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1. |
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I’m selling my father’s station wagon
for a rusty motorboat
an outboard Haul one-hundred and twenty
the wind chill’s stabbing me in the lungs
I have fallen ill with a cold
I think I’m gonna like it in this place
say it once and say it out loud
apologize and wash your mouth
because you are not in the mood, my dear
and you haven’t been for a while now
my brother is smiling on the carpet
you wouldn’t know something was wrong
the dishes in the sink are a mountain
we had dreams of finding an apartment
in a sooty city loft
I think we would have liked it enough
the words flutter sadly to the floor
and are trampled into griminess
the moonlines are lapping at the shore
and mock us with their timelessness
I am sorry I’m so apologetic
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2. |
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in a stocking cap
I slept on her lap
as we waited in a car garage
in Burlington to pass the evening
breathing Lake Champlain
February rain
her chapstick left a print
that wouldn’t fog on the windowpane
built of brick and built of stone
broken car and broken home
I hung my head outside the pharmacy
wishing I could be alone
cities grow and cities fall
into a hundred strip malls
may the mountains keep us
sheltered from the ugliness of it all
cuticles stained red
Samuel, rest your head
you were kinder than the rest who
came here before you did
twenty implements of change
an anglicized name
a generation born with no shame
a forest of fast food chains
a winter of driving rain
an opinion to proclaim
a senator to blame
a population to enflame
a bridge over Lake Champlain
four centuries of man
in a garbage can
I realize now that I, too
am a selfish man
but I can’t love like I used to
and I can’t give like I used to
I couldn’t pull apart the heart I had
for everyone and give it to you
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3. |
Leavenworth, WA
09:01
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you built planes with an engineering degree
to reclaim what they stole from your family tree
after the rain, the rumble strips reflect the sky
after the plane, the sun surprises your eyes
you drove us to the river
in a blue Chevrolet
I was swimming with a ghost
floating toward the coast
we jumped off a cliff
and our eye movement slowed
your skin was turning black
from a spot on your back
you left a fortune sitting on your desk in Everett
when a phone call left you four years
you thought a proper grave would manifest in Leavenworth
I’ll leave here, you won’t leave here
you know, you know
you know there’s nothing here that you should be upset about
nothing scares you, nothing terrifies you anymore
the Navy paid for school
and you paid back the debt
by pulling a helmet on
and diving dirty bombs
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4. |
Canton, OH
06:27
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We were young, young and free, freely bound together
We gazed into each other’s eyes, we cried at our wedding
Tears are a funny things, yes a strange token
Even when they spring from joy, they whisper something’s broken
Three years in, I made our bed, I made up my mind
I’d bike across the countryside, just to make it mine
Now I can’t even say, was I happy or jaded?
Like spilled ink on a diary that blots all the old pages
All my old pages
Oh I didn’t think I was running from anything
But there were some things that I couldn’t bring myself to think
How I love you became a trite apology
Or how you stiffened when you were touched by me
My heart was dying of a thousand bruises
But I know a guilty heart accuses
Did I dream it all up, oh tell me now
Did you take the slightest pause before you took your vow?
On those days when I saw nobody for hours
I saw your face in patterns of the shriveled springtime flowers
On those nights when the only sound was the hotel AC dying
There through the stillborn air, I could hear you crying
Or were you?
