Get all 8 A Metropolitan Guide releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The One That Isn't Burned, The Girls You Sang to Sleep, Alternate Histories Vol. I, These Hills Are Gonna Rise, The Grand Revolution of Lakeside, Simulation Avenue, Pioneering, and Lesser Tragedies.
1. |
The Little Bird Shuffle
03:57
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On a rainy road the bloodied foxes rising from a dream land
And that rainbow above only lights the blood leaking onto the green grass
Draw a card or draw another, magenta red or another color
That bleeding heart need be a jack or better
Wash the clothes to another color, loyalty or just slightly under
The birds perched on a wire and sat, sayin' "baby, the foxes ain't never coming back"
Hey, little bird, did you hear the news?
The others flew away, and now they’re laughing back at you
Hey, little bird, see the blood upon the road?
It isn’t yours, it could be yours, it might be yours tomorrow
Back on the road that coyote there is gambling with a death wish
To risk it all just to cross a road, chickens have tried for less, yeah
Bluff the hand or bluff the dealer, deception wins just ask the winner
Then we’ll go drink and wonder where it all went wrong
If you cant win with the losing hand, then turn the tables and buy the land
No one will be around to bother when you burn it all down and rise it up again
A little bit of stardust to light a path across
The road full of dead, or rather all the things you said
I’ve a hotel on this boardwalk but this monopoly’s a bust
The rent is rising faster than a phoenix from the dust
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2. |
Vanguard
03:16
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Is it even possible to change sides in this fight?
Or is it even worth wondering, or is it just a colossal waste of time?
But that's life and that's alright
it's everyone just trying to stay alive
just trying to stay alive
I guess we're all listening to the same empty lies
that say even if you die
The ones in the back aren't in the songs of the bards
It's the ones with the rushing, gushing blood
in the vanguard
Runaway, runaway, runaway far
There ain't a soul on the battlefield who knows who you are
Runaway, runaway, runaway far
Keep on, keep on running until the guilt tears you apart
Everyone's awaiting for their chance to charge the lines
Thinking that the glory is just on the other side
But that's life, but let's apply
that thinking to all the other times
to all the other times
I don't have the skill to think that I can match
I don't want to kill, so I'll settle on a trap
The nerves are a little frayed, so I'll step a little slow
When I don't crash with the tip of the spear
nobody's gonna care, nobody's gonna know
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3. |
Mirage
04:32
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This world is getting smaller, so much smaller than before
but not in the way they all say when you get old
But rather suffocating, isolating like a sailor on the sea alone
Part of something endless, something that feels free
But confined to only the part you can see
I see the waters rising from the sands and land from the open sea
And, oh, how I want to believe
That this mirage lodged in my head for once is in my head
And this empire long since crumbled down can finally expand
I guess I'm glad I built my house out of tiny little stones
But it's that kind of rigid thinking that blows away a home
If you kill a man along the way in fiction or in melody
What you get is some murder ballad bliss and a conscience weightless and free
But confined to only the part it believes
Maybe that's a metaphor, maybe it's not
Or it's just the right amount of syllables to fit the spot
Maybe that's a metaphor, but it's probably not
Because damage, no matter what, always finds its spot
Like some kind of corner thrift shop
Hawking memories and figurines like an old song in the mind
Buried deep underneath the waterline
If these memories are gonna' die
drag 'em through the mud on the way by
and take note of those interstate love signs
Take that journey for yourself to find
it ain't nothing different, just a new kind of enterprise
It's a new direction for your tears to cry
and a new kind of dying to bring resurrected life
Or you know, right on theme and right on time
That phoenix is burning and soon it's gonna rise
Something else new for you to fail to define
A mirage I guess, but isn't everything in life?
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4. |
Phoenix Rising
03:11
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All those mythologies back when I was a child
Safely filed away under lock and key
But as the years tick away, consumed by all the flames
of a dark and terrible world
Ah, but they don't know that as the fires roll
the ashes of it all alight
And rekindle that life of the locked away child
and bring that phoenix to rise
Didn't anybody tell you that all the magic creatures died?
