Get all 9 Jeff Straw releases available on Bandcamp and save 40%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Smile in Your Pocket, Dulcinea (For You), Sentimental With You, Winter, Belong (Don't Fade), Straw Songs Vol. 3: Home (And Other Intimacies), Collection: 2011-2014, Straw Songs: Vol. 2 - Self-Prescribed Loneliness, and 1 more.
1. |
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She feels that happiness is a state of mind:
Obscenely temporary and unjustly derived.
I try a different melody, but she can't find the tune.
'Cause my baby only sings the blues.
Her emotion's a bloodstain on a clean, white sleeve.
And she never hesitates to say what she means.
I hang on every insight, but her wisdom is askew.
Oh, my baby only sings the blues.
Yet, she somehow alleviates confusion
With cynical, paradigm illusions.
But, oh, when she smiles!
She could light up a labyrinth.
You'd be a fool to think her love isn't heaven-sent.
As she's writing poetry for the bitter man,
She tells me she loves me… I won't ever understand.
I tell her that I love her, but she won't find me true.
'Cause my baby, my baby, my baby -
That little girl only sings the blues.
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2. |
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I know nothing about you.
Let alone your name.
Every girl is a silhouette
Compared to who you'll be...
Pretend that I finally see.
Ease of ambition overcomes me
Knowing that I'm not alone.
Clearer thoughts are compounding.
Make me smile when you come home.
If you arrive here cold and wet,
Take all of your regrets. Hand them to me.
All the world is brighter….
Overexposed, like a photograph.
Suddenly, we feel no stranger
Than any strangers in our paths.
Unabashed and unconvinced
By the poisons in another's thoughts.
Open-minded, unashamed.
You absolve all the pain within my heart.
Patiently, I will wait.
Timidness is not my friend.
Honestly will resonate
Long after my heart's content:
Love that's resilient.
I want to know everything about you.
I want to know everything about me.
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3. |
Those Lost Downstream
04:09
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You have what you want,
But not what you need.
You have what you saw,
But not what you see.
Your boat travels on
Further downstream.
You share the air with the ghosts you still let breathe.
The sun slowly sets
As you close your eyes.
You are so reticent
To even your mind.
You hide your regrets,
'Cause you can't set them free.
But you'll spit out the key to their cage
If you let them speak.
You named your boat "Sincerity,"
'Cause you wished it was your style:
The actor loses himself after awhile.
But you relax and coyly laugh,
'Cause you think it won't come back.
Though the water's tame for now,
It might not last.
You find your friends
In the movies you see.
You bury your demons
In the glow of the LCD.
And you find your truths
In the books that you read.
But you never stopped to see
If they'd float or sink.
And though you try, the quiet kind
Should not be your chosen scene.
Let another mend the tears of tattered seams.
The self subsides, so heed advice;
Don't find it obsolete.
The boats more steady
With both halves heavy:
A balanced empathy.
You find your peace
In the air that your share.
You find your beach
And live happily there.
You share your courage
With words that you speak.
And you help balance the weight
For those lost downstream.
You help balance the weight
For those lost downstream.
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