The Tape of Only Linda

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Release date: 1994

The band: Scott Miller, Paul Wieneke, Zachary Smith, R. Dunbar Poor, Jozef Becker

Guest musicians: Ken Stringfellow, Shalini Chatterjee, Mitch Easter

Producer: Mitch Easter

Soul Drain
My Superior
Marcia and Etrusca
Hyde Street Virgins
Baby Hard-To-Be-Around
It Just Wouldn't Be Christmas
Better Nature
Still Its Own Reward
For Beginners Only
Ballet Hetero

Soul Drain

Disconnected
Unsuspected
There was nothing up our sleeve

Raised our glasses
Took the classes
Till we honestly believed

Came with flowers
Stayed for hours
Took it all the way to bed

Pat and Vanna
Joe Montana
All the Star Search rage, we said it was a good game
We shrugged and played along
We gave our glad endorsement
But now it just seems wrong

Cry the cold rain
Down the soul drain
It's that special time of year

Find a snowstorm
I might get warm
'Cause the weather's worse in here

Grab the ice tongs
Sing the fight songs
'Cause my finger's off the pulse

Tea with Donald
Lunch with Ronald
I was not myself, I was a good accomplice
An ideal go-between
I stood up under torture
But now I'm coming clean

My Superior

Girl, the camera just loves you
But I'm not sure I do
It looks at less than meets the eye
And what an outright lie
I took the first effective view
And turned it into you
I stared directly in your face
But failed to see a trace

Not quite true romance
My superior and I
Facts fall down wanting every time we try

We kiss and fix whatever's wrong
But I don't stay kissed long
It's work to get things straight and then
To lose it all again

Not quite true romance
My superior and I
Can't fall down wanting every time we try

Show me that surface where the eyes meet the image
I'll show you where the hook went in
Small expectations greet the lies and spiders
Filling in a window frame
Long pretty god-boys lurk in corners
Looking murder in the face again

It ties our hands behind our backs
And drops us in our tracks
It gives us slumber party chills
And undermines our wills

Not quite true romance
My superior and I
Facts fall down wanting every time we try

Marcia and Etrusca

Marcia throw your latex gloves away
You've touched the world now, I would say
You don't need to stand for anything more
Marcia, than the Kleenex on the floor

Dino and Elijah fly into the battle zone
Marcia and Etrusca sitting bravely by the phone
Love them like you'll never live without them
And then leave them on their own

Marcia throw your latex gloves away
You've touched the world now, I would say
You don't need to stand for anything more
Marcia, than the Kleenex on the floor

Dino and Elijah in the hundred year crusade
Marcia and Etrusca watch their photo album fade
Hold it like you'll keep them there forever
And then let them not have stayed

Hyde Street Virgins

Right down this street we learned not saying what we mean
To charge the rebel mind but not offend the queen
And found for all our trouble that there's no in-between

The dullest thing to cut you leaves the deepest scar
The place there wasn't for us in the joy-ride car
And if you'd ask me now I'd say we've come pretty far
To be as nowhere as we are

Hyde Street virgins
Rock and roll
Had our secrets
Now you know
We just look for things to make us go

I used to hear, "Don't let rejection wear pride thin."
Advice to use with invitations pouring in
And there we were with more pride saved than we'd ever spend

I don't recall the day that Lake Geneva froze
The goal became to never leave a thing exposed
But now I want to frame it so that each nuance shows
As it starts to come to its close

Hyde Street virgins
Rock and roll
Had our secrets
Now you know
We just look for things to make us go

Baby Hard-To-Be-Around

She gave it to you something bad
Arose above suspicion
You caved in to the T.V. ad
You should have asked permission

She's baby hard-to-be-around
I'll tell you all about her
She'll make you hate the life that you are living without her

She goes as deep as Jacques Cousteau
It's you that's getting phony
She doesn't crawl and say hello
She's not your little pony

She's baby hard-to-be-around
I'll tell you all about her
She'll make you hate the life that you are living without her

You don't know the family secret
All comes out at midnight
Think you'll be the first to shake it
You'll be in bed by ten
(Think again)

You don't know what you're crying for
I'll tell you where it's going
She's baby hard-to-be-around
And baby it's showing

It Just Wouldn't Be Christmas

Here comes that can-do agenda
Banging that old baby grand
Who wouldn't sign up just to shake that hand?
Guess I'm not much of an hombre
Don't stack up quite all the way
For the man's work of doing what you say
Your lucky charm apologist
Your company convention hall rented comedian
Working the room, surfing the tedium
Coming in nights with a rag and a broom

Guess it just wouldn't be Christmas
No fun if we couldn't shout
What a deal we got selling someone out
Guess we'd be nothing without it
Sworn to uphold and defend
Faked it so long it's like I comprehend
You should have owned me while you could
Harvested a cottonfield, filled up a uniform
Fleshed out a war
Shared a drink afterward
Gone in half on a Cambodian whore

We talked to hundreds of successful people
We asked them how they get around the
Lines we jam to
Walking their families through
This is the science of losing by one
When they blow smoke
In our face why we choke
This is the point of sweating what's done
This is science of losing by one
This is the way we won't have to depend on things,
we've only just begun

