Get all 14 Short Hand releases available on Bandcamp.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Red Tigers, stir that mule up, Fourth Peter, Third Peter, Short Life, ill fish, The Leaves, Head Full, and 6 more.
1. |
Molecules in the Dust Up
02:57
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Please, please there’s a target called love,
Within or without us, below or above us
Please, please there are TVs like buses
There are buses like TVs,
There is something from nothing
Please, please two stars collide in the black
Two birds fly out to sea, the sea awakes and flies back
Please, please the wind in the weeds is a flute
You and me well below laced together like a work boot
Please please you’ve got to learn to harness
All of your hopes to smoke in the furnace
Please please you’ve got to burn the wood good, man
Again and again, man, and everything, with no name
Please please the god you discovered in the forest
Is a slightly different imp than the imp running through the chorus
Please please the abyss at the end of your nose
Is a broken cry to a broken sky on a broken xylophone
Please please on the radio in the backroom
There’s a show about work called the breakroom will be broke soon
Please please zip the front of your coat,
Rub your ears in a hat, twist a scarf round your throat
Please please the hatchet in your hand seems directed at me
Or at least at the leather in my feather hatband
Please please the most desperate of hearts
wobbles through the air like a verboten lawn dart
please please shadows as tall as a fog
walk on hunches crawl in bunches, huffing like a lost dog
please please no more fences or moats
no more boats for the sailors, no more oceans full of boats
please please a man in a car travels far
off into the horizon, a single stitch on a single scar
please please Jesus ain’t here but if he were I bet
he’d like a moment or two alone with a lover, in the sunset
please please the buildings in New York
are digesting wine people and spitting out corks
please please the buildings on Mars
are digesting nothing worth noting but spitting out stars
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2. |
Us Must Trust
03:10
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Suddenly, eventually, us must trust
In each other, love.
Weirdly, finally, us must trust
In each other, love.
You look around a while
For the red tigers
(The red tigers!)
Maybe you find nothing at all
it’s just your imagination that’s all
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3. |
Wind Chimes
02:18
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Somewhere there’s a place with no name
No shame no regrets no headaches
No someone to blame
A place to layup in a plowed field
All green and gold, all reap and yield
A song you sing without any notes
A throat buttoned up like a coat opens up
But in the wind a dream floats on a boat still
Still a silly note is pinned neath the window sill
Listen, man: you are the afternoon
Listen, man: I am the afternoon, too
And there are wind chimes, baby,
There are wind chimes, baby
There are wind chimes, baby
There are wind chimes, baby
And what’s it matter, what’s death?
To a baby’s mouth holding a baby’s breath?
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4. |
The Mortgage
02:34
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O, I never mean to hurt you girl
And O, I know you never mean to hurt me girl
The price of our misunderstanding
Rifled hearts, two guns drawn and jamming
O you pay it off, it’s the mortgage and you put it away
Our little world so ordinary
Our little world so extraordinary
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5. |
Pet the Dogs
03:16
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By the time it’s evening
We want to put on pj’s
And watch Tv
The summer light hangs in the air
We’ll look for the remote control
I’ll find a crossword
And you’ll have a beer
And maybe later, another
And I’ll pet the dogs
And you’ll pet the dogs
And I’ll let the dogs out back
And you’ll let the dogs back in
And they’ll sleep at our feet again
And we’ll talk easy
About the movie
But then get very serious discussing
The kids and their future success
And when it’s late
You’ll go to bed and I’ll go ahead
I’ll head down the stairs
And write songs like this here
And I know that the happiness that
Happens is only our happiness
But the world is full of the unexplained
And I know that the goodness that
Happens is only our goodness
But the world is full of the unexplained
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7. |
Sister from the South
02:37
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Who would have guessed when we met
Which parts of our lives we would get
Who would have assessed what an old apartment complex
Would twist together with yes
Who could have cased the staircase
Who could have known the doors
Who could have seen in that midnight scene
Anything more
Who could have tasted the hair spray
Which sisters drove in from the south
Who could have dreamed that what happened within
Also happened without
Who could have turned those wheels
Who could have spoke those spokes
Who could have rolled those circular holes
Down hills like musical notes
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8. |
Tell (Do Well)
03:07
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Sometimes you’re a horrific mess
All poorly-dressed, baked and underfed
Slip sliding down the marble bannister to hell
Still sometimes it’s like you swallowed a verbose fish
You want to be nonchalant and keep it all hid
But you’d do well to tell
I’m not a shrink or professional therapist
It’s not my occupation or deep secret wish
And I’m not saying you gotta stand tall on stilts and ring a gigantic bell
But when your mind is a rabid bird
Pecking at your frontal lobe with unsaid words
You’d do well to tell
And we could call the world a perfect pond of shit
A bit of that, a bit of this
And pretty soon you’ve got a riot to quell
It might not be the only way to clear the air to get from ‘lost here’ to ‘found there’
But you might as well do well and tell
I’m not trying to be super cute, facile, or smart
Not trying to settle something or start it
I feel pretty sure but I’m not gonna twist your arm and yell
I think 8 times out of 10
The best place to begin, again and again
Is to do well and tell
And I don’t want to belabor the position
Not trying to beat you into submission
Don’t mean to knock over trees that already fell
But when your thoughts are dead tigers
Held together by rusty pliers
You’d do well to tell
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9. |
The Neighborhood of Love
02:42
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So it seems
So it goes
Your brother thinks
Your mother knows
Your friends believe
And your father’s sure
The doctor grins
It’s the perfect cure
Meanwhile, all of us by the dozens
In the neighborhood of love
Just trying to live decent lives
in the midst of this never-ending crisis
we call modern life
above or below us
in front or behind us
in truth or in lies, son
with death on the horizon
from what I know
from what I’m told
the trumpet blows
the sky unfolds
and still somehow
it’s not clear at all
what is possible
to the apostle Paul
your neighbor swears
your paster prays
your lover loves
what cannot stay
what comes alive
and what disappears
is the happiness
and the happy fears
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Short Hand Muncie, Indiana
Short Hand figures that it's easier to learn to play an instrument than it is to find someone who can play it. He also figures that it's easier for him to do the writing, recording, mixing, artwork, and anything else that might need to be done. In the end, a set of sounds collect themselves into different shapes one might call "albums." Some sound like this and some sound like that. ... more
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