Loud Family - Scott Miller

Interbabe Concern

Released: Aug. 20, 1996 (Alias Records)

Credits:

The band: Scott Miller, Paul Wieneke, Kenny Kessel, Dawn Richardson

Guest musicians: Jozef Becker, Ken Stringfellow, Nina Gordon, Shalini Chatterjee, Anton Barbeau, Shelley LaFreniere, Gil Ray, Don Tillman

Producer: Scott Miller, except "Uncle Lucky" produced by Paul Wieneke and Scott Miller

Sodium Laureth Sulfate (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Ken Stringfellow)

That's it
Without the

So you've got a new girl, better tell us all
About her
    well, we met—
No, we were thinking of lascivious detail
    well, she's a little like
Tendon-slash dimension crash entropica
Cryogen magenta kevlar ebola

Still there's more, and when you try to
Specify, it's not so easy
    I know, there's emotional—
Concern for how—
    in gentle moments, that's when she's a
Sharing, caring
Warlike, warlike, warlike, warlike
Wave equation, beta radiation beam
Quadrophonic gin and tonic fever dream

Cell-disrupting, will-corrupting vertigo
Exponential, existential horror show

And what about the way they say she treats you?
    jealous friends, wasn't true
And do you see a way to gain some control?
    shiver fits when it's cold
And the zero times she calls me back refine my soul

My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulf-, sodium laureth sulfate hair
My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulf-, sodium laureth sulfate hair

North San Bruno Dishonor Trip (Scott Miller/Dawn Richardson)

You know the drill
Demerol economy
Drunk on civil rights
You know the drill
Demerol economy, see a stranger
Spike his drink with piss and danger
Then who'll have the male psychosis? Not us!
Then who'll hate world around them? Not us!
This is how our cherished legends take shape
But from our favorite stories can some
Truth escape?
No thank you, older brother, we don't rape
No thank you, goddess nature, we don't rape
No thank you, ancient wisdom, we don't rape
Thank you

Don't Respond, She Can Tell (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Kenny Kessel)

I cross the room like a dancing architect
A daddy waltz on the tops of my shoes
A dealer in women's short attentions
I'll have a cousin who grew up in the same town as you

I'll joke around with an unloaded weapon
You drink until it's in line with your taste
Look out the window, they're burning the ricefields
I'll run for office some time
People's choice, foe of waste

Maybe I say the dull things I say
Maybe they reach her through the air
Maybe I'm thinking of it as a task
Maybe it really is a task, and I'm not up to the task
Maybe the answer is don't ask

Don't respond, she can tell
Don't respond, she can tell
Don't respond, she can tell
Don't respond, she can tell

Be prepared to play down first impressions
Respect the weight of the sounds in the room
Be on the prowl for a thoughtful provider
I'll hate for not giving me even more
Love in bloom

Maybe I see the things I look at
Maybe I look right past what's wrong
Maybe she thinks in terms of sets of boys
Maybe she knows the set of boys, and I'm not in the set of boys
Maybe the signal is the noise

Don't respond, she can tell
Don't respond, she can tell
Don't respond, she can tell
Don't respond, she can tell

I'm Not Really A Spring (Scott Miller)

Look at all these kids acquiring shame at such a tender age
A lifetime free of bitter days in store
Self-effacing, model social lives
Don't people ever slowly rot inside their own world anymore?
I don't pitch the case for isolation
But there's one 'okay' and then some other 'okay'
For the sake of the people you tell

Hi, I'm Silent Steve—or Chatty Charles—I'll take requests
What kind of numbers do you think i'm going to need?
Find who want to test themselves and come on like a sharpened pencil
Work inside the lines of someone's greed
I can't sit and make myself want nothing
But I won't go knocking doors to find out
How many tickets to me I can sell

They think I'm banging Anabelle and it's not going well
Stop this line of questions, I can't really say what I mean
Think I'm bragging, Anabelle, and it's not show and tell
Stop this documentary, I'm not really a spring

Making nice to girls, not knowing they'd prefer a thoughtless bastard
Widening the old discrepency
Something pulls your body, draws your lips like an electromagnet
How could I suppose it might be me?

