The Same 12 Songs, by Tremendous Impending Succession

The Same 12 Songs

by Tremendous Impending Succession

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1.	July #1 04:12	lyrics	buy track
today the homicidal sheen of a manager's lips the pall on his deck, the carpet worn down by misery, the shoes seeping our rain, the papers insane with figures, the fingernails yellow and burned, cracked with head and Keats seems petty empty and meaningless calling for his personal salvation the nightingale's song the bark off starving dogs with flashlight meat in their eyes running away when they're tired yesterday eager grabbing after on and off sun in cool shadow under green leaves no sense except backyard morning into paper bag lunch and ravines of afternoon into hiding darkness with a break for grills that keep burning forgotten until the porch catches fire always waiting for the coals to call something will be wrong soon tomorrow the wind, cool and promising thoughtlessly wavers the brown tall grass in a sunlight giving itself away to evening, light thick and slow the snap of a leather jacket easily reminding you that we need to be alone to confess our one true love for the night
2.	July #2 01:40	lyrics	buy track
christ had put in another work day from the cross watching over auto mechanics in every garage and the long deep bars were beginning to fill with light to guarantee the reverie of a late afternoon beer when tires screeched and a vw bus folded itself crisply on the rear corner of a truck, spreading its windshield on the indifferent asphalt like a spilled glass of ice the crowd in the market which had been moving forward in an exhaustion of bus fumes, cheered reflexively as if the Brazilian soccer team had score a goal they surrounded the accident twenty deep until tall horses galloped through the passages in traffic policemen swinging their batons to open up the circle the row of manual typewriters on the front sidewalk of the automotive licensing building set to chattering again at applications for the rationed use of cars and the man hawking plastic wind up fire engines resumed the liturgical cadence of his sales pitch
3.	August #1 02:53	lyrics	buy track
tourist sit like statues watching life to imitate installed on the crumbling brick docks of the maple island powder milk factory where someone walking on main street had written in the rain dusted windows the wholly true, "theresa is pretty" the sawmill is buzzing again and creaking wooden steps hold slow moving families from case to case filled with red glass earrings and gold napkin rings beside dusty chairs upholstered in pink while the drawbridge goes up to let the boats pass flies hatch in a blue bowl of old bait sun dot weldments flash above the weak tea water on the river's other side, a laotian family is fishing in the sun grandma teaches her granddaughter to wait spiderweb lines into the water the trees and rocks and water under the round blue sky debris tucked into cracks, burger king cups and soda pop bottles broken malt liquor glass, a tampon applicator watching in the slight waves from a burping power boat and a pvc tube ladder lies half submerged stretching from the water onto the sand where someone came ashore or set out to sea and left this evidence of their passage
4.	August #2 01:21	lyrics	buy track
cicadas ratchet, unreasonably thirsty for the summer light that shines on the lake surface of inching buses block by block unloading marching bands of business men an old woman picks something sticky out of a plastic wrapper then squares herself up with a fist in her lower back to study the alarming vulnerability of the marlboro man leading a horse across a sky
5.	September #1 03:43	lyrics	buy track
that the school building has an older section once used, so long closed that no one even remembers how to find it - they sense - as a dog smells the known hand upon a doorknob they might walk in tall wooden spaces and down corridors, light filtered dimly through iron glass and chalk dust, all resolved into crumbling concrete overgrown with vines for now pencils scratch like mice in walls and they are taught the possible, even while the sumac bushes rust completely under the course of one afternoon's sun
6.	September #2 02:15	lyrics	buy track
blooms of sodium light burn attentively above the sleepy tree-lined streets of stillwater desire spread across the night like oil embedded in pavement an atmosphere kind to ghosts and cruel to fat weeds black telephone lines stretch across blacker backyards where frowns of potential grimace and laugh and water tomorrow with tears from skinned emotions sheared with the lawn and cauterized with money stumps and stones, houses of confidence wood staircases and bookshelves as clean as ice in empty well-lit rooms drunk water lilies melt in a plumbed wood frame outside, across broken concrete moves a stream like a fever vision flooding dreams coughing awake a fireman who recognizes the smoke of burning leaves and goes back to sleep
7.	October #1 02:33	lyrics	buy track
a young woman studies the receipt for her groceries, trying to ignore the maple tree burning behind her like a drunk with secrets to reveal it drops a yellow note in her lap she shuffles it into the gutter it rains a dozen propositions on her, disordering the bus stop but she is quiet and content because she knows the consequence of passion a week from now this tree will stand naked and exhausted in the wind
8.	October #2 02:03	lyrics	buy track
this has to be one of the strangest things there is at first you don't really notice and then it suddenly strikes you as kind of annoying you've got everything right it's still dusk the clouds are golden around the edge every trellis and brick seems to be whispering "you are free, go and be happy" and you are and just as you're remembering the phone number of your favorite restaurant bam! there it is, big as a salad bar now, not to let that slow you down, no nothing that a cup of coffee and a pleasant smile can't cure by the way, see those trees over there? they're working for me
9.	November #1 02:27	lyrics	buy track
the world almost stopped no faucets turning the cold creak of wood against brick walls the steps on the staircase are delicately exaggerated the city roads are empty except for wind squalls the town's feet are resting in warm well-known beds the humming air is the neighborhood's dreaming everyone is home already nobody is going to church the tower lights are climbing alone through the night
10.	November #2 01:35	lyrics	buy track
when the leaves left the birds took notice that the promises of spring had been fully withdrawn and they left too along the street that advertises another dozen ways to eat the same five animals people emerge from storefronts steaming like teapots bent past roasted ducks hanging in windows and the woman sewing buttons next to a furnace of soup past the coffeehouse where a young man with a bullring in his nose takes notes about the social utility of cold man in bmw going into art museum equals immigrant worker leaving meat packing plant humanity in mutual frailty a thelonious monk record plays he treats "round midnight" as if it were an irritant a speck of dust in his eye he'll make it new again and at this latitude the weather will make a street new again faster than the lunch specials can change on a menu
11.	December #1 04:19	lyrics	buy track
the bulbs are glowing under a veil of snow blushing in patches the naked light hidden imitated in decoration burning safely on a table consumed by the silence of a sleeping house the hollow night is growing the skin of winter cresting in alleys caking over gardens clogging every road so that nothing moves easily in my congestion the cold is confused with the smell of spring rain on a gravel road cool and welcome drowning grass in a ditch
12.	December #2 01:33	lyrics	buy track
late all day low sun and crowd of shadows habitual christmas tree in the window for sunday dinner a game of cards evocation of family if this too is only habit after another season of isolation so be it we've fought for our fitful and guarded tenderness

about

Jay Orff and Tom Schroeder wrote a descriptive vignette for each month. We then wrote music for each other's writing and recorded them with Dave Herr on drums. Here are six months, July through December.