Why? – Gemini (Birthday Song)

There are 57 days until this year’s Polaris Music Prize gala, and still no invitation for BowlingStone.com; I’m still feeling pretty optimistic however.  I thought I would close out the week with anotherAnother Year reviews tune from the American indie/alt-rock/hip-hop band Why?.  The band seems to have this uncanny ability to exclusively create songs I can listen to 15 18 times a day, and not get tired of.  Gemini (Birthday Song) is off the band’s second studio album Elephant Eyelash, which was the first release from Why? featuring all members of the current lineup; Prior releases only consisted of Yoni Wolf.  This song serves as a fine example of the kind of lyrics Yoni Wolf is capable of pumping out on ridiculously consistent basis; My favorites from this song are:

“When I ask you to kiss my pulse you offer to start the shower.  I want a verb and you give me a noun.  What do you dream up while I tongue you down?”

It starts with you
on a mattress in your parents’ old room,
clipping your toenails into the room
like the room will fade
and you will move
onto other rooms
and you will go
to other places.
Then the wedding,
Then the woman passed out
in the driver’s seat
at the order board at White Castle.
We woke her up and she went
’round to the pick up window
like she knew exactly where she was.
Then I wept
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
“until death separates us,”
loosening the skin on your breastbone,
I painted your nails
and you sleep
while I write all this down.

There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don’t get to two-o-o-five?
my dead line Gemini

When we’re on different sides of the globe
I thought we’d keep our veins tangled
like a pair of mic cables,
And if there ain’t enough slack to reach
that we’d solder them together
and across oceans they’d stretch.
Our faces reflected in separate windshields
and all our body hair pricked up
an elephant eyelash.
Should we be tempted by thief or saint
it seems I leave and you stay
to crawl the cage and curse.
But don’t regret the done dirt,
there is no life plan set,
you just swallow the cold
and follow your breath until death.
Now even if the will to sleep persists
I can’t ’cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters.

There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don’t get to two-o-o-five?
My dead line Gemini.

Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair.
Hair that once sprouted from my own
white wet chalk follicles.
I swallow a coal
and follow my breath
and I did it with the grapefruit soap
thinking of you.
Bathed, shaved, and oiled,
your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming
between the mattress and the layers of bedding
turning in your drug dry sleep.
When I ask you to kiss my pulse
you offer to start the shower.
I want a verb and you give me a noun.
What do you dream up while I tongue you down?

There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don’t get to two-o-o-five?
My dead line Gemini.

You know my build.
You know my size.
The degree to which my eyes
are astigmatic.

Related posts:

• Bedouin Soundclash- When The Night Feels My Song
• Bent By Elephants – Mollie’s Song
• Why? – Fatalist Palmistry
• Why? – Even the Good Wood Gone

---