Get all 8 Marc M Cogman releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Dead Messengers, Nothing is Fantastic, Ink and Hollow Bones: The Albatross Demos, Albatross, Kill the Messenger: Live & Rarities (2006-2009), Anthems, Beneath a Balcony, and Welcome to the Danger Show.
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Hey Corinne, you pretty thing, won’t you come get lost round Foster Falls with me?
These city streets are sweltering. I can feel that cold, cold water beckoning.
The truth is, life ain’t like those country tunes we always turn up loud, stuck here all day pouring other people’s drinks. And you’re the only reason I’m still kickin’ round this tourist town, but I’ll clear out of here right now, just come with me. Let’s go find ourselves a sweeter melody.
Hey Corinne. Miss Tennessee. Second Avenue is baking in the heat. Let’s go walk under that canopy of leaves. Because I’m tired of being just a prop in someone else’s scene and I’m sick of hearing all the useless talk. But they say underneath that waterfall, you can’t hear a thing, just the thunder as it splashes off the rocks. As you feel my arms around you in the dark.
So let’s cash out and make a run, south down Highway 41. They won’t even know we’re gone til morning comes.
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Get a bottle out. Put a record on. Make it something in three, in a minor key and we’ll sing along. And there’s a mason jar, on the highest shelf. It tastes evil and sweet, just for times these, when it hurts like hell.
When the hurricane arrives, you bend like the trees. When you’re struggling to survive, you dig in deep. But no one gets out alive, so let’s get flooded out tonight and tomorrow, we’ll recede eventually.
March that second line on the tabletop. And we’ll drown out the sound, until the lights go down and the spinning stops.
When the hurricane arrives, you bend like the trees. When you’re struggling to survive, you dig in deep. But no one gets out alive, so let’s blow away tonight and we’ll come washing up eventually.
When the hurricane arrives, you bend like the trees. When you’re struggling to survive, you dig in deep. But no one gets out alive, so let’s sink to the bottom tonight and we’ll come floating up eventually.
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3. |
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Another genesis over, another exodus begins. I left the last joint smoldering, now I’m lighting up again. I don’t go in for dogma; can’t care about karma; a stretch of highway’s all I need to absolve me of my sins. I’ll run to the capital town, that Athens of the South, meet a songbird/waitress who keeps the bed turned down. She’ll be an angel when she smiles but holy hell when she frowns. And my friends will take me in once she kicks me out.
Another day defeated, another view of the abyss. Another rock on a hillside, another Sisyphus. So stop asking, “why?” Just laugh til you cry. And til the day you die, trust the whole thing is a myth. I make for the Mississippi to take what I can get. Land me some Memphis belle with sophisticated wit. Her southern charm goes missing, when she sees I can’t commit but my friends will take me in when it all goes to shit.
Well I’ll stick with underdogging and causes that are lost every time. I ain’t hounding after love, I’m just trying to raise my quantity of life. Creeping off to the Crescent, who knows what’s in store? Gotta find myself a comfy spot to lay down, like before. I ain’t trying to live better; I’m just trying to live more. And my friends will take me in, when she shows me the door.
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You live for nighttime in this honky-tonk town, cruising for suckers you can try to shakedown, another creature of the dark, cranking the noise up loud. Rubbing shoulders with the opulent class, you get that lizard thrill, leeching their cash. But I saw you at the brickyard, with your gold paint, building your stash.
You cut the figure of a smashing success. Big rented houses never fail to impress. Make cameras shoot you from above, so you can hide that double chin. “You gotta fake it til you make it,” they say, but that implies you’re gonna make it one day. I saw you down at the brickyard, with your gold paint, trying to get paid.
Manipulation is your spectator sport and you love nothing more than holding court. Lay on that snake oil smile, bust out that hustler charm. You talked another waitress home from the bar. Probably convinced her that you’d make her a star. But I saw you at the brickyard, with your gold paint. I know what you are.
Now you’ve overplayed your hand. You’re gonna need a grander plan, once the confidence is lost in the confidence man.
The grifter tricks are going to fail you in time. Crafting your legend ain’t a victimless crime. Now there’s a crowd that’s getting larger that you need to avoid. You never think about the things you destroy. Now all the repo men are after your toys. I saw you at the brickyard, with your gold paint, you black-eyed boy.
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I thought you’d made it past that dead man’s curve, and though so many fell, you would endure, and those contagious blues had failed, because you had found the cure. I thought you’d shaken off that poet’s curse, that you could stand up to the same old verse, and if you felt that fatal hook, you’d simply change the words.
I thought if you weren’t through it all, at least you were through the worst. I really thought you’d made it past that dead man’s curve.
I thought you’d made it through that fire unburnt, that exaltation could outweigh hurt. I thought you’d want to ride it out, enjoy the life you’d earned.
And in every tragedy, there’s a lesson to be learned, but I really thought you’d made it past that dead man’s curve.
And I hope you found the peace and quiet you deserve, but I really wish you’d made it past that dead man’s curve.
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6. |
Black Leather (Perfect)
05:03
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She said her perfect man had to have one: a black leather jacket, well worn and scuffed up, so I picked you out in a rush, slung you on my shoulders and tried to look tough. Yeah your price was sky high, and I don't ride a bike. Hell, I don't even drive at high speed. But if you made me perfect to her, you were perfect for me.