Oh I made so many vows hunched over my Ertegun
My life was a ray, straight-shooting for the rising sun
I’ll be clean, I’ll be good, I’ll treat you right I know
And above all else, I’ll go, I’ll go
When I was through, life lost its motion
I stayed up all night, drinking and smoking
Waves lapped my feet; I was eroding
I felt the world shift but couldn’t control it
When he opened the door I didn’t understand
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5. |
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You crumple all your money into plastic bags
And you dump it over all their heads
And they’ll pour it back to local businesses
You’re giving up all hope of an interstate
That would route people through the town
For the smug diversion of one quick look around
You’ll gentrify the outskirts
Encroaching on your personal space
You’ll reinvent the wheel
Instead of rolling out of this place
Because running from your problems
And fixing all your problems
Sometimes appear to look the same
You gather all the brightest from the local schools
to compete for a free ride
In their Sunday blazers and orange and blue ties
They’re trained by the pillars of the Lion’s club
To possess an opportunist’s flair
And to tell you exactly what you want to hear
These kids aren’t just opening the door
They are clawing at the knob
And name-dropping Mr. Jefferson
Like he might get them a job
Life seems pretty easy
When highschool was such a breeze
But there’s a cruel, cold world of finance, kid
And it’ll knock you to your knees
You’ll put a foot in the middle
When we come down the slide
But southern Virginia
Is running out of places to hide
The best plan you’ve devised
To dig your town out of a hole
Is asking unanswerable questions
To some rich eighteen year olds
And o’er the quilted plains of kudzu
And every overgrown marquee
Get the kids out of here
From overeager thespians
To photogenic lesbians
Who suck each others’ lips off
to mortify the elder residents
They’ll fill the local theater
To a third of all its parts
You kids are kind of dirty
But there’s some profit in the arts
You’ll put a foot in the middle
When we come down the slide
But southern Virginia
Is running out of places to hide
They say life would be sweeter
If you’d step back on the ground
Do the right thing, and let nature
reclaim this failure of a town
And for the red, white and blue
Neon tubes behind the bars
Get the kids out of here
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6. |
Occupy Anchorage
04:39
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When I have kids
Will they know me like you did
Or will they think
Nothing ever made me flinch
When I am old
When I am sitting in a home
With my new friends
Quoting hip-hop from the 90s
Will you call
And say you’ve given us some thought
And you’d like to give us one more shot
While I am young
While I’m too proud to bite my tongue
Everything
Is a cause for revolution
You won’t call
I tried for too many corrections
And people don’t work like elections
No one changes based on incentives
And you could never stomach the lectures
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7. |
My Thick Skin
04:56
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It’s not that the bad ones get to me
it’s that good ones don’t anymore
and the dreams that once got me through the day
now haunt me at night in repetitive cycles
We get conditioned to success
and much more sensitive to failure
and the thicker my skin gets
my heart just gets that much frailer
With every bit of negativity
that I bravely swallow
I’m just that much more likely
to end up boring and hollow
And darling if I set you free
I hope you come running back to me
because the years feel like the months now,
they are passing right through me
The failures are the ones who teach you
A piece of decency just makes you weaker
You are tearing me apart, Lisa
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8. |
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I’m waking up with great ideas that fell apart
fuck a brain, I’ve got a heart I can’t keep quiet
Vancouver, Vancouver, you’re looking better every day
and I hate to turn away each time that you whisper my name
A million astronauts manage bank accounts all day
cause when their childhood went away, their dreams went with it
They work below the clouds, when above the sky is blue
yeah, and I could be them too, with lists of things I didn’t do
I’m waking up so slowly with the sunlight in my eyes
and I know exactly why I’ve put off leaving
Should I pack up my things before I lose the will to go?
because if I stayed here, I know I would die sadly
And if I die before I wake
I’d only want you to take
me away from here
A foggy morning turns to a rainy afternoon
and if I don’t get there soon, I might prefer sunshine
Vancouver, Vancouver, you’d better hide your face from me
because I couldn’t stand to be apart if you were right for me
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9. |
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seven-thirty, your alarm’s on its third round
your eyes won’t open
the key to the snowmobile is frozen to the ground
until April
heat’s escaping through the cracks in your window
to the morning
milk is colder when the street lights are still burning
the sun is broken
the TV goes unused
it’s better to seclude
yourself from the news
my shadow’s forty times as tall
as I’ll ever be
but when I’m farther from the light
I am infinite
there’s voltage stretched across the gas
to shed a yellow light
that haunts the top of the world
for the satellites
the snow is piled around the house
stairs climb out of it
the horizon blushes pink at noon
I can’t climb out of it
my shutter’s slowing to a crawl
painting blurry lines
each person’s two hundred feet long
the streetlight waves a magic wand
and I’m a big fish in a little pond
but when I turn to look
the satisfaction’s gone
my car is coughing up a lung
when it’s woken up
leaves a trail of cumulus clouds
down Mackenzie
we’re alcoholics half the year
in the wintertime
a roaming polar bear was killed
near the powerlines
no one ever went to New York
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The Anatomy of Frank Charlottesville, Virginia
The Anatomy of Frank will record an album on every continent on earth. Europe is next. "The Anatomy of Frank blend the complexity of post-rock with the immediate likability of pop-rock to create music that will get stuck in your head without ever driving you crazy." - Pretty Much Amazing ... more
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