1. |
The Secret History
05:48
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there’s a hundred bodies buried in the ground
on the hill that we drove past to go to your dead father’s house
where they laid you down with all the other wilted women
who lit candles by the river and talked to themselves out loud
on the way home in the bleary grey dark october fog
I swore I saw a shadow moving in the rain that hit the car
I’d love to be wrong
I’d love to be wrong about death
you were the safety orange-gold of home
the porch light on, the electric thrum passed through, coursing around you
when I saw your face change from stern to angry musing then I knew
there was nothing that I could do
when I stepped inside your all consuming grace the first time around
it was all I could do to lie down and serve for you
I’d love to be wrong
I’d love to be wrong about death
I had my whole life
been a vessel waiting to be used
turned out and born anew
I am standing in the empty space
the vacant place that I had tied you to
it was easier to die
than to lose you (than to lose to you)
I’d love to be wrong
I’d love to be wrong about death
but you could never prove me wrong
so I write you out of all my memoirs
since he doesn’t like it when I talk
about the things that used to make me
feel alive now nearly break me
and I can never be convinced
that you love me now like you loved me then
the best that I can do for you is
walk away my black and blue
I’m in denial of everything I used to understand
so why do I feel the need to
let you hurt me the way you want to
I never recognised the way that people say it kills
but now I do
now I do
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2. |
New Brunswick
05:02
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I wanted to kiss you but I thought
that if I did, you might stop existing
you gave birth in the hallways after dark
the trees and green collected you another
since you know that I am hungry to be wanted
I wrote to you, all too aware that I
I could ruin this
and I could ruin you
I wanted to go home to you,
but you weren’t mine
at the end of it all
and there was an empty space
inside my womb
where you promised me a second life
you held your head to my chest
and listened to the heart beating,
and then I knew
that I had ruined this
and I could never ruin you
I wanted to go home to her
but she wasn’t mine
at the end of it all
and I saw the ghost of new brunswick
in the hallways
in the stories that you told me
I walked through the streets that I had never seen
if I kissed you would you stop existing
or walk into the empty space between us
would you tell me that you mean it
even if it’s just a lie
even if it’s just a lie
even if it’s just a lie
even if it’s just a lie
even if it’s just
even if it’s just
even if it’s just
even if it’s just
even if it’s just
even if it’s
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3. |
Molotov
02:48
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I had wanted to
kiss you in public
call me selfish but I thought
when your heart broke I’d be the one that had done it
I thought of you crying over me
grand gesture to win you back
watching you burn down my house
at least I’d have dignity in that
let me kill the one you wrote that song for
I know you love them but I can’t stand the way you feel
and if all I ever accomplished
was to be your ex lover
it would be the greatest thing I ever did
and I would be lucky for you to hate me
I’d wear your resentment like a locket
keep your face inside forever
just to prove that I had done it
you know I’d kill to be the one you wrote that song for
let me break your heart again
let me break your heart again
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4. |
4:06
04:21
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designated driver
you play your 45
I want to know all your thoughts
I’ve been waiting for them all my life and
I am jealous of people
walking past you on the street
I am jealous of people
offering to buy you a drink
standing next to you at concerts
see you browsing in a bookstore
scan your groceries at the counter
I’d do it all just to know you better
to know you better
to know you better
to know
I missed you
before I’d even heard your name
I knew I loved you
before I’d ever seen your face
before I’d even heard your name
I know the street signs
blue black waves across the bay
I felt the wind pause
I know the path, you showed the way
I know the shape of your hands
screaming in the crowd, tuxedo suit
train to the coastline
didn’t need a map, you were the route
I missed you
before I’d even heard your name
I knew I loved you
before I’d ever seen your face
I missed you
before I’d even heard your name
I knew I loved you
before I’d ever seen your face
I am accused of loving you
and what can I say, you know that I do
in another life
I’d be driving you home with the radio on
listening to your favourite song
listening to your favourite song
listening to your favourite song
listening to your favourite…
and you don’t know me
and you don’t really care
and you don’t know me
and you don’t wear my chains
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5. |
Interlude I
01:17
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written and performed by Max Macmillan and Wanda Roslyn
production and instrumentation by Michael Webster
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6. |
The Lexington
05:14
