Get all 11 Paul Sprawl releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Signs of Life (2018 EP), Jack's Super 8 (2017 album), New Day (2016 single), Dream Zoo (2011, album), paulsprawl live (2010, album), Great American Opera (2009, album), Howard Levy and Paul Sprawl (2005, album), Wreckage (2004, album), and 3 more.
1. |
Polka Dot Socks
07:49
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1.
Tree melted into the fog
Cat fell into a deep dark bog
Moth ripped the sky in two
Frog from another world
Jumped right on through
Bright turquoise bug
Crawls around the parking lot
Late Friday night in Kansas
There's a fly buzzing round my ear
Time's clicking gears are grinding here
Conveyor belt slowly winding
Slowly
2.
Life's a good restaurant meal
Served over and over
Till the memories
of it's former appeal
Stick me like a rusty nail
This script was written by a hack
It's senseless and boring
And I want my money back
But the lie continues
Despite the fact
That this amusement park does not distract
3.
Moved into a cardboard box
In the train station down the block
Doin' such good work there
I wash my polka dot socks
Drink lots of cough syrup
Eat Krispy Kremes
I know this life is not all it seems
Not all it seems
And I wash my socks
Twice a week
Twice a week
My polka dot socks
Oh my polka dot socks
4.
I got two pairs
I wash one on Monday
The other on Wednesday
The first again on Friday
The second again on Sunday
Lose track
I gotta ask somebody
Which pair of socks
Supposed to wash today
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2. |
Cartoon Heaven
03:07
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T-bone steak
Floating by
Fluffy clouds
Cartoon heaven
Angel with a halo
Playin' a harp
On cloud 9
Grabs the steak
And chomps it down
Glugging booze
Glugging booze
Afterwards
It's cigarettes
Dirty jokes
With a little cartoon moon
in a nightcap
Floating by
Floating by
Fluffy clouds
Cartoon heaven
Cartoon heaven
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3. |
One More Day
04:49
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1.
You played me far too well
My heart wants you still
I should be prickly now
Like a porcupine with its quills
2.
I like films that have scenes
With no narrative at all
Just some wind blowing
Tumbleweed or a plastic ball
~chorus~
My heart's like a bombed out palace
Dust in the sunlight and a busted piano
War-torn and shell-shocked
And you're much too far away
What was here has gone away
But I'll stay around for one more day
3.
I fit in everywhere
And no place
But I'll tell your future now
Just by looking in your face
4.
Polyester caffeine pants
With a cotton sugar moonshine blend
Somebody hunting cool
For commodification
~chorus~
My heart's like a bombed out palace
Dust in the sunlight and a busted piano
War-torn and shell-shocked
And you're much too far away
What was here has gone away
But I'll stay around for one more day
You played me far too well
My heart wants you still
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4. |
The Penciler
07:05
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Big city downtown old building 7th floor
Man sits at a table by an open window
In a straight back wooden chair
There's a constellation of bottlecaps
On the window sill, the table and the wood floor
Empty bottles of Derby beer
Hang around like mini-mart vagrants
And a grove of matchbooks
From rhyming neighborhood hotspots
Black Cat, Can Soldat, Top Hat
Is thriving on the tabletop
Next to a beanbag ashtray, a corncob pipe
and a leather pouch with an illegal smoking mixture
In the ashtray are cigarette butts, two old stogies
and some ashes
On the floor there's a huge stack of underground comics
USA Today from yesterday, some english translations
of Spanish poets, and a novel - Infinite Jest
A pigeon walks by
On the brick window ledge outside
The man stares as it passes
Then his gaze returns to the tabletop
and a collection of tiny electric motors
Nine volt batteries, plastic gears, balsa wood
Tubes of glue, jars of model paint and the whim to
construct kinetic sculptures has passed
Leaving him with the vague dread
That his next inspiration may come with
an equally quick expiration date
His glance darts over to a bag of chips
a jar of salsa and half a black bean burrito,
wrapped in aluminum foil
Pushed aside to a corner of the table
with emptiness but not hunger
He starts in on the chips and salsa again
A blue plastic alarm clock on the window sill
reads 10:39 AM
Outside a crowd of signs straining for access
to the morning street traffic -
some lights still flashing in the morning sunlight
The man at the table is wearing black leather pants
and motorcycle boots
Tank top and denim jacket
are hanging on the door knob
Piled on top of a laptop computer
in another corner of the table
are pens and pencils, a cell phone, a pocket knife,
plastic lighter, three blues harps, and postcards
from Coffee Pot Lake, and Tobacco Root Mountains
not written on
He fiddles with a pen and a postcard
but his focus is mostly on his next career move
He was a penciler for an underground comic book
He has no kids, no partner
Publisher's bankruptcy and a messy break-up
with his girlfriend more or less coincided
Cast adrift
His purpose
He contemplates his purpose
Consults his muse
Mentally constructs a list of options
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5. |
Clean-up Time
04:29
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It's clean-up time
Quiet the voices
In this worried mind
Got my scrimshaw etchings,
collection of mothbones
Way up here in the Tobacco Root Mountains
past analog roam
There's a painted eggplant, (seed-pod rattle),
a spring drum
doesn't make any sense anymore
but everybody wants some
There's a rose growing up
through the cracks
bus stop Bag lady left to die
Those big stars with their bad hair days
Marble walled bank where no one ever cries
~chorus~
The earth controls me
Sky contains
We're all going with that flow
But Josephine says
We might be going
down the drain
-instrumental break-
~chorus~
The earth controls me
Sky contains
We're all going with that flow
But Josephine says
We might be going
down the drain
Start to feel real good
Then I start to feel so bad
Can't shake this hollow feeling
that I have
It must be clean-up time
Got my scrimshaw etchings,
collection of mothbones
Hiding out in the Tobacco Root Mountains
past analog roam
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6. |
Ugly Parade
03:14
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1.
Every problem
and the tension that it brings
Begs for resolution
Any number of cheap and easy things
Can be employed as solutions
~chorus~
Yeah there's more
Than the ugly parade
Yeah there's more
Lots of ways to climb out
From the wreckage that we've made
2.
20,000 days and nights
I could have that many left still
Climbing up or cruising down
The wheel turns and life's got
many hills
~chorus~
Yeah there's more
Than the ugly parade
Yeah there's more
Lots of ways to climb out
From the wreckage that we've made
-bridge-
repeat 1.
Every problem
and the tension that it brings
Begs for resolution
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7. |
Hollow
10:07
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It's too painful
Too precious
Too easy
Not enough at stake
It's a weekend holiday
at the amusement park
And a two week vacation
to a far away land
Always contained
Always controlled
Never at risk
Always an escape
To that plastic trash
and the dead TV
(unsure of this line)
Too easy
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