Undercard
Released: 2010
Label: Merge
Lyrics only — sorry!
Apologies, but I haven't had the chance to annotate this album yet — if you'd like to help, please email me! This page is just a placeholder so that you can read the lyrics. Full annotations, liner notes, and the rest will come when the page is fully annotated.
Liner notes
not yet transcribed
Related material
not yet annotated
Table of contents
- Adultery
- Cruiserweights
- Only Existing Footage
- Communicating Doors
- Programmed Cell Death
- How I Left the Ministry
- Some Other Way
- Ambivalent Landscape Z
- In Germany Before the War
- Tug on the Line
- Rockin' Rockin' Twilight of the Gods
- Dogs of Clinic 17
Adultery
"One, two, three, four, one, two."
There's a mean streak in the sky
On the morning when you come by
And you ask me, would I?
And I say I would
And it's an ill wind that does nobody good
And I should've known that you'd come my way
By the dogs sprawled out sleeping on the driveway
Windows open audibly around the neighborhood
It's an ill wind that does nobody good
And you touched my hand
And the sun bleeds down
Ineffective warnings all over the ground
And I'm standing on the same spot where your husband stood
It's an ill wind that does nobody good
Cruiserweights
No one of any note is in the crowd
Guys in Bermuda shirts are chewing on cigar stubs
I get better
As I get more worn down
House lights like an amplified inferno
PA system borrowed from the high school
Breathe through my mouthpiece
I hate this town
And there's a whole long list of other things I hate
I had to starve myself all week to make weight
Cleveland, Ohio
1985
Almost out of the woods
Awake and alive
Bucket full of blood and dirty water
Voices screaming at me from my corner
Head for the clutches
When I need to buy time
Take a couple of shots right to the liver
Then remember what the food was like in prison
Stick to the game plan
Stall for time
And there's a whole long list of other things to do
And the best ones I won't probably get around to
Cleveland, Ohio
1985
Almost out of the woods
Awake and alive
Only Existing Footage
Fix the overheads, the glare's become too much at last
Have somebody try to boost morale amongst the cast
Thermoses of coffee in the frozen dawn
Blow a fuse and spend an hour just trying to get the power back on
Space heater starves it out again, something's gotta give
Oblivion's been calling since it found out where I live
Try to grab another take before the night descends
Blocking's pretty good, but there's a gate hair on the lens
And the script girl's wandered off so we improvise the plot
Lousy continuity, the coats won't match from shot to shot
Light meter's broken down again, soundtrack doesn't sync
Annihilation pouring since it found out where I drink
Red-eye back to Belgrade with the footage we can save
End up with one can because the baggage claim's an unmarked grave
Hold off the backers, put a notice in the press
Oblivion's been knocking since I gave it my address
Communicating Doors
Campaign down from Atlanta
Five-hour drive to the coast
Brought whatever we thought we'd need
To pierce the skin of a ghost
Met your car at the hotel
Rode up seventeen floors
And checked ourselves into separate rooms with
Communicating doors
Lay on top of the covers
Turn the fan up to full
Chase a memory around my head
Silver, satin, and wool
Close the bar at the harbor
Say goodnight in the hall
Smash the lock with a midnight knock and
The rest I don't recall
Stones rise out of the water
Water eats at the stones
I know people who dig up graves
Just to label the bones
All that poison we swallowed
Seeping out through the pores
And floating over the transoms of
Communicating doors
Programmed Cell Death
Up and down the shining aisles
The all-night grocery store on Melrose
Dozens of us exiles from the mothership
The whole wide Western world is at our fingertips
But while the moon hangs high above the city
And while the night begins to flex its jaws
We meet up like a loose-knit congregation
Or like spies who need to pass on information
How much longer are we supposed to stay alive
Gathering by the Portuguese sardines in aisle five
Mounds of California avocados
Like offerings to an unresponsive god
I wore my suit from Hong Kong to the store tonight
'Cause it fits me just right
And suddenly the lights out in the parking lot
Begin to burst like sodas under pressure
One by one they throw themselves against the night sky
And almost unremarked upon, the moment passes by
Though one or two of us
Point our fingers outside
Eyes glazed, mouths wide
Listening to that still small voice within us
Doesn't seem to do us any good
Try to take that in stride
And try to let the moment slide
And we fiddle with our cellphones
Until our thumbs are sore
And the music on the speakers overhead
Is fainter than the voices of the dead
How much longer are we supposed to stay alive
Gathering by the Portuguese sardines in aisle five
How I Left the Ministry
There was one thing I found that I couldn't help thinking
As they pried me free with the jaws of life
None of this disaster would ever have happened
If I had not been driving my neighbor's wife
To the Alta Loma Days Inn, where I'd registered us as
A couple with a name I'm sure some other couple somewhere has
And the last thing I saw before falling unconscious
Was your right hand tracing a heart on my thigh
And I thought my God what an infantile gesture
And I thought my God what an indescribable high
The autumn air was sweeter than a slice of wedding cake
As I overshot the exit and I tried and failed to find the brake
Some Other Way
Test a rope against the ceiling beams
I just want to live on in your dreams
Crush a vial into a pot of tea
I just want you to remember me
But I pour out the pot and I work out the knot
'Cause I know that it won't make you stay
And I'll be damned if I can't come up with some other way
Some other way
Some other way to make you love me
Seal the doors and turn the pilot on
I just know you'll miss me when I'm gone
Drive a fist into a window pane
There are things a letter won't explain
But I pick out the glass and I shut off the gas
