Streethawk: A Seduction lyrics

An illegal copy of Destroyer’s Streethawk: A Seduction has occupied slot 3 of my car’s 6-disc changer going on seven months now. In that time it has probably become my most listened-to album ever. Because the album compels me to sing, and because Dan Bejar’s voice isn’t always so intelligible, I was looking forward to the lyric sheet I expected to come with the real copy I ordered from Merge a few weeks ago. And because his lyrics are sometimes a little embarrassing, I was also worried that I might end up wishing I had never learned them.

The liner notes lacked lyrics entirely, but fortunately someone answered my desperate plea on the Merge forum. Also fortunate: rather than sucking, they’re pretty awesome.

Streethawk I

Hey girl, come on and take a whirl in my machine.
Though I’m telling you now, it leaves scars on the wanton.
Behind these bars there’s a house built for haunting.
Now, go!! Or don’t go.
Just don’t say no.
Cause the listeners of the world are on her side.
The listeners of the world are on her side.
She said the city was dead and gutless I cried for the city.
You gotta move to stay alive.
You do the very modern jive.
Oh, once I knew what that wisdom was for.
September Girls think those pearls just wash upon the shore.
Now, go!! Or don’t go.
Just don’t say no.
With the listeners of the world all on her side, the listeners of the
world all on her side, she said the city was dead and gutless I
cried for the city.
She said the city was dead and gutless I cried for the city.
She said the city was dead and gutless I cried for the city.
Streethawk tempts the huntress: “Let the girls go insane!” –
as we lay down our weapons and, sure enough, we are slain
by that stuff.

The Bad Arts

Absolve, absolve, absolve…
We spent the better part of a day waiting for the wave to hit our side of
town. It didn’t.
Absolve, absolve, absolve…
I wash my hands of the stuff of legends.
And what news of the horizon?
I hear it’s all just a horizontal myth so stop your cruising, start your
criticizing!
Or indulge yourself for once – feel medium between them.
And goddamn your eyes.
They just had to be twin prizes waiting for the sun.
And goddamn your eyes.
They just had to be twin prizes waiting for the sun.
They just had to be twin prizes waiting for the sun.
See them sporting those eagle iron-ons you made me swear never to wear.
Why did you spend the 90’s cowering (why did you spend the 90’s cowering)?
And they’re singing those inspirationals you penned back in ’72.
And the hotels of choice are now toasting your voice, as the spas ring out –
“What’s another word for sacrament?”
The world woke up one day to proclaim – “Thou shalt not take part in, or
make, bad art.”
In these tough tough times friends like mine would rather dash than dine on
the bones of what’s thrown to them…
When a wave of her wand has us back at the pond taking notes for a crooked
underground!
The world woke up one day to proclaim – “Thou shalt not make or take part in
the bad art.”
You see, the Singer sold us out. The Guitarist lost his clout on
Life-Of-The-Mind Day.
When signs become impure again the crowd doesn’t know where or when to let
it all hang out.
Bloodlet yourself, street style!!
You got the spirit.
Don’t lose the feeling.

Beggars Might Ride

Beggars might ride you into doing one thing.
When humiliation gets taught and humility does not have the ability to move
a muscle, don’t do The Hustle.
Beggars might ride.
You’ve heard of the sea versus the scenery, where everytime a man goes
overboard it sounds like somebody’s scoring…
on beggars night.
Hey, Distro. king for the hearing impaired, I’m starting to think I know why
you were spared:
Paradise felt fine.
What’s yours was mine.
Collaborators fuck us every time…
beggars might ride.
You’re taking rides with the Sensitive Miser, taking sides with the New
Sympathizers.
Girl, what could have been till you gave up the violin for a slight but
distasteful penchant for men!
Beggars might ride.
You’ve heard it said and it’s true, for someone so beautifully scarred I
imagine it must be hard to stay away from a life of public relations but
try! Girl, you’ve got to try! You’ve got to stay critical or die! Stay
critical or die!

The Sublimation Hour

So you had the best legs in a business built for kicks,
but was this changing of the guards really supposed to make you sick…
It’s alright – The Sublimation Hour!
Medium Rotation, the Shock of the New,
and a memo from Feldman saying – “everything is true.
It’s alright – The Sublimation Hour!
Don’t spend your life conceiving
that the widows won’t get sick of their grieving
till everyone walks out.
Hey, isn’t that what rock ‘n’ roll is all about?
Princess, express your bloated self, willful and indignant in the face of
somebody’s lord.
You try to summon up the spirits live on Face the Nation,
but the Port Authority just taxed incantations.
It’s alright – The Sublimate Hour!
Auction off the temple. It’s money well-spent.
Hey, are those tears in your eyes as the wind cries enlargement?
It’s alright – The Sublimate Hour.
Don’t spend your life conceiving
that the widows won’t get sick of their grieving
till everyone walks out.
Hey, isn’t that what rock ‘n’ roll is all about, princess?
Confess your bloated self, willful and indignant, in the face of somebody’s
lord.
So put your hands together. I hear it’s a ‘must’,
until this phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust.
It’s alright – The Sublimation Hour.
I guess the streets will suffice till everybody makes nice,
but there’s a rumor going round even Destroyer has a price…
Don’t spend your life conceiving…

English Music

Soldier, you got to get out more.
There is life after property.
Everyone has got a finder’s fee.
Find something difficult to do and do it.
Write your english music, write your english music…
Write your english music. Run free.
She tasted of the Christmas wines and said – “So many things have run
through me. I know the altar boys, they just want to do me and that’s
fine… You got to have faith. Yeah, you got to have it…”
Once again, it’s a quarter-to-three by Ambleside-By-The-Sea and something’s
telling you – “Boy, it’s time to take sides.”
And something’s telling you – “Boy, it’s time to take sides.”
And something’s telling you – “Boy, it’s time to take sides…and write your
English Music, though you know it will come to no good when brilliance has a
taste for suffering and you’re softer than the western world…”

