The Hinterhaus

Complete lyrics to the new album:

Marrow
The Canonization of Margot Price
The Hinterhaus
Back to Your Flat
The Mark
Dust and Wax
Sweet Manhattan
Borrowed or Begged
Summer
August

How can a body prove its worth?
what if I gave the wind a curl
hoping some industrious bird
might weave it into something warm and good

’cause there’s nothing hard at all about the center of a bone
it’s sweet to suck the soft marrow
keep on working at me ’till I’m all hollow
and lighter than a dove-tailed swallow

Oh to be made to rise above
and build nests out of straw and mud
on so many tiny beating hearts
I’d lose track of my own dull throb

CHORUS

But I was made to stand upright
on earth that’s cracked like elbow skin
and worry about Frost at night
and feel the weight I’m carrying

The Canonization of Margot Price

That night I climbed the stairs
As though I were making a pilgrimage
As though when I had reached the top
I might become illuminated and wise

But I saw her there
Crouched at the kitchen table
Lost to the world
In the ritual consumption

Of spoon to bowl to maw
Bone rubbing bone noisily
in rhythmic mastication
Until the box was gone
I saw, I saw

I saw her there
Through the bathroom door
Purging herself
Of the shame that rotted in her gut
Until she was no more than a relic

I thought of the woman
who’d been made a saint
for lying on a plank in her basement
until she starved to death
and of the one who cut off her breasts

I thought of lighting votives
On her clavicle
Like the ones burning
In the catacombs of Paris
And praying for her resurrection
Saying, “come back to me, oh please,
Come back to me.”

The Hinterhaus

There is a house behind your house
a floor beneath the floorboards
with planks of spruce sanded smooth
and cut to fit the corners
and no one would have noticed
no one could have guessed
that every time they’d come around
they’d been your courtyard guests

when was it that you forgot?
who you were and were not
how to feel as you looked out
at all man’s suffering and pain,
so exquisite, so mundane
saw the trigger of a gun
curled like a question mark

I know what it is
to be half transformed
still burdened with the evidence
of what you were before
but all of this forgetting –
tell me how it’s done
tell me where you keep the memory
of somebody you’ve loved

there is a house behind this house
curtains upon curtains
oh but you can come anytime you like
my door is always open

Back to Your Flat

Your scent is still on my dress
and my hairs are on your sweater
the ink is still wet
on how this will be remembered
I never knew, no I never knew
and I never could have guessed

that when we laughed our way back to your flat
I might never come back the same
oh and we laughed our way back to your flat
I may never come back the same

we’re propped up on our elbows
belly-down upon your bed
the dictionary is open
to the word “earnest”
yeah, your English it was pretty good
but you didn’t understand

Oh and we laughed our way back to your flat
I may never come back the same…

Oh and I hope that Serendipity,
the traveler’s patron saint,
is smiling sweetly on you now
as you bike home in the rain

your scent is still on my dress
and my hairs are on your sweater
tiny souvenirs of a night to be remembered
’cause I can’t be sure that our paths will ever
chance to cross again

like when we laughed our way back to your flat
I may never come back the same…

The Mark

There was a moment where I had really lost my style
I’d keep flashing my teeth at people and calling it a smile
I thought I’d fooled everyone but you took me aside
said be kind, oh be kind, oh be kind, won’t you be kind
oh be kind, oh be kind, oh be kind, won’t you be kind

so we went buzzing around like two drunken honeybees
mix-tapes and double takes and letters overseas
you say the corniest things, I can’t even believe
but it’s sweet, yeah it’s sweet, yeah it’s sweet, oh you’re so sweet
yeah it’s sweet, oh it’s sweet, oh it’s sweet, oh you’re so sweet

time stretches like taffy
melts quicker than salt
I just want to be happy
for however long we’ve got

You took a felt-tip pen, drew a circle ’round my heart
I said, “so what’s this then, some kind of modern art?”
you said, “no, it’s just so I can better learn my mark
if I fall, if I fall, if I fall, oh if I fall,”
if you fall, if you fall, if you fall, oh, I will follow

Dust and Wax

Oh we had a spark so brilliant
my love and I
and we wrote a pact and sealed it
vowed to keep it bright

so we found ourselves a lantern
and thought that we were safe
not seeing how the light was bending
not seeing how the warmth escaped

while we were packing
I found soft, hand-rolled candles
buried in a drawer
and I cried to see the pair like that
dust clinging to the wax

I think everyone’s smoking now
just to prove they can breathe
see this cloud above my head?
well, that air was in me

CHORUS

so scorch me love, but do it quick
pass our fingers near the wick
pour a pool onto the paper
and press our thumbs into it

CHORUS

Sweet Manhattan

I know a place down in Chelsea
where my friend works as the hotel barkeep
and he’ll fix me a drink
if I sit down to think
and the thoughts that I think get too heavy

take two parts of your favorite bourbon
and one part of tremontis mirto
the brandy-soaked cherries
bring out the myrtle berry
and a dash of those old orange bitters

Oh silk and satin, oh sweet Manhattan
and summer so far away
you’re looking blue bird, go find a new bird
to keep the winter at bay

Je préfère les romans
Je veux habiter dedans
parce qu’ils font plus de sens
que toutes mes vraies romances

j’ai cherché entre tous les mots
ceux muets et ceux très forts
mais si tu demandes une réponse
je peux seulement dire, « euh, bon, ça dépend… »

Alors quelle genre cette histoire ?
je ne comprends jamais les fins
si je commençais à rire
est-il vraiment un comédie ou quoi ?
Je sais pas, et donc je boire

Oh silk and satin, oh sweet Manhattan
and summer so far away
so clink your glasses
toss down the hatches
a warmth that is here to stay

Borrowed or Begged

Oh I’ve got these blackened traveler’s feet
and I’ve got this broken train-stop sleep
I got miles unfurled in front of me
before I reach my own country

I can’t count the places I laid my head
seems most of them were borrowed or begged
and it may have cost half of all I own
but I know the difference between a house and a home

I dreamed that I was fast asleep
with a pup on either side of me
and a grey cat stretched out at my feet
in a lover’s bed in North Philly

CHORUS

So I’m riding in this foreign car
sucking fruit I don’t know the name of
and this I would give you my love:
something sweet and strange upon your tongue

CHORUS

Summer

I saw a man singing here on the street
he had holes in his shoes, you could see his bare feet
he wore a smile on his face, there was pep in his step
I thought, man, what’s he know that I don’t get yet?

You know I feel such a misfit when I look at the sky
’cause I’m so down and lowly and it’s so divine
you don’t have to be crazy to feel you’ve lost your mind
you don’t have to be happy to be doing just fine

take a ride, windows down, sharing songs with the town
they all mix with the sound of cicadas
coming back from the beach we got sand in the seats
and some salt water taffy for later
when we return with our memories and our songs

August

You sleep like a child
So trusting and deep
While I lean back into
A late night symphony

My ball-point scratching in the dark
With the noises of mice in the kitchen drawers
I can hear them from all the way down the hall
But I don’t mean them any harm

Oh and it occurs to me
There are several sorts of peace
Yours is wrapped up in your dreams
And mine is solitary

Lying next to you
In the soft space of this room
I’ll whisper a tune
Of yellows, pinks, and blues

Of climbing the hills with oil pastels
And a box full of old newspapers
With people I love and the moon coming up
Our hunger fully sated

CHORUS

See, even the power lines
Cannot mar or hide
The beauty of the skyline
In this brilliant fading light

There in the gloaming the cattle are lowing
The grasses are blowing gently
Bowing their heads with reverence
For the majesty of the heavens

CHORUS