Still, every eighteen months I wonder
Why don't we just, if we're so free to,
And what would stop us from getting right up
And have we been so easily satisfied for so long?
Except each eighteen months or so I think again
Why don't we say "thank God there's still time"—
We were just lying down, but they'll say that we fell

They think I'm banging Anabelle and it's not going well
Stop this line of questions, I can't really say what I mean
Think I'm bragging, Anabelle, and it's not show and tell
Stop this documentary, I'm not really a spring

Rise of the Chokehold Princess (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke)

Fairly slow she'd moved in world wrestling spectacle
League surrender, weak gender, stage name
Shoulders bare mean nothing audience-wise
And they want that shoulder down
Royal gown, nylon inner-seam
Abrasive to the skin no real princess wears
I was unprepared, I didn't know the feeling
What it was there, all I was, in you, ringing true

Now she shines in column-inches on the page
It's a perfect rage, it's a perfect rage
They can fire their warning shots across her bow
They can't show her how, they can't touch her now
Me, I left the league last year, and the time was right
Rating point scam, TV-cam low-res
She lets its own static, right-there audacity
Be the glamour here
Pixel smear
I was unprepared, I didn't know the freedom
None had quite seen, I was not the same
I simply couldn't be there, touch what's not me
See what seen eyes see, without me

Such Little Nonbelievers (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Jozef Becker/Kenny Kessel)

Uncriticizable you
Unadorned, therefore not poorly adorned

We're fighting smiling irish, they say that we
Look good in uniform, and mais oui!
So good you couldn't pry the cold dead fingers
Of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders free
We're action at a distance, we're forces
They say we're cute when we're mad, and we are!
So cute there's not an animation product in Japan
We don't outsparkle by far

Don't try to tell me we weren't inches away
From turning the tables and using what used you and me
Courtney, such little nonbelievers, aren't we?
Courtney, are you sure all your problems were me?
Courtney, I think we missed our chance to be free

You're finding focus now, your big project is
Finding the perfect way to leave me
And everybody needs their own big project
Time that's set aside for something stress-free

Will you be eating ice cream three meals a day?
Will tango music play? Will he be better than me?
Courtney, such little nonbelievers, aren't we?
Courtney, are you sure all your problems were me?
Courtney, I think we missed our chance to be free

The Softest Tip Of Her Baby Tongue (Scott Miller/Nina Gordon)

I was wrong to keep myself at all
To keep myself at all
I didn't know how your kisses felt
Until I saw you kiss someone else
Now how will I ever try
Child lips as I shiver sigh
I didn't know that the sun was there
Till I stopped going out anywhere
Most thrilled which is still depressed
Softest sleep which still isn't rest

Bank parking lot ten to one
Face, T-zone dry, work gets done
Loose, under things, underplay
I wished myself here, I might wish myself away

We should be steel tipped and baby-warm
In some gone age's deluded norm
Its embarrassments all somehow
Seen as flair
Is it too late now?

Still stayed in touch, perfect drone
Blue caravan, right at home
Pinned, native tongue, what we mean
Wild nature knows how to grind like a cruel machine

Screwed Over By Stylish Introverts (Scott Miller)

If I'd walked out to China Beach I wouldn't think to ask where you would go
If I lay down on China Beach my mind might wander out towards Mexico
If I was getting good at being loved my guard might come down very slow
And someone for all we know might be
Keeping conscientious track of goals that need attending
While others are relaxing

You let me know that calling just because I'm lonely is completely rude
You could work this into a lecture to the starving not to beg for food
You need a world without my manicured complacency offending you
And a certain someone
Who would never steal unless you ended up with something that he wanted
Who would never slap a girl around, unless she made him angry
Who would never screw you over, if there weren't some slight advantage
Or snap your last thread of self-respect, all other things remaining equal

Top Dollar Survivalist Hardware (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Kenny Kessel/Dawn Richardson)

Tour Eiffel, Napoleon
Names and places that are living on long
Do me a favor, forget me quick when I'm gone

Alexander lived in times before the Duke of Earl
The Greeks all told him that he threw the discus like a girl
He didn't have a healthy outlet for his anger
So he took over the world

L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction protégé
Couldn't stand to watch his royalties get taxed away
Now big celebs are walking round who think he's Jesus
What would David Koresh say?

Tour Eiffel, Napoleon
Names and places that are living on long
Do me a favor, forget me quick when I'm gone

This is when it all stops being fun, Madison
This is when they don't care where you're from
This is when there's no one last dry run, Madison
This is when you do or do not come

Tour Eiffel, Napoleon
Names and places that are living on long
Do me a favor, forget me quick when I'm gone

This is when skin burns if there's hot sun, Madison
This is when the slow horse thieves get hung

Top dollar survivalist, survival, servile, vile

Not Expecting Both Contempo and Classique (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Kenny Kessel)

Admiring paper on my wall
How many really take the time?
There may not seem that much creative latitude
But that's the challenge of design

The curves intuitively know
Which aspects of nouveau to save
Without succumbing to the full devouring will
Of Aubrey Beardsley in his grave

I'm not expecting that I'll end up with you just because I need to
I shouldn't count on having air around me just because I breathe
I've thought about it for awhile now and I'm okay with things not being okay

I'm trying to mean that I don't care
I'm learning not to be around
I'm on my feet, I'm on the phone demanding answers
Maybe I'd better just sit down

I'm not expecting that I'll end up with you just because I need to
I shouldn't count on having air around me just because I breathe
I've thought about it for awhile now and I'm okay with things not being okay