And I look to the oncoming day
I'll be damned if I can't come up with some other way
Some other way
Some other way
Some other way
Some other way to make you love me
To make you love me
To make you love me
To make you love me
To make you love me
Ambivalent Landscape Z
Out where the water tower climbs, higher than God
Crop dust in billowing clouds and the outlaw corn, glinting goldenrod
Cold gaze of the universal harvester
Glittering on the horizon line
Every creature on earth needs a fallout shelter
This one's mine
I'll never see you again
So until then
Down by the Morton building where I first met you
Nothing but energy fields and their bright pink edges doing what they do all day
You threw your car keys away
You left a bunch of dummy footprints on the clay
I try to follow directions as they're printed on the tin but
I need a shelter to fall out in
I'll never see you again
So until then
In Germany Before the War 1
In Germany, before the war
There was a man who owned a store
In nineteen hundred thirty-four 2
In Düsseldorf
And every night at 5:09
He'd cross the park down to the Rhine
And he'd sit there by the shore
I'm looking at the river
But I'm thinking of the sea
I'm thinking of the sea
I'm looking at the river
But I'm thinking of the sea
A little girl has lost her way
With hair of gold and eyes of gray
Reflected in his glasses
As he watches her
A little girl has lost her way
With hair of gold and eyes of gray
I'm looking at the river
But I'm thinking of the sea
We lie beneath the autumn sky
My little golden girl and I
And she lies very still
Tug on the Line
Sun shone down on a cloudless sea
And we were out on the water, my father and me
With several friends of the family along for the ride
And out on the calm water we killed the motor
And spread our nets wide
Keep your face to the wind and you'll be fine
And wait for the faint tug on the line
Everyone getting restless when we pulled up the net
We dropped it down on the deck and everyone's feet got wet
And the fish that looked like monsters from way down where the water gets cold
Slid down the deck like shuffleboard coasters and made for the hold
Everyone's eyes like saucers, nobody saying a word
Keep your face to the wind and you'll be fine
And wait for the faint tug on the line
Sailed home in silence across the cold sea
Several friends of the family, my father and me
And something down below deck that we would try to forget
Shapeless and probably nameless as of yet
Keep your face to the wind and you'll be fine
And wait for the faint tug on the line
Rockin' Rockin' Twilight of the Gods
Switched on the radio this morning
And heard about the local savings and loan
How they went under
Took with them everything I own
That's all right
It doesn't make me nervous
But I can see the clouds gathering in the distance
And every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven
Yeah, every time it rains, I'm a rich man
Yeah, every time it rains, I'm indescribably wealthy
Yeah, every time it rains, gold coins spill from the heavens straight into my hands \
Many have said
The devil was coming
I looked down at the sidewalk through the window
Three inches of water running
I looked up at the clouds
And everything looked great
The Financial News Network
Talked about the prime lending rate
That's all right
I'm safe and warm
Just over there you know, near South Ontario
I can see the signals of a tropical storm
And every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven
Yeah, every time it rains, I'm a rich man
Yeah, every time it rains, I'm indescribably wealthy
Every time it rains, black checks fall from the heavens straight into my hands
Many have said
That the devil was coming
I looked down at the sidewalk through the window
Three inches of water running
Dogs of Clinic 17
Three fresh meals every day
And one white pill to chase the chills away
And me, I know what it's all about
And we all know what it's like to have to go without
Five of us are left, that's down from twenty
But the guy in the white coat, he tells me that five is plenty
Yeah, one soft bed to rest my head upon
And me, I know what side my bread's buttered on
There's a light in the window
There's a light in all of us trying to get free
There's a light in all of you who hear my song
There's a virus eating its way through me
Credits
Thank you to Anjalene Whittier for transcribing this album and beginning the annotations for In Germany Before the War!
Thanks as always to the inestimable Caliclimber, whose Flickr page provided the album art.
Footnotes
-
In Germany Before the War is a cover of the 1977 song by Randy Newman, and is part of the informal series of cover songs.
A review in the New York Times after its debut on his album Little Criminals attempts to clarify the topic of the song:
Randy Newman's favorite song on the dazzling new "Little Criminals" ... is called "In Germany Before The War," and it gives a brief account of the same Dusseldorf child murderer who figured in Fritz Lang's film "M." The song is stark, very frightening, and deliberately bereft of detail: all we know about the killer is that he sits on the bank of the Rhine at precisely the same time each day, telling himself, "I'm looking at the river but I'm thinking of the sea / I'm thinking of the sea." All we know about him, in short, is that he is in some way removed from the mainstream, just as surely as he is distracted from the Rhine. And it is his sheer strangeness, rather than his depravity, that makes him a fitting subject for Newman's attention.
See also footnote below.
Maslin, Janet. Randy Newman — The Moral Is Implicit. The New York Times, September 25, 1977, p. 96. Retrieved July 29, 2019. ↩
-
The song is often assumed to refer not only to pre-World-War-II German nostalgia, but as noted in the above footnote also to arsonist, child rapist, and child murderer Peter Kürten, known as the Düsseldorf Ripper. However, he was executed in July 1931, three years before this song is set.
Nonetheless, Randy Newman has introduced the song saying that it is about a murderer. See for example this recording from Jazzopen, Stuttgart, July 26, 2006. ↩