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she looked like the bad guy from an 80’s movie
with her plaid chequered trousers and her martens on her feet
making her two feet taller than the pylon of myself
coasting above the crowd of the lexington, above a crimson coloured fog
I saw a girl sway like a god, like a god
ancient ritual between her teeth, glinting in the winter of mixed drinks
a god, like a god, she beckons and i believe
I believe, I believe it
a shock of pink that fades to tangerine, lit up with sequin, christmas tree
amid the chandelier, pentonville and old veneers
that peel away to scuppered floors, cramped staircase and borrowed walls
plastered postcards of Barnes, old sea power, long gone
but she blooms through the mantling like a god, like a god
oh, all I have on upper arms, but understood to mean this place,
a god, like a god, she screams, feral and free, and I believe
I believe, I believe it
I believed in a new headstone
it’s wistful but you’re just being honest
to not knowing otherwise
4am to deliver us, I believe, I believe it
unknown number calls again from outside, below the lexington
and leaves another message I won’t pick up in the morning
she dances 9 hours ahead, goulburn gold in green bunk bed
the room spins and I let it take out the rest of february
I hear his lurid echo, like a god, like a god,
blacked out by the roadside, stag head, smoking garden,
like a god, like a god, but he’s not alive to see
me believe, I believe, I believe it
I put my faith in a new headstone
it’s wistful but you’re just being honest
to not knowing otherwise
4am to deliver us, I believe, I believed it
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7. |
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thirteen hours on a long haul
you know that I’m superstitious to a fault
it never could have gone well
though that’s not something that I would tell–
you’re staying up all night
mourning someone else’s broken heart
she wouldn’t want it
but you can’t close your eyes without reliving it
and I thought about protecting you
but what can I do through a phone line, tin can, kite string
I think about it
more than I care to admit it
and when I think about religious fervour
headstones and repentance
I think about you in the morning lit, as if from within
more than I care to admit
you sent her flowers
to feel some sense of trying
for lack of better option, I’m sorry
but I still hope that she got them
I ask if you can see the ocean from where you’re standing
coastal, blue black, wrought iron watching
you say that you can’t
so I change the scene that I’m picturing in my head
and when I think about devotion
it’s mainly just touching the back of your hand
telling you it’s alright to fall back to sleep again
and I never met your family
and I feel like I should have
and I thought about protecting you
but what can I do through a phone line, tin can, kite string
I think about it
more than I care to admit it
and when I think about religious fervour
headstones and repentance
I think about you in the morning lit, as if from within
more than I care to admit it
more than I care to admit it
more than I care to
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8. |
Killed For You
05:01
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want to be your first choice for your second life
want to be the one you’re untying at night
want to be the woman that’s as needed as a man
don’t you know how much effort I am putting in
to being precarious
you said it happens to the best of us
but I don’t see you falling out of luck
turn me on when you’re tired of your wife and your daughters
you need a release and I am the body you wanted
I’m not a bad person but I think that I could be
if that’s what you were asking of me
my first love was a woman
and she didn’t love me back
she still spared me the heartbreak
I often think about that
looking out of a plane window
the closest I will ever be to the ISS
daddy, you’re a genius
and I’m a wreck
but I’m not your saviour, never said that I would be
told you I’d make no promises, I ain’t no hercules
I would have killed for you
if that’s what you were asking me to do
you’re having a bad time
you want someone to tell you
that everything’s gonna be alright
but no one wants to be the one to lie
and I don’t want you to die
I just want you to feel pain for what you did to me
I would have killed for you
If that’s what you were asking me to do
and that’s what you asked me to do
and that’s what you asked me to do
and that’s what you asked of me
and that’s what you asked of me
(even if it’s just)
(I ain’t no hercules)
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9. |
Out Of Spite
06:14
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did I ever know fear before
the two hours when I thought you were gone
and I called on every ancient sacred thing
nothing answered except the phantom
apparition of my best friend’s soul
to tell me that I shouldn’t be scared of death
he’d welcome me with open arms
in our unspoken couple’s vows
I woke up wanting to take back
every thought of leaving I had ever had
and how is it that it becomes too real
when it’s someone else who isn’t me
and I’m afraid of our death dream again
and there was some visceral truth
in the morning when I knew I’d lost you
and I swore I’d never ask for anything again
and I willed you to hate me instead of being dead
and I would have lived with that if it meant you’d lived
if only out of spite
you died in my sleep last night
