1. |
Prisoner
04:04
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PRISONER
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
After all the screaming, drinking nights of long ago,
After all the mornings paralyzed on your pillow,
You have judged me wanting; I don’t disagree.
Bide my time in solitary pleading for clemency.
After all the cobblestones on which we slipped,
After all the condemnation’s done, to which you’ve gripped…
Let the prisoner out tonight.
He will see the morning light,
And be dazzled by the rays
That come bursting through the haze.
When the fog lifts, you’ll see it’s true:
That the prisoner (the prisoner, the prisoner) was you.
After all the ways we tried and failed to live through this,
Could it be the one thing missing now is forgiveness?
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2. |
Church Basements
03:55
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CHURCH BASEMENTS
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe (inspired by Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum”)
Hide and seek in the church basement
I am eight years old
I have found a hole
Within a Black Forest of music stands
Depending on my placement
No one will find me
For eternity
Save Katie wading to me on her hands
Katie, Katie...
Save me
From the church basements (basements)
Katie crawls to me, we are sardines
In the stands' seaweed
From Sunday School we're freed
We'll get Laughing Jesus to marry us
Katie, won't you be my queen?
You're as smart as me
We'll rule o'er grade three
'Til the stands collapse and bury us
Katie, Katie...
Save me
From the church basements (basements)
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3. |
Hellhounds
04:13
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HELLHOUNDS
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
Your forty days passed much too slowly,
Tempted by an African Mephistopheles
For thirteen years of finger-picking thrall.
All we who plod and strum can’t take the Fall.
All we who plod and strum can’t take the Fall.
Hellhounds on your trail, you’re on your own,
So utterly alone.
Were your fingers stubs assaulting steel-bodied National guitars?
Oh did you hesitate at your offer, wondering what Jesus said,
Or was your mind free of dogma when pondering what Satan tells you now?
Did Son’s eyes expand when he saw your newfound mastery of the blues?
Did your fingers lull mysteriously and snake-charm any woman you choose?
Oh King you could have changed all that we think and feel and sing and play.
Thankfully you’re gone, in synch with history’s romantic way…
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4. |
Gutter
03:35
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GUTTER
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
I’m looking for someone to believe. Not a substitute Lord,
But someone who won’t grieve
Over my decaying corpse once she crucifies me.
I’m looking for someone to believe.
But you should know:
I grab my favourite things the way a gutter grabs its water,
Dragging you down to my depths. Can you feel it getting hotter?
Hotter?
I’m looking for someone to see me
With myth and lore and a talent to be.
Are you my core, my pure unbridled me?
Cause I’m looking for someone to believe.
But you should know…
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5. |
Sarah Angeline
04:01
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SARAH ANGELINE
Words and music by Andrew Hunter Scholey
Sarah Angeline,
woman of my dreams,
you mean all the world to me.
All these fucked-up dreams,
as simple as they seem,
don't add up to what they should have been.
And I still recall your face,
and I still recall the place,
when I sat you down and you saw right through me.
And I still recall the time
when I sat you in my mind,
when I failed this task of mine to entertain you truly.
This endless task I see,
to mend this broken seam,
Ain't as hard as what it could be.
This little kid I see,
my elementary me,
Is not as young as what he could have been.
And I still recall your face,
and I still recall the place,
when I sat you down and you saw right through me
And I still recall the time
when I sat you in my mind,
when I failed this task of mine to entertain you truly.
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6. |
Five Finger Exercise
04:54
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FIVE FINGER EXERCISE
Rae Perigoe
1
The right-hand piano tinkles away,
A hand disembodied bringing thoughts of yesterday.
Who will you walk with if not me? Not me.
I’m not bitter; you’re very kind…
Just as a friend should be. Then you put it out of mind.
Who will you walk with if not me? Not me.
2
When I first wrote a song for you,
You were the place where I could forget.
Things have changed; I now run out my days
Trying hard not to remember.
When I first wrote a song for you… those were the days...
3
When I would myself question love’s tendency to fade.
You might say I was self-obsessed.
I would say self-aware; was a difference made?
Now I pile up my days without you, oh…
What a strange sobriety your absence is.
Fantasies of you become my methadone.
In diluted form your presence lives.
For we’re not the same.
(Repeat movement 2)
3 (cont.)
…when I had you pegged, I had the market cornered
On all claim to your fate.
Your were my Eve before the apple
For the serpent to violate.
You were to join me in my fallenness,
But the fall never took place.
Could it be the metaphor was useless?
The habitual condition of the poetic race.
For we’re not the same.
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7. |
Nocturnal
02:18
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NOCTURNAL
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
Sleep while receiving
Respite from grieving.
Thoughts fall away from the time she was leaving.
Loneliness harms you,
It sings to disarm you.
Shadows consume the laughter that calms you.
