Get all 3 Gilbert Neal releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
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1. |
Listen!
01:56
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1st voice:
When obligations float out to the sea,
And I panic when you forget me,
And I cry, oh why? Oh why?
I tried to control you with my monkey grip,
And I panic when I start to slip,
And I cry, Oh why? Oh why?
2nd voice:
Will you still need me, my sweet refugee?
There’s thoughts here that you never see,
But you try
You tried to warn me with your rumble strip,
But warnings are just alibis.
They’re just lies.
3rd voice:
What was so certain is so hard to see,
Why am I mourning my living this way?
4th voice:
Do you think you’ll mourn when I die?
Aaah.
Maybe for just a while,
Everybody sit down and listen?
Maybe for just a while,
Let somebody else take the wheel?
Maybe for just a while,
We could all sit down and listen?
Maybe for just a while,
Let somebody else know how it feels?
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2. |
Claudius
04:58
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Claudius would smile,
Claudius would sing,
Nero really doesn't do that much of anything.
Claudius would smile, waving down the aisle,
Nero only grimaces and lacks a little style,
Claudius' suit, masculine and cute,
Nero bought his off the rack, and thinks he's a recruit,
Claudius shook a hand, grooving to a band,
Nero reads the manual but doesn’t understand
Claudius come back, you knew what you were doing,
Clau Clau please come back, before we meet our doom
Nero push and shove you, thinks that he's above you,
But no amount of power will make daddy say "I love you"
Claudius loved his life, his children and his wife,
But Nero thinks it's funny to be stupid with a knife,
Claudius retired, he's living on a farm,
Nero is a pimp with a hooker on his arm,
People say that Nero's gonna live and learn,
But I think he was sent to us to watch it burn...
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3. |
Here Comes the Yes
05:08
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“Yes” is just a word, its power is absurd,
Darken when it’s missing, and brighten when it’s heard
Some people never hear it, ever simple, ever clean
If and when they really need it, Yes is nowhere to be seen
But if they keep on pushing and they're faithful to their dream
The Yes's start to dominate, they propagate,
They duplicate, they
Soon become contagious like a sweet benign disease,
The person in the mirror is the one we need to please
Here comes the Yes, in her summer party dress,
She knows you she blows you her kisses on the sly,
Here comes the yes in a summer party dress,
She shows you she grows you the stuff that gets you high
“No”’s a thing they say, get the powerless to stay that way,
They machinate in the night time as righteous pricks by day
Bureaucrats and slavers sharpen up their sabers,
The fingers on the scales have never done you any favors,
Look at what you see, Trust your eyes, Hear the sighs,
Of another generation of a broken class,
Opening their thighs,
Over and over and over again to keep you at a distance
I asking you to be open to a path of more resistance
See her in the sun, she says she’s only teasing,
She needs just one more reason to kiss you in the sand,
She’s yours yours yours for the taking if you dare
To kick another door down,
Who gives a care if it’s the right one?
Will that be your consolation?
Nobody's blowing kisses to you in the middle of the night...
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4. |
Mistakes and I
04:22
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A wiser fool would never drop vizard,
But no one’s ever had to push this hard,
Other people feel the torrent coming,
The rolling eyes and all those fingers drumming,
It feels like one big cautionary tale
But maybe there’s still time to pay the bail,
And free us from the sentence of our sin,
And free us from the prison of our skin
House in rubble,
Letter in my hand,
Doorbell broken,
Not meant to understand
Windows shattered,
Make it like we planned,
No one answers,
Not meant to understand.
I’ve finally come to terms with my mistakes,
A heart that’s bigger every time it breaks,
And even though there’s pieces on the ground,
You make them bigger every time they’re found
Mistakes and I have reached a new detente,
The thing I need can meet the thing I want,
There’s ribbons and there’s trophies on the shelf,
So what am I protecting in myself?
But still there is a glimmer of reprieve,
The cost is worth the chance to just believe,
If only we’d admit we took the bait,
And let our better angels bear the weight...
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5. |
Ceremony
04:10
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Broken boy and feral kitten,
But they bonded just the same,
Tiny blackened mittens,
So “Mittens” was its name,
And the boy moved Mittens’ family,
To a box inside a shed,
Lined it with a blanked,
And went on off to bed.
The care he used to shelter them,
Domesticated, loyal friends,
Just a touch of something like control,
Gentle mercy for to fill a hole,
Surely someone to reward him then,
Light a candle no one else could see,
Maybe this would have a different end,
Something finally that he controlled...
Scent of moldy clothes and cedar,
As the sunlight arched inside,
Would his new friends play willingly,
Would their insolence subside?
He’d pit them against each other,
In unknowable charades,
And why were they not grateful,
For the shelter he had made?
A gentle pushing had become a shove,
A subtle tapping would become a war,
A bloody ritual of scratched-up hands,
As tiny Mittens’ eyes and voice implored,
“The gift you’ve given is a wonder, true,
And I am thankful to my god for thee,
But there is nothing in my love for you,
That means that you can have control of me...”
