Horse Latitudes Solo Acoustic Demos (2018)

PURCHASE

The original 13 demos sent to the band in the weeks before the HORSE LATITUDES (Signature Sounds, 2011) recording sessions in Los Angeles in 2010, recorded at J. Mascis's (Dinosaur Jr.) Bisquiteen Studio, and featuring early, alternate, and unfinished versions of the songs that would appear on that album (as well as 'Real Love' - later released as a single - and 'Paradise,' later re-recorded and released on the album Salt As Wolves) performed alone on acoustic guitar.

Tracks

1. Idaho
2. Pretty Girl in a Small Town
3. Horse Latitudes
4. Last Night I Dreamed of Television
5. Starlight and Static
6. Goners Most
7. Real Love
8. Tea and Tobacco
9. Paradise
10. Heart to the Husk (1)
11. Everybody's Famous
12. Passerines
13. Heart to the Husk (11)

Idaho

I know it isn't Idaho
Where the sun goes when it goes
Down over the river

Strange birds on the fence line
It's going to get cold tonight
I know it isn't Idaho

How many shades of blue
Are dying from me to you?
Are the stars only soldered to the sky
Salt tears gone white and dry?

Who could leave it all behind
Metal flesh bone and brine?
I know it isn't Idaho

Horses heart blood and wine
That's the color of the sun when it's dying

Down over the river
Down over the river
 

Pretty Girl In A Small Town

We used to walk to get away
There was nowhere you could stay
Safe your red ears fingers flushed
Lay them on the back of my neck

Tea with honey tell me who
Bent the branch inside of you?
A dark and silent waiting in your eyes
Promise me you'll never do it

Pretty girl in a small town
No one likes to see you down
Or hold your head too high
Or ever say goodbye
Once you've been the
Homecoming Queen

I used to wait to see your lights
Run my wall those late spring nights
When nothing else was real as trying
To keep your heart above high water
 

Horse Latitudes

Drifting into horse latitudes
The Language of thirst
A false communion
The iron taste of blood
In your mouth
The wild blue

Dying into God's empty hands
Silver the silhouette
Of ashes on the land
The bleach white skulls
Of buffalo face the sun
The burning sand

Where the halogen halos
Shine on the refugees
Banded birds flying
Up above and endless sea
God is the mouth
Of a river going dry
God is a mouthful of rain
A tear in your eye

Singing into the belly of a whale
Leviathan's ribs
A drowning jail
The desert at the bottom
Of the sea
The Devil with his finger
On the scale
 

Last Night I Dreamed of Television

Last night I dreamed of television
And the stars fell down on me
In an avalanche of static singing
Darker than the sea
The great machines were dying
The slavers rust away
Last night I dreamed of television
And I wept for break of day

Last night I drank the breath of horses
Falling underneath the waves
Of an empty AM ocean singing
Silent as the grave
The moon was cold as cathode light
Rising up above the plain
Last night I dreamed of television
And my tears fell down like rain

Crying
Crying
Crying

Last night I felt like I was dying
And dying felt the same
As silver clouds of ether singing
Wild through my brain
The natural numbers burning tires
The wildness that we made
Last night I dreamed of television
And it felt like nothing
 

Starlight And Static

I saw you up there
Like a city in the footlights
Shining in the darkness
I couldn't see your eyes
They all thought they knew you
But nobody knew you
And I wanted no one
To know me too

I saw you out there
In the starlight and static
Singing like the spark
On a mile of coiled wire
But you looked so lonely
Like no one was ever lonely
And I wanted to be
Lonely too

I remember once you told me
You had a dream
A crowded street
You saw the ghost of James Dean
But no one could see him
No one could see him
And he cried in his love

I saw you standing
Up against a building
Smoking like a river
In the dark before the dawn
And I asked you for nothing
And you became nothing
You were just a ghost
And then the ghost was gone
 

Goners Most

Peeled out in the falling dark
Hard as flint and like to spark
The saddest sinner seventeen
Windows down and like to drown
Drowners most who love to dream