I just sit here hoping that it's a lie
And if I sift the dirt just right then something more than dirt will rise
and that magic is gonna come back to life
If there's no hope they're gonna embrace it
And if there is then they're gonna break it
But if you say it enough times
It'll start with a glow, and with a flash the flame will grow
And like the locked away child
The shackles will melt in the fire
And bring that phoenix to rise
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5. |
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Everybody's at the table claiming to know what they want
So out comes the brimstone and the fire
And whoever's left standing has the ashes to clutch
and a world barely worth remembering
You know what they say about the willow and the oak
and which one bends to make it through the storm
Maybe survival ain't the goal of your war
and compromise is all just make believin'
So, let me bask in the grey at every fucking turn
Because the only world we've got is the one that isn't burned
When the children are all loading guns and claiming that they're right
Brother, just remember that before you fight
Nothing brings a dead world back to life
You want to live in some ideal then that's your choice to make
And if you think that your unbending is gonna save you from the flames
Well, then I guess the lesson here that you're about to learn
is that fire's only as good as the fuel that it's got to burn
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6. |
Orphans
03:28
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Goodbye, so long, I guess I'll see you in a year
I know the story's always centered on how we're gonna rise
But you don't believe that, and probably neither should I
But for tonight there's no direction home
And really no place else to go
Orphans gaze at faded stars
and old, run down, abandoned cars
Scurry down the busy streets
On one hand kids and the other thieves
So fare them well
Brothers and sisters, fare them well
I've wasted enough time chasing down this dream of mine
Like an orphan on a missing person sign
Unclaimed, and unrecognized
But in perfect view so life can keep on passing by
But it's probably best to think before you go off starting wars
with someone who's got nothing to lose
You can call it a cheap shot
but all is fair in love and war
And I don't mean to make it out of this alive
Like a kamikaze coming from the sky
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7. |
October Snow
03:28
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In these days of autumn and the leaves are crashing down around the ground
The rustling just the sound of each and every one cursing all the way down
It's harvest time and there's a new crop to sow
Because around here October is fair, if unlikely, spot for snow
In a swirl of strings we're carried on the breeze
Summer or winter or somewhere in between
The seeds that you're plowing rarely grow
But that hardly gives permission to pack it in and cease to sow
Season expectation is the hardest thing down around this town
Maybe an unexpected summer breeze, or maybe we're walking more figurative, emotional ground
It's harvest time and that cold may be bearing down
But, here, for the first time in a while it's the warmth that's winning out
Here we go a-wandering like in all the books
Where nature transcends over life's darkest roots
And we'll make some recognition that we've always known
Like how the raging of the winter is just spring's excuse to grow
Musical expression is a hard thing when winter abounds
Like, is it major for the softness, or minor for the cold, or tension for the darkness around?
Let's settle in the middle with an added fourth or two
For when the snow is falling in October, that's a bit unexpected too.
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8. |
Tornadoes
03:27
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Batten down the hatches there's a storm coming on
She said "Is this all we're gonna do today, is this all we're gonna be?"
But I didn't reply, I just looked away
It's foolish to waste our time
Wasting faith, wasting strength
on what the storm's about to do anyway
Come the wind and come the rain
The forecast is calling for today
Tornadoes demolishing what's in the way
Enough chaos to make it feel like fate
Everything happens, but it happens quick
The houses to dust and the trees to sticks
The fires might erase, but the winds displace
and that's a whole new kind of trick
The sirens are blaring and the shoulders shrug
She said "Is this all the storm's got today? It's quiet and not a thing's around
But I didn't reply, I just cracked a smile
The silence is by design
You take a break first, then a whole bunch of work
Ah, the Midwest, in the grandest style
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9. |
The One To Tell Twice
02:50
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So many songs are about magic and myth
And I find myself wondering why that is
I guess the real world is coming up a little short
And I hoping that its rules aren't the unbreakable sort
This is all getting a little too tragic
And if they say passion is a fire then it might as well be magic
And if a story's all I need to go out there and find it
Then let me grab a golden lamp with a genie trapped inside it
I'll wish for the rearranging of each and every star
Until it shows a constellation that tells me where you are
Then I won't need magic or maybe even luck
For I'll have two more wishes when the going gets tough
The hardest part of this is to show a little trust
that something of value can come rising from the dust
But I feel it all drifting, quickly losing the thread
Through all the myths and questions of rising from the dead
So, start telling all the stories that can bring some kind of life
But the ones that can resurrect, well tell those ones twice
Maybe they'll be better off than what we've left behind
A newer version mixed with the wisdom of a little time
Like so many times before I'm gonna work with what I have
and weigh it all up against the magic and the ash
And see if what is left has got a chance to last
or if it's just another failing of the substance to the flash
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10. |
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What did that violin play I wonder
The stories claim one thing or another
Maybe "Autumn" came, or some long-forgotten hymn
But whatever that violin sang
Whatever that violin sang
Whatever that violin sang
I am nearer to my God, for thee.
Was the violin in tune I wonder
or did it bend when the cold came down like water
I've played strings in the cold and it's nowhere I want to be
Did it break you heart I wonder
When that final note rang out like thunder
And you swung the case over your shoulder for the last time
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