Someone tried to tell you
People are the same
Given all or nothing we will
Take all ours till 
Nothing remains
Nothing but the blame

I know what they're saying
If people treat you wrong
Shut 'em out entire seems 
A righteous way to 
Keep yourself strong
Walk it alone

But people can change

04 People Can Change

01 Someone Fixed The Game

02 Squirmy Wormy

03 Boring

05 Quickening

06 Basketball

07 Scold's Bridle

08 Longest Hour

This is a song about a kind of slippery-slidey fascism that just creeps up on you by accident.

NO ONE EVER DIES 

If you need a place to hide
I'll help, I'll keep you
Underneath my floor
Or the space above my house
When they come for you I'll swear
That you ran south
After the revolution
I will let you crawl back out

There's a reason they declined
Your civil rights card
'Cause you don't clean up nice
'Cause you're trying too hard
Every census answer
Leaves a little piece of cancer
In your brain and in your low back

No One Ever Dies From That

If you need a friend
To vouch for you
I'll run down to the registry
I'll swear you're one of the good ones
But if they promise me that civic pin
You better run back to your district
Else I'm gonna run you in

There's a reason we kicked down
Your door last night
Cause you agitate
Not just cause you do not love right
You're free to 'ssociate
We are way more free to hate
You say you're caged in like a starved rat
But no one I know feels like that

No One Really Feels Like That
And No One Ever Dies From That

There's a reason that we came
And took your children
Is it cause we're fascist
Or 'cause you're gonna kill them
Drink yourself to sleep and
Dream of some place all-inclusive
When you wake up in a month
You're surrounded by the ones you love

Hey, Hey
I Love You
Hey Hey
Don't Die
Hey Hey
We Love You
Hey Hey
Please Don't Die

Wax Mannequin - No One Ever Dies

Wax Mannequin (aka Hamilton, Ontario’s Christopher Adeney) is many things to many people. A lyricist, songsmith and self-effacing showman certainly, but also a student of the human psyche, constantly finding fresh and interesting ways to frame the people we are and the things we encounter.

All of that is gloriously displayed on the seventh Wax Mannequin album, Have A New Name, the result of Adeney reuniting with producer Edwin Burnett, with whom he made some of the first Wax Mannequin recordings in the early 2000s. Working in a small east-end Hamilton industrial space containing an array of vintage and modern gear, the pair—along with percussionist Mark Raymond—crafted Have A New Name’s eight songs out of semi-impromptu sessions that eventually expanded with the addition of grand piano, gamba da viola, double bass and a 12 piece choir. The end product is the most sonically ambitious Wax Mannequin album to date, and also arguably the most powerful.

As an example, Adeney points to the album’s closing track “Longest Hour,” an atmospheric travelogue that never lags over the course of its nearly nine minutes. Other songs on Have A New Name such as “Basketball” and “Squirmy Wormy” are rooted in whimsy, while the songs “Someone Fixed The Game” and “People Can Change” display a maturity that signals Wax Mannequin is indeed more than capable of reaching wider audiences without sacrificing any of his edge.

With Have A New Name, Christopher Adeney has made a Wax Mannequin album utterly necessary for this moment in time. Challenging and earthy, funny and heartbreaking, in search of answers yet rooted in hard-earned wisdom.

Wax Mannequin

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