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Rating: One tries to “elevate” themselves, refuses to listen to tracks less than twenty minutes long that aren’t explicitly avant-garde, spending entire nights sincerely dedicated to the most extreme, most challenging krautrock and then... and then you happen to stumble upon this Adam Green and these “Gems.” I candidly confess, I've listened to this thirty-minute album at least a good hundred times in less than a month since I discovered it. Adam Green is a goofball, a little more than twenty-year-old who, thanks to his father or some uncle as it always happens, listened to the right music as a kid, maybe got a little guitar as a gift at thirteen, and the guy started having fun.
From the first to the last track, the echoes, or rather I would call them blatant references, are numerous; the first, title track, recalls genius, lightheartedness, and unpredictability à la They Might Be Giants, “He’s The Brat” brings to mind the most fun and carefree Ray Davies (Kinks) for me, “Over The Sunrise” instead reveals what seems, at least in this album, to be his most pronounced influence: the great Jim Morrison of the short pearls of “Strange Days” or the blues (“Crackhouse Blues”). But that's not all, he is a top-notch songwriter who has listened to the greatest of the genre, starting with the great Leonard Cohen, and has been able to draw on the best melodic qualities (not the poetic ones!!), and yet in “Carolina” he unleashes a chorus reminiscent of the Strokes (his great friends) and in the engaging “Emily” an irresistible Fifties-style rock'n'roll not to mention the country that characterizes several tracks.
What's missing? Oh yes, the lyrics... For these, I'll limit myself, as with the greats, to quoting a line from “Carolina”: “California presidente / Cogi mucho estoy cansado / Dostoevsky, Fab Moretti / Antiseptic, complimentary / There's her hand now on the cock sock / Filled with white tears from the thrift store”.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Gemstones (02:24)
Gemstones cracking, 'cuz we're just too strong
Drum-sized yearning 'cuz the pressures gone
Supervised love, crucified stuvs
Simmering red in the sex farm clubs
There's an exit to this desert dangling freely from the shingles in the snow
She's a show off, Xanex Zoloft
Blank faced footprints of the zebras in the glen
Cavemen humping in the sterling space pod
Drumstick pumpkin in the Starbucks courtyard
Gigolos dance, stepping on toes
Benedryl nights in the OK holes
There's an exit to this desert dangling freely from the shingles in the snow
She's a show off, Xanex Zoloft
Blank faced footprints of the zebras in the glen
Lets break into the labrynth of lies
Let's dive off the end of his eyes
Hollywood hills, peppermint bills
I can still taste the grime that you stuffed in my gills
Oh Johnny, can't you set a place for Holly?
She's a wild one, she'll be staying for a spell
Till they find her, and they drag her down to
Barcelona! Down to Barcelona
I'm a very funny boy but I know what I just said “cha cha cha'?
Dunking donuts, give me dunking donuts
She's a very funny girl but I love that crazy bitch ALLRIGHT!
06 Before My Bedtime (02:40)
Who cares what day it is or how long we live for?
I need to make a judgement about you before my bedtime
For when I put my head down on the pillow
My drugstore dreams will cut me down to size
By then I’ll be a brand new different person
To love you while I’m trying to decide
I don’t care what time you keep
Or what you thought I came to do
I lost you on a Tuesday
That’s all I can remember
For when I put my head down on the pillow
My drugstore dreams will cut me down to size
By then I’ll be a brand new different person
To love you while I’m trying to decide
Oh, the spectrum of my days
The make-up that was peeling off your adolescent face
Oh, such a face
To try to get the clocks to change
To turn and swing the other way
Before I knew that pigeons cried
And sanctified the hopelessness inside
07 Carolina (02:51)
Carolina, she's from Texas
Red bricks drop from her vagina
Oh, her lips taste just like sunk ships
But her breasts taste just like breakfast
There's her hand now on the cock sock
Filled with white tears from the thrift store
She's an eyesore in her red dress
I'm the ghost of her deceased when she said
Give us back our lives
Leave him, Carolina
Everything's just fine
Refill my prescription
Until next time
I get so lost inside the rooms inside my mind
California presidente
Cogi mucho estoy cansado
Dostoevsky, Fab Moretti
Antiseptic, complimentary
There's her hand now on the cock sock
Filled with white tears from the thrift store
She's an eyesore in her red dress
I'm the ghost of her deceased when she said
Give us back our lives
Leave him, Carolina
Everything's just fine
Refill my prescription
Until next time
I get so lost inside the rooms inside my mind
Goodnight Sweetheart
Flying high on birth control
She knows the pregnancy will show
That she smells nice when you look twice
Who's your boyfriend, Carolina?