I No Longer Fear the Headless (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Kenny Kessel/Ken Stringfellow)

This was some new form of bold expression
My first thought was run and hide
They're so in touch with their dark side

They don't glow at night from radiation
These are myths the press concocts
They don't get off on who it shocks

I was closed-minded before
Show those freaks the door
Now all I want is more
I no longer fear the headless
I no longer fear the headless
I no longer want the headless to die

It's not what they do to get attention
Every day's not Halloween
It's just the San Francisco scene

Who cares who's from the grave?
They're not so depraved
Just built to misbehave
I no longer fear the headless
I no longer fear the headless
I no longer want the headless to die

Uncle Lucky (Paul Wieneke)

Uncle Lucky and Ray
Went overboard yesterday
Ran a boat out on the haze
Thought contraband runaways

Uncle Lucky and Wade
Hooked up with some renegade
Convenience store as barricade
More losing cards overplayed

Didn't they hope to rise?
Didn't they hope to stay and
Didn't they hope to
Mark their stand as a castaway?

Uncle Lucky and Slate
Motivated to agitate
Innocents auf interstate
No ethics to haul in freight

Miles to change
Miles stained all along the gone

Cat-track outback, Pontiac hi-jack,
Fishshack flashback, jaw slack gun rack
Come back when its all gone wrong

Didn't they close their eyes?
Didn't their notice the train and
Didn't they hope to
Mark their stand as a castaway?

Uncle Lucky and Ray
Lost overboard yesterday

Just Gone (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Kenny Kessel/Dawn Richardson)

That's last year there
Still around in February
Doesn't see his shadow, baby
Doesn't know to leave

There'd be a touch
That would take him through sedately
But it feels like reaching lately
It isn't coming free

And all advice is ways of saying "let it go"
Some form of "smile, the world has found a way around the issue"

Go how you want to
Say it in a goodbye letter
Doesn't seem like waiting's better
It doesn't take us in

I'll take it well
Find quiet ways to gather
Close around me what I'd rather
That there would have been

And there's been water at my neckline, I sank low,
And it was all that I could do to keep myself from swimming

Form your thoughts now
It's going under, baby
And where it goes I wonder, baby
Can it just be gone?

Asleep and Awake on the Man's Freeway (Scott Miller)

I'm asleep and awake at the same time
Not a drunk driver
Just a driver
Just here for the brand new licorice asphalt
Get off, out of courtesy, you Elm Street crawlers
And leave crazy men room to die

Must be the approach of light speed, I see ends before the starts
What it's like in prison, then the good and bad reasons for laws
The excuses, then the outcomes, then the cause

The car, her hand and me without her,
The car and not her hand,
The miles per hour, and not the miles, and not the hours,
The wheel and not the right or left direction,
The wheel and not her hand,
The freeway, not the place the freeway goes,
The driver, not the man

Where They Go Back To School But Get Depressed (Scott Miller)

And will this be our second chance, our secret better lives?
Adjusted freedom, somewhat less unsupervised
And did these girls show interest as I walked across the lawn
Or hint that in the broader sense I should be moving on?

I'm back in class and having to explain where things went wrong
I'm here in someone's school assembly string-along
I move out of an usher's way, but don't apologize
My eyes don't find you as the lights dim
Someone's mother cries

Where They Sell Antique Food (Scott Miller)

Where they sell antique food, display flesh-colored audio gear
Selling pride in the body
I can't be objective here
'Cause they point back and say
"caught you trying to sing back to life
What is long gone away, and it rots justifiably"
Flirting pointlessly
Spending that bad currency

Where the Flood Waters Soak Their Belongings (Scott Miller)

Our import LPs got soaked in the flood
I thought of how I pictured London when I was ten
And then you actually go
Occupied people with clear ideas of what in London came from the outside
LP's imported, and vulnerable, so vulnerable
To water damage
The impression of London to a ten-year-old who's never been
And the real London
In all its complexity
Are the same thing

Where They Walk Over Sainte Therese (Scott Miller/Paul Wieneke/Kenny Kessel/Dawn Richardson)

And if we wake up we'll start someone's day
And have someone's say
Walk their walk away

And if our leg's in a cast, we'll walk slow
Go such as we go
Use shortcuts we know

And if we dead-end at Ste. Therese lawn
We'll just walk right on
Bring beer, drink till dawn

Jumping over lines of graves
Did they know they were causing our problems?
I don't absolve them, I won't speak well
Was much more done than they need to be proud of
Now that they're out of pride and need?

And when we showed up we'd learned the routines
And walked through the scenes
Knew what hard work means

And when they reran the old shows we cheered
As if we revered
What seemed only weird

And when her dad picks the phone up, the news
Burns holes in his shoes
One wager, we lose

Did she so offend there, guilelessly willing to shine if she's supposed to?
Hard to get close to, born to pass by
I want to promise it's worth holding onto
Wrong not to want to always try