Get all 17 Manko releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of opuS X, Trashed Forsaken - the Audiobook, Ignition: Arson Anthems, Go Fish, The Goddamn Exploding Garbagetruck Poem, Strange Wine, Christmas in Katse, Battlecry, and 9 more.
1. |
Unmailed Letters
04:56
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If you thought the letters I sent to you were pretty weird
I bet you'd have a real good laugh at the ones I didn't
All the hours I spent writing them just disappeared
When I decided soon thereafter they should stay hidden
But what if I told her this, and said it just this way
Ah, look, here's the one I wrote on Valentine's Day
Now you're out of my life but not my head
And there's a pile of unmailed letters by my bed.
I never figured out what it was that scared you so
I only know it must've looked a lot like me
And time after time I tried to find words to let you know
That all I ever wanted was to see you happy and free
All the cartoon character stationery, different colored ink
What made me think you could give a damn about what I think?
And I could write a book of all I almost said
In the pile of unmailed letters by my bed.
Wouldn't it make more sense to throw them all away
And not waste another minute on a wasted word?
But will I ever find someone else to make me want to say
All the best things I ever said - that no one ever heard?
Someone said the saddest words of tongue or pen
Were either "if only" or "what might've been"
And I'd give anything to read your mind for a moment instead
Of the pile of unmailed letters by my bed
But now you're out of my life and not my head
And there's a pile of unmailed letters by my bed.
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2. |
Strange Wine
05:19
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Fine, fine holiday time
Ring out the old year with some good friends of mine
Celebrate the birth with revelry divine
Dancing and drinking strange wine
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
Who, who is looking so blue?
Out in the garden, alone in the dew?
Reminds me of a lady from town I once knew
Could she be looking for you?
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
Rare, rare to find a beauty so fair
Standing alone in the chill evening air
When midnight comes I'll be with her out there
To taste how her kisses compare
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
Bliss, bliss, what now is this?
The bell it is tolling, she cannot resist!
She turns with a smile and a sinister hiss
To administer the vampire kiss
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
Free, free, immortal are we
With a thirst for the blood of all humanity
Come, my love, celebrate eternity with me
For the birth and the death in debris
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
No, no it's no one I know
Out in the garden under the gazebo
Looks kinda sad when she hangs her head low
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
Fine, fine holiday time
Ring in the new year with some old friends of mine
Celebrate the death with revelry divine
Dancing and drinking strange wine
Sing kisses and candles and wine.
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3. |
Coming Down
06:37
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It's not what you expected, is it
It's not pretty but it's almost exquisite
Like the howl of a hungry child accusing god
These are the days it seems
Like years just waiting for the light to turn green
Victims of some universal fraud
(It's called) Coming Down
Yeah, I heard how you went out and hunted
'Til you found everything you ever wanted
Well I've been around long enough to know what comes next
So here's your trophy for first place
You won your one-man downhill race
Rolling down Everest to rust with the rest of us wrecks
Yeah, you're getting pretty good at it:
Coming Down
And here is a man with more fists than hands
More needs than fears
A black belt in chastity and an allergy to tears
But everything that we become becomes debris
Ms. Perfect got Mr. Wonderful and you got stuck down here with me.
Remind me where it all went wrong
Tell me stories all night long
About what we expected of thirty
When we were seventeen
On second thought, just let me sleep
And fall and fall into the deep
Wake me up when you see the light turn green.
Do you really want to know my deepest fear?
Will the preserver persevere?
Answer this question for me, dear:
Will the preserver persevere?
Or is everything just
Coming Down
Coming Down is the hardest part
Coming Down is the greatest art
Coming Down is much harder than
Falling back up again...
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4. |
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What would you do if you truly knew
A hundred years were promised you
And every seed you planted grew
And when you fell, you only flew
Pick up the phone, it's all good news
And if you danced, you'd dance right out of your shoes
If you knew you could do anything you choose
From loving me to kicking booze
If you truly knew you could not lose
What would you do?
It's incoherent but it's true
But all my base are belong to you
And all along I thought you knew
Now all my base are belong to you
I don't know much about the sea
Except it's much bigger than me
And flat and old and so salty
It must be full of tears like we were
When we couldn't find the key
Where we could hum in harmony
I don't know what your green eyes see
Or what they ever saw in me
But now I'm asking, if you're free
What would you be?
There isn't much I know is true
But all my base are belong to you
With every day it only grew
Now all my base are belong to you
What would you do if you truly knew
That in a year it'd all be through
No pain, no pulse, no me, no you
Just all you leave behind when a few
Dear friends throw flowers at the fu-
Neral and there's nothing you can do
But wave goodbye to all you knew
And make a memory or two
To hold at the end as you withdrew
What would you do?
