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Track Listing:

Lay Down

The Ballad of Mr. Black

Behind the Fourth Wall

Waiting for the Elsewhere

To the Waterfall

Mod Robert:

Vocals, Background Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Keyboards (except piano on Behind the Fourth Wall), Background Violins and Violas on Waiting for the Elsewhere, pitch shifted voice on Behind the Fourth Wall, electronic percussion editing on To the Waterfall, and The Ballad of Mr. Black

Milo Fultz:

Bass

Don Latarski:

Electric Guitar

 

Leif Karlstom:

5 string violin     

Jason Palmer:

Drums

Featuring: Toby Koenigsberg, piano on 

Behind the Fourth Wall

Recorded mostly at Ebutass Studios, Oregon 

between July 2019 and August 2020. 

Mixing and Mastering: Jon Wyman

LYRICS:

Lay Down

(7/15/19)

She comes from the sea at night

In drops of salt, sand and moonlight

She floats in the breeze and in the mist

She comes for your heart and for your cowardice

Her words a song, her gaze the sun

Alive to you, but a ghost to everyone

In daylight upon the waves she sleeps

At night within your dreams she just weeps

In the morning she’s left without a trace

It’s just you and your coffee and your own disgrace

She’s back at sunset in her golden gown, and she says

Lay down

And there down by the old address

She stayed silent in the shadows more or less

Just patient for her opportunity

Come what may, accept her punchline gracefully

Chapters closed and business done

Her face betrayed no thought or clue for anyone

The air still before the storm

With nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no one to warn

In the bedroom there she floats above the waves

And ever careful what she kills and what she saves

But she’s always back at sunset in her golden gown, commanding

Lay down

And when the breathless moment came she would appear

Slim hands hold a head and heart and wipe away a tear

And ever careful what she kills and what she saves

At sunset with her arms full she steps back upon the waves

In her golden gown, whispering

Lay down

The Ballad of Mr. Black

(8/24/19 reworked from Let Go the Wheel ca. 1994)

He steps from the void and into your room

He draws the shades of this your self-selected womb

He places the gun on the table by the bed

And then he leans on in, to gently kiss your forehead

He packed his grey-black suit, his sword, and his charm for the trip

But he might not need it

He leaves you with your daydream, and the door open wide

He warns you of the danger and to not go outside

A shadow drifts along the table by the gun

Can you face the endless night, or do what must be done?

And face his long cold blade, and his best persuasive script

But he might not need it

He's back again impatient, alone beside your bed

He said "you have all the reasons, far behind and up ahead"

Standing tall, he raises the blade

Cold blue steel in your hand (the single shot) and Mr. Black betrayed

With a shrug he disappears, his card on the table it sits

Well, I might not need it

Behind the Fourth Wall 

(started in Croatia March 2016, finished 4/17/20 in Eugene)

I woke up with my head pounding

Sipped my coffee and felt depressed

I looked out on an awesome beauty 

And felt, well, quite unimpressed

Educating myself through YouTube

On the artist’s plight

As if I could figure out life’s Rubik’s Cube

And set my feelings right

You might say it sounds chaotic
Here behind the fourth wall

Some see it as exotic

But this I can tell you,

The fun never stops at all

But this is a blues after all

And not a happy tune

There’s no slide guitar drawl

Just a punchline from some dark cartoon

So I break the fourth wall

And my first rule in songwriting protocol

‘Cause I start the first line with “I"

And proceed the rhyme scheme to modify

You see there’s this committee in my head

They follow Robert’s Rules for One

I call the question but I’m misled

With no point of order, I’m overrun

Whenever I bring a motion to the floor 

There always a lively discussion

There’s many a gifted orator

And always a repercussion

You might say it sounds chaotic
Here behind the fourth wall

Some see it as exotic

But this I can tell you,

The fun never stops at all

Waiting for the Elsewhere

(12/7/19)

Waiting for the day

When wounds a canyon wide, melt like snow in the rain

Waiting for the day

An Everest cleaved, when all grieving oceans drain

Waiting for the day 

For the elsewhere and the answered prayer

Waiting on the rain

Drown in the sand and let the waves wear us free

Waiting on the rain

When arms surround the sadness that drives us to our knees

Waiting on the rain

Flood the dark, feed this desert heart

Looking for a way

To love the swords and ghosts right back to their graves

Looking for a way

To unfurl the fist and drop down the blade

Looking for a way

To the Waterfall

(3/20/20)

In the doorway

They stare

They switch your daydreams

With your nightmares

Like a thousand men

Who fight one war

Or just one ghost

With a thousand swords

Worlds dissolve

From lies so small

Runs the whispering stream

Right to the waterfall

Behind the sandy ridge

Against the flood

The coming tide

The greed, the blood

Just one word

Against the rest

Standing tall

While oceans crest

Refrain

Love’s breath weighs down

And yet we float somehow

Hours in hours, the dreams dissolve

Left with none, but now

Refrain