Gunsling Birds

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1. THESE DAGUERREOTYPES
   • Instrumental
2. I AM CONSTANTLY THIRSTY
   • A cloud clutches my throat,
     it wanted to leave but missed the last boat,
     said don’t worry honey
     You know we all float
     A road has fed us through
     We try to take our fill but you’re hungry soon
     Starving’s just another thing to do
     I never wanted to.
     And if nothing is left after all,
     just girls trading secrets in bathroom stalls
     Just autos performing on the interstate
     Just a series of plans formulated too late
     Just crops, just streets, just names, concrete
     Just buildings like towers and smoke like wreaths.
     And won’t that be the time to retreat.
     Won’t that be the time to retreat.
     You tread the ground that passes behind me
     Twist the tongue that turns inside me
     Kick and scream and try to deny me
     Close the blinds and try to blind me
     I have knelt by the ankle I beg to
     Lied to the face I belong to
     Coughed into the palm I subscribe to
     I don’t know what my limbs have grown to.
     I am constantly thirsty
     My throat is a boulder
     That stone won’t be sated
     And water’s no savior.
     I got a handle on the plan they made
     I got a kick that wants the stomach to stay
     I know the path is just a lie to believe
     I know there’s no truth in the things I see.
     You tread the ground that passes behind me
     Twist the tongue that turns inside me
     Kick and scream and try to deny me
     Close the blinds and try to blind me
     I have knelt by the ankle I beg to
     Lie to the face I belong to
     Coughed into the palm I subscribe to
     I don’t know what my limbs have grown to.
3. DERELICT KINGDOM
   • Did you find what you seek
     Amongst the blankets and sheets
     You looked so hard
     I could have sworn on the way home
     I passed the gates of heaven
     Upon closer inspection
     it was the halo of a 7-Eleven
     When they shut off our heat
     We can hide in the oven
     And when they cut our tap
     We can swallow our spit
4. I HEARD ABOUT ROBERT LAMB
   • Instrumental
5. DONUTS FOR DINNER
   • The cure is in your mouth
     stick your tongue out
     You take what’s not allowed
     And I hold you
     Donuts for dinner
     I know that it’s winter again
     I’m done with these sinners
     they’re clogging the river
     you’re not getting thinner
     but just like the branch you can bend
     If you take my pulse, don’t give it back
     it is just a latent heart attack
     I know you run as thick as thieves
     You could never be as thick as the mud you leave
     A sudden change in air pressure will determine what we’ll do
     Barometric readings will surely tell us soon
6. NIGHTMUTE
   • You lay between daggers
     those arrow-straight blades
     Quiets the mind does a slumber deep
     Takes the time to bring in the sheep
     I’ll stay nightmute
     To breathe the decade still
     Leave a crack in the window
     so the arctic sigh presides
     I know you didn’t but you should have tried
     you brutal beasts won’t take me alive
     I’ll stay nightmute
     to breathe the decade still
7. THE RED CROSS IS A PYRAMID SCHEME RUN BY VAMPIRES
   • When I wake up
     I am nauseous
     There is oil
     wrapped around my stomach
     When I stand up
     I am spinning
     I am a carousel
     twirling down the freeway
8. GIANT ROBOT BEE
   • Instrumental
9. OUR BLOOD IS THICKER THAN THIS
   • Set the alarm for 6am
     Today I’m taking hearts to make amends
     I’ll break this oath to play pretend
     That I can run away whenever I can
     There’s a slit wrist hanging in the sky
     Pretending to be a crescent moon
     And I’ve seen you there soaking up the blood
     I know you’ll be thirsty soon
     Our blood is thicker than this
     Don’t need the heart that beats me
     Don’t need the breath that cheats me
     Our bodies shatter on the walls
     Like broken bottles in bathroom stalls
     Who dream of someday standing tall
10. LANDSHANTY
    • Instrumental
11. BREATHING MANUAL
    • You brush by the other fire
      Tendrils of swollen sky
      A walk that leaves your ankles sore
      The muscles that beg for more.
      If you follow this road for long enough
      Do you lose the face that you have grown to love
      Do you find you’re made of different stuff
      Does the time that you take begin to rough.
      The tide it means a different thing
      To those that live below, within
      You feel that kind of cycling
      And withstand what the waves will bring.
12. TOO LATE FOR THIEVES
    • Walk down to the tracks with me
      and lay across the rails
      The ropes that hold the half of me
      are thinning at the nails
      And I know that it’s getting
      too late for thieves
      But we’ll make do with borrowing what we need
      The car in front of me
      tosses a cigarette
      I think the stubs lay a trail for me
      as we pass Margerie Street
      I want TV to take care of me
      I want to lay where I sleep
      And I know that it’s getting
      too late for thieves
      But we’ll make do with borrowing what we need
13. THE FINAL TRANSMISSION OF GARY COHLANGER
    • Instrumental
14. BURNING GASOLINE AND THE MIDNIGHT OIL
    • The pointy star
      She knows where you are
      And I know too
      I am face down
      you should have been there on the wings
      when the bloated clouds did fall
      by you
      And what you did undo
      This pandemic freeway lights a way
      Burning the gas and the midnight oil
      I found you swaddled in twilight
      I’ll follow you home
      Could you bear to face them all?
      I’m going to burn up in the atmosphere
      like a ship-wrecked cast-off
      and nose-dive through the harshest skies
      I’ll try to shake them off
      Reduce the faces to erasure marks
      coughing into that rusted throat

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“Abode of Kings in a Derelict Kingdom was recorded between the spring of 2007 and the winter of 2008, whereupon it was released in March of 2009. Scott Hallam, who constitutes the core of Gunsling Birds, worked in tandem with friends and producers Seth Faulk and Frank Wartinger, who also performed drums and piano, respectively. Also featured are the bass skills of Mike Tuccillo of funk/soul band Julius C.’

“Abode of Kings is an album about both exploration and isolation and an insular travel in a dream-like state. It traverses the realm of the gentle and melancholy, punctuated by the periodic clamor of noisy ambiance. Drawing on rich and diverse arrangements, it illustrates a world that is both desperate and desolate, but also fragile and precious.”

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