Virgin With A Memory

Was it the movie or the making of Fitzcarraldo where someone learned to love
again? ‘I can’t remember’ is not the same as ‘I don’t know,’ virgin with a
memory.
Was it the movie or the making of Fitzcarraldo where your mother decided to
fashion herself after the sad deity we left on the shelf.
She wanted blood, all she got was sacrifice.
She wanted blood, all she got was sacrifice.
She wanted blood, all she got was sacrifice.
Virgin without a memory, now is your chance to be free of all those favorite
bands you ditched for one that’s grander: No Use For A Name to the Make-up
– it’s all the same.
The singer not the song, no!
The singer not the song, no!
The singer not the song, no!
Formative years – wasted. In love with our peers – we tasted life with the
stars. Anticlimactic as Mars was, still…
A red earth with no way of knowing this silver colossus exists just to be
growing.
A red earth with no way of knowing this silver colossus exists just to be
growing…
Was it the movie or the making of Fitzcarraldo where someone learned to
love again?
Where someone learned to love again…
Where someone learned to love again…

The Very Modern Dance

Screwed on the chemical floors of the Dance World, now you see why I’ll
always be a dancer.
Plucked by the transcendental brats to the Trance World, but desertscapes on
the face of a girl were not the answer…
And we are not the answer.
We are not the answer.
No, we are not the answer.
No, don’t worry my dear, nothing’s been sold.
It’s just a golden bridge I’m burning whose fire is the real gold.
No, don’t worry my dear, nothing’s been sold.
It’s just a golden bridge I’m burning whose fire is the real goal,
fire is the real goal…
So, there’ll be moonlight over Michelle tonight, and another west coast
morning. Fuck it, I’m warning you can look you can touch but, no, not that
much.
What’s one more police action when I’m cancelling the truce again!?!

The Crossover

You come down from the mountain.
They lose your scent in the fountain.
You cross over, you cross over, and make it big.
Women whistle while they work, and men make sense when they prevail.
From debtor’s jail, you have never looked so beautiful.
“Tread lightly through the fog,” said the Apothecary’s daughter.
“You don’t want to go, but you gotta, into the half -light of dawn.”
The elegant attack… the omniverous, but careful, strokes… the forger’s
folks are proud of their son: he has traded beauty in for fun.
From a sick bed I read the nurse’s notes you took the night before. They
made the signs come alive. They made me strive for the door.
Tread lightly…(chorus repeats twice)
You come down from the mountain.
You lose the dogs through the fountain.
You cross over, you crossover, and you win.

Helena

Helena, the ramifications are very large tonight. The stars say don’t pick
a fight or barge things around.
See, apparently our bloodline is botched beyond redemption. Luckily, you
don’t believe in redemption. (This may work in your favor, I’m told.)
So throw the old furniture in the fire as the children go barbaric behind
the wire. They’re just children.
It’s a drag the way your flag had to come down, with one of the above americas so
ferociously in bloom.
But pistols at dawn can only work for so long.
Curved appetites took flight when you decided to call the song
“A Pacific-Northwest bitch gets shown to her room.”
So throw the old furniture in the fire as the children go barbaric behind
the wire. They’re just children.
And this one goes out, just like the one before, to the 17th version of How
I Won The War.
Oh, first Destroyer! And, oh, now the Underground!”
Helena, the ramifications are very large tonight.
The stars say don’t pick a fight or barge things around.
Just throw… (chorus)

Farrar, Straus, And Giroux (Sea Of Tears)

It was back amongst the living, your smile was giving me a thrill.
Enough to come so close to closing the deal – the steal of a century… A
century stolen from our hearts to a house on the hill.
But if that is what it takes, if that is what it takes, if that is what it
takes…
To be a stone, a stone’s throw from your throne.
No man has ever hung from the rafters of a second home.
No man has ever hung from the rafters of a second home.
It’s true, I needed you more back when I was poor: the wealthy dowager (the
patroness), she guessed it – the answer wasn’t yes. But her maxims were
fine, the ethos that flew about her mind like swallows in search of a
burnt-down bell-towered church.
But if that is what it takes, if that is what it takes, if that is what it
takes…
To be a stone, a stone’s throw from your throne.
No man has ever hung at the temporary age of 24, both feet on the floor,
listening to the bonafide stasis of sound, the eaves dripping yesterday’s
ill-timed August rain, if there is such a thing as ill-timed August rain…

Strike

Why do you work when you’re sick of lifting, when you’re sick of lifting?
The festivities left you on the shelf. Why’re you always trying to please
everybody but yourself: “That which bears witness to it’s own failure” –
are you so sure?
Why do you work for the festival when you’re sick of lifting spirits,
spirits, to the sky: Body and Soul – two words for that same nameless thing
you have never known?
Why do you work in place of bearing witness to your own inclusion,
inclusion, inclusion…and strike!?!!
Strike!!!

Streethawk II

There ought to be a law – there ought to be a railroad – to take me away, to
take me away.
There ought to be a law – an ocean of escape – to take me away, to take me
away.
There ought to be a law – there ought to be a railroad – that takes you away,
that takes you away.
There ought to be a law – an order of restraint – that takes you away, that
takes you away.
I heard those symphonies come quick, now that you are sick of breathing new
life into the form.
Hey Streethawk, you’ve been spotted hanging out outside the storm.
Why don’t you fly?