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Have A Great Summer

by Sloth Hands

/
1.
So let's stumble our way through the words of John K. Samson If it means that we could articulate this exhaustion The younger sibling is downstairs watching reality TV And on his lap he's watching the day's police footage The people making minimum wage will talk about their own revolution Or how their favorite movie star isn't sexy enough And at 4am what I think is a portrait of a person on the side of the road Turns out to be just another lamp post And when Reconstruction Site ends and that 1, 4, 5 no longer plays I realize that things aren't quite as bad as they might seem Then I am woken by adrenaline as a I roll through that red light as a Minivan side-swipes me I am taken to a foreign place
2.
Cop Cars 03:08
Running through manicured backyards during high school Carrying our t-shirts and trying to put our pants back on This is something I could have experienced But it's something that I never would have done Sitting across from a guy in a suit Who's telling me that I ain't worth all that much financially And I'm thinking about raiding his pool With all of my friends and Barely out-running the cops that he calls on us And I'm always hanging around with my mouth shut Nothing to say, nothing to say, until I'm Sitting in the backseat of a cop car Moments before my parents bail me out The scabs on my elbows and the scabs on my knees I will slowly dig under them with my fingernails And pull them back It's a small thing and it's personal But it feels good like a crooked jaw satisfaction And focus And in my mind I am thinking how best to hurt those who come around and tell me I need to smile
3.
The band's gonna play as hard as they can tonight Until the force of frustration and years of exhaustion Hammer through these walls And honestly, I really don't know what to say There's only so much I can say In everyday conversations I remind myself drunkenly one night that People are born and they die and that's okay I never felt as proud of myself as when you said I was too honest for politics I only wish I would've listened I guess that's how this goes Play it off, everything is cool, everybody is watching It's just like these times I try to reach for the Easiest excues It's society's destruction, the class war of a nation It's a fuck you song and it's played by the wrong Generation
4.
Movie Store 02:31
There's only so much that I want to do when it's 90 degrees and the basement's so uncomfortable Why do things look so good in the sunlight I always hated these high, high, temperatures And my driveway gleams and it's bleached in the sunlight And I'm in here so I guess I'll go to the movie store I guess I'll go to the movie store I want to belong I know that the president's got a say in that Cuz I got a Selective Service card in my wallet behind my credit card It's in my wallet behind my credit card and it's Smashing up the money that I'll spend at the movie store I'll spend it at the movie store And the things I want but I'll never find they will Find a way to kill me It's easy to say that everything is gonna be okay But these days it's getting easier to just watch it all explode And all the demons are out between nine and five and On my lunch hour I am thinking about the movie store
5.
It's in a styrofoam cup mixed in with your soda pop and somehow now you think all of my jokes are funny And now you're saying everything you're thinking and the conversation's starting to get just a little darker asking Why I would ever leave you when there's a college in our town I don't know, but Have a great summer, man You know that some of us will be better at being bored Than we could be fine Will we ever be fine I hope the rest of my life ain't as long as this And now you're standing right in front of me in that pool in the backyard of someone's house With arms wide open, I know that you're joking, you can't take me serious It's more than the cold that makes this skeleton shake so much You know I've never been that good of a swimmer And you're thinking "the old days were so good when the kids were all alive." Wipe the asphalt off my palms, what's the point in cleaning up When you'll probably be here again Again and again and again
6.
The curbs on these streets won't comfort you You who's being yelled at by your parents One day you'll discover something more Beyond your driveway This place has been on many Top Ten lists For murder and crime and miserable places One day we'll discover something more Beyond our driveways And we'll find one day that we don't matter We're getting too old for ourselves Place our dreams in an overcrowded heaven I don't want them to wait I just want them to feel okay with me One day I will amount to what I've dreamt What's keeping me from it, I don't really know I depend on the interest of those Who have nothing Necks break as heads lean towards the ground We're not being punished we're just being put down Is this how we perceive those who have nothing And we'll find one day that we all matter We're still not too old for ourselves We can befriend our teenage minds We can teach our kids right We can give them the chance to leave Teach me how to live and I'll be fine Tell me everything will be all right I don't want to know how to get ahead of others I just want to know how to survive