you died in my dreams last night
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10. |
Interlude II
01:35
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11. |
Not Guilty
04:19
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early october, I knew that the world was ending
watching the grey sky undulating
tried to find the words to say the wind hit me
in a way I didn’t understand
I thought I wanted solitude again
I thought there was artistic merit in
seeing how far I could take it
you can’t get away from
the looming world that you inherit
the forests and the holy spirit
did you forget
someone else lived
in this house before you were even born
did you forget
everything that you are feeling has been felt
by a person that you have never known
you couldn’t be alone
even if you wanted to
and I know your patience is growing thin
you move your hand off my back again
you say you don’t like to feel the bones
and I feel some sick sense of pride
I was a bonfire the world couldn’t stand
and now the colder months are closing in
I wish I wasn’t infatuated with
my own morbid self destruction
and I want to make you feel bad
for everything that you did to me
but you’re not guilty and you’d never tell me anyway
that’s what they always say, isn’t it
if there was anything I could have done, I would have done it
I would have done it
I would have done it
I would have done it
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12. |
Ancestor
03:36
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when we came out to the suburbs I thought
maybe this time it’ll be all I ever wanted
now my revenge fantasies never play out like I’d hope
we were supposed to get married
and I used to wish you’d die in your sleep lying next to me
an evil thought, I had it all the same
I am no better than the people who I blame
for making me this way
post-traumatic, existential
directionless and weak
obedient wife you made of me
all your heroes are bad people
and the ones who aren’t, you just don’t know it yet
it’s the way of the world, since you were just a little girl
never really had a chance, always too strange to comprehend
and nobody understood that frightened, silent kid
apart from men who said they would
if you’d be subservient in bed
I am always living out
my own contingency plans
they give out the crisis line
knowing you’ll call it up again–
fuck my father and the spirits
your father, too, hurt you’d inherit
fuck the men who paid to sleep with me
coersion until I’d agree
the way you got to keep your job
when everything was said and done
fuck acting like a docile pet
the performance and the cheap neglect
pray to god to never be possessed
or hurt or owned by broken men
and I hope you never experience happiness again
an evil thought, I have it all the same
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13. |
Reprise
03:36
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you said trust me, I said that’s all that I can do
and it was all I could do
I wanted to know you
and be known
I wanted to walk away to the edge of the world
and come home
to a house with the lights on
and the bed like I made it
I thought I could love you more than I hated it
more than I hated it
I remember the first time
I realised that you would hurt me
they say it’s easy in hindsight
but I knew this was always the way that it would be
I saw the warning signs
and put all my faith in your hands
I thought I could love you enough
to make you into a better man
and my fans will know
the fictionalised version of us
and I’ll sing the song that I wrote
when I thought that I couldn’t have been more in love
but i thought that you were proud of me
god damnit I wish I’d known
that there would be a time when you’d ask me
not to sing the song that I wrote
for you
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14. |
Lux Lisbon
04:08
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I don't know the answers
to the questions you’re not asking
I can’t tell the future
for a man who doesn’t want it
I’m not saying I’m not angry
I’m not saying anything
I would have come if you called me
after all that you did
does that mean that I’m selfish or does it mean that I’m weak
and I would have wanted to die, too
if it happened to me
like it happened to you
and I lived through it all too
but I would have never made you hold me
in the hospital room
I don’t pass through your mind
you don’t lie awake at night
you don’t notice my wrists when you’re averting your eyes
you touch me and it hurts
but I don’t complain, I’m happy for the contact anyway
I want to go back to the body where I was in control
I don’t want to be well, I don’t want to grow old
I want you to worry and tell me you’re scared
I want to hurt you while I’m hurting myself
and I need your concern and the questions you ask
I need to be beautiful while I’m killing myself
If I don’t have it then what do I have
but a stake through the heart and a torn wedding dress
I don’t want to be well, I don’t want to grow old
I don’t want to be well, I don’t want to grow old
and I wished that I had died on the night that you had–
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Anyone's Ghost Manchester, UK
Anyone’s Ghost is the solo project of Manchester based musician Wanda Roslyn. Writing about old poems and cold days, Wanda can often be found playing these songs in dreary North West bars and rainy city streets.
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