DEMO (2012 Voice Memo)
music & lyrics ©️dr bob
reinterpretation of genesis via milton
through foucault and althusser via spanos
**********

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves amongst the trees. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. (Genesis 3:8-10)

**********

When I was born the world had hardly left the dark
There wasn’t yet a story arc 
For the rise and fall of man

Now I know night and day are easy to invert
When your heart is made of dirt
And what you see is all a dream

I name who is fit to fly and who is fit to crawl
Everything is put on hold every time a sparrow falls
Somewhere there’s a lock without a key
Somewhere blood is hailing Cain and Saul
I only come when I’m called

If all there was was paradise and you
And I was forced to choose
I know you know what I would do

So lay you down beside that foot of human pride
Heave your caution to one side
Have it all

The falling figs of fall are modeled on this fall
An honest bite for truth that fucks it for us all
You might have your fruit and eat it too
I might have my back against the wall
I only come when I’m called

Now if you leave the yard, I will follow you
I wouldn’t know what else to do
I wouldn’t know my heart

But I don’t know what life is like beyond the shelter of His eye
Baby I’m afraid to die
Aren’t you?

They say these goddamn deeds must come at quite a price
They say the cost of love will be vicious and precise
But even if the punishment is death
Even if my fate could be forestalled
I will not come when I am called
Oh no, I will not come when I’m called

Paradise Lost [DEMO]

messymixofanunfinishedthing

©️2023 drbob
as always, unfinished and unpolished

repetition with a difference [ruffkutt]

from the album "release" (2004)
music and lyrics by (pre-)dr bob
danielle reed sings a backing vocal

release (2023)

I'm In Love With The World (And Its Wicked Wicked Ways)

A Mind of Winter
[To my comrades in the struggle
and in memory of Bill Spanos]

Deep in the pines an echo rebounds
In word and in sound, as in rapture
Lurid with gore, the masters of war
Best the tempest its roar ever after

Strike that old string, with fierce passion sing
Let the misery ring out its darkness
The chimney-sweep’s cry, the doomed soldier’s sigh
Blood down the walls of the palace

If you see me again beyond the winding of the wind
You will know that we are kin by our wounding
And as the bells begin to toll we will gather up our load
And trudge on up the road together

Bent double in rags, coughing like hags
We limp through a smothering nightmare
And as for the rest, beyond the loyalty tests
And beating the breast may lie justice

I will die but that is all that I shall do for death
So long as I am drawing breath I’ll not serve him
With his boot on my neck and a hoof on my heart
I’ll not play the part of no quisling

From nothing we come, to nothing return
But what do we learn of this nothing?
Bored out of our mind and cold a long time
Alive with the ghost of all somethings


Sources: 
William Blake, “London”
Frederick Douglass, Narrative
Martin Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?”
Edna St Vincent Millay, “Conscientious Objector”
Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est”
Tom Petty, “Wake-Up Time”
Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
James M. Whitfield, “Yes! Strike Again That Sounding String”

A Mind of Winter

Passenger Pigeon

Eighteen hundred and twenty three, Mr Cooper’s Pioneers
Pilgrims marching armed behind the god of profiteers 
Sheriff, Judge, and Trapper trudge a lewd and exuberant dance
Before their violent contradictions the passenger pigeon didn’t stand a chance

Oh passenger pigeon, you’ve taken your last flight
Through skies once made thick enough to thin daylight into night
Now the skies are only thick with shit and the lies of the white man’s books
But you won’t find a passenger pigeon no matter where you look

Martha had her fill of it about the time the jukebox broke
I carried her back to Cincy but she was gone by the time I awoke
Her heart gave out the day the Czar no doubt renamed the city of the saint
The doom and gloom to make the desert bloom might seem worth it, but it ain’t

Oh passenger pigeon, you’ve taken your last flight
Through skies once made thick enough to thin daylight into night
Now the skies are only thick with shit and the lies of the white man’s books
But you won’t find a passenger pigeon no matter where you look

From Jerusalem to Saint Petersburg, Templeton to Rome
To settle means to meddle means no one is at home
If you sow that seed the first thing you need is a graveyard and a jail
Dig the mines, break the miners’ spines, sell the children, and turn tail

Oh passenger pigeon, you’ve taken your last flight
Through skies once made thick enough to thin daylight into night
Now the skies are only thick with shit and the lies of the white man’s books
But you won’t find a passenger pigeon no matter where you look

Passenger Pigeon [demo]

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Lazy Amy’s picking daisies
Waiting for the phone to ring
Makes some educated guesses 
Concerning man’s impropriety

Sick of psychogenic censure
Sick of corrugated love
Some fair breeze in this desert
Is all that she’s been dreaming of

And she can’t help thinking this is not the way
And the lamb lies down on Broadway

Glossy pictures in the mailbox
Promise quick delivery
To help me cure my quasi-problem
And transform me into quasi-me

"My bleeding heart says nothing’s sacred"
That’s what Amy whispers in the dark
"My love of man has left me naked 
My love of man has missed its mark"

And nothing more than something leads her heart astray
And the lamb lies down on Broadway

Tired sacrificial windows
Help you see into the sun
Dapper men with tongues of concrete
Dance us towards oblivion

Amy shuffles toward redemption
In generic-brand redemptive shoes
The clock immortal weighs upon her
She may opt to toss its weight on you

Meanwhile the market forces are demanding arms and legs
And the lamb lies down on Broadway

Buy a color television
Let it rob you of your soul
Let the market overtake you
Let this boredom make you old

Listen to the voice of reason
Who says your heart can do no wrong
Whose music sounds like dying children
Who sets your ringing ears to song

The stage is set for infamy
The deejay pushes play
And the lamb lies down on Broadway

The woods out there are burning, boys
The deluge starts today
And the lamb lies down on Broadway

© 2004 rpw

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (2004)

Simple Machine

The heart is just a simple machine
A lever for lifting and lightening
God’s foot on the treadle of the loom
Warp and weft from womb to tomb

A heart is just a simple machine
A helix threading everything
Twisting tightly like a screw
Holding fast to what holds you

Raise me up, knock me down
Get this whole world turned around

A heart is just a simple machine
A cleaving to and a wedge between
The thin edge for a force unseen
That splits along your inner seams

The heart is just a simple machine
A wheel on which you throw a dream
A wheel on fire run round a track
And where it runs it runs right back

Hoist me up, throw me down
Turn this damn machine around

The heart is just a simple machine
Veering off into nothing
The more you heave that heart uphill
The heaviness grows heavier still

Raise me up, knock me down
Get this whole thing turned around
Get this whole thing turned around

©️2024 dr bob

Simple Machine [voice memo]

It Is What It Is (or, This Band Is Really Fucking With Your Attitude)

The day they pierced my father’s skull 
And dug down in his brain
To separate the ghastly white from among the gray
I heard him say
It is what it is

Pop was home afternoon next day
Watching football on tv
A softball lighter than he’d been just priorly
Ah, me

He said, I believe in fate
Even though it’s always too early or too late
When it’s time to go, it’s just time to go
Now it’s time, here I go

A lifetime of labor with no reprieve
Gets you three years of freedom, if you’re lucky
If the work doesn’t kill you, the cancer probably will
Though they’re almost certainly the same
Let the bastards take the blame
It is after all their fucking game

I believe in fate
Even though it’s always too early or too late
When it’s time to go, it’s just time to go
Now it’s time, here I go

It Is What It Is [DEMO]

God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time!

The Fire Next Time! [DEMO]

the apocalyptic big chill years of an autistic xennial

dr. bob | warbling while rome burns

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