7.
1884 02:16
Terrorism shopping for a nuclear age What did you think would happen Young men dying from old age Have nothing to lose Cut up the world like it's 1884 You've got lots of money You got lightning in a bottle And your best friend brought the guns Young men become old wolves and Celebrate the day Holy men sat next to me and said "What the fuck is going on" Before they joined in The law of the noble man: "Sleep is just an option" This is what they told me It was a foolproof defense It was just something that happens Donnie's fear outsold my desire Stumbled his way around A treasure map of "told you so's" and Hard-nosed policy
8.
VEGAS, BABY 03:29
When I was a kid there was this lady always Walking down the street with a Cigarette in her mouth and I haven't seen her since Now she's probably dead I'm threading my cheek through the sides of my teeth again And now my dentist is concerned about me and he Thinks these nervous ticks will fade but I don't think they'll change Cuz it's all at once or never like that One guy in Casino Take a little off the top and You're all right Whoever said that life is short you're wrong Look at all these bad things, they're the only things we can do well Are these the only things that we could ever do well Someone sometime in history has been forgotten No rest for the wicked Only monuments and movies and textbooks Bludgeon me with a baseball bat It's the only thing I know Bury me naked in the sand when I'm breathing I'm buried but I'm still breathing Las Vegas, like the world, can't protect me anymore And it's something that I'll never learn to fight
9.
Family friends meet at an electronics store And every flag I see is at half mast The world around me is such an easy image When valued as it was in '45 The military generals told me "You know what you gotta do" In the words of Mr. Sherman "Light it all on fire" God dammit, I love our affluence And everyone I know is a piece of shit The neighbors down the block got two brand new cars Now everything I own is a piece of shit Everything I own is a piece of shit
10.
Everything you see can be quantified So there's nothing that you'll never see again Time will disprove everything you know So there's nothing worth holding on to At eleven years old I knew the president was strong And the strong thing is the right thing to do We all recall the good ol' days with fondness As kids make sense of geopolitics On a clunky television in the basement I saw the right thing fall from the sky Broadcast in nightvision and in low resolution All you said was "there they go" At eleven years old I was a patriot Cuz a patriot's the right thing to be We all recall the good ol' days with fondness As kids make sense of geopolitics Basement TV says "mission accomplished" "Everyone will all come home" "War is over, war is done, we're victorious" "It'll never, ever happen again" But it happened again At eleven years old I knew the president was strong But I'm not sure that the strong thing was right At eleven years old I knew I was a patriot But I'm not sure that being a patriot is right At eleven years old I knew the Patriot Act was right And now the government knows that I don't At eleven years old I knew America was right But now I know that's false most of the time How can we recall the good ol' days with fondness We were just kids making sense of geopolitics
11.
I can't remember what was playing, it was something classical Cuz rock music only has three chords and look at me now I'm just a step above that song you sang On that morning trip to school How fast does it kill you to see what's going on But not respond at all If something so small could make it's way up Through tissues and veins in a skeletal system And lodge itself somewhere in the crevice your brain Until all you can see is a white ceiling and you hear the sounds of your last sunrise The people are bussing their way to work And brewing up some shitty coffee grounds Would you reach for three chords, any that you could muster the strength to put together Would you play them as loud as you can if it meant something to you Would you play them as loud as you can if it meant something to anyone Would you play them as loud as you can if it meant something for anything Would you play them as loud as you can if it was your last chance to make something matter

credits

released November 13, 2015

Recorded at The Bronze, Johnny's Basement, and AJ's Bedroom

On this recording, Sloth Hands is

AJ: vocals, guitar, bass, harmonica, trombone, melodica, backup vocals
John: drums, percussion, backup vocals
Stephen: trumpet on 'Song For My Neighbors'

Album cover photo by AJ

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Sloth Hands Chicago, Illinois

Slothy music for slothy people

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