Century of Self – 2009

Century of Self track list and lyrics

The Giants Causeway

n/a

The Far Pavilions

New Horizons, unclaimed lands
Await us beyond the walls of our cantonment
I'll return to the Far Pavilions
You can't let it get you down
You were raised on the edge
Of this unnamed ghost town
There, a million far pavilions

Gaze down from up on their heights
Where their eyes, full of wonder wait to greet you
As you rise, feel the world you know divided up
Above and below

Let the roads lead you back
To those places you lived
Brick fields full of cut glass
Where the sidewalks strangled you
As you cradled your friend as he died from a gun wound
Past love and hatred lies our greatness

Isis Unveiled

I have made you in my likeness
And I will make you the keeper of my garden world
If you honor me in kind, I'll be grateful, but be warned
I'm a jealous God
Who placed the demons in hell
And the angels in heaven
At my side

So set me free, I'll grant your hearts desire
And I will share the secrets of the grand design
Give me daughters, send me sons and I'll make them all chosen ones
I will send them out to die
To meet the angels of death
With no tears, no regrets
I was cast down from the heights
My blood must pay for the debt
That was made when they left
Because of me

And if they taste the blood we'll let them drink
And if they taste the flesh we'll let them eat
And if one has to be forgiven then we'll pardon all of them
And if they raze our walls we'll let them in
And if they raise their swords we'll let them hit
And if one has to be forgiven then
We'll love them

Let me lead you to the garden world
I will place you at the right of my father's hand
I was tempted in the wild I crossed from start till end of time
I emerged the sacred lamb
Whose blood must pay for the debt
That was made when they left
As I ascend into the sky I'll free the angels from hell
And place them in heaven
At my side

Halcyon Days

There, but for the grace of our Gods go you and I
Down roads none dare to follow
Sands buried the graves of our former lives
Smile and wave and let them go
To rise above the mires of old days long died
Know they won't come again
Let the years roll in and drown our yesterdays

Time is a stream with no end in sight
As dark as it is cold
Flowing by as we pray for the source to run dry
That we may never grow old
We long to rest our tired bones by our fires
And drink to the days
Let the years roll in and drown our yesterdays

Born on our knees we all long
For a fawn to sooth and calm
And with our arrows bring her down

Here, let me rest in your loft for a while
Before I have to walk home
Through the streets bathed in the light
Of a thousand fires
Of a cold and angry world
In time we'll reconcile with old days long died
Know they won't come again
Let the years roll in, drown our yesterdays

Bells of Creation

I was standing on the shore, facing an open sea
I was listening to the sound of the waves breaking
And I thought of all the words that they were whispering
And it kept changing

I was standing in the midst of a great company
Listening to the voices in ecstasy
And I watched as all creation was sang into being
And it kept changing
And it was changing

And all at once I caught a pulse and felt a rhythm
And I thought of the song of the ages
Then the balance slipped and opened up the season
And I felt like raging

I was staring at the clouds, the rain began to fall softly
Filling up the rivers in Texas
And I thought of you and maybe you once thought of me
We were changing
And we kept changing

And all at once I saw a hole into the future
And I thought of the bells of creation
I heard the voice of God coming in the music
And I felt like Satan
and I felt like Satan

We were standing on the shore, facing an open sea
Listening the sound of the waves breaking
And I turned to you and said we should never leave
We were changing

Fields of Coal

Well I had a dream that I received a prophecy
Predictions and vision to be written by me
But I didn't want them to come true, I was afraid
So I decided to run away
But what could I run to, where could I go?
If I showed my face, all the angry prophets would know
I ran into the wilderness, ran into the cold
I screamed why, oh why did I ever run away?

Don't disturb those fields of coal
For they may turn to gold
And if they break you, don't let them run away
With your soul

Knights in white lighting shot out of the remote
They said stand and be reckoned, I begged please, let me go
They said uh-uh, no way, you've gotta come true
We can't let you run away

But I was taught by my mother not to do as I was bid
I always tried to do good but I was just a bad kid
They kicked me out of their schools, they didn't like what I did
And since then I've always been a little runaway

Don't disturb those fields of coal
For they may turn to gold
And if they break you, don't let them run away
With your soul

I had a dream that I was an alien
And in a ship of white diamond I was encircling the sun
But the ship lost control, I got too close, and I couldn't turn away
The force of its gravity sucked me right in
But it didn't burn solid like the other suns did
Inside was a stage and they wanted me to play
I screamed why, oh why? Would you just let me run away?