And it's goodnight sweetheart
Flying high on birth control
She knows the rejections in her bones
Carolina, she's from Texas
Red bricks drop from her vagina
Carolina
Carolina
Carolina
08 Emily (02:45)
I just don't care about the evening news
I never listen to the crackhouse blues
They say the city is the place to be
I wanna dance with Emily
Everybody come around the window shop
I guess they never seen the moves I got
I wanna be with what the people see
I wanna dance with Emily
Emily, sweet baby, won't you be my wife
Cutting me wide open with a kitchen knife
Everybody said that she is underage
Honky tried to shoot me with a 7 gage
Now I got the cookies that your momma sent
I got permission from the government
Someone should mention to the minister
Now I gotta dance with Jennifer
Jenny's got a mousehole full of pigeon scum
On top a mountain made of bubble gum
Don't understand what all the grief is for
Now I gotta dance with Eleanor
Eleanor, I wonder if we grew too slow
Straight down the hatch beneath the streetlight's glow
Baby when I get you on that persian rug
That's the kind of movie that I'm dreaming of
I'll tell you something that you'd think I know
I got two tickets to the sold out show
Some of the fellas like to think I'm Greek
I wanna love you maybe three days a week
I just don't care about the evening news
I never listen to the crackhouse blues
I wanna be with what the people see
I wanna dance with Emily
I wanna dance with Emily
11 Choke on a Cock (01:38)
I did not ask for alot this year
Every single day looking for an answer to the words you say
Never got to meet the president
Never got to shake his squirly hand
Oh don't you know the president is out for tea with tony blair?
He won't be back for hours maybe homeboy...
I'd be so hppy if I got to meet george bush
He's like an angel when rebecca hears me calling
I would dance on nbc and say "george bush shook hands with me"
And then I'd go and choke on a cock...
And gwenovier would find me leaving home
And johnny depp would call me on the phone
And johnny depp would call me on the phone I know
I'd be the greastest singer on the radio...
Leaning on the raging river flats
Sliding on a single blade of grass
Oh don't you know the ada is pushing tea with johnny day
They won't be smashing flowers maybe no more
I'd be so happy if I bet it all on you
And never answer when rebecca asked me questions
I'd lay down to some degree
And say "john sterr locked lips with me"
And then I go and choke
And then I go and choke
And then I go and choke on a cock...
12 Bible Club (01:52)
shes my baby,
she's my love,
pixie queen of bible club,
i've seen her sitting round the fountain sipping cokes,
crafting brand new polish jokes,
and i can't explain,
why my accent changed,
i guess theres still some hope to score some dope,
she needs to be changed inside.
she's my waitress,
she's the boss,
lips and teeth of santa claus,
pencil in the dentist,
clean the crops,
have you seen my soda pop?
there was a polish priest,
who thought he could please me,
he got me so wacked out,
i nearly lost my house,
cos nobody needs me yeah...
13 Chubby Princess (01:43)
The sweat on your lips is the rest of your smack
Your breath starts to skip as your neck turns to slack
Lay down my chubby princess before you get some rest
Cause tonight she's gonna put your crummy mattress to the test
And they say not so many strawberries grow in the sea
Cause it's too late for changes in my family
And all the phoney princes still hate my guts so much
Cause I just don't believe in bad news before lunch
And if I went back to that whorehouse tonight
Do you think I'd find a reason for a princess not to bite
For those of us folks that good health does not bless
The best news for us is the end of our death
Lay down my chubby princess before you get some rest
Cause tonight she's gonna put your crummy mattress to the test
And if I went back to that whorehouse tonight
Do you think I'd find a reason for a princess not to bite
My cock
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