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5. |
Falling Alone Again
05:56
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Believing the evening held nothing more than came before
I shuffled through the door
Discovered another adrift and drowning, going down
Two loners lost and found
And I thought I saw seasons in her eyes
And I felt all the roses start to rise
I was well on my way to some new heaven
A familiar feeling - falling alone again.
She noticed the roses and then again the paper crane
And in the rain I - I - I - I
I stuttered and stammered, so damn enamored of her smile
Falling all the while
The most beautiful blemish on her cheek
Made me feel just a little less a freak
I was well on my way to some new heaven
Before I started stalling - falling alone again
Whenever this clever boy gets thunderstruck by someone new
He'll think of you, and how
He'll measure his pleasure by its proximity to pain
And I'll blow it all again
Will I see all the seasons in her eyes?
Will I find myself tempted once more to try?
I'll be well on my way to some new heaven
A familiar feeling - falling alone again.
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6. |
Go Fish
05:28
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I'd much rather deserve you than have you
And maybe that's our destiny
And here's where you say some insipid cliche
About "so many fish in the sea"
But if I walked off that pier tonight
Would there be the slightest splash?
Or have I already fallen so far and so fast
Into your bottomless past?
Oh my darling I felt like a starling
Caught in your badminton game
Thrashing about between passion and doubt
'Til I could not recall my own name
But you were perfect and free and so wrong for me
With a hunger I could not resist
So ask me again for what I never had
And again I'll reply: Go Fish.
And when you're forty, will your husband grin
When he stumbles upon all those poems you kept
And wonders who I might've been
And me, I'll have other little fish to fry
And that's not me being sly, it's not even a lie
I trust you must know this is just goodbye
For I'd much rather deserve you than have you
And maybe that's how it should be
And here's where you say some insipid cliche
About "so many fish in the sea" - but I found a fish
Who was perfect and free and so wrong about me
That it pains me to end it like this
So ask me again for what I never had
And again I'll reply: Go Fish.
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7. |
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No one around here likes you
They look down when you enter the room
When you leave they start talking about you
And make faces about your perfume
But I don't think that it's the way you smell
Or the clothes you try to wear
But nobody around here likes you
And I wonder that you're not aware
No one around here likes you
At least that's the feeling I find
They think you show too much emotion
And generally not the right kind
And they try to ignore you and the things that you say
Except when they want a laugh
But no one around here likes you
And they'll carve it on your epitaph.
All the poems that you showed them, all the money you loaned out
The party that you just showed up at
And the way your eyes looked so scared and shy
But people never let themselves look in your eyes
Still they wonder why you don't see
That no one around here likes you
No one except maybe me.
No one around here likes you
Though usually they don't stare
They don't exactly hate you either
They just prefer it when you're not there
So whaddya say we both make their day
And just vanish into thin air
'Cuz no one around here likes you
I should know; I've been there.
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8. |
Just Friends
06:29
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In the year you've been gone
I'm still wondering what went wrong
And I guess I can live without
But I wish I could tell you all about
The night I went barhopping and jewelry-shopping
With the juggler and his painter friend
And a Sufi artist who was my kinda goddess
I told her all about you
And yet I doubt if you'd like Cynthia
With her old piano - I played her your favorite tune
I saw more of her in May than I did in June
And Cynthia was sweet and smart and beautiful
And made me feel alive again
But she could never take your place
And anyway, we're just friends.
I guess I gave the game away
When I tried to tell you how I'd changed
Now there's nothing much left to say
Ah, but isn't it all so strange
And when I opened my heart to a total stranger
Things got stranger still
I was stupid and shy but I gave it a try
Really made a fool of myself
Didn't know what to do, so I gave Julia
Too many roses and not enough table talk
But even when she walked away I loved to watch her walk
Oh yes and Julia was sweet and smart and beautiful
And made me feel so alive
And she could never take your place, but man, I'd love to see her
Try to find the light I loved in you in someone else's eyes
And I try to live the light you loved in me
But just the other day a stranger walked right up to me
Looked me in the eyes to tell me
"I don't know who did this to you
But she must've been really something"
I said, "Yeah, she was really something
And now she's someone else's something
And where's my someone else?"
But anyway...
I'm making my way through these cool new days
And I'm walking with a smile
But it sure has been a while
And if I picked up the phone and I caught you at home
Would you tell me about your day?
Nothing too intense, but I've got these new friends
They've heard a lot about you
You'd get a kick out of Victoria
With eyes like a forest and a smile like Christmas Day
She picked me up a hundred times and helped me on my way
Oh, and Victoria is sweet and smart and beautiful
And made me feel alive again
But I'd be still seeking you in her eyes
So what's the use, we're just friends.
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9. |
Push My Luck
05:57
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10. |
New World
03:03
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