So laugh it up and lay it by
Nothing else but saying goodbye
For ashes ashes for dust dust
Full of love and so far gone
Goners most who love to much

Tea with honey tell me who
Bent the branch inside of you
Dark eyed things you never told
You have to be that young
To feel that old

Wondering if you'd come around
Making love with the volume down
In the blue light falling from an LED
Love and lovers move so strange
Strangers most would never be
 

Real Love

It’s too late
To go home early anymore
I can’t stand to read the number
On my hotel room door
I had one it wants another
I called my wife and missed my brother
I’ll have one more
And then I‘ve got to get some rest

I’ve been rolling
Since the sun came up today
Phoenix all the way to Santa Fe
Ashes racing down the road
And it’s a high and a heavy load
On my shoulders but I know I’ll be OK

‘Cause I’ve got love
I’ve got real love
I’ve got love on my side

I spent all night and pocket full of bills
Leaning up against this jukebox
Hoping it might kill
The loneliness that whines
In my chest all the time
Like a bullet
Fires on the radio

But it’s too late
To go home early anymore
The rain is hung up in the street lights
The moon is on the floor
And it’s always Saturday night
When you’re living in the lights
But this living is going to kill me
On the way

Still I’ve got love
I’ve got real love
I’ve got love on my side
I’ve got love
I’ve got real love
I can’t hide
 

Tea and Tobacco

Tea and tobacco
Whiskey from a tin cup
When I had one good coat
I was warm

Rain on the sidewalk
Neon winking out
I get farther from home
All the time

Worn out and wondering
Traveling unraveling
Wearing out my heart
In little towns

Tea and Tobacco
Whiskey from a tin cup
When I had one good coat
I was warm
 

Paradise

Thank you for believing
What I can’t believe in
I’m glad someone’s praying
If it isn’t me

I’m sorry if it brings you
Sorrow coming even
With your little baby boy
And the devil makes three

Thank you for believing
I know that it’s not easy
I tried it for a while
But I was clumsy with my heart

All the things I meant to care for
They never seemed to please me
And you can’t put it back together
Once it falls apart

Can you tell me just one thing?
If love is a longing
Possession won’t kill
What would you own?

Thank you for believing
I wish that I could tell you
Something better than a love song
To ease your worried mind

You know I always believed
It’s like Jesus told the thief
And you will be with me
Today in paradise
 

Heart To The Husk

Please burn my letters
Let them writhe
The love and the lack
Let the blue meet the black
Let my words become fire

I burned your letters
Cold or kind
By a river at dusk
From the heart to the husk
Every word became fire

We dream our love
For a while
Into flesh out of dust
The rage and the rust
All gone as it came

Please tell me something
I want to know
Where does love go?
 

Everybody's Famous

Everybody's famous
Everybody's free
Everybody's broken heart
Is shining like a new TV
On the walls of a dark room
Where the world used to be
Everybody's famous
Everybody's free

There's a fire in the windrows
There's a wolf out in the corn
There's a wildness waiting
For the moment to be reborn
And there's something down inside you
Feels like it's being torn
Everybody's famous
Everything is gone

If your tongue is sleeping
Curled inside your head
Like a lion or a serpent
You might as well be dead
And if your heart is beating
Sealed inside your ribs
Upon that dark electric
The only love that lives

Everybody knows you
They saw your billboard in the rain
They heard your Mama crying
When you forgot your own real name
And she voted for your heartbreak
And she smiled at your shame
Everybody's famous
Everyone's the same

Everybody's famous
Everybody's free
The kingdom of heaven
Is inside of me
But I want to shoot the lights out
I know there's something left to be
Everybody's famous
Everybody's free
 

Passerines

Everyone knows
No one knows
A Winter night
A hundred crows
Flying down the valley

Everyone dreams
No one dreams
The ghosts of wolves
And passerines
Crying down the valley
Crying down the valley

Everything dies
Nothing dies
The incorruptible dream
Behind your eyes
Crying down the valley
Crying down the valley