Here comes that badge of distinction
Flashing and slashing away
Just like it still got you the time of day
Guess it just wouldn't be Christmas
Guess it would only be winter solstice, graceless, goalless
I see myself in twenty years
Begging for Avalon, pending my trial
Watching the gavel drawn
We've got the luxury just for a while
That we can can tell you get lost in style

Better Nature

Bought culture
Got some liquor with a video
Fly falling
Never know who's on the ground below
Turn my better nature

Rust farmer
Drinking in the old scenario
Safe harbor
From the thought I had a week ago
Turn my better nature
Thinking I bought culture

Press me Shiralee, there's no such home free ride
    (press, distress me -- half way to)
Drive me Shiralee, drive some way outside
    (drive, revive me)
Home's just too far gone home

Abstraction
From a class I took in stereo
Lost traction
But I think I might have started slow
Turn my better nature
Buckled under pressure
Thinking I bought culture

Press me Shiralee, there's no such home free ride
    (press, distress me -- half way to)
Drive me Shiralee, drive some way outside
    (drive, revive me)
Home's just too far gone home

Bought culture
Though I lost it quite a while ago
Still thinking
Maybe one last thing I might outgrow
No more better nature

Press me Shiralee, there's no such home free ride
    (press, distress me -- half way to)
Drive me Shiralee, drive some way outside
    (drive, revive me)
Home's just too far gone home

Still Its Own Reward

There are ways if they'd asked
I'd have told the world to treat you
At each stage you could take what they'd throw at you

I don't want to believe
That this time they really beat you
See you there looking not meant to make it through

But don't you find it's on your mind
With friends all going places?
And even though they told you so
Was that sufficient basis?
And when you lose across the board
Is trying still its own reward?
Still its own reward

Could I have been there to
Feed you pieces of survival
Drag it out till we thought of that as the norm
And at the first sign of strength
Turn into your fiercest rival
Condescending to come in a pleasing form

But do you size up in their eyes
How much they'll feel your leaving?
And even though they told you so
Were words much worth believing?
And with the fall you're headed toward
Is trusting still its own reward?
Is trying still its own reward

I'm sorry, I've seen a whole lot of bad advice go by
You don't worry about yourself and baby why should I?
Is baby gonna die?
Is baby gonna die?

Don't you find it's on your mind
With first impressions ending?
And even though they told you so
Was there much worth defending?
And when it's not your own accord
Is living still its own reward?
Is trusting still its own
Is trying still its own reward

For Beginners Only

I've considered suicide
But there's really no point, after all there's only one of me
Come on baby, let's take a ride
Let's get out of this joint there's another place we ought to be
These days everyone's going insane
But I'd rather not go 'cause I've already been there
Don't need to feel that much pain
So I'm taking it slow medication don't agree with me

I've had a talk with the dogs of war
Now it's never too clear when they tell me what it's all about
Heard a hint of what's in store
So I'm living in fear but the future seems to be in doubt
My friends all buy small arms,
And they sell they sell them with style 'cause there's always a rebate
Mercenary boys got plenty of charm
But slaughter with a smile is a service I can do without

Take me downtown, take me 'round the block
Take me anywhere, long as it's somewhere
Show me how to begin 'cause I know that
This game goes to beginners only

Thought I had a date with Lili Marlene
But I got stood up, now I guess she's never gonna show
Sitting in the car in the driving rain
Feeling so fed up with the music on the radio
These days everyone's knocking romance
And it seems out of place in a town with a club scene
But I'd rather do more than dance
If I could find one face that I thought I'd like to get to know

Take me downtown, take me 'round the block
Take me anywhere, long as it's somewhere
Show me how to begin 'cause I know that
This game goes to beginners only
To beginners only
To beginners only
To beginners only

I've considered suicide
But I've given it up, better leave it for another day
Spillin my guts on the three by five
Gonna light them on fire, gonna watch them till they blow away
Been living on borrowed time
Just like every one else in the whole bloody pawn shop
I'll figure out how to make it mine
Then you better watch out 'cause the usury is gonna stop
Stop!

Ballet Hetero

I could be someone you'd love more than me
I'd have thought it was strange,
But there's not that much of me there to change

Save your life, while it fits under the knife
Look what you counted on
The very first fairy tale up and gone

And it weighs on us now, precious and overgrown
We've lost our old skill at being left on our own

Since when have we been such shrinking violets?
What came to push us around?
What's there to threaten our code of silence?
There's not as far to fall near the ground

Please don't cry, I know you're passing me by
But I don't let down my guard
And believe me, I'd only try too hard

Momentum fulfilled, fault in the viewer's eyes
Path unperturbed as if we should apologize

Since when have we been such shrinking violets?
What came to push us around?
We'll die defending our code of silence
There's not as far to fall near the ground

The little deuce coupe
The fox on the run
The fugue state aphasia
The ego dismantled

The kiss in the fourth grade
The sex in the bathroom
The theme varied slightly
The four-county crackdown

The Heisenberg threshold
The virgin conception