Don't disturb those fields of coal
For they may turn to gold
And if they break you, don't let them run away
With your soul

Inland Sea

Stay calm, stay calm
Relax your limbs gently float to earth
Hear the laughing of the Inland Sea
And know your mind is where you're meant to be

Wake up, wake up
Remind yourself exactly who you were
Is the price you've paid to live this little dream
Worth the pain you've been suffering?
The only way out is to go up

Take up your arms
Prepare yourself to face the whole world
Don't ask your friends for faith or company
They're none of them who they pretend to be

Luna Park

It hit my mind, it came to me
In order to live it's got to be freed

And all I want
Is this grace undone
It's haunting my head now
Like a prodigal son

Like a dog tired sage
You know I couldn't wait
I want to set this place a flame
Frame by frame

A lingering vision burning my memory
A scorching scene dying by the sea

Like a dog tired sage
You know I couldn't wait
To set this place aflame
Frame by frame

It didn't take long
To see it gone
Look at what I've done
I've seen it, want to feed it
Burn it down and just free it
I need it now
I need you right now

Night descends the fires rage
Through the morning light

Pictures of an Only Child

Bright all the eyes of the family on the other side
From an only child for the first fourteen years of life
All the pictures they were never seen and never heard from

I'm standing with Eric and Mom outside of Taj Mahal
Convinced that I am gonna be a writer and a movie star
I've a picture of dad here sitting, hair down to the ground
Bright all the eyes of the family now dead and gone

We've played games of fate and chance
We were caught and made to dance
Sold our souls to slavery
Lost our way and prayed for death

I took the pictures and the camera, dropped them in the sand
I wore a Mickey Mouse hat on that day, Disneyland
I was crying at the camera, lying about my life
Bright all the eyes of the family, bright all the eyes

We've played games of fate and chance
We were caught and made to dance
Sold our souls to slavery
Lost our way and prayed for death

Bright all the eyes of the family on the other side

Insatiable (One)

Curse this insatiable weakness of us
Close where all severs aside

Douse our sensations
As deep as they are

Born in the blink of an eye
Born in the blink of an eye

Love deviates from the plans that we're on
Flinging us soft to the side

Find ourself broken
And all friends are gone

Caught in the blink of an eye
Caught in the blink of an eye

Ascending

From a crashing light
I was forced awake
Clutching bloodshot eyes
Wide & afraid
Stark impressions of a
vague translucent day
Distorts the room in a lazy way
A stubborn case of the young man's blues
Has gotten me scouring the streets for you
Where shattered souls and cheated hearts
Descent into a Bedlam of scars

Parading past ancestral skulls
through callused and bruised urban sprawls
Hot sweat pours down a sunlit road
where life and death meet and explode
What can't be ignored and
can't be explained
I captured in a song's refrain
Each fear I forced on to a page
I read the word and choked with rage

After the war we left the dead on the shore
But their screams and cries still haunt us wherever we go
Our little boat caught in the ebb and the flow
on the seas of wine where time has but forgotten us

Donde está el oro, donde están los heroes?
Donde estaba el dia del sol para ellos?
Where is the gold? Where are all our heroes?
Where is that day of sun that we have waited on?

Thrown by the wreck into the Eye of the Storm
We cling to life though the gods have all abandoned us

Are forced to be in the wrong place
Being forced to fit
being forced to taste
misguided moments I was caught
by the sound of a bell
on a police car

The scars, fresh upon my hands
The child emerges a new born man
Vandals, Martyrs, ragged purist stands
Eyes wide like saucers rake the land

An August Theme

n/a

Insatiable (Two)

Mourn as a nation, rule as a mob
Kill for an insult so slight
The further they plummet, the blinder they are
Each one believing they're right

I'm the monster and I exist
On this summit I am lost
On its slopes I've seen the world
As she was meant to be seen