Sleep as your watch ticks
Amidst the burned wicks.
Her candle wax, melted onto the floor, sticks.
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8. |
Your Highness
04:03
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YOUR HIGHNESS
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
Consider yourself pedestalized on the shelf of my imagination.
Your poetic smile – my muse – gives birth to nations.
Seal me in your amniotic fluid, make me swim in extasis.
That makes it OK -- it’s warm here – I can forget all my losses.
Not sure I wanna go right now, Your Highness –
My own Majesty calls me.
Not sure I wanna go right now, Your Highness;
I just might set us both free. (repeat)
Consider myself depedestalized, knocked off the heights
I thought I needed,
Happy in my unimportance. I won’t transcend.
Neither will you.
So let’s make love; let’s be perfection;
let’s pulsate slowly for a while.
Leaving behind our earthly problems,
we forget and are forgotten.
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9. |
Anointments
04:55
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ANOINTMENTS
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
“Keep washing my feet,” Jesus says,
“It won’t be long before I’m at rest.”
Those wilted flowers they place at his tomb,
Won’t help us much to face our doom.
Why is it we can’t take his advice?
Find neighbours to anoint with our own spice?
We stare, we stare, we stare at our plans,
Without realizing that we can…
Make anointments in our own voice,
Make anointments and then rejoice.
Make anointments of our own choice,
Make anointments and then rejoice.
(Rejoice, make anointments)
Astronomy’s a humbling thing;
You crane your neck and then feel the sting
Of individuality gone
But ego keeps right blindingly on…
But if we looked away from our mirror,
Our place here we’d perceive much clearer,
For while the stars are spun through the night,
Right here we can regain our sight.
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10. |
Clarity
04:20
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CLARITY
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
Get out of my life. I’m sick of metaphors. How’s this for clarity? I don’t want to see you anymore. There’s comfort in bullshit. But that’s not the case anymore. You may think this is a sad song, but I wanna laugh, for you’ll no longer be a stone in my path. There’s virtue in subtlety. Should I really care anymore?
Cuz I’ve floated for too long. I’ve floated for both of us, over both of us. But I’m grounded now. I’m grounded now. Plug me in. Turn me on. I’m grounded now.
Don’t think I take pleasure in causing you pain. My only pleasure’s in never seeing you again. There’s peace in silent suffering. I don’t want to be silent anymore. Get out of my life. That’s a command. A pretty simple concept, no subtext to understand. There’s safety in your arms. Safety isn’t easy anymore. Cause I’ve…
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11. |
Eloquence
05:28
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ELOQUENCE
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
Hold on there’s something better than this. Something better’s coming soon. Hold on there’s something better than this. Something better’s coming soon. Tomorrow morning your mother will find you hanging from the rafters of your basement flat. The PA will snap me from my sixteen-year-old somnambulism by informing me that my high-school volleyball team has won the district championship and oh, by the way, by the way, your friend took his life last night. Oh. And right now finding pretty witty little rhymes doesn’t seem to matter as much as my guilty uninvolved potential to save your life. Oh my friend, what could I have said? You’re loved. Your life has meaning. Don’t make me hate myself for my clichés. You’re loved. I’m sorry that the words won’t come; I’m not properly rehearsed. You’re loved as you slip into your noose. Don’t punish me for my lack of eloquence. You’re loved. I won’t let you go. No I won’t let you go. Had I taken your call that rainy April night what would I have told you? Would my existentially-racked teenage soul have prattled on about the myth of Sisyphus, intellectualizing everything, as it is safer to do? When in fact the best thing I could not say was two words long? You’re loved…
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12. |
Muse
04:28
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MUSE
Words and music by J. Rae Perigoe
What are you running from?
Is it the boogeyman?
Is it the man inside your head
Who strums the strangest chords
And smiles?
You’ll give your life to him
He’ll feed on all your sin
He’ll rip your shirt off as he gives you
All the riches in the world,
Incarcerates you.
And he sings oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
And smiles.
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13. |
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DANCING ON THE GRAVESTONES
Words and music by Andrew Hunter Scholey
Hello again.
It’s sure been a long time since I’ve seen you.
You know this life of mine ain’t strong.
It sure helps to pass the time along ‘cause I’ve been…
Dancing on the gravestones.
Dancing on the friends I have known.
Dancing on the gravestones.
Dancing on the lives I have known.
And I say hey, hey, hey.
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The Human Trampoline Toronto, Ontario
"She means we're bouncing into Graceland." -- Paul Simon
"Katie and the Church Basement" is the debut album from this
eclectic folk-rock group, bouncing between the stages of Toronto ON. The album moves from the majestic "Prisoner," to the bluesy Mississippi mud of "Hellhounds," to the carefree, uptempo rock of "Sarah Angeline." Come bouncing with them into Graceland.
... more
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