free) 02:30

about

This is the great lost album that further accounts for Thunderegg's whereabouts from 2001 to 2004. By the time it was recorded, the old reliable Porta07 four-track was pretty much worn out. Crackly connections, buzzing, lots of hiss. Plus, we used only three of the machine's four available tracks in anticipation of adding drums later (this may happen yet), so everything got squished. Despite all this, Sweetest One contains some of the best Thunderegg songs ever: The lyrics are really on point if we do say so ourselves. Previously commercially available only as part of the Open Book anthology.

credits

released October 19, 2004

Recorded to the Tascam Porta07 four-track. Song 10 was recorded at 357 Edgecombe Avenue, New York, NY, December 2000. Songs 1, 3, 6, and 9 were recorded at 46 Pocomo Road, Nantucket, MA, October 2002; songs 2, 4, 7–8, and 11–12 were recorded there in August 2004. Song 5 was recorded at 851 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY, March 2003. Song 12 was also partially recorded on the 49th Street N/R platform sometime in 2001, and Keith Woodfin added drums in September 2004 in the basement of 180 Springdale Road, Princeton, NJ.

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