It died a few days later,
In the heat haze of disease,
And like some kind of Braille highway,
Body overrun by fleas,
Its tiny eyes still open,
Its little mouth so dry,
As it tried to climb the stairway,
To say one last goodbye.
He took the body to a neighbor’s yard,
Nobody saw him as he threw side-arm,
To meet its maker like the ones before,
Messiah mercy on a faceless farm,
And as he walked behind his secret shed,
A little mewling in the tallest weeds,
He stopped to greet another innocent,
And for a second, he could feel again...
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6. |
The Mayor of Estes Park
03:56
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Blood in his kisses, sand in his sex,
Roads in his wrist where his pulse used to flex,
Somebody loitered here way after dark,
The Mayor of Estes Park
Bumps on his back where his burden will rest,
Mud in his mind and there’s hands on his chest,
Smell of the last of a dissonant spark,
The Mayor of Estes Park
Snakes in his soul where his spine ought to be,
Nails in his loins, and there’s ropes in the trees,
He’ll bomb your bridges to assert a remark,
The Mayor of Estes Park
He saved my life,
The Mayor of Estes Park
He saved my life,
The Mayor of Estes Park
His paper promises spill out in the heat,
They dance in circles at the end of the street,
The sun is pure, but the shill is stark,
The Mayor of Estes Park
Imagination’s where your pain resides,
Imagination was your ticket to ride,
His fingers trace your irresistible arc,
The Mayor of Estes Park
And that is why the Mayor never takes sides,
His calculations of the things you’ll abide,
Don’t look down when you jump that shark,
The Mayor of Estes Park
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7. |
Take That as a Maybe
04:08
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We shared an elevator ride,
Broken English smiling wide,
I brought a conversation with me, hoping for a sparkle inside,
She held a notebook to her chest,
Looked me up and down and guessed,
We knew the only thing we shared was chance proximity,
She glared at me, I stared at her,
We both returned to what we were,
She glared at me, I stared at her,
We both returned to what we were...
She backed away from all my jive,
Still I kept the jive alive,
My words were fading aerosol from a rusty, drooping gun,
And my old codger college try, and the please don’t do or die,
And I’m fading like a scar,
‘Cause a scar is all we are,
Forgotten in the time it took,
To never take a second look,
The pieces fall on to the floor,
She was not joking anymore...
I took that as a “maybe.”
I took an elevator ride,
Broken English smiling wide,
And I must have seemed like a pasty dream,
From the place where the atoms collide,
She smiled and nodded at my lines,
And they landed at a pretty good rate,
But I kept on pushing way beyond the expiration date,
I read the lines, but not the room,
The smile dissolved into concern,
Neither one of us could slow me down,
The dream deferred, the tired clown...
I took that as a “maybe.”
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8. |
My Julie
03:34
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Got out the Moosewood,
Made some tabbouleh,
I showered hard and dabbed my zones with Patchouli,
My ponytail was tight, and my
Facial hair unruly,
My Julie,
Dug out my pleather, hung it on the door,
Propped Joni Mitchell at an angle on the floor,
Dog-eared some Kahlil Gibran I have not read before,
My Julie
She came in and I wasn’t the same,
She’s that rose with an hourglass frame,
I caved in to every cool request she made,
And every word was like a serenade...
We met speed-dating,
She kept me waiting,
But pretty soon I caved into the vibe she was creating,
And who must I bribe for a little extra time?
My Julie
I guess to her, the memory is buried,
But Julie fueled the brightest torch I ever carried,
I guess she didn’t like the fact that I was married...
My Julie
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9. |
Where Are You?
04:16
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Where are you? Why won’t you go?
Remembered rendezvous reminded me of you,
Ever silent by my side,
And through the hollow years,
The poverty and fears,
With me you would remain,
A dream that kept me sane,
A light to see me through,
Ethereal, yet true.
Where are you? Why won’t you go?
Others heard that sea,
Those crashing waves in me,
And begged to ride along,
You put me on the track,
But I kept on looking back,
And patiently you sighed,
And let the others ride,
But the damage had been done.
God damn what I’ve become
Where are you? Why won’t you go?
Dreams will force realities to march into the sea,
But soon enough, those dreams, in turn, are drowned,
Bitter cries and hopes and sighs will rise one final time,
To sink forever, never to be found,
Sink forever, never to be found
Where are you? And why won’t you go?
How wretched I must seem,
To keep on chewing through this dream,
This musty lullaby,
Too lost and loose and dumb,
To stop and wonder why you’d come,
And with your poison in my heart,
Tear the other dreams apart,
For a one-way love affair,
With the sweet forever there,
As prize.
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Gilbert Neal Hillsborough, North Carolina
A modern pop artist and intrepid tourist of styles.
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