Before long, I'd say you earned your keep. All those college house-parties and street corner leans with a Marlboro between my teeth. We were one pretty picture of rebel physique. And I don't know if she ever marveled at how we embodied that rock-star mystique. But if you helped me stand out to her, you were priceless to me.
You were the uniform I’d always choose, in all the band photographs, the video shoots. Yeah, you and I, we couldn’t lose, catching every girl’s eye, with the boots and tattoos.
And she met a guy, and they seemed to get on, though I couldn’t say to what degree, but I guess if he’s good to her, then he’s okay with me.
We ain’t looking so tough as before: all the scuffmarks and stitches and unsettled scores.
No we don’t go out much no more. You just hunch on a chair like some veteran of war. And I heard they got married in a big Nashville church, and the next year, the baby made three, so I’m sure life’s as perfect for her as she knew it would be.
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I took a beaten leather journal from the shelf above my bed and went sifting through the fragments of the former lives I’ve led in the years that stretch behind me like a roughly beaten path, all the hours, minutes, seconds that passed. Every time I chose a right or left the other road remained, like a softly curving question mark of pleasure or of pain, in the choose-your-own-adventure of my years upon this earth. Who knows what those turns were worth?
So I sing a hymn for what’s been lost, all the treasures and what they cost. Oh my god, what a ride. With the temerity to trade all the decisions I have made, I couldn’t say if I’d be on the losing side.
Well my knowledge ain’t that carnal and my memory’s obsolete. I’ve got two minds going sideways, and they can’t help but compete. I’m never bad enough to push things as far they can go, but I’m not good enough to leave them alone. So I got great at crossing borders but remained in no man’s land. I went all-in holding nothing and I folded winning hands, but I’d like to think I minimized the damage here and there. Just don’t make me say where.
So I sing a hymn for what’s been missed, all the sordid secret trysts. Oh my god, what the hell. As if I’d turn into a joke every song I ever wrote because it might put a few more notches in my belt.
I spent years on raspy poetry and thumping my guitar in the ivy-covered colleges and Music City bars. And the money-men were circling always just a room away, keeping better ideas at bay. Well, they never offered anything that I could not refuse. I guess we always disagreed on whether I had much to lose. So I shook the meager promises of glitterati fame and I shouldered all the blame.
So we sing a hymn for bullets dodged and whatever lay behind that façade. Oh my god, what a relief. I’ll not go kicking with a scream into the jaws of mediocrity, forever flashing cameramen my teeth.
When you reunite with secrets then you’re walking on a wire, so make peace with some exposure, or make peace with being a liar. Open portals at your peril. Keep in mind what rules apply. Always ask the question, “Why?”
So you can weep for all the enemies who started off as friends, weep for all the places that you’ll never see again. You can weep for all the certainty you lost throughout the years, but no one’s going to dry your tears.
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8. |
Ballast (If Not For You)
04:40
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I would have given up the gunny sack and headed for New Orleans. I would have loaded up my shotgun shack with whatever let the noise in. I would have let the arrows find their mark. I would have let the muses do their part. I would have poured it all into the art, if not for you.
I would have lived in Bywater bars with the painters and the poets. I would have stared at the girl with the invisible scars and made sure to let her know it. I would have stood up at the parlor front. I would have slayed them all with what I’d brought. I would have tied them all in double knots, if not for you.
I would have left that bitter scene behind, to the vampires and the songbirds. I would have saved some of my precious time, started building something stronger. I would have let the haters get my goat. I would have torn up every page I wrote. I would have realized I’m just a joke, if not for you.
I would have run my car right off the road, and flipped into the gutter. I would have bruised my face and broke my nose, started calling for my mother. I would have bent that fucker like a nail. I would have barely lived to tell the tale. I would have probably found my ass in jail, if not for you.
I would have sat there while my world collapsed. I would have wept for all the other paths. I would have never stood the slightest chance, if not for you.
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Here’s another sad rocker too obsessed with death, time slipping through your hands while your fingers fret. Go from Duluth to the Delta for the things you lack, but don’t talk to the dead because they won’t talk back.
And this is the last party that you’ll ever attend; we ain’t all gonna meet next week to run it back again. This is the last party, so stay as long as you can. This is the last; this is the last; this is the end.
Change your life; change your wife; change your paradigm. Shove your stuff in a truck, move to Mountain time. And paint in any shade you like until it fades to black, but don’t talk to the dead cause they won’t talk back.
Yeah this is the last party, so tell your stories now. It’s a one-way trip on this ship, no turnaround. This is the last party, stay as long as you can. This is the last, this is the last, this is the end. Yeah this is the end.
It was three days later when I made it through. You were a stitched-wrist crumple in the ICU. And your daughter was crying for the horrible mess, knowing everybody dies, whether cursed or blessed, but darkness wins faster when we acquiesce.
And this is the last party that you’ll ever attend. We ain’t all gonna meet next week to run it back again. This is the last party, stay as long as you can. This is the last, this is the last, this is the end. This is the end.
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